#and that is just not a question anyone should have to worry about at all
Note
can u please write a fic about James and the reader being bestfriends and becoming lovers pls?
thats my favorite trope ever ♡♡♡
COMMONALITY — J.POTTER
you and james were sometimes a little too close as friends, and it was beginning to make james question the platonicness of your relationship.
cw — james feeling guilty for having feelings, mild miscommunication, friends to lovers, happy ending
james potter x fem!reader || fluff || 3.2k || masterlist!!
a/n — i love james so much man
James had been… off lately.
You weren’t sure that anyone else would even be able to tell, he was still his outrageously confident self, outgoing and charming, playfully annoying, but there was something there that was different, and you weren’t sure if it was in a positive way.
He looked more tired than usual, more drained, the small glint in his eyes barely holding on under whatever nimbus cloud had managed to overtake the inside of his head.
“Hey,”You approach him gently, taking a seat beside him on one of the common room sofas with your legs curled up underneath you. “You okay?”
“Yeah I’m great, did you hear that we kicked Slytherin’s ass during our practice match this morning?” Deflection. You could practically feel it radiating off of him. Even his tone was laced with it, the usual excitement that would be present over something like that simply acting as a mask to cover whatever was underneath it.
“James,” You furrow your eyebrows ever so slightly and he can tell that he’s beat.
“I hate how well you know me sometimes…” And just like that any sense of trying to hide the sorrowful state he was in disappears, replaced with a genuine show of discontent as he leans his head over the back of the seat.
You sigh, leaving your hand on his knee to rub small circles against the skin exposed by has shorts. “What’s wrong Jamie? You’ve been off all week,”
“It’s nothing you can help with love don’t worry about it,”
“I’m going to worry about it,”
“I know,” James gives out a long exhale, dragging the palm of his hand underneath his glasses to rub at his eyes. “I’m really fine, though,”
“James,” You tilt your head with a small pool of worry in your eyes. “Please tell me what’s going on,”
He always hated it when you looked at him like that.
“It’s truly nothing for you to worry your pretty little head about okay?” He pulls himself to sit up straight, mirroring your head tilt with his own. “I’ve gotta figure it out in my own time,”
You didn’t want to pry. If he wanted to tell you then he would. All you could really do was wait.
“Alright…”
That didn’t mean you were happy about it.
“Love…” James sighs softly. “Don’t look like that,”
“I’m just worried about you…”
“I know,” James leaves his hand on top of yours as a show of thanks for your concern over him.
He wants to tell you. And he should really. But how on earth do you bring up that you’ve managed to fall in love with your best friend, to said best friend?
‘Hey, by the way, I know we’re like best mates and all but every time you touch me I feel like I’m going to explode.’
“You should at least get some sleep, you look tired,”
Yeah, it’s kind of hard to sleep when you spend the whole night beating yourself up for being an absolute idiot.
“Yeah…”
You turn your hand until it’s palm up in his, curling your fingers around the back of his hand until they’re securely nestled together. “Maybe we should take a nap,”
He should say no. He’s not right to have you cuddled into his side with your head on his chest and your arms around his torso. It’s not fair on you for him to take advantage like that when you just see it as what’s essentially a sleepover between friends. Not when he’s thinking about you like he is.
“Yeah, I think I could use a nap right now…”
But when you look at him like that who is he to refuse you really?
—
James woke up with a groan, still groggy and covered in a thin film of sweat from the cocoon of heat that had developed underneath the quilt. He was supposed to sleep for an hour, maybe two if either of you were truly tired. But the sun had gone down and he could hear Peter’s snoring from across the room and Remus’ curtains were pulled and the sun definitely wasn’t coming up any time soon.
God knows he needed what he got though, he was starting to think he’d exhaust himself to the point of death.
As he shifted on the mattress, he was brought back to the both fortunate and unfortunate reality of the fact you we’re sleeping next to him, arm draped over his stomach with his arm underneath your head whist you slumbered away peacefully.
It took less than a few seconds for the tranquility of it to be ruined under the small voice in the back of his head that just had to ruin absolutely everything.
You were so pretty when you slept. Peaceful, unaware, like nothing could phase you under the blanket of rest you’d covered yourself with.
And it was making him feel so guilty. You were his friend, his best friend, and he was taking advantage of what you viewed to be a platonic relationship between two people because he just could not get his head right and stop thinking about you in a romantic fashion.
Was it really just platonic? He wasn’t sure anymore…
He stayed stationary for a few short moments, eyes gazing deftly over your sleep filled features and the feeling of your chest slowly rising and falling against his side until he was sure he couldn’t handle it anymore, and carefully slid his arm from underneath you so that he could move.
And then you shift, and he freezes.
Godric knows he didn’t need you waking up right now.
You don’t stir, thank his, but you do turn your body towards his in an unconscious effort to seek out the lost contact between the two of you.
James swears he almost melts at the sight.
“Just mates…” he whispers to himself, trying in vain to convince himself once more that the close relationship between the two of you was nothing more than pure platonic friendship.
There’s a sharp pang of guilt that pierces his heart as he carefully pries himself from you and watches as you try and chase after the contact in your sleep, but he knows that it’s for the best.
James takes one last quick glance at your sleeping figure before starting to quietly head towards the door, hoping and praying that you don’t wake up as he sneaks out of the dorm room.
You don’t for a good few minutes, but as the patch of heat that he’d left behind on the mattress turns cold, you find yourself blinking awake in the search of his absent warmth.
You don’t think much of his disappearance at first, he’d often get up to go to the bathroom or sneak off to the kitchens if he was hungry, but after ten—then fifteen—minutes of waiting, it’s more than clear that James didn’t have any intention of returning, so you quietly pad out of the boys’ dorm room to go in search of him.
It wasn’t very hard.
“James..?” You rub the corner of your eye with your knuckle as you descend the stairs to the main floor of the common room, where James was sat stationary on one of the sofas with his back to you. “Are you alright?”
