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harunovella · 2 months

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*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧ something about him was made for somebody like me; l.s.k.

synopsis: you never knew love at first sight could strike you so hard, and neither did he... content: canon divergence, age difference (older male/younger female), love at first sight, you and leon are both on the delulu train, minor mention of injuries (nothing crazy I promise), kissing, just a lot of swooning and blushing, not beta read (sorry for any errors!) note: my first ever leon fic!!! (pls be kind to me) I love this man so much and have read so many good fics on ao3 that I wanted to finally give it a go... I hope you all enjoy! (p.s. I imagined it as infinite darkness/death island leon since I made it older leon but you can always picture him as re!6 or any of the other older leon looks since he has so many!)

In a million years, you never thought you'd fall in love with someone at first sight. Yet, here you were, seated at your parent's dining table across the man who saved your life, with the biggest heart eyes you could ever form. Leon Scott Kennedy, the absolute man of your dreams. He was the love of your life, and you knew it instantly went you meant him only hours prior.

It wasn't wise to walk around in public distracted, you knew this, you were raised to know this... Yet, here you were, earphones popped in as you hummed along to one of your favorite songs that recently became an instant repeat. There was a pep to your step, your heels clacking against the concrete beneath your feet as one hand clutched your phone while the other twirled some of your loose hair. Of course, in all your infinite wisdom, you were completely oblivious to the chaos occurring right behind you.

In a matter of seconds, you were tackled onto the ground. Your earphones flying out and your phone slipping from your grip as you made the instant collision. Your ears were ringing and your head began to throb, you weren't sure what the hell just happened but the last thing you expected was a handsome man pressed against you. Actually, the most handsome man you had ever laid eyes on. Quite possibly the most handsome man in the entire universe.

Dirty blond hair, piercing blue eyes, stubble spread across his jaw... Your racing heart wasn't fluttering around in your chest from the sudden collision, rather, the man practically yelling in your face. It wasn't out of anger, but worry. You couldn't quite pick up on what he was saying, but he seemed like he was in hurry. Panicking as he instantly grabbed your waist and pulled you up to your feet.

Your cheeks were burning as your heart continued to thud against your chest. The unknown man tugged you along with him, running off into the distance as he lead you somewhere safe. Still unaware and unsure of what was happening, the dirty blond had you turning corners and slipping in between buildings before he stopped within an alleyway. Pressed against the brick walls as his back was faced towards you, he peeked over the corner and sighed in relief.

"Coast is clear," he said before turning towards you. It was the first time you were actually processing his words, understanding what he said and... shivering at the low timbre of his voice. "Are you okay?"

It was then that he realized you weren't in shock, rather, you had practical hearts forming in your eyes. If it wasn't for his years of experience with women constantly ogling him, he would've been fooled, would've believed you were just processing what happened... not... practically drooling over him.

That, however, didn't stop him from worrying. "Are you alright?" He asked again, earning a nod from you before you blinked a few times.

"Thank you..." you nearly whispered, heart thudding in your ears.

"You're lucky I was there to save you in time," he said, looking down at you, eyes locking with your own. "You could've taken several fatal bullets."

"You're my hero," you gawked, a smile forming on your lips as he felt his heart race.

Swallowing the small lump in his throat, a bit shaken by how enthralled you were by him—as if mesmerized—he cleared his throat. "Leon S. Kennedy, by the way," he introduced as you nodded and said your name in return. It was then he noticed you were sporting a small gash on your cheek. Eyeing the rest of you, he frowned at the sight of your scraped knees. You were clearly off to work, the blouse and skirt being the biggest giveaways. "Shit," he mumbled. "You're gonna be missing work."

Blinking a few times, then looking down at your hands, you pouted, "my phone was left behind... Can't call my boss..." you muttered as Leon eyed you, feeling sorry.

"My apologies... I'll get you a new one," he sheepishly rubbed the back of his neck, knowing he was rather rough with you... but, it had to be done. You could've been dead if he hadn't.

"Oh, no, it's alright," you shook your head, looking up at him and not realizing just how tall he was. You felt your once steadying heart begin to pick up its pace. God, he's so hot.

"I insist, I knocked it out of your hands when I... tackled you," he said and you couldn't help but wear a small grin. He was so charming without even trying.

"Thank you," you quietly spoke, softly smiling up at him as he looked down at you.

Remembering your minor injuries, Leon gently held your chin, "you've got a few scratches. Mind if I clean them up?" Seeing you shake your head, Leon lowered his hand. Without another word, he lead you away from your temporary hiding spot, knowing very well it was safe to move once again. Returning to where he had left his bike behind, thankful it was still there and in one piece, he turned to face you, "I don't have a helmet..."

Eyeing him, then the bike, you sucked in a small breath. "You saved my life, I trust you."

Feeling his heart skip a beat, he gave you a small nod. Turning once again to mount his bike, he gestured for you to do the same. He watched as you carefully climbed on, your skirt riding up due to the position. Keeping his mouth shut, he looked back ahead as he felt your arms circle his waist, stomach tightening at the feeling of your smaller hands pressing against him. It was when he started his bike and sped off that you clutched onto his shirt, balls of fists gripping as you pressed your forehead against his back in fear. He couldn't help but smirk, for some odd reason, it felt... nice.

It wasn't too common for Leon to bring a bystander into the DSO headquarters, but it wasn't as surprising when he brought a pretty lady like you with him. He lead you down the halls and into a room where you assumed was the infirmary. He handled your little wounds, cleaning and patching them up before giving you a kind smile when it was all done. You thanked him with the sweetest voice as he was knelt before you, now being the one to look up at you. For some reason, it made his blood rush. He shook the thoughts away as he stood to his feet. You were just an innocent bystander, a civilian who got caught up in something accidentally. He was just your savior, you were almost a victim.

"I'll be right back, I gotta speak to my team," he said, and before he could leave, you spoke up.

"Your team?"

Right, you only knew his name... nothing else. Not why he was being chased, not his occupation. Nothing. "I work for the government. As you saw from outside of the building with all the security, the scanning and identity confirmation... You basically got caught up in something that was—"

"Top secret?" You tilted your head with curious eyes. Leon nodded. Your intuition was good for someone who was quite oblivious. To be fair, governmental affairs were usually hush hush. "Figures. You must be an agent of some sort with the way you're dressed," you pointed out. "And your instincts..."

"Right..." he grinned. "I'll be back." Seeing you nod, he turned and walked out, leaving you on the cot, swinging your legs patiently. It wasn't like you could do anything else when your phone was left behind.

"So?" Hunnigan eyed him as Leon approached.

"A bystander, saved her life from being a causality in the chase," he explained as he cracked his neck.

"Normally, you don't bring... bystanders with you. This is a first, Kennedy," she smirked as she crossed her arms.

"Don't start," he shook his head as she looked at him with a questionable expression. "I'm sure you knew anyway, someone is always watching."

"Yes, her father," Hunnigan gestured as Leon's eyebrows narrowed before an older man made his appearance. "Agent Kennedy, please meet one of the most elite agents of the FBI," she introduced as the old man stood before him, extending his hand.

"I'd like to personally thank you for saving my daughter's life out there," the man spoke. Clean cut, tailored suit and all. He could tell he was the real deal. It made Leon a bit antsy, now knowing your father wasn't a simple civilian but rather an expert agent with years on him. "We saw it all happen, and the moment I recognized my daughter I was about to appear on the scene myself. You, however, went ahead and risked your life for her own. I truly appreciate what you did for her and our family."

"I just did what I had to do, sir. I wasn't going to let anyone get hurt or killed if I could do something to stop it," Leon nodded.

"And I am very grateful. I wanted to personally come and thank you before seeing her. I know she's safe and unharmed thanks to you. Please, my wife and I would love to have you over for dinner. It's the least we could do to show our gratitude." At that, Leon's eyes widen. He believed the thanks was enough... but to invite him into your own family's home? If only your father had known how blatantly obvious your feelings were (after only knowing Leon for such a short period of time).

However, he couldn't say no. Leon S. Kennedy was a lot of things, but not disrespectful, and he definitely didn't want a man of your father's caliber disliking him for declining a simple offer.

Which is how he found himself seated across from you in your parents dining room. A lovely home fit for a family of 5 comfortably. However, he had learned it was just your parents living there now that you and your siblings all had moved out. It was your childhood home and your parents had it paid off, they didn't see the need to move away unless purely necessary. Your father also hadn't retired, still invested in his work to make the country a safer place.

As Leon was deep in a conversation with your father, discussing matters that weren't too confidential, you found yourself absolutely swooning. Your chin in the palm of your hand, silent sighs leaving your lips as you admired the agent before you. From his haircut to the way he dressed in a suit for dinner, you couldn't help but bit your bottom lip. You weren't hiding it, that was for sure, but your mother couldn't help but stifle a giggle at the sight of her daughter swooning over a man who was easily a decade older than her. Not that she'd complain, at least it was a successful man with a career before him who had some maturity on him.

"Honey, help me get the dessert," your mother broke your trance, causing you to huff before standing up and following her into the kitchen. "You want him to know, huh?" She asked as you stood by the island table, grabbing the dish as your mother gathered the cutlery.

"What do you mean?" You asked in confusion.

"The way you're gawking at Mr. Kennedy. You are very much attracted to him, aren't you?" She grinned as you blushed. "You were even squirming in your seat, as if eager to touch him..."

"It's love at first sight," you mumbled, tracing your finger along the marble counter, earning a laugh from your mother as you immediately looked up at her. "What?"

"Nothing. You're an adult, you can make your own decisions even if you can be so oblivious. Your father raised you better when it comes to your safety," she lightly scolded as you rolled your eyes. "Though, I'm sure you're happy since you met the love of your life," she teased with a smile before walking back to the dining room, leaving you there pouting. You were glad she still had a funny bone even if her daughter was in a near death experience... without the actual wounds.

Your mother's words echoed throughout your head for the rest of dinner as your parents and Leon ate the dessert. You'd find yourself gazing at Leon, only to look away bashfully whenever his eyes met your own. It wasn't like Leon was unaware, he had phenomenal instincts and your stares were very powerful even if they were filled with awe and admiration. Still, he had hoped you'd take it easy in front of your parents... or, at least your father.

Helping your mother clean up as your father walked Leon to the front door, exchanging a few more words, he placed a hand on the younger man's shoulder, "I know this is a lot, you're a busy man and all... but, could you please look out for my daughter? I know for a fact she's considered involved now after everything and I don't want anyone coming after her. I'm afraid they'd remember her and would consider her a target and try to use her against the DSO. I have eyes everywhere, but even then..."

"I understand," Leon spoke. It was true, he, himself was a busy man as it was. With the missions he took, constantly overseas or in other states, it was hard for him to even call you... but as hesitant as he was to agree, he couldn't help but feel a bit guilty. Sure, if he hadn't snagged you away, you could've died... but he also could've just dragged you into the nearest building and fled on his own. Normally, he wouldn't be so caring, knowing he couldn't save everyone... but maybe he fell victim to your doe eyes. Maybe your infatuation in him was growing into a similar feeling towards you.

Or maybe he was just lonely and should indulge in a girl so interested in him—

Leon swatted the thoughts away, knowing this was in no way something he should be considering. "I'll do my best when I'm in town and not away for work."

"I appreciate it."

Eavesdropping on the conversations you decided to finally show yourself, playing oblivious as you approached the two figures. With an innocent smile on your face, you listened to your father's words, informing you about the minor changes to come into your life now that you were basically a witness and involved in the incident. You simply nodded, understanding his worries and knowing very well it was for the best. You just had to hide your excitement. Whatever it took to see Leon again.

"If you can, can you please escort her home..." Your father asked as Leon nodded. You said your goodbyes, thanking your father for dinner and telling him you'd let him know when you got home, before following Leon out.

You were rather silent at the beginning of the drive, slightly amazed that Leon had a ride outside of his bike. You assumed it was solely for work purposes but he seemed the kind to have his own (or several) at home. Gazing out the window and watching the city become colorful streaks, you spoke up, "you don't have to watch over me. I know you're a very busy man..."

"It's the least I can do, I brought you into this—"

"If I wasn't distracted, this wouldn't have happened..." you mumbled with a subtle pout as you looked at him.

Leon could hear it in your voice, even peeking over to confirm that you were a bit embarrassed, but he couldn't help but shake his head. "It could've happened to anyone. It would've been a shame if the world lost a pretty face like yours."

Growing stiff in your seat, you couldn't help but grip your thighs, eyes widening at his words as you quickly looked away. Your silence had Leon looking back at you, grinning at your reaction. It almost felt like a game the way one would flirt and the other would grow flustered. It felt nice, it felt out of the norm for Leon... and sometimes he needed that.

Maybe he needed you...

He brushed the thought away, knowing that wasn't logical. Instead, he kept the rest of the drive silent, music softly playing from his radio.

Arriving at your place, taking you up the elevator and to your door, the two of you stopped and faced one another. Silence continued to weave between the two of you as you gazed at one another. Leon cleared his throat and reached into his pocket, handing you something. "I was able to retrieve it from the scene."

Looking down at your palm, you nearly gasped. "My phone?"

"Luckily, the area was sectioned off, your phone was left untouched. Not even damaged. It really is your lucky day, huh?" He teased as you smiled with pure gratitude.

"Thank you," you beamed as you peeked up at him, pure stars in your eyes. God, did you make him feel indescribable things.

Looking down for a moment as he reached for his own phone, Leon took in a deep breath, "we should exchange numbers. You can call me if you need anything. I'll be there."

"Even if you're out of the country?" You tilted your head with a playful smile. Leon couldn't help but reflect the same expression.

"Even if I'm out of the country."

Exchanging numbers, you thanked him for everything before settling your phone into your purse. "I appreciate it. You're so thoughtful."

Only for you, he thought. As strange as it was. You truly were doing a number on him and it was only getting worse as time progressed. "It's the least I could do for you."

Tiptoeing and kissing his cheek, you thanked him once more. "Thank you, again..."

Your soft voice made Leon shiver as red dusted his cheeks. His skin tingled as his cheek felt your kiss linger. "Like I said... it's the least I could do..." At that, he turned and made his way back to the elevator.

It almost felt as if you didn't want to end things, as if you didn't want him to leave, practically running in circles with your gratitude. You just wanted to enjoy his presence a little longer. Just a bit more, as much as you could keep him there... Maybe you were delusional, but you knew this man was made for you. "Leon!" you called out, causing him to turn in his spot. "Would you like to go to dinner tomorrow? Just the two of us..."

Eyeing you for a moment, wanting to decline solely because he knew where this was going, his mouth opened before he could stop himself. "Yeah, sure."

It's out of kindness, Leon thought. I'm doing this to be nice, and because I kind of owe it to her. His mind was running as he sat at the dinner table, patiently awaiting your arrival. You had texted him to let him know the time and place of where to meet up, a nice restaurant with great food and a calming atmosphere. The people around were talking in low voices, enjoying their meals and each other's company. Of course, when his eyes first landed on you, he should've guessed you'd put your very best outfit together. As delusional as he wanted to be, he knew you did it to impress him. For yourself, that was a given, but there was no denying you got all cute for him.

Standing from his seat to greet you, trying to mask the awe written across his face from your beauty, Leon greeted you as you did the same. Settling across from one another before looking through the menu, you couldn't help but partially hide your face from him. He's so damn handsome. Dressed in his suit, hair freshly brushed, and his cologne... you felt as if he was playing with your heart strings.

It was a silent at first between the two of you, nothing too uncomfortable, but almost as if one of you had something to say. Of course, when you decided to speak up, so did he. Excusing himself to let you talk first, you couldn't help but smile at his courtesy. In reality, he was trying to break the thoughts circling his mind. The way he couldn't help but gawk at your beauty, trying everything in his power to focus on something else and not the sweet scent of your perfume. This is so wrong. He shouldn't feel even an inkling of this, scolding himself for even considering what could happen. You were much younger and this was on a superficial level. He wasn't the right man for you, you had a whole future ahead of you...

Yet, when you told him to talk first, he couldn't help but take the opportunity. Speaking before he could even process it. "You look beautiful."

It was all you needed to hear to know what direction this dinner was going in. Practically in your favor (and maybe his, too).

The dinner went smoother than expected. You got to know one another a little better through wine and laughter. Leon felt at ease to speak about his career for once, seeing as he always had to lie with previous partners. But, with you, you met him in the middle of what his whole job entailed. It also helped that your own father worked with the government, which meant you knew and understood what line of work he was in... for the most part. In all honesty, he hated that there were so many good signs coming from you... after two days.

Two whole days.

It was like you were getting what you wanted, wining him so easily without realizing it. He hadn't expressed anything, but his thoughts about you were swarming in his mind. Leon was an easy guy to get when it came to the bare necessities of pleasure... but, to win his heart? He couldn't recall a single person who struck a chord like that. Like you seem to be doing so easily. I'm getting too ahead of myself, I'm just lonely.

Leon couldn't recall a night this... easy. This nice. Most of his nights were left to him drinking his thoughts away in the quietness of his lonesome home... if he wasn't sleeping with a woman he met at the bar. He hated his ways, but how could a man like him find love or a partner trusting enough to understand what his life was like? What, with the past he's had, and everything that happened since Raccoon City. Maybe he was just that desperate, he was only getting older... and you popped into his life. A person who fell head over heels for him the second you met eyes, a person who could possibly understand him most—

Leon's thoughts wouldn't leave his mind on the way back to your place as he escorted you home... and they only grew louder as he found himself standing before you.

Both of you had made it to your front door, ready to call it a night and say your goodbyes. You, on the other hand, had something else in mind as you gazed up at him. "I had a great night with you."

Feeling his heart race, he looked down at you with a gentle smile, "me too."

"Never knew a man like you could open up so easily..." you teased, biting your inner lip as you batted your lashes up at him.

"I never knew that, either. I keep things to myself... but, you met me in the middle of a chase and I did take you to where I work... and your father is an agent. I figured you'd understand how chaotic the life of an agent can be," he said as you nodded.

"I can, I've known it my whole life," you continued to smile up at him, speaking so smoothly. "I know you've got more in you, I feel I've only got the tip of the iceberg. I hope someday you trust me enough to tell me more. You look like the kinda man who internalizes things. Or, at least, wishes there was someone he could talk to about these things that aren't your coworkers."

