#I’ll probably feel better once I get my day started but this was cathartic to voice I think
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Hello! I just read the latest chapter of Beasts and I am, once again, blown away by your skill. I don’t usually read fics in the HP fandom (not sure why, to be honest- there are so many good ones!) but yours are far and away my favorite of the works I have read. (Re: Beasts, I would like to note that your portrayal of Hermione is dead-accurate and delightfully layered. I appreciate the kindness with which you write her, as neither a saint nor a monster— just a deeply traumatized teenage girl.)
I’m not sure if you dispense writing advice on here— if not, feel free to ignore the following— but if you are, I would love some pointers! I’m sure part of it is my anxiety talking, but I find whatever I write to be irritatingly juvenile. You do such a wonderful job of bringing nuance to your works, and I’d appreciate any guidance you have for amateur writers looking to take their fics to the “next level,” so to speak. Also, on a broader level, any tips you have about nailing characterization would be very welcome. I know the ultimate answer to my questions is simply “time and practice,” but I have a genuine desire to improve, and I figure there’s something I can do to hurry the process along.
In the interest of not wasting your time, I’ll wrap it up here. Many, many thanks!
Oh man, I’m blown away by this comment, are you kidding me? Thank you so so much. You really don’t know how much that means to hear (saving this to look back on on a rainy low self-esteem day).
On writing advice... I'm always a bit hesitant about offering writing advice, even though I have benefited so so much from other people’s advice over the years in lots of different ways (probably because I suspect few of us ever really see our own work very clearly). This is also sort of hypocritical of me because I literally teach (non-fiction) writing as part of my job, lol, but maybe this is my imposter syndrome syndroming.
Anyway, I’ve been thinking a lot about this question since you sent this, and wanted to say something that might be useful. I actually ended up going back to the (very bad) fanfiction I wrote about 15+ years ago for another fandom (I will not be linking this here lmao), to see what I do differently now and what I’d gotten better at. This was both a very unsettling but also very cathartic process, lol, because I think I’ve gotten a lot better since then (though, truthfully, it couldn’t have gotten much worse).
So, having done that, I’ve tried to put some writing advice and reflections and thoughts below that I think I’ve learnt since I first started writing and that I feel I’ve found out the hard way (by getting it wrong first time around). My points below are more ‘what I admire in other people’s work and ‘what I would like my writing to do’ rather than me thinking I do all these things well all the time, especially on the nuance and characterisation questions. Some are going to sound super obvious but I definitely did not know them once and have definitely had to work to learn all of them, so I really hope they’re useful to you all the same.
Having now sat down and read my truly truly dire past fanfiction (which has a lot of reviews on it telling me, in no uncertain terms, how and why the work sucked), I think these are the things I wish someone had told me or the things I've learnt after a long long time of getting it extremely wrong...
Writing should answer a question, or a series of questions. I think the big shift from the fanfiction I used to write is that I would start from the premise of ‘I want to write these two characters in X setting’ or ‘I want to fill in Y missing moment’. It’s not that these are bad premises - often, fic ideas start this way - but there needs to be a step after this idea before the writing happens, which is the ‘what question would this answer and what would the answer be’. To give an example, for Orchards I always wanted to write a Harry/Ginny summer teenage love story, but I never really thought of it as answering a question, and so every version I could imagine doing of it was unsatisfying. It was only when I realised the question I had was how does someone fall in love and not realise it (and, I guess, and what do they do when they’ve realised it too late?) that I was like ohhh ok, the fic needs to answer that question, and the conceit is how do we get from A (not being in love) to B (falling in love, but not knowing it) to C (knowing it, and being tormented by knowing it). The later layers the fic took on and that I now like so much - flashbacks, use of the future tense to switch to a period where Harry knows he’s in love but can’t do anything about it - all came after that realisation, and I think the fic is more satisfying for me as a writer because it answers a question I had always had in the back of my mind but hadn’t made conscious.
Show, don’t tell - so, signpost, but give the reader credit. Work that I really admire and take the most from is work that doesn’t beat the reader around the head with the point of each scene. You don’t need to tell the reader how x character is feeling. ‘Ginny felt angry because she thought Hermione was being dismissive of other people’s feelings’ - that’s a note to yourself as a writer more than it needs to be expressed so obviously written to the reader. On a first draft, maybe you need that line to be written out as you figure out how characters are feeling in that scene - that’s completely fine. But as you edit, think of ways you can show that kind of emotional response without coming out and straight up saying it. Try to cut lines that state emotional responses so starkly and jarringly, because they take the reader out of the flow of the scene. How might Ginny as a character show she’s pissed off in ways that are legible to the reader (especially a reader of fanfiction, who is familiar with her)? How can we show Hermione being dismissive (not making eye contact, for instance, or saying curt, dismissive statements that shut down the conversation). This relates to the next point which is…
Make the setting work for you - or even let it be a character in its own right. It’s rare in any form of fiction writing that the setting or the activities around characters are incidental. This is especially true for HP, where the author uses the setting throughout to both build a sense of atmosphere but also parallel/symbolise the dynamics of the scene at hand, like little winks to the reader. The weather is often the most obvious way of doing this. As the author, you play god - the weather is exactly what you want or need it to be to best serve the scene. That doesn’t mean necessarily happy scene has to = sunny, or sad scene = rain,, but it could mean torrential rain = huge release of something pent up that’s been building for hours (think of the rain pounding on the tent when Harry and Ron have their screaming match in DH - it’s like a fourth character in that scene), or too-hot sun = rising pressure, huge discomfort, feeling prickled and angry and trapped with no shade (think of Harry at the start of OotP, in the heatwave). It doesn’t have to be weather, either. If you want to show how a character is guarded, struggling to let another character in, why not have them have the conversation hovering in a doorway, with the door partly closed? If you want to write a scene where two characters are thinking about their future together and really getting somewhere emotionally, why not have them have the conversation in a moving car, heading towards a meaningful destination (you could even have the instigator of the conversation in the literal driving seat, if you want to suggest dynamics of control or maturity). These are just examples, obviously, but the writing I really admire does this so well (and rewards re-reads for that reason).
Find a motif or a hook. This is more a personal preference, but I love reading pieces of writing that have a clear framing. The post-war summer fic I’ve been working on for nine thousand years lol only really started coming quicker once I finally found a conceit - an image, really - that worked for me (the fic is called Rubble, and the conceit is: how do you literally build a house that is a family home, as a way of thinking about rebuilding after the war, told around the Weasleys as a family). For Orchards, there are a few motifs: ‘the truth’ as a character; ‘truth or dare’ as a game, but also as a metaphor for Harry and Ginny’s early love story, and Quidditch (love is a quaffle). In Beasts, I have motifs and hooks that I hope to stretch over the entirety of the fic, not least this idea about beasts and beings and the hubris and the monstrousness of the wizarding world - I wanted to write a postwar fic for a long time, but I didn’t have a conceit that allowed me to get at the type of story I wanted to tell for ages. Within each chapter, I also like to have a little motif: so chapter two it was ‘coming back’, chapter three it was sleep and dreams, chapter four it was the soul/what makes a person who they are, chapter five was the sea. Some of these were more successful than others lol, but it helps me to fashion and discipline a piece when writing and when editing/cutting to think: everything in this piece, in some loose way, needs to link back to this theme I’m trying to thread through.
Make sure people sound/think/behave like people. I’ve put points specifically about characterisation below, but this is a more general point: characters shouldn’t sound like generic talking points, they should sound like real people putting together sentences. I think in fanfiction writing, because we often want to resolve flaws in characters, write about characters we love and admire, or want them to have the difficult conversations or hard confessions that they don’t do in canon, we sometimes can both idealise them and make them sound like very self-aware consistently compassionate angels who are experts at expressing exactly how they’re feeling in extremely emotionally healthy and communicative ways. It would be nice if our characters all did that, sure! But what makes for immersive, compelling writing is when characters try and struggle and fuck up and live their flaws, and sound like real living breathing failing growing people.
You probably need to lose the last line. The last line of a fic is important, but sometimes you can lose a reader who’s been with you the whole time with a clumsy last line or one that’s excessively cheesy or overly summarising or just seems like an afterthought because you wrap up. I say this as a real mea culpa because I still suck at last lines, but the best advice I have gotten on this is, if in doubt, cut the last line you were going to go with, lol. Let the scene end without the line you think is a great summative profound line or something reassuring or overly comforting for the reader. I am definitely still learning this (the end line of chapter four of Beasts I’m still considering cutting or editing severely lol - it’s too on the nose for my taste, and I don’t love it), but the last lines I do like most are always the most minimalist, sparse, simple, or even abstract. basically - if it sounds like chat gpt could write your last line (chat gpt loves an on-the-nose happy ending - eg. ‘Hermione knew it was all going to be ok after all’) then go back to the drawing board.
Embrace critique. This is a very subjective one, especially for writing fanfic. Writing fanfic is a rich and rewarding hobby but I recognise that it is a hobby and a source of pleasure, so lots of people prefer not to get constructive critique. I’m actually being a bit hypocritical here as I don’t currently have a beta for fic writing, but I do have a brutal self-editing process (oh, the scenes and sentences I’ve cut!) and I have spent the last decade of my life in academic writing and sharing my work-in-progress written work over and over and over again, often for a couple of hours every few weeks in front of a room of people more senior and much smarter than me all with my written work printed out in front of them ready to tell me what I got wrong and what I need to change or get better at, lol. This has been bruising to say the least, but it 100% has made me a better writer and disabused me of a lot of the bad habits I picked up when starting out, and kicked the ego out of me thinking I didn’t need to edit and draft and re-draft everything several times. I’ve also spent a long time reading and editing and responding to other people’s work, in the same way, and that’s also been super productive to help me think about how to better communicate written ideas, fiction or non-fiction. So I think real improvement and growth in your writing has to come from getting a thick skin and being able to take critique from people you respect, who are constructive not destructive, and who believe in your talents, your right to show them, and want to see your work presented in the best possible way.
On characterisation specifically...
Look for similar scenarios in the books and see how the character reacts to those. I go back to canon a lot to find plots that are analogous to the plots I’m writing to see how characters physically and verbally respond to them. My thought processes are like, Hermione and Ginny in conflict? Head to HBP when they clash over Harry and Sectumsempra to see how they fight lol. Need to write a Weasley ensemble scene? Head to Goblet of Fire Burrow chapters pre-world cup to see the family dynamics in full swing, and see how the text conveys warmth and love between the characters, while also attending to power dynamics and changing/fractious relationships, down to the adverbs used to describe how people speak, how they physically occupy the space. (I used this chapter a lot when writing the beach day scene for the latest chapter of Beasts, because I knew I was going to have a scene that in part shows how Bill operates an older brother, especially how he deals with his parents and Percy, but also how to distinguish Bill from Charlie when they’re often characters that can get blurred together a bit as ‘the older ones’.) I’m doing this a ton with Hermione atm, because I think she sometimes exists in fanon differently to how she appears in canon and I didn’t want to just assume I knew her speech patterns based on reading a lot of fanfiction about her, but also because Hermione, unlike Ron, doesn’t have her existential crisis within canon but probably (I suspect) has a post-war reckoning that speaks on insecurities and traumas that do occur within the canon text. So if I’m looking at Hermione struggling to relate to the student body, I need to go back to the canon text and find moments where some of those dynamics were already starting to come into play (eg. Hermione not getting Quidditch, Hermione’s responses to Neville telling them what life was like under the Carrows, Hermione’s relationship with other girls in her year eg. Lavender and Parvati).
Relatedly: look at how characters that are similar to each other react to certain scenarios if you don't have enough evidence of how one character might behave. I decided with Beasts that, while Harry and Ginny are not the same person, they are characters that often react in certain situations similarly, so if I don’t have an example of how Ginny herself would respond to a certain situation (eg. injury in Quidditch), I can use Harry’s response as a bit of a guide for what Ginny would be like. That scene in chapter two where Harry and Ginny discuss her going back to Hogwarts actually borrows lines from Dumbledore and Harry’s conversation in the purgatory King’s Cross after Harry’s ‘death’ - ‘I have to go back, don’t I?’ ‘That’s up to you’ - because although Ginny deciding to go back to Hogwarts is not exactly the same as the decision Harry makes not to ‘go on’, it seemed there were enough analogies with it that I could borrow little lines and colour from that scene. (I have a bit of a cop-out dumb joke to myself in this scene - Harry saying to Ginny ‘we’re the same’ is me nodding to swapping out two very similar protagonists).
Play the ‘there’s a pigeon in the living room’ game. There’s lots of different versions of this exercise for improving characterisation, but I like this one: if this character woke up tomorrow, went into their living room and found a pigeon in it, what would they do? How would they respond? Would they scream/swear/laugh/calmly acknowledge the situation? How would they physically respond - would they try to get the pigeon out, if so how would they physically try to do that? What words could you use for how their body would move in the space while they tried to, say, open a window, or shoo it out the door? Would they call someone to help, if so, who, and why? What would they say, and how would they say it? It's such a stupid game but I do really find it helpful to better inhabit the character, especially if the character is very different from you as the author.
Good characterisation means trying to get everyone right. The trouble sometimes with fanfiction writing is that we have our main character as someone that we love and want to write about, and then harness all other characters in the service of our main character’s personal development. But that’s not really how real people behave - people rarely walk around thinking all day every day about one specific main-character person they know, lol (I always think of the bits in Inception where everyone starts looking at the person in the dream…) Strong characterisation means having at least a working understanding of what motivates every character that interacts with the main character in the fic, that thinks about how both characters perceive their relationship, and how their behaviours and the things they say might change based on who they’re talking to. Characterisation is deeply relational, and very much about how characters react or respond in a way that’s highly specific and contextual. It just takes a lot of really boring slog work of figuring how characters’ typical sentence structures, their body language, their thought-processes, who they gravitate towards, the kind of arc or change they are capable of. It’s important not to come in with judgement, and from a place of wanting to understand and empathise with a character. (It's why I don't really write characters I don't fully understand or 'get' - I'd do a horrible job!)
The last thing I want to say is that the best advice I ever received is pretentious and cloying but true: it's to know your gift. You say you find your own writing ‘irritatingly juvenile’. But in even asking a question like the one you’ve asked, you’ve shown you’re clearly a thoughtful, curious and creative person - and thoughtful, curious and creative people will always produce writing that other people will get something out of. I’ll bet your writing has real strengths, some that you don’t even see and others that actually (at least I hope!) you recognise and that you’re really proud of. This doesn’t mean you can’t develop new skills or improve or challenge yourself. But starting any process of improvement by clearly identifying what you’re good at (knowing your gift), figuring out why you’re good at it, thinking about how best to showcase it and believing you have a right to show this talent or skill is really important. I know this is excruciating to do but I really recommend making a little list of things and starting from this point of acknowledging you have stories to tell and ways of telling them that other people will admire and benefit from you sharing with them. You'll never actually want to improve if you come from a place of being horrible to yourself as a writer. What you do has worth, and wanting to improve is a journey we're all on, just trying to find ways to better share what we have and have it mean something to someone else who comes across it.
#writing#writing advice#beasts#thank you anon#i really hope this is helpful and i just know your writing will be wonderful#also i will be dining out on your praise for precisely one million years
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Weekly Update October 6, 2023
I’ve been very volatile this week, which may continue next week or may not. I don’t know yet. I’ve been on weird cycles of doing a ton of art then doing nothing for a few days. It will probably continue.
So October is started and I’m an impulsive little greedy fuck so I decided to do three different prompt sets, but I’m doing them all differently. OG inktober is getting priority, because I feel bad about failing inktober 52 earlier this year. Maybe I’ll ink or digitize the few of those sketches that I never finished once I’m done, or maybe I won’t. Anywho I’m trying to do inktober daily, more or less. Second priority is goretober, because I need practice and also with life stuff being still weirdly volatile despite all I’ve done, bloody pictures are really cathartic. I’m tagging everything to be extra safe, even though I’m honestly probably over tagging. Idk day one was mouth stuff which really sets some people off so maybe I was overly cautious because of that, but I’d rather be over cautious than get in trouble. Lowest priority prompt set is cringetober, because even though I just kind of avoid most of the stuff on the list naturally due to personal distaste, I still appreciate the spirit of it. Cringe always has a place, even if that place isn’t on my monitor specifically. I’m not doing every prompt from that list because some of them I really can’t figure out anything Oc related (deadass almost gave up for ‘overly complex fit’ and drew Shulk Xenoblade and his ugly ass outfit instead, but decided against it because that’s against the spirit of the prompt set). I still want to fit in as many as I can, and even though most of those will be late, I’m still going to try. At a minimum I want to do the MS paint one that sounds fun.
Also I threw in a random drawing of Stitch this week. Maybe I’ll do other random drawings too, probably not. I’m already pretty behind on stuff.
So I’ve mentioned I’ve been slacking off with TRGA the past couple weeks but I’m trying to get myself back together with it. I’m trying to figure out timing a bit better, and I did finally get some assets I’ve been procrastinating on done. Jon now has actual soles to his feet, and soon Emile will have the sketch lines I’ve been trying to lean into with my art. I can recolor the foot sole asset for Tim and Emile also, although they won’t need it for this animation. I’m mostly at this point messing with actual movement timing and strategies to make the boys more distinct from one another, although I’m probably overthinking it admittedly. The current shot, 1-4, is by far my most complex in this regard, and may be the most complex of the animation, so chances are I’ll post a WIP once the ‘main’ character animation is done. Or maybe not. I’m not sure.
This week hasn’t been the best for personal life so my mood is extremely volatile, so there’s no guarantee anything will be consistent. My plan is to do one inktober drawing and one keyframe/batch of tweens/chunk of work a day for TRGA done every day, and then the additional prompt sets and/or general drawings done whenever possible, but I’m such a mess I can’t guarantee anything. I’m trying to get stuff together with doctors, since they have been telling me pretty good news, but my primary today said something that, while it would be great news, contradicts what a specialist told me. She did outright say to double check with the specialist since they were probably right, but you know how hard it is to get ahold of doctors for that so now I need to worry about that. I’m a mess this semester isn’t going very well, and tomorrow I’ll probably end up doing music instead of art which will suck because I probably won’t have anything to show for that for a while yet.
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Saving Grace - JJ Maybank
A/N: A You Are Ok drabble set ten years in the future
You Are Ok Masterlist | Outer Banks Masterlist
✰ ✰ ✰ ✰ ✰
The Maybank house had sat empty on the cut for almost five years until JJ’s dad was released from prison. You and JJ had been down in Florida at the time, moved out of his cousin’s trailer and living in an apartment in the everglades. Talking about going home but unsure what the OBX had to offer at that point. It was barely two weeks after that when you both flew home, Luke Maybank had overdosed and the house was empty once again.
It stayed empty while the two of you gutted the entire place and refurbished it. While JJ and you stayed at the Chateau or Kiara’s place, while you found a job and found out you were pregnant, while JJ got a job for himself in the area and went back down to the everglades to empty out the apartment.
JJ laid the tile in the bathroom himself and fixed the plumbing. You painted the inside and outside of the house, planted a garden, bought a chicken coop. You and JJ moved in to the house and just like that you were back in the OBX.
-
You sat outside on the porch, drinking a cup of coffee despite the hour nearing eight o’clock at night. The baby monitor was sitting beside you, a soft gurgling coming from the receiver. You were waiting for the familiar sight of JJ’s truck pulling down the long driveway in the dusk. The headlights were already on, flashing on you for a moment as he parked and then cut off, the engine dying.
“Hey, what’re you doing out here?” He asked, climbing out of the front seat of the car and bringing a bag of chinese food with him.
“Waiting for you to bring me egg rolls?” You joke, before turning serious, “I saw my dad this morning, at the grocery store.”
“Did he see you?”
“Yeah...it was, really weird?” You suggested, reaching for the bag. JJ shook his head and held the bag away from you, a silent ‘I’ve got it’ as he leaned in and gave you a kiss. You wrinkled your nose at the familiar smell of fish as you pulled away, “how was work?”
“Alright...” he shrugged, “what did your dad say?”
“That he wants me to come to church on Sunday.” You replied, following him inside.
“You wanna go?” It was a question but the way he asked you knew that he already knew the answer.
“I mean...I’m not gonna like, start going to church with them every week and ya know, go back to how I was but...it might be nice. I do miss my family and, I want to have boundaries but maybe they don’t have to be like, huge ten-year silence boundaries where we never speak. I do want Willow to know her cousins; I think. What do you wanna do?” You asked, passing plates across the counter to him.
A tinny half cry sounded from the monitor on the table and you both turned to look over at it, waiting for a crescendo of cries that you’d grown used to in the last four months. When silence settled back in, you both seemed to exhale in relief. You wanted to eat and finish this conversation before JJ ultimately showered and fell asleep until Willow’s usual one a.m. wake up.
“Whatever you want.” He replied, never submitting to making the decision for you when you wanted him to. “Not exactly like your family’s a big of me.”
“Can’t imagine why,” you bumped his hip with your own, kissing his cheek. “Not like you totally corrupted their youngest daughter or anything.”
“Oh no, do not blame that on me.”
“I didn’t run away to marry myself.”
“If you go...” JJ posed, turning to follow you to the table, “do you want to go alone?”
-
You stood frozen in place, holding a box of cereal in your hand as you stared across the small expanse of Heyward’s shop, your dad there by the fresh produce, comparing two different apples with each other. The Outer Banks was a small island but you ran in very different circles and, in the three years that you’d been home, had avoided seeing your parents. Or anyone in your family.
You’d driven passed the baptist church, a sign boasting a new assistant pastor, one of your brothers, when you’d first moved back but hadn’t actually seen anyone. The possibility of seeing them again had been a long debate between you and JJ when you’d finally decided to leave Florida for North Carolina. It had been hard in the very beginning, missing birthdays and anniversaries and new babies, but over time the ache had dulled and you had shifted your attention away from what you were missing and focused on working through the things you could heal in yourself.
Now you were frozen. If you left your basket of groceries now you could make a beeline for the door and be out before he saw you. But then the bell above the door rattled as a customer came in and the baby swaddled against your chest started to fuss. Before you could attempt to placate her, your dad was looking over. For a moment you were certain he didn’t recognize you. Ten years was a long time. But then his mouth quirked into a frown and he set down the apples he was holding.
“Ace?” He questioned, the old nickname feeling foreign to you. It’d probably been ten years since anyone called you that.
“Hey, dad.” You nodded your head at him across the small store. You felt like tacking on a ‘surprise’ for good measure. ‘Surprise, I’m in the OBX, surprise, I got a kid...’
“When did you uh, when did you come home?” He moved across the store to be near you though he refrained from reaching out for a hug. You wondered if a decade had been just as hard on him as it had on you. Cathartic and healthy and freeing but hard. He seemed more mellow, you thought that before he might’ve pulled out a bible and started admonishing you.
“JJ and I moved back three years ago,” you admitted, slipping his name into the conversation as if to prove a point. “He got a job on a fishing rig.”
“Will you...would you come to church? We could have lunch afterward. Or you could just be there?” He offered. Ten years hadn’t changed his beliefs at all but it had made him miss you. Not knowing where you were or what you were doing felt like an ache in his chest that never went away. The anger had subsided to sadness and guilt.
-
Seeing your dad had been startling enough and you had almost wished, while you were standing there in Heyward’s, that JJ could’ve been with you. Though, you weren’t entirely sure that would’ve helped anything in the long run.
“I think my mom would probably be nicer to me if I brought Wills but maybe, I mean, my dad already saw her. He didn’t ask about her but maybe...” you groaned, burying your face in your hands for a moment as you tried to gather your thoughts. “Why didn’t we stay in Florida?”
“Cause we both spent seven years talking about how much we wanted to come back to the OBX...and my dad-”
“Jay.”
“Look. My dad was an asshole okay, he was a fucking nightmare but you know better than anyone that not getting to see him at the end...that was the worst call I’ve ever gotten in my life. Knowing Ricky was the only one up here and that he was alone. You should do whatever you want to do and I’ll be there, right next to you, just like I’ve been for ten years, but I don��t want you to have any regrets.” JJ replied, honestly.
You nodded, looking down at the plate of food and pushing your fried rice around. You knew that JJ was still hurting, that gutting a house didn’t take away all the memories that were trapped inside. “God I hate when you’re right.” You sighed.
“Don’t let your dad hear you talk like that.” He teased just as the monitor went off again, this time for real. You leaned against the back of the chair and groaned as JJ stood up. “I got it.”
“No, it’s okay, I’ll get her.” You stood too. “You need a shower, and sleep.”
“I haven’t seen her all day,” JJ pointed out, following you down the short hallway to the bedroom that used to be his. It was painted in yellows and oranges now, with a crib and a rocking chair and baby books. A sunset mural painted on the wall from Kiara’s girlfriend and a chandelier of stars from Sarah.
“What are you gonna do, take her in the shower with you?” You joked, lifting the fussing baby up out of her crib, “hey bubba, what’s the matter?”
“You have to feed her right? So feed her in the bathroom.”
“Oh sure, Jay, that’s super comfortable for me. I would love to feed her while I sit on the toilet.” You grumbled, already knowing that you would probably, definitely end up caving to him and doing exactly that.
“I’ll put dinner away and do the dishes.” He promised, “and I’ll punch you’ll dad if he says anything to piss you off.”
#jj maybank x reader#jj maybank x y/n#jj maybank fanfic#jj maybank x fanfiction#jj maybank fic#jj maybank fanfiction#jj maybank imagine#jj maybank x you#outer banks imagine#outer banks fanfiction#outer banks fanfic#outer banks fic#obx fanfic#obx fanfiction#obx fic#obx imagine#collecting stories imagine#you are ok series
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This is mostly just for me and for fun, but I wanted to put together a list of my favorite fics that I wrote last year—one from each month—and kind of talk about them a little!
Of all the fics I posted over 2021, my word count was approximately 194k, which isn’t counting the dozens of WIPs I have that I haven’t finished, but uh, that’s a lot. 😭
Anyway, if you read any of my fics this past year I love and appreciate you so much! There are so many more stories in my brain that I’m sure I’ll be sharing this coming year.
January
The Devil is a Gentleman — While the band travels with the newly appointed Pirate Queen Meredith, Alec meets another pirate captain during a stop at a tavern, one who takes an interest in her, and is far more dangerous than he seems at first glance.
Okay, so, while this was a very hard fic to write, and it isn’t one I reread often, it achieved my end-goal, which was to give everyone who read it the heebie-jeebies. As an official introduction to Syd, from the eyes of a kid who has never met him before, I don’t think I could have done it any better—you get the charm and the creep factor all at once! Plus this kickstarted a ton of pirate worms so, yay!
February
January — After Alec’s death, the rest of the band deals with their grief each in their own way, forcing Leon to be the responsible one for once and take care of his family while mourning Alec himself.
While this fic absolutely broke my heart to write, it (and the whole series tbh) is one of my favorites because I got to explore Leon’s voice and trauma in a new way.
March
Glitter and Gold — Rodrigo and the crew of El Corazon Sangrante come across a kid stuck in the Strait of Sirens, and after saving him, he becomes a permanent part of the crew.
This was so much fun to write, because as much as I hate writing action I feel like it turned out well in this one, and also writing banter is like my favorite thing to do, and especially the banter between Rodrigo and Keean is great! It also gave Rodrigo a chance to be more than just an asshole, which is both good and bad because now I’m obsessed with him.
April
Feral Roots — Part 1 of Meredith’s backstory, her time growing up among the Laochra tribe from her birth to the day she ran away after her father’s death.
I’ve rewritten this part a few times, but this is such a good stepping stone for the novel I’m going to eventually write about her, I just love it so much! Plus I got to explore the dynamics of a group of people who were born and grew up in the wilderness and how that would effect them.
