#who puts pasta in water before the water is at a full boil?

[yourgentlegirlfriend]

Apple pie

HI!! i’m finally getting out of my writers block </3 i was so surprised i even wrote this whole chapter. now i know i said this is the last chapter… but maybe not.. who knows. i hope you’ve all been super good as you deserve and i love you all.

my masterlist

DISCLAIMER: IF YOU WERE UNCOMFORTABLE WITH NSFW/DARK CONTENT OR ARE UNDER THE AGE OF 18 PLEASE DO NOT INTERACT WITH MY BLOG. MUAH.

Warnings: Angst, mentions of panic attacks, other than that there’s no other warnings </3

Word count: 3K

“Bone broth?”

Leon mumbled with a mouth full of food as you looked at him from across the table as he pushed his fork back into the big plate of pasta in front of him.

“I made bone broth and I boiled my noodles, It gives it more flavor.”

You shrug as you take another bite of the food you made, your eyes glancing over Leon’s shoulder to your open window behind him with the wide open view of his house.

“Did they say when they were gonna repair your door?”

It’s been two weeks, not that you mind Leon staying with you but you were curious when the house wasn’t going to be labeled as a crime scene, you weren’t supposed to go into the house but the investigation was so ongoing there were hardly any people there. They didn’t know Leon was staying right across the way, it was a little secret.

He let everyone know he was staying at his friend's house across town, it was super secluded and he swore nobody would find him. Right under their noses he laid in your bed.

The situation between you two was more than complicated, he had all this money so you only had to work one day at the diner a week he says. Being home with him has been weird though, your eyes glancing from your book every so often to see his arm behind his head as he leans on your couch, his eyes fixed on the TV in front of the two of you.

“What?”

You were staring again. The last two weeks Leon claims you have an awful staring problem. You denied it and of course you did, but it was hard to not stare at the man. It took you a while to even look him in the eye, but you slowly got used to his presence, intimidating or not.

“Nothing”

Your finger turns the page to your book as your eyes shift back to the words on the page. Leon leans himself forward, his eyes reading your book over your shoulder.

——————————————————————

It takes everything in him to not press his lips against your shoulder, your glasses resting so perfectly at the tip of your nose and that rose red spreading so perfectly across your cheeks.

It’s been hard staying here with you. When you think he’s asleep and you peek your head into your room, staring at him for a few seconds before walking away. His body is still healing from all his wounds but everytime he comes out to get a glass of water he sees you on the couch, body all curled up on the uncomfortable sofa he can’t help but pick you up, his teeth gritted as he carries you to your bed. You’ve been an angel letting him rest, but he felt guilty for the impure thoughts that invaded his mind.

You were just so perfect to him. Breakfast, Lunch, and dinner, everyday. He tried to just give you your space because he was in so much of it, your house was much smaller than his. He can’t help himself sometimes though.

——————————————————————

one month

Saturday nights specifically he noticed your routine was to do all the laundry and watch a random movie. This Saturday's random movie not playing though, the room silent as you fold at your shirts.

“No movie?”

Your head turns from the white basket to see Leon leaned against the frame of the entryway to the living room. The comfort of your own silence has been better than a movie lately, it’s been better since Leon was living here even if it was temporary. It used to be scary being all alone, the creeks in your floor making your heart race. He made you feel so much safer. It shocks you to look at him though, the change in his behavior was a good thing but it was like putting your foot in cold water. He went from ignoring you to suddenly living in your house.

Leon stared at you for a few seconds before he walked over to your radio on your desk of dying flowers, switching it on to some classical station. His hand reached into the big basket of laundry, his eyes wandering over yours to see how you folded your shirts. Your body shifted towards him, your arms laying the shirt flat in your arms. It’s hard not to laugh showing a grown man how to fold laundry properly, but he caught on quickly.

The radio hummed a soft piano song, usually you didn’t like jazz, not because it was bad but it wasn’t your favorite. Leon finished the last shirt laying it carefully on the stack of neat clothes before he glanced over at you, noticing your eye peering to the side to look at him as well.

“You know how to ballroom dance?”

Of all the things this man has asked you, you never expected this to be a genuine question from him.

“Am I supposed to?”

Leon chuckles softly before he reaches down, his fingertips dragging down your arm and to your hand.

“I’m not very graceful.”

You laugh as your fingers squeeze around his hand, your palms pressing against each other as his other hand lays your arm flat against his shoulder then goes down to your waist.

“Yeah I know, I live with you. Step forward when I step back.”

Is it that easy? Leon took a large step back, your legs moving forward but of course you stumble into Leon, his hands gripping your hip as a whistle pushes past his lips.

“Okay maybe you step back, I’ll step forward.”

Your feet step back, his body pushing forward into you.

It was that easy.

The music skipped song after song, your head laying against Leon’s chest. His heartbeat echoing through your ears. When was he holding you this close, his fingers tracing across your back in small circles.

The radio is silent but you’re still swaying with him, your eyes staring at the wall as you feel his chest rising and falling. Leon’s eyes were closed, his head tilting downward as he takes in a deep breath when his nose pushes into your hair.

“You don’t have to leave, you can stay.”

“I know.”

Leon’s voice is just above a whisper as his eyes open, his lips pressing to the top of your head.

——————————————————————

The energy shouldn’t have been awkward but it was. Because for some reason you and Leon have never once talked about his demeanor towards you. You set Leon’s plate down in front of him before sitting down across from him, rubbing your tired eyes as you take a bite of the eggs you made for you and him. And of course the room is dead silent, your fork scraping against the plate making you cringe a bit.

“When you.. stormed out of here that one time, why did you do that?”

Leon knew you’d eventually ask, it was only a matter of time before you became curious. Leon’s eyes scanned over the chipped wood on your kitchen table before he carefully set his fork down, swallowing the food in his mouth.

A man ridden with his own trauma. Years of even attempting therapy but he threw it down the drain because he knew it wouldn’t help him, how could it? How could somebody understand what he was going through? No normal person has seen what he did, have done the things he’s done.

“Leon..”

Your soft voice snaps him from his thoughts, your hand resting over his shaking one. And for once he felt like he had a choice, this wasn’t his job telling him or forcing him into interrogation rooms, this was just you and him.

“I was scared it was a trap.”

Leon admits as he turns his hand, his thumb grazing over your fingers as his head shakes.

“I’m a grown man, you know? I should be able to handle myself.”

“Sometimes it’s okay to let your guard down.”

You whisper as you squeeze his hand, his head nodding slowly before he brings your palm to his hand, pressing his lips to your soft skin before he grabs his fork, taking another bite of his food.

——————————————————————

three months

Your hands dig into the deep roots of your garden, your eyes fixated on the fact that they seem to have been overly healthy. This is surprising due to the fact that since Leon has been staying here you’re never outside anymore, yet your garden and your flowers were.. perfect. A sigh of defeat leaves your lips as you rest your wrists on your knees while you squat down before your eyebrows frown at the line of.. daisies? You don’t remember planting daisy seeds. You stand up, your feet slowly walking to the big section of white beautiful flowers at the front of your house, right by your porch

They’re beautiful too. Your fingers graze so carefully over the delicate flowers, admiring how soft the petals are as you rub your thumb over them.

“You finally noticed”

Leon’s voice made you jump, your hand pulling away from the flowers and your head turning to see him standing on your porch, but making his way down to where you stood.

“I was shocked you didn’t notice me coming outside so often to plant them, but they just started blooming and I’ve been playing a waiting game.”

The brightest smile spread across your face, your hands clapping together in joy before you grabbed his arm tugging slightly as you squeezed it

“Leon, I haven’t seen grown daisies since I lived in California when I was like… fifteen.”

Leon couldn’t help but smile happily as he watched you admire the flowers, the wind blowing slightly making you pull some hair behind your ears. The sight of you was almost overwhelming, the way your skin glowed and your lips curled into a small smile.

“Thank you.”

Your words made him focus back on you, meeting your eyes once more as he nodded, his hand coming up to fix your messy hair.

“Anything for you.”

—————————————————————-

four months

“You didn’t retire, and you’re still being called in for missions, the doctors said your injuries have subsided, you should be happy they’re letting you back Kennedy.”

Leon’s foot tapped against the tile of your kitchen floor as he stared out the window. His handheld at the counter as he let the line fall silent before he hung up, shoving his phone back into his front pocket as he glanced back down the hallway to see you sleeping, your arm hanging off the bed and your hair a mess.

He cleared his throat as he felt his balance shift, he held at the wall but could feel his heart racing so fast. His eyes squeezed shut as he groaned, his palm coming to rest at his chest as he sat himself down on the floor.

He should’ve ran. He should’ve gone home.

He felt fingers brush at his hair, and there you were squatted down beside him. Your words weren’t processing though, he watched your lips move as the sound of your very muffled voice rang through his ears.

You quickly noticed his state though, your thumbs rubbing over his cheeks as you sat down next to him, your arm laying against his back.

Leon’s breathing began to steady as he leaned down resting his head against your chest, his eyes closing as he let out a long breath listening to your heart beat.

You hoped he didn’t notice your heart racing, his hand coming up and rubbing the top of your hand.

“I’m sorry.”

Leon mumbled quietly as his ears finally stopped ringing.

“Never be sorry, not to me.”

——————————————————————

Sundays.

The only day of the week you work.

Leon knows that.

This specific Sunday was overwhelming, all you thought about was going home to see Leon. And for some reason on the way home you hit every single red light. Your stomach was aching too, why was your stomach aching? Your fingers anxiously tapped at the gem steering wheel cover as you pulled into your driveway.

He was asleep already? It’s only nine. You did stay an hour overtime, maybe he got tired. You pushed your key into your door, turning it open and throwing your purse on the small side table.

“So many people wanted decaf coffee today I burnt my palms so bad having to constantly re-brew pots.”

You spoke out as you ran your hands through your hair. You stopped in place, your head tilting towards the living room to see the lights off, and the same with the kitchen.

“Leon?”

You called out as you looked down by the door to see his shoes gone. Your hand twisted at the bathroom door, pushing it open to see the lights off.

Why are your eyes watering?

You walked down your long hallway which for some reason felt much longer than it usually did, you walked into the bedroom seeing the bed perfectly made as you and him left it this morning.

Your fingers nervously played with the hem of your shirt as you opened all the drawers frantically, all your clothes still perfectly on the left side but all his gone on the right.

Your throat let out an involuntary cry as you pulled open your closet doors to see only your clothes and shoes.

Why?

You hurriedly ran to the kitchen, flipping the light on to look for the spare key to his house but of course it was gone, a small slip of paper lying on the counter.

You wiped at your tears as you reached for it, your eyes scanning over the words.

“Daisy care instructions: Water at the base of the plant, at least once a week, the flowers don’t grow well in soggy soil, ample sunshine of course, and talk to them.”

Your elbows leaned against the counter as you dug your fingertips into your scalp.

How could he just up and leave? How could he not say goodbye.

——————————————————————

“I’m already so late.”

You yelled as you smudge your lipstick on in the bathroom, Leon smiling from the couch at the sound of you running down the hall. He quickly stood, his hand grabbing at your purse as he handed it to you.

“Don’t be late next time”

He chuckled as you stared up at him angrily, your hand squeezing at his forearm. He stopped you from walking forward, his hand resting at your waist before he sighed softly scanning over your face.

“What?”

You ask self-consciously as you reach up to see if there was something on your face. Leon shook his head as he stepped forward, his lips pressing against yours softly. Suddenly it didn’t matter how self conscious you were.

These past six months were proof Leon was your puzzle piece, you needed this man.

He carefully pulled away, his thumb rubbing at your bottom lip to fix your lipstick as he smiled down at you, kissing your forehead as you stepped away from him and out the door.

Watching you leave though was harder for him.

Especially knowing that he had to leave. He knew you’d work extra tonight, making sure to clean the whole house, and write you a quick note.

His hands ran over your favorite shirt, his head turning at the sound of his phone going off.

He was surprised you didn’t notice they gutted his house clean, he was also surprised you never noticed that they were calling him daily.

Maybe this would be good for you, he wasn’t what you needed and you deserved more and he hoped you knew that.

He needed you, but he had trained himself to not care as much. He thought about you getting married to another man, carrying his child, making his dinners. It hurt but that’s what he needed, he needed it to hurt him.

It’s what he deserved.

#yourgentlegf #leon kennedy #resident evil #leon kennedy imagine #leon kennedy smut #leon kennedy x reader #resident evil x reader #leon kennedy angst #older leon kennedy #re6 leon #leon kennedy fluff #smut #fluff

[tinycozycomfort]

rest in the cup of my palms (part one)

pairing: no outbreak!joel miller x art student f!reader

chapter one: drawing from life

series masterlist | next chapter

series summary: you went back to school to find out who you are—to make another leap in the hope of self discovery. when you finally find that first glimpse of yourself, it’s in someone else. what happens when the mirror tries to pull you in? or  you’re everything joel could’ve hoped to find. he doesn’t let go easily.

chapter summary: ellie volunteers joel to model for a drawing class on campus. you find someone worth dreaming about.

warnings/tags: no outbreak, no use of y/n, (for everything) -> mutual pining!, possessive behavior, smut (w individual tags to come), unnecessary descriptions of joel being beautiful, ellie is joel's daughter, ellie and reader attend the same university but reader is in post-grad, age gap (joel is late 40s, reader is not), alternating pov, slow-ish burn, joel miller wins girl dad of the century via unanimous vote (for this chapter) -> masturbation (f), intense feelings of loneliness, existential rumination

word count: 7.2k

rating: explicit (18+ only! mdni)

A/N: some good ol' work up, necessary to explain the rated r plans i have for them. ive been terrified of writing a series but i'm also tired of editing everything down to be one-shot appropriate, so today we try. im full-swing into my fixation era and on my 'i cant be loved + ive known how to love you for 1,000 lifetimes' bullshit. this fic is as self indulgent as they come, but i hope you can enjoy it! and for those of you willing to trudge through this with me, i love you.

read on ao3

“To photograph people is to violate them, by seeing them as they never see themselves, by having knowledge of them that they can never have; it turns people into objects that can be symbolically possessed.”

Susan Sontag - On Photography 

───────

A halo of hot light falls through the pane of glass above the sink. Joel’s got one eye pinched semi-shut, trying hard to focus on not burning himself while he drains boiling water out of a pot of pasta. 

When he woke up this morning, the blinds on every window in the house had been strung up to the lip. He’d barely gotten a hand around one of the strings in the glass frame above the couch before Ellie appeared out of nowhere to literally slap his wrist, ‘I’m drawing’. Still groggy, he tried to challenge her, ‘Do they all have to be open?’, to which she patiently explained—for what she probably feels is the millionth time—that she needed the extra light, and if she had them all open when she started, they’d need to stay that way until she was done. 

So he left her to work, knowing she’s got midterms to finish, walking around with his eyes closed until he felt his way back into his bedroom. He came out once for coffee, and not again until dinner. This is their weekend.

Joel spoons out some of the food into bowls, leaving them to stay warm by the stove before he steps into the dining room. He stops himself half-way, hanging back in the archway to give his daughter another minute as the last shreds of strong sunlight start to wane out.

Ellie’s right where he left her: at the table, cross-legged in her chair with an eraser-less pencil held tightly in her fist. She’s hunched over a large pad of paper, the back of it lifted at an angle under a pile of old books and dog-eared tool catalogs. The sketchbook she uses as a reference guide is propped up on the corner of her left knee, leaned against the edge of the table. She rifles between two pages of it, eyeing some of the quick sketches—visual notes, as she puts it—that she took in class to help her navigate the larger, more detailed version with ease. Silent save for her short huffs of breath, she’s concentrated, wrist-corner lifted to not misplace any graphite. Her process is always the same; a little creature of habit.

She’s wearing her headphones, the cord winding dangerously low, threatening to dip into a cup of water she’d placed in the empty triangle between her lap—the same one he’d seen her with six hours ago. She hasn’t even touched it, still full nearly to the brim. He wonders if she’s gotten up at all. The girl works herself a bit too hard, he thinks, always falls head first into whatever project she’s working on, nothing if not like her dad. The corner of his mouth tugs up so tight it hurts. What is he going to do without her?

He just stands there, feet crossed on top of each other and arms in a twist over his chest, and watches her while she’s not looking, knowing she still gets shy sometimes when he catches her like this. She’s the sweetest reminder of everything good Joel’s ever done; another life he’d gladly offer his own for. 

It’s always come naturally—to be what someone needs of him—in a way that transcends reward or expectation. 

Joel had been his brother’s primary caregiver first, from birth and then well into their adulthood—always around to bail him out of jail or lend him money he didn’t have. Because he cared. Loved him. He couldn’t ever really say it, always had a problem with the wording, but he knew that at least some of what he wanted to explain had come across. He can see it in the way Tommy is with his own family.

His brother has Maria now, and the kids, and seeing how happy Tommy could be in spite of their upbringing was the first time Joel had ever put his priorities into question. Somewhere in all the caring-for he did, he’d forgotten about himself; the possibility of having his own wife and child and home. He’d always ached for that, deep down, but didn’t even know it was an option until he saw it happen. By that point, he wasn’t sure if he could do any of it, or if he even had the time to start. Then came Ellie.

She entered his life when a close friend of Tommy’s had died unexpectedly and no one came forward to claim her, unknowingly giving him a second chance; one he worked to make count. She was tough to crack at first—also like him in that way—but the love had always been there, waiting its turn after all the awkwardness and misunderstanding and adapting before finally showing its face. She’d needed him then, as much as his brother had all those years ago, carrying on the torch of purpose that Joel so feverishly searched for. 

He rolls his eyes at himself; he’s been having too many misty-eyed moments about her lately. It’s so unserious, the actuality of it; of being her dad. Going to work and the supermarket and museums, being there to chaperone field-trips and take one-thousand mostly-blurry photos of her graduation. But it’s been everything to him. He’s desperately clung to the five years of her life that she’s shared with him, and he’s so proud to witness it, but he knows she’s getting to a point where she needs to be her own person. He’ll miss her when she’s only home for summers, then only home for Christmas, then only home once in a while—so he holds on to every bit, and tries not to think about what’s next for him. 

He walks closer to her, tilting his head to try and steal a glance of what it is she’s working on. He catches a glimpse of the face of a woman, a portrait from shoulders-up. She’s pretty, with a soft and thoughtful expression, looking downward off the side of the pad. From what he could make out between the movements of Ellie’s hand, she even looks a little shy. His daughter rubs at the cheeks and nose of the girl on the paper, imitating the shadow-less areas where light would fall. Joel is mesmerized by the way she creates so effortlessly, like breathing. 

Without moving her head, she pulls a tiny white bobble out from her ear, “I know you’re watching me, weirdo.” 

Joel laughs, wet and thick in his mouth with the emotion he’s still climbing down from, “Is this how you treat me when I’m trying to feed you?” 

She smiles, he can see the fat of her cheek rounding out even from this angle, “You should’ve just said that.” 

Ellie leaves her set-up untouched, just getting up and moving down to an empty seat while Joel goes to bring the food out. 

She shifts around in her seat, feet folded again on the flat of it, eating too fast—ill-mannered—and it reminds Joel of all the nights they spent at Tommy’s for family dinner, right at the beginning, back when they’d just begun to become close. When she’d push his patience with her behavior to see if he’d say something, to see if he still paid her mind—he always did, still does, “Jesus Christ, kid. Have I taught you nothing?”

She holds back a laugh, mouth full of tomato sauce, “You love it. I’m charming.” 

He snorts, the two of them falling into a comfortable quiet for only a few minutes before she breaks it again, “Speaking of how much you love me, I need to ask you for a favor.” 

“Oh no,” He jokes, “What now?” 

“Remember those drawings I turned in of you last month?” She starts pushing around the last bite of her spaghetti, never a good sign, but he nods anyway for her to continue, “Well my teacher really liked them. And there’s been an issue with finding people to sit for the drawings. Sooo,” she really drags it out, “I signed you up.”

“What do you mean, you signed me up? For what?” 

“To model,” Joel’s mouth pops open in an immediate attempt to oppose, but Ellie’s quicker, “Didn’t you say you’d always support me in school?”

“You know that’s not what I meant.” Joel finishes his plate and then they’re both just clinking their forks against porcelain for a heavy eightnineten seconds before she gives it another shot.

“C’mon, seriously. I’ll get extra credit if you do it,” She lets out a long sigh like she can’t believe she has to explain anything more than that, “My professor teaches a Monday session for the master’s program and they need people. It’s just one time.” 

