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#we throw that shit away which is a waste of time for all involved
smol-and-passionate · 2 years
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You do not want to know what I found yesterday at work.
On that note, fucking clean the clothes you donate!! Run a  load of laundry and throw them in the box before you take them! Just - do it! God damn!!!
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beesmygod · 11 months
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we can all look back on and laugh at this when im wrong, but it seems like social media in its current incarnation is dying an undignified and overdue death. it turns out throwing all of humanity into one room and expecting everyone to develop a single ethos was beyond insane conceptually and the artists who built their following on social media are probably in a tail spin right now. people jumping to bluesky are insane lol. did you forget jack dorsey is the idiot who got us into this mess in the first place. why would you choose to subject yourself to this shit again. for what purpose?
the stock answer i got was that "for discoverability/audience" and if that's true thats a problem. i've been hollerin about this to anyone who would listen prior to this but the customer base of twitter (and all social media) is its advertisers. they have not been shy from the start about that fact because its the only way they generate income, as far as i know. YOU (the user) are the product. YOU (still the user) are also what draws people to the site. there is not a social media website on earth that has figured out that making a good website (which would require hiring and paying for quality labor over an extended period of time) is more likely to result in economic success than exclusively courting the businesses whose interest is in making the website worse to use with ads. at no point were our interests ever a factor.
in fact, imo, the number of people following you is not an accurate representational sample of your audience. the reasonable assumption you should make is that the vast majority of numbers involved with any website (esp those with a vested interest in showing off big numbers to VC investors or advertising execs) are inflated or just outright fake. the numbers exist solely to drive you insane and make awful people happy. the numbers cause you and everyone around you to start spontaneously spawning myths about a beast called "the algorithm" that possesses the incredible traits of being both something you can game for success or blame for your failures. it coerces you into enacting out nonsense superstitions to try to counteract or appease it in the hopes of, let's be honest, breaking it big and going viral. this way, you, the creator, do not have to do the hard work of building up a rapport with an audience. none of this goes anything but adds more numbers for the ceos to look at and nod approvingly or disapprovingly at.
the people running the world today are, without exaggeration, cartoon villains. they are deeply stupid, devoid of empathy, and open about their intent to do deeply evil acts in order to further their economic interests. trying to derive some kind of financial benefit from the creations of these unapologetic losers was always bound to be a wasted effort. the best thing i can say about twitter, a website i was banned from countless times and returned to out of stubborn desire, was that i got to make some great jokes with friends and cause some chaos lol. letting people know i have a web comic was always a secondary function once the realization of what social media was turning out to be set in like 7 years ago. any artist who insists that you have to do this or that on this or that social media site is trying to drag you down into the quagmire of online numbers poisoning.
run away!!! children heed my advice!!! the joy of creation does not lie on a path that encourages you to cater to the lowest common denominators while casting your net. just fucking have fun with it. if its not fun then it wont even be fun to do financially anyway. and isnt that, like. the point.
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A FRESH START [22]
Din Djarin x F!Reader
Warnings: panic attack, trauma reaction, mentions of injuries, nonsexual nudity
Word Count: 5,935
Updates every Thursday
Summary: When you made plans for your future they never involved being hired by a Mandalorian to baby-sit his adorable, green gremlin of a child. However, after your life fell apart in the span of one disastrous night, you found it to be the only feasible option you had left. Nevarro was a far cry from Coruscant, but the thriving community turned out to be exactly what you needed. Every day you spend in Nevarro you fall more and more in love with your new life, but when your past rears its ugly head you find that perhaps peace wasn’t meant for everyone.
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[a/n: i was forced to shorten the taglist for the sake of my sanity. tumblr won't let me post with more than certain number. I think that's why I've had the hardest time with this shit. I made it a first come, first served so if your username got dropped I am so so so sorry but that's why.]
#22: LIKE FATHER, LIKE SON
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"i find my place in between your arms, in between your tender kisses and soft whispers of 'it will be alright', in between the warmth of your embrace, and the scent of your neck, and the fierceness of your touch, i find my place lost inside your soul." -Hearts and Empires
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Din was immensely proud of your skills as a physician. However, if you didn’t get your ass out of the damn medic tent he was going to throw you over his shoulder and carry you home forcibly. More than anything, you needed rest. He wasn’t able to convince you to stop working and because the medical aid had yet to arrive no one else sided with him on these matters. Karga had the nerve to tell him to calm down. Din had nearly wrung the High Magistrate’s neck. 
He watched as you flittered around the medical tent aiding those who were injured alongside Aayla. Grogu had refused to leave your side, and that didn’t seem to bother you at all. Right now, as if you weren’t exhausted and barely standing, you had a sling wrapped around your chest which held Grogu against your back. Din could see the little boy resting his head against your back while rubbing your shoulder with his small hand. The sight warmed his heart and Din would be tempted to snap a picture to save if it weren’t for the state of your being. Your scrubs were still stained with blood and you had yet to clean your own wounds. It was stressing Din out to watch you working so hard when you were still in the state you were in.
While turning to see someone else, Din noticed you wavering on your feet. That was enough. He pushed forward and pressed through the injured crowd straight to you. “Hey.” You turned to meet his gaze. “It’s time to go home. You’re barely able to stand.”
“I can’t⏤”
“Ner kar’ta.” Din said firmly.
You sighed. “Alright. Fine.” Your shoulders sagged. “I guess I am a little tired.” Din shook his head, a quiet chuckle slipping from his lips. Your small smile turned sheepish and Din dreaded whatever it was you were going to say next. “I need to make sure Nima has cleared the tarmac though so the medical team can park.”
“What?”
“We need to get⏤”
Din reached his gloved hands out to cup your face. At the contact, the rest of your words fell away. He leaned forward and spoke firmly. “We’re going home. You need to rest. Somebody⏤ Anybody else can do the rest of the work here.” He let his thumb trace your cheekbone. Din wished he could feel your skin against his. “Have you managed all the emergency cases?”
“I mean, yeah, but⏤”
“Then it’s time to take care of yourself.” Din finished.
Your lips pressed together and gave him a small nod. Din let out a breath of relief. Without wasting another moment, Din slipped his hand into yours and began to drag you away before someone could distract you with a new job. Just having your hand in his was a comfort he couldn’t even begin to describe. During his travels, he imagined what his reunion with you would look like often. Never did he imagine karking pirates would be involved, but this feeling in his chest he had anticipated. He knew being back by your side would feel like coming home. In fact, he may have underestimated how strongly the reunion would make him feel⏤ which was quite the feat considering how badly he craved it.
Din stepped into the shared home and he couldn’t help but let out a sigh of relief.
“Frog. Frog.” Grogu chirped. He turned in time to see you untangling the boy from the sling to set on the ground. Grogu bounded further into the room probably to look for his stuffed toy. 
Din focused back on you and his heart ached at the exhaustion painted on your face. Not wasting another moment, Din ripped off his gloves, tossing them aside, and reached out to cup your face. You let out a shuddering breath when his skin came in contact with his and Din felt that last tinge of stress leave his body. You were safe. It felt more real like this. 
“Are you still allowed to take this off to kiss me?” You asked. Din couldn’t tell if your quiet voice came from a meekness or just the weariness of your last 24 hours. 
“Yes.” Din chuckled. “We just need to be more careful.”
Technically speaking, it would be best if he didn’t take his helmet off anymore. Having you close your eyes was not the most ideal of plans. Accidents could happen, and more than anything it was just a loophole in his Creed. However, Din would give up vital organs before he gave up the gift and honor that was kissing you. 
You closed your eyes and Din lifted one of his hands so he could lightly trace your bruised and dirty features. He hummed, “You’re injured and tired. We should take care of that first.”
“Literally nothing is more important to me right now than this.” You replied.
Din hardly needed further convincing. Removing his hands from your face had been painful⏤ even knowing that it was only for a moment so he could take his helmet off. Without the barrier between you and him, your injuries looked worse. The dark coloring of the bruising and the red of the blood was so much more prominent. Din could see bags under your eyes he hadn’t noticed before. With a quiet sigh, Din cupped your face once more.
“Ni ceta.” Din mumbled soft apologies. He leaned in to press his lips first against your left eyelid then your right. He continued to pepper soft kisses across your cheek until they found your lips. Din would be a liar if he said he hadn’t spent every single night while gone imagining what your lips would feel like on his return. And, just as with the reunion, his mental image did not do the moment justice. Din had pictured passion and heat, a battle between one another to devour the other first, but this kiss was not that.
This kiss was soft, tender, and patient.
Three things that Din never got to call his own, living a life of battle in armor of Beskar.
Your lower lip was slotted between both of his and as he gave it a gentle tug you released a shaky sigh. The sound struck him like a hot iron and Din couldn’t help but breathe you in. He pulled you closer so your body was flush with his, let the tip of his tongue trace the shape of your lip, as he deepened the kiss. Din allowed desperation to seep into his very touch. It couldn’t be helped. Din was desperate. He was desperate to feel your very alive heartbeat under his touch. He was desperate for the warmth you exuded. He was desperate to show you how thankful he was for your safety. He was desperate for you to know how proud he was of you. He was desperate for you to know how sorry he was for not being here. 
Din was desperate, and it was all for you. 
“Ni ceta, ner kar’ta.” Din spoke directly against your lips. Nothing short of the Maker would tear him away from you. Your own hands lifted and when he felt your fingers rake against his scalp, tug on his hair, Din’s repeated apology fell out in a groan. Din dragged his lips along your jawline, taking the time to leave a kiss on every inch. Eventually, his lips found your neck and he left kisses over the darkened bruise there. “I’m so sorry.”
“Not your fault.” You replied in a hoarse whimper. 
Din disagreed entirely. He should’ve been here. He never should have left your side. You flinched when his lips touched a spot more tender than the rest. It was barely noticeable. In fact, he wouldn’t have realized you flinched at all if it wasn’t for your body being pressed so tightly to his. It was enough to remind him that you still needed care and rest. Din pressed one last kiss against your lips⏤ innocent and loving. When he pulled back you let out a whine of complaints. Din reached down to grasp his helmet and pulled it back on.
He leaned forward to rest the beskar against your forehead and at the touch your eyes opened once more. More than anything, Din wanted to see the color of your eyes unhindered by his visor. Even with the helmet on he found your eyes mesmerizing but the visor always muted colors. It seemed fitting if he thought about it. Even with the loophole of taking his helmet off, with your eyes closed a part of you stayed hidden to him. Just as he was hidden to you.
“Let me take a look at your wounds.”
“No.” You said and Din furrowed his brow. As if reading his displeasure at the response, you shook your head and clarified. “I meant, not now. I want to take a shower first. I need to.”
Din found it hard to argue against that. You wouldn’t be able to fully relax until the day was washed from your skin. He nodded and walked you further into the house. He kept one hand on your lower back, and Din loved that you kept pace with him. It wasn’t as if you didn’t know where the bathroom was, but the action made it feel like you were just as desperate as he was to stay in the other’s presence.
Grogu waddled out of the hall, dragging his stuffed frog behind him, just as the two of them reached the mouth of the hallway. He held his hands up, chirping out a request to be held, and Din knelt down to scoop the boy up before you could. Grogu blew a raspberry at him. “No buir. Need Ma.”
“I know, ad’ika.” Din replied. “But Ma has to take a shower.”
Grogu grumbled in protest, but when you reached out to lovingly pet the boy’s head Grogu was marginally appeased. As you drifted to the bathroom, Din gathered a fresh towel for you and he also grabbed one of his shirts for you to change into. A decision made solely to relieve the itch in his brain that needed to see you safe in his bed wearing his clothes, but you accepted both items with a tired smile. 
When the door shut and he heard the water kick on, Din blew out a breath of relief. He glanced down at Grogu who was still staring at the bathroom door. “It’s good to be home, isn’t it ad’ika?”
“Home with Ma.” Grogu nodded in agreement.
“Right.” Din chuckled. “We’re home with Ma.”
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The hot water pelted your back and left your skin radiating heat. You had washed your hair, begun to wash your body, but midway through you dropped the bottle of soap. As you knelt down to pick it up, you suddenly had a flash of kneeling beside Wynn’s dead body. It sucked the air straight from your lungs and knocked you to your ass. Now you sat under the unrelenting stream of water with your legs curled up to your chest⏤ gasping in distress. Any air you did manage to fill your lungs with was uncomfortable and brought no relief. It felt like you were suffocating. 
A choked sob left your lips as you buried your face in your arms as they rested atop your knees. No matter how much you tried to turn your tired mind off, it continued to ruminate on the decisions you made. If you hadn’t forced Wynn to leave, would she still be alive? She wanted to wait for help. You felt trapped in this memory. A loop of telling Wynn she needed to run followed by watching the life leave her eyes right in front of you. You could still feel the warmth of her hot blood while holding her wound⏤ still feel the snapping of her ribs during the course of your desperate CPR. All useless. You didn’t save her. You sent her to her death. 
The sensation of having a towel thrown over your shoulders was startling. Your head snapped up to see Din knelt beside you. The shower head was off, Din’s gray pajama shirt plastered to his body on the side from water, and just behind him you could see the bathroom door hanging off it’s hinges.
“Ner kar’ta.” Din’s voice was rough. “Please talk to me.”
“Din?” You gasped. He had the large towel wrapped entirely around your body covering every inch of you. “What⏤ I don’t understand⏤”
“I heard something fall. I called out for you, over and over, but you didn’t respond.” Din replied. His voice took a sheepish tone. “I⏤I broke through the door.” He let his arms run over the towel covering your arms, giving them a squeeze. “Found you like this. Even when I turned the water off you still didn’t…”
It was the sight of your reflection in his visor and helmet that seemed to push you over your edge. Tears welled in your eyes and once the first ragged sob left your lips it was followed quickly by a string of others. Despite the fact that you were sitting on a tiled floor soaked with puddles, Din sat down right beside you and cautiously pulled you into his arms. You tucked yourself against his chest, and he fully enveloped you with his arms while resting his head on top of yours.
“It’s okay. You’re safe.” Din murmured. “Do you want to talk about it?”
You shook your head. Your sobs only interrupted by the sound of your lungs gasping for air. Din tightened his arms around you, a feat you didn’t know was possible, and you found comfort in his solid form. Din was here. Din made everything better. You weren’t sure how long the two of you sat there, but eventually Din mumbled softly, “We need to get you dressed. You’ll be cold soon.” You didn’t tell him that you’d never feel cold in his hold. “Need to treat your wounds too.”
Din helped you stand. He cautiously led you out of the shower, arm around your torso, and he stopped you in front of the bathroom counter. “I’m going to get the first aid kit from the kitchen. Are you going to be alright?”
You nodded. Din paused, as if hesitant, before returning the nod and moving toward the door. He mumbled a curse under his breath, you could hear it, and then he grabbed the large chunks of the door that had broken off when he rammed it to set aside where nobody would trip over them. While he was out, you grabbed his shirt and tugged it on⏤ using the damp towel to try and pat dry the dripping ends of your hair. Din returned, his visor scanning your body, before he settled beside you again.
With a focused intensity, Din applied a bit of bacta to the wound at your hairline and then rubbed some of it into the bruise around your neck as well. In the midst of his work, you whispered, “Wynn is dead.” Din’s fingers paused in their motion, surprise reading in his frame, but he was quick to return his movements and stance back to baseline. “She’s dead and I didn’t tell anybody. I forgot to tell someone.” Tears returned to your eyes. “I just left her in the street, Din. I left her like she meant nothing.”
“Hey.” Din said firmly. “This was during the firefight, was it not?” You nodded in confirmation. “You had no choice, ner kar’ta. That wasn’t your fault.”
“I think it was.” Your words fell out a pained whisper.
Din’s hands lifted to cradle your face and you leaned into his touch. It felt like he wanted to say something, but he paused. Instead, Din tangled his hand with yours and pulled you out of the bathroom. He didn’t ask, didn’t even hesitate, to pull you into his room. The moment you entered you heard Grogu’s familiar snores and it was such a comforting sound to hear after weeks sleeping in silence that you nearly cried. Din pulled back the covers and helped you slide in.
Rather than follow you into bed, he took a step back and the look on your face must have been obvious enough that he reached out to caress your face. “I’m coming back. I need to change clothes.”
Your eyes focused on the large wet stains from where you had been curled up into him. Din crossed the room and your eyes widened and bit when he began to pull his shirt off. His movements were confident and it warmed your heart that he was comfortable enough with you to reveal himself like this. Your eyes trailed over the expanse of his muscular back⏤ admiring the rugged lines of his broad shoulders and the various scars that littered his skin. Din pulled a new shirt on and you expected him to come back. Instead, Din began to pull off his sweatpants. Slowly, you sat up, pulling the sheets closer to you, and you couldn’t help but let your eyes trace the shape of his lower half. You were blatantly ogling this man in his boxer briefs as he tugged on a new pair of sweats. Before turning back around, you saw him pick up his vambrace, pressing a few buttons, before setting it down once more.