May
And So It Went — Part 3 of Meredith’s backstory, after meeting the Pirate Queen Aria, she travels back to her tribe’s home in the south, only to find that there is no one left anymore. Leaving her home for the last time, she agrees to become Aria’s protege, the next Pirate Queen, and trains with her for four years.
This is probably my favorite of the 3 parts because there’s so much lore and information, and a lot of strings tie together in this one over other fics I’ve read. It’s heartbreaking but also inspiring (at least to me) and watching Meredith start this chapter of her life is amazing.
June
How To Rest — After she gets injured during a fight, Theodore pleads for Meredith to take the time to rest and heal, and after some convincing, she listens.
God. GOD. This month was so hard because I did a lot of cute fics but I definitely come back to this one the most and it has a special place in my heart because it completely set the ship of the two of them in high gear in my brain. I’m just so weak for mean and battled-hardened pirate queen falling for her kind and gentle doctor.
July
Break The Chain — After running away from his family in Prakra, Jamil makes one final change to signify his own hold over his life.
This was a very cathartic fic for me to write, because I have had my own journey with my hair growing up, and cutting it/shaving it always felt like being able to take control over myself again in the face of my mother trying to control my looks and decisions.
August
Nostalgia — Part 4 of Alec’s Prologue, in which, Alec reunites with someone from her past in a dream, begins her investigation of the Count’s murder, and starts to connect more with the Countess, finding that they have more in common than she would have thought.
My favorite part of this was writing Alec’s reunion with Leon, where even though she still doesn’t know who they are, she gets that confirmation that she does have family somewhere outside of Vesuvia, and they care about her so much.
September
Smoke Signals — Ignatius bonds with his younger sister, Camía-Marie, neither of them prepared for what happens when her magic awakens.
Okay, this one is sad, but it was another one that I enjoyed writing because I felt like I got to expand out of my comfort zone and write uncomfortable scenes and talk about trauma. Plus, writing outside of the POV that the story centers around is something that I’ve grown to enjoy.
October
November
And Then She Kissed Me — Andreya and Elizabeth spend some time alone in the middle of a busy day aboard The Jagged Ruby, between their own duties.
Y’all I’ve had these OCs in my mind for so long and this is the first thing I’ve written for them, it just makes me so emotional to finally have something that features them, even if it’s not in their canon universe. Plus they’re such cute girlfriends!
December
Why Why Why — Rodrigo grows up in his village of Girasol with his mothers, Elena and Carina, but unknown to him, there are forces outside of the village who will stop at nothing to get their hands on his magic.
I spent so long with this in my drafts, but being able to finish it was such a rewarding feeling. This fic (and the part 2 that will come later) really allowed me to explore my own feelings about being taken from a culture that was supposed to be mine at a young age, though Rodrigo’s experience is considerably more traumatic, it is a dramatized view of my own trauma.
Some Honorable Mentions under the cut! (caution for 🍋 content)
Honorable Mentions
Talk Dirty 🍋 — listen I am very gay for my own OCs and Alec is no exception 😩
Jamil’s Romance Tale — yes I reread this often, I just love him 🥺
Desire 🍋 — spicy valjam is the best valjam and this is my favorite thing I've written for them
Midsummer Masquerade Masterlist 🍋 — I literally can’t pick one so have them all
Show Me What I’m Looking For 🍋 — I don’t write many “first time” fics but this one of Jamil x Leon is very dear to me
Follow You — I am a sucker for character A gets injured and character B watches over them, but with the added spice of emotional constipation
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Suicidal Misunderstanding Part Three: SW Time Travel AU #27
Part One
Part Two
Obi Wan woke with a dry mouth and a moderate headache. A fairly typical morning these days.
He peered around his bedroom in the temple confused. Wasn’t he just with Cody? Shouldn’t he be on the Negotiator? No wait, the war was over, Cody tried to kill him, and the Negotiator was a part of the Imperial Armada, of course he wouldn’t be there. He closed his eyes, snuggling back under the covers. Before he could drift back to sleep, his sluggish mind processed that last thought.
He BOLTED upright in bed. The temple had been razed, his personal chambers scorched with particular thoroughness. Just being on Coruscant was an automatic death sentence. Faint tendrils of panic began to curl around his throat before he remembered his decision to give Spice a try. He had reasoned that he should probably find at least one pleasure in his new life, instead of focusing incessantly on what was lost.
So what if he lost a few brain cells? Good riddance.
Obi-Wan had been a bit nervous, but this had ended up being his best decision in years. His goodbye to Cody had been painful, but deeply cathartic. Spice Hallucination Anakin didn’t scream like Nightmare Anakin, and the color of his eyes was perfect. Far better final memories to cling to than reality- a reminder of the good times. Comforted, he relaxed backwards in bed, pulling his blankets back around him.
He LURCHED out of bed, covers tossed aside, movement a blur.
He was still hallucinating?!? Spice shouldn’t last in the system this long! He might’ve been uncertain about whether he was supposed to smoke or snort the substance but it was a well known fact that its exhaustive but rapid passage through the body was half what made it so addictive. If nothing else, his well-restedness and thirst indicated it had been at least six hours. He looked frantically around the room, searching for some thread of unreality to pull at.
This...was not good. Hadn’t the subconscious manifestations of his friends mentioned drugs that interacted poorly with force users last night? He had dismissed it at the time but...
He clearly was stuck in some sort of drugged fantasy combined with force-enhanced memory recall. Kriff, he had to wake up in the real world before he died of an aneurysm. Or just dehydration.
He sat on the ‘temple floor’ to meditate. This could be tricky as he couldn’t risk lowering his outer shields to reach out to reality. It would be deeply embarrassing as well as horrifying if the Emperor managed to find him and, by extension, Luke because he got stuck in a bad spice trip.
The door to his room clicked open quietly.
“Oh! You’re awake. Sorry to come in without knocking, Master. I wanted to let you sleep, but I’ve been checking on you every two hours to make sure you were still, you know, breathing. You were...pretty out of it last night and I would be a pretty bad ‘best friend in the whole galaxy’ if I let you choke on your own vomit, right?” His blue-eyed Padawan explained with a grin.
Obi-Wan just stared. Oh this- this hurt. It was easier last night, when the whole fantasy had a kind of drunken blurriness. Sleeping and waking had brought sober clarity to the dream world. He could see the bags under Anakin’s eyes as well as the sheepish slouch of his shoulders as he instinctively ducked at the door frame. It was just so real.
“Obi-Wan? Are you feeling ok? Do you still feel drunk?” Anakin asked concerned.
Obi-Wan shook his head. He hesitated, before deciding to just go along with the interaction. He didn’t want to risk his subconscious throwing a less idylic scene at him by pretending to ignore this one. And besides, last night had been, all totaled, a huge relief- an unburdening of things left unsaid. This was probably the closest thing to therapy available to him these days, he might as well take advantage.
“I’m just...processing. Not to mention dealing with some mild dehydration.” He finally answered.
“Processing, huh? So does that mean you, uh, remember last night?” Anakin asked nervously.
“I do.” Obi-Wan smiled gently. As heart-wrenching as this was, it was also adorably sweet. Maybe it was worth it to push off waking for a little while. He could get some closure, maybe even work through some of the past to see where the two of them had gone wrong. It might even be helpful for Luke! Force willing, he would probably end up training Anakin’s son someday.
(the boy wouldn’t have many masters to choose from)
If this dream world could help him figure out specifically how he had failed as a Master, then he owed it to the galaxy to see it through. Satisfied, he resolved to let the fantasy play out. At least for a few more more hours. And...he had missed what Anakin had said. Wonderful start.
“I’m very sorry, Anakin would you mind repeating that? I was still a little distracted, but I promise, I’m focused on you now.”
Anakin shuffled nervously. “It’s nothing.”
Obi-Wan tried to project reassurance without actually projecting. “Please Anakin, I’d like to hear what you have to say. I know I wasn’t the most observant or approachable Master, and I’m sorry for that. But I have always cared about your thoughts and feelings.” It was a struggle and the words caught in his throat, but the raw burn of the apology was cleansing in an almost addictive way.
Anakin flushed. “Did you mean everything you said?” he asked nervously.
“I’d...rather not talk about seeing the destruction of the temple, seeing you... Maybe later...but please, I just don’t want to focus on it while I’m sitting here, looking at you,” Obi-Wan said quietly.
“That actually wasn’t what I was talking about,” Anakin responded quickly. “I mean, I do want to help you with that at some point, but I get not wanting to talk about visions, even if you should probably should. Of course if you do want to talk about that stuff, that’s more important, but since you don’t we can talk about the other stuff you mentioned. I was more referring to, you know, us, and what you said about our friendship?” his voice got progressively higher the longer he rambled.
Obi-Wan thought back. “Well some of it is a little hazy, but overall yes. I...for a very long time I’ve considered you my best friend, and its not so easy for me to let go of my affections. I miss spending time with you; there are times I turn to say something and am still shocked you’re not there. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you, with real words, how much I cared. I’m sorry I didn’t hug you as much as I wanted, looking back that was a nonsensical Jedi custom. It’s not in the code; it’s just an affectation of dignity. All things considered, the fact that you often snuck out to see Padme doesn’t really bother me.” He paused. “Was that everything?”
“Oh. Yeah, that pretty much covered everything.” Anakin looked embarrassed, but happy. “I wasn’t sure if you were just saying that stuff because you were drugged, or really drunk or something.”
“No, I meant what I said. I suppose it just took an altered state for me to relax enough to actually say it instead of just thinking at you and assuming you would know. I must admit, its difficult for me to maintain this emotional honesty without feeling drunk, but it’s good. This is good.”
“Ah, that’s... wow. So you weren’t drugged? Cody was concerned you seemed to off for much you actually drank.”
Obi-Wan frowned. Hadn’t that been a trip? Vision blurring from desert hovel to some nameless Catina he once visited with Cody. The continuity since then was almost unsettling. But, then again, Obi-Wan always did have a remarkable talent for self-delusion, didn’t he. He waved away the concerns.
“My substance consumption was entirely deliberate and exactly what I needed. There might have been some unknown additions with some unforeseen after-affects, but like I said- I’m not drunk. I’m clear minded and in full control right now and I knowingly accept the current fallout from whatever I took. I could meditate and force purge to completely recenter, but I think it would be far wiser to just see where this goes. Do you disagree, Anakin?”
Anakin grinned widely. “Whatever you say, Obi-Wan. Just remember this is your idea. Also, I’m taking you to the healers tonight if you’re not completely back to yourself.”
Obi-Wan signed, “If I’m not back to myself in 12 hours, than I fully agree that’s a problem worthy of the halls of healing.”
“Right,” Anakin nodded decisively, “I’ll go get you some water then comm Cody to tell him you’re still alive.
Obi-Wan smiled weakly in response. This wasn’t just a hashed up memory; the responsiveness was more that. He quickly got dressed, hands lingering over soft fabrics and sand-free linens.
Anakin dropped off a cup of water; Obi-Wan sipped at it hesitantly. Dear force, this was dangerously vivid. It actually felt like a relief in his parched mouth. Clearly his subconscious was pulling out all the stops to trap him in this soft delusion. He would have to deal with the thirst and hunger until he woke up- it was probably the firmest link he had to his real body.
He took one last look around before rushing out of his room, eager to take advantage of the time.
Anakin looked nervously up from the comm when Obi-Wan started pulling his boots on. “You’re not going out in the temple like this, are you?”
“Of course! I want to visit the gardens and the Room of a Thousand Fountains. Not to mention spend some time with a few of the other Jedi. You might still be the dearest being in my heart, but there were other Jedi that I care for, and dammit I’m going to tell them that.” He finally finished lacing up his left leg and moved to the right.
Anakin was dumbstruck, presumably as burnt by the ‘dearest being’ comment as Obi-Wan was. Then he rallied, “Wow, wow, No. You are not running around the temple drugged so you can, I don’t know, give Mace Windu a hug. I thought when you said you were going to ‘deal with the fallout' from whatever the kriff you’re still on, you meant you were going to lounge around the quarters all day!”
His former padawan physically blocked the door when Obi-Wan started to leave, sounding vaguely hysterical, “You can’t run around loopy! You’re a High Council Member!”
“Not anymore,” Obi-Wan replied bitterly.
“What do you mean not anymore,” Anakin said fiercely, grabbing on to his shoulders . “Did they kick you out? Is that why you’re acting crazy? Did you resign?”
Obi-Wan responded by pulling Anakin into a hug, which was immediately returned, “Of course not, don’t be absurd. Fine, I suppose I’m technically still a high council member, it just seems like a bit of a moot point.”
“What the kark does that mean? You used to dream about being on the council! You’re the wisest Master in any of those stupid chairs!”
‘Master of the High Council’ Kenobi just sighed heavily in response. He maneuvered around the confused errant Knight and into the hall.
"Obi-Wan wait! At least eat something first! Or let me put my shoes on!”
“Very well, you have one minute to make yourself presentable. I only have a few hours before I’m going to need to get back to reality, and the longer I linger the more I fear extreme measures may be necessary.”
“What does that mean?” Anakin shouted from inside. “Extreme measures sounds really ominous, you know.”
“I’d rather not get into it, alright? Let’s just enjoy the here-and-now, eh, ad’ika?
Anakin crashed out the door with less than a second to spare. “What did you just call me?"
“Ad’ika,” Obi-Wan answered, striding down the hallway in the direction of the hanging gardens. “Surely you must have picked up some Mando’a from the troopers?”
“Yeah, but I wasn’t sure if I heard you right, bu- um-��ori'vod,” Anakin fumbled out. “Uh, you’re not going to call me that in front of anyone else, right? You do remember that the council already gives us the side eye for over-attachment right?”
Obi-Wan hummed thought fully in responded. “There are far worse things a Jedi could do than admit to affection they already feel. Maybe if I had been honest about my attachments, they wouldn’t have ended the way that...” he trailed off quietly.
“The way that what,” Anakin asked frustrated. “You’re really giving me some emotional whiplash over here, and I’m starting to think that putting off dragging you to the healers is a stupid idea.
“There are far stupider things a Jedi could do,” he responded cheerily. “Oh look, there’s Plo Koon. MASTER KOON!” He shouted, startling the Kel Doran Jedi.
“Yes, Master Kenobi?” He replied slightly concerned as the two human Jedi came jogging over.
“I just wanted to say that I consider my former padawan my family. I raised him, I care for him deeply, and I don’t want to let go of those feelings.”
Plo Koon nodded seriously in response. “I feel just the same about my former padawans, and the Wolffe pack, of course. Denying my attachments isn’t, personally, a practical way to handle them. I’d rather honestly live as an imperfect Jedi than pretend to be a perfect example of the code. If I must have some imbalance, I’d rather it be an excess of compassion than a dearth,” he replied earnestly.
“I always admired that about you,” Obi-Wan replied ruefully. “This might be a little odd, but could I have a hug? I hold you in the highest regard and I’ve realized that there are so many Jedi that I never directly expressed my affection for and...”
Plo Koon didn’t wait for Obi-Wan to finish before wrapping his arms around him. “Of course, dear boy. You’ve had such heavy burdens placed on your shoulders during your life, especially in the last few years; it saddens me to see how deeply they’ve weighed you down. If there’s anything I can do to help, in any way, you simply have to ask.”
Obi-Wan sniffled slightly into Plo’s Shoulder while Plo rubbed soothing circles over his back.
A few passing Jedi gave the embracing Masters uncomfortable looks before hurrying on their way. Anakin stood slack-jawed.
When they finally pulled back, Plo Koon hesitated before finally asking, “I don’t mean to pry, but what brought all this on? I can sense much grief from you, even through your impressive shields.”
“It’s a long story,” Obi-Wan replied, wiping at the corner of his eyes. “I’d rather not get into it.”
“He’s high,” Anakin offered bluntly. “He took something last night and won’t go to medical wing.”
“Ah,” Plo said. “Is that true?”
Obi-Wan looked a little embarrassed. “I have the situation under control. My connection with reality might be...slightly altered right now, but my emotions, and what I chose to do with them are my own. I’m just, taking advantage of a unique opportunity to express myself.”
Plo Koon seemed to scrutinize him intensely, “If you’re sure this is what you need, than I support you. Just don’t do anything too foolish.” he finally offered.
Obi-Wan beamed. “I appreciate you saying so, I thought you would be supportive. Farewell, Master Koon”
Obi-Wan offered a respectful bow and then turned to walk away briskly. Before Anakin could follow, Plo rested a claw on his arm.
“Feel free to comm me if his behavior reaches a point where you think he truly needs a healer. I’m happy to help you drag him there if need be. A little cathartic release isn’t in of itself such a bad thing, but if he starts acting too out of control...”
Anakin nodded in acknowledgment, then ran off to see who else Obi-Wan had chosen to throw himself at.
Part Four
#star wars#obi-wan needs a hug#obi-wan gets a hug#star wars au no 27#suicidal misunderstanding au#my au#time travel#hello there#@whatsup-gorls#and#@im-da-bronx#i googled what a tag list was and was a bit intimidated by the whole big multistep spreadsheet thing sorry#so i will probably not be doing a tag list for the near future#in any reliable sense#but i am very flattered you asked and am psyched you enjoy the story because i am also very excited about it#also to#@rainbowfam100#i saw your comment and just thought oh no me too#star wars au#sw#fanfiction#i keep wanting to tag this au with angst and then i read it over and its mostly hugs so know that there WILL be angst#but i guess were not really there yet#ive already written a big chunk of angst with only 2 hugs and both of them are very angsty so i feel confident in my prediction
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Hiiii quinn! I never realised you did requests but if it would be fine (and also because its my sole goal) could you do a boom boom boi and izubby with having their own cat or dog as a pet??? I'm seriously thinking that boom boom boi would be both a cat and dog person, don't u agree? (Ily lots and don't feel pressured to do this if you have a lot of stuff going on!)
Hi Dorki! I'm finally making my way through my requests and I was really excited to write this one! Okay, hope you like it!
Quinns Masterlist
Wanna request something?
The Boys with Pets
Word Count: 1,750
Featuring: Izuku Midoriya and Katsuki Bakugo!
Warnings: dogs, cats, cursing
Izuku Midoriya
Now Izuku loves pretty much all animals, but I can totally see him getting a dog. Dogs are loyal and full of energy just like a certain green-haired hero. The perfect duo.
He would probably rescue one from the pound, the one with the biggest, saddest, cutest eyes because how could he not? But someone has to go with him because he'd try to rescue them all if there was no one there to stop him. Once a hero, always a hero I suppose.
I'm thinking for names, he would definitely pick a name that reflects his favorite heroes. Don't be surprised if he names his dog something super cheesy like Mighty or Rocky…
Wait, okay, I've decided, he names his dog Mighty and that is the hill I will die on.
The life of a hero is quite busy so when he goes off on long missions, he drops the dog off at his mom's house. Inko has fallen in love with this sweet pup, so much so that she sometimes begs him to stop by with the dog for a visit. It's the closest thing she's got to grandbabies at the moment, she'll take what she can get :)
Now, this cute pup draws in the attention of just about everyone so he's gotten an influx of attention and a few numbers slipped in his hand during their walks, much to his flustered surprise.
Best wingman ever.
This dog goes on regular runs with Izuku and sometimes even helps him with training. I'm thinking a Collie or an Aussie would just be the perfect fit for him to keep up with his personality and lifestyle. He needs an active dog!
I can see it now, he goes on his daily morning runs with this cute Lil furry training buddy and they race the whole way! A few regulars on the trail know about this and it's become sort of a tradition to cheer the two on as they pass.
...
The morning air was crisp with the slight scent of the coming autumn, the perfect morning for a run. Izuku, dressed in his usual training wear, had a steady rhythm going for the last forty minutes, letting out even, controlled breaths. This was the easy part of the run, a warm-up if anything, and he hadn't even broken a sweat yet. The canine jogging by his side was enjoying the dewy morning air as well, tongue happily flopping out the side of her mouth. The shared morning ritual between man and man's best friend: Mighty.
Her tail picked up speed, wagging uncontrollably as they neared the bend where the giant jagged rock towered over the path. It was the place marker to start the race. A three-mile run to the top of the hill located at the center of the park. It was also Mighty's favorite part of the morning.
"Ready girl?" Izuku grinned down at the ecstatic dog who barked in reply.
The instant the two of them passed the big rock, they both broke out in full speed, leaving behind a cloud of dust. Happy barks filled the air as she gained the upper hand. Izuku laughed as the dog turned to look back at him lagging behind her. He always did these races without his quirk to assist him. It was only fair and it helped him work on his natural stamina in case he was ever in a situation where he couldn't use his quirk. Always good to be prepared.
He watched as she bounded up the first steep hill on the trail. There were a few small hills on this route, but this one was the hardest to climb and Mighty had the advantage with her four legs so she always managed to pull ahead first. She stopped at the top and barked him on before quickly disappearing over the crest.
When he reached the top, he stopped for just a second to take in his surroundings. This part of the park was a heavily wooded area with numerous trails that many people used to hike or run. It also served as a great view of the city skyline and he couldn't help but stop and admire the rising sun from between the foggy buildings every time. Then Mighty barked to pull him out of his thoughts.
"It's not over yet!" He called after her and raced down the hill, putting on an extra burst of speed to easily close the distance.
Tail wagging, she nipped playfully at his feet as they sprinted along the path, side by side. There weren't many people out this early so he usually had the trail to himself. The only sounds were the wind in the trees, the leaves crunching under feet and paws, Mighty barking beside him, and his own unrestrained glee as they ran together.
These were the mornings he loved. Just the two of them, away from the stresses that came with pro-hero work. He wouldn't trade being a hero for anything, but sometimes it got to be too much so coming here to clear his mind with a little run was always a cathartic release, only made better by the furry companion by his side.
The short bridge that arched over the creek signaled the last mile. Getting more serious, Izuku pulled ahead of Mighty, not able to hold back the giant grin as he streaked across the bridge, startling a few birds off the railings which Mighty barked at as she came up behind him.
Up ahead was a large open meadow with a small duck pond near the center. A few benches were scattered about the path and he saw the same elderly couple sitting in their usual spot with a bag of rice and seed to feed the plethora of ducks waddling around their feet.
"You got him this time Mighty!" The old man looked up as the two of them zipped down the path towards the couple.
"Show 'em what girls can do!" The woman cracked a smile, waving her hands.
"Morning Mr. and Mrs. Fujino!" Izuku waved as he passed. "Don't count me out yet!"
Mighty barked her greeting and took a detour, herding some ducks closer to the couple then with a quick lick to Mr. Fujino's hand, she sprinted back to catch up to Izuku.
The Fujino's marked the last leg of the race. The only thing left was to climb the top of the largest hill in the park to the old oak tree at the top. That was the finishing line. It was always a gamble as to who finished first every day, but Mighty sure had a competitive spirit.
Izuku pumped his legs as he steadily made his way up to the dirt trail, Mighty just behind him before she suddenly veered left and disappeared into the shrubbery. He was so focused on the tree that slowly came into view just around the curve as he neared the top that he didn't notice.
Just as the path leveled out, almost to the finish line, he glanced back to see no sign of his dog. The tree was a few feet away when a furry mass ambushed him from the side, knocking him clean off his feet. The pro hero landed in the grass with a heavy Oof. Sitting on his chest was Mighty, looking quite proud of herself.
"Cheater!" He laughed, trying his best to hold back the slobbery licks she was determined to give him. "Okay, okay, I'll call it a tie!"
Katsuki Bakugo
Now Katsuki on the other hand would totally be a cat person. Not that he has anything against dogs, but cats are more his style. They don't need constant attention and are pretty much self-sufficient. Just the way he likes it.
That being said, Katuski would go all out on toys and the latest gizmos to take care of his cat. Has a self-cleaning litter box, a waterfall bowl, an automatic feeder, etc. You get the picture.
Oh, and toys galore. If he has space, this cat is getting a personal jungle gym that lets him walk up to the ceiling. S.P.O.I.L.E.D.
Doesn't like to tell people just how much he actually loves this cat because he's never been one to express emotions, but this cat just gets him to his core. They share the same wavelength and he appreciates that. The cat is the only one he trusts to open up to, so sometimes you might catch him ranting to the poor thing who just stares back with big wide eyes and occasional meows. Yup, totally gets him.
I see him with a super chill cat, like maybe a Ragdoll or a Russian Blue. Something that tolerates his constant screaming and explosions.
This guy is just as bad at names. It'll definitely be something long and dramatic like Lord Cat Explosion Demon God of Furballs. Yep. He doesn't take criticism so most people call him Lord Furballs, much to his disdain.
Katsuki won't ask for attention from the cat, but the little furry feline is a total cuddler and will often find itself curled up in his lap or even on his neck if Katsuki's sitting on the couch. You better believe this guy won't be moving until that cat decides it's time to move. He's been late to meetings with friends because of this cuddly cat.
He's a hero so this cat is definitely being treated right. Katuski is no slacker when it comes to caring for his lil buddy. The vet is on speed dial should anything ever happen.
Did someone say a custom-made collar that matches his hero costume to a tee?
He's never loved anything more.
...
"Uh, hey Bakubro, why is your cat glaring at me?" Ejiro asked, staring down at the feline.
"What?" Katsuki didn't even bother to look up from his laptop.
"Your cat. It's giving me the evil eye. I thought it was supposed to be friendly." The red-haired hero frowned, not able to break eye contact with the cat. "I don’t think it likes me."
The small furry creature had lazily curled up in the sunspot next to Katsuki's feet, purring away without a care in the world. It seemed harmless enough, except for the heavy glare it was shooting Ejiro's way.
"Heh," Katsuki finally glanced down and crossed his arms. "He's not glaring. That's just his face."
"Ah," Ejiro nodded, "like father like son."
"What the hell's that supposed to mean!?"
Taglist: @thecindy @peachsenpie @awilddreamerwrites @miriobaby @kiyoobi @dragonsdreamoffire @amive2567 @justscar @kenmaskitten10 @freckledoriya
#izuku midoriya#katsuki bakugou#bnha headcanons#mha headcanons#izuku midoriya headcanons#katsuki bakugou headcanons#my pets#cute dogs#cats#yes i did name his dog Mighty#come at me#I got really inspired so i wrote lil stories to go with these headcannons#i laughed when I wrote Katsuki's#of course that cat would pick up on his mannerisms while being a precious sweetheart#and that dog is literally just Izuku in dog form so#this turned out so goofy#lol#request
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Here Lies...
Reggie x Ghost!Reader
It’s on an off day that you find Reggie on the beach, quieter—more mournful—than you’ve ever seen him. You propose an unusual solution.
Warnings: vague mentions and talk of death/dying, angst, talk about inadequate parents, etc. also the word ‘hell’ is written Once? (twice now ig)
A/N: y’all seemed into this idea so im Delivering. had the idea awhile ago when i read a few fics about reggie dying first and now I’ve actually...dOne something with it. so here! hope you enjoy!
Reggie was acting strange. You aren’t sure when you noticed, how you noticed, but he was. There was a certain quietness to him, something like that wasn't normal. You wanted to think nothing of it, but when you found the others in the studio without him, you couldn't help but wonder.
Alex and Luke seemed hesitant to tell you where he'd gone, as if they knew what you had already suspected and didn't want to tell you. Alex caved—despite Luke's protests.
It feels weird to be back at the beach, your hands laying stagnant at your side as you spot the familiar figure sitting in the sand.
Your better judgement tells you to leave. You never bothered to involve yourself like this before, there's no reason to do it now. Yet, you still walk over and settle down in the sand beside him.