Leon couldn't help but feel his heart flutter at your words. Did you know what you were doing to win him over? Are you like this with other men? Why should he care? God, but I kind of do...

He couldn't really remember when it happened, but before he could even process it, both of your lips met. The softest kiss he had ever experienced... softer and more meaningful than his kiss back in Raccoon City when he was younger and inexperienced. Blind to the world's horror. This one, however... There was something about it.

"Sorry," Leon gently pushed away. "I should—"

Before he knew it, his heart dropped when you clutched onto his collar and pulled him back into the kiss. It was obviously mutual if you instantly kissed back, so why would he apologize? You wanted this more than ever. Hell, if you could've, you would've kissed him the moment he had saved your life! "Don't apologize, I wanted to do this yesterday the moment I saw you."

Hunched over as you still held onto his shirt, Leon's eyes searched your face. He studied every little detail, from the length of your lashes to the plumpness of your lips. Was he really head over heels, too? You were magical, you must've been an angel... something to have him feel the same way you did. "I'm... not surprised... The way you look at me, it's kinda like a cartoon with heart eyes."

Letting out a small giggle, you nodded, "I've been told I can be very obvious, but, it's how I feel every time I look at you."

Although he was flustered, Leon couldn't help but grin, "I find it cute."

Letting him go and looking away as you bit your bottom lip, blushing at his compliment, you felt his hand gently hold onto your chin. Turning your head to face him with doe eyes as your lips parted, Leon leaned in and kissed your cheek. You could practically hear your heart pounding in your ears. He was going to be the end of you, wasn't he?

"Get some rest, I'll see you again soon."

Watching him back away as his hand fell from your face, he turned and made his way back to the elevator. Gazing at his backside, you then turned to unlock your door and slip inside. Closing and locking it behind you, slipping off your heels, hanging your keys and settling your purse down, you rubbed your hands against your face before squealing into them and jumping in your spot. "I am so in love with him!"

#harunovella writes;#leon kennedy x reader #leon kennedy x you #leon kennedy x y/n #resident evil au #resident evil x reader #resident evil x you #leon scott kennedy #leon s kennedy #leon kennedy fic

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milliondollarwomen · 4 months

Text

Well Hello (part 2)

tom blyth x fem reader

word count 1.7k

mature 18+

https://www.tumblr.com/daemonslover/739845802239934464/well-hello-tom-blyth-x-fem-reader-word-count-19k?source=share

Part 1 ^^^

hey guys!! so glad you enjoyed part 1 here's part 2!!

recap:

"Sorry for the interruption, class. This is Tom Blyth; he's been working for me for two years and will be assisting this semester." You cautiously raise your head, hoping it's not who you think it is. And there's the man you met in the bar, smirking at you

Your professor's surprise introduction of Tom makes you uneasy. The mention of Tom working for the professor for two years makes you realize how naive you were to not consider him working at a university. He was in his twenties and was intrigued when you mentioned that you were a graduate student; everything was coming together. He kept staring at you the entire class, so you couldn't concentrate on the material. The familiarity of that smile evoked memories of the bar encounter and that night, increasing the uneasiness. All you could think was, "What if this gets out?" "what if he black mails me?"

"Remember discussion one will be due next class" Finally, the professor dismisses you all to go. You leap out of your seat and try to find the nearest exit. You don't even want to look around to avoid accidently seeing him. As you exit the classroom, you check both hallways to see if it's clear. Feeling relieved as you see only students, you begin to go out. While going around the building looking for a way out, you take time to enjoy the architecture and paintings on the walls. The marble walls and magnificent pillars throughout the rooms are adorned with portraits of former professors and school presidents.

“Well hello”

The very voice you didn't want to hear made your entire body feel like it was ready to crumble into a million pieces. The panic that erupted in your body was so intense that you thought you'd pass out. You cautiously turn around, hoping it wasn't him and your mind was playing tricks on you. Nonetheless, it was him. As horrible as it sounded, he looked very attractive. His hair was perfectly messy with just the right amount of curl, his suit was fitted to perfection, and his blue eyes sparkled in the sunlight.

Tom's interruption snaps you out of your contemplation, and his smirking remark sends a shiver down your spine. "Cat got your tongue?" he says, his tone laced with a hint of amusement. "Please leave me alone, I could get in trouble," you manage to say, feeling vulnerable and uncomfortable. You sound desperate, expressing the fear Tom's presence has caused you to feel. Tom leans in slightly, making the encounter more personal. "you should of thought about that before you let me fuck you" he whispers, his voice carrying a sinister undertone.

The decision to walk away and dismiss Tom in your head seemed like a reasonable strategy to avoid escalating the situation. However, as you take a few steps to distance yourself, you feel a firm grip on your arm. Tom's grasp is unexpected and forceful, causing a ripple of concern among students who witness the scene. "You will not walk away from me," he asserts, his words sending a chill down your spine. The whispers and concerned looks from your peers amplify the anxiety within you. The last thing you want is to draw attention and jeopardize the hard work you've put into reaching this point with getting into grad school.

In an attempt to defuse the situation, you hesitantly suggest, "If I meet you somewhere will you stop, you are causing people to stare." You're taken aback by Tom's response when he smiles, as though he's satisfied with your cooperation."Meet me at the Italian restaurant tonight at 6 p.m.; it's six blocks from here," Tom vanishes into the distance, but your classmates' looks and murmurs remain. The impending meeting weighs heavily on you, and you can't get rid of the terrible sensation that this meeting with Tom will have repercussions that go far beyond the classroom. With a strong will to safeguard both your reputation and your own welfare, you struggle with the unknown that is going to be at the Italian restaurant later that night.

Because of the awkward situation in class and your meeting with Tom coming up, you decide to take a break and see the beautiful city that surrounds NYU. Your first stop will be Central Park, which is close and quick to get to. When you walk into the park, which is a big green oasis in the middle of the city, you can relax and enjoy the peace and quiet it offers. Getting away from the busy city and into the quiet park is a nice change of pace. You can feel the ups and downs of life all around you as you sit on a bench or walk along the winding paths. The sounds of children laughing, street musicians playing, and couples talking quietly together make a symphony that is nice to listen to. This temporary escape gives you a sense of stability and connection to the life of the city. The different stories, emotions, and experiences of the people you see remind you of how strong and bright you are beyond the problems you're facing right now. The break is helpful because it gives you time to get stronger and see things more clearly before facing the unknowns of the evening.

Later in the day

You eventually get home after exploring New York City. It's finally time for you to get ready and face Tom. You look at the clock and see that you have around 2 hours to get dressed. Although you know it's wrong, you're looking forward to seeing what happens tonight. Morally, this is terrible and could wreck your life, yet the sneakiness appeals to you.

For something easy but eye-catching, you choose a black dress with a low-cut back that has a subtle charm. The fabric drapes beautifully, drawing attention to your shape while keeping a sense of class. You chose the dress on purpose; it's sexy without showing too much. You are once again standing in front of the mirror as you get ready to see Tom. A quick touch-up of your makeup and hairstyle.

"Get your shit together, this isn't a date," you explain to yourself. This isn't about love; it's about telling him off. Hidden beneath the surface, two strong emotions are battling: the need to hold on to your anger and a deeper, more complex desire.

One last look in the mirror turns into a quiet pep talk. You can't get the words out of your head; put your feelings aside and look at the situation clearly. You know in your heart that the water below is rough and that you are pulled between being furious and having an unpleasant desire that you can't avoid.

As soon as you walk into the Italian restaurant, the mood changes. The soft glow of the warm lighting and the chatter of the people eating make the room feel cozy, but as you look around, you can feel the stress in the air. When you see Tom in a booth in the corner, you feel a rush of nervous energy. As you get closer to the table, your mixed feelings get stronger. When you see Tom, your heartbeat speeds up. "So glad you showed up, love; you look incredible."

As Tom pulls out your seat, you can feel the stress in the air. Thanking him for his kindness, but there is a lot of tension between you two that you don't say. There is silence at the table, and the things that aren't said form an invisible wall.

Before you can start talking, the waiter comes in and gives you a break for a while. After the orders are made. Tom breaks the silence "I'm sorry for my outburst earlier, dove." He tries to hold your hand, but you automatically pull away.

With a snarky tone, you say, "The only reason I'm here is to talk with you about how we will move forward this semester because this will never be a thing." The words give off an air of distance, which is a way to protect yourself from how vulnerable the situation is. You're struggling with mixed feelings deep down—a desire for his touch that has been going around in your head since that fateful night—but you're determined to hide them.

This outraged Tom. He knew it was all an act; he knew what was going through your mind right now was to appear uninterested because you were frightened of losing your place at NYU. This is a reasonable cause, but he would not tolerate her attitude and hatred toward him. Tom quickly rose up from his seat and grabbed your arm, leading you to the bathroom.

He forced you into the restroom and shut the door. Thankfully, there was just one stall.

You knew where this was going, and surprisingly, you weren't upset about it. Yes, you came here to warn him that this is wrong, but you knew that giving him an attitude would make him want to fuck you even harder than before. "Tom, we can't do this again," you plead, knowing that it will make him want you even more. Tom approaches you, puts his hands on your waist, and kisses your neck. This causes the warmth between your legs to rise into your stomach. He pushes two fingers into your throbbing pussy, causing you to gasp. "Tell me you aren't enjoying this love.'' You chose to wait to react so that it didn't seem like you were giving in so soon.

You finally give in and gasp out his name, "Tom, oh fuck, please," which fills his eyes with lust as he watches you squirm beneath him while he plays with your pussy, despite the fact that you just minutes ago pretended to despise him. "Look at you begging for me in a restaurant bathroom like a little slut, tell me you want me" he continues to rub circles around your clit, rubbing the right spot every time. "Please, Tom, I need you inside of me." Seeing the redness around your chest and your sloppy movements as he thrusts his fingers in and out of you, he knows you're approaching your climax.

He abruptly stops just before your climax, jolting you out of your sexual trance and confusing you. Tom leans down and says, "Fix your attitude, then I'll let you finish." "See you in class dove." he says, and walks out of the stall, leaving you sexually frustrated, with dripping underwear, and fucked up hair.

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tinycozycomfort · 10 months

Text

rest in the cup of my palms (part two)

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

chapter two: do you feel it, too?

series masterlist | previous chapter | next chapter

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

chapter summary: you fight hard to keep old habits at bay. joel falls into his head first.

warnings/tags: no outbreak, no use of y/n, (for everything) -> mutual pining!, possessive behavior, smut (w individual tags to come), ellie is joel's daughter, ellie and reader attend the same university but reader is in post-grad, age gap (joel is late 40s, reader is not), alternating pov, slow-ish burn / (for this chapter) -> semi-public dry humping, kissing, mentions/fantasies of p in v sex, possessive thoughts, no one is drunk but everyone blames the wine, joel miller loves his kid!

word count: 5.3k

rating: explicit (18+ only! mdni)

A/N: i'm in shambles over the response to the first chapter, this series is my baby and it means so much that you guys liked it. thank you a million times for reading!

read on ao3 / main masterlist

“The wait begins as soon as I wake up. There is never any “after”. Life stops from the moment he rings the doorbell and enters.”

Annie Ernaux - Getting Lost

───────

Joel hasn’t touched the plastic tube since he brought it home last week.

It’s become something he has to hide from, a nagging thought that pulls at his pant-leg like a child, clawing for his attention—open me, open me. Over and over he hears it, while in the office or cooking dinner or folding the wash, a whisper that begs him to reach in and claim his prize. When he’s really tired, brain damp from the days he has to work, the voice pours into something smoother, and suddenly it's that pretty girl—the one who’d made the thing—asking for the same; to be peeled back and stretched wide for him, cunt and heart and all.

He finds himself losing a lot of very real time in the fantasy, chunks of his life spooned out to make room.

The compulsion isn’t unfamiliar; it’s one that Joel thinks has something to do with his protective nature—or maybe that he’s seen enough living through the filters of hurt and mistrust—that makes him cling to the things he finds precious.

It traces back as far as the girls in grade school, when they would bring him little home-made valentines and wave him kisses first stamped onto open palms. He grew enamored with them, picking them flowers and scribbling symbols of promise in their note-books—the very beginnings of his acts of service. His heart would swell with it, a cartoonish thing, growing and pumping until he could keel over to one side from the size. He chased it in those early years, back somewhere between the brothering and fathering, moving through many someones he could fawn over, easing his need to possess.

He can feel the need rising now, for the first time in too long, his body hurtling itself towards the ledge of something scarier, and he welcomes it. His hands itch for it, for the kind of love with teeth, that bites and tears into the edges of a substance much meatier, providing a place for the points to pierce and hold. He won’t call it what it really is, prefering to stomp out the whisper that warns him of its arrival—obsession. He likes to use less severe terms: thoughtful, involved, fascinated.

Knowing better in his age, he tries at least to be realistic during waking hours, and around Ellie, reminding himself that he has a hard time stepping down when he builds his hope high enough. He moves instead to just dreaming about you—in little tidbits and at guest-star capacity—to tide himself over until the week rolls back around.

Now, on a new Monday, he lets his daughter head off to class before he allows himself the privilege of unwrapping his reward.

He fishes around in the back of the hallway closet where he hid the case, retreating to his room to finally have his time alone with the creature he’d made of the object, letting it free from its cage.

He pops off the cardboard top of the roll, pulling the drawing out with the very tips of his fingers to not smudge something on accident. The sound of it sliding out sets his skin alight—this gift is one he asked for, but it feels like it was given to him all the same. Sharing a piece of you with him so freely, he feels special.

He’s gotten used to seeing himself around the house, Ellie’s ever-growing library of renditions of him are fixed to the fridge by mis-matched magnets and framed in little glass panels in her room. It leans on the side of betrayal to have someone else’s version of him up, but he just wants to see it—if it’s as intense as he remembers it. As different.

His knuckle follows the curl of the paper to flatten the image, tacking it up to the wall with painter’s tape to avoid damaging the surface, like his daughter taught him. Joel sits on the corner of his bed and feels a hot wave of emotion fill his chest.

He looks hopeful. It’s a garment he’s never seen himself wear. He’s soft and shy and child-like, face penciled in with detail that reads like a well-worn novel, bending and twisting to the curve of his expression. It’s a finely crafted summary. It’s guide-lines. It’s instructions, the very important parts of him spelled out in bold, black charcoal, with the gray shades of his complexion filling in the gaps.

Was he that easy to pick apart?

He’d seen some of the other drawings, the way everyone else had chosen to capture solely his pose, perfectly articulating the crook of his elbow or the network of muscle under the skin of his calf.

But you’d chosen to show him.

Something about it looks so familiar, enough to bring forward a memory of the conversation that had him feeling the briefest pass of deja vu—of you glancing down at the ground, quieted maybe by his proximity or his compliments; bashful.

He walks out into the living room where Ellie keeps her sketchbook, the one with all the references. He thumbs through it—she’s given him permission to see this one—and flips to the page he remembers watching her use last week. And when he sees it, he feels like he’s going to faint.

It was you.

That was your face his daughter had been so beautifully replicating. Upon examining the fragmented portrait, he sees a striking resemblance to the one you’d made of him. They’re the same. Not the likeness, of course, but the visage. You knew what he felt like—had felt it yourself.

He already knew you, before you’d even spoken a word to each other. He admits that Ellie was only capable of piecing together so much of you, and even with the extra bits he’d caught in your brief meeting, he feels like he’s missing out. He wants to see the whole picture. You, in totality.

When he arrives at the school building, he’s overtaken with a wash of what he thinks might be stage-fright. It makes him feel sick, stomach rolling with an embarrassment that scorches like youth—fight low and flight high—and his body starts to feel sore with the effort it takes to keep himself from fidgeting.

Ellie’s teacher meets him in the hallway and passes him his slip, and he hums his way down to the bathroom to undress, admittedly working up the courage to confront you.

As he enters the classroom, his excitement bottoms out. You’re not there. He keeps sweeping the room with his eyes, hoping you somehow had been hidden amongst the other bodies. He tries to sell himself the idea that you’re just in the bathroom, or on a break or late, but the wooden bench you’d sat in last week is obviously untouched.

He clambers onto the stool, trying to replicate his pose from the previous lesson, much more uncomfortable now that he has nothing to distract him. The two hours are painful, and he finds himself counting seconds to fill the minutes in increments of ten until he can leave.

His back hurts when he stands.

On his way out, the blonde woman hands him a little flier, two pieces of neon copy paper glued together to make a double-sided image, advertising the group show this coming Friday. Ellie has already reminded him more times than he can count, but he takes it from the woman with the best smile he can muster, slipping out the door in a stride he’s hoping doesn’t come across as wounded.

───────

The on-campus gallery is what someone a lot kinder than Joel would call cozy—a tight, short chamber with no windows and a single entrance, like a trap.

He’s too keyed-up to be kind. He feels like nitpicking.

The metal door at the head must have been an afterthought, kicking back into the frame loudly every time someone walks through, nothing implemented to catch it. A continuous beam of fluorescent lighting wraps around the room in an all-encompassing spotlight, cooking the smell of fresh paint off the wall. It reminds him of picture day, or apartment hunting or something else equally unpleasant.

He was always going to come to this, because he can’t imagine a version of himself who wouldn’t support his daughter, but he’s not happy about it, and he’s starting to feel dizzy from the too-fast swirl of anxiety in his stomach.

Ellie had removed herself from his side the moment they made it into the building in search of her friends, with just a squeeze of his forearm and an ‘I’ll introduce you later’ left in her wake. He’s clung tightly to the wall ever since, making his way around the room to look at all the drawings, again and again and again until he feels like he’s on a track.

Discomfort is a factor, but most of his indignation has to do with not seeing you in class—pointed at himself for the absurdity of his expectations—the voice in his head taking a bitter turn. Were you avoiding him? Would you not attend this, either? Did he do something wrong? His mind rambles on as he fiddles with his imitation cocktail glass, the shiny slip of plastic sticking to his fingers. There’s still a generous portion of what has to be five-dollar wine pooled at the bottom, bitter and opaque enough to stain. The woman who poured it for him did so nearly to the top, maybe sympathetically, disregarding that there was money obviously trying to be saved—deeming his cause a worthy one. He doesn’t even want it, really, nauseous at the idea of actually finishing it, but not having something in his hand was winding him even tighter. So he nurses it—even as it goes warm between his grasp, more unappetizing now than it had been twenty minutes ago—sip after sip to try and appear engaged.