The worry from earlier in the day immediately invades your mind again, and your eyebrows furrow in concern as you approach him, sleep slipping away with every step you take.
“Yeah,” He muttered in response to your question, not making any move to face you. “I’m fine.”
You don’t believe him. “Why did you disappear..?” You take a seat next to him almost hesitantly.
The dip in the sofa from your added weight is enough incentive for James to finally move, and shifts to accommodate you beside him.
“I just.. needed to clear my head a bit, that’s all.” he shrugged, eyes almost absent as the continue to stare blankly towards the fireplace. “I didn’t want to wake you up either, so I just came to come down here for a bit.”
You let out a soft exhale at his intonation, reaching out to smooth a curl of hair from his eye with your fingers. “Are you really sure you’re okay?”
There’s a smile, almost incomprehensible smile that etches it’s way on to James’ face at the gentle touch of your fingers, almost like a reflex, and just like a reflex the second he notices he’s doing it, it disappears.
“I’m fine I promise,” James gives a small sigh, nodding his head softly. “Just a lot going on in my head at the moment,” He continues to keep his gaze focused away from you, and it does not help in making you believe him. “What about you? You still look tired,”
“Yeah…” You tilt your head sideways until your temple is resting against James’ shoulder. “I’m okay…”
James is almost envious of how easily you lay your head on his shoulder, like it’s really no big deal.
As close friends, it shouldn’t be.
But it made his heart skip a beat and his throat dry up all the same.
He rested his arm over your shoulder cautiously, like his skin would burn at the contact, pads of his fingertips carefully sliding into the hair at your temple as he leaned his head back against the sofa with closed eyes in a failed attempt at looking relaxed.
“Come back to sleep?”
James bit his tongue.
In a way, his body wanted him to, as the comfort of you and the warmth of the bed were things that he craved at the moment.
His mind, however, was telling him differently. He couldn’t risk it. Not after the thoughts that he had been having.
“I can’t,” he responded softly.
“…Why not?” You blink up at him slowly, lifting your hand to trace arbitrary lines over his forearm to try and soothe whatever was rampaging his mind.
His mind was all over the place right now, but he couldn't allow himself to fall back into bed with you. Not when he was like this.
“I just can't,” he murmured for the second time, looking away from you once more.
“I can leave you to sleep by yourself,” You hand moves down towards his, giving it a small squeeze as you massage circles into his palm. “If that’s why you can’t sleep,”
You didn’t want to assume that you were the reason for his discomfort, but you also didn’t want him to stick it out if that was the case for your sake.
James sighed, his thoughts telling him to just give in and agree, as his body still wanted and craved your close presence.
His mind, however, had decided otherwise.
“It's not that-” He began to say, before stopping himself to redirect his response. “Can I ask you a question?”
“Of course James,” You bring your head up from his shoulder to give him a nod. “ Anything,”
James hung his head with a sigh, breathing in deeply before committing to his question.
“Have you ever wondered what it would be like if the two of us were… more than just friends?”
“I’m—” You blink non-commitaly. “—not sure what you mean,”
James looked over at you, your furrowed brow causing confusion in him for a second.
Did you really not know what he’d meant?
Or were you just feigning ignorance?
“You know very well what I mean,” he said softly, his mind beginning to wonder if maybe you weren’t as clueless as you were portraying right now. “You’ve had those thoughts before, haven’t you? About us being more than just… mates?”
“I—” What to say truly evades you as you stammer for a response, and you can’t even formulate a coherent sentence as you blink blankly at him.
James felt his breath falter a little bit at your hesitation, making him second guess what he’d just said and regret it almost immediately.
Was his mind just making him think of things that weren’t real? You really didn’t have any sort of thoughts like that whatsoever?
None?
None at all?
James decided to take a gamble with his next statement, praying to whatever god was listening that it would pay off.
“It’s been something I’ve thought about a lot lately…” He muttered his confession, trying to gauge if you were thinking the same things as him, or if he really was just going mad.
“…really?” Your voice is barely a whisper as you respond, throat drying up to the point where you feel like you’ve forgotten how to breathe.
“Yeah,” he confirmed, his voice a little bit more confident than it had been initially. “And, maybe it started off as just a little ‘what if’, but.. I can’t seem to get the thoughts out of my head anymore…” he trailed off slightly, hoping you would catch on to what he was hinting at.
“James…”
You’re not entirely sure how you should respond to that.
And not even because it was something you didn’t want to hear.
You’d just managed to dig yourself into such a deep pit of denial that you’d never even considered James having feelings for you that were anything more than platonic.
“…I’m not crazy for thinking about us like that…” He whispered, his voice catching just slightly as he waited for your response. “…am I?”
Your eyes flicker over James’ features as you dig through the folds of your brain to form a coherent response. But nothing comes.
And the longer you stay silent the more the hope in James’ eyes disappears and the more to have the indescribable urge to kiss all of his worries away.
So you do.
Incredibly impulsively.
The skin of his cheeks is soft underneath your palms as you pull your faces together, the curls covering his forehead brushing against you and the soft pressure of his lips against yours almost indescribable.
James’ eyes widen before they close, and you can almost physically feel all of the anxiety drain from him as he anchors his hands at your sides to return your efforts.
And for a moment it felt like everything was right with the world. Just how it should be.
“I think I might be in love with you…” You mutter the words against James’ lips only once you part for air, hands trembling ever so slightly against his cheeks as you rest your forehead against his in a mix of adrenaline and nervousness.
James swears his heart physically flips in his chest.
He takes a moment to respond, his head spinning from the kiss between you two.
“Good… because I’ve been in love with you for so goddamn long already…” he mumbled, brushing his thumb over your cheek.
The breathlessness of his voice urges a soft laugh from the back of your throat, and James can’t help but smile at the sound, like it’s his favourite thing to hear in the world.
James leans in close to you like you’re the most delicate thing in the world, gently pressing his lips to your forehead and just relishing in the fact that you’d both finally just admitted your true feelings. “So, does this mean we're not just mates anymore?” he teased, giving your waist a gentle squeeze.