Neither of you talk. You don’t know what to say if you wanted to, instead just absentmindedly pulling at the strings of your jeans and trying not to nervously bite at your nails.
You’re still looking out at the ocean, listening to the dull chatter of passersby and the crashing waves, when Reggie finally speaks.
"Did they tell you I died first?"
Your breath almost catches in your throat. Instead, you don’t reply, only sending him a quick glance. Nothing could quite articulate what went through your mind when he said that. It never quite occurred to you that one of the boys had to go first, and it never occurred to you that it would've been Reggie.
"In the ambulance," he continues, fiddling with his own hands. It's a nervous habit of his that you’ve noticed before, but only rarely seen. "I can still remember it." He lets out a shaky breath and you fight the urge to frown. "All of it."
When he doesn't speak again, you both fall back into silence. You’ve never been good at this. Comforting people isn't your forte, you can hardly comfort yourself. Hell, maybe Reggie doesn't even want that. He wanted to be alone, probably, and you forced your way here.
Your words fall out before you can stop them.
"I don't," you breathe, still looking out at the ocean as your eyes trail over the horizon. "I remember everything that led up to it. But I don’t actually remember how it...felt.” You instinctively wince as you remember the cold water against your skin, but you press on. “I remember some of the dark room, but then...I was just back on the beach.”
Reggie watches you and the way you continue to tug at the frayed strings of your jeans. You both fall into silence again. It's like neither of you really knows what to say, what you want to say, what you need to say.
You’re not sure when you speak up again, how long after, but you do. “Have...have you seen it? Your grave?" You ask tentatively, looking over at the ghost beside you. Reggie's looking forward when he shakes his head. You nod a little, biting your tongue before letting out a sigh. "I've seen mine."
That catches his attention as he looks over, his thoughtful expression switching to one of concern. "Y-you have?" You nod again. He stammers a little before blowing out a heavy sigh.
You push herself to your feet, Reggie watching as you does so. "Come on," you say finally, holding a hand out. Reggie's gaze flickers from you to you outstretched hand and there's a moment before he takes it, allowing you to pull him to his feet.
When you get to the cemetery, it's fortunately pretty empty. Reggie looks around apprehensively, but he still follows you as you walks. It's clear you’ve been here more than once.
Your pace slows, the pair of you coming to a stop in front of a grave at the end of a long row. The tombstone isn't particularly ornate, but it isn't overwhelmingly plain either.
"Tada," you say mirthlessly, removing your hands from your jacket pockets to gesture toward the rock. You go to move, before stopping. "Think it's disrespectful to step on your own grave?"
Reggie lets out a weak laugh that makes you feel marginally better about the entire ordeal. You smile sorrowfully before kneeling down in front of your own tombstone, ignoring the faint chill that runs down your spine when you do.
He notices that there isn't much on the stone to begin with as you trail your hand over the etchings: Y/N L/N. It's painfully simple, even more so by the muddied years below your name, worn at with time.
"That's all?" Reggie asks, a certain degree of hesitance to his voice. "No...quote?" You smile a little as you glance up at him.
"No quote," you confirm. "I was a foster kid, Reg. Not much to say when you get bounced around a lot." Your hand trails over your last name. "This is all I've got from my parents."
He swallows thickly, unsure what to say now. It feels like he has to apologize somehow. But you lean away from your tombstone and push yourself to stand, the ghost of a smile on your face.
"Don't feel bad, I've had a while to get used to it," you assure, shrugging a little. Reggie doesn't reply, but you can tell he's desperately trying to think of something to say. "Reg, it's okay," you repeat, stepping closer and setting your hands on his arms. Your hands eventually fall and you look out at the rest of the cemetery. "Do...do you wanna see yours?"
Reggie's eyes widen a little. "I-It's here?"
You nod, moving to stand beside him. You point out a grave several rows away, but he can see it—feel it—even from here. "I saw it the last time I was here," you admit, frowning a little. "Small world, huh?"
"Yeah," he says lowly. There's apprehension before he starts moving towards it, but he does nonetheless. You follow him. You try to create distance now and then, but he looks back at you every time you do like he doesn't want to be alone, so you stop.
When the two of you get to his grave, you almost wince as Reggie stares upon his very own tombstone. You can't remember dying, but you can remember seeing your grave. You imagine it feels similar.
Reggie kneels down in front of the tombstone, eyes carefully reading the engravings; Reginald Peters, 1978 - 1995, Loving Son. The grass is a little overgrown at the bottom, but it's all still legible.
He lets out a shaky breath, you carefully watching him in case this turns out to be a bad idea. Neither of you speak for what feels like a long while, but Reggie doesn't seem eager to leave, so you hope it's okay.
Biting your tongue, you look around before settling on an idea. "I'll be right back," you state, causing Reggie to look away from his tombstone. He can't even argue as you start to walk away, he can only watch with a frown. He wanted to be alone before, before all of this, but not now.
Fortunately, you do come back like you promised. Your hands are behind your back as Reggie glances up. You fidget uncomfortably before bending down and setting some flowers in front of the stone.
“It looked empty," you admit softly, shrugging a little when Reggie looks away from the flowers and back at you.
A faint smile tugs at his lips. "Where'd you get those?"
"There's a stall, nearby. I might've...stolen them," you confess, wrinkling your nose as Reggie lets out a laugh. Of course you did. The gesture won't be forgotten though. "Are you...okay?"
He looks back at the grave, wondering that himself. However, there's something cathartic about seeing his grave like this. It finalizes everything, sure, but it puts things in perspective.
Reggie stands up, you worriedly watching him. He doesn't speak, only moving back toward a nearby bench and taking a seat. You tentatively follow, settling beside him, your back pressed against the opposite arm as you cross your legs.
“Reggie?" You call softly. He doesn't think he's ever heard anyone say his name that softly. He looks over, taking in the expression on your face and the way your brows furrow. "I...I can leave you alone?"
Instead, he shakes his head. You frown a little, letting your hands fall into your lap as you continue to watch him and the way he looks out at the rest of the cemetery.
Reggie lets out a shaky breath. "It's okay," he finally says, you sitting up. He fights himself on his next words, but they come out regardless. "Good to know my parents cared enough to...you know," he gestures weakly to the tombstone.
"Oh, Reggie," you sigh, scooting closer until your knees brush against him. He looks over. "Just because your parents fought doesn't mean they didn't love you."
“Felt like it sometimes," he admits softly, you frowning further.
“I'm sorry you felt like that," you settle on, but it's clear you’re not done. "But them fighting? It's not your fault." He doesn't know how you know what to say next, but you do. "Dying wasn't either." He looks momentarily surprised, wondering how you could've possibly guessed. You shrug, as if continuing to read his mind. "It wasn't hard to guess."
"Yeah, Luke and Alex said that too," he responds with a sigh, shoulders falling as he lets his hand rest against the arm of the bench.
“I don't say this often, and I won't, but they're right." He looks back at you, noticing the serious look on your face. Neither of you are hardly ever serious, at least not like this. "It's really not your fault, any of it." There's a pause, neither one saying anything before you begin to smile. "I've got an idea," you say excitedly, hitting Reggie in the leg before getting to your feet.
"Wait, what are you doing?" Reggie asks quickly, furrowing his brows.
“I think you deserve a eulogy," you admit, with a deep breath.
Reggie's confusion furthers. "But...it's not my funeral?"
You let out a light laugh, stepping back towards his spot on the bench as he cranes his neck to look up at you. "But you are a ghost,” you whisper, leaning in close.
"Oh."
You step back and straighten up. "So! You'll be getting a eulogy by yours truly! This is a once-in-an-afterlifetime opportunity, so prepare yourself!"
Reggie can't help but smile now as he sits up, almost on the edge of his seat now. "I'm ready!"
“If this gives you an ego? I will be taking it all back," you warn him, but his smile doesn't falter. He only nods, bouncing his legs a little in excitement. You sigh, shaking your hands loose and clearing your throat. "Reginald Peters, better known as Reggie, was...an incredible person. He was, apparently, a loving son, but he was more than that."
You’re too busy trying to choose the proper words to even notice the way Reggie's face seems to soften as you speak.
"Reggie was talented. He could shred on the bass—"
"—and the banjo!"
You chuckle softly. "And the banjo. His country songs were pretty good too." Reggie watches the way you tug at your sleeves, a soft smile on his face. "More than that, he— he was one of the nicest and funniest people I've ever met. Anyone was lucky to meet him, but they were even luckier to have him in their life."
You carefully avoid his gaze, as if finding your own words too much, but Reggie can only continue to watch you with a fond expression that you don’t even notice.
"But, none of that really matters because Reginald Sinclair isn't someone you can ever forget. His memory and his soul will forever live on. ...Not just because he's currently a ghost in a band in LA or anything like that."
You both laugh a little as you finish, stepping back up to settle beside him on the bench. Your eyes cast back out toward the cemetery as you do, carefully missing the gaze Reggie fits you with.
"That would've been better if I actually wrote something, but—" you start, wrinkling your nose as you already begin to recall everything you said a moment ago.
"Thanks," Reggie cuts you off. When you look at him, you meet his eyes this time and you both seem to go quiet. You hadn't meant to sit so close, but now you can feel his breath on your face as your breath hitches.
"Yeah, well..." you trail off, voice barely above a whisper. Biting your tongue, you get to your feet before anything can happen—not that it would, of course. "So, do you wanna head back or...?"
"Wait! What about you?" He asks, shooting to his feet. Your brows furrow.
"What about me?"
“Your eulogy," he supplies and you’re quick to realize he's prepared to give you one. The thought alone makes your face heat up. Reggie saying nice things about you? You’re not sure you could handle it.
You shake your head. "No, no, we don't have to do any of that," you insist with a forced chuckle, ducking your head to walk past him.
He's quick to rush after you. "C'mon—"
"We can do it another time," you settle, nearing the exit of the cemetery. Your words slow Reggie in his tracks.
"Right, next time," he mutters, prompting you to turn back. He suddenly looks crestfallen and you waste no time in pressing toward him.
“Yeah, like we can come back?"
"Yeah..." Reggie trails off, your eyes falling to watch as he plays with his hands like he does when he's nervous.
“Reggie?"
He squeezes his eyes shut, letting out a sigh. "The guys and I— We have to cross over," he admits slowly, eyes carefully watching the ghost in front of him.
Your face seems to fall. "Oh."
The dots in your head seem to connect. No wonder he’d been feeling so particularly...low today, of all days. He hasn’t the time for much else.
"We don't want to!" Reggie says quickly, not wanting you to get any kind of wrong idea. "We really don't want to, but—"
“Caleb's stamp, right?" You ask, quirking a brow. "Wasn't just a stamp, was it?" Reggie frowns, shaking his head. "Yeah, I figured as much." You almost want to roll your eyes as you pivot on your heels to begin walking again.
“It's either that or join his house band for eternity or stop existing, so!" He adds on, hurrying after you. His shoulders fall. "Not like we can cross over."
“Why not?" You question after what feels like a long moment of silence. Reggie watches you and the way you choose to keep your eyes ahead instead of sparing him a glance.
"We might have to play at the Orpheum."
“Of course," you almost scoff, and it nearly makes Reggie wince. He assumes you’re mad at him or something akin to that, but you suddenly stop. "We'll figure something out," you then say, crossing your arms over chest and actually turning to look at him now.
“Are ghosts even allowed in the Orpheum?"
“Doesn't matter, you guys are gonna perform there one way or another. Better than not existing at all, right?" It's like that was supposed to be a joke as you force a smile, but it doesn't quite reach your eyes. You then bump your shoulder against his in an attempt to dissipate the tension you inadvertently created.
You didn't mean to be upset, to make Reggie feel like you were mad at him, instead of for him—maybe for yourself too, as selfish as that sounds. But you can't ignore the tightness in you chest either when you think of losing someone you never even had. All you can do is push it down.
It's with that fading tightness that you start walking again, Reggie lingering back. He didn't want this to happen, any of it. He meant what he had said, they really didn't want to cross over. As you glance back, he knows it to be even more true.
You usher him to follow, your expression subtly softening, and it's with a deep breath that he follows after you.
#julie and the phantoms#reggie#reggie jatp#jatp reggie#reggie x reader#jatp reggie x reader#reggie jatp x reader#jatp x reader#julie and the phantoms x reader#jatp imagine#reggie peters#reggie peters x reader
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Anime I Watched This Fall
My first semester of college is officially over and the December holidays are upon us! I hoped to make one of these posts sooner, but I have been incredibly busy with schoolwork. Now that things have slowed down, let’s take sometime to reflect on things I’ve watched.
These anime are listed in chronological order and encompass everything I’ve watched from 9/1/2020 - 12/15/2020
Like always, they will be rated on a 1-10 scale; 1 meaning complete garbage, 10 meaning masterpiece. I will offer my thoughts on what I did/didn’t like about each show!
1. The God of High School - 6/10
Despite the stellar animation from MAPPA and my high expectations, I was really disappointed by how this series was treated. Most of the story’s crucial elements were handled poorly. I finished this series feeling more confused about the plot than when I first began. The power system is really cool, but poorly explained. More time should have been spent on exposition and world building for this series, instead the fights were given the most screen time.
2. Doukyuusei - 7/10
I really liked the style of Doukyuusei. Granted, this was another movie I chose to watch primarily because of the hype surrounding it. The dynamic between Kusakabe and Sajou is an interesting one, and I also enjoy how the movies different acts were separated by the seasons. However, there's nothing that really sets Doukyuusei apart from other romance movies, its a little generic. Still, I enjoyed it nonetheless.
3. Re:Zero kara Hajimeru Isekai Seikatsu 2nd Season - 8/10
My opinions on Re:Zero’s second season are biased. This was, by far, the sequel I was most hyped for during the summer/fall anime season. I was so happy to see the story’s continuation and I’m looking forward to the season’s second part coming sometime in January. Re:Zero is one of my all time favorite series because of the way it handles it characters and power dynamics. I also really enjoy the show’s psychological aspects. If you haven’t already, give Re:Zero a try!
4. Saint☆Oniisan (Movie + OVA) - 8/10
This was a wonderful comedy. I wasn’t sure how the subject of Jesus and Buddha living together would be tackled, but it was handled wonderfully. I was laughing for pretty much the entire movie. I love the art style and little references to both Buddhism and Christianity, plus the incorporation of Japanese culture. Saint Oniisan is a bright comedy, with two eccentric main characters. If you like a show that doesn’t take itself too seriously, and need a good laugh, I can’t recommend this more.
5. Clannad: After Story - 10/10
Never, while watching anime, did I cry as much as I did while watching Clannad: After Story. I didn’t realize how much I related to Okazaki until I saw him grow up in After Story. I was left sobbing, especially after episode 18. I still, to this day, cannot listen to the Dango song without tearing up. The original Clannad is nothing special, but the continuation of its story its something heartfelt, emotional, and down-to-earth. I love Kyoto Animation with all my heart, and Clannad made me appreciate everything the studio has done just a little bit more. Thank you Clannad, for reminding me about the kind of person I strive to be.
6. Nakitai Watashi wa Neko wo Kaburu - 5.5/10
The art in A Whisker Away was beautiful. The story itself, however, is nothing too enjoyable. I found it difficult to like our protagonist or her love interest. Nothing about this movie is inherently memorable. The emotional climax came far too early which made the second half of the film seem long and drawn out. All in all, the movie has a wonderful concept, I just believe it could have been so much more emotional than it was. When I watch a move, I like to empathize with the characters. It’s difficult to do when the characters aren’t given the proper exposition to be empathized with.
7. Shikioriori - 6/10
This is less of a movie and more of a collection of short stories. Flavors of Youth is something you shouldn’t watch on an empty stomach, all of the food looks incredible. The same cannot beside for the rest of this feature. The stories themselves seems heavily clichéd. Much like A Whisker Away, the initial premise is intriguing, but the execution results in something that comes across as trying too hard and carries no emotional weight with the viewer. If you plan on watching, pay more attention to the artwork and animation than the actual plot. You won’t be missing anything.
8. Vinland Saga - 7/10
Vinland Saga helped me get out of the rut that Clannad: After Story. Not only does this show have a great story, its action packed with lots of interesting fights. I especially enjoyed all the Nordic history embedded within the show. Its really unlike any of the other historical anime I’ve watched. I will say, it’s gory. But, compared to all the other things I watched this time around, I finished this series the quickest. Its good, its graphic, its fast paced!
9. Mononoke Hime - 7/10
It’s ironic considering how much anime I’ve watched that I have yet to watch all of the most classic Studio Ghibli films. Princess Mononoke is grittier than most other Ghibli films I’ve seen, but it’s message is positive and its characters are wonderful. I can’t really speak ill towards classics like these. I guess maybe my one complaint is that this movie could’ve been a faster pace. Other than that... I really enjoyed everything Princess Mononoke offered! I understand why it’s so popular.
10. Howl no Ugoku Shiro - 8.5/10
Can you believe it took me this long to finally watch Howl’s Moving Castle? Me neither!! This movie is so endearingly beautiful. I loved every second of it, from the characters to the soundtrack. So many iconic things come from just this one movie. I would like to take this time to thank my best friend for reminding me that Studio Ghibli films are wonderful! Thank you for watching this with me, I loved it! All in all, I regret not watching this sooner!
11. Toradora! - 6.5/10
Toradora took me a while to finish, just because I lost interest about halfway through. But, I powered through it, and ended up really enjoying the show! I’m not the biggest fan of the ending, but that’s just a personal preference. Somehow, this show also made me cry? I’m not entirely sure why because Toradora! is probably the thing farthest from sad. Apart from the show’s dull slice of life moments, it was super cute! A much needed light-hearted romance.
12. New Initial D Movie: Legend 1 - 5/10
Full disclosure, this is the only thing related to Initial D that I’ve ever watched. My band and I watched this expecting to hear some of that iconic Initial D music, itself all we got was a mildly confusing story about different types of cars. It was cliché and frankly a little boring. Although, I am still considering watching the original Initial D just so I can hear the music in the way it was original intended. I’ve got no other opinions on this movie. It’s best not to watch these movies without the context from the rest of the franchise.
13. Uchuu Patrol Luluco - 7.5/10
I didn’t really understand why people enjoy studio Trigger so much until I watched Space Patrol Luluco. I loved all the fun references to other studio Trigger works. I loved the humor, and I loved all the bright colors. The animation was extremely high energy, and the art style fits the show’s premise. Each episode was only 12 minutes long so it was a super quick binge. If you’re looking for something quick, light-hearted and comical, this is the perfect show to watch.
14. Orange - 7/10
I owe a big thanks to a tumblr mutual for recommending this show to me! This holds the honor of making me cry by episode 3! I honestly did not expect the subject matter of this show to be as dark as it was. Usually when I see the genre ‘shoujo’ I do not associate it with a love story like that of Orange. The heavy subject matter made it a little too close to home for me, but I still really enjoyed this series. It reminds me off all the good times I had with my friends in high school, and of all the regrets I carry with myself to this day.
15. 3-gatsu no Lion - 7.5/10
March Comes in Like a Lion is another show that was a bit of a slow burn for me. Each episode left me feeling emotionally drained, so I had to take a lot of breaks while I was working on watching this series. Shaft, the studio behind this anime, holds a special place in my heart because I loved their work on the Monogatari Series. March Comes in Like a Lion is a little different. It’s driving force it is characters, and it was cathartic to watch our main character transform through the entire duration of the first season. I know the show’s second season is much better, so I’ll be starting that soon!
16. Yojouhan Shinwa Taikei - 8/10
I loved how artsy and smart The Tatami Galaxy is, but honestly I couldn’t watch too much at once cause it would hurt my head. I also couldn’t watch this show while I was tired because the speaking rate is much faster than typical anime. The Tatami Galaxy is so unique for its medium. I loved the different time loops and the crazy animation. The characters were fascinating. The dialogue, although very fast, it also fantastic. There’s an element of humor to this unique story telling, and I enjoyed ever minute of it!
Currently Watching:
Hunter x Hunter - 6.5/10 (As of Episode 30)
I pride myself in having watched a lot of shounen anime, but I was reluctant to start Hunter x Hunter for years because I thought I would find it boring. I was oh so very wrong. Considering great shows like Naruto and Fairy Tail that fall under the same category, I expected Hunter x Hunter to be subpar in comparison. It gets a low score for two reasons. One, the power system was introduced a little too late and now I’m wondering if all the fights post episode 30 will involved nen in some way, shape, or form. Two, its still on hiatus.
Two Cursed Additions For This List
Please to do not let these be representative of my anime taste.
1. Yarichin☆B*tch-bu - 4/10
I am a CLOWN for not knowing this was 18+. The only reason I watched this was to see why everyone was talking about the pink-haired boy with the glasses and tongue piecing. I know why now, and I regret it. This was a massive mistake on my part. But hey, at the least the art and ending song kinda slap?
2. Euphoria (Dropped After 1 Episode) - 2/10
If you know what I’m talking about when I say Euphoria, I am so sorry. And no, I am not talking about the HBO series. Seriously, don’t google this. Don’t watch this. Don’t interact with anything related to this. You’re probably wondering, “Then why did you watch it?” I did not watch this willingly. You see, I have a very bad habit of starting anime and then taking months to finish them. I made an ultimatum with a friend, lost, and then was forced to watch this a punishment. Not a fun experience. I’m very glad there are no GIFs of this on tumblr...
#the god of high school#goh#god of high school#anime recommendation#doukyuusei#classmates#rezero#re:zero#rezero season 2#saint oniisan#saint young men#Clannad Afterstory#clannad#nakitai watashi wa neko wo kaburu#a whisker away#shikioriori#flavors of youth#vinland saga#mononoke hime#princess mononoke#Studio Mappa#studio ghibli#howl no ugoku shiro#howls moving castle#toradora#initial d#uchuu patrol luluco#space patrol luluco#orange#orange anime
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The Reunion (Part 1) Simon x Reader
Reader makes a rash decision, one that has long lasting consequences.
(Notes: There are two parts to this! Next part should be out next week. I'll probably start spacing out my posts after this so I don't get burnt out like last time. Also, didn't get to edit this one as much as I should've; the whole thing ended up pretty long and would take a long time everytime I tried to edit it. Can't believe it took me this long to finish one about Simon!!!)
"Hey, this is quite the unusual find, you gotta admit."
Your eyebrow raised without hesitation, your eyes looking down to check your shoes. "Not really," you remarked softly, eyes going back up to meet the object of the discussion: a PL600 android.
The salesman, who had uncomfortably started hounding you for the sale after you had curiously drifted towards the humanoid, was gesturing towards it flippantly with a toothy grin. "At this price?! Tell me, no, tell me where you found one this cheap— in this good a condition?"
Your mouth automatically frowned. The arms were covered by a dark undershirt that made most of the skin unseeable— any damage not on the face and hands wouldn't be factored into the buying purchase. You had a feeling this clothing choice was intentional.
"Just three hundred bucks!" The seller's round face turned into your line of sight. You quickly looked away out of discomfort.
Your eyes landed onto the android's clear blue ones. You hadn't looked very closely at any androids before, despite walking amongst them nearly every day. Did they all look this lifelike?
Maybe you were looking way too into it.
You swallowed, aggressively fumbling for your wallet with a grunt of annoyance. "Okay, fine. Three hundred."
With a pleased noise, the seller took off with your card, waving it in the air between two of his fingers.
You crossed your arms beside the android, who didn't seem to take any notice of what had just transpired.
…
Reality had begun to hit you like a truck on the way home.
By the time you opened the door to your tiny house, you realized just how big of a rash decision you had just made.
The android stood behind you quietly and without complaint as you released the door handle, letting the door softly bang against the wall. You stared dumbly into your own house, coat hanging limply from one of your dangling arms as you searched your brain for a solution.
You frowned, shaking your head rapidly. "I have no room for this."
"Excuse me—"
You jumped at the android's sudden intrusion into your own self reprimand, a small noise of fright escaping you before you could even begin to think of holding it back.
"—would you like me to get started?"
"Uh, yeah yeah yeah, uh… do whatever you want," you waved it off awkwardly, holding a hand to your chest as you attempted to catch your breath. You hurried inside, embarrassed of the whole situation.
You sat down on the couch as the android closed the door and walked past you and into the kitchen.
Without turning it on, you stared at the TV as your fingertips rubbed against your face in nervousness.
That had been such an impulse buy. You couldn't believe you had done that.
The faucet turned on for a moment. You think you had put a cup in there, but there wasn't much else to clean.
It seemed to be working properly. The guy who sold it was certainly odd and abrasive, but all in all it was a pretty good deal. Usually they were more than twice as much; newer models so expensive that the thought of you owning one was impossible. Even if it had some cosmetic damages, that was a small issue compared to its functionality.
Trying to ignore the strange new entity in the house, you flipped on the TV. It was the news.
There was some story about a recent fire that had decimated a small apartment building on the outskirts of Detroit. The police said it likely had something to do with Red Ice, although most evidence would probably be destroyed.
The android had finished whatever it was doing in the kitchen and had quietly begun watching the TV from the archway.
You looked at it as it parted its lips in preparation to speak. "Are you a fan of the news?"
"Sort of," you chuckled, looking back to the screen. "I work at a newstation— not this one, but I like checking it out from time to time."
The android nodded, continuing to watch the screen as it held its hands politely behind its back.
You looked it over, getting that feeling of nervousness again. "W-what's your name?" You blurted out quietly and without any grace.
It blinked at you, the LED spinning blue for a second. "My previous owners named me Simon. Would you like to change my name?"
You shook your head to yourself. "Do you like your name?"
It squinted at you in confusion before returning to its natural, composed look. "It's good," it responded.
Although you tried to maintain a jovial body language, you weren't doing a good job. "Great! Si… Simon is a great name," you chirped out awkwardly.
"Thank you," Simon replied, giving a small head bow.
You turned your head away from it as you felt your face grow warm with embarrassment.
What on Earth was happening to you?
…
You had been having a strange dream about work when you heard someone calling your name.
"...huh…?" you called out groggily.
Your name again. "...I think you're going to be late for work at this rate…"
Your eyes fluttered open. Simon was fiddling with his hands as he held them in front of his chest, eyes moving between you and the clock beside the bed.
It said 8:32.
The comforter was flung nearly off the bed as you jumped up in a panic. "Oh geez, yeah I'm gonna be late…" Random clothes filled your arms that you grabbed from your drawers as you prepared to go to work. "Thanks for waking me."
Simon quietly made his way over to you as you tried finding a pair of socks. "I didn't hear you walking around this morning," he said with a chuckle. "And where you stayed up later than usual last night… I figured…"
A laugh escaped you as you headed off towards the bathroom to get ready.
He had been living here… maybe three months? It had seemed like a much longer time than that. In that amount of time, things had definitely changed between you two.
Despite it being his intended purpose, it felt strange to have someone doing all your housework for you. It became an odd ritual pretty quickly: once you got home, you would work on chores together. Not that there were many— that was one of the perks of having a small house— but it just made you feel better about the whole thing.
The whole process was a bit cathartic for you; away from the hustle and bustle of the busy, stressful life at the newstation and into a warm, domestic one.
You hurried to the front door to slip on your shoes, Simon leaving his spot on the couch to see you off.
"I think I'll make it on time," you joked as you looked up at him. "Thanks again."
"No problem…" he responded quietly, struggling to retain eye contact with you.
As you rose to your feet, he gave you a brief hug. Your face immediately began to burn bright red.
"Have… have a good day at work…" he stuttered out before walking in quick strides to the kitchen.
You were still frozen in place by the time he exited your vision. "Y-you too…" you blurted out before fumbling out the door, realizing your linguistic blunder before you had even closed the door.