“Ellie. It���s Sunday. How are you gonna tell me this now?” 

“Please, you just sit there for, like, two hours while they draw you and you don’t have to talk. That’s two of your favorite things. Three if you consider that you’d be helping me out.” she looks at him with a sticky-sweet smile, eyes crinkled—like she knows she’s getting away with it. 

She might be. 

“Why don’t you ask one of your friends to do it?” Joel gathers up their plates from the table to carry them into the kitchen. Ellie picks up their still half-full glasses as an excuse to follow him.

“Because we all have class together tomorrow on the other side of campus. Plus, you’re easy to draw and—” 

“Hey.” 

She ignores the flat look he shoots her, flipping on the sink, “That’s a compliment, by the way. But really, it’s no effort and you’d be getting me into a good place with my professor ‘cause she’ll be super grateful. The budget’s kinda tight this semester.” 

“Then what am I payin’ for, if you’re gonna make me do this stuff myself?” It’s a half-hearted dig—he’s mostly annoyed because she probably already figured out he’s going to agree.

Her little smirk graduates to a shit-eating grin, she knows it, “Best dad ever.”

“You’re a pain in my ass, y’know that?”

“Just because I knew you were gonna say that, I actually signed you up for two.”

───────

Joel stumbles out of the elevator, filing hurriedly through groups of students with a new-found purpose now that he’s managed to make it to the correct floor. Ellie made a point of not mentioning that he had to be at the school at 7:30am until she was saying goodnight to him a few hours ago, because she thought it would dissuade him—she was right—so now he’s running late on top of everything else. 

He’s got the little scaled-down, splotchy-printed version of the campus map gripped tightly between his hands. Room 14B is seemingly only two turns and one corner from where he stands—if he’s holding it the right way. He wants to ask for directions, but he feels too out-of-place to set aside his embarrassment. He’s older than at least half the staff, and some of the attendees are even younger, and he doesn’t want to run the risk of looking incapable, as foolish as it is. He wishes Ellie would have just offered to show him where to go before she headed off to her own class. 

For someone who prides themselves on their ability to parent, he feels hopeless now without his daughter; not for the first time, but it’s especially harsh considering the circumstances. It hurts something bittersweet, to think about how much more they’ve bonded since he started working less and she decided to live at home her first year of college (though it’s coming to an end sooner than he’d like). Again, too many sad thoughts, and she’s not here, so he trudges on. 

He walks in two more circles before he finds the right place—down a fucking hallway and hidden behind a door he didn’t know he was allowed to open, of course. A woman with long, dark blonde hair is sitting at a desk by the door when he enters. She doesn’t look up at him.

“Good morning, ma’am. Sorry I’m late. My—uh. You teach my daughter? I’m here for—” 

“Ellie’s dad,” She cocks her head without meeting his eye, “Late? You’re about twenty minutes early, she told me you probably would be.” 

She knows me too well, the brat. He chastises her in his mind but outwardly he corrects himself, “Yes, right, sorry. I’m a little turned around.” 

“That’s alright. There’s just a waiver you need to sign, and you can get undressed in the bathroom down the hall. I’ll give you a cover-up to wear until I come to grab you.” 

Right, he’d have to be naked. He already knew that—sort-of—having seen dozens of Ellie’s sketches from semesters past. He knows the students don’t see it that way, knows that they’ve all drawn the same things so many times they would be desensitized to his nudity. They’d probably all be desensitized to him as well; in their eyes, he was just a reference, as familiar as any of the memorialized piles of fruit or arrangements of glass that Ellie's also brought home. 

Still, Joel feels a wash of anxiety come over him. He’s more than comfortable in his body, after putting it through so much, but this degree of vulnerability is severe in comparison to vanity or sex—it’s a state of living he hasn’t participated in for a long time. He doesn’t like to be seen, and being documented—having physical evidence of how he’s interpreted by others—makes his stomach turn. He hasn’t looked in a mirror for more than a moment in months, but it can’t be that bad, right? Ellie’s always given him a favorable light, but he worries she has a bias beyond belief. What if he sees something about himself he doesn’t like? What if everyone’s been able to see it all along?

Caught in his thoughts, he doesn’t realize the woman is still talking, “We have a scheduled break halfway through class. You can leave then. Next week it’ll flip and you can come for the latter half so they can finish.” She slides the form and a swath of black fabric across the table, and almost like she can sense his apprehension, finally raises her head to give him a meaningful look, “Thank you again for doing this. I know it can feel weird, but it makes a difference for them. There’ll be a joint show at the end of the month, too, with Ellie’s class.” 

He just offers her a little nod of his head, thank you, signing the form and padding to the bathroom to unceremoniously disrobe in an empty stall.

It’s just two hours. 

───────

If they make you take another figure-drawing class, you’re going to scream. 

You’d think this far into a second degree, the school board would stop requiring you to take what is essentially the same class every semester. Sincerely, the only thing that changes is how long the session runs and what number follows the class title. It’s getting old. 

To be fair, it’s not necessarily that you dislike drawing—it provides a pretty firm foundation for your personal work to stand on—it’s just tedious. Nothing is inspiring about assignment-based work, especially when they’ve decided the only way you can prove your skill-set is to make you draw the same three objects five-thousand ways. 

But it’s not up to you. 

So here you are again, two weeks from spring break, back in this frigid building after surviving another forty minutes of traffic, body still stiff from fighting the urge to fall asleep at the wheel. 

It’s important, you remind yourself, to show up and put your fullest effort into everything, no matter how much you don’t enjoy it. Even if just to prove to yourself you can still finish things.

Coming back to school was an idea you’d toyed with for years after graduating. 

There had been a lot of pressure on you to go in the first place, from your parents and your teachers and your nightmare of an ex, because according to them you’d get nowhere without it. After enough pressure and in a need to appease them, you folded and went; suffered every long night and pushed through every period of self-doubt and smiled for every ‘worth-capturing’ moment right up to the end. And then when it was over, gone faster than you could comprehend, you felt like something was taken away from you, even with how low it had made you—the worst kind of stockholm syndrome. 

In an attempt to keep some momentum, you were over-eager for more right out of the gate. There was an initial need to continue, because you’d been reliant on academic structure just by the nature of familiarity, and maybe a little ill-prepared to face who you were without guidance. Without the instruction of someone with two degrees and a smoking addiction and no teaching license. Now it sounds silly, but then you spent a few too many nights uncontrollably looking into post-grad institutions or internship programs, googling professors and reading forums for first-hand accounts. 

Then, after a year, the thought of continuing got a little less exciting, and you became comfortable in the freedom of nothing after being in school your whole life. So you pretended to research, emailed everyone about how great the options looked, signed up for one-on-ones you didn’t show up for—until people stopped asking. 

It was at that point that you finally had the time to process what you were doing and why, and accepted that you didn’t have to have all the answers, despite what everyone had led you to believe. Truthfully, you still had no idea who you wanted to be and that’s okay—living with it and living alongside it weren’t mutually exclusive. You just took time to practice being yourself—sucked up the embarrassment and did the work, little exercises in unleashing yourself onto the world instead of letting every experience be done to you. If you were going to do anything anymore, even something like continuing your education, it had to be on your own terms, to try it all in the effort of self-discovery.

So yes, applying and getting accepted and attending every class—even this one—this time around was for you—to better yourself instead of just filling an expectation. You’re determined to make good on the opportunity.

And it has been better, so far. You even have friends this time around. Okay, two, and one of them is your roommate, but it's more of a support system than what you had going into undergrad.

You say yes now, too; not to everything, but to more than before. Which is maybe how you got roped into getting ‘introductory’ drinks later this evening with everyone, now that more people have joined the program as winter thaws out and it’s easier to commute. It’ll be nice to swap ideas and catch up and maybe even get laid instead of spending hours staring at the ceiling and willing time to pass. That thought alone is enough to keep you here.

It’s just two hours.  

The room this semester is a little bigger, at least; probably the only perk that moving up so gracefully from Drawing II to Drawing III had earned you. It’s still unfortunately just another classroom; windowless to protect it from outside influence and drenched in fluorescent light to create a controlled environment. Old, stained art horses form a circle in the center of the space, crowding around a painted-gray wood pallet like an audience. A metal stool sits atop the make-shift stage, providing a seat for the subject. It’s clinical, the way the elements come together; a perfectly disarrayed scene that’s been neatly curated to emulate every ‘socratic seminar’ model you’ve seen in education since you can remember. Always the same.

You’re hoping for someone new today to rest on the chair; the department has been in less-than-preferred financial standing lately, so you’ve seen the same faces interchanged for  most of the term.

Your professor is at her desk when you make your way in, greeting you with a grin despite the tired look on her face. A hardworking woman, the shadows under her eyes gave her a beauty you could only explain as determined. You knew she cross-taught for both sections of the department, and you respected her for it. It couldn’t be anything short of a struggle to toggle between those modes of seriousness—to have the patience to answer the younger students’ unending questions and the passion to keep the post-grads engaged. 

Moving to get a seat as far on the outskirts of the cluster as possible, you watch as your classmates arrive slowly until all the slots are filled. No one really talks, probably all similarly bogged down by the early start and the cold weather outside. Ian, your friend who’d invited you out tonight, waves at you from four horses down and you halfheartedly nod back at him. 

“Good morning everyone, we’ve only got two more classes after this until your week off, so we’ll make this next one a two-parter and have critique on the twenty-first. I want you guys to focus on composition more than anything else,” She turns in her seat to write some names on the board behind her, “We’ll go for two hours then break. If your name’s up here we’ll have a conversation about your thesis. The rest of you can go.” 

Thankfully you’ve been spared this time—granted another seven-nights-straight writing the segment of your thesis that was meant to be finished two months ago. Your brain hurts inside of your skull. 

You set up your little station, sketchpad raised against the easel, body straddling the drawing horse as you fiddle with some dirty erasers in your pack. 

You can hear the slap slap slap of the model’s feet on the concrete floor as they enter—a long gait paired with hard, thudding steps; probably a man by the sound of it. Tall and heavy. 

“Okay guys, we’re starting,” She winds up the dial on a plastic kitchen timer and sets it on the edge of her desk, “Let me know if you need anything. I’ll be making a few passes throughout and we’ll exchange thoughts.”

You roll your neck, knowing the model tends to take a minute to find a comfortable position, and that people watching didn’t do anything to help. A tempered soundtrack—the poorly contained buzzing of the clock and the moan of the air-conditioning—plays on in the background. Your leg is asleep. It’s cold in here. You count to thirty in your head. That’s enough time, right? You shift again, stretching your arms once more just in case.

Looking up, you peer over the side of the easel to get a quick look at the model’s pose and immediately do a double take. 

It is a man.

He’s sitting on the chair, facing the girl a few seats down from you so that you can only see him from a three-quarters view. He has one long, thick leg pushed against the lower bar of the stool, the other one, closest to you, hiked up on the seat, folded so that his knee points towards the ceiling. His arms are crossed, hugging his erect shin with his wide back wrapped over his thigh, effectively shielding the ‘naked’ parts of him from view. He looks shy, but not uncomfortable; either like he’s done this before or he’s accustomed to protecting himself—to hiding. 

The frame of his body is captivating; he looks strong but used, little nicks and scars littering his shoulders and hands. Weathered. As you make your way up his torso, you find it’s a similar state of experienced, tan profile and neck bearing the slightest difference in color from the soft of his side, and you can see the faintest curve of a hem-shaped tan-line across the dip in his shoulder. Little wisps of gray-dusted brown curls frame the edges of his face. He’s beautiful in a gentle way, with a dark, heavy brow that leads into the sharp slope of his nose, plush lips pursed like he’s concentrating. 

Part of you feels bad about staring, but it’s easy enough to disguise it as working, so you map him with your gaze again and again until you can still see him when you blink. It takes the constant movement of your classmate’s hand sketching something in your periphery to remember you’re being timed. 

You choke out a cough, repositioning your body and grabbing some charcoal. 

The way you usually approach this task is simple: get down the general gist of the body, careful to keep out the details of the person in favor of capturing light and weight—there’s a graded challenge to be considered, after all. 

Yet as you watch him, you decide you can fulfill the requirements in a way that gives him more room to exist. You crop the drawing tighter, paying careful attention to the landscape of his face; the hills of his cheekbones and the valley between his lips. You want to immortalize him. 

You’re suddenly deeply concerned with the history that’s woven itself into the shape of him, in what happened to make him look this way. It seems like life has been useful to him, but that he’d had to grow from something to make it so—like he had to work for it. He’s the living manifestation of his own grief and enjoyment and passion, and you want to know all of it.

Countless minutes pass as you take him in and spill him out, fingers moving quickly to recreate the weighted feeling of his posture, exhausted and heavy, muscles held together on the string of bone that runs through the center of his back. You write him down, again and again, flipping to a new page half-way through to get in one last version of him—one for yourself. 

You’ve never seen him before, but you see part of yourself in him. He mirrors the anxious peace you’ve been operating under for the last few years, humming with energy but willfully stagnant. It makes you feel seen, less burdened by your recent inability to connect—he makes you want to keep trying.

You wonder if he writes or draws or makes, and if he’d show you. You want to hear him talk. You want to see the other side of him, literally and metaphorically. You want to feel—

The tinny ring of the alarm sounds off, and you’re taken out of the fantasy. 

The second drawing is only really half done, but you didn’t make it with the intention of sharing it anyway, so you flip back to the original to hide it.. 

You try not to watch the man when he stands—remembering that just because he’d been hidden before doesn't mean he wasn't naked the entire time—maybe more for your sake than his. You peek around the room instead, taking a healthy, albeit competitive, glance around for other interpretations of the man; did they see him too, the way you do?

When you look up to take a comparative look, he’s gone. You’re a little disappointed, admittedly, but there’s still one more chance to interact with him, and you can make up for it then. You start to pack up your things in an effort to make it to the parking lot before the crowd. A sudden rise in the volume level in the room tells you that the shock of the early morning has started to burn off. You try to tune it out, so much so that you don’t hear someone walking up behind you. 

“Wow.” It’s a man’s voice, deep and smooth. You pivot in your seat. 

It’s him, in all his communal-robe wearing glory, even more gorgeous from head on. It’s a pleasant surprise, this reveal; his beauty is evenly distributed, like a handwritten note that extends into the margins or when a movie’s ending is just as good as the start.

“Oh. Hi. Thank you.” You feel exposed, like you got caught doing something bad, even though there are ten other people in the room with even more detailed portraits of him.

“Can I see the other one, too?” 

“What?” 

“You flipped your page. I didn’t see anyone else do that. Did you make two?” 

You just nod, shocked that he was watching you back, peeling back the paper to reveal to him the unfinished drawing. He won’t question it if you don’t give him a reason to. 

“Are you gonna finish it?” He asks, eyes rolling over it with an intense curiosity.

“Uh, probably not. I don’t like it as much as the first one.” Maybe lying your way through this would provide better reasoning than ‘I wanted a part of you that no one else could see’.

“Can I have it?” 

When you can’t find something to say fast enough, he just continues.

“I’m sorry, is that rude? If you’re just gonna get rid of it, I’ll take it. It just… looks like me. I mean they all do, I’ve been told I have a ‘simple face’,” He coughs awkwardly in acknowledgement of his own tangent, “I just mean to say that it feels a lot like me. If that makes sense.”

“You’re actually very visually interesting.” Is the first thing you can think of, and fuck, did that come out really fucking wrong, but he doesn’t seem to mind. Maybe it’s better if he takes it, if it’ll stop you from fumbling, “But yeah, you can have it.” You pull a little plastic mail-tube out of your bag, ripping the drawing free from its perforated tether and rolling it in on itself. 

The edges of his mouth pull up, a cute little thing, free of laughter or judgement, “Thank you. I’m Joel.” One of his hands drapes across his stomach, palm spread over the knot of the wrap—he’s holding himself at length again. Why? 

“Hi Joel. You seem to know a fair amount about this whole thing. Not your first time, then?” You offer him your name in return, and he parrots it back—guard still up, still standing too far away. 

“It is, actually. The closest I’ve come to this is sitting in the yard for my daughter,” He watches as you slide the drawing into the cylindrical case, “You’re very talented.” 

“Thank you.” It feels weird to hear the praise twice, “How’d they get you to pose for no money? I heard the department’s a little strapped. I’ve been subbing in for the undergrads too when I can.” 

“My daughter volunteered me, she’s on the other side of the program. Your teacher was giving out extra credit.” He takes the roll when you pass it to him, going out of his way to grab it from the middle, his thumb grazing yours. Your skin heats up where he’s touched it, and you look down at the floor, suddenly nervous. 

“Wow, this is the first time I’m hearing anything about that.” You continue to pack away items into your bag, “I’m owed quite a lot if that’s true.” 

His face falls in on itself in a wince, “Oh. Didn’t mean to do her in like that.” You can feel him looking at you for a few beats too long, and his eyes narrow like he’s about to say more. 

In the same moment, as if summoned, your professor turns on her heel, walking over to your bench. 

“It’s okay. I’ll be okay without it. I’ll see you next week, right?”

He shakes a little, releasing his stare, and throws a thumbs up in your direction with his protective hand, “Yeah, see ya next week. Nice to meet you.” 

───────

After another four-hour class and a too-long nap and a break for dinner, everyone from this morning joins together in a few cars to head to a bar downtown. You meet up with Ian, who offered to drive as a bargaining chip, because he knows by now that you’d back out if you had to show up on your own.

The bar is dark and divey and perfect for being overly-observant in secret. You’ve warmed up to this crowd enough, but you’re still on plus-one basis with a lot of them, Ian serving as your invitation. You like to just listen to them at first during these outings, strategically planning your involvement so you don’t feel put on the spot when they give you a turn.

It’s a lot like being in class; the group of you occupying a dimly lit corner, a round-table of bodies, with the person in the center alternating as the topic changes. Tonight you stay at the furthest end.

You cling to the single tequila soda you ordered, watery and flat by now with pea-sized ice chips bobbing around in the center to avoid the heat of your fingers. You watch them swim, tipping your cup to see them swirl in a frenzied circle until they disappear. 

Some guy from your English class—Andre or Andrew or who cares—is talking at you, making his best attempt at what you think is supposed to be flirting. It’s really just him asking your opinions on his five favorite books, not hiding his disapproval when you mention you haven’t read one or the other. 

You watch Ian, who left you twenty minutes ago in search of the bar-top for another drink. He’s caught now on his third conversation on the way back, maybe thinking he’s doing you a favor by taking his time. You try relentlessly to catch his eye instead, and he bounds over without question when he sees you. The glass of wine in his hand is already half empty, and the English-class-guy spooks at the sight of what he probably thinks is competition. So much for that.

“Having fun?” he prods when he slips in the chair beside you, already aware that you are absolutely very much not having fun. 

Ian’s a nice guy, and he means well. You met him a week into your first semester—almost a year ago now—at orientation, because your last names were the beginning and end of the line of their respective letters. He was from somewhere in Canada, studying photography with a minor in painting and drawing. He’s maybe a year or two older than you, though you’ve never asked to confirm; tall and long and pretty, for lack of a better word, with big eyes and a permanent split in the little bangs that cover his forehead. He’s the first man in years you’ve been comfortable around, never initiating anything or pushing too hard for your friendship. All in all, no one’s been as welcoming to you, except the person you literally live with, and you’re happy to let him drag you out if it means he’ll continue to look after you the way he does.

“Of course, when have you ever known me to have a bad time?” 

“No luck with Adrian?” Adrian. You were close.

“Just likes to hear himself talk, I think. I wasn’t interested in being an audience.” 

He hums, “Someone else on your mind?” 

“Like who?” You lean the lip of your cup against your mouth.

“Saw you making eyes at the model today,” He teases, nudging you in your rib when you take a sip of your drink so that you keel over slightly. You sputter, unamused with the tactic to get you to fess up.

Was it that obvious?

“Isn’t that the point of the class?” 

“Yeah maybe, smartass, but that’s not what I meant. I saw him talking to you, saw you give him a little gift,” He bobs his eyebrows at you suggestively, “Excited for him to come back next week?”

“So I can stare more, you mean?” 

“So you can get his number.” 

“Ian.”

“I’m just saying you should try and find someone outside our section of the building. No writers, either, obviously.” He gestures to where Adrian is already trying his shtick on some girl from your class.

“He’s a little too old for me, don’t you think? His daughter goes here.” You muse. He’s mostly right about you needing to expand your reach, but you won’t let him off that easily.