Eventually Joel grows tired of waiting, for Ellie to come back or for you to come at all or for this night to just be over, and picks a drawing to pause in front of. It’s a portrait of someone he’ll never meet, another graceful stranger coming together in an amalgamation of grays. He can hear people walking behind him, talking quietly and occasionally stopping to look over his shoulder at it in passing.

“Hm. Quite the fan of my work, are you?” He almost ignores the comment, thinking it's for someone else, as it usually is, until there’s a figure taking up too much of his periphery.

He’s a little dazed when he looks over, the hot, sour wine settled now in the pit of his belly, buzzing with a flare of something not-missed. He’s prepared to see more than one person beside him, perhaps a couple that had been talking near him rather than to him, but when he swivels his neck, it’s you. You’re just as pretty as he remembers, the face that he looks for in his sleep, but this time you’re not as shy, staring at him straight on—maybe similarly loosened by the pale yellow liquid in your own cup.

Heat gathers at the rim of his jaw—his neck is red by now, he’s sure of it. Already exposed and driven by the faint whisper in his mind, he opens his mouth to speak without thinking, “You weren’t there this week.”

You make quick quotes with just your pointers half-heartedly, “‘Sick,'” and breathe a laugh, “Had a few academic duties to fulfill. Gotta keep the scholarship intact.”

There’s a thick moment of silence, but he can’t look away, eyes weighty and cheeks stinging. It’s awkward but he finds comfort in it, embracing the adjustment like it's a step towards better connection.

Someone brushes his arm as they walk by and Joel uses it to his advantage, “Do you want to step outside? It’s a little hot in here.”

There’s a flash of something like surprise across your eyes, but you shrug, “Sure.”

He crowds behind you as you walk step-in-step out the unarmed emergency exit, just to feel the closeness of your body, much better than the distance he’d felt in your absence on Monday.

The night is worse than cold but it feels good against the heat in Joel’s chest. He can smell your perfume wafting back as he follows your movements, and it makes him pant. He’s ill, has to be—that or the wine was stronger than he thought, because the weird tie he feels is one he can’t explain as being healthy or normal or not fucking scary. But when you turn on your heel to face him, taking a seat on a hip-high planter in a secluded outer corner of the building, it feels right. Natural.

He shuffles so that he’s far enough for you to be safe from his touch, and he shoves a hand in his pocket for good measure, “Thank you again for the drawing. It’s really beautiful.”

“Yeah, of course. Thank you for saying that.”

He wants to say something more, like you’ve captured me in a way that makes me hopeful about myself, but settles instead for, “My daughter liked it a lot, too.” It’s a bold-faced lie, but he thinks that keeping your gift a secret would look less appealing.

“Is she here?”

“Somewhere, yeah. Ran off the second we got in. I’m not a comfort anymore, I guess.”

“Is she yours? Comfort, I mean.” You pick at the crown of the cup, rolling it gently in your hands like its real glass, and you both watch the fuzzy pattern of light that catches on its uniform surface. Joel wonders if you have a comfort of your own—if you need one.

“Is it bad if I say yes? It feels cheesy but the kid is my rock. Dunno what I’m gonna do when she grows up.” He shoves at the concrete under the toe of his boot. It didn’t taste as bad coming out as he thought it might. He hasn’t said that out loud to anyone other than himself, but you look at him like you know exactly what he means. The delicate beginnings of a smile crest on your face, cheek pinched, void of all the uncomfortable sympathy he's gotten from Tommy and Maria at the few things he made the mistake of revealing. He can’t find it in himself to stop now with your gesture, feeling relief in having a place to voice his heartbreak, “Honestly I’m scared, but not just for me, y’know? I worry about what she’s gonna find in the world. I just want to keep her safe.”

“She knows it, I’m sure. I know what it feels like to have no one to root for you—I would’ve killed for that. The only thing you can do for her is be there when she comes home,” You’re looking down again, and he doesn’t like whatever’s made you want to pull back from him—be shy, “Spend time with other people you care about and that care about her. Make that network for her to lean on.”

“All I got is my brother. His wife too, sometimes. My nephews. A few years ago it was just me and him. Ellie—that’s her name. She, uh, isn’t ‘mine’,” he makes the bunny-eared quotes with the hand holding his drink, “Not by blood, anyway. But she popped up out of nowhere and I don’t know how to go back to being on my own.”

“It’d be good to have a network of your own, too—if you’re up to it. It’s hard to do, trust me, but I don’t think I could do a lot without my friends.”

“Oh, sweetheart. I don’t think that’s in the cards for me anymore. I can’t conjure up much of anything worth listening to these days. Forgot how.”

“Don’t do that. You have a lot to say—you’re plenty. Just start with one person. There’s always time to make more.” He knows you’re talking to him, but it feels like you’re also talking to that little boy inside of him, small and unloved and still bleeding.

“Do you need any more? Friends.”

You look up from your lap, pushing a piece of your hair back from your face like you need to get a better look, searching for a way you could be misinterpreting him, “I might have room. You have a recommendation for me?”

He reaches out, grabbing the empty cup from your grasp, stacking it with his own and depositing them by your side. He doesn’t miss the way you watch him, how you widen the spread of your legs on instinct, enough to suggest his entrance. He wades out on one leg to bring himself in, testing the water.

Your lips are parted, and when he looks into the opening between them he imagines he’s seeing to the center of you, and everything else keys out. Cars pass by on the strip of street behind him, driven by ghosts, providing nothing but a low song for your bodies to dance to together, his chest swaying closer to yours with every breath. You move with him, and it feels rehearsed, like all of the steps you've taken to get to this moment were purposeful, done in perfectly orchestrated succession for the hundredth time.

“Do you feel that, too?” He asks, wanting to know if he’s reading too much into it, feeling that sweet edge of thoughtful-involved-fascinated scrape his skin like a sharp knife, “Do you? Like you know me?”

“Yes,” you breathe, and it’s all the permission he’s ever needed.

He leans in, lips skating yours, the warm cave of your mouth begging to be explored. He tries so hard to take his time, soft brushes tethering you to each other with the weight of everything he’ hasn’t had the time to say. His whole body is pins and needles—a fierce heat that floats so high it feels like ice. You sigh into him, the start of a moan, and his composure snaps. Service, he reminds himself, act on it—it feels almost divine when he thinks about all the ways he could pledge his loyalty, ready to bend at your altar every day of his life if it meant you’d sing for him again.

Joel brings a hand to the side of your neck, thumb digging into the pulse point at the corner of your jaw to bring you forward, licking into your mouth in search of more noise. He groans when you relax into his hold, so pretty and willing, and works you until you’re just as fervent, daring to suck his bottom lip between your teeth—going for blood.

The voice in his head is yours again—open me, eat me, unhinge your jaw and swallow.

He slots his other hand around the bone of your hip, pulling you nearer to the ledge of the planter, pressing his cock into your inner thigh as it swells to life. You gather his shirt in your hand, a tight fist, shifting yourself against him so you can grind into it instead. No one else exists, no one else could ever exist in this moment, or any moment you attend, for the rest of forever. He wants to fuck you, to see how far the attachment could go, how far he could reach down before he finds a warm, bed-shaped slot for him to rest in. He wants to live inside the body of someone who sees him so clearly. He wants to know every thought in your head before it comes to fruition.

The wine tastes better coming from off your tongue, and he’s gleaning the flavor from every corner of your mouth like he can achieve a second-hand high. His full weight is rocking into you with enough force now that he has to plant a heel in the ground to keep you both from tumbling. He risks a thumb in your waistband in the flurry, tugging at it in the hope of another invitation.

Before you have a chance to decide, the loud press of the swing-door at the front of the building opens, and Joel staggers back, remembering where he is and why.

You look winded to say the least, hair bent from the imprint of his hand, mouth in a perpetual ‘o’, and he’s scared to see the state of his own face, not to mention the visible strain of his cock in his pants. He kicks an ankle out to try to adjust, heaving through an open maw at the thought that you might be affected in that way as well, picturing the slick wet in between your legs—a beautiful sheen from just his mouth on the top half of your body.

You shimmy off the edge, straightening your shirt and he immediately steps back in for more, draping the full breadth of his hand against your collarbone, curling the tips around the top of your shoulder.

“Joel. I— I need to go inside.”

“What’s wrong, sweetheart? Are you okay?”

You lay a hand over his with a squeeze and he retracts it, “Yeah. I just wasn’t expecting… I don’t know if I can do this right now.”

He can feel his breath restricting, heart plummeting down so far it feels like it’s landed in the ball of his foot; the second time this week you’ve pulled away. He thinks back to the face you made at him in the gallery, back before he fucked this up. Maybe you never meant for this to happen at all.

“I’m sorry,” you whisper, voice strained, “I just need a little time. Just some time, I’m sorry.”

“No, no I understand. Don’t be sorry. Will you take my number? Just in case?” He wants to make sure you’re okay after this, if you want that, and selfishly he wants to give you a way to have him, knowing this might be the last time he runs into you. He’s too afraid to leave it up to chance.

“Yeah, yeah okay,” You pass him your phone with shaky fingers.

“Only if you want to, honey,” He’s disheartened by the whole thing, but he doesn’t want to make you uncomfortable, so he’s careful to double-check, even if it’s a blow to his hope, “You don’t have to.”

“I know. I’m just—the wine, sorry. I think it was bad.” You huff out a strained laugh, “I want it. Your number, I mean. Promise.” You practically shove the thing at him and he takes it this time, entering the contact with as little squinting as possible to save himself from any further humiliation.

───────

You all but run into the bathroom in the back of the building, needing a moment alone to consider what the fuck it is that’s going on right now—what’s been going on since he walked into your class two weeks ago and overstayed his welcome.

You stumble in, bracing yourself against the porcelain basin, switching on the faucet to drown out some of the pounding in your head. You’d been lying when you said the wine was catching up to you—very much sober—but now, in this suffocating, gray room, you feel like it must have at least accelerated the churning in your gut.

You let water gather in your hands, bending to dip your face in the too-cold pool between them.

Every day has been mostly encouraging if not indifferent but this feels like the start of a bad dream you won’t be able to wake up from, dragging you right back to that dark box you’d been existing in. He came in from nowhere, kicking down your reserve, for what? For a fuck? To enjoy you in passing? Or worse, to stay? You’re unsure which would be harder to receive.

And it’s unfair—for him to show up right at the point of being fully on your own, as soon as you’ve chosen to avoid getting caught up in that part of your life. You’re past the point of surrendering your time—know better than to want to be bogged down by a crush or the preconceived idea of the perfect stranger.

You don’t know him, and you don’t need to.

But you want him so bad it hurts; so bad you had to fake a cold to skip class because you couldn't face the idea of seeing him for the last time. You debated skipping the grade for the exhibition too, but you used any excuse to convince yourself he might not show. You weren’t sure who his daughter was, or how enthusiastic she was about the program, so you figured it was a fair shot. You outwardly willed him not to come, at yourself in the mirror and in the shower and out loud the car, all while secretly praying he’d be in attendance, right up to the moment you saw him.

When you stand up, staring at your rigid body in the plastic mirror above the sink, you’re pained at the sight. You look tired, shoulders tense and eyes bleary. Stray beads of the cool water stick to your skin, refusing to dry in the lingering humidity, balling up together to drip into the open lip of your shirt. You can barely feel it falling over your chest before being soaked up by the material. You feel outside yourself.

Someone starts to knock at the door, a quick and invasive interruption to the moment of absolute panic you’d been enjoying. You managed to twist the lock shut on the door at least, so you click your heel against the tile in a wordless someone’s in here, but the knocking persists.

“Occupied.” You try, wet hands slipping against the edge of the sink. This shit isn’t normal. None of that even comes close to normal.

Still, the heavy thrum against the hollow metal continues, and you take a deep breath before practically ripping it out from the socket of its frame. When you have it open, Ian’s posed between the V of the slot, face bewildered.

“Really, truly, I love you, but what the fuck was that?”

───────

Four days from the start of spring break, you’re out at some stranger’s place off Maple, invited by both Ian and your roommate—making it a little harder to get out of—in a joint, well-intentioned attempt to make you leave the safety of your room. A party will be nice, they’d explained, nothing serious, and a week off’s supposed to be fun, right?

The house is pretty, but whoever owns it has demanded everyone remain out on the cobblestone patio, uneven flooring making for a jagged line of bodies packed too tight to fit.

A fire burns in the middle of the yard, billowing out puffs of smoke you know will linger in your clothes for at least two washes. You swipe at some soot that's gathered in the bowl of your jacket sleeve absentmindedly. There’s no music tonight, maybe because there’s real school tomorrow—the elementary school down the street not quite on the same schedule—and you start to think going out on weeknights is quickly becoming more your speed. There's just the soft blanket of everyone murmuring, trying to stay warm in the chill of the wind.

Ian’s prepping some guy across the fire to meet you; you can tell by the look on his face, like he’s planning something elaborate. You smile at him, at least amused by his effort to help you forget the weekend. He’s right, it is spring break, and Joel is nothing but a consequence of your stress-induced impulsivity.

Still, despite your efforts, you’re thinking about him again, even if to punish him. You can still feel the line of his cock against your thigh, pressed hot and heavy into your body like an offering. You rub your thighs together, cursing him for giving you enough material to fantasize about for weeks—your punishment in return.

Ian crosses the circle with your new prospect, and you tilt your cup in mock cheers. Behind him he mouths hot and nice, tell me what you think. You nod, and the guy steps forward to block the flame. He’s handsome, airbrushed face and sweet cologne and long, thin fingers, nothing like how someone else’s had felt at the junction of your hips.

You swallow, hard.

You honestly don’t hear a word that comes out of his mouth from the second it opens, not even to catch his name. Instead, you think about how nice it’d be if you could pay attention, how much easier it would be to fuck someone you thought was nice and safe and not at the forefront of every free moment you’d been afforded in the last two-and-a-half weeks. About what a relief it would be for him to mount and rut into you without consequence—no emotional burden, just boring and lukewarm like the last bite of something you can’t find a place to throw away. It’s always been easier when you didn’t want more. Yet now you want every night, hold out a hand in your dreams and let him into the part of you that has already carved out a hole in his shape.

This guy couldn’t pull your mind off of Joel even if he was fucking you.

When he offers to grab you a drink, you agree and then head into the house, like you’re not supposed to, as soon as his back is turned. There’s a few locked doors, and then one at the end of a hallway that opens up into a bathroom. You slip in, not bothering to switch on the light in an attempt to hide out from being found.

Here you are searching for reason in a dirty mirror above another sink, with nothing but the weak glow of a plug-in air freshener to guide you, too soon after the last time.

You’re angry, suddenly, at how far he’s burrowed himself into your head, with so little to go on. He’s doing nothing but showing you yourself, a tired tactic to get you to fall in love with him while you do all the work. He was just pretending, right? He couldn’t actually want to love you. You groan, when the fuck was love even part of this equation?

You dig your phone out of your purse. The lock screen is bright—bold lettering reminding you it’s nearly midnight—but you click into your contacts anyway, because it’s not like you’re going to call him or anything. His page is still open, the Texas area code populating under Joel - Ellie’s dad—typed out with caps and all like that’s his only meaningful identifier. You scroll to see where he’d punched in ‘just in case‘ in the notes section of his info-card, and that decimates the cliff of restraint you'd barely managed, sinking in on itself under you.

Your hands are wet with unease, held hostage by the way he’d read your thoughts out loud. You did feel it too, that searing weight of knowing—of being acquainted with him despite only meeting once before. He had to have been honest in at least that confession. You ask yourself for permission—‘was he going through this as well? what exactly was he feeling? would he explain if you asked?’—until it turns into selling yourself justification—‘you could just fuck him, right? that’s all this has to be, right?’.

Yes, you decide. Just another test of will—you can do it. You can pass.

Your finger hovers over the number, closing the screen and opening it again and again and again until you just bite the bullet and fucking press it, the screen going black as you shove it against the side of your ear, covered again in darkness.

He picks up within two rings.

“Hello?”

“Hi. Joel,” You offer him your name like a secret, “It’s me. Did I wake you up?”

“No, sweetheart. Are you okay?”

“Can I come see you?”

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

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onceuponaoneshotfanfic · 3 months

Text

And darlin', you had turned my bed into a sacred oasis

Part of my Birthday Bash!

Request: "i'm in my bed, you're in your bed. one of us is in the wrong place." with Roy x teacher!Reader

Roy Kent x Teacher!Reader

2.4k words (a bit longer than intended, hope that's alright 😝)

Warnings: Language, takes place in the Teach Me Tonight universe (future established relationship), fingering, unprotected sex, Roy has kind of an innocence kink I guess, dirty talk

Late Sunday night, you sighed as you pulled your oversized t-shirt over your head. Roy had been gone all weekend at an away game and, if you were being very honest with yourself, you really missed him. The two of you had only been seeing each other for a short time, but you were already falling hard and fast for the man, even harder and faster than your initial crush on him had formed. And spending a whole weekend- your only true relaxation time- apart had you falling into a bit of a funk. You’d done your best to keep busy with grading things, with folding that laundry you’d been avoiding, with reading the book Roy had loaned you, and of course you tuned in to the Greyhounds match. But fuck, you missed Roy Kent.

As if the brooding coach could read your mind, his name lit up the mobile that was charging on your nightstand. Forgetting about the online tips that said to let a guy wait for a few rings before answering his calls, you snatched the phone off the charger and quickly answered.

“Hi, Roy!”

“Hey yourself, gorgeous,” he hummed, his gruff voice sending a blush to your cheeks. “Finally fucking home.”

You laid down, grinning from ear to ear. “Yeah, I didn’t think you’d call tonight,” you admitted. “Kind of figured when you got home, you’d just collapse into bed and knock out.”