As you headed down the street, you let your hands touch your heated face.
…
You had nearly run home out of excitement.
It had been such a small thing, but the prospects of your future career had your mind going nuts.
After fumbling to get the key in the door and tossing it open, you slung your coat off your arms in a fluid motion. "Simon! Simon! You won't believe it!"
He was sitting on the couch— like he usually had been over the past year— engaged in some overly dramatic show you weren't particularly fond of. His eyes were wide at your sudden entrance. "Yes?"
You let the door make its way closed before you kicked it shut behind you, holding your arms out. "They said they liked my article!"
Simon stared for a moment before his LED flashed in excitement. "THE article?" He sat up on the edge of his seat, smiling at you as he was filled with a wave of positive energy.
"Yeah!" You nodded. "Not to get you too excited, but they're showing it to some of the higher ups, but it looks like I might get my own schedule slot soon!"
"Oh wow!" He exclaimed, rising to his feet and taking you into his arms to lift you up for a split second. "I knew it would happen! I'm so proud!"
You erupted into a fit of giggles as he held you, almost enjoying his praise as much as your own success. "Thanks Simon, I couldn't have done it without you."
He released you, letting his hands rest against your sides. "That's not true," he responded quietly, his face red as he looked to the side.
With a warm smile, you nodded to him. "Yes," you drawed out for effect. "You even came up with the idea. And, not to mention, the moral support."
He stepped back a little, crossing his arms as he attempted to hide his expression of happiness. "You're too kind."
The TV played in the silence, Simon fiddling with the edge of one of his sleeves as he pulled it down.
Your mind raced as you looked at his hand, debating on bringing it up right now when the mood was so light.
"They mentioned… uh... increasing my pay," you began, watching his expression for any hint of distress. "I thought that maybe… we could finally… you know… get that fixed…"
His hands trailed along his sleeve as he nodded to himself, seemingly lost in thought. "Yeah," he responded. "That would be nice… but it would be so expensive… are you sure?"
It had taken a few weeks to first see it, and even longer for you to see the full extent of the damage, but your initial thoughts had been correct. The long sleeves had been put on him for a reason, and it had seemed as though it had gradually become a personal choice as well.
His forearms and biceps had a lot of physical damage, certainly from his previous owners.
Luckily, it had been almost purely cosmetic. Aside from a few light dents and scratches to his actual body, it was just a matter of getting the covering fixed. As of now, the white sheen of his android body was always visible underneath his sleeves.
You wrung your hands together out of nervousness. "I just know how you said that you wanted it fixed," you took in a sharp inhale. "It won't be a problem to actually do, I've already been saving for a while…"
He smiled, rushing in to hug you again. You, a bit caught off guard this time, was frozen in place.
"I'd like to put the past behind me," he said as you finally came to and hugged him back, albeit still in a bit of a shock. "I think this is the first step."
As you embraced, you couldn't help but feel a pang of excitement and anxiety.
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I have three questions about writing fanfiction and you’re the best fanfic writer I’ve seen so I’m going to ask them to you if that‘s alright
1. How do you write a lot in chapters, because I never manage to write more than 1k words about the chapter topic
2. How do you stay motivated for writing a long fic?
3. Do you have any tips about how to deal with a large ensemble of characters?
First of all, I'd like to say how happy and honoured I am for this ask! It made me so happy you thought of me. I'll do my best to answer helpfully.
My response ended up being pretty long, to I'll leave it under the cut.
1.
In general, my chapters are between 3k to 6k. I find 4k-5k is a good range for me. Before I talk about writing more in chapters, I think it is important to say that short chapters are not wrong. Short chapters can be wonderful to read!
If you want to work on writing more, I have a few suggestions. First though, the way my writing style works is I go into a story generally knowing the basic plot points, and I write all the chapters first, before I post them. So keep this in mind, since my techniques might need to be adapted for your style.
When starting a chapter, I have what I call the 'bone and meat' method. To write around 5k words, I find each chapter has enough room to explore 3-5 "events". These are the bones of a chapter.
As an example. I will use chapter five of "Alternatively", because I'm guessing you read that one. (If not you can send another ask with some you've read and I can use those).
The bones of this chapter are:
Prelude/set up to Steve learning about Bucky.
Pierce taking Steve to see Bucky
Steve having a breakdown in the elevator
Steve and Tony talking about it
These are the four main things that needed to happen in this chapter. I don't always start a chapter knowing what will happen at the end, but usually by 500 words in, I've figured out what out of my plot points will be happening in the next 5k of words.
When deciding what will be the bones of a chapter, I find I have two systems. Either I give the reader a satisfying cathartic ending, or I leave them in anticipation.
Chapter five is a good example of a mini-arc within a chapter that ends with a satisfying emotional catharsis. If you think of it along a story plotting graph, the prelude is the exposition, Pierce taking Steve to Bucky is the conflict/rising action, Steve's breakdown is the emotional climax of the chapter, and Tony and Steve's conversation is the falling action/resolution.
The ending event of the chapter feels natural, because while the story isn't finished, the emotions and events of the chapter have been tied together and dealt with for the time being.
An anticipatory ending for a chapter would be more like a cliffhanger, and would probably end near the climax of whatever plot points are happening. (Such as chapter 3 of Alternatively, the emotional climax of the chapter hits right at the end.)
So basically, your overall story has rising action and a climax, but if each chapter is roughly outfitted around that too, then it may be easier to write long chapters.
Once you have the bones of a chapter, all you need to do is add in the meat to fill out whatever word count you are aiming for. If you have written the bones of a chapter, but still aren't at a word count you like, then it is simply a case of adding more depth to what is already happening—showing the emotions of the characters, getting into their head, bringing up past events and relating them to what is currently happening, foreshadowing, describing the scene/senses, etc.
Please know that when I'm writing my chapters, I'm not obsessively planning out the steps of a chapter and thinking of all these things constantly. These are just patterns I've noticed after the fact, so they are not hard and fast rules.
2.
As for how I stay motivated for long stories, the thing that works best for me is writing all the chapters before I post the story. I know this system doesn't work for every author (and believe me, sometimes I really want to post), but I find doing so relieves pressure on me, and I don't feel guilty if I don't write a story for weeks or months because I am working on something else.
That being said, for my large Alternate Timeline series, I didn't have time to write all the chapters ahead of time. By the time I was writing The Alternate Handler, I had about a 10 chapter lead.
Things that helped me stay motivated is finding parts of the story that I really wanted to write. I usually write chronologically, so having moments that I knew where coming and I was excited for helped motivate me to continue.
Also, recognising that I sometimes made things harder for myself. Sometimes I'd be stuck on how to finish a scene, or expressing something, and my writing would slow, until I would realise that sometimes things don't need to be written in exact detail. If you don't know how to get a character to walk out of a room, sometimes you can just end the scene there. Unless something is plot relevant, you can write around it, if it is an issue.
Sometimes, if I'm stuck on a story or a chapter, it helps to take a step back and figure out what the actual blockage is. Often it won't be what I think it is. Sometimes it isn't because I don't know how to write it, or I don't know what to write—sometimes I can't write a scene because I haven't seen the movie in a while, and all I need to do is find the battle on youtube and rewatch it. Sometimes it is because I don't know how an engine works, and I need to either look up the information, or make a note of it and move on to another scene.
And sometimes you just gotta clunk out a scene word after word, because once you do, it will be done, and you can always make it better later. You can't edit what isn't written.
3.
Writing Marvel gives me plenty of opportunity to deal with large casts. Generally what happens is I end up focusing on the relationship between a few main characters, while the other characters have less focus.
In my Alternative Timeline series, the relationships between Steve, Bucky, and Tony are the focus.
Of course, this doesn't mean I want to forget about the other members. You'll notice especially in Bucky and Tony's stories that they have secondary relationships with other people like Natasha, Bruce, Clint, Pepper, Peter, and Nebula. These secondary characters get scenes with the main characters too, kind of on a rotational basis.
So first tip is to trim down how many characters you are focusing on, and how many characters are interacting with each other in each scene.
In fics I will often have Thor be away on Asgard, or Clint and Natasha doing missions, etc, so they don't get underfoot.
That being said, there are times like during group meetings, when you can't avoid having everyone in the same room.
In those times, it is important not to forget who is in the room. I will literally count on my fingers, or write down lists of who is supposed to be at the table, so I can remember.
A good example of this on a small scale is Steve's birthday party in chapter 14 of The Alternate Handler. That one has almost every Avenger but Thor sitting in a circle, playing a game. I had specific moments in mind, so I needed to remember who was sitting by who. I wrote down the names in order so I wouldn't forget, and could properly situate people in my head.
An example on a bigger scale is chapter 26 of The Alternate End. In this chapter, the Avengers have a meeting with practically every other character who was there at the final battle.
Yet again, I pare down the cast a little. T'Challa and Shuri aren't there because they are in Wakanda.
To help keep control of the larger group, I start with a vague idea of where everyone is sitting, and then don't go into deeper detail than I have to.
In the scene, we know the Guardians, Peter, and Thor and Loki are all sitting kind of near each other, but I don't specify who is sitting next to who unless I need to.
I also have Tony looking around the table for a few hundred words, seeing each group, and slowly but surely introducing them to the reader. Tony hasn't seen the whole group for a while, so he has a reason to catch the reader up to speed on what has been happening. While he thinks about the life developments of the people around him, the reader starts to get an idea of who is in the room, and their general mood.
A final tip I often use is staggered entrances. If you have a large group, and something Plot Worthy needs to happen when Character A and B talk, then don't have the meeting ready to start right away.
Have some people already sitting, so that your POV character can process them, then have some more people come in, and then some more. (I do this in chapter 19 of The Alternate End, before the time travel jump.)
With a big group, you need time to show what needs to be shown, so give yourself the space to breathe and give the characters the right amount of attention.
I hope these tips and notes were helpful. Feel free to come back with more questions, or details about your own writing style if what I said doesn't work nicely for you!
And remember, these are just tips, not the golden rule.
Have a great day!
#asks#anon#writing asks#writing tips#writing suggestions#writing help#writing#fanfic writing#story writing#chapter writing#plotting
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Long Sleeves (part 2)
Summary: Pushed to its absolute limits; a retelling of the past 4 months of you and Charlie’s complicated relationship (13.5k words, i dont know what to say other than im so sorry)
Warnings: NSFW, f!reader, major angst, annoying fluff, mentions of divorce, affairs, age gap (between Charlie and reader, previously implied), nudes, phone sex, PIV sex, daddy kink, some size kink, pain kink(?), rough (and angry and sad) sex, dom and sub themes, spanking, fingering, oral sex (m receiving), i also mention christmas a lot at the beginning which isn't really a warning but i know not everyone celebrates it!
Part 1
A/N: for those of you who are not a fan of d*ddy kink but who may still want to read this; i only use it between the time stamps of Christmas Eve to March, following the March timestamp there will be no mention or use of that word! just thought i’d mention cause the ending is cathartic!
LATE DECEMBER - APARTMENT
With Henry and Nicole staying in LA until after the holidays, Charlie would be alone with you until he left again.
And he didn’t leave your apartment once in the meantime.
Making up for lost time, is what you could call it.
The hours, days, spent in between sheets, on countertops, on couches, in the shower. Like he was trying to mark your apartment with his scent, make sure you never forgot him when he would leave again for LA in a few days.
You would remember him everywhere.
The way your knees bruised on the tile floor of your shower. The welts on your ass from his harsh hand. The bite marks on your shoulders, the bruises littering your neck, stomach, anywhere he could reach.
You would remember him everywhere.
The thousands of ‘good girls’ he praised you with and the thousand and one ‘fucking sluts’ he punished you with. Charlie was coming to know your insides and outs better than you could at this point, it was a certain level of familiarity you were happy with him reaching. He was becoming more and more comfortable around you.
You could tell not just because of the frequent sex, the hard fucking, but because of how he was opening up to you about the divorce. About what was really going on down in LA, what was happening with Henry, what had been happening (or more so, not happening) with Nicole for nearly the past year.
He told you about how she ignored him, refused to have sex with him, even touch him. How he had found solace in a one time affair with their stage director, how he just missed feeling needed, feeling wanted by the only person who was supposed to fulfill that innate human desire.
He told you everything he could think of, every little detail. He was tired of hiding, holding it in.
He realized he would have to tell you when he would get a random call from his lawyer or from Nicole herself, when he would talk to Henry. When he yelled through the phone or hung up crying, slamming his device against the wall, nearly breaking it.
He knew he would have to explain it to you, he owed it to you.
You deserved to know, especially now that he was involving you in this to some degree. He didn’t want to, didn’t want to involve you but he needed you more than he needed anyone else right now. More than he was ready to admit perhaps, just how much he truly needed you.
And that’s why going back to LA would be the hardest thing he’s done all week.
He stood at the door, dressed, suitcase packed, heart lurching, thumping low in his chest with dread, resent, fear, and some feeling he couldn’t fucking name.
Lo-
“I wish you could come.” He says instead, the saddest smile you’ve seen adorning his perfect lips. You smile back, just as sadly. You know there was absolutely no reason for you to go to LA with him, to spend Christmas with Nicole and Henry and whatever extended family would be there as well. It would never happen, never work. At least, not right now. Not like this.
The divorce proceedings were on break till after the holidays, both in and against Charlie’s favour. It meant not giving Henry two Christmases, one last normal one. But it also meant pretending, indulging in that… façade that him and Nicole have been keeping up for too fucking long now.
The deed would be done sometime in February, maybe March, Charlie couldn’t remember. He tried not to think about it too much. Think about losing everything-
“I know. But you’ll enjoy yourself. Henry will be happy.” You remind him, letting him hold you so, so tightly. His vice grip, digging into you, trying to anchor himself to you.
“I can’t believe I’m leaving you alone during fucking Christmas.” You laugh.
“I’m going home to see my parents, I won’t be alone, Charlie.” He nods his head, hearing the words you’re saying but he still can’t stop the guilt from creeping up on him. He doesn’t want you to think he’s abandoning you. He won’t abandon you, like everyone’s abandoned him. He just hoped you wouldn’t abandon him either.
Charlie presses his forehead against yours, his hands gripping your waist and pressing your body against his. Your arms wrap around his neck.
“I’ll call you this time, I promise. Every night… I’ll call.”
“Okay.” You giggle, believing him.
His hand sneaks its way up your jaw, gripping your cheeks gently but angling your face for you to meet his dark, dark eyes. You know that look, so familiar now. You feel the pressure start to rise inside you, heat pooling in the very pit of your stomach.
“You’ll be good for me?” You nod immediately, fervently.
“Yes, Charlie.”
“If I ask you to send me pictures, what’ll you do?”
“S-send you pictures.” Breathless, your voice sounds so breathless. Your eyelids threatening to close but you keep them on him, always.
“That’s my good girl.” He growls, tilting your face all the way to his lips, a kiss, a seal of approval. You moan against his lips, letting your eyelids flutter shut, imagining yourself in all those new lingerie sets he’s bought you over the last week.
Your early Christmas presents, he had told you.
“The… the taxis waiting out front.” You say against his lips, not wanting him to leave just yet, but also not wanting him to leave you high and dry before getting on a plane set for across the country for at least another week, probably longer. Charlie ignores you, shoving his tongue down your throat, his grip on your jaw moving down to your neck, squeezing ever so slightly, fingers ghosting over bruised skin, enough to make you fall further into his chest, gripping his perfectly ironed shirt, ruining it.
He pulls away all too soon, no doubt doing this to you on purpose. It was 7am and you were already whimpering into his parted lips.
“I-I’ll miss you.” You admit, heart crashing into your ribs.
You hadn’t meant to say it but he was making your brain foggy, your thoughts were jumbled together and you just let it slip past your lips. Charlie stares at you, red lips swollen like petals, cheeks matching, hair perfectly in place with your help nothing but fifteen minutes earlier. It feels like a lifetime has passed before he says anything back to you. The taxi honks outside on the curb.
“I’ll… I’ll miss you more.”
CHRISTMAS EVE - UPSTATE NEW YORK
It was relieving to be away from the city, surrounded by more wilderness, more foliage, more trees, more animals. A literal breath of fresh air that wasn’t tainted by sewage and the ever present scent of smoke coming from somewhere or someone.
You loved coming up here. Escaping. You hadn’t been back home since last Christmas. You moved away when you were quite young, the relationship you had with your parents was complicated, clashing personalities, it was difficult to understand each other when you were younger but there was clarity that came with age. They finally respected you, and you finally respected them as well, understanding them better.
You think spending so much time with Charlie and Henry gave you an insight into parenthood that you had never been privy too beforehand. You were thankful for that, not only did you appreciate your parents more, but now parenthood had many more benefits that you had never considered before. Magical, rewarding, fulfilling.
Charlie kind of made you feel that way too.
It was still awkward at times with your parents, that was unavoidable. No siblings around meant all eyes were on you. They were asking for too many details, prying too deep and you just never felt comfortable indulging in yourself this much. But you always came prepared, it was the holidays after all, things always got weird.
After Christmas Eve dinner, your parents invited you out on a walk with them around their little town. They did this every night apparently, just walking together, talking. It was cute, endearing. You declined their offer, however. Thankfully you weren’t sixteen anymore, and your parents didn’t press you any further to come along with them like they used to.
They’d be back in thirty minutes.
That gave you thirty minutes to call Charlie. Just as he instructed.
Earlier this evening, as your parents were beginning to prepare dinner, Charlie’s family was just finishing lunch out in California. A perfect time for a perfect distraction, or intrusion.
You had packed a few sets of the new lingerie Charlie had bought you, not knowing what he would want to see on you or how often you should switch it up. You nearly brought all of them but didn’t want to take up too much space in your luggage and be suspicious.
You put one on that you thought Charlie was particularly fond of, a skimpy little number that revealed more skin than hid, it’s colour complimenting your skin like it was made for you, made to hug your figure in all the right places. You forgot that Charlie had such a visual mind sometimes, he knew exactly what you would look good in.
Nervous and a bit shaky, you tucked yourself away into your childhood bedroom to take your pictures for Charlie. You felt like a teenager again.
Charlie was not pleased with the timing of your pictures, seeing as he was surrounded by family and innocently looked at his phone only to get a glimpse of your beautiful fucking body, all the blood going from his head straight to his cock. He nearly fainted. His cheeks lit up like Nicole’s Christmas tree and he stumbled from his chair. Thankfully, everyone seemed to be more occupied with paying attention to Henry than to notice him sprint to the bathroom to scold you over text.
That was hours ago. Charlie had told you to call him exactly at 11pm eastern time. That was only 8pm where he was but he said it worked out perfectly so you didn’t argue. You just waited patiently on your bed, number dialed on your phone and ready to call, all the clock head to do was strike eleven.
Finally, the clocks ding around the house, your thumb flies across your screen and you hold the phone up to your ear, worrying the flesh of your lip between your teeth. It rings once, twice, three times before you can hear his breath on the other end. It already sounds heavy.
“H-hi Charlie.”
“What are you wearing.” His voice is strained, maybe he’s already holding himself in his hand.
“Merry Christmas Eve.” You twist your fingers together nervously. Charlie grunts on the other end, a frustrated sound.
“I f-fucking told you, no pleasantries. I-it’ll only make us miss each other more-” You stayed quiet. You knew he was right, but you already missed him so much and hearing his voice was making it worse. You felt your lip tremble, you missed his arms, his warmth, his-
“Are you fucking pouting right now?” His voice was firm, sturdy, and annoyed.
“No, Charlie.” A lie.
“Good, now tell me what you’re wearing.”
“I’m wearing your favourite, the one from earlier. I’m barely covered.”
“Oh I know baby, your tits looked so fhuuuucking good in those pictures you sent me.” The fluctuation in his voice was rising and falling randomly, you could picture his hand wrapped tightly around his angry cock, the head flushed red, precum dribbling out the top, just begging to be licked. He tasted so good…
“A-are you touching yourself?”
“No, you didn’t tell me to.”
“G-good girl, you’re so fucking good to me, you know that?” You pictured his chest, the way he flushes right in the center, between his pecs. The way the red splotches climb up, up, up his neck and onto his cheeks and up to the peaks of his ears. You thought about the heavy rise and fall of his chest as well, how fucking wide he is, how much bigger than you he is. You audibly moaned.
“Tell me what you’re thinking about?”
“Y-you.”
“Be specific- fuck.”
“Um, your- your cock. How big it is, how big you are. How it feels when you stretch me out, when you go so deep I feel you in my stomach-”
“Keep going baby, I’m… I’m so f-UHcking close.”
“I think about the first time, a-a lot. How it felt the first time you split me open- fuck Charlie you’re so big I never think you’re going to fit but I always take it, I-”
“Yeah, yeah you always take me like the good little girl you are, such a good fucking slut for me, taking my cock in that tight fucking pussy.” He sneers, you can tell he’s talking from behind clenched teeth and you moan again, loudly. Your brain short circuits, what comes out next, comes from the deepest part of you.
“Oh Daddy,-”
“What did you just call me?”
Fuck.
You hadn’t really meant to say it, you were just so caught up in the moment, the feeling, the sound of him that you completely lost your inhibitions and let it slip out. You expected him to just end the call now.
“Charlie I’m so sorry-” He cuts you off with a firm call of your name.
“I asked you a question. What… did you call me?” Your stomach flips and your insides threaten to spill past your lips and onto your floor.
“Daddy.” You say so quietly you’re not sure he even heard you.
“I didn’t catch that.”
“Daddy.” Frustration laces your voice as you project the word throughout the entire upper floor of the house. He definitely hears it that time. You think you hear Charlie moan on the other end but you don’t want to be too hopeful.
“You wanna call me Daddy? Hmm? You want me to be your fucking Daddy, is that it?”
“N-no…” You’re not sure what he’s getting at, but you feel like he’s just going to torment you.
“Don’t fucking lie to me you little slut.” His breathing picks up again, his voice booming, heavy breaths between every few words. You can hear the slick of his hand as it moves quickly over his length.
“Yes! Yes I- I want you to…”
“Say it.”
“I want you to be my Daddy.” Charlie moans loudly again, his hand somehow moving faster. You can tell he’s close. You can’t believe he likes this. You love it.
“Yeah, I’ll be your fucking Daddy. You better fucking call me that non stop when I get back to you, my sweet little girl.” You moan this time, squeezing your thighs together, feeling your arousal trail slightly down onto your thigh. You were so distracted you hadn’t realized you’d completely soaked through your underwear.
“I will, Daddy.”
“Fuck, I’m-”
Confidence surged you. You still couldn’t believe he liked this but you finally gave in, feeding his desires. When you spoke, your voice was filled with something wicked, sickeningly sweet and most of all, evil.
“Are you going to cum for me, Daddy? Make a mess for me?”
You felt like you hadn’t even finished your sentence before a loud moan punched through your phone and into your ear. You moaned as well just from his release, feeling it in your mind and in your chest, squeezing your thighs again for any sort of friction. Charlie continued to moan through his release, you pictured his silky cum painting his taut abdomen and his beautiful chest. You imagined it blending in with his moles and freckles, you pictured yourself rubbing your hands through it, massaging it into his skin before licking it all up.
He wouldn’t even have to ask, you would just do it.
“Y-you’re fucking perfect… you fucking angel.” He’s so breathless, completely spent and wasted from your voice alone. You felt so hot. You needed to relieve yourself but you didn’t know if you should ask for permission or not. Before you could even debate it, Charlie spoke again.
“Go to bed, wouldn’t want Santa catching you up like this.” You laughed softly at his comment. Static on the other end. He said your name as if to check if you were still there.
“Yeah?”
“Merry Christmas.”
The line went dead.
JANUARY - BROOKLYN
You had sent Charlie pictures nearly every night after that. And you two called each other every other night as well.
He asked it of you and you couldn’t say no to your Charlie. It was a bit tricky while you were still staying with your parents, he would simply text you and you would have to scurry off to your room or the bathroom and snap as many flattering pictures of yourself as you could. You tried to make it seem less suspicious by drinking tons of water and just blaming it on your bladder.
But the new year had finally come, and you were now back home in your apartment. Charlie would be returning tonight and you were counting down the hours until you saw his taxi pull up on the curb side. You distracted yourself until then.
At around 7pm, you got an unexpected call from Charlie.
“Hi.” You felt like your smile was audible through the phone.
“Hey,” Charlie chuckled darkly, his voice always sounding deeper and richer through the receiver. “I just got in. I was wondering if you’d like to join us for dinner tonight?”
Us? He didn’t mean….
“It’s just me and Henry, Nicole’s uh, staying in LA until further notice. If you’re busy or if you can’t that’s-”
“I would love to,” The fact that Charlie would ask you to spend dinner with him and Henry warmed your heart beyond comprehension. Your weeks of loneliness suddenly dissolving into the background and becoming nothing more than a distant memory, a distant feeling. “but is Henry okay with it?”
“Of course he’s okay with it. He’s actually been talking about you quite a bit. I think he might have missed you more than I did,” Charlie choked a bit on his last words, “not that I didn’t miss you, I just meant that he, you know, Henry was-”
“It’s okay, Charlie I understood what you meant.” You giggle, finding his slight awkwardness endearing. How was it that you both were having incredible phone sex for the past two weeks and now you both sounded like teenagers calling their crush?
“So, you’ll come?”
“Yeah, I’ll come.” Charlie groans at your suggestive tone.
“Don’t start now.” His voice stern, unwavering. You laugh again, more mischievous this time. You test the waters, not stepping in enough to drown... just yet.
“I’ll be over in ten minutes, is that okay, Daddy?” You hear rustling on the other end of the phone and then Charlie cursing a low ‘fuck!’. You think you hear Henry’s voice too, followed by more of Charlie’s now muffled voice.
“Ten minutes is fine.”
//
Henry had bombarded you at the door, he wrapped his tiny arms around your legs and hugged himself tightly to you. It took everything in you not to cry, you knelt down so you could hug him back.
“I missed you.” He dug his cheek into your shoulder. This kid was the sweetest, he would melt your heart every time.
“I missed you too, Henry. How was LA? How was Christmas? Tell me everything!”
Henry grabbed your hand and dragged you into the living room where all his new toys were laid out, ready for him to play with. As he was pulling you there, Charlie emerged from around the doorway like an angel himself. Your eyes met and you felt as if you were moving in slow motion, and not being dragged at top speed by his child.
“Hi.” You greet, almost shyly. Unsure of how to act around him with Henry present.
“Hi.” Charlie repeats, grabbing your free hand for the briefest moment, giving it a tight squeeze until it's pulled out of his grasp by Henry.
You’re not sure how long you spent playing on the floor with Henry, him retelling you the events of the last two or three weeks while Charlie sat on the couch, glancing at the two of you every now and then. You tried not to think about the position you were in, kneeling on the floor, carpet digging into your knees, Charlie sitting tall above you on the couch, looking down at you from between his parted knees. It looked like such a natural position for him, almost like he was too comfortable like this, too familiar with it. You wanted to-
The doorbell rang, making both you and Henry jump from the sharp noise.
“Henry would you like to go pay the pizza guy?” Charlie asked, already pulling his wallet from the pocket in his pants.
“Yes!” Henry shouted, jumping up from the carpet, whisking the crisp bills from his dad’s hands and running to the door to answer it. Charlie figured he had a minute or less before Henry came back.
He lifted himself from the couch, taking your jaw into his hand and bringing you to stand with him. He crashed his lips into yours, violently shoving his tongue down your throat and you had to bite back the moan that threatened to spill through your lips and into his awaiting mouth. His hands had a deadly grip on your waist and on your jaw, you only wished he would ease up because you didn’t want Henry to wonder why you both looked so flustered.