“Maybe. But if you don’t care, and he doesn’t care, what’s it matter? He’s not too old to fuck you.” He makes a face and you roll your eyes. 

The thought is nice, but you know forging relationships is unlikely when you’re concerned, at least as of late, “I don’t want to spend my night talking about people I’m not going to fuck.” 

“Whatever you say.” He slinks out from his seat, mumbling something about a glass of water. A few steps away, he looks back over his shoulder, “You’re not doomed, by the way,” the asshole can read your mind, “You can enjoy yourself without feeling guilty. You’re allowed to like people.” 

And then you’re alone again. 

It’s like that for another hour, small attempts at chatter and meetings until you realize you’re too tired to fuck anyone, let alone continue to sit upright. Being up so early this morning took more of a toll than an hour nap could fix, and you're begging Ian to take you home. He agrees, spending the trip trying to plan another outing later in the week before everyone’s gone on vacation.

You give him a sleepy goodbye when he pulls into your apartment complex, making sure he’s still going to class tomorrow before letting him drive away. Once you’re inside, slipping quietly in through the front door, you realize your roommate isn’t home. She’s probably still in a late class or at her boyfriend’s or somewhere else. You enjoy the quiet enough to not think about it too hard.

The five sips of tequila-mostly-water has settled into your stomach by now, making you a quarter-second slower when you strip all your clothes off and climb into bed. 

You twist under the sheets, and after a while your skin starts to feel too hot, even in the cold air of your room. Breathing deep, you try to think of something boring to get your mind to still, but when you sense the sleep about to take over, it switches.

You see his face behind your eyelids, the man from today, strong and pretty and delicate, remembering all your favorite details—the length of his fingers and the depth of his voice. You curse yourself for assigning this importance to him. He’s just another page in your portfolio, if you even keep him, yet you can feel a slow heat bubble up at your core when you remember the stretch of his body under the robe. It’s okay to be taken with him, you think, he’s objectively gorgeous. 

Your conversation with Ian replays in your head—less about his sincere advice and more about how you need to get laid. It’s been too long; maybe you are just horny, and maybe taking care of it just this once could be enough to stop this hollow interest from growing. 

You reach a hand down under your blanket, the tips of your digits pushing into the slit of your cunt. You’re wet, arousal tacky and pooled so much that the light pressure you meant to be exploring with is enough to have you accidentally slipping inside. Okay, he’s really hot. So what? Was it really that bad if you thought so?

You dip a finger further in, timid at first; you’re used to keeping quiet for this kind of activity, and even though your roommate was gone when you got here, it doesn’t mean she hadn’t come in in the thirty minutes of rolling around you’d done before giving into your desire. You lay your free hand over your mouth just in case, teeth biting into the meat at the base of your thumb to keep yourself quiet. 

You slide in a second finger to the knuckle to join the first, the light stretch of it enough to make you pant. You see him again, hard and soft and beautiful. You think about what his skin would taste like, if he’d let you sink your teeth into the sinew of his neck. It feels weird to know what he looks like without his clothes, and you’re weirdly proud of yourself for holding back from seeing him fully; it's easier to dream about that way. You wonder how he’d present himself to you, how he’d want to fuck you. You imagine him winding a hand around the hinge of your jaw, fingers pressing hard into the soft of your cheeks. Would he be gentle? Would he make it hurt? You suspect either would be too much. You feverishly palm your clit, hips canting in an effort to climax. The pictures flash faster—his cock in your mouth, his tongue in your cunt, the way he’d spit and grip and hold—and you’re coming, drooling over your hand as you hear him say your name in your mind. 

You take your hand away after a minute, breath pushing out heavily from your nose. It’s fine, you needed to do it, just one time. No shame in that. It’s out of your system now. 

And if you see his face one more time before you fall asleep, it’s probably an afterthought.

───────

By the end of the week, you come to a horrible conclusion. 

It starts the next morning when you take your sketchbook out, itching to get a handle on the many writing assignments you’ve been dutifully ignoring, hoping for an outline or a free-flow of ideas. Nothing comes to mind. You draw a little bit to fill the space while you think, just a mess of material on the page, strokes of your hand that leave barely anything behind. 

Then on Wednesday you’re at your laptop, typing with one hand while the other one slides against the wood of the dining table, down and around in a loop, mimicking the same shape each time. 

And again last night in the shower, letting the shame of a different semi-failed night-out wash over and off of you. You slosh your foot around in the water in the basin below, catching it as it runs down and pools, ankle dragging in a tiny, controlled movement. 

It’s not until now that you put it together.

You’re sitting at your desk, with creative materials at your disposal this time, trying to make sense of what it is you’re forming. You find that no matter the medium, your hand automatically makes a single hard line. The same line, from memory. It’s negligible at first, just a light press of pen or pencil or crayon, until it drags down, down, down. It’s not until you lift your utensil that you recognize it. The hook of a nose and the crest of a top lip. 

A hard pit forms in your stomach, blood draining from your head to gather in the center of your chest, a blooming sickness of obsession you haven’t felt in a long time. You’re drawing him. You’ve been drawing him. You know this feeling, have participated in this kind of behavior. These are the actions that cause the humiliating dregs of attraction to bleed over into fixation—juvenile and universal and unavoidable.  He’s going to be a problem.

#joel miller fanfiction #the last of us fanfiction #tlou fanfiction #joel miller x reader #joel miller x you #joel miller x f!reader #joel miller smut #pedro pascal characters #joel miller fic #joel miller/reader

[afoggymirror]

반짝반짝 너와 함께 있을 때

‧ ₊ ˚ * ๋࣭ ⭑ ⚝ twinkle twinkle when i’m with you ༘ 𖤐⭒๋࣭⭑

broke!annyeongz | smut; fluff; puppygirl!Yujin; petplay; shock collar; drunk sex; heavy foot stuff; light hypno; light overstimulation word count | 8000 ao3

Buried several pages deep into a small newspaper, back in her old home town, she’d once read a completely inane story that, God knows why, lodged itself in her brain. It was about a local woman who, due to health complications, had lost the use of her legs, and so she trained her dog – a very pretty Border Collie mix – to fetch the groceries from the local store. Why this story just so happened to pop into her head again at that very moment, Yujin could only guess.

In total, she was carrying five bags: her purse from work balanced precariously on one shoulder, a large tote bag filled to the brim with stuff from the supermarket, and three plastic bags full of whatever couldn’t fit in the second bag. Really, Yujin wouldn’t mind carrying all this junk if it weren’t so fucking cold that day. She’d walked all from the office to the store with her hands awkwardly buried into her armpits for warmth.

She shitstepped around a corner and away from the wind. Her head sunk into her scarf and all the hair she had wrapped it around. Her breath condensed in the air, painting the view of the city around her a paler shade of gray. For a moment, something changed she felt lighter, like a weight had been lifted from her. The next moment she realized one of her bags had just ripped.

“Ah, shit,” she heard a loud, glassy thoonk against the pavement below, “fuck.” Yujin craned her neck, just fast enough to see the bottle of wine bounce a few times, before rolling to a lazy stop against a concrete bench nearby.

Waddling as fast as she could between the bags and her long fuzzy trench coat – its bottom now certainly coated in gunk from brushing against the ground – she squatted awkwardly to pick up the wine. A light pink rosé, one that they’d never tried before, but which seemed like something they would enjoy, soft and smooth, tending towards a dry. The bottle had some scratches where it hit the ground, but it looked to be intact otherwise. Thank God, who knows what Wony would have her do if she knew she’d wasted nice booze.

Maybe it was her mind conjuring Wony, maybe it was the Sun hitting the bottle and projecting pastel pink swirls onto the pavement, but the city suddenly seemed a lot less gray. Yujin saw in color. It was a Friday, and she was about spend three days with the love of her life. She wanted to hold the feeling in her hand, but instead she held the bottle tight and continued to waddle home, newly oblivious to the strain on her wrists, from where all the groceries now bounced.

Yujin arrived at their apartment building – a discreet little place, not far from the heart of the city – and fumbled taking the keys from her purse, fumbling through the front door and fumbling with the elevator button. She stood in front of the metal doors for a little while before remembering that the elevator broke that week. She took the stairs.

Entering the studio apartment, Yujin took off her shoes and her coat, before dumping all the groceries on the kitchen counter and diving onto bed. The kitchen counter and the bed were, of course, a few feet apart. Their apartment was very small.

She let herself relax, but not for long. Wonyoung wouldn’t be back for a little while, but she still had a lot to prepare before then.

Before the tiredness could get to her, she got up and got to work putting away the groceries. Her mind wandered through the minutes, taking salmon fillets from their package, laying them on a pan with oil (just a little oil, Wony was sensitive about that), setting the water to boil for the pasta…

A nice smell began to drift from the fish on the stove, and she opened the large window at the end of the studio apartment, so it wouldn’t be overbearing later. Wony was also sensitive about that. Speaking of which, was she supposed to leave the wine in the fridge? They’re meant to be in room temperature but Yujin remembered hearing it might be different for rosés?

Her mind busied itself as the Sun lowered in the sky. This evening must have cost most of her paycheck that month, and preparing it was becoming exhausting very quickly, but it didn’t matter. The only thing that mattered was that Wonyoung had a really bad week at work, and if Yujin could do anything to make it better, she would, regardless of price.

Often, she would catch herself fantasizing her words, once Wony got home. Hey baby! she would say, romantic, I know these weeks have been rough for you, I hope I can help get your mind off things for the weekend. Are you hungry? The dinner in her mind tasted amazing, they ate and then went out and then danced through the night, and when they came back their shitty studio had become a beautiful refuge, shielded from the world, lit by stars and candles and fairy lights- oh yeah, shit, the fairy lights!

She plugged in the lights that hung around the far window, framing the darkening sky in a homely orange glow. The dinner was ready by then: salmon and small farfalle with a light lemon and garlic cream, which she plated all fancy, just like they’d seen that guy do in Masterchef. Wony had to have gotten off work about now and Yujin was a little behind getting everything ready – one thing, she really needed a shower.

Yujin covered their shitty, repurposed garden table in a big, Lady and the Tramp-type cloth, magically converting it into the scene of a beautiful dinner, and was halfway turning to find a candle, when she caught sight of something weird, a really ugly orange stain on the floor tiles. Oh, absolutely not, what the fuck was that? She grabbed the rubbing alcohol and some towels and scrubbed and scrubbed and scrubbed, but the damn thing wouldn’t come off.

And so, when Wonyoung first saw her that evening, Yujin was on her knees, messy hair and work clothes, swiping at some unknown goo on the floor.

“Oh hey, the maid is here!” Wony joked, taking off her shoes at the door.

Yujin’s heart jumped. She turned around to see her girlfriend, an apparition framed in the light of the door way, long hair and winter coat trailing behind her in the air, her beauty gleaming even through the tired face of someone who’d just left a full work week.

All Yujin’s preparation faded from her mind. Through all these years, she could never get used to seeing Wonyoung. She wanted to say she loved her. She wanted to recite all the sweet nothings she’d practiced, to tell her how glad she was to see her and how lucky she was to be with her and that she gave her life meaning.

Instead, the stunned lump in her throat won, and what she said was,

“Did you like, puke on the floor here? What the fuck is this stain?”

“Language!” Wonyoung half-laughed, leaving her purse and coat on the counter and climbing straight into bed, “it’s probably something your clumsy ass spilled.”

Yujin rolled her eyes,

“My clumsy a- hey, don’t go on the bed with outside clothes!”

“You do it too!”

She literally did earlier. Whatever. Yujin turned and kept wiping at this cum stain or whatever this was. Oh yeah wait, she didn’t even say hi to the love of her life.

“Stop cleaning,” Wonyoung said in a whine, and Yujin stopped.

She looked back up at Wonyoung, puppy eyes failing to mask the expectant adoration they always held.

Wony laid back on the comfy bunch of plushies and pillows they kept propped against the the wall and, pouting, opened her arms wide, “hug.”

The word was a higher force moving her, Yujin dropped everything and jumped onto bed, scaling the pillows to lay her head on Wony’s shoulder. Wonyoung wrapped her arms around Yujin like she would any other plushie. Half her head was covered by a forearm and it was a little hard to breathe. She was in heaven.

“Good girl…”

Yujin’s cheeks turned red under Wony’s arms. She couldn’t help but smile her wide, dimply smile, before burrowing deeper into her love’s shoulder. There it was. That weird burning pride that made her want to hide her face. “Good girl,” why did she like saying that? Yujin was literally older than her.

They were both very young when they moved in together, and it had been scary for both. They’d been dating for a few years, and friends long before that, so they knew they’d always have each other. Still, things changed fast, money was tight, and work was insufferable. Since Yujin arrived in town, they’d jumped from shitty studio apartment to shitty studio apartment, frail ships braving the blinding city lights.

When everything else was uncertain, some things had to stay constant: their kiss, their arms, their love.

Wonyoung was warm. Yujin assumed she was, too. Neither had really rested all day. Wony’s wispy, flowery perfume hung now low and scarce around her slender neck. Yujin reached her head to kiss it, kissed down to her shoulders. Her eyes focused on Wony’s delicate collar bones, gentle beneath the wide neck of her blouse. Yujin traced them lightly with her fingers,

“Oh yeah I uh… I made you dinner.”

“Yeah, I can smell it.”

“Do you want some?”

“Later.”

“…”

“…”

“…it’s gonna get cold.”

“We can eat it cold.”

“…”

“…”

C… can we? Yujin hesitated, is salmon ok cold?

Wony’s remained stoic in her poutyness, though Yujin could see her fighting her cheek from forming a smile. Clearly she picked up on Yujin’s worries, and found them cute.

I guess salmon can go on sushi…

“Is… is the smell too strong, do you want me to go open another window?”

“Stay,” she squeezed Yujin tighter.

She stayed.

Wonyoung pet her hair. She got chills. Wony was right, they didn’t need to get up to eat right now. Or get up for any reason, really.

“Actually, go get the remote.”

Yujin got up and crawled to the corner of the bed where the remote had fallen and fetched it, immediately coming back to the pillows. Wonyoung set the TV to the most vapid thing she could find, at a volume just loud enough that they could hear the voices but not distinguish the words.

Hands weaved through Yujin’s hair, scratching lightly, drawing slow paths from the top of her head, ending behind her ear. Shivers followed where the finger tips passed. Yujin felt herself sink deeper into the crook of Wony’s neck, felt a sleepy whimper push through the lump on her throat, felt her vision blur just a little. She hadn’t noticed, but she really was tired.

Her bangs were scratching her eyes a little. Yujin liked her hair short, but these days she hadn’t had the time to have it cut, it grew to her shoulders. Moving a hand up to adjust, pushing off the weight of sleep, took considerable effort. She eyed the TV, but couldn’t make out much. Muffled sounds meshed together in a lullaby, frames blended in impressions of waves, the rhythm of Wony’s breath and the beating of Wony’s heart swayed her as the tides.

With the way things had been at Wony’s work, Yujin knew better than to ask about her day. She was somebody who knew what she wanted, so if she said she just wanted to snuggle and fall asleep to the TV, that’s what Yujin would give her.

It killed her to see Wonyoung this tired. Yujin’s mind had run in circles all day, and even now it jumped from the food which was getting cold, to the bugs coming in from the open window, to how she should clean the floor later… but she knew none of these things mattered. Meaningless gestures to distract from what really troubled her: Wony’s life wasn’t perfect, she couldn’t make it perfect, and it wasn’t fair.

Wony was radiant, blinding, the light from which all else emanated. Yujin couldn’t find the words to express her adoration. It twisted her throat into knots, filled her mind with useless concerns, filled her mouth with stupid irony. When they were younger, first falling for each other, Yujin was nervous, a giddy mess of jumbled feelings, but she somehow felt more at ease expressing herself. Now that they had set into domestic life, that habit gripped them in its jaws, she often felt that her words had dried.

Not a moment passed when she didn’t have something on her chest. She wanted to tell her all she felt, give her everything she had. She wanted to change it all, make this broken world right, make it so Wonyoung never had to work another day in her life, so she’d live life as a princess in a soft, cotton-candy cloud far above it all, away from any sorrows or worries.

And in that moment, Wonyoung twitched a little. She was falling asleep, deep amid the pile of soft pink pillows. She did not seem worried in the slightest.

Before long the arms that squeezed Yujin tight relaxed, the hand waving through her hair came to a stop. She felt the sway of Wonyoung’s breath slow further, her chest rising and falling at a measured pace. Yujin blinked lazily to focus her clouded gaze, chancing a glimpse up towards Wony’s face, and saw it still, doll-like, eyes peacefully shut and lips just a little parted, lit by fairy lights and the flickering ghosts of the TV screen.

Wony was ok. And Yujin was ok, because she was in Wony’s arms.

After chasing her tail all day, Yujin felt the exhaustion truly creep in.

She settled her arms around Wony’s stomach in a way that wouldn’t trouble her love’s breathing, and allowed sleep to take her over.

A faint, compressed gun shot rang out from the low-quality speakers, just loud enough to rouse Yujin. Instantly she noticed something missing. Her body was submerged in pillows, but the comforting arms that held her were gone.

Sleep covered her eyes, her vision was a few large orange blots of light and the vague, blinding rectangle of whatever drama was on TV.

“This is really nice,” Wonyoung’s voice was inviting, accompanied by a slow harmony of metal cutlery on porcelain, somewhere off to her left.

Of course, looking there showed only an array of strange halos, scintillating stars that, really, probably didn’t amount to more than fairy lights hung onto the curtains. A slender shadow amid the dazzling glow sat looking back at her.

“It would be nicer if we’d eaten it warm,” Yujin’s irony woke up before she did.

“You feel asleep too!” she didn’t need to see Wony clearly to sense the laugh in her voice, “you were snoring, did you know that? You snored really loud just now, it’s probably what woke you up.”

“I woke up because you left the TV on too loud!”

“Well then turn it off and go back to sleep!”

Yujin stretched before palming around the pillows, finding the remote and turning off the TV, suddenly noticing she didn’t want to go back to sleep. She looked back at Wonyoung, still blinking mist from her eyes, as if to ask if she really had to.

“I was joking, come eat.”

She went.

Yujin didn’t know why Wonyoung’s words had this effect on her. It was Pavlovian. Her reflex was to please.

Wony’s glass was empty so Yujin filled it again.

“Is the wine good? I was a little worried it wouldn’t pair well with the fish.”

Wonyoung looked at her and smiled,

“You’re so cute,” she picked up the glass and swirled it absentmindedly, “the wine is wonderful.”

Heat creeped to Yujin’s cheeks. She sat, averted her eyes, still hazy from sleep, and began stuffing her mouth with food.

“So my day was awful, but how was yours?” Wonyoung asked, reaching out across the table and stroking Yujin’s wrist.

“I, uh…” frankly, she was drawing a blank. All memories from the previous hours were of worrying about Wonyoung. She knew she’d been neglecting her own things to care for Wony. She couldn’t just admit that, though, “I sure cleaned the house a lot for your ass.”

Wind passed through Wony’s nose faster than usual, in what could, generously, be called a laugh. A laugh, however, which clearly held less patience than it did even a few minutes ago. Sometimes Wonyoung seemed as frustrated with Yujin as Yujin was with herself.

Still, if they weren’t done teasing, Wonyoung would make the most of it.

“Oh yeah? What a good little girl…”

Yujin’s face was on fire.

“Stop calling me that, I am literally older than you.”

Wony leaned forward to rest her cheek on one hand, eyes locked to Yujin’s.

“You know, you’ve been such a good girl today, I’m thinking I might even indulge your weird foot thing.”

“I do not have a foot thi-!” Yujin felt a sock crawl playfully up her calf, coming to a stop between her thighs.

A giggle lost itself between Wonyoung’s lips,

“I’m not judging!” Satisfied with Yujin’s discomfort, she changed the subject, “anyway, you were saying about your day?”

Wonyoung pushed her heel slowly into her. Yujin made a fist, held her knuckles to her mouth, chanced a glimpse up at Wony through her bangs. She couldn’t meet her smiling face for long, her eyes closed before gluing themselves to her plate again.

She scrambled for words to say. Of course she could speak like normal, this wasn’t distracting. She didn’t even know where Wony got the idea she liked foot stuff. She began a story about someone from work who ate at their desk yesterday and so today they had ants inside their laptop or whatever.

