#SO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! A LOT OF DEBATE WENT INTO THIS AT FIRST I WONDERED IF I SHOULD NYOOM
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No because that hurt me! Lando Norris x Girlfriend! Reader Part 2
Plot: Lando goes one step too far ...
Credit to purplephantomwolf for the GIF
As you'd promised you'd gone straight back to London, you thrown yourself into your work. You spent the days on the construction sight for the new house you were flipping, overseeing the progress. You spent the evenings in the studio working on more plans for the interior of the house.
But you did miss him, of course you missed him.
He was your person ...
Your guy...
The love of your life.
In the time that you'd come home however, videos had surfaced, many videos had surfaced...
The first was of you and Lando in the club, someone from a table across from the one your friends had been sat in showed how Lando had acted towards you and how his friends had tried to back you up. The next was of you running up to Alex, begging for a lift.
Afterwards, videos were leaked of the rest of Lando's night where he celebrated his win, by dancing with his friends and random girls that were being pulled into the big group. Nothing scandalous but enough to upset the fans who really liked you.
Later on, after the first few videos came out a video came out of Max Fewtrell and him arguing before him and Pietra left. Max actually pushed him a little and lots of hand gestures were flying round, but Lando looked just as angry as Max did.
Normally when you were in London, people knew they'd get content on your Instagram stories of you doing what you do best. People had suggested you to start a YouTube because your live's and reels were so funny that they'd definitely spend the time watching.
But you'd been dark since the argument with Lando and people were getting worried including Lando. So when you posted a titkok with your team, in the trend that AstonMartin did where the camera is up high above and you all do funny things, the media went crazy.
You then posted a video on instagram talking about the new house and the progress that was coming on.
"Hey guys! Y/N here! Just wanted to show you how the latest project is coming on. We've torn down the living room and put all new flooring in, which actually has built in underfloor heating which i think here in the UK is a real money move. We're going to hook it all up to a central network from the hallway as you walk in, which we finally finished the painting for that last week" you pan showing the round the areas you'd been talking about.
You showed you and one of the girls tearing down the kitchen.
Captioned 'Best Part of the Job, Free Rage Room', which is how you'd always referred to the demolition phase of house flipping. People on twitter of course took it out of context and rumors started flying that you and Lando had in fact called it splits, even one of those WAG update pages 'confirming' the breakup from close sources.
You'd found it laughable really, but you knew it would be hurting Lando, and no matter how much he hurt you ... you weren't a bitter person. You didn't want him hurting as well.
You were sat in your studio at your desk, sketching for the garden. The pen was currently in your mouth, sat back debating whether you should reach out to Lando or wait for him to come to you.
It had been three weeks at this point with no communication. You'd spoken to Lando's family, who had talked with you about everything that had happened. Cisca and Adam had apologized for their sons behavior.
As you were about to pick up your phone, caving in to messaging Lando first when you swore you wouldn't on knock on your wooden studio door sounds.
You frown, wondering who on earth would be coming to you at this time of the night. You weren't even open, office hours were long over. It was about 11pm, so your clients knew you weren't taking calls even though you were still here and working with a light on.
You open the door, bolt and latch on for added protection.
"Lando?" you ask seeing the curly haired boy, hoodie up and his eyes looking more tired than you'd ever seen them.
"You want to open up and let me in baby?" he asks softly, a slight crack to his voice.
"I was just about to call you" you admit, unlatching the door so it swings open fully. He stops just under the arch of the door observing you. It was like he was having a small inward debate with himself.
"Gonna cave coz you miss me?" he jokes, testing the waters. He didn't know how you were now that you'd have some time apart. He was hopeful that he could talk to you again and fix what had happened.
"Honestly yeah. I hate you and how much of a hold you have on me" you admit, leaning back into your chair directing him to the sofa.
"I came here, to say I'm sorry and that I was horrible to you. And I know it's not excuse but I want to explain what happened. In full... I think you deserve more than an explanation... but I think you need one for if we are ever going to go back to what we were" he sighs. He leans forward and takes your hand into his.
He explains how, after the race people told him you'd said you were leaving the race track. So he went to the hotel to find you, only for you not to be there, Max came round and said you were probably getting ready with the girls as P had told him you were all gonna meet them there.
"I didn't think this was too out of the ordinary for you, your especially close with P and Lily, and it wouldn't shock me if Kelly and Kika would drag you all into a girl pre-club party in their hotel room..." he laughs knowing that normally you and P would do each other's makeup when Max and her came to race weekends. Or you and Lily would switch outfit's loving to venture into each other's styles.
When he got to the club and no-one had seen you, and Pierre and Charles had come up to him with celebratory shots, he hadn't declined.
"The shots were the start of what slowly just went downhill, I don't think i ever want to drink that much again, I was so happy at the start" he laughs flushing red and the thought of him knocking back shots, which was rare considering he didn't like to drink. He wouldn't be doing it anytime soon that was for sure.
"You deserved to celebrate though baby, don't make it seem like you shouldn't have had a fun night" you admit, both of you were being open and mature adults right now. You were so glad you'd both spent some time apart to think before you fought more, now you were both talking and listening to each other and you couldn't help but think it was beautiful and intimate.
After the three hour mark he was fed up that you hadn't bothered to show up at such an important night for him. Talking to Charles and Pierre who were also drunk, weren't the best influences on suggesting places you could be. All of them being ones his drunk mind could picture vividly, his sober mind would have known his girl would never dream of doing that to him.
"Charles said some things and I know sober me would have known you wouldn't do that, but i was already angry thinking you'd just ditched me. I shouldn't have drunk as much and I know its no excuse... but" he starts and you nod.
"The main thing is you know how you would have acted. Yes you upset me, yes your hurt me because you said some horrible things to me..."
"Yeah, I've heard the video and It wasn't my intention to embarrass you the way I did, especially in front of our friends. I'm so so sorry!" he admits.
The other group, had tried to convince him that maybe you'd just got held up and thats where Oscar, Lily, Max and P had all messaged you.
"Baby, I'm so so sorry that i wasn't there for you after what happened!" he says tears in his eyes. This would forever be one of his biggest regrets in life, not being there for you when you needed him.
"How did you find out?" you gulp, not really wanting to think about what could have happened that night if it wasn't for the Mclaren Mechanics.
"Well, after having a scolding from Oscar, and Max, and Alex, and Zac... the mechanics also threatened to botch my pit stops. So i listened to what they did for you"
"Mmmm it was scary. All i wanted was you" you nod, rubbing a thumb across his hand.
"I'm so so sorry, I promised you that i'd protect you always. And I've failed!" he says with a little snivel and tears brimming his eyes.
"You've not failed, you just made a mistake, there's been some miscommunication and Charles and Pierre didn't help with their boyish meddling but ... we'll get there" you smile before pulling closer to him and nuzzling into his neck breathing in his sent.
"Do you think you'll ever forgive me?" he asks softly pulling you back so he can fully look at you.
"I already have, darling" you smile.
"What did i ever do to deserve you, I don't think i do" he smiles.
"Hmmmm, well I think the historians will argue one day its me who didn't deserve you" you sigh, brushing some of his hair back.
"I doubt that" he scoffs, knowing that when you first started dating, even with your lack of status people still thought you were too kind, too sweet and too innocent for someone as jokey and brash as Lando was seen to be.
"I've never had anyone treat me the way you do, I'm so so in love with you. And I don't ever want the feelings I have when i think of you and see you to stop. I feel like i can do anything when i have you by my side. Why do you think the first person i seeked out was you?" you offer, softly leaning in and placing a kiss on the corner of his lips.
You guys, talked more that night. About how you actually had fun helping the Mclaren boys pack up, regardless if you thought Lando had forgotten about you.
A week later and the media had picked up on the sighting the paps had got of both of you. Some fans had seen you both at a restaurant and make posts on it.
The comments bashed you either way, being between saying how silly you were for taking him back or the others saying they were upset you were back. It got to the point where you had to release a statement saying that you and Lando, are grown adults who can talk through the miscommunication and issues you'd experienced and were better for it now.
"I love you so much, and I'm never ever ever acting up like that again" he says as you help him do up his fire suit for the race you were currently at with him.
"I love you too, now go out and get another win for me baby so we can celebrate properly this time" you smile, kissing him before Jon comes forward asking for Lando's presence in the front of the garage.
A/N: I hope you guys think this did the first part justice as so many people requested a Part 2, so I'm really scared that this hasn't done it justice! If you want a rewrite with something better... something longer where its more of a series. Or where it goes the opposite way and it takes her longer to forgive him let me know. I just thought that Y/N and Lando in this one specifically would be the type to maturely talk about things!
Taglist:
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People requesting for just this part...
@christianpulisic10 @ilovechickenwings @basicallyric @runs-with-sciss0rs @dreamerrosie @eviethetheatrefreak @luv4kani @randomgirlnumber-13 @simpingcorner @c3ndr1n3 @bibissparkles @littlehoneyfreak @80sloverry @xjval @de1u1ugyal @meadhbhcavanagh @solphin @devotedleycrookeddonut @gg-trini @urfavnoirette @manuosorioh @angelbunny222 @randaaz @nvi111 @allabouthappiness @loloekie @error1190 @itsprashimusic @goldenharrysworld @glitterf1
#f1 imagine#f1 x reader#formula 1 x you#formula 1#formula one#formula one fanfiction#lando norris#lando norris imagine#lando imagine#lando x reader#lando norris x y/n#lando norris fanfic#lando norris x reader#ln4#ln4 x reader#ln4 imagine#ln4 fic#lando norris angst#lando norris fluff
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LOVE ME LIKE YOU DO — PERCY + DAUGHTER OF APHRODITE
masterlist | rules
❝ Can I request percy x daughter of Aphrodite? ❞ — 🧸
in which percy dates a daughter of aphrodite
pairing percy jackson x aphrodite!reader
warnings i had to break up percabeth for the plot im sorry 😞, one swear word
on the radio . . . love me like you do (ellie goulding)
When Percy and Annabeth broke up, all of Camp Half-Blood was in shock
In their minds, they were the couple. The one little kids would look up to and teens would pray to emulate. How could they possibly break up?
Percy wished he knew. I mean, he kind of understood why, but part of him was still confused
You see, it was Annabeth who’d ended things. Annabeth, who had been head-over-heels in love with Percy ever since they were 12. She was nice about it, luckily, but Percy was still hurt
The reason why she ended their relationship was because she wanted to discover herself, and she couldn’t do that with Percy by her side. She’d been stuck in camp nearly her whole life until Percy came along, and when he did, she spent years doing quests and fighting by his side
She felt like she knew who Percy’s girlfriend was, and who Athena’s daughter is, but not Annabeth. That’s why she ended things
Every day, Percy would mope around his cabin, his heart shattered. Annabeth was his first love. He was happy for her, of course, but a larger part of him was sad for himself
To make matters worse, the Fates seemed to be working against him, since he got broken up with just a week before his mother and Paul’s wedding. How was he supposed to attend an event celebrating love when he lost his?
Besides, now he doesn't have a date. Annabeth was still going to go, of course, but with her own ticket, not his +1. The seats were already booked and paid for though, so he couldn’t tell his parents to remove one
Which is why he was in his current situation. Standing outside of the Aphrodite cabin, debating whether or not he should walk away
Percy hated to beg, but he didn’t have much choice. The Aphrodite kids were most likely to agree to go with him, since they love everything to do with love, especially weddings
Recollecting himself, Percy knocked on the front door
“Oh, hi Percy!” Piper said, inviting him in. As soon as he walked in, the whole cabin went silent, all eyes on him. Out of all the people in camp, Aphrodite’s kids were the most interested in his breakup with Annabeth. Percy knew they didn’t mean any harm, as matters of love just genuinely piqued their interest, but he hated the way their eyes were always watching their every move
Quietly, he told Piper, “I want to ask your siblings something, if that's okay,” then, when Piper nodded, he addressed the rest of the cabin, “so… My mom and step-dad are getting married next week and I was supposed to go with Annabeth but she’s not my date anymore and I still have an extra invite so I was wondering if maybe one of you guys wanna come?”
The room, which was once so silent you could hear a pin drop, suddenly became awfully loud as they all argued about who should go with Percy. This didn’t last very long though, thanks to Piper
Eyebrows furrowed, Piper clapped her hands, immediately silencing her siblings, “before you all start drawing lots to see who goes, I’m going to check and see if Y/N wants to go. I think we can all agree she needs this more than anyone, right?”
To Percy’s surprise, there was no arguing regarding this. He’d heard about you in passing before - Aphrodite’s most beautiful daughter, favoured by the Goddess herself not just for your extreme good looks but for your warm heart, dating Annabeth’s half-sibling Ali - but nothing about you needing to attend weddings
Piper went over to a bunk in the corner of the room, one Percy hadn’t noticed was occupied until now, and spoke to you in a hushed tone. When she pointed at Percy, you turned to look at him, and he could see that your eyes were bloodshot
With your arm wrapped around Piper’s, you made your way over to Percy, unfazed by the eyes that were locked on you, “I’ll go with you.”
You spent the days leading up to the wedding getting to know each other, since neither of you wanted to attend a wedding with a stranger, and discovered you actually had a lot in common
Namely, both of you were broken up with by children of Athena. Turns out, you were no longer Ali’s girlfriend - he’d broken up with you a couple days after Annabeth broke up with Percy. Not a lot of people knew, since the news of your own breakup was overshadowed by Percy’s
When he heard that, he apologised, but you’d smiled at him and told him it was fine, since you didn’t want much attention on the breakup anyway. That was Percy’s first time seeing you smile since hanging out with you, and he felt as if Eros himself had shot an arrow right through his heart
He couldn’t fall for you though, not now at least. Both of you were healing from breakups
The longer you met up with Percy, the better you felt. You were absolutely devastated when your now ex had broken up with you, saying something along the lines of, “it’s not you, it’s me,” when you begged for an explanation
You knew the truth, though. People in camp didn’t see you as anything other than Aphrodite’s favourite daughter, a pretty girl who just cared about her makeup and romance novels. While you loved both things, you weren’t anywhere near that level of shallowness
So, they date you just to say that the most gorgeous girl in camp’s dating them, then break up with you the moment you say anything remotely intellectual, challenging their masculinity
Usually, you didn’t care too much, since you know your own self-worth, but for some reason, your breakup with Ali really hurt. Maybe it’s because you thought as a son of Athena, with sisters who were also smart, he’d understand
You spent the first couple days after your breakup doing nothing other than crying in your bunk and reading romance books (which only made you feel worse). Your siblings, bless their hearts, had tried to make you feel better - doing your nails, telling you jokes - but nothing worked
Until Percy. You didn’t know if it was the fact that he was going through a breakup too, or the fact that he was still funny despite having his heart broken too, but he was the only person who knew how to make you smile, pulling you out of the pit you were in and allowing you to bask in the daylight
The week flew by, and eventually, it was time for the wedding. Your siblings fawned all over you as they did your hair and makeup, an Aphrodite cabin tradition. Usually, this tradition was only performed before first dates as a ‘good luck charm’ of sorts, but they decided to do it for you before the wedding
You thought they were just being sweet, forgetting that you shared a mother and therefore they of all people would know when you met the one. Your siblings saw the way Percy brought the glow back to your skin, and were eternally grateful as now they had their precious sister back
They were also grateful to him because you’d be gone for a whole day, meaning there was nothing stopping them from taking revenge on the Athena cabin :) Never underestimate the power of love!
“Hi Percy!” You said, waving, a bright smile plastered on your face. The dress you were wearing was a colour your mother knew suited you perfectly, and it cascaded down your body in waves, the lace detailing doing nothing to calm Percy’s rapidly beating heart.
The poor boy was genuinely afraid he’d pass out as he held an arm out for you, which you gladly took, wanting to be as close to him as possible, “you look gorgeous,” he said, blushing
“You don’t look too bad yourself,” you replied, the grin on your face growing. Your cheeks hurt, but something about Percy had you unable to stop smiling
Together, you left camp and headed for the wedding venue - Montauk beach
As a daughter of Aphrodite, you had a lot of experience with weddings. For some reason, wedding invites always seemed to find their way to the children of love, and so you’ve attended lots of them
And you adored every single one, of course, but they all paled in comparison to Sally and Paul’s. It wasn’t the most extravagant you’ve ever attended - just a small wedding with only close friends and family (and you) invited, but you could feel the love radiating off of the newlyweds
That alone made it your favourite, and as a warm, fuzzy feeling coated your body and soul while they were saying their vows, you turned to look at Percy. The corners of his lips were tilted in a smile, knowing how much his mother deserved her happily ever after
Would you ever experience a love like that? And if so, was there a chance it could be with Percy? Sure, you’d only properly known him for a week, but the two of you connected so quickly! Surely, that had to be a sign
You quickly pushed those thoughts to the back of your mind. Even if it was a sign, you knew neither of you were ready to date yet
So, when the wedding ended, you said your goodbyes and walked side-by-side in silence, unsaid words hanging in the air between you
That was until your heel broke. You knew these weren’t a good pair, having had many close calls before, but you’d hoped they’d last just one more wear since they matched the rest of your outfit so well
“Shit!” You said, stumbling as the heel finally gave in. Subconsciously, Percy grabbed you by the waist, saving you from an awful fall whilst pulling you closer to him. You felt your face heat up at this gesture, which wasn’t doing much to help your confusing feelings
He then let go of you, bending down to untie his shoelaces. Furrowing your brows, you asked, “what’re you doing?” Percy didn’t reply until he’d taken off both shoes, offering them to you
“You can wear these. I have socks,” you couldn’t believe your ears. None of the men you went out with before would even think to do something so selfless. You shook your head, about to tell him you couldn’t do that, when he bent down to put the shoes on you (PERSEUS JACKSON 😭🙏🏼). They weren’t your size, but it wasn’t the end of the world
Shyly, you mumbled, “thank you,” then, looking off to the side, you said, “we can still hang out at camp, right? You’re a really good friend, Percy. I haven’t felt this happy in a while.”
“Of course, Y/N, what kind of question is that? You make me really happy too!”
At that moment, a dove flew over and landed on your shoulder. You smiled, scratching his head. Judging by the fact that it smelt like perfume, it was pretty safe to assume your mother sent it
A good omen
After the wedding, you continued to hang out. In fact, you did everything together - you made sure your cabins were on the same side when playing capture the flag, you joined forces during the chariot races, you even started sleeping at Percy’s cabin every once in a while, on the days when your meetups went past curfew and you couldn’t risk leaving in case the harpies caught you
As the months passed, the gash in your heart healed, and you got to a point where you wouldn’t even think about Ali anymore. How could you, when Percy was right there? He didn’t feel challenged by your brains, he embraced your cleverness and encouraged you to share your thoughts at all times
Percy also started getting over Annabeth. He wasn’t ever upset at her for breaking up with him, but he definitely avoided her. He felt bad about it, but every time he tried to hang out with her again, his heart would ache
Now, their relationship had gone back to what it was before their breakup, and she’d even join the two of you occasionally. On one of her visits, she apologised on her brother’s behalf, to which you were elated to reply with, “Gods, I completely forgot about that!”
Annabeth would simply smile, knowing you had your eyes on someone else now
In fact, everyone seemed to know you and Percy liked each other. Everyone but the two of you
That’s why they’d orchestrated this. The Apollo, Aphrodite and Dionysus cabins, as well as a couple demigods from other cabins, decided to throw a party in celebration of… well, a holiday
The point of this was that there was no special occasion. You and Percy would arrive at this ‘party’ only to realise you’d been tricked, then stay because you just love being around each other, then the fireworks would illuminate the sky and you’d realise how much you love each other and share a romantic kiss under the stars
At least, that’s what your siblings thought would happen
So, news about the celebration passed around camp and eventually made its way to you. You weren’t going to go at first, since you didn’t even know what you were supposed to be celebrating, but then Percy told you he was going. Why would you pass up the opportunity to go to a party with him?
The night arrived, and you left your cabin alone. When you asked your siblings why they weren’t coming, they just started yapping about needing to iron their outfits and wash their makeup brushes, telling you they’d catch up with you later. You left, not questioning much
Hiding behind the bushes was a strange group: Pollux, Kayla Knowles, Piper Mclean and Annabeth Chase. The four had their eyes locked on where you and Percy were supposed to meet up, praying their plan would work
“Ugh, where are they? They’re taking forever!” Kayla exclaimed, quickly earning a chorus of shushes from the other three
“I’m sure they’ll come soon,” Piper told the girl, putting some charmspeak into her words so everyone would calm down
On cue, you and Percy arrived at the venue, your laughter dying down as you realised not a single soul was there. Looking down at his watch, Percy said, “I thought we were late. Doesn’t this thing start at 9PM? It’s 9:30 right now.”
“Yeah,” you replied. You had a feeling there was something bigger at play here. Shrugging your shoulders, you sat on the grass and patted the spot next to you, telling Percy to sit
“This area’s actually really nice, we should come here more often,” you said as you looked around. Percy hummed in agreement
Eventually, the four decided you spent enough time chatting, and Pollux lit the fireworks, which shot up to the sky as bright pink hearts. You checked your surroundings, demigod instincts on alert. Had a monster infiltrated camp? Was this their idea of a sick joke?
Percy placed a calming hand on your shoulder, “hey, I don’t think there’s anyone around. It’s okay.” The tension left your body and you looked up at the sky, your head on Percy’s shoulder as you watched the fireworks
There were too many signs
You turned to the boy, and found he was already looking at you
There were too many signs
You grabbed him by the collar and pulled him closer to you, feeling his breath on your skin. He let you
There were too many signs
You kissed him then, and he kissed back
Dating hcs now 🥳 I think that’s the longest backstory I’ve ever written
You’re a “if you do it, I’ll do it” kind of couple. Even without your charmspeak, you could convince Percy to rob a building just by saying you wanted him to
Sally and Paul were really happy when they found out you started dating. Even though it’d been almost a year since their wedding, they hadn’t forgotten the loving glances you’d take at each other
You tell them their wedding’s your favourite by far and they have to fight the urge to cry
Percy quite literally worships the ground you walk on. You’re not Percy’s girlfriend, he's Y/N’s boyfriend LOL. As your relationship progresses, you open up about all your other relationships and only your charmspeak could stop him from going and giving all those guys a lecture
He’s always hyping you up and reminding you of how you’re worthy of love!!! Even a daughter of Aphrodite needs to hear it sometimes
One day, the Gods seem to be smiling down at him, since he finally gets an opportunity to speak with Ali. Life went majorly downhill for your ex-boyfriend ever since you broke up, and while you’d never wish horrible things upon anyone, you couldn’t help but feel a little happy to hear it
Anyways. Percy was heading to the climbing wall when Ali bumped into him. The latter grunted an apology and Percy was going to just smile at him and continue his journey when he noticed who it was
Immediate scowl. If you listen closely you can hear the nearest body of water churning, mirroring Percy’s emotions. Ali attempts to continue going where he was going but Percy stops him, refusing to let him go until he gets an earful of how you’re the best girl in the world and how scum like him didn’t deserve to be anywhere near a queen like you <3
He thinks you don’t know he did this but one of your siblings was around and reported to you as soon as they saw you! They also told the rest of your cabin and from then on the Aphrodite cabin = official Percy fanclub
This boy loves listening to you talk. Your voice is so gorgeous, just like the rest of you, he can’t help it!! Your words flowed in a way Percy never thought words could
Gets you to read things aloud whenever he can. It’s really funny but also cute so you do it anyway
“Sweetie can you read this I can’t see it very clearly” “Percy that’s the camp entrance you know what it says” “No I think my eyesight is getting worse!!” “Okay fine, it says ‘Camp Half-Blood’”
Also random but you guys watch Say Yes to the Dress and other wedding related TV shows together. A wedding intertwined your fates so naturally you love watching these kinds of things
Always commenting on the dresses! You have an eye for beauty and at first he agrees with you just because you’re so pretty how could he disagree? But eventually you pass your tastes onto him and it’s like he can read your mind
After many of these episodes Percy’s mind can’t help but gravitate towards the theme of marriage and all of a sudden he’s planning your own wedding (WINK WINK!!!!)