“Well, I did that first part,” he chuckled. “But I wanted to hear your voice. Fucking missed you.”

The sweet words coming out of that famously foul mouth had butterflies forming in your tummy, the way they always did when you thought about Roy. “I missed you too,” you admitted quietly. “I caught the match, by the way. The guys did amazing! Good job, Coach.”

“Thanks.” There was something thick in his voice, something not quite right.

Immediately concerned, you sat up a little, brows furrowed. “Everything alright, Roy?”

He paused for a moment. “I just… have something of a problem.”

“Anything I can help with?” you offered. Helping Roy was kind of fun, you had discovered: ideas for outings with Phoebe, classroom management tips that transferred onto the pitch, reorganizing his garage, anything that resulted in time with Roy and a kiss of gratitude.

“Well, you see-” The something thick in his voice was suddenly identifiable: desire. “-I’m in my bed, you're in your bed. One of us is in the wrong fucking place."

Heat rose in your cheeks, down your chest and tummy, and settled somewhere deep. “O-oh really?”

Roy had this… habit of making you feel more turned on than any man you’d ever met. From the first time you found yourself in bed with him- sooner than you usually went to bed with a man, but this was Roy after all- he knew exactly how to make you blush and giggle and squirm and fall apart and about a million other little things, cute and dirty alike. The best part was how obvious it was that he enjoyed the reactions he got out of you.

“Yeah.” You could practically hear his smirk through the phone. “I know it’s a Sunday night and you’ve got work tomorrow but…”

“You can come over!” If it was any other guy, you’d be embarrassed by how quickly you invited him into your home and into your bed. But again, it was Roy. Roy Kent, who thought you were the cutest, sweetest, sexiest thing in the world, wanted to see you late at night. There was no universe where you’d deny that request.

“I’ll be there in ten, babe.” And with that, he hung up.

Once you heard the click of the disconnected call, you sprung up out of bed. Thankfully, you’d already groomed, in anticipation of seeing Roy after work tomorrow. But your oversized t-shirt from a girls’ trip to Bath didn’t quite feel sexy enough for your ex-footballer boyfriend. Trying to control your anticipatory blushing, you tiptoed over to your bureau and quickly rifled through it until you pulled out the little nightie you remembered Roy losing his mind over a couple weeks ago. Honestly, you didn’t think it was that sexy- a light blue number that was see-through and form-fitting in all the right places, but nothing you thought of as special. But when Roy took in the sight of you, the adorable teacher with the jean jackets and white sneakers and sweet smiles, wearing something so revealing while inviting him to climb into bed, he had all but ripped the nightie off of you.

You were hoping for the same kind of reaction tonight.

After changing, you did a quick job of prepping for Roy’s arrival- brushing teeth, setting the lights low, double checking that your sheets were presentable. You were just tucking away the last of your folded laundry when your mobile lit up with a text from Roy: Here.

Not caring about looking overenthusiastic, you practically sprinted to the front door. When you jerked it open, there was Roy, in those black workout pants you liked so much, leaning on the doorframe with that casual confidence only a professional athlete could pull off. He gazed at you brazenly, the way an animal looks at its prey. Dark, full of hunger and desire.

Honestly, you could probably orgasm just from that look alone.

Before you could even squeak out a hello, Roy had his arms around you, using his foot to kick your door closed as he pressed you against a wall. In an instant, his mouth was on yours, his tongue begging your lips to part for him. With a deep sigh into his mouth, you deepened the kiss, every part of you fluttering at the taste of Roy Kent.

“Fucking missed you,” he finally mumbled against your lips. His hands began to wander, tugging and fisting at the thin blue material and grabbing at every inch of skin he could find. “Missed you so fucking much.”

“I missed you too,” you gasped as he began to trail kisses down your jaw. “Should we… we…” The feeling of his tongue gliding over your neck had you unable to finish the question.

But Roy knew what you meant; he loved making you, the intelligent, eloquent, well-read teacher with the master’s degree, go all weak and forget how to talk. It was something he tried to do as often as possible.

With a dark chuckle, Roy lifted you and threw you over his shoulder with ease; funny how he seemed to forget about being a self-proclaimed ‘old man’ the moment things got steamy. He carried you to your room, grinning at every giggle that flew out of your mouth. Fuck, he loved that sound. He loved every sound he heard you make: shy giggles when he flirted with you, rants about your work, sighs when you were stressed, soft moans in bed, all of it.

He especially loved the squeal you let out when he dropped you on the bed. You gazed up at him with those wide eyes, the same ones from the day you met, the eyes that made him weak, and offered that sweet smile. What a contrast to the filthy thoughts your boyfriend had been pondering the entire bus ride home. He hovered over you, taking in your wriggling form and contemplating what he wanted first: your lips against his again? Your tits that looked fucking heavenly in this nightie? That gorgeous pussy that he just knew was soaking for him already? Or did he want to let his inner caveman out and just take you already?

“Roy.”

Your little whine got him out of his own head in an instant. He crashed his mouth against yours roughly and let his hands flitter down your body, down your hips, until his fingers found that little damp spot on your panties. He groaned into your mouth and began massaging your pussylips through the material at a gentle pace. In turn, you gasped and bucked your hips up to meet his touch, gripping his biceps tightly.

His pace quickened with every twitch of your body. He brought his lips to your ear, kissing and licking the sensitive skin behind it. When moans started tumbling from your lips, he chuckled. “D’we like that, beautiful?”

“Uh-huh,” you managed in a trembling voice as you began grinding against his hand. “So much, Roy.”

His voice was sinfully dark as he purred, “D’you want something else?”

Suddenly acutely aware of the way his hardness pressed against your body, you immediately reached out to his shirt and helped him tug it over his head. The shirt hadn’t even hit the floor before your hands were on his pants, pulling them and his boxers down in one swift motion. Roy groaned when his erection sprang free and he saw the awed look on your face; at this point, you had seen him naked many, many times, but each time saw you gazing at his cock like it was magic, with your eyes wider than usual and your lips parted in a tiny O as a tiny gasp slipped past them. To be fair, you thought his cock was magic, something you’d shyly admitted to Roy after the first time he fucked you through multiple orgasms. He wondered how many he’d get from you tonight.

“Does someone like what she sees?” he teased, tugging down your panties and refusing to take his eyes off your face.

In response, you simply spread your legs for him, your typically bright eyes dark with desire and never leaving his cock. Spurred on by the obvious effect he had on you, Roy aligned himself with your entrance and groaned your name as he began sinking into you. The familiar burn had your back arching up to him, your hips lifting off the bed to meet the pleasure he provided you. He inched into your soaking cunt, deeper, deeper, not stopping until he hit that sweet little spot that had you mewling his name.

“Fuck,” he hissed as he began thrusting, hitting that spot over and over. “You feel too good. So wet for me. Gonna make me finish way too fast.”

You giggled at his dirty praise and buried your face in his shoulder. “You-you feel good too,” you gasped as you rocked up into him. “Never feels this good alone,” you whined.

His movements stilled. “Alone?” he echoed. Even with your face pressed against his skin, you knew he was smirking. “Does my pretty girl touch herself?”

Roy knew full well that you did. Hell, he even had a dirty phone call with you during another recent away weekend. But he loved hearing his sweet little girlfriend say dirty things.

“Yeah,” you breathed as your walls gripped him. “I did last night,” you admitted, knowing he could feel your blush against his skin. “A-after your match.” A low moan escaped your lips as he slowly resumed thrusting into you. “You-you looked so fucking good coaching, babe. So fucking sexy.”

He twitched inside you at the sound of your swearing. You knew how to swear, you weren’t that innocent, but every time you did, Roy thought he was going to explode. Especially when you swore in this context. There was just something so damn dirty and sexy about it.

“And you couldn’t resist touching yourself?” he cooed, a teasing tint to his voice. Rather than make you feel embarrassed, like most men’s teasing would, Roy’s teasing always spurred you on, encouraging you to keep going, keep turning him on.

“Couldn’t resist,” you repeated, your voice all soft and breathy as you threw your head against your pillow, letting Roy see your flushed face. “Just-just laid on the couch and-” A sob escaped when Roy reached down to gently massage your clit. “Yeah, that.”

Roy’s eyes darkened as he watched you, your own eyes beginning to twist closed at the pleasure he provided you. “Just like that?” He gave a small amount of pressure to the bud, grinning at the way your hips stuttered in response. “And did my girl moan my name?”

You nodded as your mouth began to slack. “Yeah,” you breathed. “Fucking moaned your name when I- fuck- when I finished.”

He gave a deep roll of his hips, stuffing you with his cock. “And how’d that sound?” he begged, his own voice beginning to weaken as your cunt clenched around him. “Bet it sounded fucking gorgeous. Lemme hear it.”

“Roy,” you panted, losing any sense of rhythm as your hips snapped against his. “Oh, fuck, Roy.”

“You got something for me?” he purred as he began pressing sloppy kisses to your collar. “Something nice and wet for me, babe?”

You lost your ability to speak, other than a string of yes and fuck and Roy. All you could think about was the way Roy was fucking you, hard enough that you feared you would break and perfectly enough that you didn’t care if you did. He played with your clit like it was his personal toy, rubbing and flicking it just right each time and adding to the pleasure you could feel in your fingertips and toes. His own breath began to quiver, letting you know that he, too, was close to being undone. But you knew he’d hold back until he’d given you pure bliss.

Wanting nothing more than to feel Roy fill you up, you began thrusting, pushing up against him so hard you knew you’d have bruises in the morning. He knew by your frenzied movements and ragged moans that you were close, so fucking close. So he quickened his fingers on your clit, becoming harsh and mean in his attempt to see you fall apart.

With one more great thrust into you, his name tumbled out of your mouth in an animalistic moan. Your legs wrapped around him, keeping him inside you as your pussy pulsated and tightened around his cock, squeezing and begging for him to finish. He fucked you harder, faster, through your piercing orgasm, determined to stuff his pretty girl full of everything he had.

“Fuck,” he growled as he spilled into you, fucking his cum deep inside your soaking cunt. He didn’t stop, not until he knew every last drop would stay inside your thirsty cunt.

His face dropped onto the pillow beside you as he finally stilled, his cheeks red and his breathing ragged. He tilted his face towards you with an exhausted smile, his eyes filled with affection and what was left of his lust.

“Did I mention I fucking missed you?” he whispered.

“Yeah,” you breathed, kissing the tip of his nose. “You might’ve mentioned it.”

#tally's birthday bash #request ❤️#he's here he's there he's every fucking where #roy kent #roy kent x reader #roy kent fanfic #roy kent fic #roy kent fanfiction #roy kent imagine #ted lasso #ted lasso fic #ted lasso fanfic #ted lasso fanfiction

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your-regular-toast-enjoyer · 1 year

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hey! can i ask for yandere jon kent in a soulmate au setting, where he finds his soulmate in a normal civilian, who seems to be easily charmed by his boyish charm, at least at first

Soulmate! Yandere! Jon Kent x Reader

Jon Kent x reader or Jon Kent/reader

Yandere!Jon Kent x reader or Yandere Jon Kent x Reader

Word count: 4719 words

TW: GN reader, Yandere, stalking, imprisonment, adult Jon Kent, obsession. Other than that, there's no s*x or anything of the like.

Let us say that it’s one of those soulmate AUs where you have your soulmate’s name written somewhere on your body. You would have “Jonathan Samuel Kent” wrapped around your wrists like a natural and skin-deep bracelet. Your name is stapled up Jon’s arms, boxy and impersonal letters pressed under his skin, yet he has traced each letter with a sense of reverence ever since he was a little kid, dreaming of when he would finally get to meet you.

Clark was probably a yandere for Lois as well, (he seems like the type), and she was more than happy to indulge him, likely having some of the tendencies too. I can imagine them being attached at the hip whenever they’re at home, never being found alone in a room. Jon probably once wondered if they actually were tied together by an invincible ribbon. It seemed improbable that the two of them were never separated except when Clark was out as Superman. They were together all the time, even at work, both working at The Daily Planet. This was probably how Jon developed his unhealthy love tendencies. He has always adored both of his parents, finding their relationship flawless. The idea of having something like that himself was a thought that he would fall asleep at night dreaming about. His parents’ unhealthy tendencies sowed the seed of disturbing obsession within him.

As a kid, Jon loved writing your name in his school books, every page filled with his rounded letters spelling out “Y/n”. Some of his teachers had been concerned about his seeming obsession with your name and existence; It was normal for kids to be intrigued by the letters stretching out somewhere on their skin, but not to the overly passionate extent of Jon. When this was brought up to Jon’s parents, they simply waved it off. Jon was a good kid, so what if he was a bit obsessed with the name on his arms? They saw nothing wrong with it. As a matter of fact, Clark had been the exact same, and Lois too, although to a lesser degree than her husband. Thus Jon was allowed to let his fixation run wild.

As Jon got older, joined high school and started working together with Damian, he kept looking for you. He had Googled your full name at least a million times without luck. It stung every time, but he refused to stop.

Every time he saved someone around his age, while out patrolling the streets as Superboy, he’d carefully ask their name, hoping for yours to slip from their tongue… it never did. Damian teased him, finding his desperate attempts at finding you pathetic. “I just don’t wanna miss ‘em!” The blue-eyed teen would argue back, frustrated by your elusiveness.

If Jon was honest with himself, he had hoped for a high school-sweetheart type of romance, but as he became eighteen and left secondary education, that dream was dashed. Jon’s next dream was that the two of you would attend the same university. He even took a year off under the guise of helping his father at the farm, in reality, it was so he could search for you and attempt to see if you went to any of the nearby universities. He wanted to up your chances of meeting each other.

After high school, Jon was slowly dragged down by the idea that the two of you would never cross paths and that he’d forever have to resign his fate to someone else. There were those whose soulmates died before they ever met or those who didn’t meet their soulmates until they had already fallen in love and made a family with someone else. It was rare, most preferring to wait for the one whose name was written on their skin… but “rare” did not mean impossible. Clark tried his best to cheer up Jon, but no matter what he said, the young man couldn’t help the feeling that he was doomed.

It was ironically when he stopped looking for you, and started his education at Metropolis university, that you appeared in his life. Damian was the one to introduce the two of you. The green-eyed man had met you at Gotham university where you shared a class. The two of you had gotten along surprisingly well, to the point that Damian considered you a close friend. You were neither from Gotham nor Metropolis, as a matter of fact, you might’ve even been from a completely different country. This explained why Jon had never been able to find you, he had always assumed that you only lived a few streets away from him, when in reality you had lived your entire life in a completely different city, never even being near him, until the day Damian invited both of you to the manor.

When Jon had first shaken hands with you, he had thought nothing special of you. He was impressed that Damian was able to keep you around, and he thought that you seemed pretty cool but other than that you were simply one of Damian’s civilian friends. It wasn’t until he ended up introducing himself and asking for your name that he was rendered frozen. As soon as the words left your mouth, Jon had to excuse himself, it was almost comical how he had waited for this moment his entire life, yet when it finally arrived, he ran away from it.

It didn’t take him long to return, his demeanour entirely changed. What had previously been charming, albeit shy, smile on his lips had now turned into an almost scarily fixed mien. Had you not known better, you’d have thought that Jon had gotten a Glasgow smile carved into his round cheeks by the Joker himself. As the hangout progressed and the day turned to evening, you started to distance yourself from Jon, almost clambering to be close to Damian at all times. The way Jon stared into your eyes reminded you of the way a predator gazed at its prey. He seemed ready to pounce at any moment, and you didn’t want to be in his line of sight when it happened.

Jon was oblivious to the discomfort he was causing you, instead staring enviously at how you practically hung off Damian’s arm. It made him consider whether the two of you were really “just friends”, or whether the two of you were engaging in, (what was to him), dissident behaviour. “Cheating” on your soulmates by being in an intimate relationship with each other. You weren’t. But the more Jon scared you, the closer you kept to Damian, and the closer you kept to Damian, the more intense Jon’s staring became. It was a vicious cycle and by the time you were meant to go home, you were deadly afraid that Jon would follow.

Damian had, of course, picked up on both Jon’s unusual behaviour and your poorly hidden fright. So, when it was time that both you and Jon had to leave, Damian offered to walk you home, an offer you were relieved to accept. Jon didn’t like it though, offering to walk you home himself, since he was going anyways, but both you and Damian shot down the idea with obvious hostility. Jon was convinced something was going on, entirely unaware of how bizarre he had been since he heard your name.

Damian more or less ordered Jon to go home before you, Jon was aware that he couldn’t outright challenge Damian’s command, it was his home, after all. However, he refused to just let you leave with Damian…Alone. No! What if you guys did something while he wasn’t there, like holding hands or…or… Kissing! NO! Jon refused! So, as soon as he had said goodbye to both of you, he floated, (as quietly as he could), up to the roof of the manor, avoiding the sensors that Damian had once shown him and then he settled into a crouch, the soles of his converse being held to the slippery tiles with the help of his super-human levitation.

It didn’t take long for you and Damian to exit the manor, slowly making your way to the Wayne garage. At first, Jon was confused, weren’t you guys going to your place? It made him nervous about what you two could be planning on doing when no one else was there, yet his fears seemed unfounded as Damian’s expensive black car soon rolled out. Oh! He was driving you! Now it all made sense in Jon’s mind! Jon didn’t have a car! …There really was no need when he could fly… But, of course, Damian couldn’t risk Jon showing his powers either by flying you or if he had to protect the two of you if you’d get mugged… which was almost a certainty in Gotham, if you were stupid enough to walk at night. Obviously! Why hadn’t Jon thought of that! …Well because that really hadn’t been on the top of Damian’s mind either when he refused to let the Kryptonian walk you home, but Jon didn’t even begin to suspect any other motive.

Following the car, Jon was able to learn where you lived and, oh boy… He wasn’t happy. You lived in an average Gotham university dorm, which was, to put it mildly…lacking. Jon considered it once, letting his baby blue eyes scan the building, and he already found no less than five fire hazards and was sure that if he blew a little too hard on it, all the windows would explode. How could Damian have let you live like this?! Jon sure as heck wouldn’t, at least not for long.