Wonyoung pushed firmly against her. Yujin pushed her hips back against her foot. Shit. Maybe Wony didn’t notice her sudden eagerness, maybe she still had plausible deniability. Wony noticed,

“Oh you love this,” she laughed, rocking her slender leg into Yujin at a quick rhythm, “gross baby.”

“Stop…” Yujin angled herself so Wony would be pressing at the right spot.

“Do you want me to stop?” She leaned further, chin resting on both hands, her voice affecting the tone of someone being nice, “I’ll stop if you want.”

Yujin still wore work pants, but the pressure was having its effect, even through the fabric and the shame. Maybe because of them.

“Mm… mm-mmm…” she shook her head no.

She was warm. Not just her cheeks, though those burned with the fires of Hell. All of her. She was a gradient from the heat building in her core to the shame blazing across her face. The fairy lights shone on Wonyoung’s pale skin, a spotlight beaming straight at her,

“Say it with your words, baby.”

A weak moan broke through Yujin’s lips. She wasn’t even entirely sure why. Maybe Wonyoung’s taunts, maybe the fabric rubbing against her skin, beginning to make her sensitive, beginning to hurt. Maybe the confusion itself, the sleepy, shameful heat. Wony knew how to play her, make her confused, and she loved doing it. Wony loved to cause an impression.

“You don’t have… to stop…”

“Stop what?”

Yujin looked back up, a little dumbfounded. What did she want from her now?

“‘Please don’t stop fucking me with your foot, miss Wonyoung. I love this,’” she tilted her head to the side, a cat playing with its food. “Say it.”

Her obedient reflex finally found resistance. Yujin looked mortified. She had a hard time talking about her day, let alone whatever this was.

“Ah,” Wonyoung sighed, performing great impatience, crossing her arms, “I knew you wouldn’t say it,” she pulled her foot from Yujin’s thighs. There was peace under the table.

Sometimes – and for reasons Yujin found easy to ascertain after the fact, but nearly impossible to predict – Wonyoung would simply turn a key. The playful tone that lately permeated their every conversation would feel heavy, trite compared to what they could be saying, those words they both knew were stuck in Yujin’s throat. And so, to entertain themselves, Wonyoung would stop playing, and begin toying with her. Yujin was hers for the night.

“…why are you like this?” Yujin smiled, finally allowing herself to lift her eyes, half shaded by her bangs, and meet Wonyoung’s again.

“You know, I actually bought you something too,” she crossed her legs, and pointed theatrically across the apartment to the kitchen counter, deep into the recesses where the fairy lights could barely light the orange walls. “Go get it from my purse.”

Before Yujin knew it she was in the kitchen, half engulfed by darkness, fumbling through Wony’s purse. It didn’t take long to find what she needed. She pulled out the strange object, squinting to identify it in the dim light. It resembled a thin but sturdy choker, except for a large, black, plastic cube poking from one side.

“Come,” Wony waved, struggling to hide a smile.

“You’re evil,” Yujin went.

“And you’re cute.” Wonyoung pulled Yujin’s chair with two fingers so it faced the window, “sit.”

She sat.

Her heart thumped.

Wonyoung leaned in behind her, held her neck soft with one hand, moved her hair aside with the other, breathed into her shoulder. The warmth of her engulfed Yujin, scarce, stuffy perfume from yesterday intoxicating.

She tried to adjust her posture, arch her back just a little, act like she was comfortable, fully awake and present of body and mind. Like her sleep-deprived eyes weren’t blending the little fairy lights in front of her with the city lights beyond. Like Wonyoung’s fingers didn’t feel like feather pillows, tracing their way from behind her neck around the collar of her shirt, like she didn’t feel herself sinking into them just a little.

She wasn’t fooling anyone. Wonyoung knew she couldn’t think straight. That’s how she wanted her.

“You’ve been thinking too much these days, baby girl.” Oh my God I am older than you, Yujin still considered saying. “And saying too much nonsense.” She was glad not to have said anything. “Why don’t we shut you up for the night, and help you relax a little?”

Now that threw her for a loop. Wony seemed tired these days, that was evident. But did Yujin look like she needed a break too…?

Wonyoung’s breath hitched against the back of Yujin’s neck as she reached to take the collar from her hands. Wony might have been perfect, but even her poker face could slip sometimes. For a second her breathing skipped, it lacked the regal, gracious rhythm she usually projected, for just a second she exhaled too heavy and too fast, betrayed the excitement she felt having Yujin in her hands.

She snaked the collar underneath Yujin’s hair, shoulder length and airy, it moved with Wony’s fingers, reeds on a warm breeze. It tickled, Yujin shivered. She felt the collar clasp behind her, her breathing restrict just a little in its tight hold, and in a second the apprehension hit. How strong would the shock be? She’d find out soon, she guessed. The next time she made a noise. Did Wony even test this?

For what it was worth, Wony didn’t seem concerned. Petting her hair before circling around Yujin, a satisfied “ah” left her lips. An expression like she had something to share, she half turned to one side, to the other, looking for the handle on the window. She slid it half way closed, just enough for Yujin to see herself, reflection vivid against the backdrop of the dark city, framed by the tiny orange lights. She hadn’t seen clearly in what felt like hours, from sleep, from shame, apprehension. Nothing that night felt real, Wonyoung had created a dream for her. But there in front of her, her reflection was crystal clear.

Yujin looked beautiful. She would never have guessed it, the way her work shirt still clung to her with yesterday’s effort, the way her thoughts drifted directionless through the fog of sleep. But she did, she looked beautiful. Her hair, some locks stuck under the choker, bubbled in a messy volume, made her collar bones, her half visible shoulders under the crumpled shirt, glow against the night. Framed her face to accentuate the giddy loyalty she felt with Wony next to her. That Wony brought out of her.

For a moment she couldn’t tell the gleam in her eyes from the stars beyond the window. She looked to her love, golden in the half-light, convinced that the Sun herself was beside her.

“You’re so pretty,” Wony complained, eyes burning into Yujin,

“Ah-” bzzt. Dozens of pins pricked the side of her neck.

A triumphant smile spread through Wony’s face. She had made Yujin forget about the collar entirely.

“Great, it works,” still smiling, she brushed Yujin’s hair into place, delicate, “is it too strong, baby?”

Yujin gave it some thought. The shock had been a little too strong, she did feel a lot of pain, but it made Wony smile, and so she could endure a million shocks just like it. She shook her head “no.”

Wonyoung’s eyes pierced hers,

“Say it.”

Wony’s smile spread to Yujin. She pursed her lips, then, resigned, enounced,

“It’s not-” bzzt.

Seeing Yujin jump, Wonyoung’s smile widened. She moved her legs, tossed her long hair over one shoulder, straddled Yujin’s lap, sent her arms loose over Yujin’s shoulders and the back of the chair, an angel descending upon Yujin.

Yujin held her slim frame, one hand resting on her stomach, another exploring her shoulder blades, pulling her close. She caught a scent, one more personal than the flowered perfume hanging low from Wony’s neck, one just a little savory, sneaking into her with a kiss. The soft lips she loved so much embraced her senses, pulling her deeper into a dream.

Her love was weightless over her, a warm cloud, a rising air current to make her soar. Wonyoung’s kisses moved along her jaw, her head fell further to the side, allowing passage. She felt her hair be brushed back, a soft teasing bite on her ear lobe. She shuddered into Wonyoung’s shoulder, heat building up in her again. Wony’s hair brushed her cheek as she kissed her way down her neck.

Yujin opened her eyes to see herself, pretty reflection bright against the city night, eclipsed by the flowing white blouse and the flowing black hair of the girl she loved, falling over her. Just then, Wony opened the first button of her shirt, pulling it aside to expose her shoulder, before biting down. Yujin moaned, loud.

Bzzt.

Needles traipsed around her neck. She jumped again. The sudden pain brought a spasm from her, sent her arm twitching, her hand made to wrap around Wony’s fore arm. A smile formed on Wonyoung’s face again, Yujin could feel it buried on her shoulder. Wony loved making her feel like this, confused and hazy under her, incapable of thinking straight even for self-preservation, a lucid dream Wony could turn from joyous to apprehensive to painful and back again at will.

She lifted her head, looked down at Yujin. Her smile settled into a smirk, knowing, like she had just divined a way to extend Yujin’s bliss. Tossing her hair over her shoulders, Wony stretched to reach aside, to the table next to them, and when her hand came back into Yujin’s view, it carried with it the rosé. She took a long, comfortable swig, stopping to move the wine around in her mouth a little, breathe in the after taste,

“You should try the wine, baby.”

One hand moving behind Yujin’s neck, she positioned the bottle to pour into her mouth. The wine came slow. It was nice, clearly not the most expensive, not the most complex taste or whatever, but for their standards it was nice. Yujin swallowed, a little rushed as Wony didn’t stop pouring. In fact she seemed to be pouring faster.

Wonyoung’s eyes became sharper, her smile more intent, the more uncomfortable Yujin became. Wine invaded her, she didn’t want to move her head and make a mess – really she didn’t want to deny Wony whatever she wanted with this – but it was becoming harder and harder to gulp down what she was given.

It filled her mouth, her throat already felt a little restricted from the choker, she swallowed, and swallowed, until her muscles sent a spout from the corner of her lips. She shut her eyes, shaking her head reflexively though never daring take her mouth from the bottle, and a loud whimper left her. Bzzt.

The pain contracted her throat, sent spurts of wine down her chin. Wonyoung laughed. She might have hated wasting booze, but this wasn’t wasting, she seemed very entertained. She pulled the bottle from Yujin’s mouth and took it back to her own. Yujin’s throat burned, some wine had gone down the wrong hole and she had to fight the urge to cough loudly. She felt her chin drip, liquid begin to soak her chest,

“My shir-!” Bzzt.

“That shirt was thrifted baby, it’s not the end of the world.”

I might have to buy a new one next week for work, the worry crossed her mind, before she distracted herself with an attempt to cough quietly enough that it wouldn’t trigger the collar, before her eyes lost themselves again on Wony. If she wanted Yujin to stop worrying, it was working. In her confusion, she could focus on nothing else but her.

Wony stretched to put the bottle back on the table before leaning over Yujin, half-open eyes possessive.

“My messy little girl,” Yujin’s cheeks were red for so many different reasons at this point, hearing her say that barely made a difference. She climbed off Yujin, “wait here, I’ll get something to help you clean up.”

Sounds of drawers and kitchen utensils echoed for longer than expected. Bzzt, Yujin’s neck contracted in pain despite not having said anything. She turned to look at Wony,

“Ow-!” bzzt again.

“Hey, it works!” Wonyoung beamed from behind her, pocketing a little remote. She ran a hand through Yujin’s hair, looking down in greed. She pulled slowly on Yujin’s hair, leaning her head back, pulling a handkerchief to wipe carefully at her chin. Yujin reached with one hand, grasping blind at her love’s thigh, eager to pull her closer. Wony acquiesced, grinning, coming closer to tower over Yujin, pulling her hair further back, so she’d see it fully as she reached an arm behind herself, and grabbed a chain she carried over her shoulders.

Wony leaned in to kiss her again, the side angle a little awkward, her hands wrapping soft around Yujin’s neck, a touch of the chain cold against her skin. The metal ran down her chest, crawled over her as Wony moved to attach it to her collar.

She broke the kiss a little too soon, leaned back, one hand cupping Yujin’s cheek, the other wrapping itself in other end of the chain,

“Well… this is great, but I actually want to finish my dinner.”

Um…

“Wony what the fu-” bzzt.

Wony what the fuck are you talking about, she thought, with her inside voice.

Wonyoung pulled away, walked around her toward the table, lips twisted into a smile, chain growing taut between them. She stopped, brought a finger to her lips, affecting like she was really considering what to do next, then pulled strong on the chain.

The tug on Yujin’s neck – the alcohol might have begun to set in – sent her off balance, tumbling. The little lights next to her darted fast past her vision. The floor welcomed her with open arms. Before even fully regaining her senses, her eyes followed, incredulous, the chain up to where Wonyoung stood, a satisfied smirk on her face,

“Come on, girl,” she said, tone half baby talk, “let’s eat.”

Something told Yujin she wasn’t supposed to get up again. Wony continued pulling on the leash, walking carefree to her seat at the table, it was all Yujin could do to follow on all fours.

Wony sat, legs crossed, Yujin knelt. She looked up, expectant, eyes big under her bangs, afraid of what her love had in mind. Wonyoung ate a piece of salmon, some noodles, absentminded, like she’d forgotten Yujin was there.

“Oh, why don’t you entertain yourself while we’re here?” Wony, suppressing a smirk, pushed one foot forward, as if offering it to Yujin.

Frustrated, she blinked, eyeing Wony through messy bangs, furrowed brow and pursed lips. The heat in her cheeks grew insufferable again.

“Come on,” Wonyoung mocked, pulling Yujin by the chain, bending her closer, “don’t be shy.”

Yujin sighed, thankfully too quiet to trigger the collar, laughing a little to the side so Wony wouldn’t see. The window next to them was harder to see through the lights, but the glimpse she caught was beautiful. Wonyoung, long flowing hair, pretty with her posture perfect, enjoying dinner and a nice wine, her in disheveled formal wear, bent before her in chains. This was fine.

She leaned forward, Wonyoung’s foot bobbing close to her, black sock worn with its seam a little off-center. Reaching under her sole and around her ankle for support, she leaned forward and kissed it. Wonyoung chuckled above the table, she did too. She leaned again, kissed down the bridge of her foot,

She was serious. She actually didn’t like feet – she did not! – there was just something comforting about this. Embarrassing herself in front of Wony, expressing her adoration in such a direct, if gross, way.

And adore she did, compelled, by whatever force, to pull off Wony’s sock. She heard more quiet giggling from above the table, Wony crossed her legs in the opposite direction, allowed her to pull off the other. Her feet were long, slim, her skin soft and pristine save for a vein visible when she moved, bones gentle around her slender ankles. They were pretty, she concluded – like how she would comment on a friend’s hair style, not like she would say if she was into feet, which she was not.

When Wony lowered her eyes again, Yujin was deep into a kiss, lost in the skin between two knuckles.

“Here, get the bottom, too,” she flexed her ankle, mocking, pushing her sole to Yujin, before tugging on the leash. It was all Yujin could do to keep herself from smashing face first. She wanted to pull away, take a moment to even process Wony’s words, but her neck was pulled back into place. It was alright, her soles were pretty as well.

She leaned in to kiss her heel, her arches. Her hands held up Wony’s ankle like a relic, a work of art she wouldn’t dare damage by letting go, she wouldn’t dishonor in that way. Her skin was so soft, Yujin had always wondered how Wony kept her skin, her hair, her figure, despite her hectic work hours, and, she couldn’t deny, she loved being able to enjoy it, even if it made her cheeks burn with shame sometimes.

Her kisses climbed to Wony’s toes, before her love began to pull her foot away. It rested on Yujin’s shoulder, and began to push her down. She looked up at Wonyoung, smiling down entertained as ever. Yujin had no mind to resist, wouldn’t know how to anymore, she was gone. Her body leaned forward, as if pulled by gravity, Wonyoung’s gravity. The burn in her cheeks felt nicer now. The wine must have been getting to her.

Wonyoung stepped on Yujin’s chain, pulled her down until her head was level with the ground. Yujin, fully bowed, hair falling around her and spreading on the floor, cared less about her embarrassment by the second. When it rained… Kissing one foot, the other moved to pin her head in place, her whole world was down there, the task at hand engulfed her. Wony wanted her degraded, so that’s what she would be.

Her kissing grew louder, more focused. A moan left her, met promptly by a bzzt. From above, Wony sat back, the melody of her cutlery changed tempo, slowing as if satisfied with Yujin’s eagerness. She took her time to enjoy the humiliation she’d brought out of Yujin, before moving to bring out the next,

“Hey puppy, you must be hungry,” she disentangled Yujin from her legs, leaned over holding her plate, dumped some noodles and some salmon on the ground, scraps thrown under the table.

Yujin looked up, looked at the food. She was well past shame at this point, the desire to please was the first thing on her mind. She lowered her head to the food, took it in, getting sauce on her nose, fish grease on her chin, surely draping her hair on something horrible down there. Whatever. Wony would probably find it funnier if she was messy anyway. The salmon was nice, they really should’ve eaten it warm though.

Bzzt, Yujin jumped, a bit of fish still left on the floor. Wony had the little remote in her hand, and a mocking smile on her face.

“You’re so gross,” Wony laughed lovingly. She patted her own lap, “sit, let’s wash that down.”

She began pouring another glass as Yujin got up, knees sore from being on the ground too long. Standing again felt wrong, like she’d lost the right to be a biped after the previous minutes. Thankfully, Wonyoung, sitting wide and relaxed, offered a leg for her to straddle, a safe haven to keep herself degraded.

One leg on either side of Wonyoung’s thigh, she lowered herself, her movements nearly escaping her, all just a little too long, eyes just a little too heavy. She let her head fall on Wony’s shoulder, one hand holding the other shoulder, a quiet, tired moan running through her.

“You good, baby?”

“Yeah-” bzzt. Wonyoung laughed.

Feeling Yujin’s shirt, still wet from wine, cling onto her, Wony stopped pouring the second glass, pushed her back just a little and began undoing her buttons. Her moves were utilitarian, like it had to be done and Yujin was incapable of doing it herself. Be it some leftover claim to human dignity still in her, feeling patronized by Wony’s tone, be it simple dumb desire from a dumb baby who couldn’t think straight, Yujin just had to interject.

A dimply smirk forming, she reached out her hands to cup Wonyoung’s face – so small, so pretty – and fell, dazzled, into a kiss. Her movements were, by then, noticeably sloppy. Their faces slammed together, Wony smiled, Yujin giggled, a bzzt made her jump, they smiled more.

Wonyoung allowed herself to be pulled closer. Her fingers changed pace on Yujin’s buttons, dancing with revived hunger. When Yujin’s shirt fell open, she tugged on its collar, grasping her in their kiss. Even despite the sorry state of Yujin’s mind, it was clear that behind Wony’s formality, she too wanted more with every moment. She wanted Yujin deeper and deeper under her spell.

Led by bewitched strings, Yujin’s muscles flowed heavy. Her head fell back, hair tickling shoulders as Wonyoung slipped the shirt from her arms. She felt herself move back, her whole body pushing down against the thigh she sat on. As Wony pulled her in, her hips rolled closer, then rolled away, closer, away again. Her weight drove her into a lazy rhythm.

Hands wandered her shoulders, her waist, the small of her back. Cold flowed from the half-open window and harassed her skin, a refreshing contrast to the all-encompassing warmth she’d been feeling all night. She huddled closer to Wony, riding her core higher against her thigh, lost her hands amid the folds of her clothes, hid kisses into her neck and her hair and scent.

Wonyoung held Yujin’s waist with one hand, reached past her with the other to finish pouring those glasses. She brought Yujin’s body back, brought a glass to her lips, before Yujin’s fingers wrapped around it and chugged down the wine, no mind to savor what she tasted. She wanted more of what Wony gave her, more of Wony, more of her magic.

She half-flopped backwards to leave the glass on the table, movements as careful as she could muster, before falling back into Wonyoung. Kissing her cheek, her jaw, her pretty pouty lips, waves crashing faster upon her with drunken euphoria, humping her leg like a bitch in heat.

“I lov-” bzzt. She jumped, but the pain didn’t feel bad anymore. The jolt was a discordant tone complementing the harmony Wonyoung crafted. “-e you,” bzzt.

Wony chuckled, drank a little of her own wine, pulled her back into a kiss,

“Get up,” she did, slow and awkward, hands still resting on Wony’s shoulders. Her love’s eyes burned, keeping her warm through the cold breeze. Wony reached behind her, unclasped her bra, kissed her stomach, her ribs, her chest. Yujin felt herself shake, maybe from cold, maybe from giddiness. She couldn’t stay still, she missed the thigh between her legs, she felt her hands move down by themselves. Wony caught the movement and pulled on Yujin’s pants, “off.”

Yujin moved with the finesse of a dying fish, fingers fumbling around the button until it opened, tugging it down blindly. Hands held hers, Wony looked up into her eyes, amused with her state,

“Slow.”

She did what she could, sluggish movements charged with all the energy of the Sun, hands vibrating in nervous joy, a phantom tail wagging wildly.

With much difficulty, she shrugged off the rest of her clothes. Standing there, in Wonyoung’s hands, lips pulling light on her nipples, barely able to muster a coherent thought, night breeze cutting through her, she felt exposed, she could almost feel embarrassed again. She did not. It didn’t matter, she was not herself anymore, she was simply Wonyoung’s.