“I don’t think we’ve been ‘just mates’ for a while James—” You lean your head into the crook of James’ neck with your arms over his shoulders in a hug, hiding yourself in the wake of your mild embarrassment.
James smiled and wrapped his arms around your waist, hugging you against him. “I’m so in love with you…” he whispered, the warmth that had been absent from his heart finally returning.
His heart felt lighter than it ever did before, and the warmth filled him from head to toe.
He leaned in close to you, holding you tightly yet gently in his arms. “I adore you, you know… I’m yours.” he admitted softly in your ear, his fingers tracing gentle circles on your back.
“I’ve always been yours James…”
James couldn’t help but laugh softly at your reply, his heart swelling with love for you. “You’ve always been mine?” He teased, gently rubbing his nose against your cheek with a smile. “Even when we were ‘just mates’?”
You let out a short laugh at the way he nuzzles his face against yours, scrunching up slightly. “Maybe I was just being optimistic,”
“Optimistic that one day, I’d fall head over heels crazy in love with you?” he replied with a smirk on his face.
“It worked didn’t it?” You give another laugh as you move to cup James’ face in your hand, and he leans into your touch like it’s second nature.
“I suppose it did, didn’t it?” He took hold of one of your wrists, slowly guiding your hand over to his lips where he planted a soft kiss on your palm. "You’re so beautiful..."
It’s nothing you haven’t heard before from him, but with the added knowledge of his romantic intentions it feels so much more intimate, and it leaves you horribly flustered to the point where you’re sure he can tell.
And the look on his face tells you he definitely can.
He had always found you beautiful—from the way you styled your hair to how pretty you looked first thing on a sunday morning dragging yourself to breakfast.
But now that he knew you were his, and his alone, the thought of letting you know how gorgeous you were made his heart flutter.
He wanted to lavish the girl of his dreams with compliments and affection in every way he could.
“I think we should head back to bed. I’m feeling a little tired again,” James mumbled softly in your ear.
He wanted to take you back to bed and hold you in his arms whilst he slept. To Hold you without any of the guilt or second-guessing. To hold you properly, like he’d always wanted to.
“Yeah, I think that’s a good idea...”
James slowly released his grasp on you, taking a moment to admire just how gorgeous you were in the pale moonlight of the common room.
He took your hand in his, pressing a soft kiss to your knuckles as he stood up from the sofa. “Come on,” he whispered, gently pulling you up from your seat, “Let’s get some sleep love,”
#marauders#marauders fanfiction#harry potter fanfiction#james potter x reader#james potter#james potter fluff#asks 🪶
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GA: I Woke Up A Long Time Ago
GA: I Had Trouble Sleeping When I Was Young [...]
GA: And When I Was Supposed To Be In My Cocoon I Would Often Wander Out To The Desert
GA: Where One Day I Was Visited By A Stranger Who Dressed And Spoke In White
Oh, for the love of peace. Is there anyone that this globe-headed chucklefuck doesn’t have in his pocket?
GA: He Put Me To Sleep And I Awoke On Prospit […]
GA: He Said He Was My Guardian
GA: And Though He Visited Rarely I Did Regard Him As That
GA: Then Later He Stopped Coming
This one might not be so bad, actually. Scratch seems curiously uninterested in Kanaya, and she bears none of the telltale signs of his manipulation.
Maybe these visits were actually just part of his day job. As Alternia's First Guardian, Scratch might be obligated to protect the Frog Temple and its associated Player, just as Bec did on earth.
GA: In Time I Began To Believe He Was A Figment Of My Mind […]
GA: But Then While Playing Our Game I Learned He Was Real […]
GA: And Had Been Manipulating Us All To Advance His Schemes
Bad news like Scratch gets around - but not as much as I'd like it to. Kanaya views Scratch as a menace localized to Alternia, and seems unaware that he's involved in Rose's fall, too.
GA: It Was Saddening To Learn My Fortuitous Awakening Had Been The Product Of A Nefarious Ploy
GA: Youre Lucky That Your Awakening Probably Had No Such Entanglements
No, Jade's awakening was part of Vriska’s nefarious ploy. She might be a bit of a loose cannon, but I'd take her over Scratch any day.
GA: I Feel A Bit Silly That It Took Me So Long To Engage With The One Corresponding Closely With My Role
GA: It Must Be A Certain Madness Im Afflicted By
GA: To Orbit Those More Reckless And Dangerous Than I And More Daring For It
GA: I Guess I Want To Help Them But They Never Can Be Helped It Seems
GG: are you saying rose is reckless and dangerous?
GA: Yes Definitely
GA: We Have Our Share Of Dangerous Players Who Seem To Do Nothing But Cause Problems
GA: I Believe She Is Yours
I think it’s a little unfair to tar Rose with the same brush as Vriska - or even Terezi, for that matter. It's not like Rose has actually killed anyone, and she's generally a lot more sensible than-
...alright, touché.
GA: And If Her Insane Plan Wasnt Alarming Enough
GA: She Has Been Communicating With The Stranger I Mentioned
GA: And Unsurprisingly She Has Not Been Forthright About The Nature Of Their Conversations
Wait, so she does know that Rose has been talking to Scratch?
That means that Rose is almost certainly aware of the mayhem Scratch caused on Alternia. It was probably the first thing Kanaya told her, when trying to warn her - and yet, Rose is completely unfazed. When questioned, Scratch undoubtedly provided the perfect excuse.
I’m coming to realize that we probably can’t outmaneuver Scratch -at least, not while we're playing by his rules. If we really want to pull ourselves out of the web he's woven, we should focus on exploiting his 'dark spots'. Both the Scourge Sisters are aware of them, but I don't know if they've told anyone else.
GA: And Hes Not Merely A Guardian
GA: Im Very Sure He Is A First Guardian
GA: Like Your Lusus Was […]
GG: im not sure why, but the sound of that makes me really nervous
GA: I Feel The Same Way About It
I hate to tell you this, guys, but First-Guardianing is just how he pays the bills.