This is especially bad in the middle of the night. Texts you pictures of wedding venues with the caption “do you want me to book this one?” Like okay sure for 5 years from now?!?!
Percy “wear whatever you want babe I can fight” Jackson the man you are <3
#percy jackson x reader#percy jackson x you#percy jackson x y/n#percy jackson#percy jackson x fem reader#pjo#pjo x reader#percy jackson fanfic#percy jackson headcannons#percy jackson x aphrodite reader#percy jackson x daughter of aphrodite#aphrodite pjo#children of aphrodite#daughter of aphrodite#cynwrites
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Hello, hope you're having a good day/night
I was wondering if I could request Bruce x Bat Dad (and some bat fam)
What if reader knew about the darker things in the world like demons and horrors unimaginable from the time he was small and that's why he doesn't talk about things like growing up or his family.
What if reader gets captured by a cult that torture him in order to force reader to translate strange eldritch books and artifacts.
You can choose how long it takes for Bruce to find reader
(What if Bruce and the batfam find out that reader has been hunting and investigating the supernatural like a small base of operations that looks more like a library with hidden weapons)
Hi, I hope you have a good day or night too. Of course you can request. Hehe. Lets go. Also, I'm sorry for taking so long... I hope you like it! And yes, the ending may be rushed, but it's not that bad.
Summary: (Y/N) gets taken for his knowledge.
Warnings: cult, fight, implications of torture... Nothing is really direct per say.
(Y/N) sighed as he closed his old leather book. He wished he didn't have this knowledge, this... (Y/N) swallowed as he put his book back and left the room, closing the fake bookcase. He rubbed his face as he was tired from this life. He wished he didn't have this knowledge. He knows the things that would turn the world upside down.
He met with hell's worst demons and he saw some of the other unspeakable horrors. (Y/N) never had a good life. He grew up in a satanic cult, the one who was genuinely believing that Satan is coming and that they are going to be his loyal servants.
He was apparently marked by Satan when he was born, but then again, when you are in a cult, you believe what they tell you. (Y/N) escaped when he was 16 years old, running like the devil himself was chasing him. (Y/N) came to Gotham with only clothes on his back.
Soon he met a nice guy who helped him. (Y/N) is smart and intelligent and he managed to start high school. He graduated after 3 years and went on to study history and religion at college. He was always interested in those things and soon enough, he found himself working in a museum.
It was a nice change of pace for once. Learning about old things and older religions and he liked it when he could teach someone something new. Of course, he was vigilant of new people and people in general. He was careful when meeting someone new, hoping that the cult didn't go after him. He could only hope so.
Dating after being in a cult it's difficult. Always suspicious of any one coming into his life romantically. Men or women, being suspicious from the get go was a certified way to see if someone was from the cult. It was also one of the fastest ways to get your relationship destroyed.
Then Bruce Wayne came into his life.
It was a coincidence. Bruce saw an interesting exhibition and decided to treat Damian to a little treat. (Y/N) was making his way through the museum, just enjoying his day and making sure every visitor was taken care of. He saw Bruce and Damian, looking in confusion.
(Y/N) walked over and asked if everything was okay and the rest was history. He lead the two through the museum, enjoying the fact that Damian knew a lot about history and it was actually fun to debate a child who knew something over a fact.
Bruce was quiet, enjoying the tour and well... Love at first sight for Bruce. He was chatting with (Y/N) and saw how guarded he was. Sure, everyone is guarded around strangers, but this is a whole another level of being guarded.
Bruce was rather intrigued, but he didn't want to push any boundaries. So he left (Y/N) his number, saying no pressure to say yes, but do call.
To say (Y/N) was a nervous wreck is an understatement. What the hell was Bruce Wayne doing with him? Was he just looking for a one night stand? Or was just flirting to keep with the playboy persona? He came home and stared at the card for 10 minutes, thinking about it.
Should he?
Should he not?
You know what? He's not made from glass. He will go for it and whatever happens, happens. He texted Bruce, he wasn't really brave enough to call. He really wasn't.
He jumped when he saw that Bruce responded.
To cut a very long story short, Bruce and (Y/N) are together to this day. The date went very well and (Y/N) was happy for the first time. He has never been happier. Together with a man who loves him and the kids who love him.
(Y/N) may love the kids more than Bruce, but Bruce won't complain. Anyone who accepted his kids, he was more than happy and if that person loved the kids more than Bruce...
Of course, in platonic way.
But there was something that bothered the family, well, not bothered, but it was interesting to them. It was (Y/N)'s past. It was something he hid and refused to talk about. He would get closed off and cold and soon enough they learnt to not ask about it.
Of course, in a family full of detectives, they wanted to investigate, but they knew that they shouldn't have because it was an invasion of privacy. So, they have decided to leave (Y/N)'s past alone.
Also, one thing that they loved about (Y/N) was the fact that he was teaching them history, something they all loved. Jason was a fan of Egypt and Sumerians. Dick loved European history, more so medieval times. Tim loved the Enigma and the making of a first computer?
And Damian? World War Two and Arabic history.
Alfred loved (Y/N) too and he would love nothing more for Bruce to marry that man. God knows that this household needs another emotionally stable person. Somewhat...
Alfred was not the one to complain.
He saw how (Y/N) and Bruce complimented one another and Bruce gave (Y/N) a push to write his book about history of religion. (Y/N) has always wanted to write that and Bruce gave him a push he needed. But not financially.
(Y/N) said he would do it all on his own. Bruce had no problem with that statement. He agreed to not pull connections with anyone or any publishing house. But he wasn't against getting (Y/N) his materials. He had no problem delivering the materials right to his door or at his work.
(Y/N) knew that Bruce was Batman so he knew that Bruce was in front of his apartment or in his office. (Y/N) enjoyed and was happy to see them.
(Y/N) entered his apartment and went to the kitchen. He was completely oblivious to the fact that there was a dark figure in his living room. (Y/N) took a sip of the water before he heard a creak on the floor board. He acted like it was nothing before throwing the glass in the direction on the sound. He hit the figure and (Y/N) grabbed a knife.
(Y/N) watched as the figure doubled down in pain, before recovering. The figure has stepped into the light and (Y/N) recognized the face.
" You motherfucker... " (Y/N) said as he gripped the handle of the knife tighter.
" That's no way to talk to your leader. " The deep male voice said and (Y/N) sized him up.
Maybe he can make it out. But the leader is strong and full of muscles. He has to evade him. Somehow.
That plan went down to shit when he saw two more figures. Sure, the leader needs to have protection. (Y/N) glanced between the trio. Someone is going to attack first.
Which one is the question.
(Y/N) ducked a punch and tried to stab the incoming one, but he was hurled over the couch, taking it with him. (Y/N) grunted as he hit the floor and he stood up after a few moments. He didn't have his knife with him.
Shit.
He nearly died when there was a fourth figure picking him up, before throwing him into his glass coffee table. (Y/N) grunted as he hit his head. He hissed as he tried to get up, but a kick to his face sent him flying back and he was dazed.
" I'm not coming with you. " (Y/N) said as he wiped the blood from his face.
" Oh you are. We know you can translate the demon transcriptions. And we need those translations. " The leader said and (Y/N) glared at them.
He won't go out without a fight.
" You are outnumbered. There is no way out. " The leader said and (Y/N) glanced at the other two. They were blocking the exit. They only way is to fight out or at least try.
But there was no weapon in sight. So he was screwed. Kicking and punching his way out can only take him so far.
But he had to try.
So he did just that. He tried to fight, but he was punched in the jaw quickly that he was nearly knocked. He fell down, hitting his head hard once more.
His vision was swimming and he couldn't see who was where anymore. His only hope now was Bruce. He knew Bruce would drop by later in the night and that he would find him. Bruce would never stop looking for him.
The kiddos too...
His jaw got punched once more and he blacked out. Now the cult had him where they wanted him. They could do what they pleased.
And if that meant torture... Well, then so be it.
Two fucking months. Bruce was losing his mind as he was looking for his boyfriend. He was horrified when he learnt of (Y/N)'s past, who wouldn't be terrified? Learning and growing up in a cult?
Bruce remembers the first time he entered the apartment and he will always wonder about a lot of things. More so that (Y/N) is somewhat normal.
Bruce was shocked that (Y/N) turned out normal. The trauma he must have went through... He was even more shocked when they found out the secret library in his apartment... Bruce had to call John Constantine to see what the hell was happening here.
John knew exactly what this was. (Y/N) was a hunter who hunted demons and banished them back to hell. Bruce was officially in the dark now. His beloved, his significant other was a hunter? Who went after demons?
Bruce didn't know how the hell he was going to explain this to his kids. How can you explain something like this? Bruce analyzed every part of the apartment, trying to figure out what happened.
He saw that (Y/N) had a knife, but was threw around the room. Then he was put through his glass coffee table. Bruce sighed quietly as John looked through the books.
" This is an amazing collection. " John commented as he looked through the books and the weapons.
" Is that really important right now? " Bruce snapped at the man and John just shrugged his shoulders.
" I guess not, but I know people who would kill for this collection. Bruce, he has knowledge of the single handedly one of the most ancient languages in the world. I can only count people on one hand that know this language. " John explained.
Bruce sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose.
" I think I know why they kidnapped your partner. " John said as he picked up a book. Bruce raised his brow in question.
" The cult that took him wanted some translations it seems. " John said as he opened and old, leather bound book, more interested in the book at the moment.
" That's not good. I'm assuming he will resist... They are going to torture him. " Bruce said solemnly, eyes darting around the apartment.
" We will put the bookshelf the way it was. Maybe they were after the books and weapons. " Bruce said and John sighed as he put the book where he found it and then did what Bruce asked from him.
From that day, two months passed. Bruce and everyone else worked tirelessly to find their favorite person. Bruce his boyfriend, soon to be a fiancé, the boys their second dad, one that is more emotionally open and Alfred needed one person who is going to be somewhat normal.
Bruce nearly jumped out of his skin when he got a location. They boys and him piled into the batmobile and drove as fast as the car allowed it.
To say that they had to fight their way in was an understatement. Alfred was anxiously waiting in the cave.
Bruce nearly died when he saw (Y/N). Bloodied, bruised... Bruce didn't want to know the specifics. He picked his beloved up and moved to the car and he made sure to call the SWAT team from GCPD, alongside a few more organizations.
The cult deserves it, okay? Was he over reacting? Maybe.
But that didn't matter now. What mattered is the fact that (Y/N) is taken care of and is alive and well.
To say he drove like a madman... Would be the biggest understatement of the century. Once they came, they rushed their favorite person to Alfred.
Time was of the essence.
Bruce waited for his boys to finish talking to their second dad. (Y/N) had awoken and although still weak, he still talked to his sons. After 20 minutes, Bruce ushered them out, making them all protest a bit, but in the end they knew that they need to go.
Jason hugged his dad, very carefully and left. Dick kissed his dad's cheek and Tim squeezed his hand. Damian hugged his second dad before leaving and the two partners are soon left alone.
" I'm sorry for not telling you the truth... But it was too difficult. " (Y/N) said and Bruce kissed his cheek softly.
" Don't apologize. I understand that. "
" I'm assuming you found my base? " (Y/N) asked and Bruce nodded.
" John said you have a collection people would kill for... This is such shit timing, but would you like to move in? " Bruce said and (Y/N) snorted, but stopped because of his ribs.
" Yes, I would love nothing more. "
Bruce kissed (Y/N)'s cheek again. " Good. I'll leave you to rest. "
" Can you stay with me? "
Bruce smiled and nodded, changing into his PJs before gently laying down next to (Y/N), wrapping him into blankets and the two quickly feel asleep.
The two were finally reunited.
#dc comics#dc x male reader#x male reader#batfamily#bruce wayne x male reader#batman x male reader#jason todd x male reader#red hood x male reader#dick grayson x male reader#nightwing x male reader#tim drake x male reader#red robin x male reader#damian wayne x male reader
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I Don't Smoke
Pairing: Javier Peña x fem!reader
Author's note: this hatched as an idea for @tightjeansjavi 's june writing challenge but it doesn't end as I thought it would necessarily but I kinda lurv it so (ps thank you @egcdeath for your help 🫶)
Summary: "Most things will be okay eventually, but not everything will be. Sometimes you'll put up a good fight and lose. Sometimes you'll hold on really hard and realize there is no choice but to let go. Acceptance is a small quiet room." aka Javi makes a reappearance in your life [8.6k (she’s a whopper)]
Warnings: canonical type shit
It's a random Friday in April 1998 when you're walking down the hallway of FBI headquarters and hear a familiar voice call your name. Not just any voice but a voice you came to know as well as you would know your own. A voice you loved. A voice you haven't heard in four years. You freeze in your tracks and take two breaths before you actually turn around to see him.
He smiles big as he approaches you, and you struggle to find the same response. His hair is shorter and styled nicely, and he's wearing a bureaucratic suit, which you know he hates or used to hate. He's broader than you remember and seemingly more confident. You're still tense, but once he's close enough, muscle memory takes over, and you hug him.
His cologne is different. For some reason, that tugs at your heart.
"Hey, honey," he says into your hair, squeezing you a little harder. You hold him for another second before remembering you're at work and let him go. "Wasn't expectin' such a warm welcome."
"Well, that's what happens when you see an old friend for the first time in a long time." You say and Javi smirks, scratching at the stubble on his jaw.
"'Old friend.' Is that what they're calling it these days?"
"It is when I'm at work and have a reputation to uphold."
"Right," he says and puts his hands up in defense. "Didn't mean to insult Ms. FBI."
"What are you doing here? Last I heard, you resigned." You redirect, making him laugh even though you just gave away that you kept up with him even after you broke up.
"Stoddard asked me to teach a few classes to incoming DEA agents. Figured it was a good enough reason to get out of Texas," he says. You step to the side to let somebody go by in the hallway, and that ever-wandering eye falls down your body. "You look great."
"You too," you adjust some files against your chest, suddenly all too aware of how heavy his gaze is, and glance around. "How long are you in town for?"
"A week. We should get drinks or something. Catch up." He says, and you laugh at the absurdity of it all. You're talking like you went to college together, and you're gonna reminisce about the good ole days over a few drinks. You take a deep breath and nod.
"Sure, Javi. When are you free?"
"For you? Any time," he says so easily your heart squeezes. "But, I'm around tonight. I can meet you at the bar across from the Hill after work?"
"That works for me."
"Alright, then. I'll see you tonight." He smiles and looks you over again before swaggering down the hallway and into one of the classrooms like he used to walk to your desk or into your apartment. Nostalgia and something bigger bubbles in your throat, and you swallow it down.
You've often wondered about what it'd be like if you ever saw Javi again.
You never expected it would sting as much as it does.
You force yourself down the hallway into your office and let out a big sigh as you bury your head in your hands. Your engagement is cold against your skin.
You should be planning a wedding. You should be debating which version of white the napkins should be— eggshell or cream— or fighting with vendors on the phone. You should be doing a lot of things in the two months leading up to your wedding. Getting drinks with your ex is not one of them.
You worked at the United States Embassy in Bogotá during the hunt for Pablo Escobar in the early nineties. You were a fresh graduate from the DEA academy and got shipped off the day after you passed all your exams. They needed bodies in chairs and on the ground doing work to end the drug war, and you just happened to have a pulse and the qualification. Javier Peña happened to have those same things. Now, he's known as one of the men who took down the most dangerous crime syndicates in Latin America, but, at the time, he was just Javi.
He was a little older, a little more experienced, and, by all accounts, a little bit of a slut. He had a wandering eye and a bad habit of sleeping with newly minted Embassy employees who didn't know better. You were warned about Javi and his brown eyes and swagger, but you couldn't avoid him. He was your coworker, for Christ's sake. So all you could do was remind yourself you were there for a job and try to ignore him when possible. What they don't tell you about being thousands of miles away from home and dealing with nightmare-inducing horrors every single day is that you start looking for comfort wherever you can find it.
You made bad decisions like smoking cigarette after cigarette, sneaking just a little bit of whiskey in your coffee, or letting Javi bend you over his desk and leave bruises on your skin as he buried himself inside you. One time, you told yourself. You'll do this one time to get it out of your system, and then you'll both move on. As long as it didn't interfere with work, you thought it was okay to fuck him once, but either convenience or care kept you reaching for each other for the rest of your time in Colombia.
You spent most nights at his apartment because it was a little nicer and it felt like it would be too real if he entered your space. For all his sarcasm and hard edges, he was sweet with you. He'd make you breakfast and drive you to work under the guise of carpooling. Over time, you started to learn all his little quirks and tells, and you looked for him first when the smoke cleared and the gunfire ceased. He started stealing files off your pile of paperwork so you'd have less work to do, cook your favorite meals, and was ready with open arms when things got to be too much.
The love was like everything else that happened between you: quiet yet all-consuming.
As the months stretched on and you only grew to love him more and more, you started to imagine a life with him. You were naive and had too much faith in the world, but you couldn't stop yourself. The daydreams of a house with a big backyard, a dog, and maybe a few kids to fill it kept you alive when it felt like not even the weapon attached to your hip could. You wanted it so bad. You told him how much you wanted it, and he agreed despite how fucking crazy it sounded out loud. Love allows you to be delusional to avoid the possibility of rejection.
And you loved him so much that you let yourself believe once Escobar was dead or in prison that, you could go home together and live a somewhat normal life. That he could give it all up. That you could make it work.
So you threw yourself into the hunt. You didn't sleep. You barely ate. You went from smoking a few cigarettes a day to a pack as you got closer and closer. Javi wasn't much better off, and you definitely enabled each other's behavior, but you believed so hard in this future that you thought it would be worth it in the end.
He got snappy, and you argued a lot. You both shut down so much that it's a miracle you could find your way back to normalcy. He didn't even tell you when he got sent to D.C. for questioning. He just disappeared. When you and Steve stood over Escobar's body on a rooftop in Medellín, you couldn't focus on anything but the blood splatter on the shoes Javi got you as an early Christmas gift. At the end of the day, your only thought was, "It's over. We can go home. We can start over. We can make something of this."
Escobar wasn't even cold when Javi accepted a new position in Cali.
Everything he'd seen and done, the things you counseled each other through, the faces that kept him up at night didn't matter as much as that job. He broke the news to you as you were packing up your apartment. "There's an opportunity out there for you, too," he said, looking at you with those big eyes. You almost folded, drowning in affection for him, until you remembered how many times he'd almost died or disappeared without a word or struggled so much he buried his memories between your legs or at the bottom of a bottle.
How could he want to return to that? How could he want you to return to that?
That's when you broke.
You don't remember exactly what was said during the argument, but you know it was bad. There was a lot of yelling and tears. You said things you didn't mean, and he returned the favor. It went on for what seemed like hours, back and forth back and forth, until you were exhausted and done negotiating. You gave him an ultimatum: come to D.C. with you and start your lives, or go to Cali. He chose Cali. You chose D.C., and that was it.
That had to be it.
You didn't talk much in those final days, but you did a lot of crying. The horrors he helped keep at bay threatened to suffocate you. You were a shell of a person, but you couldn't reach for him again, knowing he didn't love you enough to stay with you. You had the tiniest shred of self-respect.
So, the day you left, you gave his stuff back, and he drove you to the airport in complete silence, even walking you all the way to the terminal without saying a word. His final act of care even when you'd told him you hated him forty-eight hours earlier. You waited until the very last second to get on the plane, hoping he'd change his mind or you'd change yours. You were both too stubborn and too broken, so you wished him luck and left. You didn't even hug him because you were so scared you'd never leave his arms if you did.
Things happened fast once you were stateside again. Within a week, you found a nice apartment in D.C., transferred to the FBI, adopted a cat named Astro, and swore off dating. With all your experience in Colombia, you got your pick of jobs and workload. You avoided field work for a while and got stuck pushing papers around at your desk, but you got bored three months in and asked to go back out. Your first case back in the field had you dealing with a serial arsonist who may or may not have had ties to a terrorist group. You were examining the rubble of yet another building when one of the firefighters called your name.
Harry was tall and charming and trying to explain something about accelerants, but all you could do was watch his scarred hands as they pointed. You remember thinking he was going to be a problem. It took three more fires for you to catch your guy, and Harry would later say it took those fires to build up the courage to ask you out. "You were much scarier than any fire," he told you. He had soot on his cheeks, and the flashing lights made his eyes sparkle. There was something about that stupid New York accent that just made you melt.
You thought one date couldn't hurt. You thought it would help you adjust to your new life. When he showed up in a nice shirt with a bouquet of flowers to pick you up for your first date, you knew you were fucked.
You went on a second date. And a third. And a fourth. He was patient with you as you struggled to open up to him about your time in the DEA and never pressured you to tell him anything you weren't ready to. That Christmas, you went home to New York with him and met his parents and all three of his sisters. By the next spring, you, Harry, and Astro moved into an apartment halfway between each of your jobs.
You got into the habit of bringing him cookies when he worked overnights at the station and smelling his shirt when he got home because, more often than not, it'd still smell like smoke. He'd surprise you with coffee or flowers at work "just because" and drag you away from your desk when you've been staring at the same words for however long. When a bullet grazed you in the middle of a chase, he made one of his EMT friends drive him to the hospital you were at in the ambulance with the lights on so he could get there as fast as possible. He made it in seven minutes and started crying the moment he saw you lying in the hospital bed, even though you were completely fine.
For something as unexpected as this relationship, you guys work really well. He cooks dinner, and you wash the dishes at the end of the night. He looks at big houses in nice neighborhoods and humors you even though there's no way you can afford it with two civil servant paychecks. But, when you see him playing with your nieces and nephews, something so deep inside you aches that you think the life-long debt would be worth it if it meant he got to be a dad. You take time off to visit his family, and even though he thinks it's the most badass thing about you, he doesn't say anything about your involvement with Escobar until you accidentally let something slip during a barbecue. When work gets too much, you hold each other, cry, and make promises to stay alive.
He proposes to you on the fourth anniversary of your first date. You knew he would because you'd looked at rings together, but you blub like a baby anyway and almost tackle him to the ground in Rock Creek Park. You're deliriously happy as you celebrate your engagement and even as you start to plan the wedding. It's like you blinked, and suddenly, it'd been four years since you left Colombia, and you're living the life you dreamt about, just with a new person. A person you love so fucking much, you still get butterflies when he walks in the room. The ring on your finger and the way he casually drops "my wife" into conversation when he means "fiancée" only adds to the giddiness.
You can't wait to spend the rest of your life with him. So, why the fuck did you agree to get drinks with Javi?
You pick your head up and dial the firehouse number before your brain can fully devolve into panic mode. They might be out dealing with a fire, but you figure it's worth a shot. On the second ring, Jack answers with his gruff "D.C. Fire Station 19."
"Hey, Jack."
"Oh, hey, darlin'! How're you doin'?" He asks, and you swear you can hear him smiling. Jack is one of Harry's best friends and groomsmen, and he absolutely adores you.
"I'm good. How're you?" You ask, already feeling the weight come off your shoulders just from talking to someone.
"You know, I can't complain. I mean, I could, but I won't," he says, and you laugh. "You callin' for your lover boy?"
"If he's not busy, yes."