She was guided back down. Before she saw them, she felt Wony’s fingers, held up from her thigh,

“Fuck yourself on me,” Wonyoung whispered as Yujin eased down, shaking, over her. She didn’t have to ask twice – not that she ever did. Yujin gasped as Wonyoung entered her, body welcoming her, rhythm building again.

Wony leaned back, reached with her other hand to take another sip of wine, let her lips twist slightly with that perfectly crafted, immaculate arrogance, at the girl falling apart on her.

Grabbing at her blouse, Yujin let her head fall again. She couldn’t bear it. She wanted more. More of Wonyoung’s long fingers in her, more of her scent, more of the exposure, more of the state she left her in, she wanted to throw herself to Wonyoung, live and breathe for her,

“More-” bzzt. She wanted more of the pain, too, “more-” bzzt. “Pleas-” bzzt.

Another chuckle bringing out a fruity after taste in Wony’s mouth, she finished her wine. She reached behind the back of Yujin’s neck, fingers intertwining with the base of her hair. Leaning in, she worked a third finger into her.

Yujin whimpered into her mouth. She was pulled closer by the hair. The taste of wine swallowed her whole. When she couldn’t pull away anymore – when she didn’t have it in her to break their kiss – Wonyoung released her hair. Her hand crawled slow down Yujin’s skin, tracing her neck, her ribs, her waist, her thigh, leading Yujin’s pace while she clutched disoriented at Wony’s blouse.

She held on for dear life. Her mouth was lost in Wony’s. At times her tongue poked shyly inside, but her attention was elsewhere. It flowed blurry, drunk on the scent, always slurring back down her body. Wony used one hand to lead her, grinding, into the other’s fingers. Yujin’s pace was desperate now. She felt her leg twitch, her sides. She arched her back into Wony just a little, the twitch climbed all the way to her shoulders. Their kiss was interrupted by a whimper. It was all so much… Another whimper, then another, then more. Wonyoung smiled against her, curled her fingers in her,

“My good girl…” her face was so close, so pretty, her tone so encouraging, “let go for me.”

Bzzzzzzzzzzzzzt… Yujin jumped, grasped at Wonyoung’s shoulders, shook her head like that would shake the pins and needles from her neck. Wony pulled her back down, fist wrapped around the little remote. Her fingers pushed deep in her. Wony wanted her to cum in pain, and so the pain felt sweet.

Yujin lost herself. She hugged Wony close, felt her shoulders, her delicate skin, bones, hair, clawed at them for a second, before she stopped herself, she didn’t want to hurt her. She just held her while enjoying her own pain buzzing down her back, her own pleasure crashing from her core.

For a second, her mind was completely empty. No words, no worries, just the feeling of pain and relief and the smell of Wony. The feeling of a job well done – Wony wanted her to be a good girl, and she was. The feeling of being well taken care of.

When Wony let go of the remote, Yujin was light headed, barely able to keep her rhythm. She slowed, grinding still, she wanted to keep this forever. Wonyoung ran a hand through her hair, petting her slowly, scratching behind the ear.

Wony left the remote on the counter, jumping onto bed where Yujin lay exhausted. She went to unlock the clasp on Yujin’s collar, before stopping herself,

“Hmm… one last thing…” a final flash of malice crossed her face, “thank me.”

Yujin looked up, big smiling puppy dog eyes meeting hers, dimples forming deep,

“Tha-” bzzt. “-ank-” bzzt. “-yo-” bzzt. “-u,” bzzt. She could’ve said it in maybe two shocks, but she really had started to like them by now. Her head fell back on the stack of pillows, her brain really was fried.

Wony pursed her lips into a smile,

“Cutie,” she unclasped the collar, and threw it overboard off the bed. Their ship now held just Wony, her pet and their plushies.

“You don’t… want me to…?” Yujin brushed a hand on Wony’s hips.

“Later baby, after you brush your teeth.”

“Ah shit, I must have ruined your pants…” she noticed the spot where she’d sat on Wony’s thigh, still humid.

“Language!” Wony bonked her light on the head, before slipping off her pants and throwing them toward the stars. She jumped into the plush pile, “so anyway, how was your day?”

Wony, long legs bare, pulling the covers to nuzzle against her, threatened to freeze the words in her throat all over again, but she pushed past it. They were past it.

“Honestly, Wony, I don’t know what to say. All I’ve thought about these days was whether you were alright… sometimes you seem so beaten down…” she brushed her bangs from her face, before reaching under the covers to join her hands. “You’re too good to be having these problems, to be this stressed.”

“We’re too good,” she hit Yujin on the shoulder, “but we can handle it.”

It was true. With Wony, she could handle anything.

“If I could tell you how much I love you…”

“You don’t need to,” Wony touched Yujin’s head with hers, “I see it everyday.”

They lay there, enjoying soft pillows and soft covers and their soft love.

“My good girl.”

“No, really, why do you like saying that? I am literally older than you.”

“Because you like to hear it…” Wony opened her eyes quick to plant a kiss on Yujin’s forehead, “dumb ass.”

They fell asleep, aboard their soft ship, cruising through the fairies and the city and the stars.

#BEWARE!!!! this is a nightmare #i'm trying a bunch of shit here with this post please bear with me #it's my first time trying to make the layout of one of these look pretty #what do you think! #new to tumblr #sorry #i'm also gonna spam tags here and see what happens #wonyoung #wonyoung smut #jang wonyoung smut #yujin #yujin smut #an yujin smut #ive #ive smut #izone smut #kpop girl group smut #kpop smut #kpop gg smut

[https-furina]

i feel like #35 with childe ajax tartaglia pasta man eleventh harbinger would be funny hehe <3

CONGRATS ON 100 MY LOVE. SO PROUD OF YOU

✎ i wouldn't wanna fight you.

ft. childe x gn!reader

prompt: "i wouldn't wanna fight you. you're pretty feisty."

w.c. 594 words

content: fluff !! established relationship, reader with mild (work related) anger issues, some threatening words/threats (to the air, about someone), you do in fact have a knife, this is a little bit crack so i’m hoping my gf is on the same wavelength here

notes: tHANK U SO MUCH BABY SOBBING - also not his full government name omg

the kitchen is one full of many sounds, the fire crackling under the stove and the sound of your knife slicing through freshly washed radish are two to be named. there are not many words in the air, you'd barely said a word to your boyfriend since you returned from work - it'd put you in an awful mood and you wasn't one for lashing it out on the ginger male but childe is persistent, lurking around the kitchen under the guise of 'supervising the cooking.' he knew you didn't need supervising. you also knew this. childe just wants to be in your presence regardless of what mood you're in.

you're bubbling like a boiling teapot, each slice of your knife getting more and more aggressive as you think about the day you've just had. childe watches, mildly amused. he thinks you're adorable when you're angry but something nonetheless hits different in his mind when he sees you holding any form of weapon; you've picked up his bow before because he left it in a 'dangerous location' and he proceeded to spend half an hour trying to convince you to take archery lessons - with him as your teacher, of course (despite not liking bows.)

childe is aware you're going to overspill any moment now, he's just counting the seconds on his fingers before-

"i can't take their dumb faces anymore!" you exclaim, throwing your hands in the air - childe is quick to lower your hands before you stab something or someone, "y/n this, y/n that, how about they do their own damn work for once?"

your boyfriend hums, standing behind you as his hands rub motions on your upper arms. usually he'd have a snarky response to say but he's very much aware of the sharp knife in your hand, his blue eyes lingering on it for a moment before he decides to step away from you, wandering to the other side of the kitchen as a safety precaution.

"like especially her dumb face, how the heck did she get a promotion?" you're still going, multitasking as you drop the sliced radish into the pot of boiling water to your right, "she doesn't do anything! who was the one who had to save her ass from a ruin guard? me!"

childe does recall you telling him about the situation with the ruin guard, he'd berated you a little for not just asking him to take care of it but you had just the slightest of a stubborn attitude.

"the next time she says my name - no, the next time she even looks my way, i'm going to punt her," childe can't tell if you're serious from the tone of your voice, his eyes glancing at you from across the kitchen in concern, "maybe she'd be able to handle a ruin guard if she fought me."

"i wouldn't wanna fight you," childe finally speaks, humoured by your empty threats and attitude as you lean back on the kitchen counter to look at him, "you're pretty feisty."

your lower lip juts out, cheeks puffed as childe finally approaches you again, a grin on his face as he wraps his arms around your waist. he finds it funny how easy it is for him to peg you down a notch when it comes to having attitude.

"well i wouldn't want to fight you either," you throw back, slinging your arms over your harbinger boyfriend's shoulders, "i don't have a death wish."

childe presses his lips to your forehead, laughing lightly at your response, "touché."

© https-heizou 2023.

#— 🧁 sugar ‘n’ spice #https-heizou #genshin x you #genshin #genshin impact #genshin impact x reader #genshin impact fluff #childe x reader #genshin childe #childe #tartaglia #genshin fluff #genshin x reader

[darthpastry]

please share your head canons about ness and vanessa being siblings

Mainly centered around Ness, but oh well.

Ness is actually Vanessa’s older brother, got disowned by William because he pretended to be a complete airhead and William fell for it. In reality, it was his plan to get disowned because investigating the MCI was a lot safer, albeit harder, when he wasn’t so close to William. Either that or he ran away.

If he ran away, he and Vanessa ended up meeting at the diner and ended up arguing about Ness running away, but eventually they both just pushed that whole thing to the side because they knew it would never get resolved and didn't want to be bitter. Vanessa is still bitter, of course, but she's mainly happy to be in contact with her brother again and glad he didn't have to live with William for as long.

He works as a waiter to make ends meet, but also has a tumblr blog full of conspiracies on the franchise. Both William and Vanessa know about the blog. William is enraged and has Vanessa keep tabs on the blog and the accounts engaging with it but has no idea who runs it.

Vanessa knows it’s her brother and occasionally had to pull Looney Tunes style stunts to keep William from finding that out. She’s tried to get Ness to stop, but he just went on a passionate ramble about “spreading the truth” and she gave up.

He also just lurks around Freddy's night; he memorized where all the cameras are when he was a kid, so he knows how to avoid them. Vanessa regularly comes to Freddy's, not just because she's supposed to keep an eye on the night guards, but also to drag Ness out of there and keep him from stealing a pizza oven or something. Of course, Vanessa never mentions this to Mike because who knows who know who he'll tell?

She comes to Sparky's at least once a week to give Ness a new spiel about how dangerous this whole thing is (because that's better than giving up like I originally said). One time she said everyone thought he was insane, making it pointless. He threw diet coke at her and immediately apologized before saying "but the sentiment behind it still stands."

At some point, despite being smug about still sneaking in, he starts bringing her dinner because "he's worried about his little sister" and in between night guards they'll sometimes sit and chat because Vanessa knows it's the one way to stop him from sneaking around. Ness knows that it's the one way he's guaranteed to stay inside.

He comes up with overcomplicated plans to get in and out of the pizzeria, staying safe while being able to look for clues. He swears he saw an animatronic move, but Vanessa gaslighted him until he became convinced the pizza ovens were the key to solving everything.

They do both care about each other but have a hard time communicating that due to William's a+ parenting and all. Vanessa mainly shows it by trying to steer Ness away from the pizzeria and Ness mainly shows it by making sure Vanessa has food since she often forgets to eat dinner. He'll either bring it to the pizzeria or leave it at the police supply station (the one where Vanessa treated Mike's injury).

It's generally a sandwich because, while he has mastered the art of sandwiches, Ness can't cook to save his life. He once almost burned down the house trying to boil water for pasta because he heard that putting oil in the water was a good idea, they still have no idea how that resulted in such a large fire. Also, sandwiches are simply easier for both of them.

He did end up traumatizing Vanessa at a fairly young age when he figured out that most of her toys belonged to dead children and she found his "evidence notebooks".

Ness also dropped out of drama club after deciding to investigate the MCI. Hardest decision he ever made, and he still has some regrets about it to this day. Fortunately, he still spreads theater kid energy in every way he can.

Someone sent in an ask with the blurriest photo ever and he had an absolute field day and ended up talking about "this random blog he came across" to every guest at the diner for weeks. Only reason he keeps his identity private is because that's why he wanted to get away from William in the first place and he does have some self-preservation instincts. Everyone thinks he’s a little crazy, but in an affectionate way. A lot of people see his blog as a joke, but still enjoy it.

He traumatizes anyone visiting the town of new to the diner at all by rambling about the pizzeria, but everyone who knows him is just like “oh, haha, classic Ness.”

I'll probably have more headcanons later, I'm actually working on a fic about this concept lol.

#fnaf #five nights at freddy's #fnaf movie #five nights at freddy's movie #fnaf movie spoilers #ness fnaf #ness the waiter #fnaf vanessa #vanessa shelly #vanessa afton #fnaf headcanons #headcanon #my headcanons #hcs #headcanons #ask #ask box

[pttwice]

i absolutely love everything you've been writing for agere twice it's really everything i've needed in life. if you have the time i'd love for some more little!dahyun, if you feel up to it of course

hi anon :) thank you so much! i'm so glad that you enjoy the fics i write! i love little dahyun and absolutely!!

bugs

|| little!dahyun, cg!momo ||

It was rare that the members got a day off like today. It was also rare that they got a day off and Dahyun was able to comfortably regress.

Momo found her in the living room of her and Nayeon's apartment when she woke up from her nap. Dahyun was hunched over a coloring book with a box of grape juice beside her. Momo yawned and crouched down beside the little, gently patting her head to get her attention.

"Mama! Wook what I did!" Dahyun smiled and proudly held up her pink, blue, and green giraffe. Somehow she had managed to stay in lines on the body and not at all with the head.

"Wow, sweet pea! That looks beautiful. I think this deserves to go on the fridge." Momo kissed Dahyun's cheek and took the picture, moving one of their old shopping lists aside to hang it up.

"Are you hungry, baby?" Momo opened the fridge and looked in it, glancing back at Dahyun who was already coloring another picture in.

Dahyun looked up and nodded, setting her crayon down to toddle over to her mama. She wrapped her arms around her mama's waist and looked into the fridge, immediately spotting the chocolate pudding.

"Wan' dat!" Dahyun excitedly pointed at the chocolate pudding and looked up at Momo, pouting when she saw Momo shake her head.

"We can't have that for dinner, Dub. You can have it for dessert though." Momo chuckled and ran her fingers through the little's hair, pulling out ingredients for spaghetti. It was easy enough to make and it was one of Dahyun's favorite American foods to eat.

Dahyun groaned a little but nodded. She wasn't sure what her mama was going to make but she loved anything with noodles in it. "Dub help."

"Thank you, sweet pea. Mama has to wash your hands first." Momo smiled and led her baby to the sink, washing their hands together. She grabbed a towel hanging on the handle of the oven door and wiped Dahyun's small hands off before putting the towel back.

Momo walked back over to the kitchen counter and pointed to the box of pasta. "Can you get this much pasta out and put it in this cup?" Momo made a small circle with her hand and Dahyun nodded.

The little shook some pasta out, holding her hand up to make a circle. It looked like a lot less than her mama usually made so she dumped a bit more out. Once Dahyun had almost half the box in the cup, she walked over to the stove where Momo had moved.

"Mama. Dub got pagetti." Dahyun proudly presented her very full cup of pasta to her mama, smiling up at her.

Momo's eyes widened a bit in surprise as she took the cup and set it down. "Oh wow. Thank you, sweet girl. You got... just the right amount." Momo let out a small chuckle and started to boil the water.

//

While the water took its time to boil, Dahyun made her way back to her coloring book. She laid down on her tummy and continued to color in her next masterpiece.

Once she finished coloring the head, Dahyun looked up and saw a tiny little rolly polly making its way across the floor. Dahyun gasped and set her crayon down, scooting a little closer to see it. She watched as its little legs took it slowly across the floor.

Dahyun thought it was the coolest thing ever and she wanted nothing more than to show it to her mama. Very carefully, Dahyun picked the rolly polly up in her hand and got up, walking into the kitchen.

The water had boiled and Momo had put the pasta in. She was scrolling on her phone, blissfully unaware of what her baby had in her hand.

"Mama wook at this!"

"Did you color anoth-AH!" Momo screamed as soon as she looked up, backing up into the stove. "Dub, why did you pick that bug up?!"

Dahyun just laughed. Her mama was funny. He was just a harmless little bug and he tickled her hand a little since he had such small legs. "Jus' a bug, mama." Dahyun took a step forward, causing Momo to move again to avoid being any closer to the bug.

"I see that it's a bug, sweet pea, but it shouldn't be in the kitchen." It was taking everything in Momo's power to not run out of the kitchen due to how close the bug was to her.

Dahyun looked at the little rolly polly and then back at her mama, a small frown on her face. "But he nice." She watched as the bug slowly crawled across her left hand to her right.

"I-I'm sure he's nice, Dub, but maybe we should put him outside. You don't want his mama to be worried about him, do you?"

Dahyun quickly shook her head. She had never thought about the rolly polly having a family. Now she just wanted to get it outside to safety so he could find his family. "Gon' put ou'side." Dahyun marched to the door, Momo following a few feet behind her.

Once the little opened the door and released the bug, Momo let out a long sigh of relief. "Good job, sweet pea. I'm sure he's much happier outside with his family than all alone in here."

//

Throughout dinner and even after eating her pudding, there was a small pout on Dahyun's face. Momo tried talking to her, making funny faces, and even giving her an extra chocolate pudding, but nothing worked.

"What's up, Dub?" Momo had cleaned all the dishes and put away the big container of leftovers, now sitting on the couch with Dahyun on her lap.

Dahyun just shook her head and tucked her face into Momo's shirt.

"Did I do something to make you upset?"

Dahyun nodded and muttered something into Momo's shirt and looked up, a big frown now on her face.

"I'm sorry, sweet pea. I didn't hear you. What was that?"

Dahyun huffed and pointed to the front door. "Made me put him ou'side."

Momo was still a little confused until she remembered the creepy bug that Dahyun had very quickly fallen in love with. "Oh, I'm sorry, baby. But I'm sure he's much happier with his family now."

Dahyun just shook her head and buried her face back in Momo's shirt. She was sure that the rolly polly was with his family, but it was cold out. What if he froze to death?

//

If you had told Momo that she'd be looking for a rolly polly stuffed animal at 11pm while her baby was fast asleep, she wouldn't believe you.

If you had told Momo that she'd be giving her baby a rolly polly stuffed animal just a week later, she'd call you crazy.

Yet here Momo was a week later with a very happy Dub and her rolly polly stuffy.

#twice agere #twice fanfic #twice fic #little!dahyun #caregiver!momo #sfw #sfw interaction only #sfw agere

[chrisgetsmewet]

Lost Hearts 2

Part 1

Pairing: chris× fem! Reader

Summary:emmaline is obsessed with chris ever sense the 9th grade up until 12th grade. He doesnt feel the same though...

Warning: none

A/n: this might be a little short

Series!!

I was sitting in the kitchen with marylou and nick discussing school dances. And I was also doing chris's homework for him since he asked me to, everyone else thought it was mine and i just let them believe that because that's just who I am.

Matt, chris, nate, and alahna were playing basketball outside. I couldn't stand that girl, i mean she tried so hard to do whatever they did she got on my nerves laughing at every joke they made. thats how i saw it atleast.

"So who are you going to the fall dance with?" Marylou asked leaning forward against the counter.

"No one I'll probably just dance with leah or something." I muttered, continuing working and also fully attending in the conversation.

"Wait you really have no one to go with" nick asked sounding suprised, wich i wouldn't understand why cause even if someone asked me I'd reject them cause it isn't Chris.

"Well i could get chris or matt to take you" their mom suggested

"No, matt has someone already"

"Really?" I was just as shocked as marylou because i had no idea, guess you never know whats going on in someones life when you're to focused on your own and someone else's.

"I guess I'll get chris to take you then" the shruggs before pushing off the counter to look in the fridge and grab ingredients out for dinner. I was staying over for dinner of course.

Thats when i heard the front door open and i heard talking, panting, and laughing. Ugh alahna's laughter.

She came in the kitchen giggling "hey, where's chris's water bottle" i knew where that was so i got up from my seat and opened the cabinet where all there cups were, filled it up with ice water.

Alahna put her hand out to get the water from me but i pushed past her, walking into the living room to give it to him personally. He was laying out on the floor catching his breath, some of his hair sticking to his forehead from the sweat.