“I can’t wait until tonight.” He said against your lips, his hand on your jaw moving to trail down your throat.
“W-what’s tonight?”
“I got it!” Henry came rushing back into the living room but not before Charlie pushed himself away from you and let go of your throat and waist. It looked like nothing had happened.
“Let’s go set it up in the dining room.” Henry stomped his foot in retaliation, whining slightly.
“Nooo, Dad, can we please watch a movie with pizza?”
“Henry, we have a guest-”
“Please!”
“What movie do you want to watch?” You asked, budding in, trying to stop a tantrum in its tracks. Henry’s eyes lit up and he glanced between you and his dad.
“Have you ever seen ‘Frozen’?” You actually had, but he didn’t need to know that. You gasped.
“I haven’t!” You glanced over at Charlie. His eyes were dark but an innocent smirk pulled at his lips.
He was thinking about how this just meant it would take longer before he could finally fuck you again, a two hour movie cockblock. It had been over two weeks since he had felt your body against his, nothing to satiate him but the sound of your voice and some mediocre photos. Charlie thinks he should show you how to take some really good ones sometime soon. Not that yours didn’t most definitely do the trick, he just thinks he likes the idea of directing you, positioning you...
But Charlie was also thinking about how he found it very sweet, very heartwarming to watch you bond with Henry. He loved watching you have such a good time with him and treat him like a person, not just a child. And he could tell that Henry really liked spending time with you too. Not just from how much he talked about you when you weren’t around, but the smile that lit up his face when you came over or when he went over to your place.
It was getting harder and harder to get Henry to smile like that.
You all sat down on the couch, little wooden fold up tables in front of your seat to hold your plate of pizza slices. Henry sitting between you and Charlie, of course.
Henry sang along passionately to almost every song, sometimes with bites of pizza in his mouth and Charlie would scold him for it, afraid he would choke but Henry ignored his dad’s requests, just continuing to belt out along with the characters on screen.
As the movie progressed and neared the end, you could feel Charlie getting more and more sleepy on his side of the couch. He would rearrange his sitting position every now and then and his eyes would close for minutes at a time. He looked so soft with his arms folded across his chest, his eyelashes fluttering against the tops of his cheeks, his lips coming to rest in the softest little pout. You nudge Henry gently and he turns to look up at you.
“Looks like your dad’s asleep.” You giggle, pointing to Charlie. Henry immediately jumps on him, startling Charlie awake.
“Dad I can’t believe you fell asleep again!” Henry pouts, grabbing Charlie’s face between his hands and shaking him from side to side. Charlie grabs his son’s little hands to stop his efforts, sitting himself up straighter on the couch and hugging Henry to his chest.
“Mmm’wasn’t sleeping.” Henry rolled his eyes.
“Why don’t you go get your daddy a blanket so he can get comfy for the rest of the movie.” You wink at Henry, sending him searching upstairs for the perfect blanket for his dad.
Charlie groans and drops his head on the back of the couch, his hand draping across is as well, coming to rest on the very tip of your shoulder. He wraps his fingers along your muscles, squeezing the flesh into his palm, tightly.
“I heard that.”
“Heard what?” Daddy.
His head lifts from the couch to glare at you, his stare deadly, shooting right to the deepest parts of you. Why were you teasing him like this?
“Dad is the dinosaur one okay?” Henry calls from up the stairs, slowly making his way down and back to the couch.
“It’s perfect, Henry. Thank you.” Charlie takes the blanket from Henry and kisses the top of his forehead before he settles back on the couch, cuddling up next to his dad.
You unpause the movie, admiring the two of them every now and then, watching Henry becoming more and more sleepy as the film nears its end. As the credits roll, Charlie removes the blanket from around himself and moves it to wrap around Henry.
“I’m going to go tuck him in.” Charlie whispers to you. You nod sweetly at the two of them. Charlie carries Henry in his arms towards the stairs before Henry grumbles, calling out your name to you back on the couch.
“Will you come too?”
You look to Charlie for guidance, you don’t want to overstep any boundaries. You’ve never been in the upstairs part of their apartment, you’ve never seen the rest of their place, Henry’s room, Charlie’s room, their bathroom. You’d never seen any of it and it all felt incredibly intimate and incredibly wrong in some way. You didn’t want to accidentally see something you shouldn’t. But Charlie just smiles back at you and nods his head gently.
“Of course, Henry.” You follow them up the stairs, smiling at Henry who smiles that shiny little kid smile at you before laying his head back down on Charlie’s shoulder, resting his eyes again.
Henry’s bedroom is exactly like you imagined it would be. Colourful blue walls, vibrant comic book patterned bed sheets, toys absolutely everywhere yet Charlie avoids them like their place on the floor has meaning, like he’s ingrained it into his mind from stepping on them too many times, muscle memory. You stay in the doorway, leaning on the door frame watching them, not wanting to intrude.
Charlie carefully lowers Henry onto his bed, tucking him in the covers and kissing his forehead. He says sweet words to his son, lulling him further to sleep and Henry smiles dopily back at him, whispering a quiet ‘love you, dad.’
Charlie turns around to face you, he flicks his head in the direction of the stairway mouthing the word ‘go’ to you, you nod and head down the stairs, waiting for him in the living room. You decide to settle yourself at the foot of the couch, sitting on your knees, feeling the burn of the carpet again and waiting for your Charlie.
He descends the stairs slowly, achingly slowly. Making you wait for it, making you feel the weight in his steps, his foot pressing into the wood, applying his weight until he shifts down another step before finally, finally, making his way to you.
You look up at him from your place on the floor, you try not to let your mouth hang open as you gaze up at him, this beautiful man. Sometimes, when you look at him, you wonder if whatever god or gods were out there made him like this on purpose. Sent him here looking the way he does to taunt you, to test you. Test your strength, your will to defy him when you know there is no humanly way possible to deny this man of what he wants. And what he wants is you. Why would you say no? How could you?
After observing you on the floor below him, Charlie seats himself down on the couch like before, knees spread, looking down at you. You scoot closer to him, hoping he doesn’t tell you to stop. His hand comes to rest on his knee before he pats it.
“Lay your head down on me.” His voice rumbles in his chest. You think you feel it through the floorboards, through your knees, up your spine and in the pit of your stomach. You listen and scoot closer, resting your head on his bony knee, nuzzling it with your cheek and looking up at him through thick lashes. You continue looking at him as you press a tender kiss as well, just for fun.
The lights are dim in the living room, the time ticking closer to midnight, Henry asleep upstairs. You both had to be quiet, you both knew this. Charlie’s hand comes to brush against your cheekbone, he trails his index finger all along the valleys of your face and then moving into your hair, gripping the back of it into a fist before relaxing again, bringing his hand back to hold your cheek.
“I’ve missed this.” He says so quietly. You nod, biting your lip.
“Me too.” You say, eagerness beginning to fill your voice. You adjust your position, coming to lean further into him, closer to his crotch where you can tell he needs you. Charlie hums contentedly.
“Mhmmm. Tell me what exactly you missed. Who you missed.” You let your hand glide over his knee, over his muscular thigh and towards his crotch, feather light touches along the fabric of his pants. You could feel how hard he was, it seemed painful.
“You. I missed your cock too... Daddy.”
There it was. He found what he was looking for. His hand found its way into a fist again in your hair, tugging it tightly, his head falling back against the couch as you pressed your lips over his covered cock, straining in his pants.
“You can do better than that,” he groaned, voice almost as strained as his cock yet still so forceful, “show Daddy how much you really missed him.”
You whimper at his tone, your voices both so hushed, rasped and desperate, spurring each other on much quicker than usual. Your hands, shaky with desire, reached up for his belt, grasping the cold metal into your hands and unbuckling it as quickly as you could. Only when you got to his zipper, did Charlie stop you with a light tap to your cheek.
“Teeth.” He scolded. You nodded.
You brought the zipper in between your teeth, biting down on the tiny piece of metal and slowly dragging it down over the hill his cock was creating in his pants. The heat radiating from his body was palpable, you could feel it coming onto your face the lower you dragged the zipper and the more he was revealed to you. You could also smell him, that smell that was undeniably Charlie; musky, earthy, a hit of fabric detergent and just the natural smell of his skin, like almonds in the summer. It made you dizzy, drunk off of him already.
You hadn’t even gotten him in your mouth yet.
You nuzzled your face into his clothed crotch, feeling his hard member pressing into your cheek, you could feel it pulsing, you could feel him wanting, waiting for the moment your mouth would take his length as far back as you could. You whimpered at the thought.
“You like it? You like my cock?”
“Yeah, I love it.”
“Then show me with that pretty fucking mouth of yours.” He sneered, pulling harder on your hair. You hummed and smiled, you felt giddy, maybe you really were drunk. You nuzzled your face into his crotch one more time before bringing both of your hands up to his waist, letting your fingertips dance around his beautiful skin that lay revealed to you above the waistband, you lean up, up, up pressing the softest, delicatest kisses to his skin.
Charlie groaned, pressing on the back of your head, pushing your face further into his tummy. You left more and more kisses before you gave him a tentative bite, not letting your teeth sink in too much before you lave your tongue over the abused flesh.
“Fuck that feels- fucking good.” Charlie moaned, looking down at the new mark that would only darken itself by tomorrow as more blood rushes to the affected area. It was placed beautifully next to his hip bone. You think it looked pretty. So did he.
You finally let your fingertips dip into his waistband but not before latching your teeth onto the stretchy fabric as well, aiding your fingers in removing them. You dragged it down, down, down his skin, just until his cock sprang free and laid heavy on his lower stomach. Charlie hissed, his hips bucking slightly from the sudden freedom.
He has the prettiest cock you think you’d ever seen. You never get used to seeing it, taking it in your mouth or your cunt. The stretch is always so painfully good, you’ve come to crave it. And going without it for the past however many weeks has made you near delirious for it. You stick your tongue out and run it all along the underside right to the very tip, where a shiny, pearly bead of precum has just begun to spill over. You hum as you lick it up, eyes nearly rolling back into your head.
“Don’t be a fucking tease.” Charlie grits from behind clenched teeth. You look up at him innocently, you notice that he’s clenching and unclenching his jaw like clockwork, his eyes look glassy and his cheeks are a few shades darker. He already looks so disheveled, so perfect like this.
“I can’t help it… it’s so pretty.”
“You think Daddy has a pretty cock?” You nod your head, humming, which you can’t seem to stop doing tonight, he just has you feeling so content, so safe. You don't think you could be like this with anyone else. You trace your fingers along his length, watching it bob from the slightest of touches, even Charlie tries to bite back his groans.
“Can-can I kiss it?”
“Please.” You lower your head towards his length, pressing your lips so softly onto his red angry head, giving little kitten licks in between kisses which has Charlie gripping your hair like a vice, afraid you’ll float away. You like the way his stomach flexes in response to your touch, like his body is bracing himself for the tidal wave of pleasure that’s bound to hit at any moment.
You finally take the spongy pink head into your mouth, swirling your tongue around it before letting a few inches fall past your lips as well. Charlie’s tummy flexes even more, the v shaped muscle becoming more and more prominent and you moan onto his cock. His free hand that had been clenched into a fist comes to hold one side of your head and the other comes to meet it. He holds your head in his hands and forces you to take more of him, but not all of it just yet. You start bobbing your head up and down on his length, his hands helping you find his ideal speed.
“Fuck yes, oh my god, j-just like that-” Charlie moans your name, his fingernails digging into your scalp making you moan on his cock again, only making him dig deeper, pressing your head further down his length, forcing you to take him until he hits the back of your throat.
“Gonna let Daddy f-fuck that pretty little whore mouth of yours?” You let your jaw go slack more than it already has and do your best to nod with his cock half way down your throat, tears already beginning to brim in the corner of your eyes. Charlie starts lifting his hips off the couch slightly, all the while moving your head further up and down his cock, forcing it down your throat as far as it’ll go without you making obscenely loud gagging noises.
His son was asleep right upstairs, after all.
You let your eyes roll back into your head, letting Charlie take control and just fuck his cock into your mouth like you know he needs to, like he knows you need it too. It’s been too fucking long. Too fucking long since he’s had you like this. At his disposal, his little plaything to do whatever he pleases with. And you fucking love it.
The cool, sharp metal of his unzipped zipper digs into your jaw and occasionally your neck, biting into your skin and scratching your skin when Charlie lifts his hips up particularly high but you don’t care. In fact, you welcome the pain, embracing it as a mark of Charlie’s rough loving. You hope it draws blood.
“Fuck, your mouth i-is so fucking perfect, so warm... I don’t-” He doesn’t finish his sentence, his eyes screw shut and you can feel his cock growing impossibly harder. He looks down at you, his face twisted in absolute pleasure as he loses himself in your tight little mouth. He pulls you off his cock with all of his strength. A trail of saliva connecting your spit swollen lips to the head of his cock. You start pumping him quickly with your fist.
“No-no wait I don’t…”
“I want it Charlie, please,” Charlie throws his head back, moaning your name, “cum in my mouth... please.”
You nearly whine that last part. Charlie grabs your hair and tugs it, shaking your head a bit.
“I want to fuck you, I don’t wanna cum yet- FUCK!” You hadn’t stopped your hand movements, your fist moving faster over his cock while he fights his release.
“You can fuck me tomorrow.” You say quickly before attaching your lips around the head of his cock, sucking on it until you feel his thighs, abdomen, hands, mind and soul tense up before he bites back his guttural moans, letting them rumble through his chest like thunder passing, before spilling himself onto your tongue. You moan as it lands, letting it slide down your throat as you taste him, taste all of him until he’s completely drained.
You look up at him through heavy lashes, coated thick in tears that have streamed down your cheeks. Chest heaving, abdomen pulled taught, cheeks incredibly flushed, lips swollen, eyes heavy and tired. Completely spent. He looked so beautiful, your Charlie. So beautiful like this.
“S-show me.” His hand reaches for your jaw, pinching your cheeks to force your jaw and mouth open. You stick your tongue to show him. All gone, you swallowed all of his cum, for him.
“Good girl.” He whispered, patting your cheek affectionately. You smiled sweetly at him, coming up with your hands resting your weight on his thighs, pressing your swollen lips to his. As you extend your knees to stand, you feel the ache in the joints, the bruises already present, no doubt. You loved the pain. Your lips glide effortlessly across each other, so tired, so worn out but always wanting.
“Stay, please.” He says against your lips. You shake your head, no. It was a simple answer. A simple predicament.
“Henry.”
You pull back to look into Charlie’s eyes, he pulls you into his lap and he winces as you apply just a bit too much weight onto the base of his cock. You look into his eyes, already so sad at the idea of you leaving. But Henry would ask too many questions in the morning.
Why is the nice lady from next door still here, Dad?
Did she stay the night, Dad?
Did she sleep in your bed, Dad?
You and Mom’s bed, Dad?
“I know, I know.” Charlie says, defeated. He presses you into his chest, hugging you to him tightly, tighter than you were expecting. It was a hopeful thought. He understood why it couldn’t happen, couldn’t work. Maybe he just wanted you to entertain the idea for a minute with him. Maybe it would happen one day.
“I really did miss you.” He whispers into your hair, cradling the back of your head with his large, warm hand, pressing you further into the nook of his neck.
“I did too. I really missed you too, Charlie.”
MARCH - BROOKLYN
Charlie was currently back from his third visit to Los Angeles, hunting burroughs for the perfect new home for himself and for Henry. Maybe for you as well, but Charlie didn’t like to dwell on that for too long, he couldn’t allow himself such hopeful thoughts, he would only be let down.
Would you really want to move in with him? Was that moving too quickly? Would you think he was insane? Crazy? Obsessed? The truth was, he is all of those things; insane, crazy, obsessed with you. He couldn’t help it, no. Not when it came to you.
He would always be desperate for your affection, your attention.
Things were escalating with the divroce. Nicole and Charlie had turned bitter, viscous, backstabbing, conniving. Both fighting for a child who has no intention of hurting anyone, certainly not his mother or father.
Henry had no idea what weight his actions or words held, no idea what it meant when someone came over to observe him and his dad, or him and his mom. When they sent someone out to New York to watch him there, sometimes you would be over too. They asked you so many questions, he didn’t understand why. Why were strangers suddenly so involved in every little thing his parents did? Were they in trouble? Were they bad people? Was he a bad kid? Did they hate him?
Henry pouts as you hold his hand, walking up the driveway to the new apartment Charlie was almost one hundred percent decided on renting. It was in more of a family oriented neighbourhood, still close to his school. Somehow, it had a decent sized backyard (which you had never heard of in New York, even Brooklyn), three bedrooms, an office, a beautiful kitchen, it was basically perfect in Charlie’s eyes.
The first time he visited it back in February, he sent you dozens of pictures and little videos when he had gone alone. He quickly booked another appointment for you to go and look at him with it so he could get your opinion. He made it very clear how important your opinion was to him on this matter, he was always asking you questions about the apartment, even bringing it up randomly. He would scroll through the pictures he had taken, scrutinizing every detail and ask you about it.
Do you think the backyard is big enough?
What if I end up getting Henry a dog? Would there be enough space for that?
Do you really like the kitchen? Be honest.
What about the office room? Do I really need that? Is that too much?
What about the guest bedroom?
You wonder if he was so invested in your opinion because he trusted you, or because he wanted you to move in with them. Neither of you had ever spoken about it before, never had that conversation. And even if you did, Henry would always have the final say. If he didn’t want you living with them, well, that was that. You couldn’t argue with Henry, not when his childhood and upbringing was in question. Especially after this divorce. Charlie would do anything for him. Even if it meant risking you.
//
Charlie ended up getting the house he had been eyeing for nearly a month.
Him and Henry would restart here, no painful memories embedded in the walls, in the flooring, in the holes in the walls, the slammed door frames, the windows that threatened to shatter from all the screaming and crying. None of that was here, it would never be here. None of that would happen again.
Charlie hadn’t asked you to move in.
And you hadn’t necessarily been waiting on him asking either.
You were already coming over pretty frequently. And not just on account of Charlie, Henry still loved seeing you and hanging out with you. You still babysat him when things at the theatre ran late.
When Nicole moved to LA, Charlie was thrown full force into his work. Forced to recast, rework, and rewrite so many things that she had just left hanging. You watched Henry those nights, stayed until Charlie got home and then took the subway back to your place, next to their now vacant apartment.
You were so lonely those nights you couldn’t sleepover at Charlie’s. You missed his warmth. You hadn’t realized just how much comfort you got knowing he was just next door, just beyond a thick wall. You could have touched it and felt his presence radiating through. But now, nothing. It was cold, dark, empty, meaningless.
And because Charlie had been so overworked for the past few months, the stress was starting to get to him. The constant obstacles and backtracking in the theatre production. The random calls from Nicole, his lawyer, the random flights down to LA, the weeks Henry spent away from him, the nights he lost himself in you, using you as an outlet. You let him, you liked it when he took it out on you, you liked how rough he would get, all that pent up anger being pounded out into your hot cunt. You loved it. Loved when he got mad, frustrated. You were always there for him. You would always be there for him, you hoped he knew that.
But what you didn’t love, was when he started neglecting you.
He would go days sometimes without calling you, so much as even texting you. You would get no word from him for a couple of days and sometimes you would just randomly piece together that he was in LA and he just forgot to tell you. You tried to not let it upset you, you couldn’t imagine what he was going through, the stress of the divorce, the potential of losing Henry, his whole life hanging by a thread. It really wasn’t his fault that he just forgot to mention it to you.
Sometimes he would lash out at you, a small comment or action rubbing him the wrong way and he would erupt, say something he didn’t mean or just walk out on you. Times when things go heated, you tried your best to keep you composure for his sake. He didn’t need you being upset at him too on top of everything else, so you kept it in, for Charlie.
Sometimes he would lash out before you two went out with his theatre friends. He would smile and hug everyone, but kept somewhat of a distance from you. Barely speaking to you, barely including you in the conversation unless someone else asked you a question or directly addressed you. What did you look like to them? Friends? Friends with benefits? Did you look like his whore? The babysitter that he was secretly fucking?
You kind of were.
You drank a lot that night. He fucked you when you got back to his new place. He fell asleep quickly after. You pulled on your long sleeve shirt and nice dress pants that you had been wearing that night after laying next to his warm, sleeping body for thirty minutes, debating, thinking, worrying, dying inside.
You stood up and walked to the door, you looked back to find him watching you. You nervously tugged at your sleeves, staring back at him until he turned around, pushing his face into the pillow, as if silently willing you to leave. You left. You called a taxi and left. You didn’t sleep that night.
//
You think it was because he told you he was going to Los Angeles again.
Maybe he mentioned Nicole? His lawyer? Something about Henry? The theatre?
You couldn’t remember what started all of this yelling, smashing. You were over at the new place, helping Charlie organize some things for Henry before he came back with him the next time he went out to LA again, which was in a few days.
Charlie was pissed and this time, you weren’t sure how much longer you could hold your calm resolve for him.
“Charlie if you just need some space from me tell me, it won’t hurt my feelings, I understand.” You decide to try and change the subject, maybe just cutting to the chase. Offering him what you think he wants, alone time. Time away from you, from everything. There’s no way he doesn’t need a break.
You hated how quickly you would give everything up for him. You would do anything for him, anything he asked.
“What the fuck are you talking about?” He asked, eyes squinting in confusion. You sigh, running a hand down your face, your patience was running thin and you didn’t want to accidentally set him off.
“Everytime you see me you manage to get frustrated or mad about something. I just don’t want to give you more problems than you already have. I know you’ve been really stressed.”
“Elaborate, please.” His voice was clipped as he put his hands on his hips, stopping what he was doing and turning to you, seemingly giving you more attention than he had in weeks. You huff, not sure how to explain this to him.
“Charlie I-”
“No, what the fuck are you trying to say? That if I fucking ended things you would just leave? No questions asked?” His voice boomed, echoing off the newly painted walls, shaking the frames of yours and Henry’s dinosaur paintings from all those months ago.
He takes a step closer to you, you take one back, then another just for good measure. Your back hits the wall and you take a deep breath, gathering your thoughts as best as you can with him staring at you with those eyes. Those fucking eyes. They still managed to twinkle even when he was angry.
“I- I would… for Henry. You put Henry first, I put Henry first. If he wanted me gone-”
“He doesn’t fucking want you gone, you know that.” Charlie scoffed, walking closer to you, his face red in frustration, maybe anger. He says your name, it's never sounded so sad.
“Why are you lying to me?” He’s a step away from you now, chest heaving with laboured breaths. He’s trying to compose himself, you can tell. Trying to stay calm but his patience was wearing thin.
“I’m not, I w-wouldn’t lie to you, Charlie.”
“You would leave me?” You nod your head, lip trembling, tears burning, stinging in your eyes, your breathing becoming heavy too. Was this it?
“If that’s what you wanted, if you want me to leave I would.”
“Why? Why would you do something so fucking stupid?” His lip is also trembling, you feel like he’s about to spit in your face, yell at you for being such an idiotic little girl. The thought alone had you squeezing your thighs together, this was so fucked. You shouldn’t like this, shouldn’t like when he got frustrated, you resented the fact that you did.
You couldn’t think straight, the words leaving your mouth didn’t feel your own, like you were speaking some other language, possessed by a foreign being.
“Be-because…” Bile rising in your throat, you felt like you couldn’t breathe.
“Fucking why? Tell me why!” He was yelling, his face in yours and his voice breaking.
“Because I… because I love-”
And then Charlie was kissing you.
Charlie was kissing you.
His tongue swiped into your mouth like he was trying to strangle you with it. His hands came to your cheeks and pressed your body flush against his and the wall, sandwiched between the two. He was hard, you could feel his cock pressing into your stomach as he rolled his hips into you, you moaned into his mouth, tears spilling down your cheeks. He didn’t wipe them away.
“Don’t say it… don’t- fucking say it.” He said against your lips, voice so hush, so quiet and scared.
“Why? Why are you afraid of me?”
“I’m not fucking afraid of you.” He says, confused, angry, lips rough on your own. He keeps trying to kiss you, you don’t want to push him away but you try, you push on his tough chest, his heart beating wildly in its cage.
“Yes you are. You keep pushing me away.” You cry, hiccupping on a ragged sob that leaves your chest, as you ironically try to push him away from you. Charlie tries to kiss you through it, trying to suffocate you.
“I’m not.” He fights.
“You are.”
“I’m not-” You push, harder this time. He stumbles back, lips already swollen, his eyes are wet, glossy too. Like yours.
“You are!” You yell, voice breaking, choking on your tears. “Don’t act like you haven’t been treating me differently for the past month.”
When Charlie says nothing, you continue.
“You don’t call me, you don’t text me, I only come over to babysit Henry when he’s here and when he’s in LA you just fuck me and then get mad about something and leave. When we go out you don’t look at me, you don’t touch me-” Your voice falters, you’re not sure you can go on with the way the sobs wrack through your chest and into the rest of your body. You feel weak, like you might collapse into the ground. You wish you would, you wish the floor would just swallow you up and you could disappear.
Charlie sees red. His fists shake, clenched into fists at his side after you’ve pushed him away. His palms burn to touch you. He knows he shouldn’t, he knows he should listen to what you’re saying, let you talk, remind him how much he’s been hurting you. He knows what he’s doing, he’s not stupid.
He wasn’t trying to push you away, he definitely wasn’t doing it on purpose. But he was sabotaging himself, sabotaging everything because he felt he didn’t deserve you. He was a bad father, a selfish person for wanting to take Henry away from his mother, for wanting Henry to himself, a bad person for hating Nicole, a woman he once loved.
Love.
It was all because of love wasn’t it? Charlie wants to laugh at the thought. Wants to laugh and scream and yell and hit something at the thought of stupid fucking love. Was he really becoming that nihilistic already?
Would he come to hate you like how he hates Nicole? Would you come to hate him the way he hates himself? The way Henry probably hates him? The way his parents hated him-
His knees hit a hard surface, blistering, blinding pain shooting up his legs. He’s collapsed onto the floor before he’s even aware of it. Unaware of the sobs that push and pull at his lungs, forcing his chest to heave in the oxygen before choking it back out along with spit and tears.
He’s crying. You’re crying. Fuck, how did it come to this. This was all too familiar. He feels numb.
How could he love you when love was the scariest thing? When love was the most frightening emotion he had ever experienced. Everything that’s happened to him for the past two fucking years was because of love. Love would ruin everything. It always did. But he couldn’t…. he couldn’t lose-
“Y-you… you can’t- leave me.” He chokes, hands planted shakily on the floor, holding his upper body up, his arms weak.
You… you’ve never seen Charlie like this. And honestly? It scares you. Sure, you’ve heard him yell, scream, cry at Nicole, his lawyer over the phone. But this was different. This was visceral, burning desire, regret, shame, embarrassment… this was everything coming crashing down around him at once.
Fuck.
This is what you’ve been trying to avoid over the past month. That’s why you’ve tiptoed around him, letting him get angry, letting him yell, letting him ignore you, use you, fuck you and ask for nothing in return. You were avoiding this.
But maybe you had just prolonged the explosion? Let enough gas build up before it eventually burst into flames.
Eventually…
You had definitely made this worse, by ignoring it you’ve let it fester, let it rise and rise and rise, just pushing down the lid for your own sake. Maybe it was both of your own faults? You don’t know, you don’t care. This was bound to happen at some point. And it just so happened to be today. All you really care about is Charlie.
You kneel down on the floor in front of him, resting your palm on the floor like he has, letting your pinky finger graze against his. The slightest of touch as to not scare him off. He flinches, his head still hung low, eyes screwed shut.