Jon knew that he couldn’t just kidnap you, or “Bring you home”, as he put it. That’d be unusually cruel, and he was lucid enough to realise that you didn’t know him well enough to just accept your destined love outright, but that was okay, he had waited his entire life for you, he could wait a little more. So, he drew up a plan on how to get you to love him. He would watch over you and occasionally strike when the time was right, bumping into you on the street, seeing you in the library etc. Even better, by watching over you he would be able to find out all the topics you were interested in and research them, it would be perfect, he surmised. You two would have so much to talk about!

You would officially meet for the second time one day when you were walking home from the supermarket, clutching a heavy plastic bag filled with the cheap food that most college students buy. You were in your own world, maybe you were listening to music or maybe you were just enjoying the rare Gotham sun, what exactly you were doing doesn’t really matter. Suddenly, the arm of a stranger was slung around your shoulders, dragging you closer to their body. You almost screamed, but then Jon announced his presence with a loud, “Hey! Haven’t seen you since we were at Damian’s!”... An effortless lie.

At first, his sudden appearance frightened you and with your last meeting going horrendously, you were on edge. Still, as Jon started to talk more it became hard for you to keep up your guard. He wasn’t smiling like a creep anymore, rather his face had become the epitome of friendliness, you had no idea what had changed. But Jon did… After your last meeting, Damian confronted Jon about his behaviour and while the blue-eyed man had ignored his friend for the most part, internally accusing him of just wanting to steal Jon’s soulmate for himself, he did catch on to one thing. “Your psycho smile creeped them out!”... So his smile had been the problem, Jon considered.

As the two of you walked together towards wherever you were headed, you started to warm up to the alien. His southern drawl was cute and quite honestly, his deep interest in you was a refreshing departure from Damian’s tendency to only speak of himself. When the two of you parted you almost wished he would’ve continued staying with you. Still, you held your reserve up, he had been super weird the last time you met…

While you were still sceptical of Jon, that scepticism slowly melted like an iceberg on a hot summer day, drop by drop, as the two of you began to bump into each other more and more. You never considered why Jon was in Gotham so much when he lived near Metropolis, (a fairly long journey to take daily), yet you did find it rather odd that your paths always crossed, even when you changed up your regular schedule. The thought of him following you never crossed your mind, that’s a ludicrous thing to accuse someone of, let alone think about just based on stumbling into a guy pretty often.

It didn’t take too long for Jon to win you over with his bright smile, deep interest in you and boyish charm. That was a good thing too because Jon had started to miss out on quite a few college classes of his own, to the point where Clark had noticed and sat him down to talk about it. Now, while many other parents…Most parents… would tell their child to kindly stop stalking their soulmate, Clark and ostensibly Lois were not, in fact, normal parents. Rather than discouraging their son’s creepy and downright illegal behaviour, they were understanding of his obsession with you, and even ecstatic that their son had finally found his soulmate. You were technically their soulmate-in-law, so maybe the two of them would develop an obsession as well, less so than Jon, of course, they were more focused on each other, but enough to let their son explain all your likes and dislikes down to the most minuscule of details and let him do what he needed to do, just to get you into their metaphorical and literal arms.

Jon would do everything to build up a friendship with you, likely keeping it a secret from Damian, and excusing his previously creepy behaviour as him just having an off day. Damian would be none the wiser of his devious plans, and even if you told the green-eyed man that you had met his friend many…many… times, it would rouse very little suspicion. Jon was Damian’s dearest friend, he trusted him with his life! He didn’t even suspect the darkness that Jon harboured for his soulmate.

Maybe as your friendship with Jon progressed, he’d invite you to stay at his family’s home for a few days, and meet his parents and grandparents, it’s a long travel for non-flying people, but he was more than happy to take it with you. You would probably be good enough friends with him at this point to not feel threatened as the two of you boarded the bullet train running between Gotham and the Metropolis area. Jon wasn’t planning on kidnapping you on this trip, no, this was meant to get you used to the place, to his family and the cows and chickens. Like a frog in a bowl of water with ever-increasing temperatures. “Slow and steady wins the race”, that’s what his grandfather, Johnathan Kent, his namesake, had told him many times as a kid and he took it to heart.

You would have had an absolutely lovely time at the Kents’ home, everyone, especially Jon and his parents, were borderline obsessed with making you feel welcome. Martha would bake your favourite treats, (probably write your name on them in icing, as well). Jonathan senior would tell you about all of Jon’s embarrassing moments as a child, especially relating to how he used to pretend-spar with the cows, only to fall in the hay…or manure, when he couldn't keep his balance. Lois and Clark were always excited to talk to you… about you. Talking to them felt like talking to a twin-headed Jon, sweet, energetic…yet as the days passed and they still managed to find new questions about the most niche of subjects pertaining to you, you started to feel like you were being interrogated for an autobiography. Jon, himself, would've probably taught you how to handle farm animals, and taken you to whatever local attractions there might've been.

Now, Jon had originally been surprised when you didn’t recognise his name the first time you met, even more so the many following times. He was concerned, scared even, that you might not be the right Y/N, but one day as he was stalking watching over you, he spotted his own name right at the end of your sweater sleeve, but you didn’t even pay attention to it… Not like him, not in the way he almost got goosebumps the moment his fingers grazed the tattoo-like letters of your name. Could it be…No! He refused to believe it! Were you one of those people who simply didn’t care for soul mates?! No! No! No! That couldn’t be! That was so unfair!

That was the straw that broke the camel’s back, and Jon decided that you two had been away from each other for too long, that, really, the universe meant for you two to end up together sooner or later, and you were already on the later part. He refused to be without his other half any longer, especially if there was a threat that you’d find another.

Your stay at the Kents’ solidified Jon’s belief that you had to move in with him as fast as possible, preferably on the family farm, where it would be harder for you to get hurt… or escape. There is just one thorn in his side that he can’t account for, Damian.

Damian was tricky for Jon to account for. You were, as much as Jon dreaded it, also Damian’s friend, and the green-eyed man was known for being fiercely protective and loyal to all of his friends. Ready to lay down his head for them. He could take up a physical fight with Damian, sure, but as his father and Batman had proven time and time again, a little Kryptonium was all that it’d take for a Super to fall in a heap of aching limbs. No, he had to play it smart, problem was that no matter how hard Jon could stretch his intelligence, Damian would always be more intelligent than him. The only way to get you for himself would be to make Damian agree that you’d be better off with Jon than on your own…But how?

Well, Jon could only really come up with one answer to that question… By making you live in a constant state of danger… And if he had to put you in danger himself, so be it. His “master plan” was to reveal his hero identity to you, not just that, but further reveal your connection to Superboy. Now, that might sound like a stupid idea at first, but its simplicity yet effectiveness was brilliant. By revealing your connection to the vigilante world, you would basically be walking around with a target on your back. He would know! That was how his mother had lived ever since his father revealed his secret identity as Superman. Being a civilian openly affiliated with a hero was one of, if not the, most dangerous thing that could happen to someone. The only reason his mother could feel safe was that Clark rarely left her side, but if Jon wasn’t with you to protect you most of the time… you’d be in monumental danger.

So, he set his plan in motion. First, he invited both you and Damian to his home one weekend, stressing how “This is really important”. Both you and Damian showed up, concerned for Jon’s well-being and entirely blank on what might’ve been going on. “Maybe he’s coming out of the closet? Or he named two cows after us? Maybe his dog ran away? last time that happened we were thirty people out looking for it” Damian joked, a thing he only ever did when he felt the need to calm someone else down, you, in this case.

But no matter what you and Damian could’ve guessed Jon’s intentions to be, neither of you expected him to come floating down from his roof, fully dressed as Superboy, arms on either side of his hips as he landed close enough for the tip of his nose to touch yours briefly. “I’m Superboy”.

When Damian saw this theatrical and obviously pre-planned reveal, he did not only want to facepalm at the second-hand embarrassment he felt from it, but he also wanted to strangle Jon. Didn’t he know how dangerous revealing their secret identities could be?! Not just to them, but also to you! … Well, of course, he did, that was the whole point, but Damian couldn’t have known that.

The green-eyed man was seething, face red in a fiery rage, while you stood gelid. Jon was Superboy? No way… Right? But he did just fly down from his roof, so clearly he wasn’t lying. Your brain couldn’t quite compute what was happening, and Jon took this opportunity to stare Damian down, implying that he too should reveal his identity. The more of them you knew, the higher the danger. But if Damian asked for Jon’s intentions, he would claim a moral obligation to not lie-by-omission to his friends.

Damian did end up fessing up as well about his secret identity as Robin and you were thrown for yet another loop. You might’ve been the type to get angry that they didn’t tell you sooner, offended that they clearly didn’t trust you enough. Or you could be the type to ask questions, interested in their secret life. You could also be a sceptic, not so much doubting if they were telling the truth, Jon floating a head’s-width off the ground pretty much proved that part, but rather interrogating them on why they felt the need to tell you and why now.

Whichever reaction you had, you would be driven home that evening by Damian, in silence. He didn’t feel the need to explain why he wasn’t planning on revealing that he was Robin to you, rather, he was afraid of your safety being jeopardised if Jon wasn’t careful… Jon wasn’t planning to be.

It would be less than a week after that Jon sought you out as Superboy, maybe he tackled you into a hug while you were walking the streets, or he’d float into your university cafeteria with lunch, freshly made by Grandma Martha… Really, he was not subtle and Damian could’ve ripped his throat out the first time Jon pulled one of his stunts.

When Batman caught wind of Superboy being openly linked to a civilian, he first went to Clark, who shrugged Bruce’s criticism of Jon off. “So what! I’m open with my affections towards Lois as well!” Bruce would correctly point out that that’s why Lois was constantly getting kidnapped, tied up and having various other misdeeds done to her. Clark would tell Bruce to get off his case, but in true Bruce fashion, he’d refuse. “Y/n is in Gotham, that is my city. Whatever happens to them is my problem, either they move to the larger Metropolis area and become your responsibility or Superboy will have to stop his mindless chasing of them.”

Armed with Batman’s orders, Jon divulged to you that you’re no longer safe in Gotham and that Batman wanted you out. That was quite a verdict, even more so since you were not a native Gothamite. You might have felt inclined to cry or even just felt frustrated, but Jon was there with another offer, “Why don’t you move to Metropolis university! They have comparable programs and you can live with my family for free!”

… It’s not that you wanted to accept Jon’s offer, but what other choice did you have. You questioned Damian about his opinion and he agreed that it’d be safer for you in Metropolis, no matter how much it pained him to see you go. With your friend’s verdict, there really was no other option than moving. Bruce and Damian might’ve helped you transfer to Metropolis University, not only were they well respected in all academic circles, but they were also paying the costs, calling it a charity case, they might’ve even used it to write off some taxes.

With the finalisation of your moving process, Jon finally had you in his claws. That’s when he pulled out the fact that he was your soulmate. He practically shoved his arm in your face one morning, demanding that you love him. Tears were on full display, tumbling down his round cheeks when you didn’t immediately respond. “Why won’t you love me?! I’ve done so much for you!”... Ah yes! Emotional manipulation at its finest.

If you already knew that you were soulmates, but simply ignored it… Oh boy… Jon was livid! How dare you?! After all this time of him pinning and loving you! You just discarded his emotional need for your affection like it was a shite beneath your boot! How selfish could you be?! He only had one soulmate, why would you try to deprive him of the experience of true love! He would be delirious, and somehow manage to convince himself that you had in fact loved him all along, but been unsure if he’d love you back… yes! That had to be it! He’d toss you into his bedroom and lock the door, you weren’t getting out until you accepted his love… By “accepting his love”, he obviously meant, “agree to marry him”. Yeah, if you had just ignored you guys’ soulmate status, the rest of your life will be a living h*ll.

On the other hand, if you didn’t know or had been unsure whether or not it truly was him. He’d be understanding, that’s what happens! The most important thing was that you’re together now! You’d love him forever, right? That was all that ever mattered! It was your duty as soulmates, after all, to love and cherish the other one for years to come! If you don’t accept your love, may I refer you to the previous section, however, if you do accept it, he’d kiss you, deeply, and offer to fly you around Metropolis? Don’t worry if you’re afraid of heights, he’d hold onto you and never let go.

Whether you love him or not, it would be best to at least pretend to do so. Jon is sensitive and he doesn’t take well to rejection. His emotions are volatile and what might’ve earned you a plunging pouty face one day, might result in you getting locked in his room on another one. He’d get married as fast as possible, mostly to ensure that no one else would attempt to get with you… especially Damian. He’s jealous, and as soon as you’re both done with university, he’d beg you to stay at home at the farm and just wait until he gets home, you don’t even have to clean or cook, he’ll do that if you don’t want to, just stay home, that’s where you’re the safest, especially when Clark and Lois retire. Jon would love for you four to all live together, that way he’s extra sure that you’ll be safe.

So in conclusion… Jon as a yandere in a soulmate setting? Absolutely a health hazard. He’s horrifying, suffocating, delirious, clingy, emotional and worst of all: Absolutely. Bloody. Obsessed. He will never let you leave him, and if you’re willing and able to, he’ll make sure that you’ll have at least one biological kid, if not he’ll adopt one, with or without your permission. Just because he values family above all others. (In his mind, you were part of his family the second your name stapled its way up his arm). Clark and Lois would also aid in the absolute suffocation of obsessive love and almost worshipping of your very being which Jon participates in. Their love is like tar, you’ll slowly get dragged under and suffocated, no matter how much you try to get out. Their devotion, (and arms), stick to you like the viscous black droplets of tarmac, and you’ll have no escape. Not even Damian could drag you out once you’re submerged.

A/N: Yes, you can just ignore this, it's mostly for the user who sent in the request.

Thank you for this idea! I hope you like what I did with it! I'm SO sorry that it took so long to get out! But I've been dealing with a bunch of exams and important papers, (to all the IB students out there...IAs! Am I right?!)... No, but in all seriousness, I'm not dead nor did I quit writing, but I have my finals in less than 3 months, and I need to study, so I can't promise that my upload schedule will be particularly consistent or frequent in that period of time, but I'll be back up and running as soon as those bloody exams are over... Wish me luck! Anyways! I hope you like this!

#jon kent x reader #yandere jon kent #yandere x reader #dc x reader #yandere jon kent x reader #jon kent #yandere dc #yandere dc x reader

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deanbrainrotwritings · 6 months

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— THE LOVE LETTER COLLECTION: PART TWO

SUMMARY : being a dreamwalker, seeing every universe, having a hot boyfriend. there’s a million perks to that. the soft version.

PAIRING : dean winchester x dreamwalker!reader (f.) x dean variants

CHARACTERS : just a bunch of dean variants

WARNINGS/TAGS : talk about the barn scene, angst, fluff

WORD COUNT : 2.6k

A/N : this fills the hurt/comfort square on my @jacklesversebingo card. still written from Dean's perspective (I hope you feel loved by him, lmao) XX

The meeting was over and I was completely shocked by the news that bearded-Dean broke to us. He saved me. Doing that caused the destruction of his world and he went through with it anyway.

I remember that day clearly. I missed that damn metal thing about a dozen times that night and I wonder which time he interfered to get me to survive. He’s the reason I’m still here, and I'm partially pissed that he’s toying with my life, but if I were dead, what would that do to her?

“So you could be happy with him,” he explained, almost sounding like a plea to get me to hear him out and not think the worst of him. It wouldn’t make sense for me to hate him, or treat him like he’s a villain. He did what I would do: sacrifice everything for her. The thought of everyone else that died in the timeline, like Sam, Donna, Jody, the girls… It hurts and now I understand why there is so much pain in his eyes.

“You gave me up, too…” she murmured softly, looking up at him sadly. I start to realise now, he’s more me than anyone else here. He is literally me from the future. All my past with her, he has that. All that love, it’s still there. So are the memories and the things he could have had with her, but he gave that up so that I could have them and be alive at the same time.

“You’re in there somewhere now,” he tried to lighten the mood with a faint smile.

Standing on her toes, she wrapped her arms around his neck. It was one of my favourite types of hugs from her. I didn’t complain this time, when he wrapped his arms around her quietly and buried his face into her neck. He hid himself, the way I always did, using her warm embrace.

While he finds comfort in her arms, I observe everyone in the meeting room focusing on the files Ken-me brought in a cart. Occasionally, they’d look up with longing and sadness that was different from the look the soldiers had when they saw her. It was interesting.

I did a quick count of everyone in the room. Twenty-six. That’s the same amount of versions of her he said he’d placed inside that rock. It couldn’t be. But it would make sense that the versions of me who were with a version of her are sitting here coming up with plans, leading different groups, focusing on different projects.

If that guy is me, from a future that doesn’t exist anymore, he doesn’t belong anywhere but here. He made this place to keep her safe after getting her killed by saving me. Of course he’d place her lovers at a higher rank than the other me’s in this place who are merely soldiers, dreamers. It’s not that they’re less important, it’s that they haven’t had a chance to actually love her and that’s why it’s different.

I only recognise two variants of myself in the room. The rich guy with that HunterCorp company and me from the Apocalypse world. I know for a fact that they had her as their girlfriend, too. Apocalypse-me lost her from an illness not related to the Croatoan virus and HunterCorp-me lost her on a hunt when a gorgon killed her.

The guy closest to me wore a red button up and a black t-shirt. He paused in the middle of his sentence to look at me with an indifferent look on his face. It’s weird looking at myself. He’s not much older than I am. The wrinkles by his eyes aren’t as noticeable as mine are now and I see something in his eyes that I hadn’t seen in a while. Something that sends a chill up my spine and makes me shudder.

“You have a question,” he states astutely. I laugh and nod, putting my hands on my hips as I watch the field scattered across the table.

“So.. all of you, you’ve lost her… somehow?” The ones close enough to hear my question stop what they’re doing. They’re listening now, to me. I can see that they’re curious about my question.

“Yeah,” he confirmed, then lifted the sleeve of his arm to reveal the Mark of Cain. My heart stutters at the sight of the pinkish scar on his skin. “I killed her and Sam…” he reveals. My heart plummets to my stomach. That was one of my biggest fears once I’d been cured of being a demon. “This place suppresses the effects of the Mark, makes me feel almost normal.” His words put me at ease and I know he’s not lying because there’s no chance in hell I’d let someone like him in here if he were a danger to everyone.