"Here" I turn the bottle to him. Then squat down to his level

"Oh my gosh thank you"

"So who won basketball"

He just kept chugging his water then i heard matt answer for him.

"He did, only cause he cheated"

"sounds like a true loser"

With all that being said, and nothing to me just everyone talking about there wins and lose's i got up and went back to the kitchen. By then marylou was rolling the meat into balls for meatballs, and boiling the pasta, while on the phone.

"That was so uncalled for" he said unamused, i assume he was talking about the whole water bottle thing.

"What are you talking about" I said feigning ignorance. He just chuckled in response and continued making the meatballs . I went over and helped too.

-

"So chris-

Marylou cut heald of shipping her mouth

"-I'd like you to take emmaline to the dance"

He chocked on his food a bit putting his fork down, then taking a sip of whatever was in his cup while hitting his chest a couple of times, Matt started laughing at him but quickly stopped when his dad started looking at him unamused.

"Huh?" He heard he i knew he did. I just stuff my face full of food just incase i have to talk and I avoid everyone's eyes, looking down at the plate for the time being.

"Chris don't be an ass"

"Language" his mother points at him

"How did this even happen. " He looked at me and i quickly turned my head putting the whole load of bread in my mouth, i gagged a bit that made everyone look at me, so i just quickly covered my mouth and giving them a thumbs up.

"What are you doing" matt asked me with a confused look on my face.

I just shook my head pointing to my mouth and shrugging.

"Listen to you're mom" his dad said sternly, I'm sure he was fed up sense he isn't the type to be mad without a reason.

"But-"

"No emmaline is a nice, talented, beautiful young lady and you're gonna take her to the dance, conversation over. "

I smiled at Jimmy's kind words but that quickly ended when i saw chris walking away from the table. I looked around matt was eating his food and also playing with the dog, nick took that as his opportunity to get on his phone.

"Please sit back down" Marylou pleaded but he kept walking thats when his dad came in "chris come sit back down" but he didn't listen.

"I can go talk to him"

"No, finish eating, he's upset for no reason"

"I'm sorry hun he dosent mean anything by it" she reached touching my hand, her thumb rubbing it a little.

"I hope so" I let out a breath.

A/n: i tried so hard not use people's name over and over again. Also no hate to alahna i just wanted to use her for this.

#chris sturniolo #christopher sturniolo #sturniolo x reader #sturniolo triplets #matt sturniolo #nick sturniolo #chris × reader #chris sturniolo fanfic

[shankschewtoy]

Hi Evou-san! You grew so much since I last saw you and you are so active here!!! I'm so happy!

Can I please request a little scenario of Killer and his crewmate / ")crush talking about different kinds of pasta? I just saw a video about carbonara (type of sauce) and all I can think about is making it for Killer, the supreme pasta lover.

Sorry for the long ask, have a good time!! Byeeeeeee.

a/n - Hi hi Kero!! Awww tysm, I’m so happy you always read my killer things 🥺🥺💜💜 omg. Pasta man. YES. I just ate some pasta so it’s perfect 👀

Warnings ⚠️ - g/n reader, fluff, chef reader

Simple love <3

Sitting in front of you was a neatly plated serving of carbonara. It was one of your favorite dishes to both eat and make. Despite its simplicity, it remained one of your most precious recipes in your book. You took your fork and started to neatly twirl a bite of the noodles onto the fork, raising it to your mouth and blowing gently. When you tasted it, it was still the same nostalgic taste you’ve remembered since your childhood. It made you so happy when you got to eat it and daydream about past memories. You were snapped out of your daze when you heard footsteps coming down the stairs towards the kitchen where you sat at the counter. You peered your head to the side, trying to get a better look at who was approaching. When they appeared in the doorway, accidentally bonking their forehead on the wooden beam, a metallic noise resonated from impact. You sighed with a small hint of relief, for a second you thought it might’ve been an enemy. You then snickered when you saw who it was, there wasn’t anyone else who’d do that except for one person you knew. “Killer!” You said with a kind smile, continuing to eat your pasta with a happy atmosphere around you. “Hi.. Y/n, is that pasta?” He asked curiously, walking over towards you and peeking over your shoulder. “Mhm, carbonara.” You said, covering your mouth half full with food. Underneath his mask, Killer looked nervous and anxious, he was so embarrassed to say exactly why he came down here. The reason was just- kind of stupid to him. “Did you need something?” You asked, managing to swallow your food quickly. Killer stayed silent for a couple seconds, his helmet hiding most of his thoughts being displayed on his face. “Yeah. I smelled.. Pasta.. so that’s why I came down here- nevermind.” He replied quickly, trying to dismiss his broken explanation.

Your eyes widened, “Killer! Do you like pasta too???” You asked with excited eyes, standing up and smiling up at him, your face inches away from his. Killer was slightly blushing underneath his mask, but he bent backwards awkwardly, “I like pasta, yeah..” He replied quietly, rubbing the back of his head sheepishly. Wasn’t it kind of- weird that Killer, THE Killer of the Kid pirates was a huge fan of pasta-?? And specifically the one you made? So much so that he could smell it from on deck..? “That’s so cool! Wait here I’m going to make some more for you, you must be hungry anyways right?” You asked, hurriedly grabbing another pot from the cabinet. You gathered all of the ingredients, quickly putting them each on the counter. He was surprised by your actions, he just expected you to laugh, just like how the rest of them would.. But no, you called his love for pasta- “cool”. Killer silently observed from the side, watching the determined look on your face. He smiled softly, he appreciated the fact that you were going out of your way, making pasta for him. “Here, I’ll show you how to make it so you don’t always need me to make it. Then you can have it whenever you feel like it.” You said with a bright smile, beckoning for him to watch you. He stood behind you, bending over from behind, peeking over your shoulder. You salted the water in the pot, bringing it to a boil before dropping in some of the leftover homemade pasta you made from before. You put a lid on the pot, and set a timer for 6 minutes. “Ok, now you grate the cheese, about 1/3 cup. Then add the two eggs, make sure they’re room temp! I still dunno why they have to be that way but it just tastes better- and then..” You explained to him, trying to help him crack the eggs without breaking them completely. His large and strong hands fumbled with the eggs, struggling to crack one without completely shattering it… He must’ve gone through five different eggs before he finally was able to crack one of the eggs. You clapped your hands together excitedly, like a fan cheering on an idol. “Yay! There ya go!” You said happily. Killer smiled, he felt so happy in these moments with you. He never thought that making pasta with someone could be this wonderful. “Now you have to mix it all together like this.” You demonstrated for him, mixing the sauce of the carbonara together in a metallic bowl. You carefully handed it to Killer for him to try as well, and he gently started to mix in circles. At one point, some of the sauce accidentally splattered onto the side of his mask. “Oops- lemme get that for you.” You said, reaching up towards his mask and wiping it off with your thumb. Killer stopped all of his actions, he froze. The tips of his ears were flushed with red. “Uh- you ok?” You asked, waving your hand in front of his mask, snapping him out of it. “Yeah, sorry.” He replied, trying to play it off as nothing. He’s never felt this way for someone before.. It was so different, unfamiliar. Yet at the same time, it was one of the best feelings he’s ever felt in his life.

Once the noodles were done, you took a cup and filled it up with some pasta water, “This is a secret I do, don’t tell anyone. It’s something my Mom taught me when I was a kid.” You whispered to him, setting off the pasta water to the side. You carried the ginormous pot towards the sink, struggling a bit with the size of it. Killer helped you a bit, draining the pasta into a strainer. “Almost done.” You said with a smile, taking the sauce you two made and putting it onto a skillet. You stirred in the bacon, as well as a tiny sprinkle of pepper. You then instructed Killer to pour in the sauce, “See? Cooking isn’t so hard!” You said happily with a grin, letting him try to stir around the sauce. He laughed silently, watching you pour in the pasta water with a gentle smile on your face. He couldn’t help but find himself staring at whatever you were doing. He almost always got caught in a daze if he didn’t keep himself from staring. You then put in the pasta noodles, stirring it around skillfully, turning the stove off quickly. Killer grabbed two plates, one for you and him. As you put the pasta on his plate, you giggled and gave him way more than you gave yourself. “Hey- why did you give me more?” He asked with a confused tone. “Because you said you liked pasta, there’s always more if you want more.” You replied with a smile, taking the cheese, and the grater in your hands. You then started grating the cheese, the little flakes falling onto his plate. He had a smile on his face, his heart felt so.. Full of compassion, and all of it was yours, “Thank you, y/n.”

a/n - pls I love pasta sm 😭 this was sooooo cute I loved writing it, tysm Kero!! 💜🥺

<3

#one piece #one piece x reader #one piece killer #killer one piece #killer x reader #massacre soldier killer #killer x y/n #killer x you #one piece killer x reader

[cdelphiki]

1. A Rock in a Weary Place

I shared a snipped of the draft earlier, but here's another! It's setting up the conflict the fic has to solve. 😄

Lois says something about how they should do some scouting that evening. Listen to the police scanner, a la their early Superman days, to see if they can find where he’s saving people and get some more info on him. Clark is nodding absently then thinks, he can’t. He has to go home to feed Billy. Also, Billy probably won't be out and about that time, anyway. He usually does his work during the daylight. He hasn’t seen him venture out at night much yet, even before he came to live in metropolis. “Oh, I can’t, sorry.” “Can’t? Why not?” “I have plans” “Plans with who" she demands. "You haven’t been available all week.” He splutters. “It’s not like that, I’m just busy. Besides, has Captain Marvel been seen after dark much anyway?” Maybe she narrows her eyes, then thinks about it. “Hm. I wonder if he gets his strength from the sun or something,” she mutters. Clark gets up and gets his coat, bids her farewell. Feels mildly bad he’s blown her off three times already. They used to spent almost all day together. He missed that… He gets home and finds Billy sitting on the couch, watching TV. He did finally give in and start perusing Clark’s Hulu. “Hey Billy,” he says, as he puts his coat on the hook and kicks off his boots, “How was your day?” he asks. “Hi Clark,” Billy responds, “It was good.” He doesn’t elaborate. He never does. He used to be so chatty. Clark could ask him one question and off he’d go for several minutes down multiple tangents, telling Clark everything about everything. Now he barely responds in full sentences. “Yeah?” he asks. He puts his bag against the wall near the door, and trods over toward the kitchen. He’s pretty sure he has the stuff for chicken alfredo for dinner. “Did you do anything interesting?” Billy shrugs. "Some thugs tried robbing a bank in Faucett," he mumbles. "You stopped them?" "Captain Marvel did, yeah," He says. "Were they any trouble?" He asks. Billy shrugs again, so he goes about getting a pot filled with water, turns the eye on, and uses his heat vision to get the water to boiling. Once he has the pasta in the pot, he tries to get the conversation going again. "What did you eat for lunch?” he asks. He’s been giving Billy money to purchase lunch every day. There’s also sandwich stuff in the apartment and a few microwavable things, if he happens to be home. He never is. And it’s not because he’s in school. Because Billy hasn’t been in school. Not since last year. He’d asked Billy about that on day two. "The school wouldn’t let me register myself," he’d said, "they said my adult had to do it." Clark still couldn’t believe no one followed up on that. Clark looks up when Billy doesn’t answer and asks, “Billy?” Billy scowls and says “I ate.” Clark pauses, isn’t quite sure how to respond. “Yes, I figured you did,” Clark says slowly. He isn’t sure why he’s getting attitude. He was just trying to make conversation. “Lois and I went to some salad place for lunch,” he says, as if nothing happened. Billy is still scowling, but he at least sinks back into the couch a little.

[a-small-batch-of-dragons]

Try Your Best (That's All We Can Do)

Prompts: Hi there sjsksks I absolutely *adore* your fics, and I can't wait to dive in your non tss content!! But for now, I hope you don't mind a request! It's kinda specific, but I have 'een craving for a fic of like, a side or character reacting to their little brother Virgil getting into his first Serious Relationship? Because I am always a sucker for people being protective over the emo boy. Bonus if the Big Brother and New Boyfriend are characters who don't really get along w each other, like Roman and Janus or Thomas and Janus etc? - anon

I yearn for Remus angst with parental Janus. That is all, thank you - Auggie

Read on Ao3

Warnings: coming out (no bad reactions, promise), discussions of bullying

Pairings: prinxiety but it isn't the focus

Word Count: 3085

Trying to parent is...a challenge. Especially when your children have competing needs. 

Virgil gets a new boyfriend. Remus isn't happy about it because it's his former bully. 

No conversation that follows was going to be easy.

Janus looks up from the kitchen as the front door opens and closes. “Virgil? Is that you?”

“Yeah, Dad, it’s me.”

Ah. Full sentences. This poses to be an interesting evening. Janus quickly reaches for a glass and fills it with water, setting it on the edge of the counter as he turns back to making sure the pasta water doesn’t boil over. 

Sure enough, when Virgil emerges from putting away his coat and shoes, his backpack is firmly slung over both shoulders and his fringe is all over his face. He mumbles a quiet be right back as he goes up the stairs, the door to his room opening and closing. 

Janus sighs, absentmindedly fiddling with the wooden spoon in his hand. Is this something happening at school? Did one of his teachers say something? A medication issue?

It’s also possible this is just a bad day and he’s overthinking it. 

Footsteps on the stairs again and then Virgil’s appearing, taking the glass of water and drinking until it’s half empty. He wipes the back of his hand against his mouth and glances up sheepishly. 

“Sorry.”

“Don’t apologize, sweetie, you didn’t do anything wrong.” He nudges the glass back over. “You just let me know if you want more.”

“I’m a full human, Dad, I can get my own water.”

“Oh, this seems to be a development from this past weekend. Did you spontaneously grow your own arms at school today?”

Virgil snorts. “Yeah, it’s this new science class thing we’re doing about developmental biology.”

“Mm, back in my day they used to send us home with permission slips before doing anything outside of traditional schooling methods for teaching.”

“Uh-huh. Well, you can sue evolution if you really want to.”

Janus sighs dramatically, fighting a smile. “You know I would, dear, but their ability to do paperwork is absolutely abysmal. I’m still waiting on the request form for why my bones can decide to go on strike and why your internal organs can unionize against you.”

“Hey, unionizing is a great thing that more workers should do, I just wish it wasn’t against me. I’m still proud of them.”

Janus chuckles, stirring the pasta. “Are you feeling better, sweetie?”

Virgil worries the end of his sleeve. “Yeah, a bit. Thanks.”

“Of course. Do you want to talk about it?”

“Yeah, yeah, I, um…it’s something I need to talk about.”

“Alright. Would you like to do it now or after dinner?”

“…can we do it now?”

“Yes, if you like.” He sets a timer and turns around, taking the oven mitt off and lying it on the counter. “Do you want to wait until Remus gets home?”

Virgil shakes his head. 

“Okay. Can we have this conversation in here or would you rather be on the couch?”

“Here is fine.” 

Janus watches him fidget with the strings of his hoodie. His gaze keeps darting around the room, lingering for a second too long on the clock in the corner. 

“Sorry,” he blurts, “can you—can you tell me you love me?”

“What?”

“Nevermind, that was stupid, don’t listen to me.”

“Of course, I love you, sweetie,” Janus says softly, a little dismayed at how quickly Virgil gave up on that, “you’re my baby.”

“‘M not a baby.”

“Maybe not, but you’re my baby.”

“Okay, Dad, jeez.” Virgil rubs at his red cheeks, sleeves pulled up over his hands. “Don’t need to do that.”

He fidgets for a little longer before he takes a deep breath and forces his hands down by his sides. 

“I have a boyfriend.”

Janus blinks. “Congratulations, sweetie, I’m happy for you.”

“I know you don’t—wait, what?” Virgil’s head snaps up, staring at him. “Just like that?”

“You know I don’t what?”

“Huh?”

“What were you going to say,” Janus asks gently, “I don’t what?”

“Oh.” Virgil glances away, chewing on his lip. “I was gonna say ‘you don’t know I’m gay,’ but…uh…did you?”

“I had my suspicions,” Janus says, softly tapping his cheek to tell Virgil not to bite, “but no, I didn’t know for certain until right now.”

Virgil frowns. “Then why’d you jump straight to saying congrats?”

“It’s not my business to tell you how to come out, sweetie. You get to decide how you do that.” He smiles. “And yeah, my baby’s got a partner. That’s a congratulatory affair.”

“Oh my god,” Virgil mumbles, burying his face in his hands, “you gotta stop doing that.”

Janus chuckles before he’s reaching out to carefully coax Virgil’s hands away from his face. “I’m only teasing, sweetie. Really, I’m happy for you.”

Virgil peeks out shyly. “Really?”

“Yes, sweetie, really.”

Ah, there’s his baby’s smile. He barely resists the urge to pinch his cheek, ruffling his hair instead. Virgil looks a bit happier now, some of the tension leaving his shoulders as Janus steps back to pay attention to the pasta. 

“So,” he calls, sliding the oven mitt back on, “what’s his name?”

“Uh, Roman.”

Janus pauses. “Roman Prince?”

“Wait, you know him?”

Janus takes a deep breath, sliding the oven mitt back off and setting it on the counter. 

This is going to be an interesting evening. 

“…Dad?”

“Sorry, sweetie, lost in my own head.” He turns back around. “Yes, sweetie, I’ve heard of Roman before.”

“Why’re you saying it like that?” Virgil draws his hands up again. “Am I in trouble?”

“No, sweetie, you’re not in trouble.” 

The pause where Virgil looks away guilty makes him frown. 

“Is there something you’re not telling me?”

“I, um…” Tug on the hoodie strings. “…might have a date tonight? For dinner?”

“We have a rule about night plans, Virgil.”

“I know, I know, I just—“ Virgil tugs the strings again. “—I—I just—“

“Just what, baby?”

“I wasn’t sure how you were gonna react so I needed an escape plan,” Virgil blurts out, “okay?”

Oh. Oh, dear. He needs a moment from that. 

Hearing that his baby didn’t know that he would always, always be loved and supported so much so that he needed an escape plan if something goes wrong—and he knows about Virgil’s anxiety, he understands that, but still.

He takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly, reaching out a hand. 

“Sweetie, come here, please.”

Virgil glances up, shuffling close enough to shove a hoodie-covered hand out. Janus takes it and brings him in slowly, gently calling his name until he looks up. 

“I’m sorry to hear that felt scared enough to need an escape plan,” he says softly, “and I’m…well, I’m not thrilled that you made evening plans without telling me first.”

“I know it’s ‘cause you need to know where we are,” Virgil mumbles. 

“Yes, baby, that’s why.”

“…am I in trouble?”

“No, sweetie, you’re not in trouble. Oh, sweetie,” he coos when he sees Virgil’s eyes well up, “come here, do you want a hug?”

Virgil sniffles and buries his face in Janus’s chest, letting his arms come up and wrap around him. He hums, rubbing Virgil’s back and pressing a kiss to the top of his head. 

“This must be a lot, sweetie,” he murmurs, rocking them slightly back and forth, “shh, shh, it’s okay. I’m not mad at you, you’re not in trouble.”

Virgil sniffles, fingers twisting into Janus’s shirt, still sobbing, but shoving himself into Janus’s hold instead of away from it is always preferable so he weathers it without complaint. They stay like that for a while until Janus reaches out and turns the stove off. 

“Sorry.”

“For what, sweetie?”

“Making plans. Being dramatic. Crying on you.”

“It’s okay, baby. You’re okay.” He carefully tilts Virgil’s chin up and wipes his face clean. “There. Can’t have you looking all swollen and puffy on your date, can we?”

He’s rewarded with a watery little giggle and he smiles, nudging him toward the stairs. 

“Do you need to go change?”

“Nah. ‘M good. ’S not fancy.”

“Mm.” 

Janus reaches for the oven mitt and the pot, straining the pasta as steam rises in the kitchen. He hears Virgil shuffling around as he reaches for the olive oil. 

“Hey, Dad?”

“Hm?”

“Why did you react like that when I said Roman’s name?”

Janus lets out another slow breath as he adds the olive oil. “Because I believe I understand why you didn’t want to have this conversation with Remus present.”

“I, um…it’s more because I, uh, didn’t know how you would react and I didn’t want to have to deal with both of you yelling at me at the same time. N-not that I thought you would, I just—“

“Shh,” Janus murmurs, “you don’t have to apologize for being anxious about coming out, sweetie.”

“…thanks.”

“But you know, then, about Remus and Roman’s complicated history.”