"Nah, you're all good. Well, listen, it was nice talkin' to you, sweetheart. I'll get him now." He says before yelling Harry's name through the station so loud you wonder if the neighbors could hear him. There's some shuffling and a quick "'S your wife" as the phone changes hands. The identifier makes you laugh and it's the first thing Harry hears when he presses the phone to his ear.
"Oh, you have no idea how much I needed to hear that." He swoons, and you make a sympathetic noise.
"Rough day?"
"No, I just miss you."
"You're so cheesy," you say. "I miss you too. A lot."
"You okay? You sound off." He asks, and you chuckle. Of course, he caught the tiniest change in your voice.
"I'm okay. I bumped into somebody I worked with in Colombia today, so I just… feel weird," you say, rubbing your forehead. You hear him shuffle like he's trying to move to a more private place, but the cord on the phone isn't letting him get very far.
"Good weird or bad weird?"
"I don't know. Just weird. We're gonna get some drinks tonight and catch up."
"Maybe that'll help," he chirps. "I mean, as much as I like listening to your stories, it might make you feel better to talk to someone who was there. Maybe get some closure."
"Maybe." You say. It goes quiet on the line, but you know he's there because you can hear him breathing and hear the distant sounds of the firehouse. You don't feel pressured to say anything; just knowing he's there breaks up the tension in your chest. "Chief is gonna have your ass if he finds out you're running up the phone bill." You tease, and he laughs.
"I'll just tell him I'm talking to my wife, and if he doesn't want me on the phone, then he should stop making me work overnights."
"Which I'm sure he'll take well."
"You're his favorite. I'm almost positive he'd install a whole phone just for you," he says. It's true, but hearing it still makes you smile. It goes quiet again.
You watch people mill around the bullpen from your office window and chew the inside of your cheek. You should tell him it's Javi. He wouldn't discourage you from getting drinks with him, but he knows your history with him. He should be in the loop. He's going to be your husband, for God's sake. But you also don't need him worrying about this while in a burning building or doing CPR.
"You know I'm not technically your wife for another two months, right?" You change the subject, and he hums.
"Yeah, but it has a nice ring to it. My wife." Even the way he says it over the phone makes you giddy.
"I can't argue with that." You say. He takes a deep breath, and you copy him.
"You're gonna be okay. Go get drinks with your friend and try to have some fun. Maybe invite them to the wedding if you get drunk enough and decide it's a good idea," he suggests, and you laugh at the idea of Javi at your wedding. "I'll be home tomorrow afternoon, and we can talk about it or not talk about it if that's what you want, okay?"
"Okay." You resolve and twirl the phone cord in your fingers.
"I love you."
"I love you, too. Have a good day. Don't be a hero."
"Wouldn't dream of it." He says. You wait another second to have him nearby before hanging up and looking out over the bullpen again.
You could not show up. You could go home, cuddle with Astro, and put on Sex and the City or something else to take your mind off the day. You could go to bed early and take Harry breakfast in the morning. You know his hair will be messy and a little darker than normal, but he'll still smile and pull you into his lap even though the guys tease him all the time about your PDA.
But you're also too interested in what Javi could have to say to do that. You owe it to yourself to get closure or answers or whatever the fuck he has left to offer you.
And then you'll never think about him again.
Easy.
It's a slow day filled with paperwork and pencil-pushing at the FBI. No bombs or killers or threats. Just meetings and emails and the dread about meeting with Javi all day. You linger around the office a little longer than you need to until you're almost late, and only then do you start walking to the Hill.
It's bustling with tourists dying for a peek at the cherry blossoms scattered around D.C. and the Suits you usually see trying to get home. The April sun feels good on your skin, especially after being inside all day, and you take a moment to watch the sun dip lower and lower in the sky.
All things considered, if Javi was going to visit D.C., this would be the time to do it. Spring is in full bloom, and the last dredges of winter only show up at night or early in the morning when it's still cold. People are constantly out walking their dogs or taking their kids to the playgrounds. It feels like the city has come alive again after such a long winter. You come up with a list of recommendations of things for Javi to do while he's here, even though he probably won't do any of them. The least you could do is give him something to distract himself from work.
By the time you get to the bar, the sun has nearly set, and traffic is a waking nightmare. You push your anxiety away and duck into the bar, searching for Javi's familiar eyes amongst the exhausted interns and law students. He's in the corner, scanning the space just like you thought he would, and there's a glass waiting for you at the table. His eyes light up when he sees you, and your chest aches.
He gets up to greet you with a hug and pulls your chair out for you like a gentleman. "Don't know if your order's changed, but I figured I'd make a guess." He says, gesturing to your drink as you settle across from each other. You smile and hang your jacket on the back of your chair.
"Thank you. Next round is on me," you say as you raise your glass to his and take a sip. "How was teaching?"
"It was fine. Although I wish they'd actually listen instead of just staring at me like I have a second head." He says, and you laugh.
"You're a living legend to them. Escobar and the Godfathers of Cali? You might be the most experienced person they've come across."
"I think I'm the person professors warn students not to be in the field."
"There are much worse things to be than a Javier Peña or a Steve Murphy," you say. "Besides, I think the DEA has bigger problems than a few rogue agents."
He shrugs and glances up when the bell above the door chimes, checking out whoever just walked in. He did the same thing when you sat in bars in Colombia like he was always waiting for a fight. You used to tease him about it, but the fact that he still does it makes you smile.
"Steve sends his love, by the way." He says.
"How is he? How old is Olivia now?"
"She's gonna be five soon, and they're about to have another baby. A boy," he beams. "They're all doing good. Steve runs training courses for FBI agents now and sometimes goes back to Colombia to liaise with their government. Connie works at a hospital, and Olivia's in Pre-K."
"Sounds like you guys talk a lot." You're pleasantly surprised. They were good partners, but they could barely stand to look at each other when things got tense. Not to mention Steve leaving the DEA at the same time you did.
"Well, when Olivia started calling me Uncle Javi, it was pretty hard to ignore him," he says, and you 'aw' at the idea of her little hands reaching for him. Uncle Javi suits him. "She's a good kid."
He fills you in on his work in Texas and asks about your transfer. You tell him what you can about your job and the annoying bureaucrats you hate working with. He seems lighter than you've seen before, not just because of the drink in his hand. His shoulders are relaxed, and even though he still has the instincts of someone working in the field, he doesn't get trapped in them like he used to. It's a nice change.
You're almost done with your first drink when he digs a pack of cigarettes out of his pocket and offers you one. God, when was the last time you even bought a pack of cigarettes? It had to have been right after Harry came home from a particularly bad fire resulting from a stray cigarette. Three people died. After that, you couldn't pick up a cigarette without thinking about the seventeen-year-old who got stuck in the apartment. That must've been three years ago now.
"I quit," you say, and he raises his eyebrows at you.
"That's new." He says like your hair turned blue before his eyes, but pops one into his mouth anyway. You shrug.
"Sorry to disappoint."
"No, no, 'm not disappointed. Just surprised."
"Yeah, well," you sigh. "American cigarettes aren't as good as the Colombian ones."
"I guess that's true," he says as he flicks his lighter open and inhales until the end glows. Just as always, he politely blows smoke away from your face. "Alright, so you got a new job, a new apartment, a cat, and you quit smoking. What else has changed since I saw you last?" He asks, and your thumb immediately presses into the band of your engagement ring.
Well, it's now or never.
"I, uh... I'm getting married," you say, and his eyes fall to your ring. "In two months." He takes a big sip.
"Congratulations," he says. It might be the most unenthusiastic thing you've ever heard somebody say. "Who's the lucky guy?"
"His name is Harry. We've been together for a few years now."
"What's he do?" He asks in his interrogator's voice, and you give him a look.
"We don't have to do this." You say. Javi takes another drag of his cigarette and grinds his teeth.
"Do what?" He asks. "It shouldn't be hard to talk about if you love him."
"I do."
"Then, why don't you want to tell me about him?"
"Is that a serious question?" You scoff, and he shrugs. "Fine. What do you want to know?"
"I already asked you," he says. "What does he do for work?"
"He's a firefighter." You know it's a cliche: a cop and a firefighter, but you don't really care.
"How'd you meet?"
"First field case I had was an arsonist. He was one of the guys on site when I got there."
"Romantic," Javi muses, and you hum. You wait for him to continue bombarding you with questions, but the air gets thick, and suddenly, all you can do is take big gulps of your drink. You signal to the bartender for another, and Javi finishes his cigarette in silence. "Well, I'm happy for you," he says softly. He doesn't seem like he is, but you know better than to press him, so you just nod.
"Thank you," you say. The bartender drops two more drinks off at your table, and Javi raises his glass to you.
"Here's to you and Terry-"
"Harry," you correct, and he laughs, breaking up the tension that's settled. He took the news much better than you expected, but you're still waiting for the other shoe to drop. There always seems to be one waiting when Javi's around.
"To you and Harry and a lifetime of happiness." He says, tapping his glass against yours and taking a drink. "Now, tell me what you've been doing with the fuckin' FBI."
"Oh, you're gonna need to buy me a few more drinks before I start spilling government secrets, Peña." The name rolls off your tongue before you can stop it, and it brings you back to hot Colombian days and red yarn on a corkboard and his apartment. He raises his eyebrows like it's a challenge and smirks.
"Don't tempt me with a good time."
It's late and you're drunk. Drunker than you've been in a while. You didn't mean to. You just kept talking and drinking, and it felt so good talking to him after so long. Once you got through with the elephant in the room, it was so easy to fall back into the groove with him. You talked about Colombia and your lives outside of work. You even tell him the story of accidentally letting it slip that you used to work for the DEA after smoking a little bit of weed with Harry's sister, Caitlin.
You laughed together until last call and then argued over who would pay the tab. "Consider it my weddin' gift," he half-slurred, and you rolled your eyes and let him pay.
Now, you're strolling the empty National Mall, working off your buzz and elongating the time you have with him. You didn't realize how much you missed him until tonight. Despite everything that happened, you did have good days with him. Days filled with music and chain smoking and laughter. You'd like to get those back. You'd like that version of him back.
As you walk, you point out monuments to him and messily retell the stories the tour guide told you when Harry thought a walking tour of D.C. was a good second-date idea. You switch presidents and periods too much to make sense, but Javi listens anyway. Every so often, his warm hand will brush against yours, barely touching your skin but enough for you to notice when he does it. Neither of you say anything about it or break the flow of your conversation. Maybe it's for old-time's sake. Maybe it's because you don't know what there is to say. The night is clear and eerily quiet. The only sound besides your laughter and drunken stories is the chilly wind blowing through the trees and the clacking of heels from an exhausted-looking White House intern as she walks by.
Or, at least, it was until you stumbled across a busker by the Lincoln Memorial. The empty space echoes with the sound of his saxophone, and you smile as you get closer. There are a few other people milling around, and a few take turns throwing coins in his case. You've seen him playing here before, but you've never had the time to actually stop and listen. He's good. You wish you'd stopped sooner.
"You wanna dance?" Javi whispers in your ear, his breath fanning across your neck, and you furrow your eyebrows.
"Here?" You ask, and he shrugs.
"Why not?"
"Because nobody else is."
"C'mon," he tuts. "Live a little." He doesn't wait for you to say anything else. He just grabs your hand and pulls you a little closer to the musician. You sigh but let Javi hold one of your hands and rest the other on his shoulder. He smirks and you roll your eyes to hide the fact that you're shocked he wants to dance. With you. In public.
Sure, you had little moments where you danced in the kitchen, but never in public. Even then, it wouldn't have ever been his idea to dance. He's like a whole new person. You don't know how to feel about it.
What the fuck happened to him in Cali?
He spins you under his arm, and you do your best to follow his lead. You have two left feet as it is, something Harry has helped get out of your system, but the alcohol makes it even worse. You almost trip yourself but land against Javi's chest before you can hit the ground. He makes an oomph sound but doesn't do anything to push you away. You don't do anything to pull away.
The saxophonist continues playing, and the cicadas chirp nearby. If you listen hard enough, you can hear Javi's heartbeat. You think you'd know the sound anywhere. You memorized the rise and fall of his chest when you woke up from nightmares, and he was the one to calm you down. You used to count the contractions of the muscles in his heart until you fell back to sleep. It was often the first thing you heard when you woke up if bombs weren't going off somewhere in the city or your phone wasn't blaring with an emergency message from the Embassy.
And now, here it is again, unexpectedly thumping against you after four years, following the rhythm of the music surrounding you. Javi's warm as he tentatively rests his head against yours, and you feel his fingers flex around your hip. A mixture of his cologne and cigarettes invades your senses, and you can do nothing but ride the nostalgia wave until the song ends.
You pry yourself from Javi to turn and applaud the saxophonist, and he gives a gracious bow. Javi looks a little disappointed that the song is over but drops a ten-dollar bill in the saxophone case anyway.
"Didn't take you for a dancer." You say as you walk away from the Lincoln Memorial, and he shrugs.
"'M full of secrets now."
"I guess so," you say. You start walking toward your apartment, suddenly too cold and tired now that you're a little more sober. Javi follows, putting himself between you and the street and grazing your lower back whenever you cross the road. He's always been protective of you, even before you started dating. It makes sense he would still be, right? You're trying to make sense of the muddled mess in your head when Javi pulls his cigarettes out of his jacket, and you eye them. You must not be as discrete as you thought you were because he laughs at you.
"For someone who quit smoking, you look like you want a cigarette." He says, offering the pack to you, and you sigh. You take one from the middle and put it between your lips. Javi is quick with his lighter, and you lean into him just a little as you inhale. He watches your every movement like he's watching a miracle unfold before him.
You hate to admit how good the smoke feels in your lungs. After three years of not even looking at a cigarette, all it took was an offer and a quick puff, and you're back to the beginning. You'll start again tomorrow.
"Don't tell Harry." You say as you blow smoke away from him, and Javi laughs.
"What? He doesn't like you smoking?" He asks, looking for a reason not to like Harry, and you chuckle.
"It's not that. I've just heard one too many horror stories about a stray cigarette starting a fire." You say, and he hums.
"Is that why you quit?"
"Kinda. I also…" you start but then shake your head. "Never mind."
"What? Now you have to say it."
"You're not gonna like it."
"Try me." He says, and you inhale deeply, blowing smoke out of your nose. You think about telling him to leave it alone, but the alcohol and the pain in your chest tells you to say fuck it.
"I quit because it reminded me of you." You admit. He gets quiet. He takes a long drag of his cigarette and looks up at the stars as you silently spiral. You feel like you need two more cigarettes and a shot of tequila.
Javi has always had a special talent for making all your worst habits bubble to the surface.
"You're right, I don't like that." He says softly, and you nod. You walk a few blocks in silence. The only sounds are your shoes clicking against the pavement and the tiny crackling of your cigarette as you smoke. A siren blares somewhere in the city, and your stomach drops. It always does, but especially now.
Your fiancé is out there, putting his life on the line to save others because that's how good of a man he is, and you're getting drunk and slow-dancing with the man who broke your heart? You didn't even tell him it was Javi. What if something happens to him tonight, and you're out? What if you miss the phone call? Guilt gnaws at your throat like an angry dog, and you feel like throwing up. You swallow hard and stomp out your cigarette before it can get to the filter.
"I'm glad we did this," you say, trying to get things back on track. Javi gives you a weak smile. "I missed you."
"I missed you too."
"You know, Harry said there's a place for you at the wedding if you want it. I know you'll be back in Texas, but it could be fun. We'd love to have you," you say, and he shakes his head.
"I don't think that's a good idea." He says. You knew he'd say no, but it still stings.
"Just thought I'd ask." You say, and he nods. You're about two blocks away from your apartment, and you start fishing for your keys out of your purse when Javi stops. You keep walking, thinking he's going to finish his cigarette and pull out another one.
"Don't marry him." He says, just loud enough for you to hear, and ice floods your veins. Whatever alcohol left in your system seems to vanish, and you freeze.
"What?" You ask as you slowly turn around. Javi chews on his bottom lip and stares at you.
"Don't marry him," he says again. Something behind his eyes is familiar, and suddenly, you're the girl he couldn't leave Colombia for again. Tears prick in your eyes, and you shake your head. "You'll get bored in a few years, and you'll be stuck if you marry him."
"I love him."
"I love you."
"Stop," you mumble. He takes a step forward and cradles your face in his hands, tilting you up to look at him, and your jaw tightens. You wonder if he can feel it. "You don't love me."
"I do. I always have. I fucked up, and I'm so sorry for hurting you, but I'm here now. We can start over. I'll move to D.C.. I'll do whatever." He says in one breath like he's afraid he'll lose the courage to say the words out loud.
"It's too late." You say, and he shakes his head.
"No, it's not. We can go tonight. Anywhere you want. I-"
"You let me leave," you cut him off, years of frustration and heartbreak coming back up to the surface as you take his hands off your face. "I was drowning and you let me get on the fucking plane."
"I thought that's what you wanted."
"I wanted you to reject the position in Cali and come with me because I really thought you could at least try to love me more than your job."
"I couldn't just give the Cali position up." He says and you scoff and take a few steps away from him.
"But you could give me up," you say, throwing your arms up in defeat. "That's not love, Javi. That's having someone around to play with and throwing them out when you get bored."
"It wasn't like that."
"Enlighten me, then."
"Do you remember when Carillo died?" He asks and you take a deep breath before nodding.
Most of your memories of Colombia are muddled, but not that day. You were pissed Messina wouldn't let you go, but you were fine to let the Colombian police make the raid. Javi and Steve were anxious. You remember watching them stand next to the radio like guards and trying to guess what was going on in their heads. Javi's gaze lingered on you a few too many times to be an accident, and he smiled fondly at you. You joked about them paying for the drinks you'd have later to celebrate. Things felt stable enough for you to sit down next to Messina. You were halfway through a cigarette when the gunfire chattered over the radios.
It wasn't an ambush.
It was a fucking massacre.
They never stood a chance. The scene was horrendous. Hearing Messina call Mrs. Carillo to tell her what happened was worse. Steve, somehow, was able to go with Carillo, so he wasn't alone in transport back to Bogotá. You and Javi were the cowards who went back and drank until you stopped seeing the pile of bodies you felt responsible for.
Javi put his fist through the wall of his apartment when he got home that night. You wanted to cry but knew that if you started, you'd never stop and who were you to be crying? People had just lost their sons, husbands, brothers, and fathers on your orders. You didn't deserve to cry. It was the beginning of the end for you and Javi, but you clung to your idea of the future so hard, it had claw marks on it when you finally let it go and got on the plane.
So, yeah, you remember. You remember it all.
"I couldn't let that happen to you or anyone else ever again. It would kill me," he says. You're about to tell him it's not his fault, and it never was. It was shitty intel. It was a trap. It was a lot of things, but it wasn't his fault. That might be the only thing you can say for sure about that tragedy. "So, I put everything that wasn't work out of my mind and made bad decisions, and that's on me, but I never stopped loving you or believing in our future."
"Then, why didn't you fight for us?"
"I didn't know how. You were so…" He searches for the right word. "Sure. You knew you didn't want to go to Cali, and I couldn't make you stay."
"I would've if you said the word," you say. "Even though I was miserable in Colombia, I would've come back if you asked me to because that's how much I loved you. Even if you'd just called me after I got here, we probably could've worked something out, but I'm marrying the love of my life in less than sixty days. And I've never had to beg him to stay with me or give him an ultimatum and question if he loves me because he wakes up every day and shows me how much he wants to be with me. I can't walk away from that."
"Does he know what you did down there?"
"Of course, he does." You say, annoyance buzzing in your molars, and you cross your arms over your chest.
"Does he know everything?"
"You mean, does he know I've killed people?" You ask. "Yeah, it was super fun trying to explain that to him. You want to hear about how I hyperventilated through the whole thing, or do you want to ask me another question to try to undermine my relationship?" He purses his lips and shakes his head.
"No," he says. "I just don't think you know what you're getting yourself into."
"Fuck you, Javier." You spit. You don't know the last time you used his full name like that. Something about it feels wrong and makes your skin crawl. "You left one girl at the altar over a decade ago, and you think you know about marriage?"
"That's not fair."
"No, what's not fair is you coming here and making me feel like the bad guy for moving on. I deserve to be happy. I've worked, and I've cried, and I've fucking killed for it, and the second I feel like things are going my way, you do this!" You yell.
"I love you." He says again, like it'll change anything. The pressure behind your eyes returns, and you turn away from him, but he catches your wrist before you can. "Listen to me. I love you. I love you. I love you." He repeats over and over again, but all you hear is, "I love you, but I can't come with you." "I love you, but I need this." "I love you. Isn't that enough?"
You rip out of his grasp and punch at his chest with tears slipping down your face. He takes it, still saying that he loves you, and for some reason that hurts more. You push him hard and watch him stumble back, his brown eyes tracking the tears down your face.
"If you really love me-"
"I do." He cuts you off and you take a stuttering breath.
"Then, let me be happy," you beg. "Let me go. Please. If you love me, you'll do that for me."
You feel pathetic, standing there crying like he shattered your heart all over again as he just stares at you and thinks. You want to go home. You want this to end. You want to never see him again.
Maybe in twenty years, you could stand to face him again. You'll be happily married, and you hope he'll be, too. You'll have a few kids, and you'll tell stories about them and Harry will pull pictures of them out of his wallet. You won't hurt anymore. Maybe when your daughter goes through her first heartbreak, you'll find the courage to tell her about Javi. Maybe all this grief will be worth something someday. You want it to.
But right now, you're just the girl he didn't love enough to leave Colombia for, and he's not the man you love enough to marry.
He clears his throat, his own tears glistening in his waterline, and nods.
"Okay," he mumbles. "I'll tell Stoddard I had a family emergency or something back home. Get the first flight back." Your eyes flutter shut at his words, and you try to keep yourself from crying more.
"Thank you." You say.
"I love you." He says again, and you open your eyes. He's grinding his teeth again, and his hands are in his pockets as if he's forcing himself not to reach for you. You give him a small smile and nod.
"I know," you say. "I'm sorry."
Just as you did at the airport all those years ago, you stand awkwardly far apart, unsure of what to do now. He waits for you to change your mind. You won't. He'll get on the plane, and that'll be it.
He nods to himself one more time before turning to walk away.
"You do deserve to be happy. I've never doubted that. I wish I could've given that to you." He says like he's trying to convince you he's a good person. You sniffle and spin your ring around your finger.
"You did for a while. It's just Harry's turn to do that now," you say. "Goodbye, Javi." He opens his mouth like he's going to say goodbye or something else, but you turn your back to him and start walking toward your apartment before he can.
You figure, after everything, it's only fair that you get the last word.
You didn't sleep. You knew you wouldn't. Astro seems to sense your anxiety and cuddles into your chest, purring loudly to try and drown out your thoughts. You reassure her you're okay and kiss her head as the inky blue sky is replaced by a stunning pink and purple morning.
A good omen, you hope.
You force yourself to get up and get ready for the day. It's Saturday and a fire station breakfast day. It's never anything fancy: donuts picked up from a nearby cafe, greasy fast food breakfast, sometimes cold pizza. Today, you walk to a nearby bodega and pick up his favorite breakfast sandwich with two steaming cups of coffee before walking to the fire station.
It's cold, and D.C. hasn't quite woken up yet. It'll be a few hours before life returns as people sleep off hangovers or long weeks. That's okay. This morning is just for you.
The garage door is wide open when you get to the station, and Harry is perched on the back bumper with the firehouse dog, Maisie, whispering things to her. He looks tired. You don't think you look any better, but he still lights up when he sees you, and Maisie even starts wagging her tail.