You place your hand on top of his, feeling his burning skin, testing the waters. He doesn’t pull back so you continue your efforts. You intertwine your fingers with his, slowly, slowly lifting his hand up off the ground and closer to you. He still doesn’t look up. You keep moving his hand until it’s on your chest, covering your left breast. Only then does he look up, searching your eyes.
He feels it then. That same thing he felt the first time… the first time he had you. Your beating heart, pumping wildly in your chest just like his was. Did you know? Did you know what you did to him? Did you know how much he needed you, how much he thinks of you? Did you know that he… that he-
“I won’t.” You say, cutting him off mid thought. His hand clutches onto you through the fabric of your shirt, trying to reach through you and grab your heart into his hands. He wants to pull it from you, keep it for himself and lock it away, make sure you never fucking leave him. He was so selfish.
“I won’t leave you Charlie.” You say again when he says nothing, just watching his hand twist into the fabric of your shirt, tugging it strangely until he’s rid you of it. He places his hand back on your chest, feeling your heart better now through the barrier of only your flesh.
“I…. I’m sorry.”
“You said you wouldn’t lie to me?” It feels like the first thing he’s said in hours, his voice rough around the edges, gooey in the middle. His post-yelling voice, you knew it too well.
“I wouldn’t.”
“Then why… why would you even say that? That you would leave me?”
“Because if that’s what you wanted, what you needed… I would do it. I would do anything you wanted, anything for you, Charlie.”
“Why?” He couldn’t understand. There was no fathamobale reason as to why he would deserve such devotion. Especially from you.
You’re quiet, unsure of how to answer him. This was the same back and forth you both had before he exploded, when you almost told him you… that you lo-
“I-I don’t know how to answer… you told me not to say it.” You whimper, tears spilling from your eyes again. His hand comes to hold your cheek, thumb swiping away the tear. You nuzzle into his hand, kissing his palm. You stay there for a moment, resting your face in his palm, feeling his warmth radiating from his hands, letting a silence wash over the two of you. It was sort of peaceful. A chaotic peace.
“Charlie, I-”
“Don’t... don’t say it.” You cry some more, tears spilling. His hand moves to your throat, squeezing gently, you find it oddly comforting.
“But I want to, I want to say it, please.” You grab the wrist of the hand holding your throat, squeezing his flesh, asking.
“No.”
“Charlie-”
“I said no.” He grabs your jaw, shaking you from side to side a little. You whimper, eyes screwing shut, pushing more tears past the precipice. He pulls you into his lap, you’re putty in his hands, letting him move you however he needs to move you. He holds you in his arms, your legs wrap around his waist and his legs bring him to stand up somehow, his strength always shocking you.
“You can’t say it... you can’t leave.” He continues, you sniffle, hiding your face in his neck, grabbing onto his hair as he carries you somewhere through the apartment, up some stairs…
“I’m sorry, Charlie, I’m- sorry.” You hiccup and cry into his neck, wetting the skin. You press your lips over the newly wet skin, feeling his heartbeat flutter underneath, teeth grazing the thin flesh.
Suddenly he’s lowering you down, down, down until you come in contact with a soft surface, his mattress. Charlie crawls on top of you, you let him rest between your thighs, keeping your legs up high on his waist.
“Don’t ever fucking leave me.” You shake your head from side to side in agreement with him, worrying your bottom lip between your teeth. His hand trails down the length of your body roughly, burning your flesh in its unforgiving path. You’re left only in your jeans since he removed your shirt when you were still downstairs.
“I won’t, I-I didn’t mean-” You can barely form a proper sentence, choking on your own tears and sadness that wrack through your mind and body. Charlie’s hand in already palming your sex through the thick denim you wear, you whimper, trying to squeeze your thighs together but his body blocks them.
“Stop talking.” He barely gets out the words before he’s pressing his lips to yours again, letting his lips glide against your wobbly and swollen ones. You breathe each other in, letting your tongues dance across one anothers as you gasp and cry into his mouth. It’s all teeth and all tongue, it’s messy, clumsy, desperate, burning. You don’t care, he doesn’t either when your teeth clack against each other, nibbling on lips, biting sometimes.
Charlie flips you over underneath him so that you face the sheets, sliding down your body and roughly tugging down your jeans along with your underwear in one swift motion. You gasp as your wet cunt comes in contact with the cool air of the darkening day. Charlie stands on his knees behind you, pulling your ass up higher, higher, higher until he’s satisfied. His cheeks are warm, his ears pink at the peaks. Before either of you even have time to think, his hand comes down harshly onto your right ass cheek, you cry out, gripping the sheets by your head.
“Ch-Charlie!” You gasp, earning you another smack to your other cheek. You push your head down into the covers, trying to muffle your cries and moans as he keeps going.
His smacks you again, and again, and again and again until you’re a sobbing mess in the sheets. Words, languages lost to you in your muddled brain. A pool of spit near your mouth soaked into the white fabric, only a wet spot remaining to show for evidence of your euphoria. You can feel the imprint of his hand on your ass, you know it's burning red, you know the skin is raised and puffy. You fucking love it.
Charlie’s chest is heaving, breaths labored as he takes it all out on you like he knows you need it, knows you love it. He does too; love it and need it. The way your ass gets so much brighter, how big the imprint he’s left on you is. How fucking perfect you are for him... He’s pulling off his shirt before he knows it, shedding his pants too until he’s in nothing but his underwear. You’ve stayed exactly where you are, not daring to move a muscle since he hasn’t instructed you otherwise.
“So now you listen.” Charlie mutters to himself, it's barely audible to you since the blood is coursing so loudly through your veins, through your ears. You’re buzzing.
Charlie pushes you back down on the mattress so you lay completely flat. He pulls your jeans and underwear down the rest of your legs until you lay there bare before him. He inhales sharply at the sight of you. He could see the way you glisten for him, he could feel it on his hand when he had spanked you, your arousal having begun to trail down the tops of your thighs, he moaned at the sight.
His hand comes flying down, this time spanking you roughly on your pussy causing you to lurch forward into the sheets, crying out his name pathetically again. He leans over you, keeping his hand clutched tightly around your cunt, feeling your juices seep between his fingers, you moan and try to press back into his hand but he just slaps it again, your eyes screwing shut. He’s nearly got his entire weight on top of you, his hot breath fanning across your cheek as he comes close to your face.
“You’re so fucking wet for me… you want it that badly?” You nod your head vigorously.
“Yes! Yes, Charlie I want you, I-I need you so badly, please.”
“Hmmm, what do you need?”
“Anything, y-your fingers…”
“Where”
“... in me, in me please.” You’re completely desperate, your crying and sobbing from earlier making you especially weak to his ways, his voice, his body. God, he could do anything to you, and you would let him, you would beg him, you would thank him.
Slowly, Charlie sinks one thick finger into your soaking cunt. Your eyes roll into the back of your head as he pumps it slowly, in and out, in and out of you. You try and push your hips back to meet the small thrust of his finger but he keeps you pinned down.
Charlie could feel you clenching around his single digit and he groaned next to your ear, nibbling on the soft lobe as he continued his ministrations. You whined, withered underneath the weight of his body, his hot chest pressing into your back, pressing you into the mattress.
“Charlie, please I-”
“What? You need more? You need more from me?”
“Please.” Charlie draws his index finger out of you before joining it with his middle one, probing your entrance teasingly, swirling his fingers around it but never going in.
“Fuck-”
“Do you think you deserve it?” He didn’t deserve it, didn’t deserve you, your pussy, none of it. He was only projecting his worthlessness onto you. He didn’t mean it, he couldn’t.
“N-no.” You say, tears welling in your eyes from a multitude of things. Overstimulation being one of them. You tried to get your hips to stop pressing into his hand but it was so hard when the temptation was right there.
“No… you don’t.” He kisses the tears that slip from your eye, pressing a finger to your mouth and you gladly take it in, laving your tongue around his salty, rough skin. His two fingers at your entrance finally push in deeper, causing you to cry out around his finger that was in your mouth, drool slipping past your lips.
Then he starts pumping, quickly, and you can’t stop the way your hips push into his hand, trying to meet him halfway through his thrusts, needing more so badly. You moan around his fingers, he echoes your moans back into your ear. You can feel his cock filling out, getting harder and harder against the back of your legs where it still lays confined in his underwear.
All too quickly he pulls his fingers from you and spanks your pussy again, you choke on a cry around the finger that’s still in your mouth. You’re already wrecked, and he’s nowhere near done with you.
“You only get to cum on my cock, understand?” You nod your head with vigour, eyes trying to meet his from where he’s positioned, behind you yet over top of you. You can feel him moving around, pulling his fingers from your mouth and his underwear off as best as he can without moving too far away from you.
“I understand, Charlie.” You cry, the tears unrelenting at this point, beyond your control.
Fuck, what weas he doing? Why was he doing this now?
What other way did he really have though, to show you what you mean to him? Definitely not words, no. No matter how much he writes for the theatre, words could never come close to describing what he feels for you, what he needs from you, wants from you, what he wants to give to you, tell you, provide you. None of it, no language would do.
Nothing would come closer to his body on you, in you, moving in tandem with you, hearts so close together that he loses sense of himself and just feels you wrapped so tightly around him in every sense. That’s the only way he could show you, the only way he could tell you.
He grabs his cock in his hand, pumping himself slowly and rests his head on your shoulder, groaning into your skin at the sensation.
“Beg.” He spits, his lips moving against your flesh. He rubs the head of his cock against your slick folds and you yelp, pressing your hips back but he anticipated it, drawing his hips back, away from you.
“Charlie, please I-I need you so badly, I’ve never wanted… anything else but you, I just- please, I need you so bad, I-I, l...love-”
“I told you not to fucking say it.” He grits from behind clenched teeth, slapping your ass harshly and you let a sob leave your lips. The burn was so good.
“I-I’m sorry, I can’t help it-” You whine, fists bunching up the sheets with a grip so deadly your skin is turning white. He lets his head drop to your shoulder again, his own eyes screwing shut, trying to will his own tears away as he continues to run his cock along your pleading entrance, collecting whatever arousal has seeped out of you.
“Fuuuck, perfect little pussy... so desperate for my cock, isn’t it?” He mutters, almost to himself as he watches the way his cock moves between your glistening folds. Unashamed, you keep crying, moaning at the feeling of his big cock so close to where you need him most, nodding your head.
“Please, Charlie I need you inside m- fuck, just put it in, please-”
Your breath hitches in your throat as you feel him press in with the tip, letting the spongy head break through your folds and slightly dip into your entrance. Your fists clench and unclench against the sheets. With a sharp ‘fuck’ Charlie presses the rest of his long, thick cock into you, both of you moaning and breathing in one another.
He lets his cock sit in you, coming to interlock his fingers with yours, pinning your hands above your head, elongating both of your bodies but mostly yours, from how much longer his body is. Only then does he start snapping his hips into yours, letting his thrusts punch out your moans and cries from your chest.
At this angle, he’s hitting places inside of you so deep you never thought you could fathom, filling you up to the brim, you swear you can feel him in your stomach, punching your guts into your throat with every violent thrust.
You moan his name without relent, it’s the only thing you could possibly ever know. Charliecharliecharliecharliecharlie to infinity. You never wanted to know anything else, no other thought suddenly as interesting as him. He was the only thing that mattered. The way his cock filled you was dizzying, mind-numbing, and bone-shattering.
“You always need me so badly, you could never leave me, never leave this cock. Desperate little slut.” Charlie groans, head resting on your back as his powerful thrusts push you up the bed. He latches a hand around one of your hips, trying to keep you pinned down.
“You would never fucking leave me, you’d never fucking do it.” He continues, maybe to himself. You can feel him nuzzling his face into the skin on your shoulder, kissing and biting the skin, leaving a mark in his wake like he always does.
“I won’t, Charlie- I won’t, I promise.” You hiccup, his thrusts unrelenting in their assault. You could feel your release building, that bright white feeling rising inside of you. The only sounds in the room were your breathy moans, Charlie’s growls and the loud slap of skin on skin, his hips colliding with your ass every time.
“Dont ever say that s-shit again- dont ever fucking leave me. Don’t - ever. Fucking. Leave.” He growled, biting your shoulder and punctuating his words with harsher thrusts, fucking into you.
“I’m s-sorry Charlie-” You’re cut off by a sensation on your back. Hot, wet, slippery. Charlie sniffles.
He’s crying, burning holes into your flesh as they land on your back. Your own eyes well up all over again. The pleasure of his cock deep, deep, deep inside you and the emotions flowing through both of you was overwhelming, overstimulating, your mind was going blank, you felt like you would black out.
You hear it then, his quiet cries, the way his chest shakes as he finally lets it go, lets it out. And then he’s suddenly pulling out of you, grabbing one of your ankles and one side of your hip, flipping you over quickly, hiking your legs back up around his waist and continuing his punishing, relentless pace. You moan embarrassingly loudly as you watch the way his stomach flexes into you, the way his chest tightens and constricts, the flush that spreads from in between his marvelous pecs to his cheeks, his dark wet eyes, the red that fills them, the way his eyelashes clump together, making them look longer, darker, the dark halo of hair that frames his face. Fuck.
Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck.
It was beyond you at this point, you couldn’t stop what was already put into motion.
“Oh, Charlie…” You cry, chest arching into his, your nails scraping his biceps. He moans at the pain, dropping his forehead to yours. You’ve never heard him moan like this, never seen him cry like this, never seen him so lost and completely gone in you.
Even if it was a mistake.
Even if you would regret it tomorrow.
Or five minutes from now.
Or immediately afterwards.
It was the truth, your truth. His truth. It was the only thing you could ever possibly know.
“I love you.” You cry, burning tears streaming down your cheeks. Charlie’s eyes meet yours, lost, delirious, shocked.
“You… y-you can’t.” He doesn’t tell you to stop this time. Doesn’t tell you to shut up, doesn’t tell you how dumb and pathetic it is to love him. You love him.
“I do, Charlie I-I do. Fuck, I love you so fucking much.” You whine, nails biting the skin on his back. His hips never stop, he’s fucking common sense and all things rational out of your mind. All you know is him. All you ever want to know is him, Charlie.
His chin wobbles, moans escape past his lips as he refuses to stop fucking you, his cock so fucking hard it hurts him, almost more than this. Almost more than the chant that has started to leave your lips, the floodgates have been opened and you can’t stop your confession now.
“I love you, I love you- shit, Charlie I love you, I love you so much, I love your fucking cock, fuck!” You couldn't stop, you felt like you could never stop at this point. You never wanted to stop saying it, never wanted to stop telling him. You loved him, you loved him, you loved him.
“You’re… you’re not real… you’re- fuck, too fucking good for m-me.” Charlie gasps, his hips speeding up, his cock growing harder somehow. You feel him pulse inside of you. Your eyes roll into the back of your head, mouth hanging agape, no sound being emitted from you. Charlie moves his lips down to your exposed throat, kissing and sucking on the delicate skin before wrapping a firm hand around it, not squeezing too tight.
“Yours.” You manage to choke out, gripping onto his wrist that's at your throat with all the strength you had with your body gone pleasure weak. Charlie moans your name, it makes you cry more.
“I’m yours, Charlie.” You manage to say more clearly, using all your willpower to look him in the eyes. His eyes are blown black, the dark circles underneath them so, so pigmented. You could feel the crescendo building, he was about to break. His lips were glossy, spit slicked and roughly bitten.
“You’re mine.” He confirms, more to himself than to you. He just… he felt like he could never be sure enough. Like he would never believe that you were his. That you were in love with him.
You nod your head, hands interlocking behind his head, gripping tightly into his hair.
“I’m yours, yours.” You keen, hips rolling into his as you both neared your release. His hand around your throat keeps you pinned in place as his fucks you into the mattress, moaning, groaning, crying your name. The slight added pressure makes you see stars, your pussy flutters around his cock and your back arches, pressing your chest into his but Charlie keeps you exactly where you are, your body convulsing as you cum, cum, cum around his cock, screaming his name.
“M’gonna cum, gonna f-fucking cum s-so deep inside, fill you up-”
“Please, Charlie.” You whine, dumb from the high that he continues to fuck you through, tears stained on the skin of your cheeks. You tug on his hair roughly, meeting his thrusts with a roll of your hips and that sends Charlie over the edge.
“Fhuuuck-” He lifts his head slightly, to look at you better as he splits you open one final time, his cock stilling in the deepest parts of you before he cums so fucking deep inside your pussy with the most guttural moan.
He fucks his cum back in to you until it’s seeping back out onto his cock. He groans so loudly you feel it in your bones. His hands wrap around your upper body, holding you tightly as he spins to lay on the mattress, holding your body to his chest, his cock still nestled deep inside of you.
Charlie gives you a small thrust, pushing and mixing his cum with yours one final time. You gasp and cling to him, your nails digging slightly into his muscular pec at the sensation, the delicious burn. You feel so incredibly full, so full of your Charlie. You love him.
“I lo-”
“I love you.”
Your heart must have stopped beating, your lungs, forgotten their functionality, your brain short circuited, your limbs incapacitated.
You looked up at him with those big, shiny wet eyes. You looked like a fawn, lost on the side of the road who just found someone who could help them. Someone kind, someone gentle, honest, safe, warm. Someone worth loving. He was worth loving. Charlie was worth loving.
But you already knew that.
He said it again, so low in the dark room, the dark night, eclipsed with spilled feelings and sweat, tears too. So many fucking tears. His voice so low it almost didn’t register, the deep vibrato rumbling your insides and warming you up all over again.
He said it with you curled up on his chest, he said it again when you moved up his body to press your face into the crook of his neck, pressing your lips to his bruised skin, he said it as tears spilled from your eyes. He would say it as you fell asleep on him in the deadly hours of the night and again in the morning when you woke. He would remind you constantly, he couldn’t stop, couldn’t hold it in. Not anymore.
He would tell you he loves you a million and one times from then on, until you didn’t want to hear it from him anymore.
tag list! @morby @shesakillerkween @gamingaquarius
#charlie barber#charlie barber x reader#reader insert#charlie barber x you#charlie barber imagine#charlie barber smut#long sleeves#part 2#tw: daddy kink#cw: daddy kink#my writing
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the breakup
pike jj x reader (ft. cody, tyler, and zach)
the long awaited moment :)
warnings: cursing, light editing
Seeing one of his best friends thriving with a guy, a guy who’d fully replaced him in her life, really fucking hurt JJ. He was sitting in his room one afternoon, door shut, listening to the whole group of them bickering over what movie to watch. Brooke was sitting at his desk, typing something on her laptop, JJ couldn’t remember what, and he couldn’t help but notice that when Brooke was over, he had to keep his door shut.
He wasn’t sure if it was something he did intentionally or just reflexively. He knew Brooke wasn’t welcome, hell, Brooke knew she wasn’t welcome. The damage had been done and there was no replacing the bitterness the others felt toward her.
JJ wasn’t an idiot, he saw how fucked up the way Brooke treated his friends was. He noticed her cruel remarks behind her friends’ backs, and it made him wonder exactly what she said when he wasn’t around.
It hadn’t always been like that, at first, Brooke was sweet, wanting to meet his friends and get along with them. They were standoffish first, and maybe that’s the reason JJ was hesitant to give it up. Technically, he had the moral high ground here.
Plus, Brooke was an excellent distraction. She was attractive, she liked him, and she was always willing to hang out, great for helping him avoid addressing his true feelings and why he felt so hurt about Zach.
He really thought it would get better after the talk he had with her. She crashed their anniversary, and that was admittedly not his best move, but they talked it out and she agreed to be less confrontational and more friendly. Which backfired the second the boys found out he was still dating her. They’d been pissed.
JJ often thought about Cody’s hissed, “You finally realize how she treats us but refuse to break up with her, I see where your priorities really lie.” It didn’t seem fair. Why should he be miserable and alone just because they didn’t like the girl he was dating.
What he was failing to realize, or maybe he had deep down but was avoiding it, was that he’d get his friends back, he wouldn’t be alone. Sure they’d make him grovel, and he’d probably have to pay for a lot of lunches and dinners before they fully forgave him, but he’d never be alone.
Until he realized that, though, he would. JJ would never really get his friends back as long as Brooke was involved, and if Brooke wasn’t out of the picture soon, he’d really damage the relationship beyond repair. Tyler words echoed frequently, “If you choose Brooke over your best friends, the ones here for you since day one, you’re not the guy I thought you were.”
-
Zach was getting ready to head to the fieldhouse, zipping up his team jacket in your room before he had to head out, and he gently suggested, “Maybe you should invite JJ to the game.”
Immediately you were shaking your head, “Absolutely not, this game is important to you, I know pro scouts are going to be there. I don’t want to ruin it.”
He smiled softly, “I just want you to be happy.”
“And I want you to be supported without distraction. Cody, Tyler, and I will be there, front row, cheering you on.”
Zach bent down to kiss your forehead, “Fine, but the scouts aren’t even there for me, I’m not a senior yet.”
“But they’ll notice you, I’m sure of that.”
With a shrug, he inhaled deeply, “Maybe, but it’s not my place yet.”
Shoving him gently toward the door, you waved, a proud smile on your face, “Knock ‘em dead, tiger.”
“Love you,” he answered, wiggling his fingers in a wave goodbye.
“Love you more,” you responded, not letting him get the last word as the door swung shut behind him.
When it was finally time for you to head to the field, you were pretty sure you were more nervous than Zach was. Rubbing your thighs in an anxious gesture, you sighed, ready for the game to be over.
Tyler grabbed both of your hands, stopping you and catching your attention. He squeezed them with a smile, “Zach will be fine.”
“I know, I’m not sure why I’m so nervous.”
“Because you want him to succeed. That’s love, bitch.”
You snorted, “Yeah, I suppose it is.”
“Now, stop stressing, How many times has he told you you’re his good luck charm?”
“Many.”
“Mhmm. And you’re here, so everything will be fine.”
And Tyler was right of course, Zach played an excellent game, one of his best of the season. You were bouncing up and down, waiting for him to finish showering and find you in the parking lot. Cody and Tyler had driven, but you wanted to ride back with Zach.
He grinned widely when he saw you waiting by his truck and sped up. You ran the last few steps when he got close, launching yourself into his arms. Zach’s happy laugh made you smile as he spun you around a few times before setting you down.
“Holy shit, Zach. You were on fire today.”
He blushed, “Well, what can I say, I was trying to impress my favorite girl in the stands.”
Rolling your eyes, you tugged him down by his jacket to kiss him. Zach immediately returned the kiss, and when you broke away, you whispered, “Cheesy,” to him with a soft smile.
“Only for you.”
-
Cody and Tyler got back to the dorm and were a little shocked to see JJ sitting at his desk, door wide open. Thankfully Brooke was nowhere in sight. He glanced up to see them standing there and took in their Duke baseball sweatshirts, a dark look crossing his face.
“So, baseball fans now, huh?”
“Gotta support our bro,” Tyler answered, unfazed.
“Thought you liked basketball.”
He shrugged, “I’m multifaceted. I know you wouldn’t understand.”
JJ huffed indignantly, “At least I’m not bending over backwards for a dude I barely know.”
“You barely know him, sure, but we’re friends with him.”
“He’ll drop you so fast if he goes pro. And that’s even if he’s good enough to go pro, which I doubt.”
Cody and Tyler weren’t fully aware of Zach’s situation and the lack of real support he received from his family, but they’d noticed you make a point to remind him how well he’s doing and how good he is. It didn’t sit well with them that a guy who’d never played baseball competitively in his life was criticizing their friend.
“Have you ever seen him play?” Tyler asked incredulously, “he’s so good so you can fuck off with that nonsense.”
JJ rolled his eyes, “Bias.”
And this time Zach wasn’t there. Tyler felt the rage running through him at JJ’s dismissal and before Cody realized what was happening, he was striding across the room. JJ’s eyes widened and he started to back away, but it was too late.
Tyler swung, landing a solid hit right on his mouth, busting his lip instantly. JJ’s hand flew to his shirt, pulling it over his bleeding lip. Tyler was breathing heavily, hand still clenched by his side in case he needed to hit again.
“Keep his name out of your fucking mouth, Maybank,” and then he was gone.
Cody stared wide eyed at JJ before turning and running to their room to shut the door. Tyler was pacing, running a hand repeatedly through his hair, and he looked up when Cody locked the door. He smiled, “How’d that feel.”
“Really good,” Tyler admitted, “very cathartic. You should try.”
Cody snorted, “I’ll let you handle the hitting, Rocky. I’d probably break my knuckles.”
Tyler laughed and the tension broke. He sniffed and sat on his bed, “Should we sent it in the groupchat or keep it to ourselves.”
“I’m willing to take this one to the grave if you are.”
Spitting in his hand, Cody offered it to Tyler. In turn, Tyler spit in his hand and they shook. No one would ever know.
-
Except you knew immediately when you saw JJ’s busted lip. Your eyebrows shot up and you glanced at the two boys who were smiling innocently and shook your head, “I won’t ask.”
“Thanks,” Tyler responded, “but trust me, you would’ve hit him too.”
Which you quickly interpreted that he’d said something insulting about either you or Zach. Exhaling once, you nodded, “Fine, I’m not here for him anyway, I’m here to remind the two of you about the baseball party we’re leaving for in ten minutes that you clearly forgot about.”
“Oh fuck,” Cody winced, “that’s tonight?”
“It is, you guys still coming?”
“Absolutely,” Tyler answered, “let me get dressed real quick.”
You sat on his bed while the two of them scrambled to find something acceptable to wear. It took Tyler changing his shirt for the fourth time for you to speak up, “Hey, y’all look fine. Let’s go.”
He rolled his eyes, “If we’re showing up with the prettiest girl at the party, we have to look the part.”
“Oh hush,” you pushed him away, “you looked really good in the first sweater.”
Tyler laughed, “You couldn’t have told me that before I changed four times?”
“Nope, now come on, we’re going to lose Cody if we don’t get moving soon.”
He sighed and pulled the first sweater back on before grabbing a pair of shoes and heading to the door where Cody had been standing for the past 10 minutes. Cody looked up from his phone, “Don’t you look hot, Ty.”
Tyler rolled his eyes, “Shut up.”
Cody reached over to ruffle his hair, Tyler squawking indignantly when he did so, slapping his hand away. You sighed, stepping between them, “Children, let’s go.”
“You’re driving?” Cody asked as the three of you got on the elevator.
“Yep, my turn to DD.”
“Shotgun,” Tyler called.
“Hey,” Cody protested, “you can’t call it if you can’t even see the car.”
“I can and I did. Fuck you.”
Sighing again, you told Tyler, “We both know that’s not how it works.”
With a shit eating grin, he answered, “I know. I’m messing with him since he fucked up my hair.”
“Hair looks great,” Cody reassured, “as always.”
-
JJ was completely unsure how Brooke managed to pull an invite to a baseball party. They were notoriously exclusive on campus, not letting many people without a direct connection to a player in. But she had.
“How the fuck did you manage this?” he finally muttered as they walked to the door.
She sighed and rolled her eyes, “Don’t you listen to me when I talk? My cousin plays.”
So apparently he didn’t listen to her much. She showed the guy at the door the text from her cousin and they walked right in, music playing loudly through the house. Brooke grabbed his hand and dragged him toward the kitchen, and JJ looked around, not recognizing a single person.
And then Zach came downstairs. JJ’s gut twisted and he looked away, trying to avoid the boy who likely hated him. Brooke noticed and huffed, “Literally he’s so harmless, babe. Remember he stopped Tyler from punching you.”
Which was true. Zach caught his eye and nodded at him in greeting. JJ nodded back and kept moving until they reached the drinks. He drove, so Brooke grabbed a drink and he grabbed a water bottle out of the cooler shoved in the corner.
Brooke gave him a weird look, “Not even one beer?”