“I mean like, I knew about it ‘cause Remus talked about it,” Virgil mumbles, “but like…I’ve never seen it? Not really, I’ve just seen them yell at each other down the hall, and then it’s like every other person in high school.”

Janus nods. 

“And he’s…Roman’s been really good to me,” he continues, ears beginning to flush a bit—he’ll tease his baby about that later, now’s not the time—“like—he’s the only other person aside from you guys that’s actually, like, listened to me about my anxiety? And he’s really nice about making sure I don’t get overwhelmed and he started keeping an extra hoodie in his car for me, and—and—“

He seems to realize he’s rambling and glances up. 

“…I don’t know, Dad. I want to believe Remus and I trust him, you know I do, but…”

“It seems like it’s a different person?”

“…yeah.”

Janus takes a deep breath. “Well, I do think you should talk about this with Remus—and also with Roman, but I believe you.”

“You do?”

“People can change a lot between middle school and high school. It seems like Roman is no exception.” He levels a look at him. “But you will tell one of us if you ever feel otherwise, won’t you?”

“Yeah, yeah, I promise.”

“I mean it,” Janus presses, “don’t worry about any ‘I told you so’s, if that boy ever makes you feel unsafe or uncomfortable, you come straight to me, do you understand?”

“Come gay to you,” Virgil mumbles before Janus clears his throat, “yeah, yeah, Dad, I understand. I will.”

“Good.” 

“Wait, that’s it?”

“You’re a responsible person, Virgil, I trust your judgment.” He smiles encouragingly when Virgil perks up hopefully. “I will recommend that you talk to Remus sooner rather than later, because—“

“What the fuck are you doing here?”

The shout from outside their front door makes both of them wince. 

“…to avoid something like that,” Janus finishes weakly, making sure the stove is off before he’s following Virgil to the front door. 

He arrives just in time to see Virgil throw the door open, revealing a snarling Remus who looks about to throw his backpack at Roman, who’s standing at the base of the steps near his car, a varsity jacket slung over his shoulders. He looks up when the door opens and Janus can see his expression visibly soften when he spots Virgil. 

“Hey,” he calls, “are you ready to go?”

“Go? Fucking go where?” Remus steps closer. “You’re not taking my brother anywhere, you bastard!”

“That’s not up to you, Remus.”

“And it sure as hell isn’t up to you.” 

“Oh, god,” Virgil mumbles, quickly reaching over and giving Janus a quick hug before going down the steps, “Remus, it’s fine.”

“Fine? Fine?” Remus gestures at Roman. “This prick thinks he can just show up and snap his fingers and you’ll follow him like a good little puppy and you say it’s fine?”

“Remus,” Virgil says, “just—just go in, please.”

“No! I’m not leaving you alone with him!”

“That’s not your choice,” Roman says quietly, “it’s Virgil’s.”

“And why in the fuck would my brother want to go anywhere with you?”

Janus can see the moment Virgil laces his fingers through Roman’s and mentally braces himself. 

“What the fuck?” 

“Alright,” he calls, firmly, drawing the attention of the three boys before they can piss off the neighbors anymore, “Remus, come inside, please. Virgil, keep your phone on. Roman, I want him home by ten o’clock, no later, and I will be calling your parents if you’re a moment late.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Thanks, Dad.”

“Enjoy your evening, boys.”

“Come on,” Roman says softly, giving Virgil’s hand a tug, “I’ve got a reservation.”

“Remus,” Janus says before Remus can start yelling again, “come in, please.”

Remus’s face is thunderous as he stomps up the stairs, barely even acknowledging Janus as he throws his bag onto the couch. Janus catches sight of one of their neighbors heading up their own stairs and they give him a little ‘good luck’ wave. 

He waves back and goes inside. 

“Remus?” Remus has stomped up the stairs, and he winces as he hears the door slam shut. 

It opens again a second later with a mumbled sorry, didn’t mean to close it that hard. 

He sighs, carefully climbing the stairs and knocking on Remus’s door. “Can I come in, sweetie?”

“…fine.”

“Thank you.” He opens the door and glances around, spotting Remus curled up in the corner with a blanket tossed over his head. “Oh, honey…”

The blanket corner shifts, curling in on itself. Janus walks over, crouching down a good distance away. 

“Can you talk to me from under there?”

A sniffle and his heart twists at the thought of his little anomaly crying under there. “Why’re you taking Virgil’s side?”

“I’m not taking Virgil’s side in this, honey.”

“Yes, you are. You let him go with Roman.”

“Virgil’s old enough to make his own decisions, honey. You know that.”

“But it’s Roman,” Remus mutters, the blanket shifting again, “how could you let him do that?”

“I trust Virgil’s judgment.”

“He didn’t even ask about evening plans.”

Janus takes a deep breath and eases himself down to sit. “Why don’t you tell me why you’re really upset, honey?”

Remus is quiet for a minute, only sniffling occasionally, before there’s a very quiet sob. “…why did he do that to me?”

“Do what, honey?”

“Roman hurt me,” Remus mumbles, “he—he really hurt me, Dad. And he—nothing ever happened.”

Janus does know this. Roman had never faced any severe consequences from the school for how much he bullied Remus when they were all younger, and he’d been on the verge of taking Remus and Virgil out of that school to solve it. 

“I know, honey,” he says as gently as he can, “I know he did.”

“So then how could you let this happen? How could Virgil—how could he—“

Another sob interrupts him and Janus fights the urge to reach out and bundle him into his arms. Not yet, not yet.

“Is Roman still bullying you?”

“Yes.”

“Does Virgil know that?”

“He should. Roman does it in front of him.”

Janus takes another deep breath. “What does he do?”

“Yells at me, insults me, belittles me.” A loud sniff. “I can keep going.”

“And you think Virgil would know about this and not do anything about it?”

A pause. Then the blanket shifts. “…no.”

“Virgil and I talked a little bit before you got home,” Janus says, treading carefully, “and he says that he’s seen you and Roman yell things at each other in the halls, but that’s it.”

The blanket rustles. “Yeah, that’s true.”

“Is Roman doing anything else to you?”

“…no.”

“Is Roman the one yelling at you first?”

“Sometimes,” Remus bites out, “sometimes he’s the one who says it first. It’s not always me.”

“I didn’t say it was.” When Remus curls up tighter, Janus lets out a sympathetic noise. “I’m not saying that you shouldn’t feel hurt, or that whatever pain you’re feeling is wrong, but can you honestly say to me that Roman is still bullying you as badly as he was five years ago?”

A pause. He really hopes Remus doesn’t try to lie. 

“…no.”

He lets out a breath. “Thank you, honey. Have you ever seen him do anything to Virgil?”

“No.”

“Do you really think Virgil would knowingly get into a relationship with someone who hurts you?”

“No.”

“I know it’s not what you want to hear,” Janus murmurs, shifting a little on the floor, “but people do change between middle school and high school. It’s been five years, honey, people can definitely change in that time.”

“I just wish he would’ve told me.”

“You and me both, honey.”

A moment passes, then the blanket moves and reveals a sniffly and pouty Remus and Janus melts. 

“C’mere, honey.”

Remus scrambles forward, launching himself into Janus’s arms. Janus wraps his arms around his little anomaly and kisses his temple, scooping him into his lap and rocking him back and forth. 

“I’m proud of you, little anomaly,” he murmurs, kissing him again, “talking about this stuff is hard. You did good.”

“I’m sorry for being so loud earlier. And for shouting at Virgil.”

“And you can have a talk with him later, if you want.”

“…can you be there too?”

“Yeah, little anomaly, I can.” He ruffles Remus’s hair. “Can we go eat some dinner now? All these emotions are making me hungry.”

Remus nods, still looking a little too puffy and upset. He nudges him. 

“Do you know what we can do since Virgil isn’t in tonight?”

There’s the happy little face he wants. “Can we watch the movie?”

“Yes, little anomaly, we can watch the movie. Let’s eat dinner first, though, okay?”

“You’re the best, Dad. You’re the best ever.”

“I try,” Janus chuckles, pulling his son back in for another hug and closing his eyes, “I try my best.”

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#sanders sides #fic #prinxiety #dragonbabbles #roman sanders #remus sanders #sympathetic remus #virgil sanders #deceit sanders #sympathetic deceit #janus sanders

[pizzatowerepisodes]

The Night of the Were-Italians! (AKA: the obligatory werewolf halloween special)

It's The night before Halloween!! and surprisingly, the pizzeria is full with customers

Peppino, Gustavo, Brick and Fakey are seriously busy with the handful of customers

Gus is talking with Peppino about maybe going Trick or treat after work but Peppino refuses, not only for he is jumpy but also he doesn't have any money to make a costume nor the mind to think of a good idea

As Peppino and Gustavo are talking, Two Pizzards enter the Pizzeria, one looks Clearly with a cold and the other is disguised as Gandalf

Pizzard1: "Why did you insist on coming Brian? you have a cold"

Brian: "Exactly! Blows "Nose" i am going to take the chance to leave my house if i am going to stay home for hal-hallo- ACHOOO!!"

Pizzard1: "DAMMIT BRIAN!!"

When brian sneezed a spell thunder sparked out of his hands and it jumped all over the place in a comical way, reflecting and bouncing off stuff and people until it hitted Peppino! (Causing him to make his characteristic scream)

Quickly The two apologised and even offered to pay extra-extra, Peppino just sighed and took Brian's order, a Mozzarella pizza with a White sauce base, Ham, Mayonnaise and Pickles, Peppino didn't say anything and walked to the kitchen, once there he started to complain and show his disgust to Gustavo, who rotoundly agreed with him

Turns out there is a "Halloween Tradition" in the town where you go to a restaurant and ask for the grossest order you can think of and if they make it for you you HAVE to pay extra, so Peppino just accepted all the orders for… well he needs rent money

After that order, Peppino oddly started to get queasy and gagged at the sight of the "Crimes against Italian cuisine" so they decided to close early

But a certain Pizzaheaded man was outside, Peppino just ignored him but Pizzahead was determined to annoy Peppino so he resorted to a "desperate" measure…

Canned Pineapple on a Margarita Pizza…

Gustavo was disgusted but Peppino was oddly quiet looking at Pizzahead in horror suddenly Peppino dropped to his knees in pain

Gustavo quickly asked Peppino what was wrong, both him and (Suprisingly) Pizzahead watched in horror as Peppino started to transform under the moonlight

Black fur grew all over his body, as well he grew claws, sharp teeth, pointy ears and a tail

Gus: "P-peppino?"

"A-AWROOOOOOO!!"

Peppino became a Werewolf and he was angry…

"YOU DONT-A PUT PINEAPPLE ON-A MARGARITA!!" Peppino snarled at Pizzahead as he tacked him and bit him in the arm

Pizzahead screamed in a girly voice and Peppino let go of the pizzaman

Peppino was scared and Pizzahead was erriely quiet

Gustavo tried to calm Pep but was interrupted, the transformation started on Pizzahead

Not only did he started to become a Werewolf but his overalls started to shift into an apron and chef's hat, his wiskers curled into a stache

Even as a wolf Pizzahead still tried to annoy Peppino, like a puppy trying to combince a old dog to play with him

Suddenly Pizzahead and Peppino turned to the pizzeria and started growling

Inside, The Noise was ruining pizzas (again) by putting candy into them and before he could finish his "Hey italian man!" Both werewolfs attacked him

Gustavo and now Brick and Fakey watched in horror as Noise got bitten, then it (somehow) clicked to Gus…

They weren't Werewolfs…They were WereItalians that attacked anyone who made a crime against Pizza!

He started to think and renember

Peppino started to well sick after those Pizzards walked in… so if a Pizzard caused this then a Pizzard could fix this! he knew one, Dougie Jones! He could help!

And so the a A plot starts, the pizza gang running to NTV so they could ask Dougie for help

As for the B plot… Noise, Peppino and Pizzahead are running arround the city, bitting the rest of the cast for they crimes

Mr. Sticks put Ketchup on Pasta to save money…

Pepperman served pasta as a side-dish…

Vigilante put the pasta in cold water before bringing it to boil…

And Noisette made a Peeps and Candycorn pizza…

Oh the italiany!! all turned into Apron wearing, Chef hatted, Mustache decored Werewolfs!!

Back on NTV, Dougie acepted to help Gustavo and Co. and brought them to his home, a full-ass castle

Turns out the cure is to make a Italian recipe blessed with holy water

Brick and Dougie went for a priest while Gus and Fake quickly went to buy the ingridients to made the pizza, a Pizza Boscaiola (Mushrooms n' Italian sausage)

Now they have the Holy Pizza and the table was set, now all they needed was to call the guests

Gus and Dougie did the honors and broke a packet of pasta together

Gus: "Did it worked??"

"…"

"AWOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!"

Dougie: "Yup, it worked"

Gustavo and Dougie got prepared for the fight and quickly the WereItalians broke through the doors!!

Fighting was tough, specially since they have to avoid getting bitten, but Dougie knew what to do…

Dougie: "HEY VIGIL, GET YOUR BOOTS OFF THE TABLE, SIT DOWN YOU SAVAGE!"

Without protest and looking ashamed of his own actions, Vigil sat down and put a napkin on his lap

As it turns out… WereItalians have really good table manners

And so Gus and Dougie took advantage of this and managed to sit everyone as Fakey and Brick finished to Pizza

Wait… there's one guest missing

Peppino pounced on Gustavo and started a fight-ball, after a while Peppino pinned Gustavo to the table, he opened his maw and got closer to Gustavo

Gus: "W-wait! Peppino you can't do this"

Pep: growl

Gus: "Cause… You are a guest!"

Pep: Confused growl

Gus: "You are sitting at the Headboard! Guests are not supposed to sit at the headboard! i mean, those are basic manners!"

Pep: "sorry" growl

Peppino sat down and both Brick and Fakey brought the Pizza and everyone took a slice

Everybody found it's taste so scrumptious!

Even noise growled that "it wasn't that bad"

And with a puff of smoke everyone was back to normal

Gus: "phew! good thing everyone is back to normal!"

Dougie: "this calls for a celebration slice… of Margarita with pineapple"

Everyone: Disgusted sounds

Peppino: "Eugh! I've had-a enough of this weird and disgusting pizzas!"

Peppino: "Um, Gus? you good buddy?"

Gustavo suddenly slamed his fist on the table and started growling

Through the entire scene Gustavo's Right hand is hidden.

Why? cause when he slamed it into the table you can see the massive bite mark in his arm!

Gustavo: "Grrrrr!"

Peppino: "Um…Dougie? i think you should run…"

Dougie: "Oh Really!!?? AHHHHHHHHHH!!!!"

Wolf-Gus: "YOU DONT PUT PINEAPPLE ON MARGARITA!!"

And so the Special ends with everyone chasing Gustavo as he tries to bite Dougie's face off

.

#pizza tower #specials

[sequinsmile-x]

Kiss the Cook

Aaron tries to help Emily cook a meal. Tries being the operative word.

AKA just pointless, domestic fluff because we all deserve it <3

-x-

Words: 1.4k

Warnings: very brief mentions of blood

Read over on Ao3 in my collection of mini fics, or below the cut

“I hate this.” 

Aaron tries and fails, to hide his smile at the petulance colouring his girlfriend's tone, the way her bottom lip stuck out a little. A slight pout she’d deny if he brought it up. 

“You sound like Jack when we’re trying to make him do his math homework.” He says, his smile widening even further when Emily narrows her eyes at him, he looks down to the pot she’s standing in front of, the sauce he’d walked her through the steps of making starting to bubble. “Careful, you don’t want it to burn.” 

She groans and looks down, re-starting the stirring she had been doing. “I can do more than just stir, Aaron.” 

He smiles and closes the gap between them, his arms wrapping around her from behind, his lips against her temple. 

“Tell that to your thumb.” He replies, his gaze falling to the bandaid on her left hand, an injury she had somehow acquired whilst chopping the vegetables for dinner. 

He smiles as she mumbles something under her breath, feeling the rumble of it in her chest more than anything else. She fascinated him endlessly, and the almost 12 months they had been a couple had done nothing to change that. The woman could shoot straight whilst running at full speed, but couldn’t use a kitchen knife without hurting herself. 

“It slipped.” 

Aaron looks at the pot intended for the pasta, the water now coming to a boil. “We’re ready for the spaghetti.” 

She reaches for the packet and gets some out, about to snap the dry noodles in half before he stops her, a hand on each of hers. 

“No, baby, what are you doing?” He asks, stopping himself from smiling when she turns to look at him, her confusion clear.

“Breaking it so it fits in the pot.” She says as if it was obvious, her eyebrows raised at him. She sighs, relinquishing her hold on the pasta so he could put it in the pot. “That’s wrong isn’t it.” 

She looks so dejected he immediately wraps his arms around her again, pulling her back into his chest. 

“Dave would probably never speak to you again if he caught you doing that.” He answers, kissing her cheek.

“Well, at least I know a shortcut to a peaceful life if I need it.” She deadpans, laughing when Aaron pokes at her ribs, the spots he knew were ticklish. She sobers slightly, leaning her head back on his shoulder. “I feel so…stupid for not knowing how to do this.” She grumbles. “At this rate, Jack is going to be a better cook than me.” 

That, Aaron thought, was likely to be true. He’d come home from a late meeting recently to find Jack and Emily making boxed Mac and Cheese together, his son clearly leading the charge. 

“Em, sweetheart,” he says, encouraging her to turn in his arms, smiling at her when he sees the grumpy look on her face. He leans down to kiss her, a quick thing stamped against her lips, “you’re good at so many things, excellent even,” he squeezes her hip, holding her closer, “cooking just isn’t one of them.” 

She scrunches her nose at him, and he can’t resist the urge to lean down and kiss the tip of it.

“You shouldn’t have to do it all the time though.” 

He tucks some hair behind her ear, cupping her cheek as he does so. “I don’t mind, Em. At all.”

“Wouldn’t you rather be with someone who…I don’t know, contributes more?” She asks, her gaze avoiding his a little as she asks the question.

“You contribute plenty, sweetheart.” He says, his smile gentle as she looks back at him. “And even if you didn’t, I’d still choose you over anyone else. Every time.”

She bites her lip to stop herself from smiling. “That’s a good answer.”

“I thought so.”

The front door to the apartment opening cuts off any further conversation, Jack calling out both of their names as they hear his school bag hit the ground. They both shout hello back, smiling at each other. Aaron looks at the food and then back at Emily.

“It needs a couple more minutes, are you ok to serve it up whilst Jack changes and I get  more comfortable?” He asks his suit jacket and tie suddenly feeling a little restrictive. 

She rolls her eyes at him. “Yes, I think I can manage that.” 

He kisses her one last time before separating from her, walking out of the kitchen and seeing his son in the hallway. Jack runs up to him still in his soccer uniform, a wide smile on his face. 

“Aunt Jess said hi!” 

“Thanks, Jack,” Aaron replies, ruffling his son's hair, and the boy tries to dodge out of the way. “How was practise?” 

“Good!” He enthuses. “I scored twice! What’s for dinner? It smells good.” 

Aaron smiles at his son's constant search for food or planning for the next meal, something that amused him. It always made him think of when he was small, enough of a fussy eater it had made Haley take him to the doctor, sure that something was wrong. 

“Emily has made spaghetti,” Aaron answers, wildly underselling his own involvement in the making of the meal. He has to suppress his amusement at the way his son’s face falls slightly. 

“Emily cooked?” Jack asks, looking unsure, his gaze going past his father and into the kitchen, the dinner that had smelt good until that moment apparently suddenly not as appealing as it had been a few seconds ago.

“I helped, don’t worry,” Aaron says, winking at his son.

“Hey,” Emily calls out from the kitchen, her disembodied voice making both the Hotchners freeze on the spot, “I can hear you, you know.” 

Aaron looks back at Jack and tilts his head down the hallway towards the bedrooms. “Let's go change before we eat.” 

He takes off his jacket and tie, leaving him in his shirt and suit pants, rolling up the sleeves of his shirt, smiling as he does so before he walks back out towards the kitchen. He sees Emily placing dinner down on the dining table, the plates piled high with the meal they had cooked together. A normal moment he thinks he may have taken for granted in another life, but something he treasures. Their eyes meet as she looks up at him, an eyebrow raised as she looks at his exposed forearms, a known weak spot of hers. 

“Trying to regain some ground after all the comments about my cooking?” She asks, rounding the table to hug him briefly, her arm around his waist. 

“Of course not,” he denies, his lie obvious, as he kisses her back, “I just didn’t want to get any sauce on it.” 