"Hey there, stranger," you greet him as he pulls you closer and smirks up at you. "You have a good night?"
"No, but it doesn't matter now that you're here." He says. You would normally roll your eyes at his cheesiness but your chest fills with warmth instead. You lean down and kiss him. He smells like smoke but tastes like the chapstick you make him wear because of the heat. Maisie sniffs at the bag in your hand, and you laugh against his lips when she licks your arm.
"I think she's jealous." You say, and he sucks his teeth as he looks at Maisie.
"You have breakfast, you little terrorist." He reminds her but he immediately folds when she gives him that innocent look. "She can have one piece of bacon, but that's it. We need you trim to get up in the trucks, right?"
You pull a piece of bacon off one of the breakfast sandwiches and make her sit and shake before you give it to her. She crunches on it happily, knowing she's absolutely spoiled rotten. She makes space for you to sit next to Harry on the truck and you rest your head on his shoulder. "You okay?" He asks as he kisses your hairline, and you nod.
"Just missed you," you say. "I couldn't sleep last night." He makes a sympathetic noise and wraps an arm around your shoulder to tuck you further into his side.
"Were you thinking about Colombia?" He asks and you hum. "Do you wanna talk about it?"
"Not right now."
"Okay. You wanna hear about why our kids will never be allowed to buy candles ever? No matter how old they get or how much smarter they think they are than us?" He changes the subject easily, and you laugh despite the pain still radiating in your body. You know he'll be there when you're ready to tell him about last night, no matter how long it takes you, and you will tell him. Eventually.
"Hit me with it." You say as you unpack your breakfast sandwiches and pass him his coffee. Maisie wags her tail as you alternate between sneaking her treats and listening to Harry's story. He knows you're giving her extra snacks but won't ever stop you.
You sit there on the back of that dirty firetruck, talking and watching the sunrise together and debating on which version of white the napkins at your wedding should be— eggshell or cream— and know you'd do everything all over again if it meant this was the outcome. You love him with everything that you are and ever could be.
And as you eat your breakfast and soak up each other's presence, you find yourself hoping Javi could love someone like this someday. You believe he has it in him. You've seen it. Whoever ends up being the one to tie Javier Peña down will be lucky and loved.
It just wasn't meant to be you.
#tightjeansjavijunewritingchallenge#narcos fanfiction#narcos fic#pedro pascal characters#pedro pascal cinematic universe#javier peña#javier pena narcos#javier pena x reader#javier pena fanfiction#javier pena fic#javier pena x you#javier pena imagine#javier pena one shot#javier pena angst#javi peña#javi p x reader#javi p fic#pedro pascal
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Let's Swap || Izuku Midoriya x fem!reader
A/n : Prompt 5 of the Smutember 2023 ( I mentionned Aizawa and all so let's say it's a College!AU so that they are all adults )
The list of promps is HERE
Smutember 2023 Masterlist ⚜
Warnings : doggy style, biting, mating press, slight cockwarming, 18+ READERS ONLY and wrap it before you tap it
Masterlist ⚜
I don’t give permission to repost my work, if you want to share it just reblogue it
Word count : 1351
You never thought you’d see the day something like this could ever happen. Things have always been the same way. You were the “dominant” one and he was the one who was a little bit more unsure about the whole situation, and this no matter how many times you guys found yourself in the throes of passions and desires.
You were always on top no matter what position you found yourselves in. It could be a face off ( 🙂 ), a cowgirl or even during the missionary you are the one who fucked yourself on him. When he ever got on top it was usually - again - nothing more sophisticated than a simple missionary, that he, by the way, would execute almost as if he was scared to bother you.
Today, things felt a little bit different though. Izuku had had an unusual day. First in class he got a lot of good grades, even one higher than Momo. Then during his training, Aizawai paired him with Bakugo and Shoto and he won against both of them during the several fights the professor arranged. Therefore his ego and confidence felt boosted like never before. So tonight, on one of these days you both know you’re going to find the other for some intimate time later, he came with a specific idea in mind.
Everything went smoothly, well until THAT moment came across. When you straddled his lap and grounded on his hardening length. His fingers twitched at his sides for a brief moment, as his face became redder and redder. He wanted to tell you, that just for tonight, at least, he wanted to swap things a bit. But now that you were on him, stimulating his throbbing member like that he didn’t know anymore. Thankfully, you were always attuned to his needs and you felt that shift as soon as your eyes locked. Yes, he was always flustered and a bit awkward during love making but now it felt as if he was holding something back.
“Izuku what are you thinking about, my pretty hero” you asked, never ceasing your movements on his lap.
He swallowed hard as he internally debated if he should voice this little idea of his. But something between your soothing voice calling him your hero and your weight on him made him long for more. He took a deep breath before speaking, his hands started to go in every direction as he said “I-I was wondering if you would like… well it’s fine if you don’t want to, but I wanted to know what it was to erm… until you prefer to keep things like this. You know with you huhhhh on top…”
you let him continue his ramble a bit longer but after 3 minutes you spoke up “Okay but now try shorter” you kissed his cheek as you finally stopped moving to let him think and express himself properly ( but between us that happens all the time )
“I-I want to… to be in charge. Just for this once- only if you want it too. Your comfort is my top prio-” he was cut by your kiss. It was sweet, full of reassurance and oh so hungry. Gosh you loved to be on top but seeing him in charge is such a turn on. And at this point you’re miles away to know what he means by that ( keep it sweet though it’s Izuku we are talking about )
“I’m okay with it. Just this once and every other time that will follow” you explained, it was a good thing to see him this much at ease with you. So you took the lead and took your clothes off before lying on the bed, thinking he was going to go for a missionary as per usual, when he wanted to be in charge.
Though the green haired boy kept his clothes for a little longer as he continued “N-not like this… I w-want you too-” but he struggled to voice his need - besides he doesn’t know how to call this position. So he gently took your hands and brought you to your knees before gently pushing you down for you to end up on all four “O-okay. A-are you fine like that ? Is it okay ?” he was so cute, always wanting to make sure you were comfortable.
“I’m a little cold” you teased, trying to alleviate the pressure you knew he was experiencing. Soon after he undressed and joined you on the bed, the sounds of the sheets rustling as he shuffled to get behind you.
His hard length nudged against your ass cheek as he found purchase on your hips “T-tell me if it feels uncomfortable at any point. N-now I’m going to- aah” he moaned as the swollen tip of his length pushed past your folds. He almost struggled to enter you without cumming right away “You’re… ugh it’s so tight” he whimpered, surprisingly you felt so much tighter like this than when you were on top or on missionary.
Once he was fully sheathed inside you, you both let out a gasp as if this was the only thing that lacked in your life. Soon enough he started to move. Not making direct eye contact with you allowed him to feel less unsure, besides your moans only proved to him that he was doing things the right way for you. His hips started to slap harder against yours. The room rapidly filled with the news noises of the squelching of your cunt around his cock and the sound of his balls slapping your ass. Gosh he was really about to make you cum like this.
Though he was as close as you and he really wanted you to come first. So he liked his fingers and his hand snaked between your legs as he looked for your clit. Once he found the bundle of nerves he made quick circles, making your hips buck against his hand.
You fucked yourself back against him, this position was on a whole new level compared to your usual habits. He felt a torrent of love for you, his motion never losing any power. He peppered your back with open mouthed kisses, before his teeth found their way to the tender flesh of your shoulder. He just needed to bite on something to keep himself from letting go of everything as he felt your walls tighten around him.
Then as if on cue your orgasm hit you head-on, your legs quivered and if it wasn't for his strong arms to keep you up you would have fallen head first against the mattress. He kept fucking you, but at some point he got overwhelmed, so he gently laid you on the bed, never breaking your connection. Once you were there he pinned you down on the bed and kept going until his length spasmed and spurted hot ropes of cum with each beat of his heart.
He let his body fall on top of you, with his cock still deep inside you that started to soften. His breathing was erratic but it was all worth it.
“breathes in Are you out okay ? in I didn’t out hurt you in right ? out” even after everything he still worried about you.
“That was perfect Izuku” you answered, bringing your arm back to gently play with his hair “You were a great success today… damn I didn’t know you could fuck me like that”
He flushed at your words “T-thank you Y/n... I didn't expect it to turn like that” he said rubbing the back of his head
“I just hope it’s going to be more than this once” you said hoping he would feel comfortable enough to do this again. That’s when he surprised you again “I-if you want… give me about 20 minutes and I’ll gladly c-continue” it sounded more like a question but you knew this didn’t let him indifferent.
“That’s fine by me. Let’s swap” you cheered, making a huge smile spread on his adorable face.
#my hero academia#my hero academia imagine#my hero academia smut#mha#mha smut#boku no hero academia#boku no hero academia imagine#boku no hero academia smut#bnha#bnha smut#izuku midoriya#izuku midoriya imagine#izuku midoriya x reader#izuku midoriya smut#izuku midoriya x reader smut#izuku smut#izuku x reader#smutember 2023#smut#miri-writes
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would you actually be willing to give like a pretty long rundown of those main guys from the 2015 draft class?? because i would be Very interested
Of course! I wrote this in a Google doc so I could get it all down. It's a LOT btw -- this is the abridged version, leaving out what are probably important details, and it's still [checks] 11k words long. Sorry about that.
Anyone who tells you that the draft is a science is an idiot not worth their twenty-dollar stadium beer. The draft has analytical elements, sure, but it is a crapshoot through and through. If you dare to take a look back on draft histories from the past ten years -- the past twenty, the past thirty -- only rarely is the first pick, the “best in show,” actually the best of his class. I mean, no wonder, right? How well can you determine how good a man is going to be at hockey when you have only seen him as a teenager? Accuracy and prophecy are not kin.
Every ten years, though, you come across someone whose trajectory is easy to map. A prospect who is so head and shoulders above everyone else -- in numbers, in the eye test -- that you cannot help but say that they are going to be The Next One. God save the poor boy you put that name on.
In this case, it is 2014, and they are speaking those words again. On the dingy ice of an OHL arena, a red-haired Toronto boy with scared fawn’s eyes paces around the circles, faster than anyone else in the building. There are articles written about him already, calling his experience the torture test and labelling him Jesus, the saviour, the new great. It will get worse for him from here.
A Generational Prospect
It is 2004, and all eyes are on Sidney Crosby. He has eclipsed QMJHL scoring records. He performs highlight-reel antics. It is known that he will make the NHL as a teenager, and that whichever team has him will have an asset they should not ever think to relinquish.
Now, in 2023, all expectations of him are blown away. He is fifteenth on the all-time scoring list, having played most of his life in the dead-puck era, and will be inside the top ten by the time he retires. He has never been below a point per game, having gotten to a hundred points as an eighteen-year-old rookie and only slowed down to ninety at thirty-five. He has won three Cups; two Harts; two each Art Ross and Rocket Richard.
Something similar can be said for his contemporary, one Alex Ovechkin, sixteenth in all-time scoring, second ever in goals. While neither were always the most singular, dominant player of the past eighteen years (has it really been that long?) their longevity and consistent high-level play have cemented them into that tier of all-time greats.
Such players only emerge once (or, for them, twice) in a generation; a “generational talent.” Gordie Howe was the first, before drafting happened at all, then Gretzky, joined as a part of the WHA merger, then Lemieux, then, debatably, Jagr through the early half of the dead-puck era, then Crosby and Ovechkin. Jagr was drafted fifth overall partly due to political constraints (it was 1990, and Czechia was behind the Iron Curtain), but all of the other drafted ones went first. While development curves for everyone else are hard to map, it is easy to tell, for them, how good they are as youths. We all call Gretzky the “Great One,” but he actually got that nickname before he was a teenager, because of how much better than the rest of his peers he was.
This is how we go up to the 2015 draft. Let’s say that it is September 2014, a full hockey season before the draft, so we can set the scene. Go back to the dingy Erie rink, watch the red-haired boy speed around the ice.
This is Connor McDavid. He was born in January just outside Toronto; if you are unfamiliar with the term “GTA,” I will pause now to tell you that it means Greater Toronto Area, and that it is the nexus of all hockey in the world. He is a Leafs fan, as so many of the GTA hockey-playing hopefuls are.
Connor is an unusual child, even by young hockey prospect standards. Entry to any of the CHL major junior leagues -- the OHL, the WHL, the QMJHL -- starts at sixteen, but select few can apply early, and if they are academically, physically, and emotionally deemed adept they can be accepted for exceptional status and join at fifteen. This happens once every two or three years nowadays; Tavares and Ekblad were the only ones to predate McDavid. As well as being deemed exceptional by the board of the CHL, he is exceptional among peers, too: intelligent and analytical, black-and-white, painfully shy. He works hard in school, desperate to avoid coming off as a “dumb jock.” Media interviewers ask for him, but they have to change the settings on their microphones in order to pick up his voice, it is so soft.
He has already won trophies; scholastic achievement, sportsmanlike behaviour, CHL rookie of the year. He will score at least one point in all but one of the first eighteen games of the 2014-15 OHL season, before breaking his hand in a fight (getting himself a Gordie Howe hatty, being that he already has a goal and an assist). He will score a hundred points in thirty-eight games, and a hundred and twenty points in the forty-seven games he will play.
Understandably, his name is penned in at number one on the draft board. Even such deficits as breaking a hand and being out for six weeks don’t tank his stock, it is so obvious how well on track he is to outpace all but the best.
He is sweet and shy, a captain of Erie based mostly on skill, and tight-laced into the destiny of future franchise saviour.
At least he has a friend, though, right?
Dylan
The 2014-15 Erie Otters are a good team. A great one, even -- third in league standings by season’s end, and you don’t get that far if your single generational superstar is sidelined half the year with a hand injury.
This is where Dylan comes in. Like Connor, he’s a GTA boy, and a young Leafs fan. Unlike Connor, he’s part of a serious hockey family -- the middle child of three. His older brother Ryan has already been drafted, in the first round, no less. He’s a real student of the game, too, a stats obsessive and a calm, steadfast personality.
Remember how we said the draft is a crapshoot? That’s very true. Prospects may have precise rankings when all is said and done, but in the meantime I find it best thinking of them as instead arranging into tiers -- there’s the generational talent in this year, but disregarding him we have a first overall-level, then a small handful of top prospects. Not saviours in their entirety, but certain to make a team very happy. Dylan projects as the latter group -- he’ll be somewhere between three and five. In 2014-15, he’s the OHL scoring leader, and takes the Erie Otters’ single-season record.
He and Connor are also best friends. Connor’s quiet, anxious even, but Dylan has a coolheaded sort of confidence that brings out the best in him. Rarely are they pictured without each other; rarely are they spoken to without mentioning the other. There’s a sweet little video out there of the Otters going to New York state and going on this little ziplining/outdoor climbing gym, and Connor and Dylan are about as glued to each other’s sides as you can be while obeying the harness safety rules. In hockey terms, while a little young for it, they’re married. Much like Crosby and Malkin are, although over a much shorter term, and publically the two Otters are much closer.
Dylan is the one I feel as if I can talk the least about. He is mostly defined by what he is not: not Connor, to start, and before the actual draft takes place that is the most of it.
Of course, that’s the most of what any of it is, isn’t it? These are teenagers, separated into imprecise tiers and mostly defined by which tier they slot into. The three boys below Connor, no matter how good they are, are defined by being not Connor.
Jack Eichel most of all.
Jack, to start, is American, unlike any of the other three. He’s a late birthday -- born in November of 1996 instead of the first eight and a half months of 1997 -- so he’s, in theory, had another year to adapt. (Brief footnote: the September 15 cutoff is what determines draft eligibility, either the year you turn eighteen or the year you turn nineteen. If you were born in, say, June of 2000, you would be eligible for the draft in 2018. If you had the audacity to be born in October of 2000 instead, you’d have to wait until 2019.) His development pipeline is also unlike the others, having come up into the NCAA, college hockey, and playing at the US National Development team before committing to Boston University. He won the Hobey Baker award as a freshman, and led the NCAA in scoring as a rookie.
He was marketed, coming into the draft, as the American Connor -- the new face of American hockey, a homegrown star, a fellow generational talent, although that was a feeble marketing strategy to dull the disappointment of going second to greatness. He was proud and polite, quiet but not scared, a young man uncomfortably aware of his own myth and rather irritated at the fact he had a myth in the first place. Taken in and treated well, he would probably have a well-suited disposition to a high-stress, playoff-bound team.
It’s unfortunate that that wouldn’t realize until eight years after he was drafted.
The Draft Itself, or, What Caused All These Problems In The First Place
The draft lottery rolls around. The lottery and the draft take place on different days -- the lottery several weeks before, so that for a long time the boys have an idea of to whom they will go. The first four teams to pick are, in order:
Edmonton. Edmonton had been very bad, for a very long time, and had three shiny prizes already to show for it: Taylor Hall, drafted first overall in 2010; Nail Yakupov, drafted first overall in 2012; and Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, drafted first overall in 2013. I’m sure you already know this, but Edmonton was Gretzky’s team, while Gretzky won all his cups, and they now stand to get themselves another generational talent in Connor McDavid.
Buffalo. The Sabres have a few decent pieces: Ryan O’Reilly, Sam Reinhart. They haven’t made the playoffs in a few years, and have plummeted to the bottom of the standings, finishing thirtieth out of thirty.
Arizona. Arizona has never gotten off the ground, not once. They are a dust mote of a franchise, held in place by Gary Bettman’s fragile ego and the skimmings of Original Six markets. Their survival, as doomed as we know it is, is banking on a distant hope of good prospect luck and better PDO.
Toronto. While Arizona is the smallest of small markets, Toronto is… well, it’s Toronto. Remember earlier, how I said that the GTA is the nexus of hockey? Toronto is called the Centre of the Universe, and for good goddamn reason. The Leafs are one of the most storied franchises in the NHL, and simultaneously one of the winningest (the second-most Stanley Cups, after Montreal) and the losingest (their most recent Cup was almost sixty years ago.) Their fanbase dwarfs all but the most hardcore of French Canadian separatist contingents. There’s a common phrase now, when any hockey news is mentioned -- but how does this affect the Leafs? It’s well-done satire.
And with four teams, we have four boys. So I come upon the last one now: Mitch Marner. Mitch, like Dylan and Connor, is a GTA boy, a born and raised Leafs fan on an OHL team. He plays for the London Knights -- a diminutive forward (he weighs in at 160 pounds soaking wet at eighteen, and eight years later barely cracks 180) with fantastic playmaking skills, the creativity and gall to do things other players have never even thought of. He’s a sweet one, too, bubbly and energetic and cuddly and kind.
Here is how the draft goes:
The Oilers take the stage first, for the fourth time in six years. The ceremony is unnecessary. Connor McDavid is the name everyone knows they will say. Connor walks up to the stage, looking vaguely nauseous, and dons the jersey and the hat. (His facial expression in the interviews afterward is thoroughly dissected over the next eight years. Some say it’s simple stage fright; others say it’s personal distaste for the Oilers -- remember, Toronto boy, Toronto heart. I choose to believe it’s the first one. Not all of us are John Tavares.)
After a first-round prospect is chosen, they bring him down for an interview, then shuffle him off to some arena underbelly for photos upon photos. Connor performs his niceties, but before he is taken back, he asks to stay. He wants to watch Dylan get drafted.
The Buffalo Sabres come second, and pick Jack Eichel. Eichel is asked, throughout, how he feels about Connor, being behind Connor, coming second to Connor. The narrative being pushed is called McEichel -- the Canadian wunderkind versus the American one -- and he wants no part in it. He’s impressed by Connor’s play, in their few brief meetings he thinks of him as nice enough, he wants to carve out his own path.
This refusal to play along may have been the start of the discontent, in hindsight. The media clearly wasn’t going to get anything out of soft-voiced scared-eyed perfect Canadian boy Connor, but Jack, sharper edges and colder heart, might be good for a soundbite or two about this new league-made rivalry. Jack, though, ever aware, puts himself solidly into Generic Hockey Interview voice and backs off.
The Coyotes come third. Here is where a choice occurs, the first genuine decision. Connor McDavid had been slotted into first pick since the day he got accepted for exceptional status. Eichel had taken a few years more, but his place in second after Connor was well known for months on end. Dylan and Mitch, however, were up in the air. Do you pick the big one with more points, or the small one with star power?
The Coyotes follow the conventional hockey wisdom, and take the big boy. Connor waits to watch his friend take the jersey, then hugs him in the wings.
Finally, the Leafs.
Let’s actually take a step back to talk about the Leafs rebuild, for a second, because it, like everything the Leafs have ever done, is a testament to failure. Also, somewhat, because it is relevant. Also, moreso, because I can’t shut up about hockey and you’ve asked me to talk as long as I like. If you’re still reading, I want you to know that a) I am ever thankful for your time and b) we’re, like, just getting started here.
The Leafs’ last contending era was before the 04-05 lockout season, which means it predates the salary cap. They struggled in the midsection, for a long time, then finally fell enough to gain the fifth overall pick in 2008, with which they selected a big tough young defenceman named Luke Schenn, the first official piece of the Leafs’ rebuild, strange as it may be. Luke, while competent enough, was obviously not the sort of franchise-changing star the Leafs needed, and they struggled in the midsection again, before gaining, once more, the fifth overall pick, with which they selected Schenn’s partner, one Morgan Rielly. The two would be perfect partners, but we won’t know this for eleven years. Luke was traded twelve hours after Rielly’s draft.
Rielly is still in the AHL the next year, 2013, when the Leafs make the playoffs. This is the infamous 4-1 series: the Leafs go down 3-1 in the series, claw their way back up to game seven. They gain a 4-1 lead, going into the third period, and then blow it completely and lose the game, and the series, in overtime. They do not make the playoffs in 2013-14, and before the 2014-15 season begins they change management. The man they install as President decides to tank, and tank hard, selling as much of the Leafs as he can in the hopes of landing that elusive first pick.
They end up with fourth overall, and Mike Babcock, the Leafs’ head coach, does not want Mitch Marner, instead asking the then-management for the bigger defenceman, a boy named Hanifin who will go fifth to the Hurricanes. The Leafs take Marner anyway. Watch him as his name is called. He, like the first three, sits in a nest of other prospects and their families -- Mitch actually sits right behind Jack Eichel -- but unlike them, when his name is called the other prospects lean over to offer him congratulations, as well as his parents and brother. Mat Barzal, from across the aisle, offers a bro-hug as Mitch goes by.
The rest of the draft goes as usual. The 2015 draft, beyond narratively, is one of the deepest drafts in recent memory; players you may recognize include Timo Meier, Mikko Rantanen, Travis Konecny, Sebastian Aho (the Carolina one!), Roope Hintz, Kirill Kaprizov, Troy Terry… the list goes on. These players have their own stories, but few really tie in to this one. (So far.)
Summer passes; we move on. Training camp rolls around.
Connor McDavid, as expected, makes the team. He moves in with Taylor Hall, a fellow first overall. Jack Eichel also makes the team.
Dylan and Mitch do not. Dylan’s reasons are unknown to me, but Mitch is sent down because, again, Babcock does not want him. He’s naturally undersized and does not have a frame that builds muscle; Babcock is not under the impression that young men in Mitch’s image make good hockey players. Both Mitch and Dylan are returned to the OHL.
The stage is set now; each boy has a team. Eight years on, only half of them are on those teams. But we can’t worry about that yet! We have to make it to the NHL first!
World Juniors and the Memorial Cup
Once Connor makes the Oilers, Dylan Strome is named captain of the Erie Otters. Very cool, to only get what you deserve after the golden boy is gone.
Jack and Connor are off playing with the big boys. They’ll get their own section later -- we have to work our way up, not up and down and up and down. I’ve got to be somewhat cohesive, you know? So, we’ll stay, for now, in the world of junior hockey.