It's his side hustle you need to worry about.
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Headcanon Game
I got this idea when I came across @ladykailitha's post about her Steve Harrington headcanons. They were absolutely lovely and I'm really curious about other people's headcanons too. It doesn't have to be just Steve, pick anyone you'd like to gush about!
Rules
-> Share 5 - 10 headcanons about your favorite Stranger Things character or ship
-> Tag the number people for as many headcanons you list (Or don't, no worries! Tagging can be stressful and this should just be for fun!)
@steviewashere @lingeringmirth @theheartofthekoko
@devondespresso @finntheehumaneater @cuips-not-cute
@rindecision @katyawriteswhump @chaosgremlinmunson
@unclewaynemunson
Bonus @ladykailitha (if you've got more to share!)
Queenie's Steve Harrington Headcanons
-> Steve let Max keep the bat after season 2. He teaches her how to hold it properly, how to aim it and step into the swing. Once the snow starts to melt, they play softball in Steve's backyard, with Lucas occasionally joining in.
-> Steve teaches Lucas how to fight. Lucas wants to learn how to defend himself after Billy, and he idolized Steve for being strong and brave enough to stand up for them all. Lucas gets on Dustin's case every time he makes a joke that Steve never wins fights.
-> Steve's ok with Mike hating him. He understands because he felt the same misguided pointless anger when he was young, and is ok with being the kid's verbal punching bag. Will's small crush on Steve doesn't help Mike's attitude either, even though Steve knows the kid doesn't get that's why he's angry.
-> Steve is the only teen that El feels comfortable with. The loving edge to his bitching reminds her of Hopper, and he can make her laugh. He teaches her how to do her hair and sneaks her and Max into the mall when he works Saturdays.
-> Steve and Robin are in each other's pockets. With them, there's no such thing as TMI. She had to help him shower and bathe after the Russians, and he answers all of her sex questions without judgement.
-> Steve has vision and memory problems after the Russians. At first, Robin has to guilt him into wearing glasses. But he eventually starts wearing them in front of the kids. They call him a nerd. He takes it as a compliment, since all of his favorite people are nerds too.
-> Steve loved Nancy because she was a safe space for him, not because he loved her for who she was. It took him until after S4 to realize that that's why he started having feelings for her again in S4 after he (truly) got over her in S3.
-> Steve never warms up to Jonathan (sorry stonathan fans! no shade). He's gotten over it enough to save the world and be around the kids. They've both genuinely apologized to each other, but the feeling is mutual. He can't forgive the cheating or the pictures.
-> Steve spent middle school thinking it was normal to want to date Tommy and Carol at the same time because the three traded off and on until high school. Steve finally asked Tommy on an actual date, but Tommy panicked and called him a queer- the first he'd heard the word. They played it off as a joke, but Tommy and Carol started dating immediately after and Steve leaned in to being a player.
-> Steve feels physically uncomfortable around Eddie, whose casual physical affection is something he hasn't been used to from a guy since Tommy. After S4, the two grow closer, and he starts leaning back into Eddie's space. Steve's favorite touches are when they smoke together, and he gets to lay his head in Eddie's lap while he plays with Steve's hair.
#This was so fun!#I can't wait to hear other people's ideas#steve harrington headcanons#steve harrington#steddie#stobin#steve and the party#stomarol headcanon#stranger things#stranger things headcanons#queeniewritesstories
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By: Sam Harris
Published: May 13, 2024
This is a transcript of a recorded podcast.
* * *
Well, I suppose I should say something about the campus protests. There is a lot of anger and confusion out there. Just how much of a problem is this?
There is no question that much of the chaos we see online is performative—which is to say that it’s being staged for the cameras. That doesn’t mean that it is entirely insincere. But it is interesting to consider whether the events themselves would have happened, or happened at this scale, and have this character, absent an ability to broadcast them on social media.
Of course, this concern relates to far more than what is happening on college campuses in response to the war in Gaza. The combination of a smartphone and social media appears to be driving our species crazy. We’re all effectively walking around with a television studio in our pockets. And the question is, what is this doing to us?
So, this is just to say that when I see video of crowds of very smug and very hostile kids at our finest universities, effectively supporting Hamas, I’m a little slow to conclude that this tells me everything I need to know about the scope of the problem. As I’ve said before, the entire aftermath of October 7th has convinced me that I have been almost totally asleep to the current reality of antisemitism. So I do think it is a far bigger problem than I realized. But I still don’t know how informative it is to see a video of some imbecile at Columbia or Harvard shouting for the Jews to “go back to Poland.”
What I can say is that the response of these universities has been totally inadequate and hypocritical. Their policies around protests have clearly been violated and have been for months. And, as many people have pointed out, it’s the obvious double standard here that constitutes antisemitism. I’m less worried about the specifics of each ugly incident than I am about the fact that the administrations have been tolerating behavior that they simply would not tolerate had the objects of all this derision and abuse been anyone else. If these colleges had any number of people shouting that blacks should go back to Africa, or that trans people deserve to die, these students (to say nothing of professors who said such things) would be expelled. And this is clearly what should happen to the most uncivil actors here. All the kids who have been physically preventing Jewish students from accessing buildings on campus, threatening them with violence, simply because they are Jewish, should be expelled. Without question.
Even if you concede that Israel is totally in the wrong, this would not justify the behavior we’ve been seeing on campus. Imagine that China was doing something awful and worthy of protest—which, of course, China often is. It has put 2 million Uyghurs and Turkic Muslims in concentration camps, where they are reportedly subjected to torture, and sterilization, and forced labor. Where are the protests? Apparently, no one cares. Not a peep out of Harvard, Stanford, Princeton, or Yale. But let’s say that all these activist students started caring about China’s abuse of their Muslim population and were protesting that. Imagine how the universities would respond if these protestors started targeting other students on campus, just because they happen to be Chinese—as though ethnically Chinese Americans or even Chinese nationals at Harvard could be culpable for what the Chinese government was now doing. Imagine them not letting Chinese students access buildings. This would be immediately recognized to be morally insane, and at odds with every core value of a university, and there would be zero tolerance for it.