She rolls her eyes at him. “Sure.” 

Jack bounds towards them, the sound of his feet hitting the floor as he runs their first sign he was coming, and they pull apart. Jack wraps his arms around Emily’s waist, a proper hello he hadn’t had the time to give her when he got home. 

“Hi, Emily.”

“Hi, sweetie.” She replies, hugging him back. “We should eat before it gets cold.” 

They sit down, all taking their usual places at the table, and Aaron can’t help but smile as he watches the love of his life interacting with his son. Love threatens to burst out of him as she enthusiastically listens as Jack tells her about school. His gaze drifts to her left hand, his mind on the ring he had in his sock drawer, and he has to stop himself from jumping up and getting it, from proposing to her over spaghetti on a random Tuesday evening. 

He goes to pick up his fork when he finds himself drawn back to her left hand, his brows furrowing as he realises he can see the cut on her thumb, deep enough that he had briefly thought she may have to go to urgent care. 

“Em,” he says, gaining her attention, both her and Jack looking up at him as they pick up their own forks, “where is your bandaid?” 

She looks at her hand, her mouth already open to tell him it was still there, but she stops when she sees just her skin, the bright red line that still has droplets of fresh blood along it. She then looks at her plate of food before she looks at Aaron and Jack’s, her eyes widening. She looks up at Aaron, a slight blush rising to her cheeks.

“Pizza?” She asks, an apologetic look on her face. 

He’s already standing up, heading back towards the kitchen. “I’ll get the menu.” 

-x-

Tag list

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#hotchniss #hotchniss fanfiction #hotchniss fanfic #aaron hotchner fanfiction #emily prentiss fanfiction #hotchniss fan fic #aaron hotchner #emily prentiss #aaron hotchner x emily prentiss

[the-chickenshit-oddity]

my cooking tips:

for roast potatoes, boil em in salted water until they're cooked. as in, if you get bored, you can just eat those. don't you judge me. do that at least a half hour before you should put them in the oven and just let them chill in the colander, they get dry (as in not wet, not as in cardboard) and so they get crispier. one hour before you're eating, you put some (olive) oil, salt and pepper (and herbs) on them, shove em in the oven at 180C (about 30-40 minutes if you want 220C - the full hour makes them horrible) and take em out before golden brown becomes a takeaway pizza.

if you got bored and walked away and slightly charred your food, you pour some water into the pan, swirl it around, and then drain it. with a sieve or a colander or a pot lid, who cares. rinse and drain. you lose the seasoning but you also lose the burnt taste, so, take what you can get and add some damn salt.

if you really, really don't wanna think about it, you throw one or two veggies in a pot with some oil, cook them a bit, add rice or pasta or whatever and some water, boil it until the grain is cooked, and there's a meal with a bit of broth in less than fifteen minutes. don't thank me, my lazy friends.

if you put in too much salt, the rinse thing works here too. that one's a lifesaver. i'll eat burnt stuff, but overly salty stuff is a step too far.

#stupid

[spooniechef]

Gluten-Free Pasta Tips (coeliac & gluten intolerance)

First of all, hi to the new followers. I hope you’ve all found this blog useful so far, and I will try to keep content coming at a reasonable pace (spoons permitting). Today I’m going to recycle a post from my personal Tumblr regarding gluten-free pasta - what to look for in a good one, and how to treat it. After all, my last post was a pasta recipe and I have a few more to share over the next little while, so it seems fair to make those taste better for those of us with gluten issues.

(Side note: I’m actually getting tested for coeliac properly. I mean, I have issues with gluten either way, and I know that, but it’s probably important to know whether it’s coeliac or not. Wish me luck!)

There are some issues with eating gluten-free, especially when it involves things that are generally made with wheat flour, like pasta. Since pasta is one of those easy dishes for those of us with any kind of spoon deficiency, having a good gluten-free pasta is really useful for those of us whose issues involve gluten intolerance of any kind. I’d been picking gluten-free pasta the hit and miss way for years until my brain actually started working and I realised that, if I wanted to know what gluten-free pastas were good and which were bad, I should check the ingredients list, since the types of non-wheat flours used probably made a difference. I currently have three brands of gluten-free pasta in my house, from three different supermarkets. One is good enough. The other two are … much, much less good. (I keep them in case of emergencies.) After having compared the ingredients lists of all three pastas, I think I see where the issues are, so I’m passing along that information.

The worst of the lot is basically plain rice flour and about three different kinds of corn flour. There’s no ‘done’ index on this stuff - you maybe have a half-second of hot water between “al dente and a really weird texture” and “overcooked and falling apart”, and it tastes like cardboard. So if you’re only looking at rice and corn flour in the ingredients list? You’re probably not going to enjoy the pasta that results.

The almost palatable pasta is actually mostly corn flour, with some rice flour. Again, the index of ‘done’ is narrow as hell, but it might be palatable in a pasta bake, so long as you take a really generous view of what you consider ‘al dente’ when you’re putting half-cooked pasta into your pasta bake. It’s just kind of crap on its own, texture going from ‘soggy cardboard’ to just plain slimy in a very short time.

The one I more or less like is rice flour, whole wheat rice flour, a little bit of corn flour, and a little bit of quinoa flour. This stuff stands up well in a pasta bake (or lasagne, since that supermarket - Sainsbury’s, for you Brits - uses the same basic mix throughout its gluten-free range) but also stands on its own topped with pesto or in the tuna broccoli lemon pasta from the last post. It’s got a really narrow index of ‘done’, but most gluten-free pasta’s like that, and this blend’s not as bad as the other two for that.

So basically for gluten-free pasta that’s reasonably close to your standard wheat pasta, you’re looking for a mix that’s a fair bit of rice flour but with brown as well as white rice flour, some corn flour but not too much, and some quinoa flour. Or at least that’s what my experiments have unearthed. Also, those of you who do cook with gluten-free pasta might have noticed that it gets incredibly starchy. The trick to dealing with that is use more water - and more salt - than you generally need, and try not to let it get to a full boil. That way your overly starchy water won’t boil over and make a burnt-starch mess of your stovetop, plus it pulls more of the ‘too starchy’ out of the pasta itself, helping the texture a bit. Also, take the pot off the stove a bit before it’s done and let it sit for a minute or two, then rinse in hot water. The water in the pot will cook the pasta that last little bit while off the boil, making it easier to differentiate between that weird texture al dente gluten-free pasta gets without overcooking, and the hot water you rinse it with will not only finish the job, but also wash off some of the excess starch.

It’s still not quite the same as a good pasta with plain old wheat flour, but if gluten gives you problems, that’s the trick - anything that’s not just plain rice flour and corn flour, in a bigger pot with more water than you might consider you need, don’t let it get to a full-on roiling boil, and rinse with hot water before serving. It helps.

Next up: another recipe, either for chicken broccoli pasta bake, stovetop sausage hotpot, or low-spoon chocolate fudge - I haven’t decided which yet. Suggestions gratefully received (though all three will show up eventually).

#The Spoonie Chef #gluten-free #tips and hints #pasta

[thessalian]

Thess vs Gluten-Free Pasta

It occurred to me all of a sudden, partly while planning a side blog I intend to call Cooking With Spoons (a bunch of food-related posts for spoonies - read: those who suffer from chronic illness), that if I wanted to know what gluten-free pastas were good and which were bad, the types of non-wheat flours used probably made a difference. I currently have three brands of gluten-free pasta in my house, from three different supermarkets. One is good enough. The other two are ... much, much less good. (I keep them in case of emergencies.) So I decided to look at the ingredients list see what the differences were. I think I see where the issues are, so I’m passing along that information.

The worst of the lot is basically plain rice flour and about three different kinds of corn flour. There’s no ‘done’ index on this stuff - you maybe have a half-second of hot water between “aldente and a really weird texture” and “overcooked and falling apart”, and it tastes like cardboard. So if you’re only looking at rice and corn flour? You’re probably not going to enjoy the pasta that results.

The almost palatable pasta is actually mostly corn flour, with some rice flour. Again, the index of ‘done’ is narrow as hell, but it might be palatable in a pasta bake, so long as you take a really generous view of what you consider ‘aldente’ when you’re putting half-cooked pasta into your pasta bake. It’s just kind of crap on its own, texture going from ‘soggy cardboard’ to just plain slimy in a very short time.

The one I more or less like is rice flour, whole wheat rice flour, a little bit of corn flour, and a little bit of quinoa flour. This stuff stands up well in a pasta bake but also stands on its own topped with pesto or in my tuna broccoli lemon pasta. . It’s got a really narrow index of ‘done’, but most gluten-free pasta’s like that, and this blend’s not as bad as the other two for that.

So basically for gluten-free pasta, you’re looking for a mix that’s a fair bit of rice flour but with brown as well as white rice flour, some corn flour but not too much, and some quinoa flour. Or at least that’s what my experiments have unearthed. Also, those of you who do cook with gluten-free pasta might have noticed that it gets incredibly starchy. The trick to dealing with that is use more water - and more salt - than you generally need, and try not to let it get to a full boil. That way your overly starchy water won’t boil over and make a burnt-starch mess of your stovetop, plus it pulls more of the ‘too starchy’ out of the pasta itself, helping the texture a bit. Also, take the pot off the stove a bit before it’s done and let it sit for a minute or two, then rinse in hot water. The water in the pot will cook the pasta that last little bit while off the boil, making it easier to differentiate between that weird texture aldente gluten-free pasta gets without overcooking, and the hot water you rinse it with will not only finish the job, but also wash off some of the excess starch.

It’s still not quite the same as a good pasta with plain old wheat flour, but if gluten gives you problems, that’s the trick - anything that’s not just plain rice flour and corn flour, in a bigger pot with more water than you might consider you need, don’t let it get to a full-on roiling boil, and rinse with hot water before serving. It helps.

So, yeah, this is the kind of thing I want to put in Cooking With Spoons, along with recipes, kitchen items that are great investments for any spoonie, tips and tricks to make some of the more complicated stuff easier... I know I’ll just dive in and do it eventually but for now I’m just whispering tips for coeliac sufferers into the void.

#Thess cooks

[knightley--phillip]

coming out of my cage || the golden brio

in which Phillip has something important to tell John and Tom

backdated to sept. 23 -- aka bisexual visibility day :3

cw: internalized homophobia, these boys working through their cultish upbringing, you know how it be

@prince--thomas @captain--john

PHILLIP: Phillip had maybe accidentally on purpose come out to the whole town on Twitter.

After the initial wave of adrenaline wore off, Phillip sat on the couch and let the sheer terror sink over him.

Fuck. What had he done?

Never mind the people on Twitter congratulating him. Never mind the kind words from friends and acquaintances and hell, even strangers. Phillip knew he messed up. He shouldn’t have done it like this. He shouldn’t have done it like this, because Tom and John should’ve been the first to know.

But maybe that’s the reason he did it like this. Because he was so terrified of what Tom and John would say, so terrified that they would kick him out of the house, so terrified that even though they’d all turned their backs upon their families, there was still some trace of their fathers in them. 

Might as well do it in style, ey?

Phillip was restless. Tom and John would not be home for another hour or so. Phillip decided that the best way to break this news would be over a meal. They’d both be hungry, yeah? It was dinner time. And instead of ordering a pizza, Phillip set to work. And by set to work, he boiled some water and put some pasta in it and when he looked at the can of sauce, he didn’t really know what to do with it so he dumped it into a tupperware and put it in the microwave till it sizzzled and bubbled and left quite a mess. But it was warm and that was all that mattered and he thought maybe he’d fry a few strips of bacon to go with it.

By the time Tom and John had come home, the smoke alarm had gone off.

“It’s fine!” Phillip yelped from the kitchen. “The thing’s just sensitive — hang on, sit down, I made a proper dinner.” He stuck his head out of the little window that opened from the kitchen and gestured to the round table, which he had already set out with plates and forks and glasses. 

THOMAS: Thomas was completely unawares of any angst that Phil was having. He didn’t get on Twitter much, especially after the whole debacle with Annie. While he had post alerts for both John and Phil, he wasn’t actually logged in on his phone after everything that had happened. There was a peacefulness to being online that Tom was enjoying. The last thing he needed was people commenting on his life. He knew it was a disaster, thank you. 

The day was ordinary. He went to work, he got home, stopping at the Qins to pick up Levi and thank Ting-Ting for having watched him. Tom was chatting with her on the porch, when he heard the fire alarm at his house going off. 

“Should probably go see what that’s about,” Tom sighed, saying his goodbyes to Ting-Ting. 

As he crossed back over the yard, John pulled up and hopped out. They raised their eyebrows at each other, but didn’t say anything. 

“What the bloody hell?” Tom asked, going over to a window and opening it a crack. There wasn’t too much smoke, more just the heat of the oven, but Christ. He went over to the fire alarm, shrugging out of his jacket and waving it underneath it, baby in the other hand, who had started to cry at the piercing noise. 

After a moment, it stopped and Tom huffed a breath, bouncing Levi on his hip before going to put him in his high chair. 

“Who said you were allowed to cook, eh?” Tom glanced at John with a tired half-smile. 

JOHN: John found twitter to be full of people not worth his time and gossip which only lead to more drama he didn’t need. After all, people like Annie flocked to twitter and instagram and whatever for their news and thoughts and to be brainwashed. Why did he need a twitter? One of the lads had made one for him way back but he never really scrolled or got to retweeting or whatever. Pretty sure he deleted the app off his phone.

The blonde had just walked up the drive when the alarm went off and his instinct took over immediately. Phillip had fucked the coffee maker again or left the oven on or put plastic on the stove top while it was still hot. His muscles all seized and he was about to spring towards the door, laptop bag flung behind him, eyebrows up as he glanced at Tom and hastened his way up to the house, about to have a shout at Phillip when he walked into just a mildly hot kitchen with nothing actively on fire.

He immediately deflated, “An edible proper dinner?” His one eyebrow raised. “Where did you order it from? Did it come with heating instructions?” He looked confused at this whole situation and looked towards the table, an immediate thought popping into his head, “What did ya do, lad? Please tell me we don’t have another puppy situation.”

PHILLIP: Well, this could be going better.

It also could be going a lot worse, Phillip reminded himself. 

He stood behind the table, placing his hands on the back of one of the chairs. Of course John would think he got someone knocked up. Which, okay, given the house’s track record seemed plausible. (Or John could’ve actually been referring to Gilly — in which case, c’mon, she was spayed now!) 

“Oh, no, nothing like that, don’t worry,” Phillip said quickly. “It’s, uh… it’s actually good news.”

Was it? Phillip certainly thought so. Except, maybe he didn’t. Maybe he was terrified by all of this. Maybe he was stalling. Maybe he’d get everyone to sit down and eat dinner and then when they were clearing the plates he would make up a lie about what this whole thing was — he got a poem published! He no longer had chlamydia! He was getting a promotion to head barista! 

Maybe he should do that. It might be easier. 

But he looked at John and Tom and little squirming Levi and — 

Well, he wanted them to know. He didn’t want to hide. 

“I do have something I want to tell you,” said Phillip. And he swallowed the bitter taste in the back of his mouth and kept his gaze on them. “And — this is very hard for me and I wanted to do it right, because you mean a lot to me. I… I’m bisexual.” He looked away now. “Meaning, I like men. And women. I still like women too, don’t get me wrong. I just — I understand if you two need some time to process that, but… I can’t hide this part of me any longer.  And I wanted you two to know.”

And then he spread his arms out, waving his hands.

“Uh. Well, that’s it! Let’s dig in!”

THOMAS: Tom was glad he wasn’t holding the bairn, because he was damn near sure he would’ve dropped him at Phil’s announcement.

For a moment, he just stared at him like he’d grown another head. Or shed his skin. That was what it felt like. Like suddenly Tom was looking at an entirely different person. He felt like his entire life was being rewritten, again. Maybe that was dramatic, but Tom didn’t know how else to feel. No one, in his entire life, had ever come out to him. He’d known queer people, obviously. And he didn’t have a problem with them (except that gay men made him slightly uncomfortable, and lesbians were just a bit confusing…and that was as far as his understanding of the whole thing went.) His boss was a lesbian! She was very nice.

But Phil was his childhood friend. They’d known each other their whole lives. From the cradle. They’d never had secrets from one another. Phil and John were always the first ones to know about everything in Tom’s life, and the same had always been true for them too. Or, at least, Tom had thought it was. 

Phil was telling them now, though, that--this had always been the case? This--bisexual thing? Or…had it just happened? 

Tom didn’t know what to say, but he did know what to do. Whenever Tom was worried or didn’t know what to do in a social situation, he always looked to John. Followed him. Copied him. Ever since they’d all been young. 

That was what he did now, after fiddling with buckling Levi into his highchair. He looked at John, waiting for him to say something. To do something. To tell Tom what to say and do too. 

JOHN: At the ‘don’t worry’ John relaxed a bit. Last thing they needed was another puppy or child or responsibility. But really, what had Phillip done? Stolen something? Small compared to the things they’d carried out in the name of the Order. 

Bisexual.

The word rang through his head and he blinked. He felt the gaze of Thomas fall on him, as if he were to set the tone of this whole thing. As if his opinion was the start of everything. And well–he really didn’t know what to think. Of course he was still Phillip, but now he was Phillip who kissed and shagged men as much as he did women. 

As the cogs whirred in his brain and the pieces all rearranged themselves, flipping back and forth through memories and facts he knew about his best mate. Oddly, it sort of clicked and made sense. 

“Huh. Don’t know why we didn’t see it before. I mean, you do enjoy a fair bit of pegging which is always a little bit of a knock to heterosexuality.” He crossed his arms, sizing up his mate, “Yeah. I can see it. Can’t you, Tom? Anyways, you shouldn’t hide things from your mates. You know we accept you and love you, even if you do shag men.”

He had nothing against the gays, wasn’t his style or preference, but that wasn’t to say it was a wrong preference to have. 

“I’m more concerned with what you’ve done to this dinner, actually. I might not be as accepting of it if you’ve ruined another appliance.”

PHILLIP: There was a long pause and for a moment, Phillip feared the worst. 

Because they could yell at him. Or worse — they could icily regard him and tell him to be out of the house by dawn. That’s how the conversation would’ve gone had he told his parents, probably. Well, his father at least. And certainly John’s father. 

His heart hammered. He felt dizzy, like his knees might buckle at any moment, but he held back the urge to blurt out that it was all a joke, that he was just messing with them, because he knew as painful as these next few moments would be, the alternative would sting far, far more.

And then John made a joke. Or, at least as close as a joke as John Smith could possibly make. Phillip blinked. He let out a breath. His shoulders shook a little.

“I —” He thought about everything he could say, but when he opened his mouth nothing came out. He blinked and there were tears. He rubbed his eyes, shaking his head and trying to hide any crying. 

“I promise it’s not that bad — it’s edible,” he managed to choke out. He sucked in a breath, blinking and composing himself. “And if it isn’t, I’ll order a pizza. On me.” 

THOMAS: Phil was near crying and John was making uncomfortable sex jokes--a desperate cry for help, if you asked Tom. And Tom just stood there. Quiet. Unable to think of anything at all to say. Which was probably for the best, because if he did, he’d fuck it up. Tom wasn’t good at emotions. At conversations where you shared your feelings and tried to talk things through. 

Not to mention…he still had no idea how he felt about all of this. He was reeling a bit. His entire world view shifted, once again. After the third or fourth time, you’d think you’d get used to something like that but didn’t really seem to work out that way. It should be fine. It would be fine but Tom had a lot of questions that he didn’t think he wanted to know the answers to. 

How long had he felt this way? How many times had they cracked jokes and made him uncomfortable? He wasn’t dating a bloke, was he? Why hadn’t he told them earlier? 

These questions just sat in his chest. 

So, he just pressed his lips into a little nod when John nudged him. 

Levi cooed and Tom looked down at his son, giving him a little bit more of a genuine smile, running his hand over the baby’s head. His brow furrowed a bit in thought. What would happen when Levi grew up? Would he like blokes? Tom’d admit he’d be a bit disappointed. Potentially have no idea what to say to him about it. But…at least he’d have his Uncle Phil. And Tom would still love him. 

Tom still loved Phil too. ‘Course he did. He just--needed to get used to it probably. Like if Phil had shaved his head. 

“It better be,” he finally said, clearing his throat slightly and finally looking at Phil properly for the first time since he’d blurted out his news. “I’m starving.” 

#coming out of my cage #the golden brio #johnlip #tomlip #john #tom #big steps for philly