Standing here now, I start to connect a few pieces together. This whole place at the end of and the beginning of time being named the Monument while containing only variants of myself, variants who all will always only love her and have always only loved her. The steadfast belief that every single person here and outside of this room has that she is the only one for them… it’s like this place was built on a foundation of love primarily for her, and then it extends to love for everything else in existence.

Older-me said so himself, he spends more of his time worrying about her, going as far as destroying his entire timeline so she could be happy with me. They all know, they all chose him to lead them, allow him to lead them, and live peacefully with each other because that’s what she’d want. This whole place is a declaration of love for her, our unending respect of what she believes in, our undying loyalty and commitment to her and her life alone.

I watch her interact with them now that older-me has collected his wits. He’s not with her at the moment, he’s focused on a file, but he does look up at her every once in a while. I wonder what she said to him that’s making him keep looking at her and what he could be thinking of with every glance her way.

I study her from across the room as she talks to them. Her face never changes when she talks to them. She’s surrounded by love here. I can see it on her face and it’s reflected in theirs, too. Their gratitude and the sudden peace that overcomes them fills the room. I can tell being near her heals a part of them that had been broken the moment she was lost to them forever.

She’s immersed completely in them, there’s a lustre of adoration in her eyes, and she has the most tender smile when they explain or answer her questions. I’m amazed by their self-control, had she been giving me that look, I’d take her face in my hands and kiss her senseless.

Suddenly, the thought of any one of them doing that didn’t make me sick with jealousy. They were more like me than I'd like to admit. Their devotion to her was admirable. I appreciate their respect for me by not making a single move on her and by not doing anything to make her uncomfortable. I hate to say they’ve earned my trust.

She’s so beautiful as she listens to them intently. They’re like children getting attention from their doting mother, except that’s a weird analogy for this situation. I’m sure they want to kiss her, aching to touch her soft and warm skin, longing to hold her after not feeling her close to them for years—or who knows how long, really.

I leave the group around me as they talk about the files and make my way to her. I’d think this place would be filled with toxicity and anger issues. Instead, we’re more concerned about the mission and hyper-focused on protecting what others still have across innumerable universes. They’re brought together by hope, grief, and love. All the things that make us who we are.

I know she’s smart enough to have figured all of this out, too, by now.

As I get closer to her, I wonder what it’s like for her to know all this. What does she feel knowing she has all our hearts at the palm of her hand? Knowing her, she’s baffled, maybe a little confused as to why they’d make themselves so miserable waiting around in this giant, lonely monument dreaming of her rather than being out there actually living their lives with the ones they love. I’d imagine it would get boring in Heaven, I’d run out of that place and come here, too, if she weren’t there waiting for me.

I circle my arm around her waist and give her a kiss on her cheek, which is hot and red. She laughs nervously at whatever the 1920’s variant of me said to her. I didn’t catch it, but she continues to laugh as she says, “you’re funny.” It’s in that ‘I don’t believe you, but whatever you say’ tone that makes me smile when I look down at her.

“I’m serious,” he affirms, laughing along with her. She looks up at me, as if I’d be on her side, but I’m lost. I shrug at her with a light-hearted frown. “You’d be surprised by how easy it is for someone as damaged as us to be stuck on a breathtaking, unobtainable, dream-woman over any other hotsy-totsy lady that’s obtainable and real.”

Now, I get it. I’d been with plenty of women in my past, women I cared for deeply and even truly loved at some point. As much as I respect and even admire them, none of them come close, none of those relationships compare to what I have with her.

I’m not surprised to see she’s shocked. I'd be equally as bewildered as she is now if the situation were reversed. If the room was filled with variants of her, only in love with me, I wouldn’t be able to wrap my head around it. I’d be flattered and upset at the same time.

She blushes harder, looks at me again, begging me to be the reasonable one in the group, but I shake my head apologetically. “Maybe you should shut up,” she floundered, crossing her arms over her chest and looking away from them. They laugh at the same time that I do and I can feel her shrink into herself, but a sheepish smile makes its way onto her face.

“Am I makin’ you blush?” He teases her with a boyish grin. She sighs---almost disappointedly---and moves out of my embrace, uncrossing her arms. She takes us in, all of us standing next to each other, and she looks devastated now; all playfulness leaves her.

“I just… that can’t be true,” she says quietly, looking at them. “I want you all to be happy… out there.” They get serious, too, frowning at her disheartened tone. “You’ve all gone through so much… and to just end up here… alone. I don’t want that for you.” Silence falls over us and I feel a pang in my chest at her words.

“Listen, I’m not saying the women we were interested in aren’t good enough. They’re great and amazing.” This time it’s Firefighter-me talking, but I’m more surprised than I should be that we all think the same. She looks at me, chewing on her lip thoughtfully. “Jo’s great, Cassie’s great, Lisa’s great… ya know, whoever else, but they deserve better, too. Dontcha think so?” He asks, trying to get her to be a little less daunted by their choices. Because they are theirs. They’re doing what they want and what they believe. It’s not like the older version of me left them choiceless. I know myself, no one’s taking my right to choose, no one’s trapping me that way—never again.

��We shouldn’t waste their time either,” cowboy-me added. “It wouldn’t be sincere or fair to them because we would continue to love you the most.” She tilts her head to the side, her lip quivers, and we all know what’s going to happen. “You know, everytime we sleep, we dream of you. We see the life you have with your Dean. It’s all we want and it’s amazing to get to feel you and to get to live it, but when we wake up, we feel empty, disappointed… because you’re not ours, you’re not here, and we can’t feel you anymore. Your warmth is gone and you’re so far away from us, and I know you want more for us, but we just can’t be happy with someone who isn’t you.” He tried to reconcile her by bringing her in for a side-hug and a kiss on the forehead. She tried to hold back her tears with quiet sniffles, deep breaths, and by clenching her jaw. I don’t think it worked because she gave him a full hug, burying her face in his chest. “That life just wasn’t meant for us and we’re okay with it.”

I wonder what it’s like for them to see her here in person. Is it of any comfort to them? Or does it just make them hurt more? To have her in their grasp and then have her gone again, but this time it’s her own choice to leave them. Does it hurt that she’s choosing someone else, me? Will being around her allow them to move on?

If I were them, I’d be miserable seeing her with someone who isn’t me. There’s a dull ache in my chest that I almost believe is just an echo of what they must feel. Moving on may not be an option for them, considering that they willingly chose to work in a monument of the love they have for her. If she were here, I’d never be able to move on.

“We really appreciate that you two came,” older-me spoke, slightly causing them to break apart. He brought his hand to the top of her head and gave her a sad smile, an understanding look in his eyes. “We’ve got to focus and get to work now... We’ll see you around, the two of you.”

“I’m sorry,” she says softly, but it sounded a lot like an ‘I love you’. She went to him and let herself be pulled into his embrace. He kissed her cheek, his lips lingered, and her eyes closed to bask in his affection.

He pulled away from her and then made his way to me, allowing her to say goodbye to everyone else. “Alright, uh… listen,” he said quietly, stepping close so I could smell his cologne—smelled way better than mine, “Don’t be a dumbass and do something about that box you’ve got hidden away. ‘Cause if you don’t, I’m givin’ you nightmares. Okay? Okay.” He slapped my back and laughed as if trying to cover up our conversation.

“But what if she says no?” I ask, hating the insecurity in my voice.

“The whole point of this place is that she’s always gonna say yes to us.” He doesn’t elaborate, he just walks away and leaves me to stew in that. I open my mouth and turn around to ask him what the hell he meant. I take in her gentleness when she’s talking to them, holding Firefighter-me’s face in her hands, and dropping a few loving kisses on his temple.

Maybe I should stop overthinking things. Primarily because when it comes to her, I don’t have to think about or doubt anything. This isn’t something that’s being chosen for me, but being shown to me as an option of what I could have.

➥ same book but never the same page

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literary-illuminati · 8 months

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Book Review 57 – Pale by Wildbow

I have been reading Pale as it released from the very beginning in 2020 until the end. As such I am clearly suffering from a severe and acute case of Stockholm Syndrome, and you shouldn’t trust a single thing I say. But to try and step back a bit – Pale is the best 4 million word serial I have ever read, and very nearly even good.

The story follows Avery, Lucy and Verona, precocious and for various reasons marginalized teenagers in a decaying Canadian ski town. They are recruited by a council of the various ghouls, ghosts and goblins who live in the shadows of the town to be its Official Witches and investigate the mysterious death of the Carmine Beast, the greater spirit who stood as judge over all contests of struggle and violence in the region (less in the hopes that find anything and more so that any nosy outsiders can be truthfully told it has already been handled). Being of a protagonist-ey bent, they rapidly exceed their new patrons’ expectations, especially the ones among them who had a hand in the murder. After that it’s basically just literally several million words of things escalating further and further out of anyone’s control.

Or, I kid, but it really is impossible to talk about Pale without forgrounding its length and medium, I think. This is a serial which ran continuously with at least one update a week for more than three years, and (to grab another story about child wizards to compare) is roughly four complete Harry Potter series’ in length. Beyond being an entirely superhuman accomplishment as far as writing productivity goes, this had unavoidable effects on the story as it was being told. It also makes it literally impossible to provide anything like a complete plot summary in a review short enough that anyone will read it. So just take my word that there’s a lot of it, and we’ll come back to the others length-related issues.

This is an urban fantasy book, and a kitchen sink one at that – it’s clearly one of the underlying principles of the setting that it should, insofar as possible, be able to fit every type of storybook monster and horror movie plot and twilight zone episode within it somewhere. Underlying and ordering it all is the axiom that (almost) nothing magical can lie. The world will only respond to your word if its actually worth something – contradicting or gainsaying yourself harms your karma and sets the universe against you, breaking a sworn oath is an open invitation to fates worse than death. The natural consequence of this is that every practitioner (wizard, basically) worth shit has been trained from birth to be an asshole genie and most of the really powerful Others (catch-all term for supernatural creatures) come by it naturally.

None of which is new – this is the second serial Wildbow has written in the setting – but they do combine to make a bunch of amateur detectives investigating a murder really, really fun. The heroines POVs also offers a great way to introduce the setting to the reader, or, at least, provides an excellent justification for in character exposition dumps – and to be clear, this is a series with lore. I consider this an absolute win, but if you don’t like elaborate asides about random monsters or marginal otherworlds that clearly exist only because the author thought they were cool, then this is not the series for you. (On the other hand, most of them are absolutely cool). The world is vast, and the story is full of asides and tangents about things that could easily sustain a novel in their own right.

The other way the exposition is provided is through occasional Extra Materials mini-chapters (quite regular during the beginning of the story, less so as it goes on), which are just excerpts of in-universe documentation – specifically things that the protagonists or occasionally another major character would have been reading. Everything from class notes to chatlogs to investigation summaries as written by one of the girls to local social media posts to a dozen other things. Surprisingly good graphic design on most of them too, which really helps sell them as in-universe artifacts and as ways to characterize the implied authors/readers. It’s very much to the serial’s detriment that these fade away as it goes on.

The series has three protagonists, and chapters alternate between each of their POVs and internal narration. It actually does an excellent job differentiating between Lucy, Avery and Verona and giving them their own distinct voices and making each compelling in their own right (not that I don’t have my favourite, but). While the book’s not perfect about it, on the whole they mostly feel like unusually bright and dedicated teenagers (and increasingly incredibly traumatized child soldiers with variably healthy coping mechanisms), rather than short and legally disabled adults.

As is fairly common with web serials, the normal chapters are intercut with interludes from the perspective of some more minor character. Across all Wildbow’s works, these are honestly where he really shines most, I think. They’re each essentially short stories introducing and providing the history and characterization of someone from their own point of view, in the process more often than not totally recontextualizing their role in the story so far, with how they advance the actual plot almost incidental half the time. If I wanted to sell someone on the setting with as little investment as possible, I would probably just link them the first interlude – the first 90% of the chapter is a really quite good standalone horror story about a totally normal kinda shitty kid getting drawn into and being consumed by an occult living ritual (with its own creepy song! And cannibalism!)

Wildbow is actually an incredibly gifted character writer - both as a web serial author (but on the whole that’s not really any great accomplishment) and just, generally. Despite having an absolutely comically sprawling cast (like, dozens, minimum. If you told me hundreds I’d believe you), he manages to give the vast, vast majority of ones that matter their own distinct aesthetics, voices, and even their own little character arcs and plotlines. Even as much as I complain about bloat and pacing, it never stops being a joy to just spend time in any of the three protagonists’ heads, and I was deeply invested in them achieving their dreams in a way I rarely if ever am for fictional characters.

Now, the complaining. Wildbow is, as I said, one of the best character writers I know working today. The same cannot be said for his skill writing action scenes – which is incredibly unfortunate, because there are so, so fucking many of them. Some serve a real narrative purpose or showcase some bit of characterization, but most could honestly be cut by 90% and you wouldn’t lose anything except wordcount – even the ones which should be there tend to drag on past their natural end because of the book’s love of making things as desperate and hardwon as possible. Which I wouldn’t necessarily mind but like, there are individual action set-pieces that are longer than some published novels. At a certain point exhaustion sets in. If I had to guess, I’d put this down to the fact that when you’re writing 10k words a week and don’t have any concrete ideas of where to go next with the plot worked out, just extending the action scene and throwing some new monsters or puzzles or reversals of fortune at the heroes can eat up a chapter and buy you some time – but just because it’s an understandable consequence of the serial format doesn’t mean I need to like it.

Perhaps reading far too much into it, but if I had to guess, I would say the story’s more structural issues stem from the same thing. Pale was originally planned as a (relatively) short and (relatively) light serial, but in the process of writing rapidly ballooned past all planning and expectation. Which like, as I said, I just enjoyed spending time in the various protagonists’ heads and seeing them develop, but at a certain point you can absolutely start to see the plot starting to outpace all planning and spinning off in multiple entirely new directions that were pretty clearly informed by whatever idea Wildbow was turning over in his head at the time. Sometimes this worked out very nicely – I still love Avery’s whole Thunder Bay/accidental love triangle arc. Sometimes it’s a bit mixed – Wonderkand is a very fun idea, but tonally and aesthetically is kind of a mismatch with 90% of the rest of the setting. Sometimes, well – did anyone like the extended Aurum/Dark Fall trial sequence? But even aside from individual arc quality, if you are someone who cares even slightly about things like ‘pacing’, ‘narrative discipline’, or ‘plot points/foreshadowing not going in weird directions or fading in the background because the author just forgot/kind of lost interest in them in the course or writing a novella weekly for three years’ then oh boy is this not the story for you.

A similar sort of thing happens, I think, with the story’s themes. Pale is from the beginning very explicitly concerned with ideas of punitive versus rehabilitative justice, an already slightly fraught use of the subjugation/binding of magical creatures as a metaphor for oppression and colonization, and just generally with the idea of building a better world in the hidden corners of the current one. The story, well, remains very interested with those subjects, but having any coherent viewpoint on them falls to the wayside compared to coming up with ways to advance the plot or dilemmas to throw at the protagonists or just vivid bits of imagery in the moment. This more or less generalizes – I kind of get the sense that Wildbow set out wanting to write something that goes against his narrative reflexes/habits, but as the story went on and the writing piled up they just kind of crept back in. Certainly for a story that take pains at first to emphasize how hellish and cruel long term binding and confinement are, the happy ending involves a lot of various cruel and torturous prisons that are portrayed as somewhere between necessary and just. The big final villain also more or less works on a character level, but thematically is basically the single worst choice of anyone the protagonists faced down across the entire story.

I’m accentuating the negative here, and part of that is just because I’m a miserable husk of a human, but it’s also just that Pale’s real problems tend to be structural, while its high points are much more particular and specific, and hard to sell without immense amounts of context – there are so many random side characters who get more compelling stories than the actual protagonists of some books I’ve read this year, and a half dozen scenes that are pretty permanently burned into my memory. My favourite dynamic involves a character whose only present for, like, 3% of the story max.

At one point the story was intended to end with Arc 13, followed by a hiatus and then a sequel. I still think this would have been the correct choice, even that ending would rip my fucking heart out and also possibly get Wildbow literal bombs mailed to his house. Still – if you can stand that sort of ending and also are the sort of person to read million-word web serials to begin with, that would be my recommendation. Get to that point, and then decide for yourself how invested you are in spending time in the heads of the protagonists and in the world. Or read Pact, which is like a fifth of the size and ostensibly set in the same setting – though leans so much further into horror than urban fantasy for tone that functionally there’s a lot of discrepancies.

All of which said, Verona Lucy and Avery are going to live in my head for the rest of my life and I make no apologies about this.

#book review #web serial #pale #parahumans #wildbow #sff #urban fantasy

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zaceouiswriting · 4 months

Text

Fairy Prince - Hearts of Leviathans - Ch.19

Character: Sky x male reader, Riven x male reader, Brandon x male reader

Universe: Somewhere in Winx Club/Saga

Warnings: Blood

The gentle midday summer breeze over the training ground has intensified, almost to the point of becoming a storm. All the while, Cory and I stare at each other. Neither of us is willing to grant the other any form of superiority as it always has been between us. The others are still watching in tense silence. My back was turned towards most of the specialists, but I could still hear their murmurs, Congratulating Cory, but I didn't care. I stare at my sword deep in the ground. But suddenly, all I could see was blood pooling around it.

My hands shake. In the distance, I could hear the screams that, to this day, keep me awake at night and stop me from dreaming of a world without bloodshed, like all the other worlds protected by fairies. I have been weak in the past, and when I look down at my still-shaking hands, I seem to be still the same. Staring at my war-defined underarm that many had underestimated in the past, I could not feel the tingling current of faerie magic flowing through it. I never could. My childhood fairy mentor told my grandfather that it was possible that I would never reach my full potential. I was listening then. This knowledge shocked me as a child, but I was never the type to give up easily.

In the end, not only did I bested myself, but I also showed this mentor that his prediction was wrong. But at what cost?

I lift my head and can see the entire student body, but to me, they seem like corpses, just like everyone who has ever gathered around me. Carefully, I wrap my hand around my sword again. Out of nowhere, the shaking of my hands suddenly stopped. Instead of the fear and panic I had felt before, there was only clarity in my mind as soon as I grabbed the handle of my new weapon.