Din turned around, tying the strings at his waistband, and he chuckled. His voice came out as teasing and light hearted. Clearly trying to put you at ease. “Are you checking me out, ner kar’ta?” 
“I missed you so much.” You replied. Too tired, physically and emotionally, to tease back the way that you wanted to. Instead, the truth tumbled out of your lips.
He came back around to the bed and slipped under the sheets. As Din’s arm wrapped around your waist, you let him pull you back into laying down. You shifted so your head rested on his chest and Din began to drag his knuckles up and down your spine. “I missed you too. Being away from you was unbearable for Grogu and I both.” Din hummed. “He tried to stay up for you, but passed out. Grogu didn’t sleep well last night. I think my anxiety kept him up.” Your hand was resting on his side⏤ fingers dragging up and down his ribs. You mumbled into his chest. Din’s hand, the one rubbing your back, trailed up to rake through your hair. “I want to talk.”
“About?” You mumbled.
“Ner kar’ta.”
You let out a soft chuckle. “Din…”
“You don’t have to talk to me, you don’t have to tell me anything, but…” Din sighed, “I’d like to know. I want to help.” He massaged the back of your neck right where it met your skull and all your tension sat. A soft sigh left your body as you relaxed in his arms. “I sent Karga a message about Wynn. They’re going to find her. Put her to rest.” You buried your face down into his chest knowing your tears would dampen his new shirt all over again. “I just want to help.”
After a few moments of peaceful silence where you listened to Grogu’s snores and Din’s heartbeat, you turned so your face wasn’t pressed into his chest and you could speak. Hesitantly, you began to tell him what happened⏤ starting with the bombs that fell on Nevarro and ending with Paz leading you out of the burning city as you carried Elodie. The entire time Din didn’t speak. He’d mumble an acknowledgement or hum here and there, but he made no comment. 
When you finished, Din finally spoke up, “Tell me why you said what you did. You said what happened to Wynn was your fault.”
“She didn’t want to go. She wanted to stay hidden and wait for help.” You closed your eyes tightly as the memory of Wynn’s lifeless eyes assaulted you once more. “If I had listened to her she might be alive. Help did come. I⏤I should have been more patient.”
“Ner kar’ta, you made that decision based on the limited information you had. You didn’t know I was coming and bringing help. Where the three of you were hidden wasn’t safe. If one of the pirates did discover you, you’d be pinned down in a hole.” Din spoke with a firmness that left no room for argument. “In that moment, you made the best decision you could. You made the right decision.” He used the arm not around you to grasp your chin and tilt your head up so you were facing his visor. “Listen to me, ner kar’ta. That was not your fault. You did not take Wynn’s life, she gave it to save Elodie. Wynn is a hero. Don’t take that from her by shouldering needless blame.”
There was something about the way Din spoke that resonated with you. His words calmed the turmoil in your soul. Din could repeat the same sentiment that anyone else would speak, but when it came from his lips it soothed your wounds like a salve. He couldn’t heal everything, there was self reflection only you could puzzle through, but he was a hand to hold as you waded through the worst of it.
“Din…” You started. Before you finished your sentence, it occurred to you that the words you wanted to say were significant. You wanted to tell Din you loved him. That’s what you felt right now. It was overwhelming. It was all encompassing. 
Din still had his hand at your chin and he let his large hand shift from your chin to your jaw. He held the side of your face and let his thumb trace patterns in your skin. “Yes, ner kar’ta?”
Saying those words felt like quite the leap. You were confident in the way you felt about him and how he felt about you, but there was a part of you that couldn’t quite push the words out. You were too mentally wiped out to process those thoughts right now. Not knowing how else to express how grateful you were for this man, you turned your face so you could press a kiss to the palm of his hand.
Din let out a content sigh and he shifted his body so you could rest more comfortably against him. He hummed and you heard the rumble of it in his chest. “Get some rest. I’ll be here when you wake up.” He went back to soothingly dragging his fingers up and down your spine. “I’ll always be here.”
You let your eyes close and took a slow breath as Din’s warmth and the comforting smell of him lulled you into the best sleep you’ve gotten since Din and Grogu left. 
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Nevarro was in pieces. Rubble decorated the streets and buildings were in shambles. Despite how terrible it looked, Din couldn’t help but be proud of the citizens of the city he looked after. They were strong. Nevarro was already healing only days after the attack. Din walked down the street with Grogu in his arms. The boy was squirming, wanting to get down, but with the rubble and debris Din didn’t want him wandering around. As he walked down the street, every once in a while a person would pause to thank him for bringing help⏤ bringing the Mandalorians. Din would nod in response, but it would shoot a pang of guilt through his chest. He didn’t deserve thanks. He had left them after all.
Din’s steps slowed as he began to pass the school house. Outside of the building, a memorial had been set up for Wynn. Candles, flowers, and cards covered the front steps and Din found himself letting out a sigh. The school teacher was a hero. Din meant that seriously when he spoke to you. It hadn’t been your fault, absolutely not, and both you and Wynn were the reason Elodie was alive and well. Her and her parents were currently off world. The little girl needed more intensive care than could be provided here, but last Din heard the child was doing very well.
“Miss?” Grogu mumbled. Din recognized the title Grogu would call his teacher. 
“Yes, ad’ika.” Din confirmed. Grogu’s ears wilted as he stared at the memorial. Din rubbed Grogu’s back and began to walk again with the goal to reach the clinic. You had left home early to go to work. You’d be there for any emergencies, per the norm, but you were also using today to see many of the people who were injured the day of for follow up. To ensure everyone was healing as they should. Din was of the opinion that you needed more rest, if not physical then mental, but trying to convince you of that was a near impossibility.
When Din reached the corner, Bo Katan pushed off a wall to join his pace. Her helmet was tucked under her arm. The Armorer had announced that the Mandalorians needed to come together rather than fall apart. It was a sentiment he could understand. Mayfeld had asked him about the helmet situation. Mandalorians coming together was a good idea, Din agreed, but coming to coincide with one another didn’t change the Creed he had dedicated himself to.
“Once this place gets cleaned up, I can see it being a nice place to live. To settle.” Bo hummed. Din nodded once, and she glanced his way. “I’m glad your partner is safe.”
“Thank you.” Din replied sincerely. 
“There is something I’d like to speak to you about.”
“I figured.” He said. “Does this have anything to do with retaking Mandalore?”
Bo chuckled, “Good guess.”
“What about it?”
“Well,” Bo kept by his side, “Is there anything I can say that will convince you to come with me to reclaim my fleet from Axe Woves?”
Din didn’t pause even a beat when he answered. “No. There isn’t.”
Bo sighed in annoyance and Din briefly felt guilt at the waves of frustration wafting off of Bo’s tense frame. Half of him felt like it was his duty to help in any way to restore Mandalore, but the other half could not even begin to fathom leaving you again. It occurred to Din that this might be selfish of him. His people needed him, right? He locked his jaw at the thought. 
“Your help would make this all go smoother, I think. We make a good team.” Bo said.
Din chuckled, “Did that hurt you to admit?”
“It did.” Bo smirked. “Which is why you should take it seriously.”
Din paused when the clinic came into view. He turned to face Bo and shook his head. “It’s not that I don’t want to help. Retaking Mandalore is a noble endeavor. One I would be honored to help in.” He paused. “But my family is here. I got lucky during that attack. I... I almost lost her.”
“I understand that.” Bo replied. “I know the weight of what I’m asking you, Djarin. I wouldn’t ask if I didn’t think it was important.”
Din glanced back to the clinic and did a double take when he saw you coming out. A smile began to form on his features, but it fell when he watched Paz walk out behind her with Ragnar by his side. His eyebrows furrowed in confusion. You were wearing your white coat, a look Din truly loved on you, and Paz was chatting with you about something. Something that made you laugh in response. Since when was Paz funny? 
“Didn’t know you were the jealous kind, Djarin.” Bo chuckled.
Din snapped a glare at her. “I’m not jealous.”
“It’s all over your face.”
“I’m wearing a helmet.”
“Yet somehow I still know it is.”
Din grunted in mild annoyance. He wasn’t jealous. Per say.  It was just like with Vanth. Din was confident enough in his relationship with you, even as undefined as it currently was, that he wasn’t worried about someone sweeping you away. Din just had a bad habit of accidentally letting his possessive nature show and there was something about seeing his brother flirt with you that stirred him into wanting to fight.
Both you and Paz glanced down at Ragnar who must have been speaking and you set a hand on the boy’s shoulder with a smile. 
“Hm. They’d make a cute family.” Bo teased.
“Stop.” Din snapped.
He was caught off guard when Grogu jumped out of his arms. Him and Bo quickly followed after the boy who was in a mad rush toward you. Din watched as his son shoved past Ragnar, making the boy stumble enough that Din had a feeling the Force was involved, before leaping into your arms. 
“Oh, hey, baby.” You cooed.
“Ma. My Ma.” Grogu cuddled into your arms while shooting Ragnar a glare. 
Bo glanced at Din. “Aw. Like father, like son.”
Din wished he could take his helmet off just so Bo could see the full weight of the glare he currently wore. He continued forward until your eyes shot to him and the bright smile that filled your features just from spotting him. 
“What are you guys doing here?” You asked.
“Just checking in on you.” Din replied. Bo cleared her throat and Din sighed before nodding his head toward the woman standing beside him. “This is Bo Katan Kryze. Bo, this is Soran.”
You held your hand out to shake Bo’s hand and the red headed woman returned the greeting. Paz let one of his large hands settle on your shoulder and Din felt himself bristle at the motion. His older brother chuckled. “No need to worry. Wero’ika is doing more than fine.”
“Yeah, Paz brought me a late breakfast.” You chirped. 
Yeah, okay, Din was going to murder him.
“Oh, hang on,” You glanced over your shoulder, “I see a problem patient walking in. I’m not gonna subject Aayla to that.”
Din nodded once and you shot Bo and Paz a smile, squeezing Ragnar’s shoulder as well despite Grogu’s complaints, and then you turned to leave. As soon as you were inside the clinic, Din turned to Paz with a grunt. “Wero’ika? What the kriff is that?”
“A nickname, Djarin.”
“Mir’sheb.” Din snarled and Paz laughed in response. Ragnar tugged on his father’s arm before pointing off to the side. Paz nodded, telling him to be cautious, before the boy ran off to play with a group of kids down the street.
Bo chuckled. “I didn’t realize this was the beginning of a love triangle. Interesting.”
“It isn’t.” Din said.
Paz tilted his head and crossed his arms. “I’m unaware of Soran being in possession of a token of intention.”
“I’m working on it.” Din said through clenched teeth.
“Perhaps, I’ll work on it faster.”
Din knew Paz was just trying to get under his skin. Part of his frustration was the fact that it was working. His hands drifted to rest on his hips as he clenched and unclenched his jaw. Paz was smug. Din had known him long enough to recognize the set of his shoulders. 
“I’m⏤” Din began then cleared his throat. “I’m giving her time.”
“You’re wasting her time.” Paz argued with a chuckle. “Wero’ika⏤”
“Don’t call her that like you know her.” Din cut in. “A lot just happened. I’m not going to rush her into anything.”
He glanced from Paz to Bo then back to Paz. Din gave the man a gruff good-bye before pushing past the two of them to head into the clinic. He greeted Miriam at the front desk. Before he could cross the threshold into the main room, the young woman caught his attention and let him know that you were down the hall instead. Din furrowed his brow in confusion, but walked down to find you sitting in the break room snipping the sutures off a patient’s wound.
“Marshal.” The patient greeted with a nod that Din returned.
Grogu was playing with a latex glove on the counter while you worked. You shot him a smile before focusing back on your work. Din settled beside his son, leaning against the counter, and just admired you with a sense of calm. He wondered if Paz was right. Not a line he’d ever say out loud, but Din wondered if he was just finding another excuse to hide behind. He wasn’t sure what he was so afraid of. You’ve made your interest in him very clear, the two of you shared a bond like he’d never experienced before, but still he hesitated.
“Alright, it looks good. No need to restrict yourself, but if it starts bothering you again just let me know.” You smiled. The patient thanked you, gave him a final good-bye, then left. You wandered over to where he stood with Grogu and began to wash your hands in the sink. “Hey, so your brother seems cool.”
Din grunted. “Who Paz?”
“Yeah.” You turned the faucet off and grabbed a few paper towels. “I thought he might not like me because I yelled at him during the battle.” Din’s eyes widened. He’d have to ask about that. “But instead I think I accidentally earned his respect? Also, what does ‘wero’ika’ mean?”
Din chuckled. “Little Problem.”
Your jaw fell open. “He’s been calling me a little problem this entire time?” Din nodded. “Son of a bitch. I’m gonna need you to teach me something amusing and mildly rude to call him in return.”
“Oh, I can think of some names for him.” Din replied. He cleared his throat. “I, uh, wanted to talk to you about something, but don’t feel any pressure with this, alright?” You quirked an eyebrow at him. Your eyes briefly glanced at Grogu and you shot your hand out to snatch the latex glove from Grogu’s mouth and wagged a finger at him. “I left to redeem myself. To restore my Creed with the plans to…” Din shifted awkwardly. “To court you.” The corner of your lips curled up. “I know a lot has happened recently, so again there is no pressure here, but I wanted to…make my intentions known.”
You reached out and wrapped your hand above his elbow, between his armor plates, and gave it a small squeeze. “Din, I appreciate your patience and concern, but I⏤ I want this. I want you.” He sucked in a sharp breath. “So, just tell me how we do this. How does Mandalorian courting work? Do I sign on the dotted line or…?”
Din laughed, in part due to relief, “No. Nothing like that. I have…” He reached to the back of his belt to unhook the blade and sheath that was once his. Din brought it around to hold out to you and you stared at the blade curiously. “In Mandalorian custom, a token of intention is given to the person being courted and to accept it means accepting those advances.” Din cleared his throat again. Maker, his mouth was dry. “Tokens are usually a weapon with the person’s signet on it.”
He pulled the blade out of the sheath enough that you were able to see the mudhorn etched into the blade’s side. Din tucked the blade back into the sheath and gave you a small nod. With a bright smile, you took the blade from his hands and he felt like his heart was going to explode in his chest watching you run your finger against the mudhorn.
You held the blade against your chest and nodded. “I accept, Mandalorian.”
Grogu began to clap his hands together and you broke out into laughter that relaxed every single bone and muscle in his body. The only regret Din had was not doing this at home where he could pull his helmet off and kiss you.
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mando'a translations:
ni ceta: sorry wero'ika: little problem ner kar'ta: my heart mir'sheb: smartass
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taglist:
@aheadfullofsteverogers @yyiikes @kneelforloki @c-ms1ut @sgt-morgan @luthienaliceisilra @missbabyjay @coldlamaspersonspy @dilfsaremyfavourite @emily-roberts @djarinxore @impala1967666 @shelbyteller @faithrenner @dindjarindude @dankfarrick29 @garbo-lesbo @anythingforattention @tearfulsolace @onceinamando @catharinaroxastova @modiddys-blog @harriedandharassed @stagerightlauren @mini-bees @adoringanakin @sagegreensensei @spidey-3 @thepascalofus @hrtsforpascal @lil-dragon-draws @guccistardust @ideajpeg @leithatnight @elfamosotoga @damnzelsoul @the-anchored-sailor-girl @morks-watermelon @katelynmarieyt @taylorann2013 @chonkercatto @dheet @liadamerondjarin @fallinallinmendes @missdicaprio @jennaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa @alphaash99 @djarinsmixtape @pcrushinnerd @closedaddition
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haithamuse · 1 year
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☆ 06.47 AM ─── FT. ALHAITHAM
another alhaitham repost in celebration for him finally coming home ♡
cw. none, sfw ! 0.9k wc
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“We’ll need to hurry up if we want to reach Port Ormos by mid day”, Alhaitham spoke his thoughts out loud with his eyes trained on the pocket watch in his hand. Earlier this morning, he stirred awake only to find the bedside empty. Uncharacteristically you had woken up before him for once, ready to go out at the crack of dawn.
“Why are you awake?”, he had asked you with his voice still groggy from sleep. He thought he must be dreaming, as you’d usually throw a fit should you be required to wake up at the same time as him. Much to the Scribe’s surprise, he was met with your unusually cheerful demeanour as you replied, “I’m gonna join you on your trip today.”
Alhaitham rose an eyebrow and his suspicion grew. What were you up to?
Silence.
“No.”
He sighed at the memory, because you had straight up ignored his words and followed him on his journey anyway. Reluctantly he then finally agreed to take you with him, because he’d rather be there to protect you if he couldn’t fight your stubbornness.
It wasn’t like he disliked travelling with you, but he didn’t like to involve you in his work. As much as he loved you, he despised how work seemed to progress slower when you were there to distract him. He didn’t like how he couldn’t say no to you, but he’d hate it even more if anything were to happen to you because of him.