But the analogy actually understates the perversity of what’s been happening—because many of these students are not merely protesting injustice and cruelty and innocent death, and just happen to be harassing the wrong people. Rather, many of them are supporting injustice and cruelty and innocent death, explicitly. “Globalize the Intifada” isn’t a call for peace; it’s a call for the indiscriminate murder of Jews. I’m willing to cut college kids a fair amount of slack, but you mean to tell me that students at Harvard and Princeton and Stanford don’t know that Palestinian intifadas entail a fair amount of suicidal terrorism and the deliberate murder of noncombatants? (The deliberate murder of noncombatants.) I might have been confused about a few things when I was 19, but I was never that confused.
How did the kids get this turned around? Well, there are many reasons, but here is one: Qatar, the petrostate, has given tens of billions of dollars to US, Canadian, and British universities. Qatar has given more money to western universities than any other country on Earth. The regime that controls Qatar is directly governed by the theology of the Muslim Brotherhood, of which Hamas is an offshoot. Where Jews are concerned, the Muslim Brotherhood is a fusion of Islamism and Nazism, and actually genocidal in intent. Through another radical group, American Muslims for Palestine, the Muslim Brotherhood funds the student group that has been one of the primary organizers of these protests, Students for Justice in Palestine. They also fund a group of very confused Jews at these protests, Jewish Voices for Peace. This money trail was exposed by Charles Asher Small at the Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism and Policy. Qatar also owns major soccer teams in Europe, and Al Jazeera, the so-called news organization, which has the same journalistic integrity as Russia Today. It’s just a fountain of Islamist lies. All of this amounts to a psyop on the West, and on Western education in particular. For decades, we have had Middle East Studies departments funded by Islamist theocrats and antisemites. Why have we tolerated this malicious exercise of soft power? It seems that money and oil are still just irresistible.
Students For Justice in Palestine, wrote the following in response to the atrocities of October 7th:
National liberation is near — glory to our resistance, to our martyrs, and to our steadfast people! … Resistance comes in all forms — armed struggle, general strikes, and popular demonstrations. All of it is legitimate, and all of it is necessary.
This was their immediate response in support of the intentional massacre of families and the taking of children as hostages, before Israel did anything in response. That’s the moral vision that inspired these campus protests.
However, direct funding by Islamist theocrats is only one strand of influence, as I’ll discuss. There is also the identitarian moral panic that has deluded the Left for years, which I have covered a lot on this podcast—which maps every conflict in the world to an oppressor-oppressed narrative. Again, I don’t want to exaggerate the scope of the problem. But it is pretty appalling that the largest student protest movement since the 1960s has distinguished itself by being this confused about what is really going on in the world, and is lending support to groups like Hamas, that represent the annihilation of everything these students should value.
The next time I see a job applicant from what used to be a great university—Harvard, Princeton, Yale, or even my own alma maters —Stanford and UCLA, which have been terrible—my first thought will be, were you one of these imbeciles who couldn’t figure out who the bad guys were on October 7th? Really, the brand damage to these institutions has been extraordinary.
We now know that hundreds of professors at these schools support Hamas—which again, is a genocidal death cult. That’s not my opinion; that is how Hamas describes itself. They want to kill all the Jews on Earth and to die as martyrs. That is the recipe for being an antisemitic, genocidal death cult. Any professor who supports Hamas should be fired—as you would fire any professor who openly supported the Nazis in the immediate aftermath of a Nazi atrocity. This is not a first amendment issue. No one has a constitutional right to be at Harvard, in any capacity.
And I can say with confidence, that the first good schools to accomplish a hard reset here—admitting that they have lost their way, purging the DEI bureaucracy and theocracy that they built over decades where the best of intentions grew malignant and metastasized… the first universities to fully reboot a commitment to Enlightenment values—No more money from Qatar, you idiots. No more stealth Islamism in your departments of Middle Eastern studies. No more reverse racism against Asian and White applicants. No more identitarian victim culture. No more dowsing for racists. No more whinging about Halloween costumes. No more intersectional arsonists pretending to put out fires that they started. Just great books, and great teachers, and real research, and no more fucking apologies… The first elite schools to do that, will win so much support and good will, and an avalanche of applications and donors, they’ll solidify their reputations into the next century.
I wouldn’t even know where I would want to send my daughters to college at this point. Happily, we don’t have to think about this for a couple of years. But all the best schools, and even the second and third best schools, appear to be in the process of destroying themselves. Again, I realize that it’s a minority of students protesting on even the most beleaguered campuses. But it’s the response of the institutions themselves that has been so reprehensible.
As a result of all this, there is a widespread sense in the Jewish community that more must be done to combat antisemitism. There is even a bill that just passed the House of Representatives, the “Antisemitism Awareness Act,” which would make it easier for Jews to make civil rights complaints. Unfortunately, this bill seems to conflate certain criticisms of Israel with antisemitism. I will grant that most people who claim to be anti-Zionist at this point are probably also antisemitic. This is pretty obvious from what they are saying and not saying. It used to be the case that you could be anti-Zionist without being antisemitic. My friend Christopher Hitchens certainly was that. And I was sort of that, at one point. But I’m not sure it’s a position one can truly occupy now.
October 7th changed my thinking on this. I remain uncomfortable with the concept of any sort of religious ethno-state. But given the murderous antisemitism of so much of the world, given that almost every country that has had a population of Jews has at some point actively persecuted them and driven them out—literally, almost any country you can name in Europe or North Africa or the Middle East had done this at some point. Given the tolerance of this reality by billions of onlookers—well, then the Jews clearly need their own state, and it should defend itself without apology. We have the two largest religions on Earth, Christianity and Islam, which encompass half of humanity, whose theology has reviled the Jews as eternal enemies for thousands of years. If half the world hated the Yazidis like this, and if much of what the world believed about them amounted to a deranged conspiracy theory, I would say that the Yazidis need their own state too. I’ll be happy to revisit the issue in a hundred years after we have made some moral progress. But until then, count me a committed Zionist.