My body knew what to do and how to do it. I don't even have to think about it anymore. But my opponent is Cory. He is one of the best, perhaps even the strongest, that ever existed, but I have to get him out of the hands of my scheming grandfather. He's just too big of a threat otherwise. Something has happened to him lately, and I can't lose such a valuable ally to him.

With a swift motion, I pull the sword from the ground, raise it, and point it toward Cory. His eyes are still wide open, and there are beads of sweat on his forehead. He is clearly nervous. I look at him with a grin. It almost feels like something is taking over me, but I am still in control. It's just a weird feeling.

As if automatically, I pull my sword closer to myself, the tip towards the sky, the sharp sides away from my body, the blunt part towards me. With the handle close to my body, I bow towards the blade respectfully and whisper a single word: “Nagilisk.”

Opening my eyes again, I raise my head back up and stare intently at Cory. The anger of a hundred thousand souls dwells in my eyes. He seems to think, at least judging by his wide, frightened eyes, that I wouldn't want to fight him. Perhaps the people around us who congratulate him prematurely because they think I'm an easy target have given him false hope.

After Corey realizes that I actually want to fight him, he quickly gets back into position and says the same word I had just uttered. A word or a name that probably no one here knows. But it's understandable. After all, the person behind the name was disgraced long ago and later sealed away.

With both hands on the hilt of my sword, which fits perfectly in my hands, I feel invincible. Even though it seems like a strong wind could break it into a million little pieces, I know it would rather cut through a world than break against anything.

Cory's anxious demeanor changed as soon as he assumed his position, a long sword in his right hand and a short one in his left. A double-bladed fighter. Both metal, like most of our people, he seems to always have them with him. The mightiest I've ever seen or heard of. When he was nine years old, he defeated the best in our world, a natural prodigy.

We both fill our weapons with Aura, a form of combat magic that Specialists once excelled at but are now devoid of. As I do this, I can feel something awakening within me, the very thing I have always tried to suppress. Even though I knew it could mean the end of hundreds, if not thousands, I still open myself to it.

I feel the bloodlust growing so strong that I know I can't hold it in for long. Hoping Corey would understand, I nod in his direction. Corey nods back almost immediately. Relieved that he actually seemed to understand, I let my aura flow out. When our auras collide, the pressure pushes away those too close to us.

Without warning, we both move. I could only imagine what it would look like from the outside, but one of my servants once told me: "You are faster than the wind!" But I can see Corey's swords moving at their usual speed. They are precise and look like an X, but the swords do not touch. As I quickly draw nearer to him, I see he is ready to attack. To any other person, his movements would have been unpredictable. But luckily, I'm not a normal person.

Once I'm close enough to see myself in his metal blades, I use my agility to move right under them and come up behind them on his right side. I get so close, in fact, to Corey that I could give him a little peck on his right cheek, and simultaneously, I hit his body with my blade.

But because of our speed, we pass each other in no time. We stop where the other had started. I stand there and wait, knowing he didn't hit me, and I know he would fall any second. At least, that's what I hope. But as one second passed into the next, I grow uneasy. Did I really hit him? My gaze was still fixed on the ground, as is the custom. With my eyes closed, all I could do was wait.

Suddenly, there is the sound of something dripping, then the clink of metal on the floor, and finally, a knee hitting the floor. As soon as I hear that, I lift my head and slam my sword back into the ground. I don't even acknowledge the blood dripping from my blade.

Dust is still in the air. Not even I can see anything. So I use the moment to straighten myself out and face where I know my childhood friend's older brother should be. As I focus on the magic raging within me, my underdeveloped fairy part. My hands quickly begin to glow brown. Within a few moments, the dust falls off and reunites with the stone we are standing on.

Even from behind, I can see the gash across his torso and the blood running down his handsome, rectangle-shaped face.

The whole ground is silent. If a pen had been dropped, there would have been a loud echo. It gives me great joy because I already know that Corey is the best in his entire year. The fact that a freshman beats him so easily can only be cheating, right? If they attempt to pursue this path, they will swiftly discover it leads nowhere. It is impossible to cheat in a sacred duel where both parties are forced to fight with all their might.

Since no one is moving or even seeming to think about helping Corey, I know I have to do it myself. I move towards my opponent with relaxed steps and step behind him. Carefully, I place both hands on his broad shoulders. I slowly move my head closer to his.

“Does it hurt?” I ask him as soon as my head is right next to his.

“Very much, Your Majesty,” he replied solemnly and calmly, obviously hating that he had lost to me.

Chuckling to myself, I dig my hands a little tighter into his shoulders. “Remember this,” I tell him, just as quietly. “And never forget the oath you just swore with him. At least my life is protected from a real threat.”

Corey's head snaps towards me, a questioning look in his eyes, but I put my index finger over my mouth, signing him to be quiet. I can see his Adam's apple bobbing up and down as he swallows nervously. So I give him a wink. I straighten my back, remove my hands from his shoulders, and finally walk around him. I can feel all eyes on me, likely horrified by the brutality of the ritual. But we usually have at least two healers to ensure no one dies.

I kneel in front of Corey. His eyes follow my every move. Carefully, I touch his upper armor, which suddenly disappears at the touch. He doesn't even acknowledge it. But it breaks the silence a bit as many girls start whispering about his broad, muscular back. To be honest, I'd rave over his back, too, but I'd also do the same for his muscular, toned chest, even if I would never say it out loud. After all, he is my best friend's older brother. Luckily, I still had to scan his torso to make sure I only caused that one wound.

But this one wound is already bad enough: A large gush, deep and bleeding profusely. I could even see that some muscles and nerves had been cleanly severed. Glancing back at my sword, I'm more than surprised at its sharpness, as it looks like it couldn't even cut paper but sliced through Corey's body like butter. I feel my lips want to curl into a smile, but somehow, I manage to hold it back. But even though I try my best to suppress it, the joy of my victory ultimately overwhelms me.

“You still enjoy the misery of others. How delightful.”

With the same smile finally spreading across my lips, I gaze back at him. His face contorted in pain and perhaps disappointment. I'm not entirely sure. As I stare at him, smiling from ear to ear, which feels unnatural.

"If I were you, I would weigh my words carefully,“ I tell him quietly. “I have more than enough reasons to cut off your head.” Corey looks at me with eyes filled with shock, but he really shouldn’t. “Do you remember earlier when I defended you against the other guy? I know full well that you have dragged my name through the mud, and even though we are somewhat friends if someone heard this and knew about my status, I would have no choice but to kill you.”

Only after finishing speaking do I notice the pressure I'm radiating. One born of pure bloodlust. Something I won in the long battles on the battlefield. As I remember my time in the war, I suddenly feel something strange on my hands. Looking down at them, I notice that they have moved of their own accord closer to Corey's open wound. As they dig up and down through the inside of the wound, enjoying the feeling of cleanly cut flesh and thick blood, I know if others see it, they would think even less of me.

I, honestly, didn't even realize I had started grinning darkly until I could hear someone whisper about it. Shortly afterward, I take my hand out of the wound and smile apologetically at Corey. The whole time, he stares at me as if I'm some kind of dark creature.

Hoping to hide my disgusting habit so that it looks like I'm just trying to help him, I place both hands on his wound, albeit unnecessarily, and cast a spell to heal his wound. “Prokstoya,” I whisper quietly. Under my hands, a thin layer of stone appears over Corey's wound, closing it. But it's not big enough. “Ulersinka,” I add to the spell. The stony patch slowly grows until the entire wound is closed. But as soon as Corey moved just a little, it was already starting to break. “Reikla,” I continue to add. The stone plaster hardens, but in the places where it already has cracks, the stone is too unstable.

“Prokstoya Ulersinka Reikla,” I chant a few times to ensure the stone plaster reappears, regrows, and hardens. But I ensure it's quiet enough that only Corey and I can hear it. Because this language is neither that of the fairies nor any other species known here. Only my family and those close to us know about it. In the beginning, more people were aware of it, but when the person who taught it became the enemy of everyone, even we had to hide it, and eventually, most people forgot it.

Luckily, it looks like a guardian fairy's magic. The spell is just at a much higher level than I should be able to use, which I could feel as soon as I look into Corey's eyes. Suddenly, my head starts spinning, and I almost pass out. I've never kissed the ground, though. As I look around, disoriented, I only see Corey, and for the first time, I'm grateful for his quick reflexes.

“Sorry,” I murmur.

“Is your body still fighting your fairy magic?” Corey tries to inquire. "I still remember the day you were supposed to cast a rock into the air, and instead, you broke your teacher's ankle because your fairy magic went wild and pulled a rock out of the ground."

As Corey speaks, I feel a blush spreading across my cheeks. This is neither the place nor the time to reminisce! Especially since he has already sworn loyalty to my senile old grandfather! So, instead of paying more attention to him, I turn to Saladin and the mistress of the Alfea Academy.

“Is that enough to show you my magic?” I ask them in a salty tone.

Judging by the silence of all the students or their astonished looks, I can assume that no one seems to doubt that I am who I said I was. But not for the headmistress. I don't know if she could see through the magic or if she just didn't want to admit that she'd made a terrible mistake, but she's not convinced, as can be seen from her contorted face.

I can't believe this woman! And yet, I can. Somehow, I knew deep down that it wouldn't be that easy. Still, it should have been enough, even if she saw that the magic I just used wasn't pure fairy magic.

“You're going to have a mock fight,” the old mistress suddenly says.

“Tomorrow, right?” I ask back. But her look was stern and gave me an answer I didn't want to get. “You can’t be serious!” I added, annoyed.

“If we don’t sort this out today, we can’t move forward.”

I feel anger rising in my stomach hearing her words. I ball my hands into fists, trying desperately to keep my anger to myself and not explode in this woman's face. I can't wait for her plan to blow up.

“Okay,” I murmur through gritted teeth. I stand back up and tower over the woman. "Who will I fight?" I want to ask so much more, but I could barely contain myself. Right now, all I like to see is her arrogant face fall as everyone realizes what a mistake they made.

“Stella!“

I look around, confused. I don't see anyone stepping forward. But when I suddenly feel pressure being put on me, I start to fear for my life. As I turn in that direction, I see the same golden-haired girl I saw on my first day in Alfea. I can feel something powerful slumbering within her. She's old enough to know about it. But does she know it? Does she know about me then? I can feel it inside her from meters away, so she must feel it, too, right? But when I look at her, she seems more dissatisfied than angry. She shows no discomfort with the power within me, which is unnatural. So she hasn't awakened yet?

“Yes, Miss Faragonda?” she asks in a dismissive, almost rude tone. This causes resentment among the crowd, as many call her disrespectful. Somehow, it feels so strange that I can't help but laugh. Stella's gaze immediately jumps to me, even more dissatisfied than before.

“We'll talk about this later, young lady!” The headmistress threatens Stella, which actually makes her quiver under the older woman's watchful eyes. "You will fight this young man. Don't worry. Neither of you will be able to seriously injure the other."

Even though she obviously doesn't want to be there or have anything to do with this situation, she still nods in agreement. She comes towards me, and even though I'm taller than her, she looks down on me, or at least makes me feel like she is. There are no greetings or anything like that. What a bitch.

[Masterlist]

#x male reader #male reader #winx club #winx saga #winx saga x male reader #brandon x male reader #riven x male reader #riven #sky x male reader #sky #brandon #winx club x male reader #series #fairy prince

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mendessi · 1 year

Text

iii. the stars

When the Star appears, you are likely to find yourself feeling inspired. It brings renewed hope and faith and a sense that you are truly blessed by the universe at this time. pairing: joel miller x fem!reader

summary: you're figuring out life after the outbreak but can't stop thinking about what life was like before

word count: 2.5k

warnings: canon typical violence, both pre and post outbreak day (there are flashbacks), mentions of death, fluff?, mentions of sex, insinuation of sex, flashbacks in italics, no use of y/n

author's note: sorry i didn't post yesterday, i underestimated how busy my week would be ):

masterlist

minors DNI

You, Joel and Tommy had been camping in the woods after leaving a triage clinic shortly after Outbreak Day. You both had wounds that needed to be tended to, your's worse than his. You still had to wear sling sometimes to manage the pain from your shoulder being dislocated and being shot twice in the arm. It was hard to tell how much time had gone by but you didn't care. You weren't even sure if trying to survive was worth it anymore if this was the world you'd be living in. You didn't know where you were going or what the plan was. Tommy and Joel had explained it to you a million times, however you couldn't pay attention long enough to hear it.

Ever since outbreak day and losing Sarah, you weren't there. You were there physically but your mind was always somewhere else. Joel and Tommy did their best to support you and remind you that they were there, but they knew that the chaos had been a lot on you. You tried to be there for Joel, knowing that he had lost his only child but you were stuck hating yourself for being the reason that she had died.

Joel didn't and never would blame you for what happened. You tried but saving her wasn't a possibility. He knew it was eating you from the inside out and wanted to do anything to make you realize that it wasn't your fault.

"We'll set up here for the night." Tommy said after examining the clearing in the woods. They set their backpacks down and pulled out their sleeping bags and you did the same. "I'll take first watch."

After leaving the triage clinic you were lucky enough to find a camper that had yet to be rummaged through and found enough supplies to last a few weeks and enough sleeping bags for each of you. You didn't know what to grab so Joel packed yours for you.

You lay in the dark, no fire present and turned your back to face them. You pulled the blanket as tightly as you could around your body and stared into the clearing of trees, a shiver running down your spine.

Time passed and eventually you could hear both of the boys snoring. You crawled from your sleeping bag and sat against a tree, pulling your blanket over your chest. Tommy was typically really good at taking watch and never fell asleep, so he must've really needed the rest. You didn't mind taking watch, nothing ever happened when they were sleeping and it was only fair you do your part.

"C'mere." You turned your head to Joel who was holding his sleeping bag open, gesturing for you to join him. A few hours must've passed of you being on watch and you could tell because the moon had changed position in the sky. You grabbed your blanket and snuck into the sleeping bag with him laying on your back and looking up at the stars through the clearing.

"Why are you up?" He asked you. His voice was groggy as he had just woken up.

"My turn for watch." You replied.

"Lay with me." He mumbled into your hair and you could tell he was already falling back asleep. He rolled onto his side and draped his arm across your waist causing you to tense up. The idea of being touched made you uneasy since outbreak day, even by Joel, but you allowed it because you knew that he needed it in order to stay sane. Everyday you questioned why he still wanted to be with you when you had killed his daughter.

You looked up at the night sky with a short sigh and closed your eyes.

"You wanna go camping?" You asked with a laugh.

"Sarah wants to go and I think it'd be fun if you joined." Joel said taking your hand. "One more little trip before she goes back to school."

"If Sarah wants to go that's fine with me." You said. "You're lucky I already took the weekend off."

Joel had came to visit you at work on his lunch break which was a nice occasion because he never had time to see you during the day. He had brought both of you Whataburger which you loved because that was what you had eaten on your first date. Not ideal but the circumstances called for it.

It seemed like the world was against the two of you having your first official date. You had planned for a nice dinner on the lake but a major accident had happened and the ER got slammed so you had to stay late and missed your reservation. He offered to order take out and you'd just watch a movie at his place that way you could meet him after work. However when you finally got off your car wouldn't start and it was almost midnight, but the two of you were determined to make your date happen that night. After weeks of scheduling conflicts you agreed if your date didn't happen that night, it wouldn't happen at all. Joel drove into the city and picked you up and by the time you had gotten close to his place both of you were starving and the only thing open was Whataburger. You ordered a plethora of food and ended up parking by the lake and sitting in the bed of his truck looking at the stars.

That Friday you helped load up the truck and you and The Millers were off to Wimberly, Texas just an hour south of Austin. When you arrived the sun was already beginning to set and the boys were gathering things to make a fire.

You and Sarah sat on the edge of the lake as you and her took turns reading Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix to each other, which had just been released a couple of weeks before. You and her were obsessed with the books and they had just started adapting the books to movies which you both loved.

"Look at you two nerds." Tommy said, sitting in front of you and Sarah. He took the book from your hands and put on the most horrible British accent you've ever heard. "'Give her hell from us, Peeves.' The hell is a Peeves?"

Sarah snickered and took the book from him, bookmarking the page you were at, "That's just because we can read and you can't."

You burst into laughter and turned to Joel who was also laughing at his daughter's sassy comment.

"That's all her, she didn't get that attitude from me." Joel pointed at you and you held your hands up in defense.

"Hey, I've only been around for barely a year, don't blame that on me."

"You know we love you, Uncle Tommy." She smiled and shut the book, glancing over at you.

"Sometimes." You nodded.

"Harassment. This is called harassment." Tommy stood up and made his way to his brother as you and Sarah burst into another fit of laughter.

You spent the weekend swimming in the lake, swinging off of the rope and at one point diving off a small cliff. You even had driven into the small town with Sarah and tried on what seemed like a million dresses at a small boutique. You hiked and went canoeing and did pretty much anything you could think of. Each night you sat around the bonfire and read Harry Potter with Sarah and by the end of the weekend you had Tommy hooked despite him not reading any of the books prior. You knew he'd never go back and read the series but he made you both promise that you'd show him the first two movies when you got back into town.

Sarah and Tommy both crawled into their tents on the last night, but you and Joel snuck down to where the truck was parked at the edge of the lake with your blankets and crawled into the bed.

You had brought a copy of The Perks of Being a Wallflower down and were reading it to him. He never listened when you read aloud, he simply stared at you, watching as the words fell from your lips. You could be speaking gibberish, but he just loved to observe you, take in your appearance and wonder how he got lucky to have someone as beautiful as you.

"I'm dating a nerd." He said with a small smile once you finished the chapter and closed the book. He couldn't recall what had just happened in the book, but he'd always remember the way the moon was reflected in your eyes.

"Just because I read doesn't mean I'm a nerd." You said as you both got cozy under the blankets. "Me being a nerd got me through nursing school."

"You're turning my daughter and brother into nerds too." He said, wrapping his arm around your shoulders. You both looked up at the stars that were never this clear due to the light pollution of the city.