Which is why despite the soft grass underneath your feet, Alhaitham immediately noticed when he didn’t hear your footsteps behind him. There was a slight edge to his voice when he turned around and called out your name.
He felt relief wash over him when he saw that you had merely stopped, though his concern resurfaced when you didn’t reply to his call. Your back was turned towards him, your figure simply overlooking the cliff before you.
“What’s the matter, love?”, he softly inquired as he approached you. As much as he disliked wasting time, all of that mattered little in comparison to your safety and well-being. You let out a sound of surprised, caught off-guard to see him standing next to you. Though quickly, your expression morphed into a smile once you spotted the figure of your partner. “Let’s stay here for a bit”, you decided, leaving his question unanswered in the process.
“Why?”, the frown on his face deepened − you’ve told him numerous times that he’ll grow wrinkles soon if he kept doing that. “Are you tired?”
Once again, you didn’t answer his question. With a giggle you shook your head and finally turned around to face your lover. “Just for a few minutes”, you pleaded. “For me, please?”
Silence ensued as Alhaitham wasn’t sure how to react. He was confused and wanted to ask more questions, but upon seeing the pleading look on your face he finally relented with a sigh. “Alright, what are you up to this time?”
You feigned offense, “Usually, I should be the one asking that!”
Your response elicited a chuckle from the man and before you could push him away in a teasing manner, he was once again a step ahead of you. In the blink of an eye you were pulled flush against his chest, a yelp escaping your throat as you grew bashful from the sudden proximity.
You stood steadfast in his grip and Alhaitham smirked down at you, seemingly satisfied with turning the tables. “Well, are you gonna tell me or not?” His voice was barely above a whisper, yet his words were crystal clear to you as you felt his hot breath on your cheeks.
You loathed how he never failed to catch you off-guard, always keeping you on your toes despite being devoted to each other. Almost as if it was second nature, your eyes flickered down towards his lips and you could swear that you saw his shit-eating grin growing further. It was way too tempting to lean down and connect your lips with his, though you didn’t relent. You were not going to let him sway you so easily.
In an instant, Alhaitham’s smirk dropped from his lips and his expression morphed into a frown once again when you pressed two fingers against his lips. “Just.. watch, okay?”, you bid him. Your voice matched the volume of his own, but his teasing tone was replaced by your soft one.
Taking advantage of the Scribe’s confusion, you wriggled in his grasp and turned around in his arms just in time to see the first rays of sunshine. You didn’t have to see the look on his face when he lifted his head to look to the horizon, as the slight hitch of breath from his throat was enough for you to know.
And suddenly, Alhaitham realised why you had insisted to come with him. He recalled a conversation you’ve had in the early stages of knowing each other − how exasperated, yet charmed you were with his demeanour.
‘You know’, the memory was etched into his brain, as if the exchange had only happened yesterday. ‘You should really stop for a second and appreciate the small things in life.’
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tigressaofkanjis · 17 days
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I heard the rumors of Transformers Earthspark maybe on the list of being cancelled for a new Transformers show and honestly, I'm quite neutral on it. It's not bad but Earthspark definitely didn't leave any impression on me, and I go into a series usually with a fresh mind. I don't like to compare off the bat. I will always give things a chance. Earthspark was one of those Transformers series that just never stuck to me no matter what I tried.
They say the cancellation may have to do with toy sales and bad reviews but the thing about the bad reviews is that they are mostly bad because of bias factors. That's in no way fair on how you are supposed to judge a series. Absolutely not. It should only come down to plot and characters interacting with the plot. It doesn't matter what their ethnicity or gender is, it's what they bring to make the show work.
Earthspark fell flat for me because of the introduction of the Terrans and the overall plot did not match what they were bringing to the table. The show would have done honestly better without them. I understand it's a kids show but you know Rescue Bots was for toddlers and they handled their plot really well for something that was made without a single Decepticon because they knew how to make their characters work in their setting. If I can't find that key element, no show works. I was fine the humans this time around which is often a problem element in Transformers. They weren't bad honestly. It's the Terrans I hated; they somehow took the qualities of human flaws and made them into a weird, worse mix.
One of the reasons I do see why it failed to appeal to children compared to the TF fans is because children are in no means more or less important than us in their opinions, but they prioritize what they need compared to what they want to keep themselves entertained. As soon as we had representation, new content, and other returning characters not used in forever in a Transformers show, it appeased what we wanted all along, but the catch is was it what the show needed against it's already experimental Terrans adding to boiling pot that is already overcooking. Children don't have the tendency to care as much as we do about connecting with their characters in this particular instance of a show with fighting robots. They like action, they like the awesome plots of the heavier shows and movies that make them pop with excitement over who wins and why. Autobots or Decepticons.
In fact, a good example of need versus want is what I said once in a post about I think the They/Them controversy with Nightshade that telling the audience directly they went by those pronouns subtracted from the character because good writing involves being able to present the fact they go by those pronouns without having to waste a minute explaining it in words. A child watching isn't going to give a shit they go by They/Them. They are going to like Nightshade by what they do and kids will memorize pronouns naturally by the effort the character makes to be involved in the plot that drives what they need out of the series to make it interesting to them. You don't have to graze a minute of this weird interjection that makes no sense explaining pronouns and as a writer, that scene kind of threw me because that was the worst way you could introduce a non-binary character...and children can tell stuff like that being off in how it is presented. if it doesn't add to the plot, throw it away and figure out another way to introduce those characteristics into your character.
So, back to the main point, you end up having all these characters that present nothing to enhance themselves other than being mostly nuisances to the main characters the kids actually wanted to see like Megatron and Optimus, so why would the general audience be interesting in buying their toys if they are forgettable? That explains your toy sales without explicitly blaming it on ethnicity or gender. As for the bad reviews, I assume the bias ones were filtered out because I have seen ones that aren't too far from my type of judgement who bring valid points as to why the show isn't the best at what it does. It had potential after that first season half, but it never seemed to really grow into something I and apparently others cared enough about. And children aren't stupid; they can kind of go by that judgement too.
Now, this is a rumor that it will be cancelled, no solid proof yet. But if it is, it's going to be less surprising than it is if it continues to Season 3. The only reason so far Season 2 exists is because it was greenlit during the first half of Season 1 which wasn't terrible per say but it had the excitement it was going to grow on you in the second half. The second part of Season 1 was...eh.
But that does raise the next question as to what this new Transformers series is and what it's going to put up against Earthspark? Is it influenced by a specific show, is it its own new thing like Earthspark's route? Will it feature humans at all? Will it be even on Earth and take Cyberverse's route in abandoning the typical Earth setting which is a route we really should start venturing into for a while in my personal opinion to kind of explore more about the world of Transformers themselves. If this new show has the better elements of what Earthspark failed to appease to its grand audience (kids, sorry TF fans), it's going to be better off. If it starts off good but falls into the same category, maybe their will be a finalized central element that can be confirmed as to what is really driving the general audiences away.
If the rumor is proven false and there is a Season 3, I will try my hardest to watch it at least once, see if it gets better than what we have currently. I said before I was going to stop watching Earthspark quite early because nothing was going for it for me but I came back to see the second half of Season 1 when it came out. I will see Season 2...but man, this is a tough show to watch.
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rrenzwrld · 3 months
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secreto de amor XII
chapter 12! read chapter 11 here
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you were excited about what happened with connie but you also felt guilty about it. you knew jean was overprotective over you with any guy but because his best friend would be involved, you didn’t know how different this would be. you didn’t know how to feel about the situation.
but one thing you were sure about was your feelings for connie. he brought some kind of spice in your life and everything with him felt natural, especially when you started to just embrace him as a person overall. maybe you were falling in love but you’ve been there before and the possibility of going back kinda frightened you.
“whatcha smiling at?” sasha asked while being all up on your phone as you texted connie.
“her man.” tia commented, which prompted you to send a death stare her way.
“man? you ain’t tell us you had a man? who’s the man?” you rolled your eyes before putting your phone down.
“i don’t have a man, sasha.”
“yet.” tia coughed.
“i’ll never have a man. especially after what happened with…” you couldn’t even really say his name, not like it deserved to be said anyway.
“who?” sasha looked at tia because she knew she’d have the answer.
“her ex.” she mumbled and sasha quickly understood.
“but don’t be like that! you’ll have a man, especially one that’s gonna treat you…not like how the other one treated you.”
“his name is gonna start with a c and end with an e…he’s gonna be funny and fine…he’s gonna—“
“t.”
“that’s very specific.”
“girl, we talking about connie!” you immediately shushed tia in case jean was somewhere nearby.
“ohhh! aww~i knew he was talking to somebody new, i didn’t think it was you though. cute!”
“we’re not a thing.”
“they kissed. tongue and everything. sucking each other’s faces off—“
sasha gasped. “oh my god…yall fucked?”
“no. just a kiss, calm down.”
“you saying that like it’s a bad thing. his dick little or something?”
“no, i’d just be surprised if y’all did. you’re so soft and quiet and he’s…he sells drugs.”
“okay, and? money money money~” tia sang.
“he’s cool and we kissed so i’m just tryna see if the kiss was a waste of time.” it obviously wasn’t because it occupied your mind for hours in a day but you just wanted to see if anything would come out of it or if you were just signing an invisible contract to become one of his throw-away hoes.
“evidently not, got you smiling at the phone and shit.” you threw a pillow towards tia.
“you got jokes, huh?”
“what’s going on in here?” jean came into your room.
“none of your business, why are you in here?”
“to let you know i’m going to the store and if you wanted to come?”
“so it’s just fuck us huh?” tia commented and jean narrowed her eyes at her.
“yep. you coming, y/n?” you nodded just to get out the house.
“you’re gonna leave us?” sasha stood up from the bed, pouting.
“no, i’ll be back. just take care of the house.”
you and jean went to the store to get more groceries because it was the first time since he’s been back.
you two were walking down snack aisle when you thought you saw connie with some girl and eventually you were sure it was him. they were laughing, giggling, and touching all up on each other and your heart felt like it was breaking into a million pieces. it showed on your face and jean picked up on your energy shift.
“hey, what’s wrong? you don’t like chocolate chip?” jean asked innocently as he held up a box of chocolate chip cookies.
“i’m okay. what else do we need to get?” you tried to shake the scene off but you couldn’t.
“umm…that’s it. you sure you okay?”
“yeah, can we leave now?”
“of course.” he nodded. the only time you rushed him was if something was really wrong or you didn’t wanna be somewhere so he understood. on the ride back, he did have questions but he knew not to bother you if you looked upset. so when you finally got home you went straight to your room but forgot sasha and tia were still there.
“what’s wrong? what happened at the store?” you shook your head but sasha and tia looked at each other, knowing something was wrong.
“you saw connie?” tia whispered. you were quiet so that gave away your answer. “don’t tell me he was with another bitch bruh…” you were quiet again.
“i’m sorry y/n…i can talk to him if you want. this might all be a big misunderstanding.” sasha rubbed your leg. you didn’t feel like crying or anything, you were just mad. his lil kiss started to get you into feelings you were kinda excited for but then he goes and have another bitch in his face? yeah you knew it was a waste of time.
“it is what it is,” you shrugged. “i just don’t think he’s for me.”
“don’t give up! maybe it was a cousin you saw him with or something.” tia side-eyed sasha.
“be forreal.”
“it didn’t look like a cousin. the way they were all up on each other.”
“were they kissing?” you shook your head. “at least that’s good.”
“yeah i just need to take a step back.”
“a few steps all the way back.” tia’s comment made you and sasha giggle before you all talked some more. after a few more minutes, tia and sasha ended up leaving and jean was knocking on your door.
“come in!”
“hey, you okay? you looked pretty upset earlier.” jean came in and sat on your bed.
“i’m fine. just a mood swing or something.” jean knew you were lying and was battling in his head whether or not he should ask you what he really wants to ask you.
“okay…i just have a question,” you didn’t look at him but was silent just to listen to him. “what’s up with you and connie?” your heart sank again but you couldn’t explain why if there’s truthfully nothing going on, at least not anymore.
“nothing. why?”
“i overheard yall talking about him. i just wanted to ask you just in case i misheard or whatever.”
“we kissed but we’re not dating or anything.” jean had to admit he was a bit bothered by what you told him but his priority was with you, not connie.
“okay then, just…i don’t want you getting hurt. i want your heart and mind protected and honestly, connie is not gonna be the one to do that for you. he’s my best friend and all and we’re cool but, you will always come first. i’ll always be on your side, understood?” you nodded in confirmation. luckily you hadn’t gotten that far with connie for anything to change. you hoped that outside of you, him and jean would still be friends because you didn’t wanna ruin anything for your brother.
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preet-01 · 17 days
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f for the ask game with Jenson/daniel
F — Stuck on a Deserted Island
When Jenson had said in an interview that he wouldn’t mind being stuck on a deserted island with Daniel (well he’d said Ricky Bobby, but it’s the same thing), he hadn’t imagined it actually happening.
And if he was honest, his version of being stuck on a deserted island involved a lot of sex and fun times. It did not involve a crying Daniel because there was blood and a sprained ankle. Nor did it involve no food or shelter or way of leaving said island. This was not the sex paradise he’d been thinking of when he’d said he’d love to be stuck on a deserted island with Daniel because he knew how to have a good time.
When they make it off this island — which they will because both of them are too pretty to waste away here — Mark and Fernando are going to give him so much shit about the whole situation and how he didn’t need to find a deserted island to get Daniel back in his bed.
“You only needed to ask, he’s always gagging for it. Didn’t need to actually go to a deserted island,” Mark would say in that way where Jenson couldn’t ever figure out if Mark liked Daniel or not. Back in the day, when Daniel was the sweet rookie being corrupted by world champions, Mark tried to be the older brother figure. But time and Red Bull can change a lot of things and the whole McLaren fiasco also couldn’t have been great.
“I would just take him to bed, no need for islands. Too much sand and not enough lube,” Fernando would say. There would also probably be something about Daniel getting hurt and threatening words.
The Mark and Fernando in his head almost drown out Daniel’s whimpers of pain. Jenson had propped up the younger man against the wall of the cave they’d found. It wasn’t a large cave, but it would do for now as they gathered their wits and decided on how to proceed.
“Daniel, we’re going to be alright,” he says, wiping away the dried tears staining Daniel’s cheeks. Once he’d put a makeshift splint on Daniel’s ankle to stabilize it, Daniel’s tears had stopped, but the pain hadn’t and everyone knew Daniel hated pain. It was actually quite astonishing how much Daniel hated pain while having such a dangerous career and love for bikes.
“Are we???” Daniel questions, not quite believing him.
Which fair, Jenson had said, “what could go wrong,” when inviting Daniel to join him on the yacht and things had evidently gone very wrong.
“We are,” Jenson reassures. When they don’t dock in two days, someone will be alerted and a search will happen. If not for Jenson, then for Daniel. Red Bull made way too much money and way too many plans for Daniel to not throw everything they could at a search for them.
They would be found soon.
___
“You can’t build a fire?” Daniel asks as Jenson attempts at starting a fire. If he weren’t freezing cold, Daniel would find the look of absolute concentration on Jenson’s face cute. But he was freezing and Jenson had all but ordered him to stay where he was so he wouldn’t put too much pressure on his ankle.
“I grew up in England, Daniel,” Jenson retorts.
“That’s not an excuse,” Daniel says.
After many tries and light heckling from Daniel, Jenson builds the fire. It warms up their cave, but not by much. “I’m still cold,” Daniel whines.
And well Jenson had heard that you could conserve heat by touching bare skin. Using some large leaves they’d found earlier, they make a sort of blanket to cover the cave floor and undress — using their clothes as blankets for their bodies.
“What if I wanted to be the little spoon?” Jenson asks.
“You like my ass too much to miss out an opportunity to have it pressed up against you,” Daniel says and no more questions are asked as Jenson lays down behind Daniel, his cock finding its place.
___
Daniel’s naked on the beach, all laid out and everything, but Jenson can’t do anything. Daniel had made it clear that Jenson wasn’t fucking him without lube.
“Water is not lube, Jense,” Daniel had said when Jenson had tried to initiate something. The Fernando in his head had been right, deserted islands are no good for sex.
___
Two weeks.
It takes for them to be rescued. And as Jenson had expected, it was a search mission fully funded by Red Bull — they had plans for Daniel that didn’t include the life of a hermit on an island with the 2009 World Champion.
They’d been together for two weeks, in only one another’s company, and then nothing. Daniel had been whisked away to his family and Jenson to his.
They don’t see one another for a few weeks. Not until Daniel shows up at his apartment and shoves a bottle of lube into his hands.
Who needs an island when you’ve got a million dollar Monaco apartment with a very nice bed and copious amounts of lube at your disposal?
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illumoonated · 2 years
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Thoughts about Wednesday (the show)
I wished i liked the Wednesday show more. Truly. But...
...the writing felt half-assed. The characters felt lazy. The addams family felt not quite weird enough. It seemed to be a very safe (somewhat boring) reboot that ppl are groveling over simply bc they want winclair to be canon (which, fine do your thing -- but you're setting yourselves up for heartbreak bc these writers/showrunners give zero effs about making wednesday canonically queer). The love triangle was actually painful to watch.