The Otters and the London Knights, Mitch’s team, are in the wonderful circumstance of not only both being very good at the same time, but also being in the same division as one another. This means they see each other quite often (no plane travel in the OHL. Bus only.) and have thus formed… a bit of a rivalry. It is becoming difficult to dance around: Dylan Strome, despite the politeness they’ve shown each other at the draft, hates Mitch Marner.
And why wouldn’t you? He’s the one Dylan fought with all last season for the OHL scoring title; he’s fast on his feet and can shoot from impossible angles; he makes plays you’ve never even considered, much less considered possible. He dangles through the Otters and scores the easiest impossible goal you’ve ever seen and laughs as light as air about the whole thing. And he’s tiny. Unfortunately for the rest of us, Marner drew a lot of comparisons to Patrick Kane in his junior days -- thankfully without the character in common, but as a hockey player. An undersized (almost comically so) London winger with otherworldly ability to manifest scoring chances out of nothing. The exact sort of irritating worm that not one of us wants on the other team.
So, of course, they get put on the same team.
The 2016 World Juniors are summoned. Connor McDavid, then dealing with a broken collarbone and a great deal of pressure, is not on Team Canada’s roster. Dylan Strome and Mitch Marner both are. Suddenly and thankfully, the media’s focus shifts from one, false rivalry in McEichel to a very very real one.
I don’t want to dismiss what happens next as a mere symptom of the fact that hockey players are engineered to get along with their teammates, even if they don’t like each other. Admittedly, it does start that way -- Mitch is a winger and Dylan a centre, and both skilled, so the coach puts them on the same line. Simple enough. And then they spark up a friendship.
Dylan’s reasons for hating Mitch were not personal, just hockey-related. Dylan hated Mitch because he was good and he knew it, the simple way a teenager hates their direct competitor. On the same team, though, the competition aspect is removed, and the barrier for hatred is gone. This is the Dylan/Mitch enemies to lovers arc, if you want to put it that way.
Mitch, for the record, I doubt ever hated Dylan. He doesn’t have that in him, never had. He saw a rival, sure, and as soon as that rival wore a matching jersey I assume he taped the word friend over whatever defined their relationship before. Mitch is probably one of the most gregarious, friendly, charming hockey players out there. Beyond his cute little face and on-ice highlights, even. He’s loud, sure, but when he talks he knows how to include you. He finds out what you like and talks about it, he singles you out if you’re shy and builds up your confidence. He’s just plain nice.
Dylan, like the rest of us, was charmed. Within weeks he went from calling Mitch annoying to telling us all about how he loves cuddling (!?) with him. They became fast friends and great linemates.
Dylan’s not the only one Mitch Marner befriends at Worlds, though. Somewhere between matches, Mitch takes an elevator at the complex they’re staying at, and ends up sharing it with a boy from the American team, a tall square-jawed Mexican centre with a Justin Bieber obsession. This is Auston Matthews, one of the projected top picks of the 2016 draft -- born just two days after the cutoff that would have made him eligible to go in 2015. He played with Jack Eichel at the USNTDP, before taking his age-eighteen year to go play pro in Switzerland. He holds the NTDP scoring record as a seventeen-year-old, and will continue to hold it until Jack Hughes breaks onto the scene. The two boys in the elevator do not yet know it, but they are about to share the mantle of franchise saviour, for the franchise most desperately in need of saving.
Either way. The Canadians place sixth at World Juniors, the Americans do better, the Finns win the whole thing. (In the long run, Laine turns out not to be better than Matthews after all.) Mitch and Dylan go back to their OHL teams.
Erie and London tie in points that year, but London wins the OHL title and goes to Alberta for the Memorial Cup, the CHL trophy. Mitch Marner takes home the scoring title, the Stafford Smythe (CHL equivalent of the Conn Smythe), and the Memorial Cup itself. He is one of the most decorated winners in OHL history, touted as being clutch, creating magic, and racking up points. He has close friends in Dylan Strome and fellow Knight Matthew Tkachuk, who will be selected sixth overall in the 2016 draft, the second American after Auston Matthews himself. And when NHL training camp rolls around in the fall, even Babcock cannot deny he is ready, no matter how slight he may still be.
Connor Complex
There’s nothing that fuels story like a good rivalry, and the NHL was obsessed with marketing this rivalry. The Canadian versus the American. The perfect child of a long line of red-blooded southern Ontario tradition versus the Boston boy with a chip on his shoulder. Jack and Connor, Connor and Jack. They hyped Jack up the time leading up to the draft, trying to hint that he was almost as good -- no, just as good -- as McDavid himself.
He was not, and everyone knew.
The 2014-15 Sabres, then the worst team in the NHL and having done an elite job at tanking (they are one of the worst teams in the analytics era, besides the 2022-23 Anaheim Ducks -- I wonder what prize might be waiting at that number one spot? Surely not someone named Connor.) wanted McDavid. The Pegulas, the owners of the Sabres, tried to hide their disappointment in him as pride. They had an all-American star, they said, someone who had grown up not too far from Buffalo himself, and in the same country, no less. He would be the sort of man to lead them into a new golden age, away from the misery of the tank years.
And yet the narrative persisted. McEichel, they whispered. Look at how good Connor McDavid is, and look at how much Eichel is not him. McDavid, they say, McDavid McDavid McDavid. No article could be written about Jack without mentioning how he came second to Connor.
The Sabres tried to quell the whispers. Look at our boy, they say. They signed Eichel to an eight-year, ten million dollar contract, and in the beginning of the 2018-19 season they named him captain. Isn’t our boy great.
The team does not improve. The Sabres hadn’t made the playoffs for three years when they drafted Eichel; they still haven’t made the playoffs today. I wasn’t around to look, but the team was bad. Eichel did his best, but he was young and inexperienced and did not -- never did -- have captain’s blood in him; Ryan O’Reilly lost his love for the game.
The whispers of character issues start to come out. Jack Eichel is a “locker room cancer;” he’s selfish, stuck-up, quick-tempered. He’s caught in a cage where the only key is to be Connor, something which he never wanted to achieve in the first place, and never could have even if he did want it. The whole narrative was completely fabricated. He liked Connor well enough when they met.
I do imagine he has feelings about it, though, and feelings about Connor now. He didn’t know him, not enough to have an opinion on the boy, but the name followed him around long enough for him to think about it. Imagine it. You’re good in your field, great, even. You’re doing well enough to earn yourself a superstar contract, you’re an All-Star, and yet the only way you will get any recognition at all is when they say that you are worse than one of the greatest players ever to play the game. They lock you into a connection that you have never wanted, barring you from forging your own path. You exist permanently in that orange-and-blue shadow. I don’t blame Jack for being angry. I would be too.
Babcock
Auston Matthews was incredible from the jump. He was big, he was strong, his wrister is the stuff of legend. He won the Calder in his and Mitch’s rookie year, by a not insignificant margin, well ahead of Laine. He was a coach’s dream doll, unusual enough to be marketed and good enough to be useful. Unavoidably masculine even at nineteen.
Mitch less so. Mitch is still small, remember, and struggles to gain weight. I know I talk about his size a lot, but it’s genuinely important. Hockey and its fan culture has long been a group that prioritized size and raw power above all things. Mitch possessed neither of those things, and when he struggled with gaining muscle it was seen as an unwillingness to try. If you know anything about the ability of our bodies to gain or lose weight, you know that it is simply a genetic roll of the dice, a scale that puts a little bit of us into the “gains muscle mass easily” category and decides when to stop. Most hockey players actually aren’t very far up the muscle-gaining spectrum, especially when compared to American football or baseball players -- mass is strength, yes, but it’s also more to move around on ice -- but Mitch is especially low on the scale. Because of this, he is seen as unmanly, a dangerous thing to be.
The Leafs media market is a nightmare, and always has been. Because this is the Centre of the Universe, there are more eyes on the Leafs than on any other team. More eyes mean more writers, means you have to say weirder and wilder things to beg for clicks. Outrage is a good marketing tactic. Getting mad about one of the prize prospects seemingly not wanting to bulk up for the good of the team is a very easy thing to do.
What’s more, Mitch, after his entry-level contract had expired, had had a very difficult and long-drawn out contract negotiation, asking for a lot of money -- essentially the maximum that the Leafs could afford at the time. Because of the salary cap constraint, this was seen as kind of selfish. The angry clicks move. Mitch is sensitive, they say. Soft, selfish, weak.
It’s easy enough to dismiss out of hand when your uncle from Belleville does it, because what does he know. It’s different when it’s the head coach of the Leafs. Mike Babcock, is, at the time of hiring, the highest-paid coach in the NHL. He was signed before the 2015-16 season, and at that point had an eight-year contract, which would have carried him up until this year.
Mike Babcock sucked. Structurally, his teams were fine -- the Leafs made the playoffs in 2016-17, and haven’t missed it since, but he was awful, horribly mean to the boys under him, and especially, especially Mitch.
We should skip ahead a little bit. It’s the beginning of the 2019-20 season. The Leafs have made the playoffs three times already, and lost in the first round each time -- but this, too, is not yet a phrase that strikes worry into our hearts. They’re young, and they have plenty of time left.
Respected veteran Jason Spezza came home to the Leafs, having spent his career -- a player who might squeak the Hall of Fame, but is more likely just below its level -- in first Ottawa, where he was the captain of the Senators briefly and one of its most well-loved players, and then Dallas. Like the boys I talk about here, Jason Spezza is a former OHL player, a GTA boy, a Leafs fan. The Leafs’ season opener is against Ottawa, the team where Jason Spezza left most of his mark. There used to be a promotion with the Senators -- a local branch of some pizza chain would offer a free slice if the Sens scored more than five goals in a game. Spezza (and his linemates, Heatley and Alfredsson) were so good, they named his line the Pizza line. Mike Babcock makes Jason Spezza a healthy scratch on that day.
This is seen as disrespectful, but no more than a coach living up to his hardass reputation. You do what the coach tells you, don’t you? Lest you become a whiner, or worse, a locker room cancer. Scratching an extremely well-respected veteran on the opener against his former team is just something some guys do. A message, if you will. Stay the course, Babcock just wants his players to respect him.
And then news of the list leaks.
It happened when Mitch was a rookie, but they kept it hidden for three years. The Leafs went on a father-and-sons trip, one they do every season. They’re on a road trip, with only their fathers, isolated from their home.
(A brief aside to talk about Mitch’s dad; his name is Paul Marner, and he is the most stereotypical hardass hockey dad on the planet. A nitpicker, an armchair coach, a bully. I do not imagine Mitch felt particularly comforted by his and Babcock’s combined presence on this trip.)
Babcock approached Mitch and asked him to organize all of his teammates in a list. He wanted Mitch to arrange them in order of hardest workers to laziest; he thought Mitch was one of the lazy ones, and wanted to drive this point home by making him categorize his teammates like this. Mitch, as a rookie hockey player does in the presence of the Maple Leaf hanging over his head like the sword of Damocles, obliged. He was under the impression it would be a private affair, just an assignment from Babcock to teach him some sort of lesson. Whether it be out of fear or honesty, he placed himself last on the list.
Babcock told the others.
Specifically, two Leafs vets that Mitch had placed low on the list -- Nazem Kadri and Tyler Bozak. Imagine this: you are a decent centre on a bubble team, but nonetheless an established NHL veteran of about a decade, and your coach shows you a list a rookie made. He tells you that the rookie arranged everyone by work ethic, grinders to lazy shits. You are firmly on the “lazy shit” end.
How much does the coach have to suck, or how much does the rookie have to be loved, for Kadri and Bozak to react like they did? The rumour says they called for Babcock’s head on the spot. Mitch was in tears. I wouldn’t want to stay in Toronto if that happened to me. No wonder he and Auston signed for so much -- Babcock was barely halfway through his contract when they did. If I’d thought that I would have to deal with him for that long, I wouldn’t accept anything less than as much as they could possibly pay me.
In the end, in the beginning of December, 2019, Mitch got hurt and the Leafs went on a road trip. They were already losing by the time they’d left, and they kept losing. Normally, a team on a road trip doesn’t take the hurt players with them, but they took Mitch. The Leafs lost six in a row and finally fired Babcock, letting Sheldon Keefe take his place. Mitch’s presence was a comfort.
Go West
The Leafs make the playoffs first, and take Mitch with them. The Sabres are fighting a silent war with their star centre, but they are no closer to success.
Connor McDavid is named captain at nineteen, the youngest in the history of the NHL. He scrapes the team to a playoff spot, then to a second round loss. He wins the Art Ross and the Hart.
The year before his entry-level contract expires, when he is first eligible, he signs what is then the most expensive per-year contract in NHL history -- eight years, a hundred million dollars. He is looking forward to spending the rest of his prime as an Oiler. He wins the Art Ross the next year, comes very close the year after. The Oilers do not make the playoffs again until after Covid hits.
He gets hurt a lot, too -- he breaks his collarbone as a rookie, missing half the season, and at the very end of the 2018-19 year, crashes into the net irons and shatters his knee. There are rumours of the man who broke Connor’s collarbone doing it on purpose; Connor claims that he overheard the man bragging about it, and I am inclined to believe him. This guy gets traded to the Oilers not too long after that.
In the meantime, Dylan is struggling. The Coyotes stick him in Tucson, a team he is obviously too good for. His entry-level contract slides another season. He wiffles between Tucson and Arizona, not being considered good enough to stay up but being too good to stay down. In the end, on the last year of his entry-level contract, he is traded from the Coyotes to the Chicago Blackhawks, a similarly bad team with a few remnants of its Cup-winning days. Dylan, a feeble icon of Chicagoan hope for one last dance with the aging core, centres Patrick Kane.
In his first half-season with the Blackhawks, he scores 51 points in 58 games. There are hopeful flashes of what he can be, the touted prospect he once was.
Things wrap up on New Years like this: Connor is beyond a hundred-point pace; Dylan, although in no less danger, is at least out of the dust at the bottom of the barrel; Jack is caught in a cold war; the team loves Mitch.
John Tavares has a Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Playoff Series
March of 2020 rolls around, and with it the coronavirus pandemic. The league is shut down before the season ends, and the playoffs re-formed in July, inside a bubble -- no one in, no one out until they are eliminated. The Sabres stay with their families, having once again missed the playoffs. The Leafs are set to play the Columbus Blue Jackets, and the Oilers are set to play the Blackhawks.
This, to date, is Dylan’s only playoff appearance, and he is set to face Connor.
Dylan wins.
The qualifying round -- functioning as the first round of the bubble playoffs -- is a best of five, not of seven, and the Blackhawks defeat the Oilers 3-1. They then proceed to lose in five games (this one is a best of seven) to Vegas, but Dylan’s job is done.
The Leafs lose in the first round again. The Leafs have made the playoffs since Auston and Mitch’s debut, every single year, but they lose each time; in six, to the Capitals, then in seven every year after that. Or, in this case, in five.
Covid had not stopped by the end of the 2020 season ( :/ ) and the NHL was rearranged for what would be ostensibly the 2020-2021 season, but ended up being played mostly in 2021. Because of border laws, the Canadian teams are sequestered into their own, North division. Dylan Strome signs a two-year contract extension with Chicago right before the season starts -- one that will carry him until the end of the 2021-2022 season.
If you’ve seen All or Nothing on Amazon Prime, it is this season that is covered. The Leafs tear through what is seen as a weaker North division, taking a comfortable first place spot. Connor McDavid cracks a hundred points in fifty-six games. Both Leafs and Oilers lose in the first round.
The Leafs do it perhaps most remarkably. They have drawn the Canadiens, a rather insubstantial team who are in their spot mostly because they have one of the best goaltenders in recent memory at their back.
I watched this game, live, before I was a serious Leafs fan. I can only imagine what it would be like if you were already invested at that point; I would not wish to live that horror on anyone. I tried to watch All or Nothing, later, but I stop here.
Corey Perry and John Tavares are both on the ice, in the race for the puck. Tavares catches an edge, as you sometimes do, and falls, and Perry’s knee is in exactly the wrong place at exactly the wrong time, and it catches Tavares in the side of the head. He falls to the ice, his limbs splaying unnaturally. He won’t move.
Medics come over, to try and raise him to his feet. He fights against them, blood streaming from a cut in his forehead, unable to tell if they are trying to hurt him or not. There is no one in the crowd, the stadium empty for the pandemic. The camera cuts to Kyle Dubas in the rafters, who has a phone in his hand and swiftly vanishes back into the halls of the arena. He is calling Tavares’ wife. We do not know what is going to happen. Everyone looks shaken -- the Habs have just watched a man nearly die, the Leafs have just lost their captain, perhaps forever. They lose, although the game feels like an afterthought. I do not want to watch hockey anymore.
They win the next three straight, though, even without him. Then they lose, twice, in overtime.
The Leafs, as they have done for the past four years up to this point, go to game seven.
Partway through the game, Mitch Marner panics in his defensive zone and puts the puck over the glass. This is a penalty, it is a penalty every time, and he knows that. He sits in the box, looking defeated already. He curls in on himself, and the camera flashes to the penalty box. He’s crying. He knows the game is lost.
The Leafs are eliminated again, and there is a target on his back now, not only for the puck going over the glass but for the tears. He’s soft, they say. As they have said since he was picked, because he doesn’t look like a hockey player should, because he doesn’t act like a hockey player should, because he doesn’t play hockey like a hockey player should. He makes too much and he disappears when it matters.
Thoughts on the Leafs’ playoff successes suddenly switch from the core is young, even if this is frustrating to they need to win before it’s too late. Already, in recent years, they have suffered historic game-seven chokes and drastic failures to launch. Whether they do it against teams like the President’s Trophy-winning Capitals or the barely-alive wild-card Canadiens is irrelevant. They cannot win a round, at all. The Leafs are already the team with the greatest Cup drought, and they are now gaining a long playoff round victory drought too. It should be time, at least, for them to look like they are a contender.
This is how the Leafs find themself stuck; a particularly frustrating timeloop, even though hockey itself is nothing but. Sports are cyclical by nature. A team is bad, then okay, then good, then declining, then bad again, and this repeats anew. Some teams try to get themselves out of this cycle by being good forever; I can assure you that this only really happens to the New York Yankees, who employ a cadre of evil wizards to keep everything on that hell team going well for them. Most other teams who try end up stuck like the Canucks are, right now: bad enough to miss the playoffs, but not good enough to get key picks for a rebuild. I can see next season play out, clear as day: they struggle out of the gate, one of their stars gets hurt right when it seems like they’re at the very, very start of gathering momentum, they’re bottom-10 by January and the team says everyone but Pettersson are on the table, they trade picks and low-grade players, they get blazing hot post-deadline and finish twenty-first.
There is, unfortunately, also a perception that pure talent is not what makes players playoff performers -- instead, some so-called “clutch gene” that exists, or not. The reality is somewhere in between. Clutch exists. There are always players who can score when no one else can even dream of it, but a greater problem is luck. President’s Trophy winners are not often Cup winners (even if higher seeds are most likely to win), because the regular season is a much, much bigger sample size and the playoffs can change the course of all of it by a goalie having a hot streak at the right time. The 2018-19 Tampa Bay Lightning, third-best team in NHL history, got swept in the first round by Sergei Bobrovsky going crazy. The 2022-23 Bruins lost in seven in the first round in much the same manner.
And no matter what, the Leafs are always on the wrong end of the luck. Bounces hit the post. The refs take back goals for reasons they would have ignored at any other time of year. John Tavares slips, and his head makes contact with a knee.
Mitch ends up the whipping boy. He is the Leafs’ most valuable player, and this is a team with Auston Matthews on it, but I’m serious. He was the Leafs’ leading playoff scorer in 2023, he’s one of the best penalty-killers in the league, he’s adored by everyone who’s ever once talked to him. He only ever wanted to be a Leaf, and now that he is here he is the sacrificial lamb for the anger at a curse that is not his fault.
I do blame the media. I will always blame the media, those who turn on him at a moment’s notice because they know picking on the skinny pretty unmanly one will get more clicks than anything else. I beg of you -- know that, of anything that it could be, it is not Mitch’s fault.
Jack Eichel has a Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Neck Injury
It is 2021, and the Sabres aren’t going to make the playoffs. Jack Eichel has been captain for coming up on three years, and has been a Sabre for coming up on six, none of which have even slightly improved the team. He is widely disliked within the fanbase, and, rumouredly, within the locker room and organization.
Jack is frustrated, dragging a mediocre team along through a slog of the past six years, and he has never been the kindest man on the planet. He is about to get worse. The Sabres are on a losing streak when they head to Long Island, and Jack is hit the wrong way and slips a disk in his neck. The Sabres insist he’ll only be out a week and a half.
It is a great sin in hockey, to go against team. Anything that can be seen as selfish is demonized; shooting from a difficult angle when your teammate is wide open, not playing when you can muscle through the pain. Not trusting your coach or management is about as bad as you can get. If you’re a team guy, willing to sacrifice health and limb for the boys, you are held as saint, no matter how hurt you become in the end. This is a philosophy that has been drilled into these men since they were kids, as soon as they put their first skates on. You can stand any pain for the length of a hockey shift; you can play through anything for two minutes. It is a dangerous, dangerous school of thought, one of the most destructive parts of hockey culture. But it is, nonetheless, law.
Eichel is about to commit a sin so great they’ll kick him out of Heaven. I do think that, of the four of them, he is the only one with any semblance of genre awareness: when he was first scouted as a prospect and they were comparing him to McDavid, I think that he would be the only one to ignore the media’s spin on that as thoroughly as he did. He knows what he is, and he knows himself. Of course it comes off as bitchy and selfish, though -- that kind of pressure can’t be kind to anyone.
Before the week and a half is up, he visits a specialist doctor about his neck. This is where it all starts to go wrong.
The Sabres take issue with that for two reasons: one, that they hoped he’d be able to come back after the end of it. Keep in mind that he has herniated a disk in his neck, an injury typically so severe it’s impressive he’s walking -- slipping a cervical disk often causes nerve pain that radiates down through the entire spinal cord below that point, which is the whole body from how high up his is. Two, that the doctor he consults is an independent surgeon, one unaffiliated with the Sabres themselves.
The thing about belonging to a hockey team is that you are, because of the way your employment is linked to your physical health, essentially their property. They make your medical decisions for you, they feed you, they tell you how to move. Going to someone else is a breach of contract, and the already-tense connection between Jack and the Sabres gets more tense. The Sabres keep losing. They lose eighteen games in a row.
Jack’s doctor recommended a surgery that no NHL player has ever had; cervical disk replacement. The Sabres did not want this -- the surgery carries risks, yes, but they also wanted to control the way that Jack’s injury was handled, and going through with this surgery was Jack’s wish, not theirs. The Sabres do their own evaluation, and ask for a different, more common surgery: spinal fusion. This surgery carries less immediate risk, but the bones in Eichel’s neck will also be fused, and he doesn’t want that. Because the team has final control over a player’s health, not the player, they decline his disk replacement. Having reached a stalemate, they rule him out for the rest of the season, trying to win a war of attrition.
September 2021 rolls around, and the Sabres, along with thirty-one other teams, take training camp. At the beginning of training camp, players do a physical exam. Jack, because his herniated disk has not improved, because he needs a surgery that has been denied from him, because he is stubbornly and bravely willing to wait out the Sabres, fails his physical. As a result, the Sabres, fed up with him, strip the captain’s C from his chest.
Jack makes one final request to the team: either let him get the surgery or trade him. In the end, they trade him to the Vegas Golden Knights, a team that did not exist when he was drafted. The Golden Knights approve him for the disk replacement surgery the day they acquire him.