However, I think talking about “Zionism” is totally counterproductive. We should talk about Israel’s right, as the lone democracy in the Middle East, to defend itself. I also think that focusing on antisemitism at this moment—as much as it really is a problem—is the wrong approach to addressing a much more fundamental problem: which is the hatred of Western civilization coming from so many of its own inhabitants and beneficiaries, and the very real clash between the West (which includes Israel every other civilized democracy) and Islam—in particular Islamism and Jihadism. Depending on the context we can call it “radical Islam” or “Islamic extremism” or “Islamofascism.” Call it whatever you want, but what you can’t do, honestly, is say that this species of belligerent lunacy has no connection to the mainstream religion of Islam.
Why do I think that a narrow focus on antisemitism is mistaken? There are many people on college campuses now who support Hamas—which is as antisemitic, on its face, as supporting the Nazis. However, I think that hating Jews is not really what many of these people are about. As I said, some of them are Jewish. So what explains their behavior? Well, they hate the West, or think they do. They hate Western power. In the American context, they hate Whiteness, perhaps above all—and they think the sin of racism subsumes everything. In the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians, they consider the Jews white and the Palestinians black. Is this utterly moronic? Yes, it is. At least half the Jews in Israel are Middle Eastern or North African in descent. The only black people you’ll find there are Ethiopian Jews, some of whom are fighting for the IDF. So kids, all your concern about white privilege, as you bounce between lacrosse practice and Starbucks is misapplied here. Should you be kicked out of Yale for being this stupid? Probably. But your stupidity is not quite the same as antisemitism.
Yes, antisemitism cuts across this landscape in ways that are very depressing, and I’m not seeking to minimize it. For instance, as you move rightward along the political spectrum, you meet more and more people who effortlessly recognize the derangement of the Left, and the sickening apologies for Islamic fanaticism that come from people who imagine that Harvey Weinstein is the worst person who ever lived—whereas there are whole societies in the Muslim world where a person like Weinstein would be considered unusually well-adjusted in his attitude towards women. The Left is still full of the sorts of people who blamed Salman Rushdie for the fatwa that forced him into hiding for a decade, and which finally got him nearly killed onstage in New York, after 33 years of looking over his shoulder. These are the same people who blamed the Charlie Hebdo cartoonists for having had the gall to get themselves murdered in Paris. These imbeciles on the Left range from current darlings of alternative media like Glenn Greenwald to members of elite institutions whose very purpose is to defend freedom of speech, like the PEN America Foundation.
As you move rightward in our politics, you meet more and more people who easily see the insanity of all this—words are violence but clitorectomies and suicide bombing is somehow indigenous wisdom and the voice of the oppressed? But then, of course, as you move further rightward you meet more and more people who hate Jews: As scheming globalists who want Americans to fight in foreign wars—perhaps today in defense of Israel, or Ukraine, which happens to be run by a Jew. But this allegation goes back to WW1 and WW2. Both world wars were instigated by Jews, don’t you know? This is Tucker Carlson’s audience—the Great Replacement cult. When things went sideways over at the Daily Wire, these are the geniuses who followed the crackpot Candace Owens into the abyss—and finally got a chance to tell Ben Shapiro what they really think of him and his fellow Jews.
But, of course, if you land on just the right spot on the Right, among old-school Evangelical Christians—then you can find people who can generally be counted upon to worry about the fate of the Jews, and who will defend Israel, which is a relief frankly. But their support comes with a strange twist—because they expect that when temple is finally rebuilt in Jerusalem, and Jesus returns—well, let’s just say he won’t be in a mood to debate the finer points of theology with the Jews. So, Evangelicals are philosemitic only up to a point.
So I don’t mean to downplay the reality of antisemitism. A vastly disproportionate amount of hate crime in the US is committed against Jews. It’s not against blacks, and it’s certainly not against Muslims, despite what the Islamist front group The Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) would have you believe. In fact, a lot of this crime comes from blacks and Muslims themselves, who just happen to do more than their fair share of hating Jews. Jews are about 2 percent of the population, and they have always received around 50 percent of the hate crime. Even after 9/11 they received far more hate than Muslims did in America. Since October 7th, the number of incidents has soared, and this is in response to the worst atrocity perpetrated against Jews since the Holocaust.
So if you’re Jewish, or even if you’re not, and you think all of this is seriously alarming, I think you’re right. And I’m sure I will do some future podcasts and other work on the problem of Antisemitism. But I also think that Jews should not try to compete in the Oppression Olympics that have deranged so much of Western culture. The direction of progress is not to convince the rest of America that we Jews have it worse than blacks and Muslims, or just as bad. And I don’t think the UK is going to sort itself out by becoming more focused on its Jewish population as a victim group. We simply have to get past the politics of identity. And we have to defend Western values. We have to defend, not identities, but the ideas that make freedom and tolerance possible. We have to recognize that there are real threats to freedom and tolerance in this world, and identity politics is one of them. Another happens to be coming from the fastest spreading religion on Earth which has some 2 billion adherents. Are all Muslims a threat to freedom and tolerance? No. But almost all of them are doing a terrible job of acknowledging, much less combating, the dangerous fanaticism that is seething at the core of their religion.
So I don’t think we need a new Jewish media platform to compete with the malicious fantasies that pour forth from Al-Jazeera, as harmful as those have been. We need the New York Times and BBC to become morally sane again. Again, I’m not suggesting that antisemitism isn’t a problem; I’m suggesting that a real defense of Western values would solve that problem, among many others.
Nevertheless, it is easy to see why some of our kids are confused about Gaza. They are being inundated with misinformation about Israel—that the Jews are settler colonialists, that they have built an apartheid state, that they are guilty of genocide. These lies didn’t start on October 8th. They’ve been promulgated for decades, and it seems that no matter how patiently one corrects them, nothing changes. And the photos coming out of Gaza certainly don’t help. As I’ve said before, there is no political analysis or moral argument that makes sense of images of dead children being pulled out of rubble.