There was throw-away "representation" with her being asked if she was into someone a "guy...or you know, a girl?" to get woke points. Someone else pointed it out too, but the black male mayor being told he doesn't "know what it's like to be not heard" was so incredibly tone deaf it threw me off. As well as the only real POCs having a personality being the actual Addams crew.
(The siren queen bee was cool but she like immediately became Wednesday's bestie after 2 minutes of a heart to heart at a dance? Idk she felt wasted/characterized too quickly to feel impactful when she helped in the last episode. There was no emotional "oomph" to her being on Wednesday's team.) ((Also there was the aapi vampire who smiled once and had a single line of dialogue or smth...? wish we got more from her bc that's a cool-ass concept of being stuck in a place like nevermore where ppl know you're an immortal--like I was waiting for a big reveal to be pulled from this vamp being like "hey I knew your parents when they went here, oh, that fancy book you need? I have read all the nevermore books so many times I can just rewrite it for you by memory, where's your typewriter?")) Basically none of the students "banded together" for Wednesday in a believable way. They just...did....?
And if the intent was to simply get a flavor of the month moody white boi as Wednesday's love interest -- fine, but you didn't even make them likeable (not the actors' faults, bc they were clearly given no direction other than "go and be in love w wednesday for no reason bc she's MC"). And Wednesday as a character would avoid the moody bois and possessive "nice guys" like the plague (pun not intended) and would find interest in a strange/true social outcast more. (If she's gotta be with a boy make sure it's like whatshisface in Addams Family Values who is nerdy and nervous and a true social outcast that Wednesday had a real banter/challenge with instead of gross obsession/ownership like fuccboi #1 and #2. Again, not the actors' faults.)
I am so torn as an ace person bc I want her to be aroace so badly (and I believe it would be an appropriate identity for her). I also don't want to be the ace person being like "no winclair shouldn't be canon" bc I want sapphic stories to be represented but I hate how any close platonic relationships are automatically romanticized/ran away with despite how the characters feel about the other person. Again, if this is a friends(roomates) to lovers story fine. But there's zero chance that'll happen with the writing where it's currently at (I mean, they can change this but rn I don't see it happening).
TL;DR 1. wednesday shows how thirsty we all are for true queer rep/romantic or otherwise
2. the love triangle trope (esp the cishet ones) have to be damn good in this day and age to be worthwhile (the triangles in 1899 come to mind as good, current examples involving fleshed out characters with chemistry)
3. the show is trying to earn woke points without committing,
4. the addams family is mischaracterized from the source material,
5. this reboot entry is safe, lazy, and predictable from a plot, character, and worldbuilding standpoint (I was expecting far out weird/spooky shit like the Sabrina netflix series tbh and was really disappointed in how safe this reboot played it)
6. I wish I wanted winclair to be canon but i don't and I wish I did so ppl don't think i'm being "too ace" or "anti-" bc anytime platonic relationships occur between two pretty ppl the internet loses its mind and disregards what the characters actually feel about each other (reinforcing that friendship < romance)
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zalrb · 1 year
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why is enzo irrelevant according to you?
from another post of mine that i wrote when season 7 was on air:
The way he’s written reminds me of university students who lost their way, like oh I thought I’d be good at psychology but I don’t like it let’s try sociology let’s try English let’s try math — that is like Enzo and his stupid storylines: let me be Damon’s bff oh that didn’t work let me try to find Maggie oh that didn’t pan out let me be have a thing for Caroline oh wait she’s involved in another romantic storyline let me be obsessed with destroying Stefan’s life oh that didn’t make any sense, let me get involved with Sarah oh that was a waste of time, let me fall in love with Lily oh wait she belongs to the Salvatore brothers, let me be obsessed with finding family now, LIKE PICK A FUCKING MAJOR ENZO. JFC. (and this is a current insertion: obviously characters have different storylines my issue with Enzo was that it felt like the writers were just throwing things at him to see what stuck and nothing stuck, nothing had narrative or emotional impact or weight, no follow through that led to an arc that influenced the show and the characters or Enzo for that matter in any real way)What would’ve made more sense is if Enzo was a partner in crime of Damon’s back in the day and he came to Mystic Falls to raise hell and saw that Elena had neutered Damon and was like, dude what the fuck? Remember when we used to be freaking beasts? Let’s run this town! And Damon goes through a crisis of identity or whatever. That would’ve been cool. But no.
a calmer reiteration
Anonymous asked:
I thought Enzo had potential when first brought on. He could've been a thorn in Damon's side because Damon left him. They quickly did away with that story because evry1 has to luuuvv Damon. They could've delved deeper into how his experience shaped him but nope there was no meat to his story. Then his horrible sl last season, y in the world would he be after Stefan? That's the kind of sense jp/cd have though NO SENSE non sense. From MM interview I think jp felt bad about how she screwed up his character, he also had another offer but they wanted him to stay and he did all for s6 mess. So knowing this jp probably thought putting Enzo with Bonnie would make up for it, trying to give him more of a relevant sl. I feel like she’s doing this with MD character Ric. She knows he’s irrelevant so she incorporated him into a lead’s sl. Enzo should’ve died in s5 and Ric should’ve stayed dead. If there were more competent ppl running tvd then they could’ve wrote a sl for both that made sense.
Ehh, I never cared for Enzo tbh and never thought he was relevant especially since I was angry that TVD introduced yet another character and was doing nothing with Matt and Tyler and Jeremy in season 5 or in season 6 and in season 6 they added Liv and Luke too, which is a TVD problem, they keep adding characters instead of flushing out the ones they already have so I always resented Enzo. If there HAD to be an Enzo, though, I would give him an entirely different storyline and instead of being the poor guy that Damon left to burn and years of torture blah blah blah (which was a storyline that served to make Damon more sympathetic instead of giving history on Enzo as a character) I would make Enzo an old partner in crime from Damon’s past and have him come back and be like, “Dude wtf happened to you? You’re whipped. I don’t even recognize you anymore, the Damon Salvatore I knew was a fucking BEAST” and would basically have Damon assess what his life has become, who he’s become, how he doesn’t feel like himself and get him to start all kinds of shit in MF but instead he was just a physical symbol of Damon’s guilt and conscience and blah blah fucking blah. And then in season 6, like him being OBSESSED with destroying Stefan was just, WHY, WHY ARE YOU HERE? this makes NO sense. he was just around doing shit that no one cared about. And yes, you’re right they incorporated him into a central sl this season to make him more relevant which is why they paired him with Bonnie even though that makes absolutely no sense and it’s a rush job. Alaric should’ve stayed dead in season 3 and done it. But Julie likes Matt so she brought him back. The only character Julie was adamant on killing was Bonnie in season 5 and Kat had to lay out all the reasons why Bonnie should return in season 6.
Like he'd been on the show for three seasons and I still don't really know who he's supposed to be as a character or what the point of him was other than to eventually become a consolation prize for Bonnie fans.
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badmusejail · 2 years
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回 ━ what are your top four favorite shows?
◈  ━ share some headcanons that you have for a muse of your choosing
mun related 回 ━ what are your top four favorite shows?
I finally got my cable shut off!!
(They accidentally shut my internet off, too, lmao, so I had to waste an additional three hours calling them back and fixing that.)
But yeah, I mentioned a while ago when this was asked that I don’t really watch too much TV.  Usually mindless entertainment, like adult cartoons, or sometimes game shows.  The Simpsons, Bob’s Burgers, Wipeout, The Weakest Link, those sorts of things.  
◈  ━ share some headcanons that you have for a muse of your choosing
Well hell I’ve been wanting to write up some stuff about Ozai so here we go.  
Modern and Pokémon Ozai allow him to be something better than his canon self--not a saint, mind you, but not quite as awful.  This is more true in the latter verse than the former.  
Ozai is, unlike most of my characters, a rather simplistic character.  He’s concerned with bringing honor to his family, and not much else.  He’s very straightforward and blunt about his intentions.
That being said, that doesn’t make him dumb--he certainly can be at times, but he can be a very cunning individual, and most of his knowledge involves the day-to-day running of a country, rather than the political ins-and-outs of leadership.  
Whenever Ozai says something, there’s equal chance that it’s genius or the dumbest thing you’ve ever heard.  The worst part is, he always speaks with such confidence that it can be hard to distinguish which one is which.  This is doubly true in Modern verse where second/third languages come into play--the shit he says can sometimes be so ridiculous that it can bring the entire room / scene to a grinding halt. (ex.  the “free-range nipples” incident.)
Really, it’s best to just agree with whatever he says--even if the best course of action is to completely ignore everything he said as soon as you walk away.  Arguing with him is not very fruitful.   
Compared to Giovanni’s noble villain sort of archetype, Ozai is very much an unfair villain type of archetype.  For example, given a situation where either once has promised to spare your life in exchange for X thing, Giovanni sticks to the spirit of the agreement, letting the person go in exchange for the completed agreement.  On the other hand, Ozai will stick to the letter of the agreement--he may very well spare your life but throw you in prison.  
Ozai typically keeps his fire abilities in all verses.
In Pokémon verse, he has a moltres, which he caught by physically wrestling it into submission and earning its respect.  Being fireproof helped majorly in this affair.  
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thequietmanno1 · 6 months
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TheLreads, Vigilantes ch 93, Replies Part 2
1) “Rappa down! Send the EMT unity ASAP, we can’t allow the timeline to be fractured, we can’t lose him!”- Mirko heard the call, but she only knows how to heal by beating up the enemy worse than the patient, so they don’t hurt them anymore.
2) “Yeah I don’t think that’s in the rulebook of free-for-all illegal cagefights, but then again, it’s not like there’s something against it in there.”- He is technically still fighting within the cage this way, depending on which side he’s holding.
3) “THERE IS MIRKO, SHOWING UP TO SAVE THE DAY ONCE AGAIN! and somehow here faster than All Might. Huh.”- All Might was further delayed getting the officers some healthy snacks before rushing in. Stakeouts can be hungry work.
4) “Why of course because she’s this manga’s best character and her presence here is a blessing to all of us mortals? And Horikoshi demanded her appearance whit a gun to Furuhashi’s head?”- Truly, the side-characters can upstage the “heroes” whenever they take action. The more the fandom loves them, the stronger they’ll be.
5) “I don’t know Rappa, you ever seen a bunny fighting? Those kicks are vicious man.”- More lives have been lost facing off against mad bunnies than there have been against bears.
6) “Unfortunately, you can’t hoodie, the time-space continuum must be preserved no matter what. We are bound to the fate laid forth.”- Hood’s acting like their demise would automatically make him stronger from it, like they were metal slimes in a video game, due to give a ton of exp if he could just finish them off. No wonder he was mad the encounter was forcibly ended early.
7) “She’s more capable than the both of you doltz, why are you being mean to her now?”- They’re just annoyed she’s showing them up when they’re fighting 2-on-1 and losing and she comes crashing in and belts Hood easily.
8) “the fuck you are on Knuckles, you saw her holding her own even better than Rappa! Not gonna refute the wild allegations, she is absolutely feral, that there’s no denying.”- Pretty sure that’s just Rappa mouthing off to Knuckles and him giving him his trademark silent treatment in response whilst he monologues.
9) “OH SHIT YOU ONLY HAVE T MINUS 2.9999999 SECONDS NOW MIRKO, QUICK, KICK HIS ASS BEFORE ALL MIGHT SHOWS UP!”- The one opponent Mirko can’t beat: The ticking clock of the inevitable future!
10) “Already? Damn, time really flies when All Might shows up, right?”- Literally, actually. I think the major time skip occurred after the sky egg incident and his major involvement in that chapter of Koichi’s life. All Might is the harbinger of chronology, pushing time towards the present in ever-increasing leaps with every time he shows up.
11) “No no, no throwing a fit, it’s time to go home now, your mom is calling, you need to take a bath and have dinner okay?”- He’s tired himself out from all this exercise, needs a long period of rest before he’s ready for playtime again.
12) “Aaaand time. Oh jesus, that was a close call, those three seconds were way too short for so much to happen I tell you that.”- Furuhasi should have given himself a larger window of time, but like many things, he misjudged it.
13) “Yeah All Might, you wasted too many nanoseconds picking up your body pillow. Shame on you, you pervert”- All Might, always on time to save the day, but never stop the overarching plot.
14) “I don;t even blame this chapter for being uneventful, I think the fact I spent a whole month away from liveblogging rotted my mind and rusted my gears, I need a bit more of it so I can actually put the ol’ reliable brain back on the tracks.”- Get that WD40 spray for your rusty brainpan. @thelreads
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Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty (video game, 2023) and Nemesis, 1992 (Dir. Albert Pyun)--Spoilers
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Nemesis, 1992 "See, Alex? You're not human. You're one of us." "Fuck you!" -Characters in the movie behaving in a thematically appropriate way
If you want to watch a movie that addresses the themes of cyberpsychosis much more effectively than this expansion pack, check out Albert Pyun's 1992 classic Nemesis. It's honestly everything anyone could want from Cyberpunk. Above is the best action scene of all time. Below is a supercut of some of the other best action scenes of all time, with one of the best jokes of all time thrown in for good measure, all from this one wonderful movie.
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And here's a behind-the-scenes documentary, also fantastic. It's great when people involved in a production take sci-fi themes seriously and don't resent the audience and writers for having an interest in them.
Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty
Where to even begin with this weirdness? Cyberpunk had a notoriously messy release. I've spent a good amount of time sticking up for the reworked version of the game that I spent my first 400 hours playing. I can no longer justify that. Phantom Liberty is a hot pile of crap.
Spoilers for Cyberpunk 2077 and Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty follow
We start off strong with an homage to Escape from New York and a President who actually seems like an interesting character. Then we meet Idris Elba and everything starts going to shit. I went for what seemed like a reasonable playthrough given what I knew about V from the many time I've beaten the game and seen him throw a tantrum if Johnny tries to keep control--it would, based on actions we see V take from the third person, seem like wanting Johnny out of his head is in character. It's part and parcel of getting the Relic removed. Like it or not, Johnny is a hallucinatory symptom of cyberpsychosis and not an unambiguously good guy.
So why did I feel, at the end of the game, like I was being punished for having this hallucination, this literal symptom of cyberpsychosis that has been killing me for the whole plot of the game, surgically removed?
Maybe I was being punished for betraying Songbird--but she didn't end up dead, and she did promise V a solution to the Relic problem. Alex's death in my playthrough could in some way be attributed to V, but it's honestly a stretch. In purely utilitarian terms, compatible with Johnny's and the President's and Reed's and Alex's own set of ideals--the ideology into which I chose to get interpolated as a spy--this is an acceptable loss. All other objectives were achieved, since the President was safe while Reed and So Mi survived.
Yeah, So Mi's life sucks. But V is a violent thug and one more wasted life rotting away in a cell somewhere honestly doesn't seem like something that would weigh too heavily on his/her conscience--without reinforcement in the form of ridiculous punishment that comes out of left field thematically.
At the end of what seemed to me like a "good" playthrough I found out that there was no New Game + mode, no reward for finishing the game, just a lame cutscene where I get pushed down the stairs by some 'borged-up nobodies after finding out that everyone I loved has decided I'm not important enough to include in their lives, despite numerous attempts to reach me while I was in a coma for 2 years. Every love interest has better things to do than catch up with you. It's shameful that there isn't Panam in this. Come to think of it, not sure if there's any Takemura, either, but I may just not have done his core storyline yet on my first playthrough.
Compelling characters and strong cast utterly wasted by an ending that says none of them care about you because you're not a 95% cyborg. If only someone had decided that this conflict between man and machine were worthy of being emphasized thematically in the expansion. I guess attacking MaxTac counts.
Just a lot of underbaked story ideas here. If you don't already love Cyberpunk 2077 then don't bother with it, probably. If you do love it, maybe don't buy it. The gameplay is wonky, too, with a lot of the rebalancing for 2.0 feeling like they just nerfed a bunch of skills and made a few systems more confusing.
Watch Nemesis instead.
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homespun-stories · 1 year
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The Winter Bathers
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I’m a woman for all seasons. They help me carve up the elephant-sized year into something manageable, so I don’t freak out at the prospect of 365 unchanging days. I joke with friends about the abject misery of cold and wet winters in Denmark, where I have lived for the last eight years, but I inwardly rejoice at the cashmere and candles and casseroles that accompany them. I always think of that Bill Hicks line on people who live in L.A bragging about it being hot and sunny every day: “What are you, a fucking lizard?” Our summers are so much sweeter in Scandinavia for knowing we’ve weathered the worst and we’re duly rewarded with long days, soft breezes, and lush greenery. If you’ll allow me a moment of cringe, I believe that the seasons teach us the power of rituals. And rituals are how we endure.