The surgery is a success; his rehab goes better than anyone expects, and he starts tearing it up when he comes back. I would argue that, if the Golden Knights win the Cup this year, he should get the Conn Smythe -- he has been an invaluable member of the team, even without a letter on his chest.
It is less important for him to win his million awards than it is for him to come in and out of this surgery in the first place, still able to play. He fought with the team that was supposed to have upheld him as their star for months over his right to do what he wanted with his own health; in the end, the only way to go was for him to change that team. He was the first to have this surgery, but after him there have already been hockey players who have undergone it -- much like Tommy John, the baseball player who got his ulnar ligament reconstructed and the surgery to do so named after him. He fought for the chance to control his own body and won.
And for that, he was demonized.
The Sabres missed the playoffs every year they had him; they missed the playoffs every year after he left. Because he was the captain and he had the audacity to go against the organization’s wishes, he was hated. In Buffalo, he is still hated. If you ask, they’ll tell you he was a locker room cancer, that he was undevoted to winning. If you look at him in Vegas, neither of those things are true.
Jack Eichel is a rare man -- he does have that “clutch” gene, or rather doesn’t have the choke instinct. He has always been unbothered by the spiral around him. He operates well in the mire, and when the pressure rises it doesn’t affect him (or maybe, even better, he feeds on it.) He has the right kind of mentality -- that fuck-you, I’m here and you can’t change that, you tried to control me and I wouldn’t bend mentality. He has only made the playoffs once, this year. Like Dylan, actually, his only appearance has involved defeating Connor McDavid. Go back and watch his highlights from the Vegas-Edmonton series if you can: he has a couple of pretty goals and more than a couple great defensive takeaways, but he doesn’t lose his cool, not once. He has earned his right to be here, and he knows it more than anyone else. I’m rooting for the Stars, but I hope he wins some day.
153
How do you talk about the Edmonton Oilers? I mean, without either excusing or demonizing them, although I admit I have Hater Instinct and trend towards the latter. They have the best player in the world; that grown-up incarnation of the wide-eyed boy on the Erie rink. They have the best playoff performer in the world; Leon Draisaitl, who I have not avoided mentioning until now on purpose, but whom I cannot continue without bringing up. They have been terribly cap-managed since the day McDavid was drafted, and are an unstable roster with blazing-hot offense and very little defence or goaltending at all.
For a brief moment, let’s not talk about the Oilers. Let’s only talk about Connor himself.
McDavid has 850 points in 569 career games. Not even Sid had that many points through that few games. If he stays healthy, Connor’s well on track to become the second player ever to hit two thousand for his career -- after a certain other Oiler, who need not be mentioned. He has won just about every award you can win, with the exception of the Selke… and the Cup.
If it’s possible, he has proven himself better than all of the hype at the draft saying he would become a great. To watch him, you can see the way he has changed his team, how even though they have all learned from him that he is still the best.
There is something that many Oilers do. When next your team plays them, pay attention to it: they cut into the offensive zone with possession on the outside, using tight little crossovers to gain speed, after which they’ll usually try to rush the net (if there are no defenders in the way). This is a move that McDavid has patented; he’ll use it, just as many of the others will, but he’ll probably be the one that scores. The depth all skate like him, really, fast and in wide arcs, trying to generate a rush chance.
Connor as a player is a tour de force, the best power-player in the world by a mile, no slouch at even strength, speedy enough to score even shorthanded. The boy’s got wheels. Sometimes it’s hard to tell which NHLers are fast and which are slow, but Connor’s just that tick above everyone else that you can see it without eye training at all.
Connor as a person is a bit less showy. He’s quiet by nature, shy and soft-voiced. Because he was hyped so much (franchise saviour, McJesus, Next One) he has been media trained into sterility, giving the same level answers as everyone else, hardly daring to express any opinion at all. His eyes are big, rounded, and one of them is lazy from a time when his brother tried to take it out as a child, and that combined with his heavy brow and stiff expression -- he’s never been a good smiler, smirks with one corner of his mouth and that’s mostly it -- give him a resting expression of something like concern, or maybe despair. When he laughs, he doesn’t really “laugh,” just kind of coughs, a one or two-syllable affair. He avoids eye contact with the camera, and often the reporters as well. There is no seething emotion under the surface, not like with Eichel, nor does he speak analytically like Dylan does. He moves through his life as if he is someone who does not want it to turn out quite like this.
I do not know if he wants to be in Edmonton. There are jokes about how he is desperate to leave, but I definitely don’t believe those; there’s a difference between not wanting to stay and wanting to go. I don’t think he hates it. He has been given a responsibility, the captain’s C -- and because, unlike Jack Eichel, he is a good Canadian boy who has been given a destiny, he accepts it. He loves his teammates, especially Draisaitl, whom he seems to derive all his confidence from.
I will also say that I don’t believe he’s stupid. Naive, perhaps; not stupid. There is no way out for him, even if he was sure he wanted to leave; he’s the best player in the world, far too expensive for any contender to afford in either trade or cap space, and if he asks for a trade he won’t let himself go to a team that isn’t already a contender. He will remain an Oiler at least until his contract is up, and I imagine that his staying afterwards depends on Draisaitl.
People talk about him leaving a lot, largely because of the team that has been assembled around him. The Oilers are not a well-created team, and I will say that plainly now and spend as little time technically deconstructing it as possible.
Beyond McDavid and Draisaitl, they have:
A rookie starting goaltender, whose success as we know it is based on a single-season sample size and a complete playoff collapse.
A five million dollar backup goaltender, who earned his contract by being carried by the Leafs, despite being utterly horrendous for a long enough stretch leading up to his free agency that anyone who looked beyond the win-loss numbers wouldn’t have signed him.
One genuine shutdown defender.
One young up-and-coming defender; by far one of the most promising Oiler (or otherwise) defensive prospects, beyond the usual suspects.
One netfront grinder who is great at playing wing to high-power setters, but cannot drive his own line.
One decent 2C.
Sarah Nurse’s cousin. Sarah’s better.
A supporting cast of bad defencemen and middling-at-best forwards.
Many charming characters, of course: Zach Hyman, the grinder, is a beloved ex-Leaf, and I’m personally a fan of Nugent-Hopkins, the 2C, but the vast majority of this is not the sort of thing a contending team is built upon. McDavid has missed the playoffs almost as often as he’s made them. The playoffs are a crapshoot, but in order to try your luck you have to at least be able to enter the lottery, and it takes a stunning amount of effort to be able to do that.
So, McDavid lingers, in this kind of limbo. It mirrors the Leafs, almost. (And yes. Because McDavid is an Ontario boy, and the Leafs are the Centre of the Universe, we have to mention them both in conversation. Not all stories revolve around the Leafs, but this one does.) One true contender, and one generational talent, both what we picture to be well overdue for their Cup run, but neither having yet done so.
The thing about the stories of the class of 2015 is that they intertwine, that they mimic and mirror each other. These boys have not simply gotten drafted in the same handful of picks in the same year and gone on their merry ways -- they layer, they parallel, they weave around each other. Connor is the captain of a team that cannot win, Jack is a captain, Mitch cannot win. Jack fought for the right to control his body and was demonized for it; Mitch negotiated for a contract that he determined to be a fair price for Babcock, and was demonized for it. Whatever pure saviour they figure Connor to be, Jack is the twisted inverse of that, falling from grace.
Connor has one of the best seasons in NHL history, one of only seventeen player-seasons with over a hundred and fifty points (Nine of those seasons belong to Gretzky. Another four belong to Lemieux.) He loses, in six games in the second round, to the Vegas Golden Knights. At the time that he’s eliminated, he leads the playoffs in points. Leon Draisaitl is tied for second place. Counting from the date Mitch Marner played his first game in the NHL, the Oilers and Leafs have almost exactly the same number of playoff game wins, with the Oilers having one more.
There’s No Place Like Strome
Before we can look to the future, there is one person I have been neglecting. Dylan, poor Dylan. I think it would be only half an unfair assessment to call him a draft bust. He’s talented, for sure, but not nearly the same calibre that the draftees around him are. Hardly a Marner, an Eichel, or even a Rantanen or a Meier.
His career has existed quietly in the shadows, so far from Connor McDavid that it only feels fair to mention them in the same conversation in this context. It has been eight years since they were best friends, Connor so close to Dylan he waited in the stadium in order to watch him get drafted. They didn’t look each other in the eye in the handshake line when Dylan won their series. Connor didn’t go to his wedding.
That being said: so far, he has found himself a knack for landing in the shadow of greatness. When he was an Erie Otter, it was Connor -- Dylan held the scoring title in their draft year, while Connor was out nursing his hand, but Connor was the chosen son and Dylan was the Coyotes’ consolation prize. When he was traded to the Blackhawks, he found himself centring Kane and Debrincat, but of course both of them were the offseason and trade deadline’s prizes, and not him.
And then he signed in Washington.
So now, we go back to Ovechkin. Alex Ovechkin is one of the greatest players of all time; his Capitals are on the decline now, but they contended for a long time while he was playing and may still contend as long as Ovi still skates. For a long time, the team relied on Ovechkin’s goalscoring, assisted mostly by his faithful centre, Nicklas Backstrom. They, too, are married; they have played a thousand games as teammates, been through a decade of heartbreak together before the Cup was theirs. During the 2021-2022 season, Backstrom took time off -- he needed hip surgery, something likely to end his career. Ovi was alone.
There is a fundamental difference, of course, between the expectations of wingers and centres. A winger, like Ovi, scores, or assists, at his own leisure, but it is the centre’s job to drive his line. Ovechkin is generational -- he will sink forty goals no matter what -- but he still needs someone to move him out of the defensive zone, someone to make his assist.
Enter Dylan -- a young centre, not especially fast on his feet but intelligent, and clearly experienced in the realm of managing high-calibre wingers (see: Debrincat, and the ghost of Patrick Kane.) He joins the Capitals on a one-year contract, desperate to prove himself. Chicago didn’t want him, and Arizona didn’t either. It takes barely until November before he is, once again, the necessary shadow of greatness.
Ovechkin, the team’s captain and centrepoint, clearly likes what he sees, and the management does, as well. The Capitals offer Strome a five-year extension.
Maybe it’s because he’s less of a superstar then the other three members of his draft class, but Dylan has a life outside of hockey -- a wife and young daughter. After being thrown away by other teams, and with his new family, I can only imagine that it was… peaceful, if anything, to be offered this contract.
Chicago, after rapidly getting rid of him, Debrincat, and then Kane, would go on to tank spectacularly, and win themselves the first overall pick. They will use it to draft another generational talent. His name is also Connor.
The Blue Wedding
So, here we stand, at the end of it all. Dylan finally has a home, a mother hen of a Russian bear that it has become his job to assist in record-breaking, and soon to be two daughters. Jack has a team that loves him, freedom from pain, and an ongoing potential Cup run. Connor has a sterile mansion, a best friend, and an unsteady team. Mitch’s life is up in the air.
Right as I’m writing this, the general manager of the Leafs has been unceremoniously kicked out. His tenure will end the day before Mitch’s no-move contract kicks in, but it is not known if Mitch’s time as a Leaf will survive that long. He is well on track to become one of the greatest Leafs of all time, and his tenure might be cut short in the prime of his career.
But let’s wrap up with this: Mitch will get married this summer. Because he’s Mitch, the darling of the league, everyone’s best friend, I imagine the wedding party to be extensive/ Packed to the brim of current and former Leafs, as well as people who have never been Leafs. I wonder if Dylan Strome will be there -- or even Connor McDavid, although McDavid never even attended Dylan’s wedding.
The stories, as they do, go on.
#asks#mitch marner#jack eichel#connor mcdavid#dylan strome#hope this helps and/or gives you brain poisoning#narrativeposting
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I’ve Loved You for so Long - Momo
a/n : tysm @stxrshiine for the banner and you guys should definitely check out her work !!
warnings : angst, idol x non idol, fluff at the end
synopsis : being close friends with momo since childhood had always been great but everything changed since she became an idol. when hanging out everyday to barely talking once a month, it’s harder to maintain the friendship and what was supposed to be more
you were a big part of momos childhood, practically being inseparable. if anyone wondered where you were, they’d call momo. if anyone wondered where momo was, they’d call you. you were there for her first heartbreak, her first tryouts, her first time driving, everything. while she slowly fell in love with you day by day.
“momo turn left! turn left! turn left!” you screamed, trying to back up in the seat.
“which way is left?!” momo screamed back in response as well as crashing into a light post…in an empty parking lot…
“that was not left, momo…”
momo had invited you to watch her try out for the survival show sixteen which you gladly accepted. but a week before she went on she had a serious talk with you.
“y/n i’m scared” she confesses.
“for what you’re a great dancer and singer?” you look at her as if she had just asked the dumbest question.
“well what if i do become an idol? what happens if we don’t have time for each other?” momo avoids eye contact and looks down and the carpet from the couch you both are sitting on.
“we’ve always made time for each other don’t worry! i’m sure we’ll still be just as close” you smile and slightly push momo but she didn’t laugh
“y/n, i’m serious. i don’t think we could ever hang out again.” she looks up at you, fidgeting with her fingers which you take notice of.
“if being an idol is what will make you happy, then i want you to become an idol, i want whatever makes you happy” you hold momos hand tightly.
“what if you make me happy?”
you hadn’t noticed how close you two were sitting, holding her hands in yours only made you guys closer.
“i’ll still be here for you momo we’re best friends i’ll be here with you until you’re sick of me” you laugh, trying to lighten the mood
“i don’t want to be your friend, but i don’t think being an idol will let me advance with that”
“momo what do you mean?” your heart starts beating faster as you let go of her hands.
momo can only grunt in frustration knowing that you didn’t understand her confession of being in love with you. being as stubborn as she is, she looks away and leans back on the sofa.
“forget it” momo sighs.
“no what is it?”
“i want to be with you, forever” momo stares at you, annoyed from how oblivious you were. how could you ignore the way she looks at you? the way she wouldn’t let another girl get too close to you, how she would hold your hand in public. when momo would do your makeup, buy you gifts, hand write you letters, compliment you to the point of annoyance.
all those little things made so much sense now.
when momo went on the survival show, you were there cheering her on, when she was eliminated, you were there comforting her, hugging her, telling her everything was going to be okay while wiping her tears. and when she became part of twice, you were her number one fan.
momo was your everything at one point and you even debated on becoming a trainee with her for moral support but chose not to at the last second.
how much you regret that decision is beyond.
everyday momo would call you after every practice explaining how much fun and how difficult it was to be an idol. all you could do is nod your head and listen to her ranting through the phone as her company was strict on hangouts with non family members. and everyday you resisted asking her what she meant that day before she went on the show. was it a confession? affection? you were totally lost.
this ate away at your brain more and more as those calls became less and less frequent throughout the years. one call a day became a call every other day, then a call once a week, then a call once a month, finally it getting to one call a year. unfortunately it got to the point where a call or text back from momo became increasingly unlikely.
you understood that momo was an idol and a busy woman with a life of her own, schedules, interviews, tours, practices and what not but she was your friend before it. why couldn’t she make time for you anymore? you at one point were also her everything so why is she acting as if you’re a complete stranger?
you tried to put an effort into talking with momo but it was like the universe did everything in its power to keep you two apart. until momo answered the phone one day.
“hey momo how are-“
“y/n? sorry ill call you back im busy”
she hangs up.
your efforts were looked over and pushed to the side. it was as if you really lost momo and the tight bond you once shared, could momo have forgotten about you or maybe even given up on you?
a couple months pass with no call back and you’ve fully given up on momo, accepting that you and her were not meant to be. but only thinking about it made your blood boil.
“fuck it what do i have to lose?”
you picked up your phone and started typing a long text to momo explaining your frustrations about her and your anger. it went from you being angry at her about not calling back, her busy schedules to regretting encouraging her to become an idol, wishing you debuted with her, and wondering what she meant that day. all the bottled up anger and frustration suddenly burst when you pressed send, holding back your tears wouldn’t work anymore. you were mostly crying because you knew she wouldn’t answer. surprisingly, your phone buzzed minutes later.
“let’s talk, i’m free today” momo texts back, for once in what feels like years.
after a couple hours momo knocks on your door and you have to hold yourself back from hugging her despite how happy you were to see her after all these years so, you simply move to the side so she can step inside.
“y/n” momo sighs
“i’m sorry for-“ she speaks but you quickly interrupt out of anger
“you ghosted me momo! you think id just forgive you like that?” you snap to prove your point. it was like all the bottled up anger decided to burst now, including the sadness.
“we were so close momo and you left? i feel like i don’t even know you anymore” tears start falling out of your eyes which you ignore out of frustration.
“i’m sorry” she walks closer to you trying wipe away the tears from your face but you quickly swat her away.
“especially leaving me confused with your last words to me!” you stare at momo, tears still streaming from your face.
it was like if momo had just been brought back to reality when you said that. her eyes open wide and her mouth twitches.
“you remember that..?” she almost sounds scared like if talking about a confidential topic.
“of course i do, momo what do you think!” you turn your body away from hers, wiping away at your tear stained cheeks.
“do you know what i meant?” momo fidgets with her fingers, scared of your answer.
you took a deep sigh before answering. yes over the years you’ve matured and have since then understood what momo was trying to say to you, but bringing up the topic made your stomach turn.
“it was a confession but what does it mean now?” you ask, still facing away from her.
“i still love you y/n” momo whispers, her voice shaking from the fear of rejection.
out of disbelief, you turn to face her once more, dumbfounded.
“you don’t even know me anymore, i’m not who i was 10 years ago” you stare deep into her eyes. scared she still might have the impression of your younger self on the current you. the truth is you did change a lot from the last time momo saw you, you changed your hair, fashion sense, and life style. it was like missing your other half that made you spiral into constant change to cope with the loss.
“i want to know the present time you,” momo walks closer to you to hold your hands, “i loved you then and i still love you now” the feeling of her hands in yours had filled the void in your heart that had been empty for the past 10 years. feeling a sense of relief, comfort, and reassurance you oh so needed.
“even with the color i swore not to dye my hair?” you look down, though a genuine question, momo laughs
“even with the color we swore not to dye our hair” she smiles, taking a hold of your face to look back at her.
“y/n, please let me get to know the one i love, once again”
#momo x reader#kpop#twice momo#momo#hirai momo#twice#twice x reader#twice x y/n#twice jihyo#twice nayeon#twice sana#twice jeongyeon#twice mina#twice chaeyoung#twice dahyun#twice tzuyu
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kiss kiss | joseph quinn x fem!reader
summary: you had seen it all over your pinterest and tiktok, the white buttoned shirts that girls kissed with their favorite lipstick to decorate the shirts with a unique and loving detail for their boyfriends. it looked good, every attempt you had seen looked different and cute, and you couldn’t help yourself when you saw the white buttoned shirt in the back of joe’s closet...
pairing: joseph quinn x fem!reader
tags: fluff fluff fluff, memories of your relationship with joe, a brief mention of sex but no actual smut
author’s note: yeah so i had a rough go of it for a while and i may not be BACK back yet, but. have this. mwah
“Hey, babe?” you called, carrying the wire hanger out to the living room. Joe had been working all day, and he had his feet up now, watching Succession all over again to relax from his own work, and he furrowed his eyebrows when he saw the shirt. “Does this fit you anymore?”
“Yeah,” Joe answered. “Why?”
You shrugged. “No reason,” you replied, thinking fast for an excuse. “Going through our closets to see what we can donate. I just haven’t seen you wear it in a while, so I was wondering.”
“Are you gonna donate that?” Joe asked. “What else have you decided to get rid of?”
“Not a lot,” you told him. “The itchy pink jumper my mum got me for Christmas, and those shoes that pinch your toes.”
Joe crossed his arms behind his head and nodded, and he said, “You can get rid of that shirt. The sleeves are weird and pull at my armpits.”
“Good to know,” you nodded, and you went back to the bedroom. You already had your favorite array of lipsticks laid out, pink and red and brown and even a daring purple added to the lineup, and you settled yourself on the carpet. All of the pictures you had seen had used red lipstick, and you debated which lipstick to use for the task.
Maybe the Dior one that Joe had bought you to wear to the premiere of Stranger Things? That night had been fun— it was the first time you had ever gone to an event with Joe, even though you had been together for years, and he had gone all out in order to make sure it was memorable for you. He had rented an expensive Dior dress for you, with chic makeup to match, and he had gifted you the tube of red lipstick with an engraved xx Eddie on the cap as a keepsake. You rarely used it, afraid to damage it or ruin it in any way, and the bullet of the lipstick was still firm and crisp, having been used maybe twice in its whole lifetime. That night, you had partied with the cast, gotten pictures taken with your lover, and lived the high life for the first time ever. It was so much fun, but you definitely could not do it more than once a year.
Or maybe you should use the ancient lipstick that you had bought at Primark the night of your first date with Joe. You had been getting ready to meet the cute guy that you had matched with on Hinge, and you had realized in a panic that you had no lipstick. You rarely wore makeup back then, but you wanted to make an impression on this guy for some reason, so you ran to the nearest store and bought the first lipstick you could find. You were late to dinner and apologized profusely to Joseph, age 25, from South London, but he had smiled and said he didn’t care. “M’just glad you showed up at all,” he said. His chocolate eyes had melted over dinner as he looked at you, and, towards the end of the meal, he said, “You look beautiful, by the way. Like, your pictures on Hinge are nice, but in person, you’re so… You’re stunning.” Of course, you had assumed he was just trying to get in your pants, but he had departed the night with a kiss to your cheek and a wish to see you again, and you knew that he was something special. You couldn’t ever bear to get rid of the, at this point, four year old lipstick, and you kept it buried in the depths of your makeup bag.
Or maybe, just maybe, you should use the Maybelline lipstick that you had been wearing the day that Joe landed his job as Eddie. You had had a job interview that day and had read somewhere that red lipstick conveyed confidence, and you had gone to the interview with little hopes of anything. You were somewhat glad that they didn’t immediately offer you the job, and you knew that waiting for a response was better, but you still felt glum as you slumped back to the flat. You felt unaccomplished and worthless, and you couldn’t even settle fully into the door before Joe had flung his arms around you and spun you around. “Oh, Jesus!” you had cried, and Joe giggled as he kissed you hard, smearing your lipstick all over his own lips. “Joe! What’s happened?”
“I got the job!” he told you, his eyes wild and bright as he held your face. “I just got off the phone with my agent, they want me to be Eddie!”
“They?” you asked. You vaguely remembered a few months ago, how you and Wes had helped Joe prepare for a self-tape for a character named Eddie, but you knew very little about the role or project past that.
“The Duffers,” Joe said. “Stranger Things, Netflix, they want me! They’re offering me a role!”
“Netflix?” you repeated incredulously. “Oh my God! You got it!”
The night had ended with Chinese takeaway, passionate sex, and an email that you had gotten your own job. It was the happiest day you had had in months, and, even though you had no reason to keep that lipstick, you saw it as a good-luck charm.
You couldn’t decide. You wanted to use all of them, because they all represented something different, and you finally uncapped the Dior lipstick. You carefully applied it to your lips, taking care not to make it messy with the lack of mirror, and you collected the white shirt in your hands. Then, you pressed your waxy lips to the white material of the collar, inking in the shape of your lips forever. It looked cute, and you smiled at your work. One kiss mark was downright adorable, but you wanted more, like the ones you had seen, and you kissed right under the lapel of the shirt, pushing hard against your lips to really make sure the lipstick stayed.