It is also natural for people to look at the history of conflict between the Israelis and the Palestinians, and imagine that there is some moral parity between the two sides. In fact, because Israel has become more powerful, most people imagine that the responsibility for the ongoing conflict falls more on the Jews. Israel is now perceived to be the bully with advanced weaponry, and the Palestinians are merely victims, throwing rocks. Even in the aftermath of October 7th, when you have an avowedly genocidal organization like Hamas, butchering noncombatants and taking women and children hostage, and firing rockets by the thousands purposely into civilian areas, we still have vast numbers of Westerners—and a majority of our own youth, apparently—believing that Israel is in the wrong. And that it effectively has no right to defend itself, or to even exist.
Leaving other variables aside—like the identitarian disgrace of wokism, the oppressor-oppressed framing of everything that has become standard on the Left, as well as the frank anti-Semitism that we know is there—what we are seeing on our college campuses is only possible because people don’t understand the threat that Islamic extremism poses to open societies everywhere. Again, what’s happening on our college campuses is many things, but the level of moral confusion required to support Hamas and to demonize the people who are fighting Hamas, requires that one not recognize what Hamas is.
And in a way, this is also understandable. It is natural to imagine that people everywhere are more or less the same and that they basically want the same things in life. It is easy to see how one might think that normal people would never resort to violence of the sort we saw from Hamas on October 7th—burning families alive on purpose, raping women and cutting their breasts off and then killing them, and shrieking with joy all the while. Normal people wouldn’t do this, couldn’t do this, unless they have been subjected to some unendurable misery and injustice. They must have been driven insane by their own trauma. Let’s leave aside those who claim that those things didn’t actually happen on October 7th. Most people understand what happened, and yet given the assumption that people everywhere are more or less the same, the very extremity of the violence we saw on October 7th seems to put the moral onus on its victims, somehow.
And this weird distortion of moral intuition casts a shadow over the whole history of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. The fact that the Palestinians could have produced an endless supply of suicide bombers during the Second Intifada—and that they would target noncombatants, even children, with this barbarism—that itself was considered proof that they had been pushed well beyond the brink by the Israelis. Otherwise, normal human beings would never behave in so extraordinarily destructive a way. It is easy to see how uninformed people could make this assumption. This was a very useful point that the writer Paul Berman made twenty years ago in his book, Terror and Liberalism.
Similarly, people assume that groups like Hamas, or al-Qaeda, or even the Islamic State, attack Western targets for more or less normal political reasons. They think these movements are anti-colonial, or straightforwardly nationalistic. And so they think that the extremity of their violence is once again, at bottom, the fault of Western powers. The chickens have finally come home to roost.
While understandable, these assumptions have been obviously wrong for decades—for longer than I have been alive even. To believe any of this now, as almost every secular person does by default, certainly as you move left of center politically, is to be totally deluded by a masochistic fantasy. And it is a dangerous fantasy because it is being consciously weaponized against, not just Israel, but against every western society. Islamic extremists know that most of us, especially in our elite institutions, are simply drunk on white guilt and self-doubt. They can see that we live in a perpetual circular firing squad of sanctimony. They know that if they just use the word “racism”—even though it has absolutely no application when we are talking about the fastest growing religion in a hundred countries—they know this word settles all arguments, left of center, no matter idiotic the person is who wields it. They know that we are constantly worried about being the bad guys. They know that our kids find it very easy to believe that we are and have always been the bad guys. And they have been manipulating Western society for decades. And they have been aided by legions of useful idiots on the Left.
And so there is a pervasive inability and even unwillingness on the part of journalists, and politicians, and scholars to recognize the degree to which sincere religious belief and identity drive conflict in the Muslim world—between rival sects and between Muslims and non-Muslims. There is a fundamental lack of understanding about how Islam differs from other religions here. In fact, it is widely considered a symptom of bigotry to even say that Islam is different from other religions in any way that matters.
There are over 50 Muslim-majority countries. None of them are good places to live if you care about human freedom. This is very unlikely to be an accident. Who would imagine that killing people for blasphemy or apostasy would have a chilling effect on free thought? Who would imagine that the explicit denial of political equality for women might have something to do with its absence throughout the Muslim world? Even noticing the connection here, between explicit religious doctrines and the unambiguous abridgement of human rights, is thought to be a symptom of “Islamophobia.”
I want to make a couple of basic observations about Islam, that have the virtue of being important and uncontroversial—or at least they should be uncontroversial, because they are quite obviously true.
And if you think I’ve said all this before, and it bores you—well then just think about how I feel. I wouldn’t touch this topic ever again, if I thought other people were doing an adequate job of it. There’s a spell that simply has to be broken here, because it threatens to ruin everything. And if you don’t see it, as so many don’t, you are just blind.
From the point of view of Islam, our world is divided into two realms: the realm of belief and the realm of unbelief. This is something that Islam shares with Christianity, of course, but the similarities pretty much end there. There is no “render unto Caesar those things that are Caesar’s” in Islam. Rather, Islam is meant to totally subsume a person’s life and the governance of society. It is intrinsically political. Therefore, the modern distinction, upon which so many of us have placed our hopes, between Islam and Islamism—which is the explicit intrusion of the religion into politics—is just that, a modern distinction. It is one that we hope can be made true and effective—and we hope that the latter orientation, that of 20th century, aggressively resurgent political Islam, can be resisted and ultimately extinguished in modern societies. But this secular distinction has little traditional justification, if any. This is where the differences between Islam and Christianity become highly relevant, and ominous.
Take a moment to consider this, as though for the first time:
Muhammad wasn’t the Muslim Jesus. It’s important to notice that the man was not crucified. He was a statesman and a warlord. He fought in dozens of battles and was victorious. And in Islam, Muhammad is the very model of the ideal man. Just imagine how Christianity might be different if Jesus routinely had his enemies killed and their wives taken as sex slaves. You think it might be just a little different? Do you think Christianity might be just a little different if Jesus had been less like a hippie with a steady supply of MDMA and more like Tony Soprano?