There’s a saying in Denmark which you learn pretty fast when the first cold snap hits: there’s no such thing as bad weather, only bad clothing. Which is all well and good, but does nothing to explain the frantic energy with which the Danes also remove all their clothes entirely and throw themselves into the sea during the coldest months of the year. This particular form of brutality is known as ‘winter bathing’, a coy name which implies retreating to some Edwardian copper tub filled with steaming, eucalyptus-scented water whilst the snow falls gently outside. The reality is a gaggle of naked people, nipples to the wind on a frozen pontoon, wading into water colder than the base temperature of my fridge.
I moved to Denmark during a heatwave. Those first weeks in Copenhagen were spent in a spritz-fuelled haze as the long summer days melted into ambient warm nights, and I did little more than bounce between the bars and cafes that lined the historic canals and cobbled streets. When I filed the papers for my residency card and was asked to give the reason for my relocation, there was no box for me to tick. I had no job, no studies, no family here to reunite with. I had, quite plainly, moved for life. And Copenhagen appeared to be where I was best suited for living it. Even the inevitable winter, and my staggeringly bad clothing, couldn’t diminish the joy with which I embraced my new hygge lifestyle. I lit a lot of candles, I consumed vast quantities of buttered potatoes, bread and pastry, and I persisted in ordering glasses of red wine in local dive bars that only served beer on tap. Denmark and I—we were made for each other.
By the time I was ushering in my third winter, I’d leveled up my clothing to include the kind of coat that stops people dying on the side of Mount Everest. I’d completed my first ‘Viking biking’ experience having cycled in snow without losing my mind or my two front teeth. And I’d also moved to a neighbourhood in Copenhagen that is locally known as “Shit Island” for reasons that seem to involve a blighted history of municipal waste disposal and a whispered disdain of working class people. It offered affordable housing that was minutes away from a protected nature reserve and one of the city’s longest and cleanest public beaches. And that was where I first saw them: the Winter Bathers. A mass of flushed naked bodies waddling around the turquoise wooden dock at the top of the beach whilst I was scowling at my partner through the biting wind, my survival gear zipped up to my nose.
I’d had a primer on European nudity when I went skiing with some friends in Austria a few years earlier. I say “I went skiing” but this is a significant overstatement of the facts given I had never placed a single ski boot on my feet before the trip. “I went crying on the side of a mountain whilst my friends had a blast” would be a more accurate description for the “holiday” for which I forked over vast quantities of cash I could not afford. I can think of no other experience where you pay so much to be routinely hurt and humiliated, aside from the kinds of activities that take place between consenting adults in sex dungeons.
After three days of crying on the side of a mountain called—I kid you not—the Grimming, the weather went from Loads of Snow to Too Much Snow and offered me a blessed exit ramp from the nursery slopes and my perennially hungover 19-year-old ski instructor. My friends and I huddled together back at the lodge, throwing logs into the only form of heating—a single raging furnace we’d named The Beast—and weighed up our options for things to do at a ski resort that didn’t include skiing in a blizzard. My friend, whose family owned the house, suggested we try out the local spa he’d been to before. We wondered why he was so quick to volunteer for dinner duty instead, but desire for warmth soon overcame intrigue as we trotted off with borrowed swimsuits to poach ourselves in pools of water whilst our friend laughed into his snaps and thawed some sausages on The Beast for our return.
Whatever vision I’d had of a cozy alpine spa retreat quickly evaporated as we pulled up outside something the size and comportment of a department store. This was a serious multi-level bathing complex and it was packed with locals. If we’d taken a beat longer at the reception desk, we would have reckoned with the enormous sign that declared the complex “textile frei” beyond the kids’ paddling pool, but we’d paid our entrance fees and suddenly found ourselves surrounded by hundreds—literally, hundreds—of naked Austrian strangers.
One of our party, an American, was so overwhelmed by what he called “this European obsession with nudity” that he stormed off to the deck chairs outside the cafe and put a towel over his head. The rest of us pushed on, slowly peeling off our layers and keeping our eyes resolutely above the neck as we gingerly headed towards one of 50 or more steam rooms. Before long, the simple fact of our nakedness melted into the background. I guess it’s hard to stay uptight when the environment you’re in is expressly designed to do the opposite. I found myself gazing at naked strangers through the steam in the way you might look at potatoes in the produce aisle—no intention or judgment, just browsing the various lumps and bumps. Most of the men were curiously hairfree below the earlobes, like upright seals in toupees, and their wives and girlfriends wore blue frosted eye shadow and gold jewelry despite the water and the heat and the fact it wasn’t 1982 anymore. Everyone looked like they ate boiled potatoes and pork chops three times a day.
Feeling more confident, and leaving our friend to scrub his mind free of rampant nudity, the three of us girded our loins and explored the deeper environs of the spa complex where the saunas were located. My partner nonchalantly strolled ahead of us into some kind of potting shed, the door of which was firmly slammed in our faces by a towel-clad man with a glistening shoulder-length perm. He was, it transpired, a gus meister—a sadist with control of the thermostat and a penchant for using his towel as a whip. My friend and I peered through the porthole, as my partner was scolded in front of the sweating crowd for letting the heat out. He was now in the hands of a man who looked like he’d eaten Kenny G for breakfast and there was nothing we could do to save him. Less than an hour into our spa experience, and we were two men down.
And so, the two of us left standing headed into the empty sauna next door. It happened to provide a stunning, moonlit view of the snow covered ground and the potting shed where unspeakable things were happening. We gazed out into the starlit night in convivial silence, brows beading with sweat as the sand timer trickled down, grateful to rest our eyes on something that wasn’t flesh. Then the door to the potting shed was flung open, disgorging 20 or so bright pink people whereupon they promptly threw themselves onto the snow-covered ground and started rolling around. “Oh, would you look at that..”, my friend quietly muttered. Oh, would you look, indeed—for there was my partner, resplendent in the full moon as he writhed around naked in the snow with his new friends.
***
Back in Denmark, in early 2016, I had developed a lingering curiosity for the eccentric ritual that was being performed at my local beach. Asking around, I learned that the turquoise pontoon was the location of a longstanding winter bathing club, where members rotated between the frigid sea and pine-clad saunas every day of the week, every week of the year. Applications for this obscure membership were open during the first hour on the first day of October to anyone who could navigate the website that had been built in 1997. Correspondingly, the fee for such a bewildering process was less than 20 cents a day. Somehow, my partner and I signed up. So, too, did friends in the neighbourhood, and so we headed off together for an induction session that was totally in Danish which I totally didn’t speak.
Passing over the little wooden bridge from the beach into the winter bathing club for the very first time is like passing some mythical border where The Emperor’s New Clothes is operating at scale, in that lots of people are naked but no one talks about it. You, the one in the arctic base layers and wind-breaker, start to feel like the weirdo in a land where clothing isn’t part of the religion.
Having run the gauntlet of nudity, we finally huddled together in a cabin and waited for class to begin. It was a brisk reminder that Denmark has a national obsession with rules, and despite the seemingly carefree nature of the activity at hand, there were many, many rules for winter bathing. My friend kindly noted the most important ones down on his phone, in English, and periodically showed them to me. You must enter the water ass first, he revealed at one point. I couldn’t picture the pretzel-like distortions I would have to put my body through to conjure such a feat, but Mamma Gus—the grey-haired matriarch delivering the commandments when she wasn’t whipping people in the sauna—was already onto the next bathing diktat which my friend was frantically transcribing. “Who are these people?” I wondered to myself as I gazed across the packed room, before catching my reflection in the window.
People joked, when I first moved to Denmark, that I had relocated for the weather. Lately, because I am not a fucking lizard, I have come to agree. If I must spend a winter somewhere, as a woman for all seasons, then I’d rather spend it here. From the unencumbered vantage point of where the land meets sea, and the weather plays out on an enormous canvas, you understand that the Danish winter contains multitudes. There are days on the dock when the sky is cerulean blue and you can see your toes through the water as the sun shimmies off the ripples. There are days when the slate-grey sky rains down on the churning waves and you hold on to the ladder for your own dear life. And there are days when the sea freezes over, and they cut a hole in the ice so you can swim through the slush as the snow quietly settles around you.
Cold water immersion, much like the culture around it, is something you acclimate to. What was once an affront to the system—the temperature, the nudity—becomes the norm. I quickly learned the right way to compose myself for winter bathing, ensuring I didn’t squeal when I entered the water, and placed a towel between my butt and the bench of the welcoming sauna. I came to understand that the rules are a necessary part of the ritual, because they hammer out the pointier parts of our personalities and let us live the simple mantra of the seasoned bather: cold, heat, and repeat.
Every week I do this ritual a few times over the course of an hour, and when I am done my skin is buttery, my muscles loosened, and whatever thoughts were raging around my head have floated to the bottom of the sea. In the absence of any kind of spirituality that would find me convening in places of worship, winter bathing is where I go—for solace, for connection, and to grapple with the very meaning of things. I do not know what I did or who I was before I became A Winter Bather. How small my life must have been without this tremendous cracking open and repair. It has become a constant amidst chaos and the answer to my questions.
I have asked it many questions, lately. Last year was bruised by loss—the loss of a job, the loss of a home, and the loss of a much-wanted pregnancy. In the aftermath of the very worst day, when I joined that dreaded clutch of women who go to hospital pregnant and leave without a baby, I longed for the cold water. No swimming, the miscarriage pamphlet had advised, due to the risk of infection. I waited and waited whilst I bled each day, deep red and clotted, unable to fathom the cruelty of the loss as the memories bounced around the lockbox in my mind. I needed an ocean to pour them into.
When the time finally came and the bleeding stopped, it was a quiet weekday afternoon. A couple of lunchtime bathers were already packing up their things, leaving me and a pair of ducks to enjoy the moment in companionable silence. The winter bathing club actually has a name: Det Kolde Gys. It roughly translates as ‘the cold shudder’, which is strangely enigmatic for a language which is so blindingly matter-of-factual. It points to the shared sensation of every single person who heads down the ladder and into the water, no matter how seasoned the bather. Like the rumble of an engine turning over, the cold shudder is the sign of life. That day I welcomed the shock, drawing it deep into my body and wrapping my arms around the pain before I released it into the water. The balm of the heat in the sauna just moments later made me weep. Isak Dineson was right when she said that “the cure for anything is saltwater - sweat, tears or the salt sea.”
Cold, heat, and repeat; winter, spring, summer and autumn. Rituals are how we endure.
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erythrum · 3 years
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𝑪𝒉𝒂𝒏𝒄𝒆 𝑬𝒏𝒄𝒐𝒖𝒏𝒕𝒆𝒓
𝙋𝙖𝙞𝙧𝙞𝙣𝙜: 𝘙𝘢𝘧𝘦 𝘊𝘢𝘮𝘦𝘳𝘰𝘯 𝘹 𝘱𝘰𝘨𝘶𝘦!𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘥𝘦𝘳 | 𝘑𝘑 𝘔𝘢𝘺𝘣𝘢𝘯𝘬 𝘹 𝘱𝘰𝘨𝘶𝘦!𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘥𝘦𝘳
𝙒𝙖𝙧𝙣𝙞𝙣𝙜: 𝘴𝘰𝘮𝘦 𝘴𝘦𝘢𝘴𝘰𝘯 𝘵𝘸𝘰 𝘴𝘱𝘰𝘪𝘭𝘦𝘳𝘴 𝘬𝘪𝘯𝘥𝘢,𝘯𝘦𝘢𝘳 𝘥𝘦𝘢𝘵𝘩 𝘦𝘹𝘱𝘦𝘳𝘪𝘦𝘯𝘤𝘦,𝘥𝘢𝘯𝘨𝘦𝘳𝘰𝘶𝘴 𝘴𝘪𝘵𝘶𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯𝘴,𝘴𝘸𝘦𝘢𝘳𝘪𝘯𝘨,𝘴𝘰𝘮𝘦 𝘱𝘰𝘴𝘴𝘪𝘣𝘭𝘦 𝘢𝘯𝘨𝘴𝘵,𝘴𝘮𝘶𝘵𝘵𝘺 𝘴𝘮𝘶𝘵,𝘷𝘪𝘰𝘭𝘦𝘯𝘤𝘦,𝘮𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯𝘴 𝘰𝘧 𝘫𝘪𝘢𝘳𝘢,𝘳𝘢𝘧𝘦𝘴 𝘯𝘰𝘵 𝘢 𝘮𝘶𝘳𝘥𝘦𝘳𝘦𝘳 𝘣𝘶𝘵 𝘣𝘰𝘺 𝘪𝘧 𝘩𝘦 𝘩𝘢𝘥 𝘢 𝘨𝘶𝘯 𝘰𝘯 𝘩𝘪𝘮 (𝙨𝙢𝙪𝙩 𝙬𝙖𝙧𝙣𝙞𝙣𝙜𝙨: 𝘧𝘪𝘯𝘨𝘦𝘳𝘪𝘯𝘨,𝘰𝘳𝘢𝘭 𝘮𝘢𝘭𝘦&𝘧𝘦𝘮𝘢𝘭𝘦 𝘳𝘦𝘤𝘪𝘦𝘷𝘪𝘯𝘨,𝘷𝘢𝘨𝘪𝘯𝘢𝘭 𝘴𝘦𝘹,𝘣𝘳𝘦𝘦𝘥𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘬𝘪𝘯𝘬)
𝙖/𝙣: 𝘳𝘦𝘲𝘶𝘦𝘴𝘵𝘦𝘥 𝘣𝘺 @outcrbcnks ,𝘤𝘩𝘢𝘯𝘨𝘦𝘥 𝘴𝘭𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘵𝘭𝘺 𝘵𝘰 𝘮𝘢𝘬𝘦 𝘢 𝘣𝘪𝘵 𝘮𝘰𝘳𝘦 𝘴𝘦𝘯𝘴𝘦 𝘐 𝘩𝘰𝘱𝘦 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘥𝘰𝘯𝘵 𝘮𝘪𝘯𝘥 :)
𝙒𝙤𝙧𝙙 𝙘𝙤𝙪𝙣𝙩: 5.3𝘬+,𝘣𝘶𝘤𝘬𝘭𝘦 𝘶𝘱 𝘪𝘵𝘴 𝘨𝘰𝘯𝘯𝘢 𝘣𝘦 𝘢 𝘭𝘰𝘯𝘨 𝘰𝘯𝘦
𝙎𝙪𝙢𝙢𝙖𝙧𝙮: 𝘢𝘧𝘵𝘦𝘳 𝘙𝘢𝘧𝘦 𝘴𝘢𝘷𝘦𝘴 𝘺/𝘯, 𝘪𝘵 𝘸𝘢𝘴 𝘢𝘭𝘭 𝘩𝘦 𝘤𝘰𝘶𝘭𝘥 𝘥𝘰 𝘵𝘰 𝘯𝘰𝘵 𝘭𝘦𝘵 𝘩𝘦𝘳 𝘨𝘰
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Find the gun, find the gun y/n. It was all I could do to keep me calm down in the sewer, the disgusting sewage the covered my body in a thin layer made me nauseated. Kiara was ahead of me leading the way down the tunnel. The light of the drain was coming in to view. Almost there.
"Kie, I think I might throw up," the smell was making me gag.
"God this is fucking awful, why did we let them convince us to do this?”
“If you remember correctly, we are trying to find a damn murder weapon,” I might have said that a bit too demeaningly, but to be fair, I couldn’t ignore the way my boyfriend looked at her. The hardest part was pretending like I didn’t know what was going on.
“Whatever, let's just find this damn thing and get out of here,” Kiara said.
We eventually found our way to where the sewer met the storm drain on the street above. Searching felt like a waste of time, I don’t know why I thought it was a good idea to get involved in this bullshit, but I guess dating JJ came with its ‘perks’. Which happened to include searching for a fucking murder weapon at the bottom of a sewer.
I dragged my hands as deep as I could under the nasty water, trying my hardest to keep my head above water.
“People are so shitty,” Kiara said, disgusted by the trash that easily could’ve been recycled sitting at the bottom of the basin.
“Guys! I think I found something,” she held up something that was definitely not a gun, something dead. It elicited a yelp from her throat, definitely not good.
“Is it Gavin? Is it a body?” The sound of JJ emanated through the drain. That was when I heard the water coming.
“Kie, somethings wrong,” she was so caught up on the poor animal she failed to notice the water beginning to flood in.
“Oh shit!” She was starting to panic. Not good not good not good.
“Guys get out of there!” The voices of JJ and Pope slowly being drowned out by the rising water.
Kiara began climbing up the ladder leading to the drain on the street. Adrenaline was coursing through my body as I climbed behind her, the water closing in on me.
“Push Kie!”
“I am y/n, it's too heavy,” the drain was our only escape now. The water was at my chest, inching closer and closer to my neck. The adrenaline made my body act on instinct, but I also couldn’t keep myself calm. It felt like my body was numb as I tried to pull myself up the ladder, closer to Kiara.