At the end, there were probably a dozen kiss marks littering the top of the dress shirt, and you couldn’t control your glee. You just hoped that Joe would like it as much as you did. You got up from the floor and retrieved a makeup wipe, and you wiped up your messy mouth as you padded out to the hallway. “Babe,” you said softly, capturing the wipe in your fist. “Can you come try something on real quick?”
Joe nodded and grunted as he sat up from the couch, and he swiped a quick kiss on your forehead as he passed you to the bedroom. You slipped by him to get there first, and you picked up the shirt and held it out to him. Confusion etched Joe’s face as he looked at the makeup-covered shirt, and he said, “What is this?”
“I saw a Maison Margiela shirt a lot like this,” you explained. “And I thought you’d like it, but I also wanted it to be personal, y’know? Like… I don’t know, I feel dumb now—“
“No, no, don’t do that,” Joe said quickly. “You made this? Is this the shirt you just asked me about a few minutes ago?” You nodded timidly, and Joe smiled softly. “I love it. Will you help me try it on?”
“I mean, you know how it fits,” you started, but Joe wrinkled up his forehead and shook his head.
“I wanna wear it to dinner tonight,” Joe said. “And maybe, like, every other day too. Definitely to an event, so everyone can see how cute and creative you are.”
“Really?” you asked.
“Of course,” Joe said. He shucked his t-shirt over his head, mussing up his messy curls, and you helped him into the buttoned shirt, being careful not to smudge or aggravate the lipstick marks. You dutifully did up the small buttons for him, and you smiled at your handiwork as it laid on Joe’s chest and collarbones.
“Here,” you said, steering him towards the mirror. “How do you like it?”
Joe examined his reflection, his fingers lightly ghosting over the red lips, and he grinned like a child in excitement. “I love it,” he said. “It looks so good.”
“But it fits weird,” you mumbled, tugging at his shirt sleeves. “Does it still pull at your armpits?”
“Yeah,” Joe said. “But I don’t care about that. This is my new favorite shirt.”
“Joe,” you cooed with watery eyes, and you pressed your cheek into his shoulder, kissing his neck gently. “You’re lovely.”
“You’re lovelier,” Joe said. “Making me this? You’re adorable. I love you.”
“I love you too,” you said softly. “My sweet boy.”
Joe did, in fact, wear that shirt to dinner that night, and you couldn’t control your smile all night. Your baby was a chronic outfit-repeater anyway, but the shirt became a regular part of his wardrobe, especially when he was traveling and felt particularly homesick. He would call you with tears in his eyes, saying how much he missed you, and the camera always showed that he was wearing that shirt. Finally, it came time for premieres and things, and, even though you declined being on his arm for the Quiet Place premiere, he had a piece of you with him underneath his suit jacket all night, right over his heart.
#joseph quinn x reader#joe quinn x reader#joseph quinn x you#joe quinn x you#joseph quinn rpf#joe quinn rpf
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Ooh! Ooh! Hey, hey! I just got another idea for a twst au!
Everyone else: Don’t you have enough of these?
Me: Hush!
Twst Spoilers for chapter 7
What if Malleus was the one to find Silver instead of Lilia?
When the treaties were signed, Malleus—on a whim—decided to visit the place where his mother died. While there, he hears a cry. Curious, he follows the sound to find-- “A baby? And a human one at that.” He wonders why the child is here, hidden among the thorns. More than that, he wonders why it's alone.
He looks at the thing and thinks it's an ugly monkey. Around it is a strange ring that glitters in the moonlight. He debates abandoning it, however, its cries are so desperate that they break even his heart as it reaches its tiny hands out to him. Also, he recalls Lilia’s lessons of how he should learn to love humans. And in this child, he recognizes the same loneliness that haunts his own heart.
For both of those reasons, he picks up the child—handling him as if he were glass—and takes him home. As he flies away from the castle, the golden chain slips from the child’s neck and falls away, lost to the valley—for now.
Lilia is surprised, to say the least when he discovers the Prince has taken in a human baby. Malleus is blasé about it, stating that it was on a whim. When asked why he didn’t leave the baby at a human village, Malleus states Lilia always says that he should learn about humans, so what better way to learn about them than by raising one? At Lilia’s prompt, Malleus bestows a blessing upon the child whose hair turns white. He takes Lilia’s suggestion to name the human Silver.
At first, Malleus treats Silver like a pet but Lilia helps him to treat the child like a person. Because Silver is technically HIS baby in this AU, Malleus is very protective and possessive. Anyone that’s not Lilia takes their life in their hands if they approach without permission first. When Lilia brings up the idea of training Silver, Malleus is insulted that Lilia thinks he can’t protect his own, but realizes Lilia’s right that Silver should learn to defend himself. Around this time, they met Sebek, who was appalled at first that someone so “lazy” is Malleus’ ward.
As Silver grows up, Lilia can’t help but realize that Silver looks more and more familiar as he grows and eventually goes to investigate, learning the truth at the castle and finding the lost ring along the way.
Other h/c for this au;
*Silver grew up under a lot of scrutiny and judgment, but no one dared touch him, lest they earn Malleus’ wrath.
*Malleus was reluctant to leave Silver when he got his NRC invite and only went after leaving Silver in the care of the Zigvolt family.
*Malleus used to overfeed Silver till Lilia pointed out that he was basically a dumpling now. After that, the cooks put him on a diet.
*They used to share a room till Lilia pointed out that Silver was too big and should have his own. This resulted in an argument that ended with Silver moving to the room next to him.
*Malefica never met Silver, nor does she wish to, seeing the child as a fling that will soon die of age.
*When the senate made a fuss about the Prince adopting a human, Malleus used his, “Shut up or get zapped by lightning” argument.
#mine#twst#twisted wonderland#twst silver#silver twst#silver vanrouge#lilia vanrouge#silver twisted wonderland#malleus draconia#twst malleus#twisted wonderland malleus#twst au#twst spoilers#diasomnia#twst book 7#twst book 7 spoilers#malleus adopt Silver au
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Over the road
"Those are some pretty undies you got there" Maggie whispered in Christian's ear. He turned a deep red. And quickly pulled down his shirt as he rushed off to the men's room. Maggie couldn't resist when she saw him lean forward she caught a flash of pink lace. As she told another waitress they both laughed outloud. By the time he returned she had calmed down having other costumers.
Chris debated of he should just remove the panties and go commando or just pull his pants up. He stood in the stall rock hard. Although he wanted to play with himself it was quite a busy at the truckstop and thought he better not. Instead he pulled up his pants and with his head hung low went back to his seat to at least pay the bill.
"Sorry if I embarrassed you" Maggie smiled. He couldn't even look up. Till he read the back of the bill. Said Maggie with a phone number. Chris was surprised, he instantly thought I can't he was married after all. He left in such a hurry he forgot his hat. As he was going back out to his truck.
"Hey sweety" he heard behind him as a hand slid across his ashe turned and Maggie put his hat on his head.
"You better call me" she smiled and went back to work. He went and sat in his truck. He couldn't get Maggie out of his head. She was properly late 30s maybe 40. Obviously a mom he thought. He found himself going back inside a few hours later and sitting in her section. He just ordered coffee. And sat quietly watching her.
"I get off in 30 minutes" Maggie told him. He just nodded shyly. She motioned for him to follow her as she left after clocking out. He caught up to her in the parking lot.
"So panty boy show me" Maggie smiled they where on the far side of the parking lot. Chris looking around undid his thick belt and big belt buckle and open his pants showing Maggie his pink panties with little hearts all over them and a delicate lace border. She had him get in her car. He pulled up his pants.
"I'm married" he spit out the first words he had said other then his order.
"Does your wife know you wear her panties?" Maggie asked. He mumbled no as he shock his head. Maggie reached into his pants. And grasped his dick.
"No wonder you wear panties, I bet my 12 year old has a bigger dick" Maggie laughed. This only made Chris harder. Maggie drove to secluded spot a few miles away. She got out of the car. It was a rather warm night. As Christian watched her hick up her dress and remove her panties. She laid across the hood of her car.
"Do you want to lick my pussy?" Maggie teased. Chris dropped to his knees.
"Wait strip, I want you in just your panties" Maggie smiled. As she watched him strip down to just his tiny panties. His dick struggling to escape. He knelt and went to lick her.
"Lick my ass, first" she ordered. He did just that he even drove his tounge into her hole. Maggie cooed as he did whatever she commanded. She loved having this power over a man. He didn't even try and stop licking her ass, pussy, thighs his tounge was magical Maggie thought. Until Maggie came loudly all over his face.
Chris thought now he could fuck her. Bit Maggie got up and pulled his panties down. She stroked him with two fingers.
"How do you even fuck your wife with this little thing?" Maggie teased. Chris just moaned. "I bet she has real men that please her when you are on the road" Maggie told him. He was gone for weeks at a time. He had never thought about his wife Kelly cheating on him. But now as he thought about it he came all over the front of Maggie's car.
"When are you getting back on the road?" Maggie asked.
"In the morning" Chris replied. Maggie returned him to her truck. And before she left added her number to his phone.
Chris woke early to a text from Maggie. /send me a pic of you wearing panties/ he did as she asked not even knowing why.
Maggie continued to text, call, even face time him several times a day. She would talk dirty to him, called him a sissy, encouraged him to buy panties. He only had two pairs he had stolen from his wife. It was two weeks when he came back thru town. He again met up with Maggie. But this time renting a motel room.
"I got you some things" Maggie told him. As she produced a variety of things. First woman's deodorant, body wash, body spray. Hand lotion.
"You need to smell like a sissy boi" she told him. Then pulled out a bottle of hair remover, pink razors and ladies shaving gel. "Litle bitch boys are always smooth as a baby ass" she told him. Producing hair products next, his hair was already long. Bit he needed to take better care of it. That night Maggie let him see her naked. But only after he had agreed to remove all his body hair. Maggie told him it would grow back in a few days. He would soon learn that wasn't true.
"Christine, you need to buy sexier panties" Maggie told him. She had said this when he had first bought some. Buying pastel colored cotton panties. Chris physically flinched hearing her call him Christine. Maggie had him orally please her again but as he did she got in a 69 position. But ignored his throbbing dick instead she applied lube to his smooth ass.
"What are you?" Chris gasped. As Maggie pushed two fingers into his hole.
"Do you think Kelly let's men fuck her ass?" Maggie asked as she finger fucked him. He moaned as he continued to lick her clit. Again he now thought of his wife getting fucked, over the last week he had pictured the farm hands, the neighbors, even thier pastor fucking Kelly. He couldn't shake the idea of her riding a big cock. Maggie spent the night with him cuddling in the motel room. In the morning Maggie woke him by pushing a vibrator up his ass.he woke with a start and first tried to stop her. Till Maggie turned it on. He fell silent.
"All the real men out there are going to smell how sexy you are and want to shove their big cocks in your ass" Maggie told him. Maggie didn't stop until his little dick stopped leaking all over his stomach.
She even had him paint his toe nails before he hit the road again. Again they spoke several times a day. Maggie now called him Christine exclusively. Encouraging him to buy a bra, and a nightie.
"It would be so hot if you got stopped by the police and they jumped up on the truck to see you just wearing your pretty panties." Maggie told him. The very next day she had convinced him to send her a pic of him driving wearing just a tiny thong and a tee shirt. Maggie continued touch his homosexual thoughts. And that he wasn't man enough for any woman. Especially his wife. She would FaceTime him as they both masterbated. But only if he used the vibrator she had given him.
By the time they met face to face again, he had been home and back on the road for week.
"I swear I didn't even try and have sex with my wife" Christina wimpered as Maggie squeezed his tballs lightly.
"Good, I have a surprise" Maggie pulled out a flower print sun dress. And made him put it on.
"I bet you been sucking cocks all across the country" Maggie said as she straightened his dress. "Are you some kind of faggot lot lizzard?" She teased. "Show me" she produced a black dildo and had him suck on it. She took his phone and took pics.
"Do you think Kelly likes big black cock? Or is that just you?" She asked as she played with his little dick. When he came she caught it a
In her hand and pulled the toy from his mouth coated it in his cum and had him lick it clean.
Maggie demanded more pics and images, more risqué acts. And made him tell her how he was a pretty sissy faggot that wanted to suck cock. And get fucked in the ass. It had been months and when he returned home again it was impossible to hide the changes. His hair rested on his shoulders now. But also had blonde highlights. He smelled like a woman, not to mention the thinned eyebrows or the manicured hands. He wore a bra and panties everyday. Yet when Kelly saw him she didn't seem shocked.
"Maggie was right you aren't a man anymore" Kelly told him. Christina looked surprised. "Maggie gives me daily updates" Kelly smiled.
"OH and no not big black cocks, well not black at least" she smiled and smacked Christina's ass. "I'm going to get fucked be a good girl and do the dishes" Kelly laughed as she grabbed her keys and left Christina standing alone in the kitchen.
Hope you like this Roaddawg. Maybe when the wife's comes back she bends that cute girlie ass over and shoves a nice big dildo in it for you.
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SURPRISE!
Pairing: Wanda Maximoff x GN!reader
Genre: Fluff/Comfort
Summary: Based on this request. A relaxing day with your girlfriend ends up with a surprise.
A/N: Here it is finally. I kind of rushed it a bit just to make sure it came out before I start with tests and stuff so, if there's any mistake on pronouns or something please let me know so I can edit it, also is the first time I have written for a gender neutral character so, have that in mind. Please enjoy.
Warnings: None that I'm aware of.
Word count: 1085
[You don't have permission to repost or translate any of my stories or claim them as yours]
(This picture is from Pinterest)
You loved your job.
It was the one change you had to leave the environment you were born in and actually do something that mattered in your eyes. But, you were also tired, everyone was. Fury had the team working nonstop for weeks now and finally, he grew a conscience and gave you a week off.
This brings you to now, laying on the couch with your girlfriend on top of you. She had a thing for resting her head on your chest, her ear being directly on top of your heart and you absolutely loved it. It gave you the perfect opportunity to thread your fingers through her hair.
Moments like this made you love the fact that you kept your apartment away from the compound. You loved your found family but, they could be a lot, especially after weeks of being almost attached to the hip, and the added privacy was a plus.
You had been dating for a few months now and you felt that you had met your whole life, and to be honest with the way you two acted with each other, the others thought so too. It only took a look before you both climbed into your car and went to your apartment.
You and Wanda had a simple plan.
Order takeout, put on some sitcoms, and then just cuddle until bedtime. It was the perfect plan for two introverts such as yourselves and it was doing wonders for both of your moods.
That was until Wanda’s phone started ringing. “Nooooo,” You said, hugging her, preventing her from reaching for it.
“Baby, at least let me see who it is,” She said, to which you let her just take a pick at her screen. Once she saw who it was she realized she really needed to answer it. “Honey, I need to answer that. It’ll just be a minute, I promise”
You huffed “Fine, but I’ll be waiting, I still haven’t reached my cuddles quota” The witch nodded and got up from you leaving a short peck on your lips.
Unbeknownst to you, weeks ago Wanda had been looking to adopt a puppy for you, you had talked about it for a while having been told that it could help to maintain your anxiety at bay and secretly because you and Wanda didn’t have a chance to have one when you were little so, all in all, it was a win-win to get you one in the brunette’s eyes.
The call was about the lady at the adoption center telling her that she was parked outside with the puppy. As it turns out, Wanda had forgotten all about it since it had been a few very hectic weeks and her mind was on the missions. She just hoped you would enjoy the surprise.
“Okay so… I have a surprise for you,” Your girlfriend said, going into the living room again.
"A surprise?" You replied confused, "Wait… did I forget something?" You got up in an instant at the thought of forgetting an important event.
"No, no, no. It's just something I wanted to do for you for a while and it’s finally here” She grabbed your keys from the coffee table where you had tossed them when you arrived. You gave her a confused look but ultimately decided to just let her be and eventually find out what this was all about. “I’ll be right back, baby” She gave you another peck and left the apartment.
A few minutes passed and you were starting to get nervous, debating whether you should go find her or not but before you could make any decision you heard the giggle of the keys.
You watched intently toward the front door waiting to find out what she was doing and what the surprise was. Wanda walked in with her back turned to you, which you assume it’s to hide her hands and whatever she was holding.
“Okay, I need you to close your eyes,” She said, looking at you from over her shoulder. You did as she said and patiently waited for whatever she meant to do. You heard her quiet steps getting closer and right before she was able to tell you to open your eyes you heard a cute little bark. You immediately opened your eyes at the intrusion to be face to face with a black and white husky puppy, looking at you with its big blue eyes.
“I guess someone was excited to meet you,” Wanda said petting the puppy’s head. “This is Atlas… your new companion”
“You got me a puppy?” You were still shocked, never expecting Wanda to actually get you one.
“Yeah… I hope that’s okay,” She shifted her weight on her leg. “It’s just… you told me you had been thinking about getting one and then I read about dogs being really helpful with stress and stuff,”
You were seriously about to cry right now, no one in your life had ever put that much attention to you, they were just loose comments on a few conversations that you thought no one was paying attention and Wanda actually thinking about the positive impact that a pet could have on you were just one of many signs that she loved you and were having troubles expressing her much this meant to you.
“I love this… I don’t what to say” You ran to her and buried your face in her neck, being aware of little Atlas in between you.
“Oh honey, you don’t have to say anything” Her free hand was gently caressing the back of your neck.
“I love you, Wanda,” You said under your breath, if you had been farther away she wouldn’t have been able to hear it. It was the first time you said it, any of you. You both clearly felt it but neither of you really said it, you just showed it with actions.
“I love you too, Y/N”
You both relished the newly said words, feeling the ease of it all. Petting Atlas and playing with him, making a list of the things you were going to have to get for him. It was the warmest place you had ever felt, this was home, this was everything you needed and had never even thought of, and more and all thanks to the young witch that held your heart.
Every day that passed you were becoming more sure about Wanda being your soulmate and you wouldn’t change it for the world.
#wanda maximoff#scarletwitch#wanda maximoff imagine#scarletwitch imagine#wanda maximoff x reader#scarletwitch x reader#wanda maximoff x you#scarletwitch x you#wanda maximoff x reader fluff#scarletwitch x reader fluff#marvel#mcu#reader insert
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Them both having a crush on you
notes: had this idea ever I got to know these two. how they act when they're both in love with you, what happens when you pick them and what happens when you reject them for the other. I hurt myself writing this.
characters included: alhaitham, kaveh
contains: character x gn!reader, pining, rejection, jealousy, wingman!kaveh
warnings: angst, unrequited love
dark content blogs dni
Alhaitham:
You got to know Alhaitham because of the whole "saving Sumeru" fiasco, having worked with the Traveler and their team to overthrow the sages and rescue the Dendro Archon.
While you were always impressed with Alhaitham's intelligence, it was refreshing to see a new side to him in calmer moments, like the celebration feast that Nilou organized. You were surprised to hear him talk about how the people of the Grand Bazaar feel joy from the bottom of their hearts, something the people he knew at the Akademiya were foreign to and how he actually enjoyed the atmosphere of the event because of its special meaning. It wasn't a statement you had expected from him but you would lie if you said that you didn't enjoy when he subverted your expectations. That seemed to be something akin to a hobby for the scribe.
Since your chosen career paths made the two of you cross paths every once in a while, Alhaitham became someone you considered a friend, someone you saw occasionally and enjoyed to converse with. Small talk always turned into debates and complex discussions with this man and Alhaitham was enjoying that a lot.
He was actually the reason you met Kaveh in the first place. When he met you, you were suffering from a particularly bad headache and Alhaitham offered to take you to his house to give you a couple of painkillers, since his home was closer than yours. When you entered the house, Kaveh was kneeling next to the living room table, crafting a little house with matchsticks. Alhaitham didn't make much of the stinging feeling in his chest when you went over to his roommate and introduced yourself with a smile and excitedly commented on how much you liked his work. Alhaitham just simply rolled his eyes. "This is my roommate, Kaveh. He rather does little diy projects than try to get his life together."
He hated to see how well you started to get along with Kaveh. That you met him in the afternoons to hang out with him, sometimes more than you did with him. Alhaitham knew he probably gave off the impression that he didn't like spending time with people that much and was very busy with work and his studies. Still, you spending time with Kaveh prompted him to ask you to hang out with him more.
You thought this was simply him warming up to you more and you were happy to see it.
When you weren't around, Alhaitham couldn't help but sometimes look down on his roommate, telling him that he should probably get some money and a stable life first before he thinks of wooing you. Kaveh, however, always had a comeback. Mocking the way Alhaitham didn't seem to understand romantic gestures and how to express love properly. "I may be in a bit of a financial situation right now, but you're one to talk. Do you think y/n would fall for a guy like you? See, so be quiet." Kaveh, just like you, was blissfully unaware of the fact that Alhaitham also had feelings for you.
Alhaitham usually just ignored Kaveh's comments or answered with an amused smirk. However this time it made him wonder if there was some truth to his words. Whether that was what you wanted: a romantic man who brought you flowers and wrote you poetry and always knew how to express what he felt for you. Someone like Kaveh
Alhaitham, being more bitter than usual, happened to "accidentally" take Kaveh's keys more often when he went out, only for that to backfire horribly. He went to knock at your door to ask you if you wanted to grab dinner with him, only for you to open the door and for him to see Kaveh on your living room couch wrapped in a blanket with a tea you made him. You scolded Alhaitham for taking his keys again and explained that Kaveh didn't have a place to go so you let him stay here. "So, what brings you here?", you asked him with a smile. "I just wanted to give you back your pen. You left it at my house", Alhaitham said with a neutral expression as always and chucked Kaveh's key in the direction of the couch, "here's your key. Hopefully you'll move out soon so you won't need it anymore." With a quick comment on how he was busy and had to go, Alhaitham left again, leaving you and Kaveh wondering whether he was in a bad mood or something.
When you choose him:
It was one of the rare evenings, where, even though you now visited Alhaithams house quite regularly, both of the roommates actually decided to spend some time with you. You had come over to play a couple of rounds of Genius Invokation TCG against Alhaitham. Kaveh sat down next to you, giving you tips and making a few teasing remarks towards Alhaitham when you were close to defeating one of his characters.
Alhaitham didn't let that deter him. His strategy made you outmatched even if Kaveh was helping you. If only the two of you teaming up wouldn't make him sit so close to you and joke around with you so much. Since Kaveh wanted to play the game as well, it didn't take long for Alhaitham to grab his book and go outside to read, not wanting to watch Kaveh shamelessly flirting with you any longer. He shouldn't be bothered with this situation.
During a break, you went outside as well to find Alhaitham sitting on a bench in front of his home and reading his book. You didn't know that he was only staring at the pages, unable to internalize any sentence written there. "Why did you leave?", you asked and sat down next to him. You were willing to give Alhaitham the space he needed for his research, but you thought it'd be more fun to have him around. Plus, you were always looking forward to spending time with the man you had a crush on. "I wanted to read more about this topic", Alhaitham gestured towards the book and avoided your gaze, "besides, you don't need me to woo my roommate." He said that so casually in a matter-of-fact way that at first you genuinely thought Alhaitham just misinterpreted the situation but didn't care for the outcome. So you revealed the truth, knowing he wouldn't hold it against you. That you actually fell for Alhaitham and were looking forward to spending more time with him. "Kaveh knew, I guess that's why I've been talking to him that much more than usually...", you awkwardly put a hand in your neck as Alhaitham gave you a confident smile. "I should have seen that coming", he teased you, acting as if he never had any doubt you'd fall in love with a scholar like him, "well, worry not, I'm quite fond of you as well." You smirked back. "Were you jealous of Kaveh?" "Jealousy is for people with too many shortcomings", Alhaitham remarked dryly.