"I wish they looked like this in Austin." You said with a sigh. "I'd lay here forever just looking at them."

"Yeah." He wasn't paying attention to the scars, but instead was fixated on you.

"I think that's the big dipper, but I don't know. Maybe I should've brought a book or a guide or something. I will next time." You said, unaware of the fact that he was staring at you with tiniest hint of a smile.

He looked at you as you looked at the stars and something clicked in his head. You were a bookworm, sure, but you were giving and warm. It took you awhile but once you opened up to him you, he saw a completely different side of you. No matter what dark times he had, you always managed to brighten his world. You made Sarah happy and safe and you loved her like your own even though you'd only been together a little less than a year. You'd become an inseparable part of his life and there was nothing more he wanted in the world than you. He knew it for a long time, he just never knew how to say it or if what he felt was even it, but it all fell into place at that moment.

You looked over at him and your cheeks warmed up at the smile he had on his lips, "What are you looking at?"

"I love you," he said for the first time.

You sat up and looked down at him, "What?"

You hadn't meant for that to be your reaction, you just weren't expecting it. You had loved Joel for a long time a couple of months into your relationship and you were waiting for him to say it first. You knew this was his first relationship since Sarah's mom and maybe just maybe he was a little closed off because of it. But you could tell the second he fell hard for you, the second he realized that he might love you. You didn't push him, you just waited til he was ready to say it. You didn't think that'd be now.

"I love you today, tomorrow, next month, next year, I'd love you in the next life if there is one. As long as I live I am yours." He said. His voice was low and his hand was on your thigh as you looked at him. "I love you and maybe it's taken me a little too long to realize it but you're the one I intend to grow old with. My days would not be complete without you."

"Joel," you rested your hand over his, your eyes nearly brimming with tears. Joel was never the sappy type even around you, but listening him put his love into words sounded like the most beautiful thing anyone had ever said. "I love you, too."

"You do?" He asked, but he knew the answer. He knew there was no way you didn't love him.

"Duh." You cupped his cheeks and leaned in to kiss him. His hands gripped your waist and pulled you towards him as he leaned you on to your back sliding his hands up your shirt. "I've been waiting for you to say it." You mumbled against his lips as he smiled and kissed your nose.

That night was your favorite night with Joel Miller. Every second was filled with passion and love and you knew you'd never forget it. The polaroid in your pocket would never let you forget it either. You put your hair into a bun as the both of you walked back towards your camp hand in hand, giggly and shushing each other to try not to wake Sarah and Tommy for they'd definitely know the two of you had just slept together in the bed of the truck.

Everyone would always tell you that since you met Joel he had hung stars in your eyes, but you put the universe in his.

"Joel." You whispered, looking over at him.

"Hm?" His eyes were closed but he still responded.

"Do you still love me?" You asked and his eyes shot open and he sat up quickly.

"Of course I do. Why would you ask that?" He stared down at you in disbelief that you'd even ask that.

You take a few moments to respond as a million thoughts try to leave your mouth at once. The first one that makes it out is, "I'm sorry about, Sarah."

Joel's face softens and you feel bad for bringing her up. Nobody has spoken of her since you buried her in the woods. It's a tough subject for all you, so it's best to pretend that it never happened at all.

"That wasn't your fault, baby. You have to know that." He said, resting his hand on your thigh.

"I don't want to pretend like she never existed." You sit up and look down at your lap.

"We won't. We won't." He said, tilting your chin to look into your eyes.

"She was your daughter and she's not here anymore and I let her die." Your voice cracks as tears start streaming down your face.

"There was nothing you could've done." He said. His hands cupped your cheeks as you looked up at him. "It's just us now. We gotta make this work. We gotta figure it out."

"I know. I know." You nodded.

"I love you and nothin will change that. Not now, not ever." He rested his forehead against yours and shut his eyes, taking a moment to breathe. Finally talking about Sarah was hard on him, but he knew he needed to no matter how much he wanted to keep his feelings bottled up. "Sarah's gone. She was mine but she was also yours. We move day by day until we figure it out and we do it for her."

You nodded your head and he kissed you softly before pulling you into a hug, holding you tightly against his chest as he rocked gently. You clutched the fabric of his shirt as you both lay down under his sleeping bag. You snuggled into his warmth listening to his heartbeat and feeling the rise and fall of his chest, the combination putting you to sleep.

Joel stayed awake to keep watch, but he kept you in his arms. You and Tommy were all he had left. They were gonna fight and do whatever it took to keep you alive and safe. No ifs ands or buts.

So long as you were breathing with a heartbeat, you were his reason for living.

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#joel miller #tlou #pedro pascal #the last of us #joel miller x you #joel miller x reader #joel miller fic #joel miller fanfic #joel miller fanfiction

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ineffable-bookworm · 10 months

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So I started rewatching Good Omens 2 and realised something during the opening scene. Crowley is clearly proud of the universe he’s helped design and of all those stars and galaxies. And he’s heartbroken when he finds out that not only will something he built to grow and last a million years only be allowed to exist for 6000, but that the humans will be placed somewhere where they won’t even have a good view of the stars! He was upset enough to go to God and ask if they might be mistaken, which would eventually lead to his sauntering vaguely downwards.

And yet, despite all this, within those 6000 years they were allotted, the humans were still fascinated with the parts of the universe they could see, curious enough that they managed to slowly work out how it moved and expanded, what those stars were made of, cobble together rockets to travel to the one bit they could reach (the moon), and sent out satellites and robots to take pictures and collect samples of the bits they couldn’t reach. Despite everything and all Crowley’s fears that all his efforts were wasted and would never be admired as he hoped they would, the humans still found a way to see those stars and galaxies.

This must have been the equivalent of someone sending kudos and making fan art to Crowley.

No wonder he’s so fond of the humans

#season 2 has got me all up in my feels tonight #cue that discovery channel ad song #good omens #good omens 2 #good omens spoilers #good omens 2 spoilers #go spoilers #crowley #good omens analysis

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thewertsearch · 8 months

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GC: YOU W3R3 STRUTT1NG 4ROUND 1N YOUR D3L1C1OUS K1W1 31GHT B4LL SU1T 4ND RUNN1NG YOUR FR3SH MOUTH 4S USU4L GC: durp yo terezi sup sup gotta beat john gotta beat john GC: hes got a long hood and he does wind, how can i get powers too? [....] GC: [...] 1M L1K3 D4V3 TH4TS GO1NG TO 1NVOLV3 F4C1NG YOUR OWN D34TH GC: 4ND 1M SORRY TO BR34K 1T TO YOU BUT 1 DONT TH1NK YOUR3 R34DY FOR TH4T

Well, at least she gave him fair warning.

Thanks to Vriska, John was able to achieve the god tiers without confronting his mortality. He didn't have to grapple with any of this, and it's possible that he was robbed of some character growth as a result.

That said, I still think Vriska did him a solid. It's just ironic that she thinks she's helping him develop as a hero, when she might be doing the exact opposite.

GC: BUT ONLY 1F YOU PROM1S3 TO TH3 3X4CT T3RMS OF MY 4RR4NG3M3NT, 1N ORD3R TO PROT3CT TH3 1NT3GR1TY OF TH3 T1M3L1N3 >:] TG: the arrangement being the coin flip thing TG: thank god we did that otherwise wed be screwed TG: i probably would have gone back in time and killed my own grandfather oh wait i never had one

lmao

I do wonder if Bro had an adopted family. We know Nanna and Grandpa's background, and Mom was probably the child that Skaianet were apparently raising in their laboratory. (Remember when I thought there was a secret clone of Rose down there?)

Bro, however, is an enigma, even among the Guardians. He has no known relationship with any of the other parents, but was definitely getting foreknowledge of Sburb from somewhere. I'm not even sure I want to know what sort of childhood produces Bro Strider.

GC: 1 TOLD YOU 1 W4S GO1NG TO FL1P 4 CO1N GC: 4ND B3FOR3 1 D1D, YOU H4D TO P1CK 4 S1D3 W1THOUT T3LL1NG M3 GC: GOOD H34DS OR B4D H34DS

Really, the coin is just a rhetorical device. Terezi doesn't need to flip a coin, or even have a coin, because the real flip is happening in Dave's head. His Mind, if you will.

This does raise a lot of questions, though. I hope there isn't a timeline for every conceivable decision you could make. We've sort of discussed the idea before, but I don't think I've really talked about the subtle horror of a multiverse that works that way.

I mean, if there's a timeline for every possible decision - if everyone is capable of making any choice, at any time - then John will randomly kill his friends, for no reason. There are millions of offshoots where he does this. WV will become a monarchist. Dave will take off his shades.

It goes deeper, too. You can't even meaningfully ask why Dave wears shades, because he doesn't. He's constantly taking them off, because it is possible for him to do so. And if there's a timeline where he never takes them off, it's only because that's a decision he could potentially make.

If timelines branch at every decision, with no restrictions, then every single person in the multiverse is constantly doing things that contradict the core of who they are. In fact, there is no core. Everyone is an indistinguishable robot, constantly making every possible decision, simply because they can.

Homestuck could work like this, but I prefer the Discworld interpretation - I think it's more consistent with the comic's themes of choice. In Night Watch, protagonist Vimes is confronted with this exact question, and we get this exchange:

“But sometimes you can’t help wondering: what would have happened if I’d done something different–” “Like when you killed your wife?” Sweeper was impressed at Vimes’s lack of reaction. “This is a test, right?” “You’re a quick study, Mister Vimes.” “But in some other universe, believe me, I hauled off and punched you one.” Again, Sweeper smiled the annoying little smile that suggested he didn’t believe him. “You haven’t killed your wife,” he said. “Anywhere. There is nowhere, however huge the multiverse is, where Sam Vimes as he is now has murdered Lady Sybil. But the theory is quite clear. It says that if anything could happen without breaking any physical laws, it must happen. But it hasn’t. And yet the “many universe” theory works. Without it, no one would ever be able to make a decision at all.” “So?” “So what people do matters!” said Sweeper. “People invent other laws. What they do is important!

In short, there are some things you would never do, physical laws be damned. It is inconceivable that Vimes would murder his wife, because his current personality is incompatible with that decision. It simply cannot be made to make sense, so it can't spawn a timeline.

Note that this is only true for Vimes 'as he is now'. His moral code doesn't necessarily apply to his alt-selves - or even his younger self, whose code hasn't solidified. Hell, half the book is about making sure Young Vimes develops that code in the first place. There could be an evil John Egbert, but our John can't just arbitrarily turn evil.

So that's how I think it works. There's a timeline for every decision that you'd choose to make, and that subset of decisions will change as you grow. Your development as a person shapes the multiverse, in a very literal way.

#homestuck liveblog #full liveblog #act 5.2 #s99 #3093 #sort of like that ask about the alpha timeline needing to be consistent with the personalities of its inhabitants #but at a larger scale

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sweetflanfiction · 1 year

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The Arena - Part 2

Universe: Alice in Borderland Pairing: Chishiya x reader Disclaimer Pt.2: The story isn't finished, but I had to get this out of my head. I hope this isn't very bad and sorry if it is!

Plot: You go to a work event in a familiar place you've never been to.

Part 1 // Part 2 // Part 3 // Part 4 // Part 5 // Part 6 // Part 7 // Part 8 // Part 9 // End

• ··········· • ············ •

The usual dread that had accompanied you since the accident had spiked without reason as you looked up at the entrance to the resort. This made you stop in your tracks.

Something in the air made you feel threatened, watched. The spacious square room with two stories and a high ceiling had a weird yellow tint to it. Sickly even. Looking around the small alcoves that lead to the upper corridors, you were half expecting someone to be standing there watching you.

“You okay buddy?” Kaori asked, watching your expression change dramatically.

“I don’t…” You looked at your friend's concerned look. “I’m fine, friend.”

Chishiya stood next to his newfound friends, his face focused on trying to remember if he’d been here before. Something felt familiar about this place, like he’d seen it through a fog or in a picture somewhere. There was something amiss, something that felt uncomfortable. Like something crawling under the floor. Instinctively he turned his face to you. Watching your eyes dart back and forth from wall to wall and floor to ceiling, blinking and then just looking at the people around you.

He had admitted that there was something in you that made him want to be next to you. At first he thought it was just the physical aspect. You were attractive by his standards as he had first noticed you walking the halls of the Foundation, laughing at something Ari had said. Your face was not at all strange to him, and when he saw you at the counselors office he realized he had indeed seen you before: in the group chats. You were involved in the meteor incident.

When you asked him if the sessions were helping him with the nightmares, he took a few moments to answer. Not because of his unwillingness to do so, but because your voice was so familiar. Soothing. Like he had heard it a million times before. Not in therapy, since most of you never really talked much in therapy. You all did the talking afterwards, with drinks and food. Not that he joined often, he did once or twice, but he had missed your presence.

After a while, what Chishiya called ‘the urges’ started. The urge to touch your hand as you sat eating cookies after the therapy session; the urge to put a hand on the small of your back when you exited the staff room; the urge to keep you safe from something unknown. Most of the time he managed to resist, only letting the urge to stand next to you creep in whenever he found himself in your presence.

Kaori had noticed of course, always the perceptive one, telling him one day that he should just ask you on a date and let the night take its course. But he was still trying to figure out this new side of himself adding another feeling to the mix. Although it had added a new urge: the urge to take you out to dinner.

He frowned, looking at your expression, which was similar to his own: confused and alert.

• ··········· • ············ •

Check-in had been done and name tags had been given. You and Ari shared a room, while Kaori and Chishiya shared another on the same floor.

You sat silently on the bed, looking at the bracelet the receptionist had given you. It was a locker number. All guests had one. She had explained it was meant for the lockers near the pool and beach exit. This was so that guests could store their belongings and not have to run up and down the hotel. Yours was blue and had the number 007.

Something was making you feel like this number was too high, but you had no idea where that sentiment came from, since apparently all the lockers were given randomly.

Ari was taking things out of her bag and placing them in the wardrobe, keeping a close eye on you. You’d met after the meteor thing and she knew that sometimes you got a tad quiet because of it. Although she wasn’t as close to you as Kaori, she saw you as a friend and cared for you.

“Did you sign up for the fund-raiser?” She asked, still pacing back and forth. You looked up, throwing the bracelet behind you.

“Yes. They said it was a good idea to go and shake a few hands.” You replied getting up, stretching and grabbing the bag and backpack.

“They said that, because they want us to do the marketing for the Foundation.” Ari placed a hand on her hip and gave you a sickly sweet fake smile. “Look at our staff! So fresh! So professional! Please give us your money. These smart people don't work for free! They are professionals!”

“We don’t look very professional right now, but just wait, we'll clean up real nice!” You mirrored her contest presenter tone, mentioning both your travelling attires. Both of you started to laugh out loud at your antics.

“And we do it fast!" She chuckled and then turned serious. "No we really have to do it fast. We've got 20 minutes to get downstairs and I don't think Kaori or Chishiya will be happy if we're late."

“I bet you he’s already staring Kaori down from the darkest corner of the room.” You grabbed one of your suits and walked to the bathroom.

“I would sell a kidney to be a fly on the wall of that room.” Ari laughed.

“I secretly wonder if all his professional suits have hoodies.” You shouted from the bathroom and heard Ari snort laughing.

“Can you imagine Kaori allowing him to even think about leaving the room with something that resembled a hoodie for the conference?"

You two were once again on the floor laughing. Kaori may be the bubble of joy and laughter that they are. However, when it came to events, conferences and other professional situations they were the drill sergeant of the group. And obviously Chishiya loved to provoke them, often wearing his tell-tale white hoodie under or over anything.

Hospital meeting with the higher ups? White hoodie paired with a button-up shirt. Cardiologist event? White hoodie under the suit jacket.

“Remember when the Foundation made us go to that pharmaceutical dinner??” Ari puffed in between laughs.

“ And Chishiya walked out of his house with jogging pants on?!” You were holding the sink to steady yourself because of the giggle erupting through you. “Kaori almost had a heart attack!”

“It wouldn’t have done much! He’s a fucking cardiologist!” Ari retorted and another wave of snorts and loud laughs came out.

After a while you both managed to compose yourselves and when a knock was heard on your room door, you were dressed and ready.

As you opened the door you saw something white fly over your head and land on the floor between you and Ari. You looked up at the object and then at your friend. After a few seconds you were once more cracking up. It was Chischiya’s white hoodie.

“Can you believe he was going to wear that?” Kaori grumbled.

“Yes!” you both answered.

“I don’t see the problem.” Chishiya’s nonchalant voice was the cherry on top. “The only dress code I saw on the pamphlet was for the fundraiser. And even then it only said "professional chic.”

Kaori gave him a look that would have scared a lot of people but he just shrugged. He was in fact very professionally dressed. One thing about Chishiya, he cleaned up really well. At least you thought so. Black suit jacket and a gray shirt that matched the gray pants. All the garments fit perfectly. The most enjoyable part? His hair didn't fully fit in the low ponytail he had on, leaving some strands framing his face. That made your insides twirl.

You resisted the urge to stare. The black hair was proving to be a very positive change.

“Can we switch rooms?” Kaori asked Ari and she shook her head.

"You have to deal with him for a while.”

The doctor looked at you and you saw the corners of his mouth tug upwards and you shook your head at his scheming.

"One of these days, they're going to find you in a dark alley and kill you."

"I'll try and leave the white jacket at home that day." He raised an eyebrow and smiled.

The group walked towards the elevator to the conference room, but Chishiya paused halfway there, near the balconies that looked out onto the foyer. His mind was still trying to figure out if he had been here before.

“Hey!” You touched his arm and he looked at you. “You okay?”

“Yes.” He nodded curtly. “Shall we?”

“Yes.”

You tensed a bit when you felt his hand on your back, but relaxed after a second, enjoying the feeling of him gently guiding you.

• ··········· • ············ •

tagging

#alice in borderland #chishiya #chishiya x reader #alice in borderland x reader #aib chishiya #aib x reader #aib x you #chishiya x you #chishiya shuntaro #nijiro murakami #imawa no kuni no alice #chishiya headcanons #chishiya imagine #chishiya fluff #chishiya icons #jdrama #arisu imagine

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