I couldn’t keep my head above water now as it rose up above my head. I took the largest breath I’ve ever taken in my life and prayed that JJ and Pope would come lift the drain. Struggling for air was the worst experience I’d ever felt, I couldn’t hold it any longer. The water filled my lungs, it went black after that.
The boys were pulling as hard as they could on the drain. The combined strength of the two alone just wasn’t enough. But someone else had heard the screams of the two girls and came barreling down the street to help.
Pope had a look of horror on his face as Rafe Cameron himself began pulling on the drain as well. The three of them together much more easily pulling the manhole off and onto the street. Water came flooding out as JJ pulled Kiara out, she was sputtering the disgusting muck out of her lungs, begging for air.
“Kie, Kie! Are you alright?” JJ asked.
“She’s still down there,” she struggled to get out, still filling her lungs with clean air.
Rafe was in panic mode, he nearly dove into the water, reaching his torso as far down as he could. He had to find her. He had too. Rafe's head below the water and into the drain, reaching out for her. After what felt like hours, he felt something, grasping on with all his strength and pulling her body out of the sewer.
"Fuck, Pope! She's not breathing, Pope, I swear to god you better know CPR," Kiara was screaming, still in the arms of JJ.
Rafe began pumping his fists down on her sternum in a steady rhythm. All hell broke loose when he plugged are nose and connected his mouth to hers, blowing air into her water filled lungs.
"What the fuck are you doing!" JJ viciously pulled Rafe from her body, throwing him back onto the concrete.
"Saving her fucking life asshole," Rafe pulled himself back up, rushing back over her and continuing to do what her boyfriend could not. He pushed another breath into her lungs, pleading with himself that she would survive.
That was when y/n began coughing up the sludge lodged in her lungs. She was nearly throwing up her lungs as Rafe stared at her, a look of relief washed over his face. He was the first thing she saw when she came to. Then she saw JJ, clinging onto Kiara in a way she'd always knew would happen.
"Y/n! Fuck I'm glad you're oka-," JJ tried reaching out for her.
"Get the fuck off of me JJ," y/n pushed him back, disgusted yet not surprised by his actions. She had just been brought back from the dead and it felt like he didn't even care. The one person who did care was supposed to be her mortal enemy. A million thoughts were trying to process in her head all at once. Having no idea what to do, she picked herself up and began walking as fast as she could away from the group. On her heels was that same kook, the one she hated, the one she couldn't keep off her mind, the one who ruined her life, the one who saved her.
Y/n only made it 30 feet before hunching over and resting her hands on her knees as she heaved onto the sidewalk. Rafe had chased after her, now pulling the drenched hair from around her face. Once she had emptied her lungs of the filth, she only had one thing to say.
“Get the fuck away from me Rafe,” she said, still hunched over. He stood in shock, not knowing what to do next.
"At least let me take you home, for the love of God I literally just pulled you out of a sewer." She hesitated for awhile, finally recognized the car she had been throwing up next too. It was Rafe's truck.
The truck was filled with nothing but silence as they drove, y/n ignoring every word Rafe said. They had been driving in a giant circle around the island with no destination for hours. Finally Rafe pulled over on the side of the road, hazard lights on.
"Listen, y/n, we can't stay in the car all night, and it seems to me like you don't want to go home, I can take you back to Tannyhill, you can take a shower and get cleaned up, we have a guest room, stay the night if you'd like," Rafe said, hoping she would say yes. Y/n let out a deep sigh before speaking.
"Fine," it was all she could muster up. Her heart was hurting. Y/n had come to the realization that her boyfriend instinctually went for Kiara, and that she would always be his second choice. She never wanted to be a second choice, she wanted to be the only choice.
His house was enormous, probably bigger than any she had seen on figure eight. Rafe hopped out of the truck, racing over to the passenger side door to let her out. He led her into the massive home, before arriving at the guest room.
"There's a bathroom through that door, I'll bring you some clothes to wear," he said. She barely let him finish before bolting towards the bathroom door, locking herself in. She laid her back against the door, wondering how in the world she ended up here. It took a moment to take in the beauty a bathroom could hold. She'd never seen anything like it. Marble floors and brilliant gold detailed fixtures. It was easily the nicest thing she had ever seen. Finally, she reached her hand to the shower faucet, turning on a beautiful cascade of water. There was nobody in the world she believed needed something so fancy. Y/n stripped out of her muck caked clothing, tossing it onto those beautiful floors. Stepping into the waterfall was exactly what she needed.
Meanwhile, Rafe ran upstairs, grabbing whatever he could out of Sarah's closet. He ran over and over again in his head what to do next as he raced back down to the guest room. Leave the clothes next to the door? Wait for her to come out of the shower? Before he had a chance to decide, y/n came out of the bathroom, a towel wrapped around her body. Rafe had a look of shock in his eyes, he never thought he'd see the girl he couldn't keep off his mind here, in his home.
Rafe stuck his arm out, holding the clothes just in front of her. She looked Rafe up and down before gently reaching out for the clothing.
"Thanks," that was all she said before turning around and locking herself in the bathroom again. Y/n struggled to hold her tears in, knowing what she would have to face in the morning. It wasn't an easy decision, but it needed to be done.
It was possibly the best sleep she had ever gotten. The satin pillowcases soft against her cheeks as she slept, the warm comforter encasing her. No interruptions or pogues banging on her bedroom door for her to wake up. Just peaceful sleep.
Y/n laid awake in the bed, sunrise creeping through the curtains, dreading the next few hours. She left the massive home as soon as possible, sneaking out at daybreak, making the nearly hour long walk back to the cut.
Rafe found no trace of her left behind, everything was in its place just as it had been before y/n occupied the room. She couldn't have gotten far.
He caught up to her in his truck, she had only made it maybe a quarter of the way to her destination. Wearing Sarah's clothes he had lent her, she fit right into the neighborhood. She kept her head held high and determined to ignore him.
"Y/n, what the hell are you doing?"
"Fuck off Rafe," she shoved her middle finger towards his window as he drove along side her.
"So I save your life, let you sleep at my house, lend you Sarah's clothes, and now I can't offer you a ride?"
"Correct, I don't need your help, the only thing I know you to be good for is hookups and rebounds," she said rather matter of factly. He couldn’t lie to himself, hearing her say that made his heart hurt a little bit.
“Whatever, there's a party at Topper’s tomorrow night if you’re interested, but I’ll go ahead and guess your answer is a no,”
Y/n stopped in her tracks, causing Rafe to slam down on his breaks. She finally turned to look at him, a smile growing on her face.
“You’re absolutely whipped.”
Rafe hesitated before driving off, this girl left his head spinning in circles.
Once she reached the cut, y/n made a B-line for the chateau. Finding the rest of the pogues wasn’t hard, they were usually out back up to whatever shenanigans they had planned. JJ especially came up with bad ideas, somehow convincing the rest of the group that they would work. Y/n rested her body against a doorway, finally making eye contact with JJ, then nodding her head back gesturing for him to follow.
They creeped back towards the front of the shack, still trashed from the hurricane.
“Jesus, where were you y/n? I was worried sick that fucking kook hurt you,” JJ hugged her, squeezing as tight as he could. When she didn’t return the enthusiasm, he knew something was wrong.
“What’s going on?” He questioned.
“Listen JJ, this, us, it’s not going to work,”
“What the hell are you tal-,”
“Don’t pretend you don’t know what I’m talking about JJ, I've seen the way you’ve looked at her for months, you’re always going to choose Kiara over me, always. I am not a second choice. I know what I saw.”
“Did that kook get into your head or something?” She was sure the others could hear them now.
“It’s not about that JJ, I was fucking drowning and you didn’t even try to help me, I’d probably be dead right now if it wasn’t for him!”
“Oh so it is about him huh? Did you have fun last night curled up in figure eight? Wait wait, I see, he didn’t get into your head, he got into your pants instead didn’t he?” Y/n didn’t know how else to react, slapping him square across his face.
“Don’t you dare, fucking accuse me of that, or I swear to God JJ,” she could barely hold back the anger boiling her blood right now.
“Its over. Done. Have a nice life.” Y/n ran as fast as she could out of the chateau, tears pooling in her eyes, looking for any escape.
The next 36 hours were a daze, and before y/n knew it, she was getting ready for a kook party. What does a girl even wear to a kook party? A nice sundress? Little black skirt and a crop top? How fancy is this supposed to be? In the end she decided to wear a sleek black dress, knowing she would stick out like a sore thumb, regardless of what she wore. Being likely the only pogue in the middle of hundreds of kook's, it wouldn't matter.
Meanwhile, Rafe was already at Topper's house, making preparations for the oncoming chaos.
"Boys, if you see a little y/h/c pogue try to walk in here, let her in," Rafe said, handing each a $100 bill. The two door boys nodded their heads in understanding.
The easiest part was over, now y/n just had to get there. She didn't even know where Topper lived, well, figure eight obviously, but where? Actually, that's a stupid question, just follow all the BMW's and audi's driven by reckless teenagers.
Y/n knew something was off when the two kids stationed at the door let her through without question. Fucking Rafe. He was surely already here, and she was questioning what in the world led her to make the decision to come here tonight.
Rafe found her in the kitchen, downing shots of tequila.
"Didn't expect to see you here y/n," he slid next to her, pouring himself a shot as well.
"Didn't think I'd be here either, I have much better things I could be doing right now," she snickered back.
"So how'd it go when you got back to the cut?" Rafe asked, knowing something had changed.
"Well, I dumped JJ, so I am officially a free woman," she said, downing her next shot.
"And you're taking it well, obviously," he laughed, smiling as he watched her take the shot with ease. In true y/n fashion, she flipped him off before grabbing the bottle of tequila and disappearing into the house. He watched the way her dress clung to her hips as she moved, now more than ever aware of the ache he felt.
Only fifteen minutes had passed before Rafe went looking for her. Searching through crowds and empty rooms, finally finding a door on the second floor that was cracked open. Not locked out, but not to be unfound. He poked his head through the door, not seeing much at first, until his eyes landed on an open window. The cool breeze of the ocean drifted into the room. He climbed through the window and out onto a small section of the roof overlooking the backyard.
As soon as she saw him, she knew there was no escape.
“Ugh,” y/n rolled her eyes, taking another drink from the bottle she had smuggled.
“Excited to see me?” Rafe said as he settled onto the roof.
"How did you guess?"
"Just the fact that you even showed up, your actions speak for themselves," he said rather confidently.
"Do they now? Because it seems to me like you're the one who is stalking me," she let out a giggle.
"Well, I still need Sarah's clothes back,"
Y/n shoved his shoulder, the both of them laughing as she did.
"Mhm, I don't know, I think I look pretty good dressed in kook," y/n passed him the bottle now, he accepted her offer. He had to think long and hard about what to say next, his heart beating relentlessly in his chest.
"More than pretty good," there was a silence between the two, both reading into what he said.
"Y'know, I don't even know who I am anymore."
"And by that you mean?" Rafe asked.
"On this island, it's always kooks or pogues, no in-between, and I thought I was a pogue for the longest time, but I never quite, I don't know, fit in? It sounds fucking stupid, forget it."
"No no, it's not, I feel like we're actually having a conversation, not just bickering at each other, and it's, it's nice," his voice was becoming shaky now. She took a deep breath before continuing.
"I think I'm just in a rut, I don't know what I'm supposed to do with myself. All I ever did was for JJ, I gave him everything,” he understood the magnitude of what she had given him.
“And now that we've broken up, I have this new freedom that I don't know what to do with, it was the first relationship I'd ever been in, and at this point I don't even remember how to be single. I hate to say it, but I feel like he took everything I gave him for granted."
Rafe smirked at his thoughts, knowing exactly what she needed.
"Oh what's so funny?” She said.
“You desperately need a rebound.”
“I do not!”
“You do, and I know the perfect guy for the job.”
“And who would that be exactly?” Their witty banter had turned to flirtation, and they were now physically closer than ever. Rafe had his hand cupping the side of her head, fingers tangled in her hair, leaning in closer to her. Her breathing has quickened as his face came closer to hers, knowing what he was insinuating.
The connection of their lips sent shockwaves through her body. It was the first thing in a long time that felt like it made sense. They disconnected for a moment, staring longingly into each others eyes for permission. A sense of understanding overcame them as their lips smashed together once again. Rafe's hand moved lower down to her neck, tracing his thumb to the other side and giving a light squeeze.
"Rafe I, don't get me wrong, I want this, but I don't think it's a good idea right now."
"You're right," he whispered as a whirring noise approached in the distance.
It was maybe thirty minutes past 11, the sound of an approaching boat caught their attention. They both looked at the boat coming to dock on the Thornton's boat dock. Rafe and y/n climbed back into the home, recognizing the boat pulling up to the dock. Rafe raced out the back door, y/n steps ahead of him as anger and adrenaline rushed through her body. She ran down the dock, ready to fight the boy hopping off of the boat.
"JJ, please explain to me why the fuck you are here right now, and it better be a good reason or I swea-,"
"Y/n please, I just need to talk to you okay? I've been thinking about the other day and I just needed to-,"
"Not good enough JJ, you had your fucking chance, got it? I never want to see you again," she had tears of anger streaming down her face, that was when Rafe lodged himself between the argument.
"You heard her pogue," Rafe said threateningly.
"What are you gonna do about it huh?" JJ pushed his hands against Rafe, knocking him back only slightly, Rafe stood solid.
"What am I gonna do?" Rafe shoved him back with all his strength, knocking JJ onto his back.
"I'm only going to say this one time for you," Rafe crouched down, grabbing fistfuls of JJ's shirt.
"Stay," he landed to first punch.
"The fuck," and the second.
"Away from her," finally the third, then forcing him back onto the ground in a sheer competition of dominance. Crowds had gathered around the commotion, watching the kook and pogue battle it out. Y/n felt a sense of relief, someone had finally chosen her.
"You already fucked her didn't you?" JJ struggled to spit out, coughing on the blood lodged in his mouth. Rafe promptly pulled JJ up by his shirt, making sure to look right into his eyes as he made his next threat.
"Stay off figure eight, or so help me God JJ, I will kill you." Rafe tossed the boy back onto the ground, watching as he struggled to pull himself back to his boat.
"Show's over everyone! Get out!" Rafe said, the crowd watching dispersed over fences and into cars, not wanting to face the same fate.
She was the only one who didn't leave. Y/n watched as he came closer to her, pulling her into an embrace.
"I'm sorry y/n, that asshole deserved it,"
"Thank you," her tears were staining his polo as they held each other.
"Also, neither of us are in any shape to drive, so what's the plan?" She asked.
They made the short walk back to Tannyhill, ending up in the same rooms they had been in the day everything changed. When morning came she stayed in her bed, enjoying the comfort she felt in this home. The sudden knock on her door awoke her from her daze.
"Hey, I uh, brought breakfast," Rafe said, holding up the bag of breakfast burritos. Y/n patted the empty place on her bed, inviting him to sit down. They sat and ate in silence, unsure of what to say to one another. Once finished, she ended up snuggling her head into the crook of his neck, arm tossed across his abdomen. Rafe wrapped his arm around her and they stayed there for awhile, simply enjoying each others presence.
Rafe placed a gentle kiss on her forehead, rubbing his thumb across her shoulder at the same time. Y/n looked up at him from her spot on his chest, moving herself up so their lips connected. The kiss was just as good as she had remembered. Rafe began deepening their kiss, pulling her in by the waist with his free hand.
I had woken up. For the first time in a long time I felt it. How it felt to be the only choice for someone, to be at the top of someone's priorities. Feeling his hand pull my waist into his sent lightning through my body, and I've never wanted anything more in my life than right now. I threw my right leg over his hips, anticipating to climb on top of him. I brought my hand up to the back of his head, threading my fingers through his hair.
"Think it's a good idea?" Rafe asked.
I simply nodded my head in response, bringing my mouth back to his. His hands began tracing further down my body, grabbing at my hips as he pulled me in closer. I got the message. I threw myself over him, sitting perfectly in his lap, hair hanging almost in his face. We reconnected and the speed at which we kissed quickened. My arms had snaked behind his neck, my entire body resting on his, legs straddled across his lap.
He was surprised when I removed my mouth from his, only to begin trailing kisses down his neck, towards the collar of his polo. He sat up, leaving room for him to pull his shirt up and over his head. I pushed him back down into the bed as I trailed lower and lower. Reaching the spot I needed most, I unbuttoned his pants, pulling them as far down as I could. He was already hard, clearly anticipating this when he walked into the room an hour ago.
I began leaving kisses down his clothed dick, teasing the throb. But I myself was too in-need to tease for long. I pulled his boxers down, revealing the eager member. Wrapping my hand around him, I pumped it a few times, leaving light kisses all around him. The taste of him spread in my mouth as I took him in. His hands pulled my hair back as I sucked on him, the pace of his breathing becoming more of a pant. One of my hands grasped onto his hips as the other pumped him in sync with my lips.