“Not really feeling up to a party.”
She rolled her eyes, “Then why the fuck did you come?”
JJ furrowed his eyebrows in confusion, “Because I’m your boyfriend.”
“So you think I need supervision? You don’t trust me?”
“I, no-” he tried to come up with an acceptable answer, “it’s just in case something goes wrong to keep you safe. And I’m always your plus one, figured I could just come to drive.”
With a scoff, she answered, “Could’ve just dropped me off. Now you’re going to keep me from having fun, stick in the mud.”
JJ was a little hurt, but he chose not to answer, not wanting to start yet another fight with her. He nodded and let it go. Brooke rolled her eyes again and JJ couldn’t help but take note that she’d been doing it a lot lately. He wasn’t sure what that meant.
That’s when he saw you, Cody, and Tyler walk through the door, not even needing to show the guy an invite. The player at the door yelled out, “Davis, your girl’s here!” JJ wasn’t sure how he heard over the music, but Zach’s head whipped around and a grin lit up his face.
You waved and made your way to the crowd to kiss him. JJ watched, a weird feeling in his chest, and rubbed over his heart when your group didn’t even look his way. He heard a rushing sound in his ears and went lightheaded. Fuck, he realized, the three of you wanted nothing to do with him.
The startling realization left him cold as Brooke waved at who he assumed was her cousin. He walked over and greeted JJ, “Sup, dude. Nice to meet you. Andy right?”
JJ froze, head whipping over to stare at Brooke. She had gone pale and his jaw dropped, “Nah, dude, I’m JJ.”
The boy’s eyes narrowed and he frowned, “I- my bad. Must’ve gotten you confused with someone else.” Before JJ could respond, he was gone, clearly not ready to face the fallout of his careless words.
Clearing his throat in an attempt to get rid of the knot, JJ turned to Brooke, “Who’s Andy?”
“He’s my partner in geology, you know that.”
“Oh, the boy who flirts with you all the time?”
Her smile looked forced, “That’s the one.”
“Mhmm, and why did your cousin seem to know his name but not mine?”
“I’ve complained about him and his flirting before to my cousin.”
“Right,” JJ wasn’t sure if he should believe her or not, “I think we need to have a talk.” Standing up, he pulled her behind him to the bathroom downstairs. Not wanting to make a scene in the living room.
Brooke’s eyes narrowed, “You’re going to do this right now, embarrass me at this party?”
“Are you cheating on me?” he asked once the door was finally shut.
“No! I’m not that kind of person,” she defended.
JJ scoffed, “Why don’t I believe you right now?”
Hands thrown up, she yelled, “I don’t know, but that’s a you problem.”
“Being cheated on is not a me problem. It’s a you being an asshole problem.”
“JJ,” she said lowly, “I didn’t cheat on you, honestly. I-” she paused, biting her lip, “I thought about it, but nothing happened.”
Blinking a few times to process, JJ managed to croak out a disbelieving, “What?”
Brooke, clearly fed up, scoffed, “Don’t act like that, do you even realize how painful it is to watch your boyfriend pine after a girl who clearly knows him better. God she won’t even give you the time of day that way and you still watch her.”
His eyebrows shot up, “That’s so untrue. I’ve almost ruined those relationships forever because I stood up for you.”
“Thanks for doing the bare minimum,” she said, rolling her eyes.
“No,” he pointed at her, “you don’t get to take the moral high ground when you literally considered cheating on me.”
“But I didn’t!”
“Brooke, you didn’t physically cheat on me, but by considering it, I’d say you did.”
“Come on,” she started, fully turning to face him, “we can work through this.”
“I think,” he paused, trying to stop the shake in his voice, “I think we should break up.”
Brooke shook her head fiercely, “No, no. We’re solid, we can get through this.”
JJ sighed, running a hand through his hair, “Come on, Brooke, the writing’s been on the wall for weeks.”
She couldn’t argue with that. Before she could respond someone was pulling at the doorknob trying to get in. JJ cleared his throat, “Occupied.”
“Hurry up!” a familiar voice yelled, and he heard your giggle.
Brooke’s eyes hardened and she threw the door open, startling you, “Fuck you and fuck your stupid friends.”
You blinked, stunned, and turned to JJ for an explanation. He looked sad and resigned, “Sorry. She’s a little upset.”
Zach caught his eye and looked sympathetic, “Sorry man, I know you liked her.”
Cody’s head swiveled back and forth between him and Zach, “Wait what, what’s going on?”
Your jaw dropped as you put the pieces together, “Holy fuck, you did it?”
“Did what?” Cody whined, tired of being left out.
“I, uh, I broke up with her,” JJ answered, voice a little shaky.
Cody beamed and grabbed him by the shoulders, shaking a little, “Tonight we drink to celebrate!”
You laughed, leaning back into Zach, “Congrats, Maybank. Knew you could do it.”
Tyler reached out, offering his fist for JJ to bump for the first time in months. JJ did cautiously before stepping fully out of the bathroom, following Cody and Tyler to the kitchen.
He felt light and heavy at the same time, and Brooke was nowhere to be found. For the first time in a while, he felt like he could breathe.
You and Zach joined the three of them soon after and JJ relished the feeling. Turns out he’d really missed you guys.
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Moonlit Tears
https://archiveofourown.org/works/30020268
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13839874/1/Moonlit-Tears
A confused and heart wrecked Chat Noir finds a Ladybug in tears atop the Eiffel Tower. But when the two heartbroken heroes compare the shattered pieces of their hearts, they realise that those pieces look very similar. In fact, they're right the same. LadyNoir/Adrinette.
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The low humming of sobs was the only sound that reached his ears as he landed gracefully at their usual spot atop the Eiffel tower. He gasped and didn’t move, unsure of what to do. His heart was already heavy with chagrin. He had transformed and ran across the rooftops for the last two hours trying to calm himself down. Trying to avoid being the next akuma victim. He couldn't bear the thought that his Lady could possibly have had her heart broken today too.
He sat with feline elegance next to her. She didn’t even acknowledge him, inwardly looking as she was. He didn’t blame her. She was always so open, so generous, so ready to help everyone. She had the right to be upset for once and to not bother to say hi. He didn't want her to think that he had been there all that time without letting her know, though. That would be plain rude.
“Little kitty on a roof, all alone beside his Lady,” he started singing, changing the words of the song on purpose. He heard her gasping, then she stopped sobbing. She slowly stretched her legs and hung them down from the metallic structure they were sitting on. She straightened her back, trying to wipe her eyes dry with her fingertips, but failing miserably. New tears rolled out, renewing the dampness on her cheeks.
“I thought it was ‘ without his Lady’,” she pointed out, sniffling loudly.
He smirked with a concerned look. “And you’re right, Buginette. But I felt lonely even sitting beside you tonight. I’ve been here for a while and you haven’t even noticed.”
She sniffled again. “Sorry, Chat Noir. I had a really bad evening. I transformed and ran across the rooftops for a good couple of hours, but I still didn’t feel better. I came here to be alone, safe from prying eyes.”
“Oh.” His ears drooped. “Do you want me to leave?”
A shadowed smile popped on her lips. “Not at all. I just didn’t expect you to be patrolling tonight.”
“I wasn’t patrolling,” he said, “I had a bad evening too. A bit like you, I needed to vent, so I ran for a while, ending up here. I was surprised to see you. And even more surprised to hear you crying.”
She wiped her eyes one last time and finally they came dry. “Care to tell me what upset you?” She saw him tense, so added quickly, “If it won’t reveal your identity of course.”
He sighed. “I don’t mind telling you, Buginette, but I think you need to vent more than me. I hate seeing you so upset. Who do I need to beat up?” He faked a scowl and posed like a boxer.
She looked at him in amazement and then erupted into a crystal laugh. “Oh thank you, chaton. I needed it. Thank you so much.” She hugged him tightly and kept laughing. But the more she laughed, the more her laughter lost its light. It darkened, until she sobbed again, clenching her fists against the spandex material of his suit on his chest. He tentatively hugged her. When she didn’t react by rejecting his touch, he tightened his hold and held her closer, patting her hair in a soothing rhythm. A quiet purr began rumbling into his chest; after an initial gasp, Ladybug hugged him back and his purr renewed.
“I told him tonight,” she whispered eventually.
“Him?” he asked, carrying on with his purring and gentle rhythm of his hand over her hair.
She sniffled again. “Yes. The boy that I love. You remember? The one I told you about when we faced Glaciator.” She paused, happily lulling herself in the cathartic feeling of the purr. “I’ve never been able to tell him up to now. And I knew I was setting myself up to fail, because he’s told me before that he loves someone else. But I drank a couple of drinks too many; he was so kind to drive me home, and was being nice with me. So I just... told him.”
A sense of déjà vu hit Chat Noir. He gasped almost too loud, causing Ladybug to look at him with a puzzled frown on her face. He put a hand on her shoulder and with the other, he lifted her chin so she would look into his eyes. “What did he say? Did he reject you? If he made fun of you in any way, tell me his name and I’ll haunt him in his sleep forever.”
Despite the pain that he could read in her eyes, Ladybug genuinely smiled at the remark. “Thank you, Chat Noir,” she said. “But no, he didn’t reject me.”
Now it was his turn to be puzzled. “Then, why are you crying?”
“He didn’t say anything , minou. He just sat there in his car in silence until we reached my house. I even waited a couple of minutes before getting out. I said bye to him and he didn’t respond. I ran inside feeling horrible. I… feel as if I’ve ruined not only my chances of being with him but also our friendship, which I have cherished for the last four years. All because I drank too much. I’m so stupid.” She looked down and moved away from him. Sniffling some more, she stared out at the twinkling lights of the City of Love .
“That’s funny,” he said bitterly. When he said that, she gasped and looked at him shocked.
“What do you find funny, Chat Noir?”
He stretched his arms behind him and leaned back, allowing his gaze to get lost admiring the beautiful full moon that towered in the dark sky. “Today I went to a birthday party organised for one of my friends. We drank a little too much and it had become very late, so I offered one of my friends a lift. God forbid that she walked home as tipsy as she was and someone took advantage of her. She’s too dear to my heart to allow it to happen.”
“Oh,” she said, “o-okay?”
“I was driving her home. Well, my driver was; I was sitting with her in the back.” His hand reached for the nape of his neck and his gaze darted down. “She was telling me how grateful she was that I gave her a lift and suddenly, she told me that she loved me. A-and I didn’t know what to do, or what to say, so I kept my mouth shut.”
She gasped at his words. His gaze darted to her briefly, and the intensity in her eyes made him sweat. She stared at him as if her life depended on his next sentence.
“And…?” she pressed.
Was it getting hot here, or was it only him? He dared another peek at her face; she was still looking at him intensely. “And… nothing. The car stopped in front of her place. I waited until she had gone inside before asking the driver to go. When I got home, I had to transform and get out because I didn’t understand what was going on with my feelings.”
“Why?” she asked in a choked whisper.
He could hardly breathe. “Be-because I was confused. I’d never thought she liked me. She always acted as if I was intimidating her. When we met, we started off on the wrong foot. So I really thought that she hated me, and probably only put up with me because of our friends.” Ladybug gasped loudly and looked up at him, her eyes as big as saucers. “I couldn’t believe that a person as amazing as her would think anything at all of one as insignificant as me.”
He turned around and looked straight into her eyes. “She was my first friend. I didn’t want to ruin that friendship. I messed up badly enough with my first girlfriend, being so indecisive and never letting myself go, until she got fed up and told me she had found someone else. I didn’t want to ruin my friendship with her too, because—” His mouth went dry; he gulped awkwardly and licked his lips.
“Because?” He could hear the breathlessness in her tone. He could see how hopeful her gaze was as it met his, how tense her back was as it straightened. He internally screamed. God, he couldn't believe it. This woman loved him. For real!
“Be-because she was important to me. I didn’t want to lose her.” He grabbed her hand, a tinge of pink dusting her cheeks as he locked his gaze to hers. “The truth is that I love her. I’ve loved her all along. Only, I was too blind to see it. I’m such a fool, Marinette .”
The sound of her gasp resounded in the silence of the night like a slap in the face.
“The girl who didn’t like my jokes, the one I told you about the day we were coming back from the wax museum. That girl was you .” He gulped seeing the tears staining her cheeks once again. She stared straight through to his soul in silence, crying quietly for a time that felt endless. Why wasn’t she talking?
“We’re idiots,” she eventually said, the shadow of a smile curling the corner of her lips.
“No, Buginette. I’m the only idiot I can see.”
The smile that had been curling her lips widened. “Silly chaton. There’s an even bigger idiot sitting right in front of you.” She took a big breath, exhaling slowly. “Be-because the boy I rejected you for the day we fought Glaciator—”
“Yes?” His ears perked up and he couldn’t help but lean towards her.
“Th-that b-boy… was… Adrien Agreste .” She looked up from behind her eyelashes, a deep blush dusting her cheeks when she saw the massive grin that spread on his lips. “I-I’ve loved you from the day you gave me your umbrella. I tried so hard to let go of you, b-but I’ve never been able to.”
His eyes widened as his mouth opened in a small o. “Y-you mean my first day at school?
She nodded, her red cheeks almost glowing in the darkness. He gawked at her beautifully flushed face for a long time, admiring how her porcelain skin shone bright in the pale light of the full moon. The stain of her tears like crystal reflecting the moonlit night. He looked at her for so long that her redness changed to pallor and her eyebrows furrowed into a frown.
“What’s wrong, minou?” she asked.
“Nothing.” He gulped and closed his eyes, taking a shuddering breath as he reminded himself to breathe. “I’m so happy.”
She smiled softly seeing the way his lip trembled. “C-can I kiss you?” she asked.
He nearly jumped out of his skin. His eyes sprang open; he smirked, and his tone turned teasing as he tried to hide his shock. “I always thought I was going to be the one to ask you .”
The soft smile never left her lips; she inched closer to him. Her arms wrapped around his shoulders, taking in the soft shaking under her touch. Her hands held his neck by the nape, pulling him in until there were only millimeters between them. They could feel the tickling of each other’s breath on their lips, both hesitating to close the gap.
“And tell me, minou.” Her nose brushed his, his heart clawing against his chest as her whispered words caused wild fluttering in his stomach. “What answer did you expect me to give you?”
His senses were overwhelmed with the scent of hot chocolate and sugary treats in her breath, with only the smallest tinge of alcohol.
He was still pondering on an answer when their lips met, and any residue of coherent thought dissolved from his mind. He would think about what to say later. Right now he was finally kissing the girl he loved.
Nothing else mattered. Nothing at all.
Fin
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Author’s Note:
Hi! I know, I know, I will end up with not one. Not two. But THREE updates today. I’m definitely spoiling you, don’t expect this every week (I would die LOL). But I had written this story a little while back prior to my submission for the New Beginning zine (they were asking for a piece of less than 2000 words and i had never written one before, so I had to see if I could write something that short before committing to a submission!). Unfortunately I wasn’t selected, which means that you get this story now and not in January 2022, are you happy? ^-^
Hope you’ll like it. Again, a bit different from what I’ve ever written, but more my style than the Visiting Hours one. Please let me know your thoughts! Any kind of comment (or kudos, favs, follows, bookmark… anything) is very welcome.
Last but not least, if you read this and you’re not part of our wonderful Discord server already, but you enjoy reading, writing and talking about Miraculous, please join our Discord server, Miraculous Fanworks . See you there soon!
#miraculous#miraculous ladybug#miraculous les aventures de ladybug et chat noir#fanfiction#fanfic#ao3fic#ladybug and chat noir#ladynoir#chat noir#adrienette#adrinette#adrien agreste#adrien and marinette#marinette dupain cheng#ladybug needs a hug#chat noir needs a hug too#idiots in love#drunken love confession#identity reveal#marichat
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A Crown to Adorn
Starting off #sokaiweek2021 with a fluffy one-shot!
Wrote a little fluffy one-shot for Day 1 of @sokaiweek Prompt: King and Queen. Childhood memories for #sokai and a cute flower date! A time of healing and reminiscence, adorned with flowers fit for a King and Queen.
A03: https://archiveofourown.org/works/32511775
Fanfiction. net: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13918369/1/A-Crown-to-Adorn
A Crown to Adorn
*.*.*.*
“Wear a crown of flowers on your head, let its roots reach your heart.” – Kabir
*.*.*.*
The smell of the grass, the warmth of the sun on their faces, and the slight scent of honeysuckle wafting through the canopy above was the perfect complement to an otherwise ordinary day. Ordinary, that word seemed to slip into her mind with a lithe bump, nestling into her heart but leaving behind a tinge of anxiety. Was it good to cherish something even if you knew it wouldn’t last? Those words danced within her mind as warm rays of light kissed her cheeks.
Living in the moment. Cherishing those small moments of reprieve-sometimes Kairi had to keep reminding herself to do that. Whether it be taking in deep breaths of the salty air or cherishing the soft sensation of sand squished between her toes- those small insignificant moments she needed to hold close. The way the wind hit her face as Sora and Riku rushed past her in one of their many races or the sensation of cold droplets hitting her face during one of their many water fights. Those moments, they would rush back at her all at once during those times she was alone, listless, and longing for their company.
Somehow, Kairi knew that today would be one of those many moments she held close to her heart. She took in a deep breath, savoring the crisp air hitting her lungs.
The Kingdom of Corona was as beautiful as Sora had claimed it would be. Filled with flora and fauna, clean air, and warm bathes in sunshine. Even the few heartless around were, she had to admit, cute in their own way. Made her almost sad to pummel them, but once she found herself attacking in unison alongside Sora- every thought she had just melted away. He always seemed to do that, make her feel as if she could do anything, be anything. It sounded silly but- his light made hers stronger somehow. It radiated within her a warmth that felt so comforting she never wanted it to leave.
After clearing the area, they had decided to take a quick swim in the spring nearby and were now sunning themselves like a couple of lizards on the forest floor. They had taken off their shoes and fully let themselves relax for what felt like an eternity. Peaceful, it was so peaceful that Kairi felt she could fall into a sleep here without a care in the world.
“I’m glad you brought me here. It’s so pretty.” Kairi turned to Sora, her eyes welling with shimmering light. After hours of training, Sora had dropped by unannounced, unattended by the other two little half-pints, to whisk her away for a “well-deserved break” as he put it. At the time he had a shy grin on his face, letting her know that really, he had just wanted to see her. Not that she minded. She wanted to see him too.
“I had to! I mean you love flowers and well the beach back home isn’t as green as this. Heck, I hadn’t even seen some of the plants here before. It’s really something- all those worlds we wanted to see- just there’s always something new.” Sora blurted out, his excitement burgeoning behind an uncontrollable grin. He rubbed the back of his neck and leaned forward. “Sorry, I’m getting a bit too excited. I’ve been wanting to show you all these new things for so long. Every time I see something I think, “Kairi and Riku need to see this!”
Kairi giggled. Sora did seem to be holding in boundless energy every time she saw him. “I want to see it all with you. I mean, we always wanted to travel and learn everything we could. Even just seeing this world makes me want to go to all kinds of places with you- and Riku too…” Kairi tucked a stray piece of hair from her face. She felt almost embarrassed to say anything more- to tell him that really, she wanted to just run away with him right now. Leave it all behind. But that would be selfish, wouldn’t it? They had to face Xehanort. Even if that meant risking their lives. Still, that incredible wanderlust creaked within her bones. Even now her heart began to beat faster at the thought of Sora whisking her away to world after world. She could just picture it-brisk walks on stardust touched beaches, huddling close in frigid snow-kissed air, or dancing on the tips of their toes across warm cobblestones-
Everything. Just experience it all-together- hand in hand in a world all their own.
Kairi felt something lightly fall on her head. A light gasp escaped her lips at the sensation. It tickled her eyelashes as she looked up to greet Sora’s impish grin. Her hand reached up to touch the delicate petals of a ring of flowers he had placed on her head. Her eyes widened. “When did you…”
“Oh just while you were humming to yourself earlier. Did I do a good job? I mean I’m not as good at connecting them together as you…but I did have a good teacher.” Sora winked.
Tears pricked the edges of her eyes. When they were children, Kairi often spent her time near the shore picking small wildflowers and clover. One of the few things she remembered about her grandmother was her love of flowers and the way she used to weave together flower crowns. It used to make her feel like she was almost home again, weaving the flowers together, creating something from nothing. It was cathartic. For hours she would lose herself in the action- maybe that was why piecing shells together also soon became second nature. Once, Sora sat down next to her, and watched intently as she connected each stem of clover flower without asking any questions. When she was done, he told her how pretty it was and how “he wanted one too.”
For a few days after school, they would go down to the shore, make flower crowns, and pretend they were a King and Queen of the flower people. Well, the last part was entirely Sora’s idea. When she thought back on it- Kairi wondered if Sora did that to help her feel better about being homesick. She had missed her grandmother so badly back then. Every day she felt so alone. But then…Sora was there. And Riku…and the three of them found new things to do together.
Back then, Kairi hadn’t paid a second thought to the idea that most boys wouldn’t find what she was doing that interesting. Thinking about it now, Sora probably only said he wanted one too so she wouldn’t feel lonely- after all…she wasn’t the fastest runner or could hold her own at the time in a mock sword fight. What she was good at was making things, connecting flowers, shells, and bits of shattered sea glass into stars shapes or crowns. Her room back home was filled with makeshift stars, unfinished and marred imitations of the charm Sora now held close as an oath to her. Her childish fantasies of an unbreakable connection, made real and whole through a brush of their fingers as she passed the charm to him. Her fingertips warmed as she recalled his touch.
Now, with the newly coronated flower crown atop her reddened locks-Kairi felt that same bubbling joy well up inside her.
Kairi couldn’t believe Sora had still remembered that time or well had even retained his “flower-tying skills” as he used to call it. Sora had remembered a time that even she had pushed back deep into the depths of her heart. “I think that you retained some skill.” Kairi puffed out her chest. “But I think I’m still the master. So, I’m going to work my magic! It’s only fair that you have one to match.”
Sora chuckled and placed both hands behind his head. “Well, I guess we’re off flower picking then huh?” His hips swayed from side to side, his legs acting listless as if they hadn’t moved in hours.
Kairi bounced up on her heels, feeling a renewed vigor in her veins. “Yep! Lead the way, King!”
“King?” Sora’s jaw slacked. “Gosh, when you say it like that it only reminds me of “the King.”
Kairi lightly patted Sora on the shoulder. “Now, now.” Kairi chided. “There can be more than one King and Kings of different things. He may be “the King” but you- you’re my Flower King right?” An impish grin filled her cheeks. Sora blinked a few times before averting his eyes. She could swear a tinge of red was on the tips of his ears.
“Geez flower King? Don’t tell Riku, or Donald or Goofy- I’ll never live that down.”
“But I’m the flower Queen- we have to match!” Kairi pointed an accusatory finger at him. Sora jumped back a beat, his deep blue eyes tinged with uncertainty. Soon, his eyes swirled with glimmering sunshine, his smile so subtle she found herself itching to gently brush her fingers across his lips. Her cheeks heated at the thought.
“Okay, I mean if you are I have to be then.” Sora put a hand over his mouth to muffle a laugh. Though clearly uncomfortable, there was a hint of joy in those words. Poking fun at him like this was almost too nostalgic. With ease, she slid her hand into his and gave it a tight squeeze. He recoiled slightly before sheepishly squeezing her hand back. His eyes wouldn’t meet hers, but she knew- he was just a tad shy still.
Hand in hand they traversed the woods searching for violet, azure, and fuchsia hues. Their still bare feet brushing against rough patches of dirt and slick grass, staining their toes a light green as they went. The morning dew, still kissing the tips of their hair, kept them cool against the ever-rising sun. Every flower they came across seemed more beautiful than the rest- they gathered until they were spilling out onto the ground beneath them. Sora sneezed a few times, sending them flying much more than he would have liked. The air filled with laughter as they collected them all again, each time regretting having over-prepared their bounty.
They returned to the clearing in no time at all-and she set about her work. Connecting the flowers together wasn’t hard- but choosing which flowers suited Sora best- well that took some thinking. Baby’s breath, delicate and kind, hydrangeas as blue and calming as the sea, red carnations brandishing the passionate courage in his heart, and yellow calla lilies to represent his happy disposition. When she was done- it was a crown only befitting him. When she held it up against the light, the shadows cast across her face danced- truly she could think of it as her best work yet. Smirking and a bit too proud, Kairi stood up and delicately laid the crown atop her “King’s” head.
“I, Flower Queen Kairi dub thee- Sora- Flower King.” In a grand bow, Kairi placed a hand over her heart, glancing up at him with mischief and mirth.
Sora’s wide toothy grin greeted her. “It’s an honor!” He paused, searching his mind before snapping his fingers in the realization of something important. “Does it look Kingly?”
“I think it suits you, just as mine suits me.” Kairi spun on her heels, dancing as she delicately brushed the petals she adorned. She gave Sora a taunting wink as she thrust out her hand. “I’d say a dance is in order, sire.”
A deep laugh escaped his chest as Sora jumped up to grab her hand and pull her close. Their eyes connected as if a thread between them became taught, sure, and certain that the entire world around them could just melt away into nothing, and it would all be alright. One step, then two, a sway and a swish, he even threw in a twirl or two as they danced to the bubbling brook and twilling birds. The melody in their hearts flowed and swirled at a tempo that pulled her into a sense of weightlessness. The countless times she dreamed of the two of them, blissfully dancing, suddenly made it real.
It was real, him, her, this moment. It was a sensation, a scent, a feeling she wanted to bottle up and keep close- like an herbarium filled with preserved flowers. Bright, opulent, and ever so warm. As their dance slowed, and her heart settled, Kairi leaned her head on Sora’s shoulder, letting herself melt into his rising chest. It was then Kairi knew that home wasn’t ever far anymore. That homesickness had long flitted away like petals in the wind once she let Sora into her heart. Now, every time she thought of their memories, these moments, the rise and fall of his chest, his heartbeat…Kairi knew somehow she was always closer to home.
Years Before
*.*.*.*
The bluff at the edge of town was filled with clover flowers. Though she had been warned with a stern shake of the mayor’s finger, and a disapproving huff or two from the town elders, Kairi always found herself foraging for flowers here. The wind blowing through her hair, and the misty salt air gently caressing her chubby cheeks made her feel more at home here than anywhere else on the island. In the afternoon quiet, only the rumbling low roar of the waves had been keeping her company. Lightly and carefully, she hummed a melody as she worked, losing herself in knot after knot.
*.*.*.*
“What do you think she’s doing?” Sora muttered in a hushed tone, trying to keep his usually loud voice as quiet as possible. He was huddled on his haunches behind a large hedge, practically wiggling to keep himself from falling over. He and Riku had followed Kairi from a distance like two ducks up the winding hillside. When they had seen her leaving the Mayor’s house she had been stomping and letting out a long-winded sigh or two. Riku had said that she was “probably angry” and that it mostly had to do with her going off alone. Sora, being extremely curious about Kairi ever since she had arrived on the beach, had never not kept watch over her. So, Riku being Riku had suggested they follow her, knowing well that Sora would have found himself trailing after her absentmindedly.
Riku let out a sigh and shook his head. “She’s going to make something again. The last time she came back down from here she had a crown of flowers in her hands. That’s probably what she plans on doing.”
“Hmm, that seems more lonely than fun. She’s all by herself.” Sora pursed his lips, his nose scrunching up. He crossed his arms and readjusted his drooping bum with a light hop. “Seems like it’d be better to do with more people.”
Riku raised a brow, then smirked as he realized something important. “You know, if you want to join her nothing’s stopping you. We can go back to the play island any old time.”