That's how you ended up leaning against Alhaithams chest, discussing how to proceed with your relationship. He talked as calmly and casually as usual and the only thing that gave him away was the rapid beating of his heart. He had an arm wrapped around you and gave you a sweet forehead kiss.
Alhaitham was not above being petty though. He knew exactly what Kaveh felt for you and he had no problem rubbing your love for him into his roommate's face; kissing you passionately in the kitchen while Kaveh was trying to make himself a milkshake. "Do you guys have to do that in our shared living space?", the blond architect sighed as Alhaitham was trailing kisses down your neck, repeatedly pressing soft pecks to the spot below your ear, smiling against your skin triumphantly considering how you hugged him closer and let out a happy sigh. Kaveh mused that this would be a long and miserable couple of months before he got used to this...
When you choose Kaveh:
Alhaithams heart was aching when he saw you kissing his roommate. He cursed the feeling he was experiencing. It was just love, it shouldn't bother him that much. It'd pass eventually, as all things did.
His face showed nothing of what he was feeling inside as Kaveh leaned his forehead against yours and the two of you were giggling about a joke he had made, you playfully hitting the architect with a pillow before Kaveh ripped the pillow from your hands and pulled you into his lap, kissing you tenderly.
To you and your boyfriend, Alhaitham was just as he always was. Calm, confident, a little distant and not very emotionally expressive. The scribe knew you had no idea of his feelings and neither did Kaveh. Maybe that was exactly the problem. Maybe that was why he lost you.
Maybe he should have shown you more that you meant something to him. He would never become a romantic like Kaveh and Alhaitham had no interest in pretending to be something he wasn't, but he could have told you more what he appreciated about you when the situation called for it. Reached out to you more to show you he liked spending time with you. Showed more interest in your passions. He was so caught up with trying to ignore his feelings for you that he didn't notice how deep he had fallen in love until it was too late. He looked at how you kissed Kaveh, how you stared at him like he was the most precious thing you had ever laid eyes on and Alhaitham wished from the bottom of his heart that this could be him.
But the scribe proceeded just as he always did. Focusing on his work and studies, still interacting with you the same way he would with any of his close aquaintances. To Alhaitham, loving you and seeing you love Kaveh was a rollercoaster of emotions. To you, Alhaitham remained the same through it all. No difference in behavior, no hint of feelings; just the usual. Alhaitham had missed the chance to show you he loved you. And now that didn't matter anymore, so he might as well continue as he always had; casually talking to you and trying to ignore the hurt in his chest when you'd lean over to Kaveh to press a kiss to his cheek.
Kaveh:
Kaveh was still trying to process the whole Sumeru fiasco he was absent from. Not only did the sages get overthrown but Alhaitham had friends? People he brought over to his house? Well, it was mainly you and he occasionally saw his roommate talk to the General Mahamatra, Nilou or Dunyarzad but Kaveh was used to Alhaitham being a loner if his work and research didn't involve social interaction in any way.
What surprised the renowned architect was that you weren't nearly as obnoxious as his roommate. In fact, he grew to like you very quickly with the way you showed interest in his creative projects and were willing to discuss the arts with him. How you looked at the novel he was reading and revealed you had actually read it yourself, promptly discussing the most important plot points with Kaveh while Alhaitham was sitting across from you raising an eyebrow.
Kaveh found your presence very pleasant and it didn't take long for him to ask you to spend some time with him. He wanted to take you for a tour around Sumeru, showing you the buildings he had created, leaving the best for last. He felt a sense of pride when you marveled at the Palace of Alcazarzary and asked him questions about its construction process. Something he hadn't felt in a while considering he was broke and Alhaitham would remind him of his failures constantly, even if mocking him wasn't always his intention.
If only you weren't head over heels for the scribe. Kaveh caught feelings for you so fast, he hardly registered what was happening. The architect was a romantic at heart and was unashamed to admit to himself that he had fallen in love with you. You obviously trusted him and cared for him, otherwise you wouldn't have confided in him about your feelings for Alhaitham. Seriously, unrequited love was hard as is, but did it have to be Alhaitham of all people???
Kaveh didn't understand what you saw in the man. Even after you explained it with a chuckle, finding it amusing how the two of them were always bickering and how Kaveh was obviously shocked that you would fall for Alhaitham.
Still, because Kaveh loved you and because he believed that it was in our nature as humans to help others, he decided to put his feelings aside and support you. It would hurt to see you happy with someone else but it would hurt him even more to see you sad.
That's how Kaveh became your unfortunate wingman. Relaying all the information to you about what made Alhaitham tick and what things he liked. Letting you come over to their shared house so it prompted more interactions between you and the scribe. And watching how happy you looked whenever Alhaitham was giving you attention.
It hurt Kaveh but as long as you could be happy, there was nothing else he wanted to ask for from you. He loved you. Deeply and unconditionally. And the only thing he wanted was for you to live without regrets; fortunate and free to follow the path that made you happy.
Still, there was always a sliver of hope left in him. He knew you probably only let him stay with you out of pity that he was locked out of his house (again) but he loved the way you sat with him, wrapped in a blanket and slightly leaning against him (something he convinced himself was totally platonic), after having brought him a hibiscus tea (his favorite). The two of you were reading a play and Kaveh gave you some subtle hints, projecting onto the main character and explaining his feelings for the love interest. When in reality, those were just Kaveh's feelings for you. He didn't know if you caught onto what he was doing or if it was merely wishful thinking, but his heart skipped a beat when you explained how the love interest must be feeling for the main character, who was oddly similar to Kaveh, as well. It was a beautiful romance. One that Kaveh might never have but always dreamed that he would.
When you choose him:
The past few weeks had been hell for Kaveh. The last time he met you, you parted from him with plans to finally confess to Alhaitham. He never knew if you did it. You had been very busy with work and so had Alhaitham. He knew the two of you had met a couple of times since then, but if Alhaitham was your significant other, he sure didn't give any hints when he came home. Maybe the scribe just wanted him to suffer in uncertainty.
Kaveh was glad when you came over to his roommate's house to spend time and play Genius Invokation TCG with the two of them. When Alhaitham left to go outside and read his book, Kaveh finally asked the question that plagued his mind since he last saw you: "So...how did your confession go?"
Your reaction wasn't what he thought it would be. You chuckled and then awkwardly smiled at him. "Actually...funny thing happened", you began and Kaveh noticed how you were fidgeting with your hands, "....uh....I- well, I actually am not in love with Alhaitham anymore." Kaveh's heart started beating rapidly when you said those words. "Why's that?", he asked curiously, simultaneously trying to recover from the sudden turn of events. "Well, you see...over time I started falling in love with someone else", Kaveh's eyes widened when you took his hands into yours and looked at him with an honest smile, "Kaveh, I'm in love with you..."
Play it cool, was his initial thought to himself as his heart started beating even faster. But he was Kaveh and he could never play anything cool so what he did instead was basically throwing himself at you, hugging you and knocking you over onto the couch behind you while Kaveh buried his face in your neck as he was laying on top of you. It wasn't the first time you two had hugged but you could feel the relief Kaveh was experiencing. "Sorry that I made you wait", you softly spoke and pressed a kiss to his forehead, knowing that Kaveh enjoyed physical affection, "I had to sort out a lot of my thoughts." You could hear quiet sobs coming from the architect as he was tightening his hug and mumbled an incoherent "I love you" against your skin. "Hey, don't cry, okay?", you gently caressed the exposed skin of his back with your fingertips as Kaveh gradually calmed down and looked into your eyes, smiling before leaning his forehead against yours.
You held his hand, squeezing it to signal that you were not going to let go. Kaveh cupped your cheek and asked if he could kiss you, to which you nodded in response. Kaveh's kiss was loving and romantic, just as you expected of him and he pulled you into his lap and leaned his head against your shoulder. "I'm glad you came to your senses", he chuckled.
When you choose Alhaitham:
Seeing you kiss Alhaitham made Kaveh's heart sink in his chest. He knew that this was a possibility. He was prepared for this, or so he thought. And yet it hit him like a raging sumpter beast. He had lost you. And to Alhaitham, of all people.
He was happy for you. Somewhere in his aching, shattered heart he was genuinely happy for you. And he knew he would be able to support you as much as you needed to. One day. When his heart would heal.
But for now, he glared at the scribe who knew full well how Kaveh was feeling and made a point of kissing you passionately and and trailing kisses down your neck when Kaveh entered the kitchen. A quick and easy way to make sure Kaveh would leave the two of you alone for the rest of the evening. Instead, Kaveh took his play and went back to his room, locking the door, sitting on the bed and hugging a pillow as he allowed himself to cry into it. His muffled sobs were drowned out by the soft pillow and the sound of the rain hitting Alhaithams windows.
In this moment, Kaveh hated everything. He hated that he had no place of his own; that everything around him belonged to Alhaitham and now even you had given your heart to the scribe while Kaveh was dependant on the man who had no qualms rubbing his new relationship into Kaveh's face.
The unrealistic heart of a dreamer that Kaveh cursed a lot these days hoped that you would knock on the door and comfort him. Explain that it was all a mistake and that you loved only him. That you would hold onto him and stay with him and hold him until his tears would disappear. But the knock never came.
#alhaitham x reader#kaveh x reader#al haitham x reader#genshin impact#yae publishing house#alhaitham#kaveh#genshin x reader#genshin impact x reader
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Winter Wrestles
A/N: As @aroseinvelaris so eloquently put it. I have written something that doesn't bring my readers to tears. Even so, you guys don't mind....right? (Say yes or I kill Az)
Summary: It's finally a snow day in Velaris, with the Illyrians all about to have their annual snowball fight, what if someone planned something ahead?
Request: N/A
Pairing: Azriel x Reader, Feyre x Rhys, Nesta x Cass
Warnings: Just some fluffy shenanigans with the group.
~*~*~*~*~
"He'll never fall for it" You hissed. Cassian grinned from beside me and you debated wether you should just leave and pretend you were never here. With the three Illyrians about to go on their little snowball fight, Cass thought it would be funny to surprise Az with a little...trick.
It was like a regular bucket-on-door prank, but instead of water it was snow. And then after Cass wanted to ambush Az with snowballs while you helped him. At first, it sounded like a good idea, but now you were thinking that maybe you should quit before Az covered you in snow when he figures out that you had something to do with this.
Deciding that you were better off snow-free, you winnowed to the front of the cabin. You weren't going to expose Cass's hiding place, he could do the prank if he wished but you were going to wait in the open so that Az knows for a fact, it wasn't you.
That's when you saw her.
From the slightly ajar door you spied Nesta coming out, however, Cass had dug himself his own grave, he could damn well lie in it. You waved to Nesta and she smiled at you, going to open the door, Az behind her, his eyes trained on you-
BOOM
The bucket fell as a pile of snow hit Nesta. She stood completely still for a moment, the shock not quite settling in, when Cass came out of his hiding place, laughing widely, hands full of snowballs. That was when he saw his mate, her face was red with fury as she glared harshly at Cass, her arms crossed. If looks could kill Cass would be on the menue for the Winter Solstice dinner. Cass seemed to be frozen on the spot, like an animal realising its predator was near-by
"Run!" You hollered and as Cass dropped all his snowballs, he sprinted across the clear fields in front of the cabin, Nesta quickly following suit, determined to make Cass pay. Chuckling, Az came up to you, using one wing to bring you close as he pressed a kiss to your temple.
"You already knew, didn't you princess?" You nodded and he chuckled again. "It was technically meant for you," You mumbled, "But I decided if I went through with it you'd never let me live it down and also I spent a lot of time braiding my hair, not worth it at all." He grinned down at you again, leaning down and kissing you temple- again. "You're too cute," And to that you smiled.
You watched Cassian run from Nesta, wondering why the brute wasn't thinking of flying considering Nesta seriously lacked wings to catch him. That's when a ball of snow, almost too perfect, went flying threw the air and his Cassian in the face. Cassian howled in false agony and you turned to find a small Nyx with his father cheering.
"Now Nyx very good on the aim, however, that one was a little small, so maybe make it a little bigger. If you can't hold it in your hands use you're magic, trust me it's worth it," Your sharp ears heard Rhys 'whispering' to his son. Shaking your head in disbelief, you felt Azriel let go of you as he went and swept Nyx up, placing him on his shoulders as he grabbed chunks of snowballs, shaping them into two snowballs. Passing one to Nyx, both of them yelled battle cries as two more snowballs were launched towards Cassian who screamed in indignation.
You shook your head as the annual snowball fight finally begun, Nesta huffing as she smoothed her skirt, mumbling about how she'd have her way with Cassian later. Again, you giggled as you joined her arm in arm towards the sweet smell of Feyre's baking that had began to waft out the front door of the cabin.
With any luck, she might need help tasting the baked goods.
~*~*~*~*~
A/N: There it is, very short and very sweet. I thought it would be nice to finally see the inner circle in their natural habitat, the three illyrian males finally kicking up shenanigans after so long.
taglist:
@positivewitch
#acotar#acotar fandom#acosf#azriel shadowsinger#a court of silver flames#a court of mist and fury#rhysand#azriel x reader#azriel#feyre acotar#nyx archeron#cassian acotar#nesta acotar#acotar character x reader
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hi, i was reading ur other posts and got from it that u might be a professor? i was wondering what it is you studied & ur thoughts on academia & entering it.
i'm a doctoral candidate in history so i can't speak much to stem fields and i haven't yet had to properly face the academic job market. you might be interested in some of the posts in my tagged/academia
academic work occupies a slightly odd place in a lot of public discourse because on the one hand there are many people who configure it on ideal terms as a force of enlightenment, social improvement, and self-actualisation for both student and professor. on the other hand there are those within academia (or, often, recently exiled from it) who went in with those sorts of high-minded expectations, had their dreams shattered, and now portray academic labour as uniquely or excessively exploited, monetised, and exhausting. in regards to the first group i would respond that academics work for institutions that exist to enforce hegemonic power structures; to uphold class hierarchies and the illusion of meritocratic social mobility; and to profit from the restriction of access to knowledge and debate. in regards to the second group i would say that academics are exploited by the same labour relations as any other workers in a capitalist system; that we, like all other workers, should be agitating for liberation not just for ourselves; and that this means the abolition of the university as the institution that we now know, as well as the class barriers it erects and enforces.
i can't really tell anyone whether they should go into academia or not. certainly there are things i like about it: for one, i do feel a sense that i 'get' to spend a lot of my working time reading and writing about things that i find genuinely interesting and that i think are valuable to share and study. the material benefits of having a white-collar / desk job are also real.
however, it is also true that academic jobs involve affiliations with institutions that are by nature capitalist, colonialist, exclusionary & élitist; and that the degree of security and financial stability you get from these jobs will vary widely between fields and positions (the vast majority of people who earn a phd will never become tenured professors). teaching and research are really two different jobs often bundled into one, and each presenting their own challenges. many of the things that suck about academia suck about work in general: interpersonal abuse is rife in academia and both created and enabled by its hierarchical nature and reliance on networking; it's virtually impossible to get any accommodations if you are disabled; unis are hostile to marginalised people and groups both internally and externally; you may not like your research, or even find what you do all day to be pointless, useless, or meaningless; if you have any kind of genuinely communist commitments then these will always and inherently be at odds with the institution you now rely on to survive, and that conflict continually stymies the production of radical and revolutionary theory and scholarship.
ultimately academic jobs are jobs, with all of the exploitation and baggage that entails. i think there are people who have produced, or are producing, work that is genuinely valuable, insightful, incisive, and so forth, from within the university. however, that's not what the institution is there for, it's something you have to constantly fight for and for which you may very well be professionally punished, and you should never let anyone tell you the university is the only path, or even a cooperative or altruistic path, toward doing such work, if that's what you want to do.
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Alex Garland's Civil War is my perfect movie. I'm not sure who else's, though.
There's a thing I've said about lots of art: if you have to read the artist's statement to get the point, the artist's statement is the art. I read multiple interviews with Garland, went in prepared for the movie he was trying to make, and I loved it, a lot. I don't know if I can say that I enjoyed it, because it's super-emotional, especially super-tense. But I'm very very glad I saw it, and if somebody invited me to go with them, I'd probably watch it again, and I may well buy the blu-ray when it comes out. That being said? I'm not sure who else, other than a few weirdos like me and a few academic cinephiles this movie is for.
Remember the movie Pleasantville, if you even saw it? The trailer mislead a lot of people into expecting a jokey comedy about how dumb "Return to Normalcy" era sitcoms were, and nearly everybody who went in with those expectations hated Pleasantville, because what they got was a deep philosophical meditation on how you can't actually solve a social problem without losing your innocence, and loss of innocence, no matter how necessary, hurts. So almost nobody loved Pleasantville but a few people like me, who wanted it injected straight into our veins.
So let me lay this straight out before you buy your ticket to Civil War:
First of all, at no point in Garland's Civil War do they tell you the politics of any of the three sides in the near-future second American Civil War. Nor are you expected to figure them out. The war started four or five years before the first scene of the movie, and none of the people in this movie are still interested in debating why the war. There are three sides, and while there are people who say that the Western Forces are Democrats and the Florida Alliance are Republicans and the Federal Army are Trumpist, they are reading their own prejudices into way too few background clues and ignoring the other background clues that contradict that theory.
I know that every American who sees this movie is watching to find out which army is "on my side," which one they're supposed to be rooting for, and that is not a movie that Alex Garland wanted to make. You are supposed to be rooting for the war to just be over and elections to resume. Because that's what every civilian and every soldier wants, and nearly all the unlawful combatants. And also ...
This is not a war movie. If you want the (somehow, to you anyway) relaxing catharsis of cheering while lots of military hardware gets used? You are going to hate Civil War because this movie is, to borrow an older metaphor, Tomorrowland to your Mad Max: Glory Road. Garland made this movie to shame you particularly if you like war movies. The total amount of combat footage in this movie probably doesn't reach 20 minutes, and our main viewpoint character for the final battle sequence is a traumatized civilian.
One last thing I can say before diving behind a spoiler warning, though: it is an amazing technical movie, this thing should win all the technical Oscars next year. In particular, the principal photography is the best I've ever seen and the way it mixes (and sometimes un-mixes!) the separate audio tracks perfectly manipulates the tension level. And all four lead actors put their whole selves into these parts and held nothing back.
So what is this movie if it's not a political movie or a war movie? I can't tell you that without diving at least partway into spoiler territory, so ...
Alex Garland wants to prove two things in this movie:
Life in a failed state sucks ass. Yes, even if you're nowhere near the combat zone. And ...
War correspondents and combat photographers themselves wonder if what they're doing is making any difference, but they're heroes for trying.
The journalists themselves can't point to a single time what they do prevented or stopped a war, and they very much wonder if they're just adrenaline-addicted glory-hogs. But even not even knowing if what they're doing will ever save a single life, they are absolute fucking heroes. They put themselves at insane risk because this is the only thing that they know how to do and if it has any chance of saving lives, of preventing or stopping war, it has to be tried.
Our main cast are four journalists: an elderly war correspondent, a middle aged war correspondent, a middle aged combat photographer, and a (too) young combat photographer on a mission:
They start in Federally occupied NYC, reporting on anti-regime protests and terrorist attacks. They've heard rumors about the actual war. Right now the front line is a three-way battle for control of Charleston, South Carolina. They've heard that the Westerners and the Floridians are going to fight each other to the death as soon as they push the Federals out of the Carolinas, and then on July 4th, just a week away or so, the likely winners, the Westerners, are nearly certain to seize the capitol. They think the 5 year war is almost over, and are trying to figure out how to cover the end. This is, like, literally the whole of the first two scenes.
The old guy wants to cover the battle of Charleston "for whatever is left of the New York Times" and then retire. The three younger journalists have an even crazier idea: skip the battle of Charleston and use the last remaining highway into/out of DC to outrun the Western Forces and cover the fall of the White House.
So the overwhelming majority of the movie is a several day, many hundred mile road trip in an armored car marked PRESS. This involves driving west to Pittsburgh and then back east to Charleston, to get around the combat zone, which results in the real main part of the movie:
The road trip is intended to show you how much the combination of anarchy, localized paranoia, and fear of looters is driving various levels of savagery far from the war zone, which the reporters and photographers keep stopping to document.
It ends with the race to keep up with the Western forces so they can cover the fall of the White House, which is the only long combat scene in the movie, and it is incredibly intense, and very loud and scary, and nobody except maybe the kid photographer covers themselves in glory.
And every scene of it tells the same didactic message, told in about a dozen different ways: when the war is over, whether or not you were "on the right side" is going to matter a lot less than the horror you lived through, and wartime journalists put themselves through hell to try to prove that to you before it's too late.
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Amethyst… You can’t be doing this to me😭
No, but seriously, how am I supposed to get through finals while I have TT and TTSBC on the brain? That is to say, I absolutely adore your work! Reading it made me want to write again after… 6 years, I think. I’m debating participating in Beyond and I might just bite the bullet at this point.
Now let’s get down to business. You said you liked rambles, so I would like to offer my own thoughts.
First, for TT, does the hurricane have anything with a maybe missing siren/merman we haven’t heard of in a while?👀 I also remember you mentioning at some point that there might be a Xornoth appearance, so now my brain is full.
As for TTSBC, (I was debating for a while if I should even share this, but here goes nothing) I came up with a sub-species and was wondering what you would think.
I’m imagining there is a community of something called shadow mutants. They are like the second removed cousins of the voidwalkers. They are, first and foremost, living shadows. You know how when it’s dark and you can’t be sure if what you see (or more precisely, can’t see) is the darkness or just shadows? I’m basing them on that whole felling. A kind of mutant that is the boogieman of the under-city.
They are reclusive, much like blazeborns, they just do their own thing. They live in caves, mostly in the deep dark, making their homes out of the shadows and darkness. Their whole thing is that they can disappear in the shadows and live there their whole lives. When they are little, they have to learn to use glamor to maintain a “human” body, and even then, they have the shadows moving on their skin and pitch black eyes (I mean that the iris and the sclera are black).
They can take over shadows, be it that of an object or a person, but they have to be careful. When they take over a shadow, their “body” stretches or contracts to fill out the space and it can feel like breaking bones and tearing muscle. It takes a lot of glamor control to make it so that the mutant isn’t hurting in a situation like this.
They both worship and are afraid of lights, as light is the thing that creates shadows, but take the object away and the shadow effectively “dies”, so they have to think about when and what shadow to take over. The most powerful ones can even control the object or person in whose shadow they are.
If they chose to live between the folk in the under-city (a lot of them chose to never leave their shadows, never using their human body), they work odd jobs, but mainly as cave explorers and/or armed forces for some of the mobsters down there.
It’s a universal truth about them that in fight or flight situations, they hide. If they are felling threatened while in a shadow, they will either stay there and wait, or move over to another one, jumping from object to object to get away. If they are in their physical body, they will try to get to the closest corner and make themself as tiny as posibile if they don’t have shadows they can hide in. As a last resort, the shadows will peel of their skin and act as a distraction, moving on the walls or behind them, creating the illusion of something bigger.
So…
What do you think? I hope you enjoyed my rumbling and you take care of yourself.
Now I have to go back to finishing my project for todays presentation (I’m a procrastinator at heart, it’s my own fault, but I’m gonna get through it just so that I can post some of the works I have drafted).
I LOVE THE RAMBLING!!!
They sound so cool!? Shadow mutants? That's so spooky and awesome sounding! I love the concept of them moving between shadows and using glamor to materialize, that's such a fun dynamic!
Oooo does it have to do with a certain missing mer? Maybe, maybe, that's certainly a good catch there, not many people pointed it out because they were too busy worrying about Gem going after Scar's head 😆 Hope your presentation went well! Thank you thank you for sharing your subspecies idea, I loved it!!! 💖
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