A shock ran through my body as he flipped me over on the bed. Rafe nearly ripped my shirt in half when pulling it over my head. He sat over me for a moment, taking in the sight of me like he'd been waiting to for so long. Just after, his hands came to either side of my head, propping himself up as he began kissing down my neck, surely leaving bruises. Moving lower to my breasts, he continued, tugging and pulling at the straps of my bra. He was now resting his entire body on me, his elbows at my sides as he started massaging my breasts through the fabric.
"You can take it off, you know," I said.
That was all he needed to hook his hand underneath me, tugging at the clip holding me together. Rafe popped it off with ease, not that I was surprised. His mouth attached itself to one of my nipples, teasing it with his tongue. The cool air hitting the wet spot he left behind causing me to gasp. Meanwhile, he had been rolling the other between his fingers, sending arousal between my thighs. The sensitivity rolling between my hips was begging for more.
Rafe's hands began trailing lower down my body, his mouth not far behind. The ache in my core was growing more and more with every inch he passed, until finally I felt a finger graze over my shorts.
"These need to come off," it was more of a question than a statement.
I nodded, because I needed more. He slid the shorts off of my legs, tossing them onto the ground, leaving my panties on full display for him. Then his mouth moved to my thighs, starting closer to my knees, slowly moving in towards my center. I could feel every breath he made against me, and knew he was just as in-need as I was. It felt like ages before he finally made contact with my core. His lips left kisses over my clothed clit, at this point I was begging for more.
He knew too, knew how much I needed him right now. The wetness soaking through my underwear as he played with me through them, thumb massaging little circles around my clit. My legs shuddered as he did, needing to desperately to be released. His fingers latched underneath the waistline of the fabric, and he pulled them all the way down my legs, exposing every inch of myself, and discarding them on the floor.
I was absolutely soaked, and he had barely even touched me. I could barely imagine what I’d be like once he had. When his fingers finally returned, I was a mess. He was eager too, not even waiting because I was already ready for him. His middle and ring finger teased my entrance, before plunging deep into me. The gasp that came out of my mouth was the loudest I’d ever had, causing my hand to close over my mouth in response. But Rafe didn't care how loud we got as his mouth came down to me, his tongue flicking at my clit, fingers beginning to thrust in and out.
My hips were rolling, legs shaking as the combination of his mouth and fingers pushed me closer and closer to the edge. Whimpers came out as his free hand was grasping onto my stomach, thumb tracing circles below my navel. I tugged at the sheets around me, needing some sort of grounding as he continued fucking me with his fingers. My pussy was aching for more, begging for something bigger to ease the ache.
"Rafe, I need you inside, like right now," I struggled to get the words out. But he wouldn't let up, he was determined. His fingers were moving faster and faster and his mouth was lapping at the wetness of my pussy. I couldn't take it anymore, and my legs closed around his head, squeezing as I came.
I barely had time to recover before Rafe was on top of me, lining his cock up with my entrance, then pushing himself all the way into me. My walls clenched around him as I tried to adjust to his length, but he wasn't waiting. Slowly he began thrusting in and out, plunging himself deeper each time. He reached down to kiss me as he pounded me, hand wrapping around my neck and squeezing.
"Fuck," I squeaked out.
It only got better when he threw my legs over his shoulders, they were nearly at my chest. He pounded into me at a hard but steady pace, and it was driving me to the edge once again. The whimpers coming from me were more than enough to tell him to keep going.
"You like that princess?"
"God, yes Rafe, harder," I pleaded.
He listened, but it was taking a toll on him, his breathing was now broken and unsteady as he thrusted. I could feel his body beginning to tense up on top of me, he was getting close. It was my turn now.
I used all of my strength to flip him onto his back, my legs on either side of him as I began riding him. Rafe's hands came around to my ass as I repeatedly moved up and down on him. Then I laid down on him, arms behind his neck for support as his arms held onto my waist tightly. Rafe propped his legs up for support and began thrusting into me harder than he ever has. The feeling of my walls clenching around him as he pumped into me, using me as a toy.
"Cum in me Rafe, please," but it wasn't a question. I nearly screamed as he released inside of me at the same time I came. We stayed that way for a few moments, simply taking one another in as our breathing steadied.
Finally, I slid off of him, releasing the tension of him inside of me. I could feel his cum leaking out of me as I laid on top of him. I could go to sleep right here if I wanted to. His hand laced into my hair, playing with the ends of it.
"I still need Sarah's clothes back," he laughed.
"Don't think so, consider it the start of my kook wardrobe,"
"To going full kook?" he asked.
"To going full kook."
✵ ✵ ✵ ✵ ✵ ✵ ✵ ✵ ✵ ✵ ✵ ✵ ✵ ✵ ✵ ✵ ✵ ✵ ✵ ✵ ✵
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phoenixyfriend · 3 years
Text
Anakin Assists the Jedi Council While On Medical Leave
AU brainstormed primarily by @atagotiak, @gelpenss, and myself.
Basically, a fix-it based in Anakin getting a peek into the daily life on the Council early, and accidentally Figuring Some Shit Out along the way, mostly because Palps Fucks Up.
So, Anakin gets injured in a way that limits him to Coruscant for a few weeks. He can still walk and talk, but he can't fight. The specific injury doesn't matter, just this:
Anakin runs errands on behalf of the council and sits in on meetings to take minutes as a "you're on medical leave but we need all hands on deck, congrats you get to be the secretary until we can send you on stabbing missions again" thing.
Also, there just aren't a whole lot of people with Anakin's clearance level. They had to send out Stass Allie to handle the mission that was originally next on Anakin's roster, and Anakin's the most convenient person to substitute into her position.
He's not super happy about this but he can more or less understand the point of it. Given that he gets antsy about needing to fight almost immediately, he can acknowledge the worth of having something useful to do, if only as the person who's writing down who says what and making sure everyone has the right file on hand.
(Besides, Obi-Wan jokes in a way that Anakin thinks might be encouraging, this is good practice if Anakin ever wants to be on the High Council himself!)
(This is a very helpful conversation.)
BASICALLY, Anakin is resigned to this but agrees because "Usually we have Master Allie handle this but we need her running that mission that was originally set for the 501st, so you get to fill in for her until you can switch back. Think of it as training for eventual mastery or admin or--listen, we're just really stretched thin."
Here's the key thing, though: Anakin isn't supposed to leave the Temple, for medical reasons, so Palpatine doesn't know Anakin is sitting in on Council meetings. They haven't met up since Anakin's last surgery, and because [muffled hand-wave reason] he didn't find out another way, like Anakin comming him or the Council giving him the heads-up about the change in attendance.
It's fine. He's just taking notes and doing preparatory research, he has the clearance, the Chancellor likes him anyway. Hell, they'd have had someone's Padawan doing this, before the war increased the necessary clearance levels. They'll toss in a quick message in the brief they send to Palps that he never reads anyway, and that's really all they need to do. Skywalker's getting some rounded experience and this way the medics won't be freaking out about him stressing his heart after getting electrocuted by trying to spar too early.
Palpatine doesn't talk directly to the Council, he just sends a recording the first time Anakin is there. It's a bit weird, but nothing goes wrong. Anakin's off-screen from whatever device they use to send a response, since he's not technically a member, just assisting for a bit on the part of Master Allie's duties that he's actually allowed to touch (and not the bits that are getting added to Mace, Plo, and Shaak's stuff).
The first four or so meetings are like that. Anakin starts having a bit of sympathy for the Council as he sees how many things they want to do that are hampered by the need for Senatorial approval, things that he would also want to do and didn't think required this much red tape.
About a week in, still mostly recordings with Anakin just sitting on the side playing paralegal, the wheel of fortune turns a few pegs.
Palpatine hands over a an order on the range of injury that a soldier should be treated for, "to ensure that republic resources aren't being wasted on clones that, while expensive, would actually be cheaper to replace than repair."
Oh, he dresses it up in prettier language than that. Anakin doesn't process it as such first.
The Chancellor manages to couch his phrasing in "prioritizing resources for taxpaying republic citizens and employees of the GAR," which... well.
The natborn commissioned officers pay taxes. The Jedi are employees. The clones are neither, because they're slaves.
Probably he frames it as the employees thing, very much the kinda language that sounds halfway ok unless you’re fluent in political bullshit.
And Anakin is really confused at first about why the council is upset by the order because, okay, he would PREFER to be able to use medical supplies on refugees when possible, but he understands prioritizing the soldiers?
He just looks up, totally lost, when someone groans and goes, "That's the third time this year, is he trying to get us all killed?"
And it vibes as such a genuine, aggrieved, sad reaction that Anakin is completely blindsided because it's not the sarcastic, petty resentment he kind of expected? It's just... desperate depression.
And someone gently has to explain that this is the third time they've had resources restricted to only GAR employees and that it's a polite way of saying "prioritize natborn officers, stop wasting resources on clones, we can replace them easier."
Or maybe he doesn't ask, because he's just there to take notes, not argue, and he can see the masters drawing up a response that amounts to "We would like to remind you that our soldiers do not fall into that classification, and to limit their access to our medical supplies is liable to cause a loss of life that we find unreasonably high. Please see the annotations attached to adjust wording so that the clones may receive the same level of care."
Anakin's internally just like "Yeah, that's phrased nice and addresses the main problem, Palpatine will obviously agree and change it!"
And then he comes in the next day and the response comes in and it's just dripping condescension about considering the clones actual people.
"This is why we can't use the bacta tanks on clones anymore, just the patches. We could use them at first, we had a few of the CCs get through fatal injuries with them, but they cut that off and said we could only use the tanks on Jedi and non-clone officers a few months ago. The Banking Clans keep tightening their belts on the army, and the Chancellor insists we put citizens first, and the clones aren't citizens. We've been arguing back as much as we can, but he keeps going on about the economy and we can't... we just can't, Skywalker. We're trying to save as many of our men as we can, but..."
Something like "Allocation of resources reiterated, the Kaminoans have assured the senate that the Jedi are far from exhausting the resources ordered."
And Anakin's like. He can't blame the council for lying about Palpatine's past or future actions. He just saw Palpatine's actions. Those actions were to order people under his control to throw away lives he saw as replaceable commodities.
These are his friends' lives.
His soldiers are being thrown away by a man in a tower that he trusted.
And then that man has the gall to suggest it's the council's fault.
Palpatine is good at what he does, especially in public, he dresses it up in flowery language and everything, but Anakin's just like "Those are my FRIENDS and also this is??? How slavers talked about their property on Tatooine???? FRIENDPATINE, WHAT THE FUCK."
Anakin can be passive aggressive sometimes as well as outright aggressive. So if he brings up the guidelines and why they make him upset in general terms, and Palpatine says something about how he’s sad the council doesn’t care about the clones...
Anakin, internally, having just watched the council scramble to save as many clones as possible within the guidelines that Palps handed down: Uh-huh.
(Anakin is just the gay horror teeth gif from queer eye.)
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Just. “Yeah, funny you say that, Palpatine! Because as I remember, you told the council not to waste more resources than necessary while Mace Windu was arguing to expand the treatment range!”
Palps doesn't even have time to salvage the situation or attack Anakin because Anakin just bulldoze rants for fifteen minutes and then storms out.
Anakin... maybe does a little treason and gets a copy of the orders so he can ask Padme "Hey, can you explain the politics of this?" and doesn't tell her who wrote it so she isn't biased (he tells her that this is why he's not sharing the author's/speaker's name), and just lets Padme pick apart all the 'this is a nice way of saying they don't view the clones as people' details.
Alternately, someone on the Council sees Anakin dithering and manages to get him to admit that he's not great at political language and wants to ask someone to help him understand the full implications. The person--Mace? let's go with Mace--is aware that Anakin is on good terms with Senator Amidala, if not necessarily aware of the depth of said relationship. Mace points out that he's probably going to be seeing her soon just because he usually does and, as a Senator, she can get easy access to these sessions since they're not about specific missions, just allocation of resources, etc. It's not an optimal solution, but she's got a bit more free time than anyone else Anakin knows with the clearance levels, like Order members that are actively involved in the war effort.
Anakin dithers and panics and Mace, trying to be helpful, tells him that plenty of Jedi have made friends among the Senate over the years, didn't you know Qui-Gon Jinn was a personal friend of Former Chancellor Valorum?
At any rate, Anakin goes to Padme and asks her to explain it to him, because she knows how to phrase things so he gets it.
Anakin has to have her pause and he goes outside and destroys some things halfway through.
(Anakin maybe thinks back to the times Padmé or Obi-Wan were really obviously frustrated and when he asked, they said stuff like “I can’t stand Palpatine rn, sorry Anakin I know he’s important to you and you don’t want to talk about politics, let’s just talk about something else.”)
(Obi-Wan: I don’t trust Palpatine Anakin: you just don’t like politicians in general Obi-Wan: yes that is also true)
(Obi-Wan does like Bail and Padme but he does also talk a bit about how politicians generally aren’t to be trusted.)
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softyoongiionly · 3 years
Text
Power Trip
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You and Jungkook make a bet to see who can last the longest in bed. 
Pairing: Jungkook x Reader
Word Count: 4.5k
Genre: established relationship, smut, fluff
Warnings: explicit smut, oral (f receiving), spit, swearing, fingering, Jungkook
A/N: If I ever tell you I don’t have a bias wrecker, call me a liar. Also this one is for @bulletproofbirdy​, I hope Jungkook can lift your spirits. I love you so much! also, this unedited cause im the worst :D This can be read in the same universe as my fic Press Start btw! 
He smirks, “You really wanna go there?”
You shrug, “I’m just saying- I know I can last longer than you can, that’s all.”
At this, his brows raise as a short and unimpressed laugh leaves his lips, “What led you to that conclusion?”
From the opposite end of the couch, you feel him staring at you. His competitive nature is simple minded and easily baited into situations where it’s able to prove itself; Jungkook simply cannot resist a challenge.
“I mean-” You bite your lip, “You are usually begging me to cum at some point...”
His smirk only broadens, “Oh? And you think I do that for my benefit?”
Oh.  
Staring into his eyes, the two of you regard one another for a moment, sexual tension floating aimlessly in the air above you.  
“I want you to consider the fact that you’re looking your fiancé in the eye and, telling her that you’re faking something in bed...”
Jungkook finally laughs at that, his head falling back on his shoulders momentarily, “Whoa whoa whoa- I never said I was faking it, I just said I wasn’t doing it for my benefit. I beg you to cum because, I know you like it- not because I can’t control myself.”
“Oh so it isn’t that you’re faking it- it's just not as good as you make it out to be...” You clarify, voice loaded with sarcasm, “That’s so much better.”
Jungkook clicks the tip of his tongue against his teeth, “You know that isn’t what I'm saying...”
You cross your arms, trying your best not to notice how good your fiancé looks lit up by candlelight, “No actually, I don’t know that.”
He knows he needs to choose his next words carefully because, this conversation can go one of two ways. One, the two of you spend an undetermined amount of time tangled up in one another and two, he ends up in the doghouse.
“Well you should-” He insists, “Because I don’t lie. I’ve told you that you’re the best I’ve ever had and, I meant that. All I’m saying is that I can make you cum first- and that has nothing to do with how good you are. It's just how bad I want to make you cum...”
You feel your lips twitch, “Even if that very convenient explanation were true- it doesn’t change the fact that I can last longer than you...”
Jungkook chuckles finally and the sound of it sends a shiver up your spine. He jerks his chin towards you, “You wanna bet?”
Your teeth find your bottom lip as you feel your heartbeat increase slightly, “What are your terms?”
He shrugs but his palms are already itching with the desire to touch you, “Who ever cums first loses...”
Snorting, you roll your eyes, nudging your foot against his leg, “Yeah I got that part but, how are we going to do this?
Again he shrugs but this time the smirk creeps back onto his mouth, “Oh well- if you’re asking that, this really isn’t going to be a fair fight...”
He’s such a little shit.  
Your lips part with shock whilst your eyes blink owlishly at him before you decide that you’ve had enough of his attitude.  Flipping the covers over your head, you work your way across the couch until you’re positioned between Jungkook’s legs. He snickers when you maneuver the covers over your head, doing his best to assist you until you’re finally free from the endless swath of blankets.  
“H-” Jungkook opens his mouth to make another comment but, your lips stop him from doing so.  
You’re irritated with his goading but, you know that you can’t just start roughly making out with him in order to turn him on; you have to take things slowly.
Situated atop the seam of his grey sweatpants, you press your hips down carefully whilst you kiss him. He’s lost in your mouth the moment he feels it, his fingers coming up to brush over the apples of your cheeks. They encase your face moments later and, you make a conscious effort to ignore how good this is. He tastes like the sweet mint mouthwash he uses but, the rest of him smells like amber and vanilla.  
Outdoing Jungkook is so much easier said than done.
But what you don’t know is that he isn’t fairing much better.  
The softness of your lips and the tiniest instabilities in your breath are going straight to his dick. His hands find themselves sliding at a snail-like pace up the backs of your thighs and, god he can’t help himself as he grips at the flesh there. He always says he would die happily in between your thighs and even though you laugh, he’s dead serious. They are so perfect.