“But it feels like if I go over now, I’d be like- I don’t know- I’d um make her mad…”
“Mad?”
“You always say I talk too much. Kairi seems a bit scared when I do that.” Sora looked down at his fidgeting toes. “Still, I think she’s lonely.”
“She just doesn’t know much about us yet. And well you do talk a lot. My dad says sometimes though that just being near someone without saying anything is enough.” Riku crossed his arms, and nodded, certain his father’s words were true.
“Really Riku?”
“Yeah, Really.” Riku put a hand on Sora’s head and gave his hair a quick ruffle. “Now, no more waiting!” Riku placed both hands on Sora’s back and pushed him forward- not even worried if he would fall over on his face. Usually, he did, and Sora had to brace himself for a fall that didn’t come. Instead, he found himself balancing on one foot and staring into the wide cerulean eyes of a frightened girl.
*.*.*.*
When a rustling bounded behind her Kairi gasped and found herself on her feet, her hands clutched close to her chest. A familiar head of spikes was what first caught her eyes, then the twigs and leaves sticking out every-which-way, followed by the shy grin of a boy caught doing something he shouldn’t.
“Geez, Sora! You scared me!” Kairi tucked her hair behind her ear as if she were suddenly aware of her own messy mop.
“Sorry, Kairi! Me and Riku were just…” Sora paused to look behind him. Not a soul was in sight. “Aw man, where’d he go? We were just talking about…ugh never mind.” Sora stood up straight and puffed out his chest as he shook the stray twigs and leaves from his head. Once he was done, he placed both hands behind his head. “So…what-cha doing?”
“Making flower crowns…” Kairi mumbled under her breath, feeling herself carefully enunciate each word. Sora was nice, after all, he was the one who found her on the beach that day. But a part of her felt scared, nervous, and a bit rumbly in her tummy when she talked to him. He was always so bright, and his grin was wider than his face. Kairi didn’t know how to be around him. Kairi turned her back to him and smoothed the ends of her dress.
“Okay.” Sora uttered. He continued to stare at her, unmoved until she decided to sit back down among her work. As she picked more flowers, she began to take more glances over at Sora. He watched her intently, swaying from side to side on the edges of his sandals. He stayed that way for a beat then promptly plopped down next to her. Kairi’s breath hitched in her throat at the sudden invasion in her little bubble. But Sora didn’t say anything, although his face was twisted into an unnatural frown, alerting her he really did want to say something.
Kairi tried her best to get back to her crown, but she fumbled with shaky fingers as she tied the tiny stems together. Her lips moved into a fine line, her teeth biting down into the corners of her cheeks. Again, soon she became lost in the motions, not even noticing Sora get up and go look around. Moments later he dropped back down next to her, this time, with a handful of clovers.
“It’s really pretty.” Sora blurted out. His eyes were wide, expectant.
A shivering jolt went through her back, and Kairi shyly looked back down at her completed crown. He said it was pretty, what she made. A slight hint of pride wafted through her chest. “Thanks…”
“I-I want one too!” Sora’s voice was louder than he intended, for Kairi almost fell back at the sudden noise. She made sure to quickly put on a smile for the boy looked almost as if he would cry if he knew she was scared.
“Okay, I’ll teach you.” Kairi found a new strength in her voice. She was more confident now. A voice inside her heart, but from where she didn’t know, whispered caressing words.
Whenever you feel lonely, look to the flowers. Surround yourself with them, let them take root in your heart. Every moment may seem small, but you can make them bigger and more beautiful. For those moments when you’re alone, the flowers will remind you of me and of those who love you. That light in your heart will continue to bloom and grow, as long as you let it. Adorn your head with a crown of flowers, my dear. Adorn the head of the one you love. Find that light, never lose sight of it.
Notes:
Thank you for reading! This fic was inspired by the prompt King and Queen for SoKai Week 2021. Visiting Sora and Kairi's childhood and what they meant to each other during that time was pure joy. I hope that this little bundle of fluff reminds you of the wonder of picking flowers as a child, and how even the smallest acts of kindness can mean the world to someone else. I tried to add in some of Sora's flowers from his herbarium by super groupies as well as flowers that spoke to his personality. Fun fact: Clover flowers were something that I would gather when I was a child, and luckily they do grow at least in Hawaii at high elevations, so it's possible they could be on the mainland in Destiny Islands!
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#sokaiweek2021#sokaiweek#kingdom hearts#kingdom hearts fanfiction#sokai#sora and kairi#kairi#sora#kingdomheartsfanfiction#KH#kingdomhearts
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it’s nice to have a friend
Pairing: Peter Parker x reader
Warnings: insecurity
Word count: 2.1k
Summary: Peter, upon finding out that you’re bullied at school and that you have no friends, wants to be yours.
A/N: this was cathartic to write so I hope it’s cathartic to read
Feeling alone was something that you were quite accustomed to. You had a few people that you would consider friends, but it always seemed that they had something else that was more important. Or, rather, spending time with someone else that was more important.
Every day at school filled you with anxiety and despair, and you always counted down the hours and minutes until you could leave for the day.
On some days, it felt as if you were truly invisible. No one would talk to you, or eat lunch with you, or even as much look in your direction.
Other days felt as though you stuck out for all the wrong reasons, like being asked for your homework or having rude remarks directed at you. Boys would comment on how unattractive you were, and would ask you on a date only as a dare. Girls would snicker behind your back, saying comments like, “Her outfit choices are awful, do you think she gets dressed in the dark?” or “If only she put on cuter clothes and some makeup, maybe then would she be pretty.”
The comments would get to you, and you found yourself trying to ditch school or show up late to classes so that the odds of being publicly ridiculed would be slim. You often felt that no one would notice if you disappeared.
Or so you thought.
There was one person that always seemed intrigued by you, but you never seemed to pay much attention to him.
The boy was named Peter, more specifically, Peter Parker.
He sat right next to you in English class, and he had only spoken to you once when you were paired together for an in-class assignment.
He had always wanted to start a conversation with you, but he never knew how to go about it. His heightened senses picked up on the fact that you were often anxious, and he didn’t want to make your anxiety worse by trying to start a conversation. So, he never said anything to you, holding onto the hope that one day the right time would arise and he would be able to finally speak to you.
And today was that day.
You had walked into English class fifteen minutes late, your head hung low to not draw anymore attention to yourself. However quiet you tried to be, it didn’t go unnoticed by your teacher.
“Late again, I see?” your teacher, Mr. Harris remarked harshly. The comment caught you off guard, which caused you to trip on someone’s backpack that was in the aisle. “Next time you come in late Y/N, I’ll have no choice but to give you detention.”
“Or better yet, you could just do us all a favour and not show up?” a boy named Chad remarked without skipping a beat, and the whole class broke out into laughter.
It took everything in you to not run out of the classroom, but instead you scurried to your desk and slumped into your seat, hoping that you wouldn’t call any more attention to yourself. You wrote something on a stray sticky note that was stuck to your binder, before pulling out your notebook and taking notes on what the teacher was saying.
When the bell finally rang, you quickly shoved everything into your backpack and practically sprinted out the door. You ran out so quickly that you didn’t even notice you had dropped the sticky note, which landed right by Peter’s shoe.
“Wait,” he tried to call out to you but it was too late. He bent down to pick up the note and let out a small gasp when he read what it said, “I just want to disappear.”
“No.” Peter muttered under his breath. Looking around to make sure no one noticed him reading the note, he discreetly placed the sticky note in his folder before heading to his next class.
—
Lunch rolled around, and Peter struggled with what to do about that note. He sat at the usual table and impatiently waited for Ned and MJ to show up so he could ask them what to do.
The duo walked over to the table a few minutes later, and when they set their things down, Peter asked if they had seen you around.
“Nope.” they replied in unison.
“She wasn’t in History today, so maybe she went home early?” Ned said with his mouth full of pepperoni pizza.
“Why do you suddenly want to know where she is, Parker?” MJ questioned as she stole Peter’s gogurt.
Without responding, Peter pulled out the sticky note from his locker and showed his friends.
“Oh.” MJ responded quietly, and Ned stayed quiet.
“She was late to class today, and Chad made a remark saying that she should just never show up to class anymore. She didn’t speak up like she usually does, and wrote this during class. When she left, the note dropped and she didn’t notice it, but I picked it up and now I’m worried thinking that the comment really got to her.”
Ned and MJ nodded their heads and MJ placed her hand on Peter’s arm.
“What should I do?” Peter leaned over the table and placed his face in his hands.
“Talk to her.” Ned answered.
“I’ve tried, but there never seems to be a good time to do so.”
“Hm, maybe write her a note and slip it in her locker? So that you won’t be seen passing notes in class and she won’t be flustered receiving it?”
Peter sat back up and looked MJ in the eye. “I never thought I would say this, but that’s actually a good idea, thank you.”
“No problem, now if you’ll excuse me,” MJ reached for Peter’s bag of chips, “those cheetos are calling my name.” She ripped open the bag and smiled.
That’s what I’ll do, I’ll go home and write her a letter, Peter thought to himself as he stole back the bag of chips that MJ took.
—
At 2:55pm, the last bell of the day rang and Peter ran out of class, down the corridors and out the main doors. He had been anxious all day since he found your note, him counting down the hours until he could rush home. The anxious feeling in his stomach grew when he didn’t see you at lunch, or at your locker. He was fearing the worst, and he hoped that he wasn’t too late.
Instead of taking the subway home, he had changed into his Spiderman suit before his last class ended, and ran into an empty alleyway. He took his school clothes off, stuffed them in his backpack and swung home. He knew that he was working against the clock, and he wanted to get home in plenty of time so that he could write that letter to you.
Making it home in record time, he climbed into his room and began looking for a piece of paper and a pen. He thought about what to say and fervently wrote that letter to you. After ten rewrites, and four hours later, he knew that he had finally said what he wanted to say. He gently folded it and stuck it in a homemade envelope, writing your name in cursive on the front and putting a heart at the end of your name. All he had to do now was wait until tomorrow to give it to you.
—
The next day, during second period, Peter had excused himself from class and ran through the halls to put the letter in your locker, but stopped in his tracks when he saw you sitting right below your locker. You were sitting there crying, with your knees to your chest. The door to your locker was open and there was a small box sitting next to you on the floor.
“Y/N?” He whispered, and you shot your head up to see Peter standing there confused. “Is everything okay?”
“Oh, um, hi Peter. I’m sorry you have to see me like this.” You weakly smiled and wiped the tears off your cheeks with the arm of your sweater.
“Why is there a box on the floor?” He asked, taking a step closer to you.
“Oh,” you sniffled, “I’m moving schools.”
“Why is that?” Peter asked, his voice soft. He moved the box over and sat down on the floor next to you.
“You probably wouldn’t understand.”
“I could try.” He scooted closer to you and looked at you sympathetically.
“I don’t feel like I belong here, at all. I don’t have any friends, and I don’t have any connections here that would make it worthwhile to stay.”
“Oh, I’m sorry.” He answered, unsure of what else to say.
“It’s not your fault. My mom offered to send me to a school across town and I’m gonna take her up on it.”
“Well, if that’s the best choice for you, then you should take it.” He paused, “but I think maybe before you make that choice, there’s something you should know.” He grabbed the letter out of his back pocket and gave it to you. “I hope it doesn’t come off as creepy.”
With shaky hands, he handed you the letter and you lightly grabbed it. Admiring the front of the envelope, you said, “Your cursive is really good, Peter.”
He laughed at that comment and replied, “thank you, I won the ‘best penmanship’ award in third grade, and I pride myself with that.”
“I bet you put that on your resume, didn’t you?” You joked and Peter replied, “oh, definitely.”
Getting back to opening the letter, you took it out of its envelope and unfolded it.
Y/N,
I’ve thought about the best way to go about saying this, which I think may be this way. Today in class, I saw your note that said that you want to disappear, and I knew that I had to say something to you. So here it goes. Although I only know you from sitting next to you in class, you are so nice, patient and intelligent, and I hope that I can get to know you more. I always see you sitting by yourself at lunch, and I always tell myself that one day I’ll work up the courage to sit next to you and say hi, but I never can.
You don’t deserve all the crap that you get, and I’m surprised that you don’t have any friends because you are one of the best people here at school. I genuinely mean that. You are one of the most ‘real’ people here; you’re authentically you, and I admire that about you. You don’t conform to what people say you should do or act or dress, and that’s admirable. You don’t hide your intelligence, and you sure as hell don’t pretend to be someone you’re not. Maybe that’s not a popular opinion with many people, but it is to me.
If you ever need someone, I’m always here for you. I’m hoping that you’ll take me up on that offer Y/N, because I know what it’s like to be lonely, and what it’s like to not have any friends. It’s nice to have a friend, and I’d love to be yours.
Peter x
You didn’t realise you were crying when a teardrop hit the paper, the ink spreading where it hit.
“Peter, this is the nicest thing I’ve ever received, thank you.”
Peter shrugged his shoulders and gently bumped your shoulder with his. “You’re welcome, and it’s true, by the way. All the things I said were true. You really do seem like a nice person and you don’t deserve the rude remarks that you get.”
“I don’t know what else to say other than, thank you Peter. This means a lot to me.” You folded the letter up nicely and stuck it in your backpack. “This makes me reconsider wanting to move schools now.”
“Ultimately it’s your choice, and you should do what you think is best. But if I’ve learned one thing in life, it’s to not walk away when people are ridiculing you. Instead, if you stand your ground and don’t give into the crap, they’ll realise how strong and persistent you really are and eventually leave you alone.”
“Maybe you’re right, maybe I should stay here in order to stand up for myself. I’m not going to let a douchebag named Chad be the reason I move schools.”
“Exactly.” He chuckled. “But I also know how hard it is to stand up to bad people by yourself. It’s so much easier to have a group of people who have your back behind you, supporting you all the way. So if you need a friend Y/N, I’m here for you, because trust me, I know what it’s like to not have a friend.”
“Well Peter Parker, it’s nice to have you as a friend.” You whispered to him. You looked over at the boy with the soft curls and the kind eyes, and you mentally thanked the gods above for sending an angel like him to you.
“It’s nice to have you as a friend too. Now c’mon, let’s go show Chad that we’re not a force to be reckoned with.” He stood up and held his hand out for you to grab, to which you gladly did. Together, the two of you walked the empty halls, hand in hand, ready to take on the world.
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#peter parker x reader#peter parker x y/n#peter parker x you#peter parker x fem!reader#peter parker and you#peter parker and y/n#peter parker and reader#peter parker#peter parker fic#peter parker fanfic#peter parker imagine#peter parker one shot#peter parker one shots#peter parker blurb#peter parker blurbs#mine
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Another Day
Slight tw: self harm, violence (nothing too graphic)
One day I will thoroughly proof read before I post, but not today!
--
Don’t cry.
Don’t cry, don’t cry, don’t cry, you stupid cow. Come on, just a few more minutes. Hold it in, just hold it in a little while longer, alright? Can’t you just be a grown up for once in your life? Stop fucking crying!
Just twenty more meters and she’d be safely behind the Fat Lady’s portrait. Ten more meters, and she could let it all out. But not yet.
The Fat Lady eyed her suspiciously. “You’re out late, m’dear.”
Lily cleared her throat. She could feel the tears longing to be shed that pricked at the corners of her eyes. “Prefect duty. Password’s ‘Agean.’”
The portrait swung wide, and Lily dashed inside. The common room was, miraculously, empty. This wasn’t totally surprising, as it was past one in the morning on a Wednesday night, but it came as a huge relief nonetheless.
Lily glanced around twice to make sure that there were no stray seventh years in the corner of the room taking advantage of the quiet atmosphere to finish up another hour of studying.
At last, when she was satisfied that the room was clear, Lily burst into tears.
“Damn it,” she whispered ferociously as she wiped her tears on the back of her sleeve, “for fuck’s sake, stop it. Stop it!” But she was powerless to stop the flood of feelings that came pouring out of her. She swore again and shook her head, hard, to stop the thoughts. Useless. Pathetic. Little girl. The words rang out over and over again, bouncing around the corners of her mind until she couldn’t take it any more.
With a roar of frustration, Lily kicked the leg of the nearest armchair as hard as she could. Fuck.
“OUCH!” She screamed and dropped to the floor. Her toe throbbed horribly, but at least it distracted from her head. She cradled the toe and prayed she hadn’t broken any bones. At this rate, she’d probably end up back in the hospital wing tomorrow morning. Lily knew that Pomfrey could probably fix a broken toe just as fast as she’d fixed the cut on her neck, but the idea did not bring her any comfort.
“Uh, Evans?”
Lily shrieked. She grabbed instinctually for her wand before realizing that it was tucked into the waistband of her school skirt. She had to flip over onto her stomach to access it properly. She pointed the wand wildly in the air in the direction of the voice. “Who’s there?”
“Oi! Stand down! It’s me!”
Lily’s heart sank. That was the last voice in the entire world she needed to hear right now.
James Potter stood near the door to the common room, his hands raised in front of him in surrender. “Blimey, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you.”
Lily groaned as she rolled onto her back, then sat up, wand still pointed at James. “How the hell did you get in here? The common room was empty five seconds ago, and I didn’t hear the door open.”
James, who still had his hands raised, offered her a weak smile. “Ah, well, a gentleman never reveals his secrets, or something like that,” but he looked a little guilty, “would you put that thing away? I just wanted to make sure you’re alright.”
Lily lowered her wand cautiously. “I’m fine.”
James pointed down at her toe. “You don’t sound fine. C’mon, up you get.”
He strode over to her spot on the floor and pulled her into a standing position. She winced as she tried to put weight on her damaged toe. “I think I broke it.”
“I wouldn’t be surprised,” James tried to joke as he helped her hobble over to the couch, “the way you kicked that chair. Did the poor bastard commit an unspeakable offense to your person?”
“Very funny,” Lily grimaced as she sank into a seat on the couch. To her annoyance, James slid into the seat next to her. “Now, if you don’t mind, I was in the middle of having a very private breakdown.”
“Yeah, I noticed that bit. Come on, give me your foot.”
Lily scoffed. “Yeah, right.”
“Seriously!” James cried as he waved her foot in the direction of his lap, “I’m actually pretty good with injuries. Comes with the territory, being quidditch captain. I see lots of injuries worse than this.”
“I’m surprised you made it this long through a conversation without bringing up your captainship,” Lily grumbled, but relented. She reached down to pull her mary jane off, wincing sharply as she did, then pulled her sock off as well. “Don’t tell me you’ve got some sort of foot fetish.”
“Nah,” James grinned as he accepted her maimed foot onto his lap, “I’m actually not fond of feet. Can’t stand anyone touching mine, you see. I’m dead ticklish.”
“I’ll have to remember that,” Lily joked, then flushed a deep scarlet. The comment sounded much more innocent in her head.
James, however, merely laughed. She could feel herself soften a bit at his smile.
“So,” James said cautiously as he examined her foot, “do you want to talk about it?”
Lily picked at a hangnail to save herself the moment when she would have to meet his gaze. “I’m not sure what you mean.”
James rotated her foot gingerly, frowning slightly as he moved. “I mean your very private breakdown. Want to tell me what happened? You were on rounds tonight, right?”
Lily nodded. “Nothing happened. Just a bit of an accident. Kept me out later than usual. I must have gotten over tired.”
“You don’t really expect me to believe that, do you?” He took his wand from his pocket and pointed it steadily at her toe. “Episkey.”
Lily took a sharp intake of breath as she felt her bones reset with a soft pop. Then, suddenly, the pain was gone.
“Thank you,” she breathed as she flexed her toe back and forth, “really, Potter, that was brilliant. It doesn’t hurt at all anymore.”
James winked annoyingly. “Don’t mention it, now,” he leaned forward slightly, hands clasped between his knees, “if you don’t want to talk about what really happened, fine. I’ll leave you alone. But, on the off chance that you do want to talk about it, I’ve got nowhere else to be tonight.”
Lily considered this proposal. On the one hand, she’d rather eat frogspawn than admit weakness to James Potter. On the other, she couldn’t bear the thought of going back up to the dormitory with nothing but five sleeping roommates and her own thoughts for company.
For now, Potter seemed to be her only option.
“I was on rounds,” she began slowly, still looking down at her hangnail instead of in his eyes, “and I was in the dungeons.”
She paused here for a reaction from James, but he did not offer one. In fact, he was so silent she wondered if he even dared to breathe.
“It was my last stop of the night before my shift was over,” Lily said into her hands again, “and I was coming round the corner by Dungeon five. Benjy was down the other hall and lost sight of me. You know where there’s that enclave with the tapestry of Agrippa?”
She waited for James to say something, but he did not. Instead, he offered the tiniest of nods.
“He was waiting in the shadows there. Mulciber.” The name was poison on her tongue. It attacked her senses. Filled her mouth, her ears, her nose and eyes with a foul presence. She wanted to scream, to claw her face to get it out get it out get it out.
James swore quietly under his breath, but did not interrupt her. She took a moment to compose herself, then pressed on. “I tried to scream, but he put his hand over my mouth. He had something sharp up against my neck. I couldn’t see if it was a knife or some sort of spell, but it cut me. Just there,” and she pointed to a spot on her neck just above her collar bone. “Then he started to say things to me. Nasty things. Just kept on and on. Then, finally, Benjy yelled out, and Mulciber ran off back to his common room. And I just...let him go.”
She was shocked to realize that she’d started to cry again. The tears weren’t fast and desperate as they had been a few minutes ago. Now they were controlled, cathartic. They rolled slowly down her cheeks, past her chin, and over the spot on her neck where Mulciber had cut her.
“Thank god,” James murmured. She was grateful for this interjection as it gave her a moment to wipe her eyes. “What happened then?”
Lily shook herself slightly. Now that she’d started to talk, she found she couldn’t stop. “We went straight to Dumbledore.”
James nodded vigorously. “Good, good. I’m glad. What’s going to happen to Mulciber?”
Lily let out a cold, involuntary laugh. “Nothing, James. Nothing at all.”
James gaped at her. “How is that possible! Surely Dumbledore-”
“I gave Dumbledore my memory,” Lily felt shame creep into her once again, “but it wasn’t enough. I never saw his face, never got a clear view of him in my mind. But I knew it was him. Dumbledore said there wasn’t enough to go on and sent me off to Pomfrey.”
A moment of silence passed between them. Lily noticed with a jolt that James clenched his fists so tightly that his knuckles were turning white. “That’s bullshit,” he whispered finally, “Dumbledore is supposed to protect us. Supposed to protect you.” He glanced sideways at her, his eyes shining with unshed tears. “I’m so sorry, Lily.”
She smiled weakly back at him. “Thanks. But honestly, he was right. If I’d have just gone after him. I mean, he ran away from me, I could have hit him with a stunner when his back was turned. But I just let him run away. I didn’t do anything to stop him.”
James’ jaw twitched, as if he were about to argue but thought better of it. He took a deep breath, closed his eyes, then looked at her once more. “Lily,” he whispered, as he put his hand gingerly over her own, “I am so glad you didn’t try to stop him.”
Of all the things he could have said, this was perhaps the most surprising. “How can you say that?” She wrenched her hand from his as if he’d burned her skin. “I’m supposed to be a Gryffindor. A prefect. And I can’t even defend myself from an evil, cowardly-”
“I’m glad,” James interjected softly, “because it could have saved your life. Or at the very least, saved you from an even greater harm. Think about it. He was already willing to hurt you once, who’s to say he wouldn’t have done it again?”
Lily did her best to choke back a sob. “But I let him get away with it. What if he does it again to someone else?”
James considered this for a moment. “I think sometimes the bravest choice is to keep yourself safe. And it sounds like in that moment you were in no position, emotionally or otherwise, to try and take him down. Not after what he did to you. You live to fight another day, always.”
Lily said nothing. She still felt the shame, the guilt that she’d watched Mulciber run down that corridor without so much as reaching for her wand. But she also remembered the panic, the feeling that she couldn’t move a muscle. Fear had rendered her completely immobile. She couldn’t have stopped him even if she wanted to.
“I know you won’t believe me when I say this, but you can’t blame yourself,” James said firmly, “you reacted the only way you knew how. It doesn’t make you weak.”
Lily nodded slowly. Then, without thinking, she reached back out and took his hand gently in her own. They sat like that for a long time, sitting several feet away from each other but holding hands quietly. James stared straight ahead into the fire, but every now and then would run his thumb across the ridges of her knuckles.
After at least ten minutes of quiet, Lily spoke. “You haven’t asked me what he said.”
James shrugged. “It’s not my business. I mean, if you want to tell me, you can. But I have a feeling you would have by now.”
Lily tried to block out the voice that played like a megaphone in her head. Mudblood. Pathetic. Useless. Stupid little girl.
“I’m sure you can guess,” Lily muttered, hating herself for crying again.
James turned his head from the fire to look at her again. “I’m so sorry this happened to you. You’re one of the bravest people I’ve ever met, Lily,” he’d never heard him sound so sincere before, “I really believe he chose the wrong person to fuck with.”
Lily smiled weakly and squeezed his hand. “Thank you.”
James smiled back. “Plus,” he offered, “you’ve got a lot of friends that will help you kick his arse back to hell or whatever hole he crawled out from.”
Lily couldn’t help but laugh a little. It was an empty threat. She knew that Mulciber’s attack was a symptom of something darker, something more insidious than a school rivalry. Her friends wouldn’t be able to protect her forever. But it was nice to pretend that she wasn’t alone.
“Thank you. I’m glad you were here tonight, even if you scared the ever loving shit out of me.”
James winked, but it was with less cheek than he usually possessed. “No problem. You know me, students from far and wide across this great castle seek me out for my emotional services.”
She really laughed at this. “Somehow I don’t believe that.”
“Believe it, I’m really quite mature when I want to be.”
She felt as if a weight had been lifted from her chest. Her heart was still heavy, and she suspected it would be for some time now, but it was easier to bear. Suddenly she realized how completely exhausted she was.
“I should go up,” she whispered. She squeezed his hand gently before pulling away from him. “I’ve got to get some sleep or I’ll be a wreck for McGonagall.”
James stood quickly with her as she moved to leave. “I’ll hand in your essay, if you want,” he said hurriedly, “you should get as much sleep as you can. She won’t mind, I’ll tell her to talk to Dumbledore if she has any questions.”
Lily frowned at him slightly. “How can you hand in my essay if you haven’t even done yours?”
James barked with laughter at this. “You underestimate me! I wouldn’t dare ignore an assignment from Minnie.”
“Right,” Lily said, bemused. She pulled out her wand and summoned her essay down from her dorm. It zoomed right into her hand, and she handed it over. “Thanks so much. You’re a lifesaver.”
“Don’t mention it, I hope you get some-”
But his sentence was cut off by the sound of the portrait hole swinging open.
“Oi!” Sirius called as he and Peter strode over to them, “where the bloody hell were you? You were supposed to be our lookout, remember?”
Lily raised an eyebrow at James. “You know, we never did get around to discussing what you were doing in the common room at one in the morning.”
James laughed nervously. “Ah, Evans, there are some things you’re better off not knowing. Trust me.”
She smiled at him once more, then turned her back on him for her dormitory. The sounds of bickering followed her, echoing all the way across the common room and up the stairs.
The words did not stop playing over and over again in her head the whole time she got ready for bed. Pathetic. Useless. Mudlbood. But now, new words joined them. Soft, kind words broke the monotony of cruelty that played on repeat inside her mind.
You live to fight another day, always.
#I am once again asking you all to ignore my typos#I post the same night as I write bc I'm not a COWARD#jk it's because my anxiety won't let me sleep on anything#nina writes#jily#jily oneshot#canon compliant#james potter/lily evans#tw: self harm#tw: violence
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