Deep in the trenches of his muscular chest, he groans when you grind against him. His breath coming out much shakier through his nose before he finally pulls away,
“Bedroom?”
You hum, pecking his at his mouth again, “What about it?”
Jungkook smacks your ass suddenly and just as you yelp, he’s recapturing your lips all over again. Only this time, he starts leaning you backwards towards the couch and it’s many blankets.  
“Do you want it here?” He breathes, “There isn’t a lot of room...”
He’s right.  
The couch is good for cuddling and making out but, actual sex is usually out of the question- especially when it’s so cold in your house.
Moments later, Jungkook is throwing the massive pile of blankets onto your bed and, just as he’s about to climb up there, you stop him by cupping his face in your hands. Your grip is gentle and your lips follow suit, plucking against his minty mouth. In the midst of kissing him, you reach behind his head, feeling around for the scrunchie holding up his mane of hair. Once you locate it, you carefully pull back until his pretty face is curtained with ebony tendrils.  
He doesn’t question your decision. In fact, there isn’t much Jungkook would question right now. His attention is on you and, your deadly assault on his composure. When he feels your fingers tuck into his hair, he realizes he’s beginning to forget the reason why he needs his composure in the first place.
“You’re so handsome,” You whisper, “like a prince...”
Jungkook feels his heart flutter at your comment whilst his hands reach out to grip your hips, pulling your body flush against him. His palms travel up your back, cursing the thick fabric of your hoodie for being in the way. He knows it’s practical but, he doesn’t care. He wants to touch you.  
“I’m cold-” You pout into his mouth, “Can we get in bed?”
He returns your pout and nudges your nose before reluctantly removing his hands from your back, “Yeah...let’s go.”
Jungkook unturns the winter duvet you have on your bed and, lays the pillows down flat, gesturing to the empty space which then causes you to shoot him an apprehensive look,  
“It’s going to be so cold.” You whine and the sound if it forces Jungkook’s lips into a fond smile- completely against his will.  
“I’ll get in first-” He assures you and just before he flops onto the sheets, he yanks his hoodie and t-shirt over his head. The presence of his body alone is a defeat to all other men you’ve been with. The tan skin, the tattoos, the softness of him reminding you that he is a walking example of duality...
It’s a lot.  
But you have to stay focused and, when he settles onto the mattress and pats the empty space beside him, you waste no time in returning to your earlier mission.  
“C’mere...” He mumbles once you’re beside him, his voice deep with arousal.
The two of you resume your kiss and, this time there is a bit more urgency in the way he moves against you. He nudges your nose as he introduces his tongue into your mouth. Pulling away slightly, he continues moving his tongue along the length of yours until the two of you are properly French kissing one another.  
It’s sloppier than his usual style but, you aren’t complaining; he tastes amazing. And the way he’s licking into your mouth reminds you of what his mouth feels like when it’s elsewhere-
“I used to see people in porn kiss like this-” He whispers, “I never understood the appeal of sucking on someone’s tongue until I met you...” With his admission, he does just that, taking the tip of your muscle between his lips.
Mouth open around the entirety of his, you grip his biceps as he continues to suck on your tongue. If it were anyone else, this would feel awkward and sloppy but with Jungkook, it’s so unbelievably hot. He’s working his way over you until his tattooed arms are settled on either side of your head. Rolling his body downward, he presses his hardening dick right against the seam of your leggings. He pulls off of your tongue then and resumes kissing you normally, his lips are wetter and there’s so much spit involved in this kiss but, you couldn’t care less.  
You wanted all of him.  
Jungkook uses the strength and control he has over his body to grind against your aching core with precision, the curve of his dick sliding sinfully onto your neglected clit. Even as the pleasure begins to drown out the logical side of your brain, you desperately try to remind yourself that you are still in the middle of a bet.  
“You feel so good-” You make sure to play up the whimper that leaves your lips whilst your nails begin at his wrists and slowly drag up the bulging muscles on his arms.
His dick twitches in his sweatpants and, you take that as an opportunity to wrap your legs around his hips. The strength of his arms gives out then as he opts to rest on his elbows instead. He’s still kissing you but now the two of you are grinding against one another as if you were fucking.  
“Yeah?” He smirks against your mouth, “Good enough to cum on me?”
His attitude returns causing you to dig your nails into arms. You pull away from his mouth and shoot him a look of determination, “In your dreams...”
He snickers, sounding rather cute for a man who is literally throbbing between your legs. He licks his lips as he stares down at you for a moment, cocking his head to the side, “My dreams...” He clarifies before kissing his teeth, “I guess you’re right ah? If this were a dream of mine, you would have already came all over my tongue...”
His words make you bite your lip, your hips involuntarily curving up towards his. He snickers again, leaning away when you try to reconnect your lips, “You always tell me to go for my dreams though, don’t you baby?”
At the moment, Jungkook’s voice would be unrecognizable to anyone else but, you. It’s so deep and raspy and, only thickens as he gets more and more turned on.  
“I will cum on your tongue,” You murmur suddenly, pecking his lips, “after you cum inside of me.”
This time, it’s Jungkook who retaliates with movement, his hips rolling down at a sinful depth, causing your clit to throb with anticipation.  
He lets out a breathe from between his lips whilst he shakes his head, his dark eyes flitting down to where you’re connected before returning to your face.
“It’s so much better when I cum in you after I’ve eaten you out though-” He insists with a pout that would look innocent if this were any other scenario, “If you hold it after what I’m about to do to you, then I’ll let you have a turn with me- sound good?”
He’s so fucking cocky sometimes, it makes you want to scream. However, this wouldn’t be much of a bet if the two of you just had sex; you know that you’d have to let him touch you properly at some point, even if it would be devastating to your odds of winning.  
“You’re going to cheat- I can literally feel it in my bones...”
Jungkook chuckles and slowly begins his descent down towards the ache between your legs. When he gets to your stomach, he carefully peels up your hoodie to expose the band of your leggings. He kisses along the skin there with gentle and unhurried movements, licking once just below your belly button and smirking as he hears the giggle that tumbles from your lips. Sitting up slightly, you watch as he hooks his fingers underneath the black fabric and peels it back until he’s working it down your legs. Jungkook knows that you don’t wear underwear with these pants, especially not around the house- but it doesn’t stop him from biting his lip at the sight of your bare pussy anyway.  
Jungkook gently pries your legs apart and, you find yourself biting your lip when the cold air from the bedroom weaves its way onto your swollen, wet folds. You already want to tell him to stop- not because you don’t want it but, because you are severely doubting your ability to last.  
That doubt only increases when Jungkook settles onto his stomach and positions his mouth at the apex of your right knee, “You really do have the prettiest pussy I’ve ever seen...” He says this as he starts sponging his lips up your inner thigh, his eyes looking straight up at you, “Did you know that?”
With your breath increasing, you do your best to remain calm as he nears your lips but, it’s so hard when he’s intentionally saying all the things you want to hear.
But two can play at that game...
“You think so? I try to keep it all pretty for you...” The tone of your voice takes him off guard a little bit but, he isn’t complaining.  
He secretly relishes in the moments that you’re soft towards him; so much of your relationship is banter and, constantly trying to get on eachothers nerves.  
Jungkooks starts at the other knee then, kissing his way back down towards your center, “You don’t ever-” He bites down and then pulls back, “ever, have to try to be pretty jagi. You just are.”
The sensation of his teeth causes you to jump, your movements coaxing a chuckle from Jungkook’s throat.
He kisses his teeth, “Easy.” He teases with a smirk, his mouth finally hovering of your pussy.  
“Sorry-” You murmur coyly, licking your lips, “I just want your mouth so bad.”
Jungkook is about to lick up the length of you but, he stops at your confession and kisses the top of your pussy instead, “You do huh?”
It’s not really like you to plead for him as usually things are quite playful in the bedroom and, as you mentioned earlier: it’s usually him who’s begging.  
Nodding, you reach down for his fingers, lacing them with your own as you dial up the sweetness in your tone to 100%, “Please? Can I have it? I’m so wet for you Jungkook- it hurts...”
The moisture leaves his mouth when you say his name. He’s never heard you quite like this before and, it’s driving him crazy.  
He wants to give you everything.
“Whatever you want baby- I'm right here...” He mumbles against your skin, kissing the top of your cunt once more before shooting a somewhat intense glance your way, “...and I’ll make sure you give me what I want in return.”
With that, he licks up the length of you, collecting all of your arousal in middle of his tongue before drinking you in as best as he can. The feeling of his mouth finally meeting your cunt is enough to make your hips jerk from the bed. He takes that as a sign to wrap his inked arms around your body to hold you in place as he gets to work on you.  
He uses the tip of his tongue to gather as much of your wetness as possible, groaning ever so softly when the taste of you graces his tastebuds. His hands are resting on your stomach but, he uses his thumbs to pull your pussy taut so he has better access. Your clit is amply exposed now allowing him to tease his languid muscle against it, the sensations making you dizzy.  
You can feel your nipples hardening to the point of discomfort when he suckles the sensitive bud into his mouth. He only does it for a second before settling for laving his tongue up and down your clit. Breathing heavily, you tug up your hoodie to expose the rest of your upper half, your hands going straight for your neglected nipples.  
“Fuck-”  
You hear him curse and look down just in time to see that although his mouth is busy working on your pussy, his eyes are locked onto you.  
And you take advantage of that, pinching your nipples you say, “Your tongue feels so good, no-” You let your breath catch on the end of the sentence, “nobody does it like you Jungkook...”
His eyes squeeze shut for a moment and, he looks like he’s like he’s in pain. But suddenly, he moves hands from your stomach and, grips the outside of your thighs- pulling your legs apart and pushing them up. With your knees up in the air and your pussy spread completely open, Jungkook quickens the pace of his tongue on your clit. Licking over it with a consistent pace that your fiancé knows all too well, you feel the pit of your stomach begin to grow in preparation for your orgasm.  
You need to act fast...
Letting out the tiniest whimper, you reach down towards his hand again and grip onto one of his fingers, “Can I have your fingers please? I need you to fuck me so bad baby- please? I’m so close...”
Jungkook’s eyes are blackened with pure lust, his lips still kissing and licking at your clit as he moves his hand, somewhat hesitantly towards your dripping cunt. He looks so torn but, you can’t completely figure out why, but you have a feeling.  
He licks your clit once more as he lines his index finger up at your entrance. You can see how wet his mouth has become when he pulls away slightly to watch his digit disappear inside of you. Immediately, your pussy clenches around his finger, sucking it in with desperation. Jungkook groans as his eyes squeeze shut again but, he manages to return his lips to your clit, resuming his earlier motions.  
The pleasure from by his dual movements is causing your entire body to ache with need. You don’t think you can hold back your orgasm much longer, not with his finger quickening it’s pace inside you. Surrender is on the horizon; if you aren’t going to win this bet- you may as well just enjoy yourself.  
“Can you fuck me faster Jungkook?” You moan, licking your lips and rubbing your fingertips over your nipples, “You’re making me feel so good...you’re so strong.”
And faster he goes but, he only maintains the pace long enough for you to whimper one more time before he suddenly pulls away. The loss of contact shocks and disappoints and, you’re about to protest until you notice what’s going on.  
Jungkook is sat back on his knees, lips wet with your arousal, nipple hardened with his own and, grey sweatpants stained with precum. He’s taking a deep breath through his nose, his hair hanging in his face whilst he looks down towards his dick.
“What’s wrong? Did I hurt you?” You murmur, sitting up.  
The promise of an orgasm is slowly fading but, the concern flooding your mind distracts you easily.  
He shakes his head, “No no- I'm good. I just uh-”  
Jungkook’s hand moves quickly, cupping over his dick and prompting another deep but shaky breath from his chest.  
And then it clicks...
“Wait-” A grin spreads across your lips, “Were you about to cum?”
“No.”  
But he won’t look up at you, his cheeks dusted a rosy pink as he presses his hand down even harder.  
“Jungkook-” You get up on your knees, your chest blooming with pride as you crawl across the bed towards him, “Were you about to cum?”
When you ask him again, there is a bit of laughter at the end of your sentence that causes him to shoot a glare your way.
“You were cheating...”
A sharp giggle leaves your throat, “I was cheating??? The bet was to see who could last longer and, you literally just pulled away before you were going to cum.”
Jungkook smirks, “You were fucking cheating.” He insists, “With that fucking voice of yours and your hands all over your tits; don’t act like you don’t know what you were doing.”
He doesn’t swear often but when he does, it always gets to you. His voice his so husky now and that paired with the rest of his visuals is enough to force you into your next move.  
Suddenly, you grip his chin and angle his upwards, “Admit that you were going to cum.”
His eyes widen then, that familiar doe eyed look infecting his gaze; it’s the same look he always gives you when you take charge.  
But as much as he loves to submit to you, he almost hates losing more.
Almost.  
“No...”
Your teeth find your lip again as you smirk, your other hand sliding down his flushed chest towards his throbbing cock, “Admit that you were going to cum baby, so we can put you out of your misery...”
He shakes his head and although his hand twitches at his side, he makes no move to stop you, “I wasn’t, I was just-”
You cock your head, your hand tucking beneath the band of his sweats, “You were just what?”  
As he feels your hand encase his dick he crumbles, his whole body slumping forward, “Fuck-”
His forehead is on your shoulder now, his stomach caving in as you begin stroking his cock. You can feel how hard he is now, his length jumping in your hand, the tip of him covered in precum...
Your lips are at his ear whilst he bears his teeth, “Admit that you were going to cum sweetheart- and then I’ll let you put it inside me...”
“No-” He growls, “You were cheating, I- ugh...” He whimpers, his teeth sinking into the ball of your shoulder when you quicken your pace on him.  
You giggle, turning your head to the side so your lips are at his ear, “What a shame- you're going to waste all of this cum on your pants when you could be pumping it inside of me...”
Jungkook groans, his teeth nipping at your shoulder once more, “Let me cum inside of you please- wanna fuck you so bad...”
You’re focusing your hand on the tip of his cock, massaging it within your grip and, at this point- Jungkook is leaking so much precum, you aren’t sure if he managed to sneak in his orgasm without notice.  
“You can fuck me when you admit that I won.” You nibble on his ear, “That’s all you have to do baby- then I’ll let you fuck me.”
“But I wasn’t going to cum-” He still insists, his voice more of a whine now his hands desperately going for your hips.
Pouting your lips, you increase your pace on him for the final time, the sound of you jerking him off filling the room, “Well you definitely are now, aren’t you?”
“Fucking- fuck me...” He moans, his nails digging into your sides whilst his hips jerk up against your hand, “Oh fuck- I'm gonna cum...”
The admission is involuntarily as he paints your hand and the inside of his sweatpants with the his hot release, cumming all over himself.  
“Mm there it is- that wasn’t so hard was it?” You tease with a bit of laughter as you stroke him through his release.  
He lets out a shaky breath, moaning again as the rest of it comes out but, before you’re even able to process what’s happening, his using the grip he has on your hips to shove you back against the bed. Your back hits the sheets as your eyes widen and despite his sweatpants being stained and his dick throbbing with sensitivity, Jungkook is prying your legs apart and lining himself up at your entrance.
“Ju-” You begin but he cuts you off as he pushes inside of you. The thickness of him is so perfect and your pussy swallows him whole, unable to get enough. Through your efforts to tease him you had forgotten how close he had gotten you but, he was about to remind you exactly what he was capable of.
“I don’t want to hear another word out of your mouth-” He growls, his eyes piercing into yours, his swollen lips curved into a smirk, “Unless it’s please,” He thrusts, causing a whimper to leave your lips, “Thank you,” Thrust, “Or Jungkook...”
His pace is fast but it’s completely perfect and, it isn’t long until your orgasm comes crashing into your body, the pleasure peaking as he fucks you harder.  
“J- Jungkook- Oh god....” You moan, reaching down to rub at your clit, which only spurs you on further, “Oh my god...”
He chuckles darkly through bared teeth, his sweaty tendrils of hair jerking back and forth with his motions, “I guess I’ll settle for god too...”
Leaning down, he hovers over you as you continue to cum and despite the smirk on his face, he presses his lips to yours sweetly- kissing you through the rest of your orgasm.
He lets up the intensity inside of you, for both your sake and his, slowly allowing his hips to come to a stop. With destroyed breathing patterns, the two of you kiss each other for a while longer until he makes the painful decision to pull out of you. Still kissing at your lips, he slumps over beside you, blindly pulling at the duvet to cover your shivering bodies.
“I love you.” He chuckles boyishly, completely giddy from your encounter.
The sound of his laughter makes you smile into the kiss, “I love you too.”
He brings you closer to him so that he can hold you, his lips moving to press against different parts of your face.  
Laying on his chest, you feel content as you listen to the sound of his heartbeat slowly returning to normal.
After a few moment of post orgasmic bliss,  Jungkook whispers,
“ Jagi?” He mumbles to which you respond by humming, “I was definitely about to cum...”
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