The first Muslims didn’t spend centuries, as the early Christians did, as outsiders being oppressed by their unbelieving masters. They tasted political power from the very beginning. The first Muslims created an empire more or less immediately after the death of the Prophet, and then they just crushed everyone for 500 years. Unlike Judaism, Islam enjoins its followers to spread their faith—the one true and completely correct faith—to the ends of the Earth. Christianity is also a relentlessly missionary faith, of course, but from its inception, it was a religion of weakness—again, Christ was crucified. “Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the Earth,” remember? Islam, from the first moment, was a religion of power. The idea of non-Muslims ruling over Muslims, or even having equivalent power alongside them perpetually, has always been anathema. It’s an error to be rectified, through spiritual struggle, sure, but also through physical violence. The fact that Islam has failed to achieve dominance in our world—and has proven, for nearly a thousand years, to be quite backward and weak—is a perennial source of humiliation. By the light of the doctrine, it makes absolutely no sense. It is a sacrilege. From the point of view of Islam, the status quo is intolerable.
And this general attitude of affronted dignity, this yearning for victory, which century after century has been out of reach, affects everything that Islam touches. It is why the history of peace negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians has been so hopeless. Have the Israelis made mistakes? Of course. Do the Jews have their own religious fanatics? Yes. But the peace process between the Israelis and the Palestinians has been rendered hopeless from the start because for a majority of Palestinians, and for vast numbers of Muslims in the region, the mere presence of a Jewish state in the holy land is totally unacceptable. It’s a “nakba”—a catastrophe. It is a perversion of a sacred history. And it is an abject failure of the mission of Islam—which is to conquer the world for the glory of God. And, above all, to never forsake Muslim lands once they have been conquered, which of course Palestine once was. As it is said in the Koran, “Kill them wherever you find them and drive them from the places from which they drove you.” This is not a religion of peace, it is a religion of conquest and submission.
There is a lot to criticize in all religions. And I have certainly done my fair share of that. But it is simply a fact that the doctrine of holy war and a love of martyrdom—and an utter intolerance for blasphemy and apostasy—are central to Islam in a way that they are not central to other religions.
Of course, not all Muslims want to live this way, and that is wonderful. That’s why our world isn’t in total chaos. But the problem is that when you look at the worst examples of jihadist barbarism and atrocity—the behavior of Hamas on October 7th, or the Islamic State on every day of the year—it is very difficult to say how these people are getting Islam wrong. To be clear, I’m not saying that there is only one Islam, and that the extremists have it right. I’m saying that they don’t have it obviously wrong. Their version of the faith is all-too-plausible.
What did the worst members of the Islamic State do that Muhammad himself didn’t do or wouldn’t have approved of? That is a very difficult question to answer. And the fact that is a difficult question to answer, is increasingly a problem for the entire world. If you ask the same question about Jesus or Buddha, it’s a very easy question to answer. What is Hamas doing that Jesus or Buddha didn’t do or wouldn’t have approved of? Everything.
I recently stumbled upon an article in The New York Times from 15 years ago. I doubt the Times would publish such an article today. It’s very short, so I’m going to read you the whole thing.
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Fighter Sees His Paradise in Gaza’s Pain
By Taghreed El-Khodary
Jan. 8, 2009
GAZA CITY
The emergency room in Shifa Hospital is often a place of gore and despair. On Thursday, it was also a lesson in the way ordinary people are squeezed between suicidal fighters and a military behemoth.
Dr. Awni al-Jaru, 37, a surgeon at the hospital, rushed in from his home here, dressed in his scrubs. But he came not to work. His head was bleeding, and his daughter’s jaw was broken.
He said Hamas militants next to his apartment building had fired mortar and rocket rounds. [Notice the detail here: next to his apartment building] Israel fired back with force, and his apartment was hit. His wife, Albina, originally from Ukraine, and his 1-year-old son were killed.
“My son has been turned into pieces,” he cried. “My wife was cut in half. I had to leave her body at home.” Because Albina was a foreigner, she could have left Gaza with her children. But, Dr. Jaru lamented, she would not leave him behind.
A car arrived with more patients. One was a 21-year-old man with shrapnel in his left leg who demanded quick treatment. He turned out to be a militant with Islamic Jihad. He was smiling a big smile.
“Hurry, I must get back so I can keep fighting,” he told the doctors.
He was told that there were more serious cases than his, that he needed to wait. But he insisted. “We are fighting the Israelis,” he said. “When we fire we run, but they hit back so fast. We run into the houses to get away.” He continued smiling.
“Why are you so happy?” this reporter asked. “Look around you.”
A girl who looked about 18 screamed as a surgeon removed shrapnel from her leg. An elderly man was soaked in blood. A baby a few weeks old and slightly wounded looked around helplessly. A man lay with parts of his brain coming out. His family wailed at his side.
“Don’t you see that these people are hurting?” the militant was asked.
“But I am from the people, too,” he said, his smile incandescent. “They lost their loved ones as martyrs. They should be happy. I want to be a martyr, too.”
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That’s the end of the article.
This is the problem. We don’t have to get into a time machine and sort out the history of the region. We don’t have to talk about 1948 or 1967. Without this specific form of religious fanaticism, the conflict between Israel and her neighbors would be an ordinary conflict. It would be easy enough to negotiate. It would be possible for the Jews and Muslims to decide to build wealth together. They could have turned Gaza into an absolutely gorgeous resort on the Mediterranean. If all you care about is the well-being of the Palestinians, you should want them to be free of this lunatic ideology that has made them impossible to live with.
But for some reason, most academics and journalists refuse to recognize what is being revealed in an article like this. They desperately want to think that specific religious doctrines—like the idea that martyrs go straight to Paradise—are either not believed by anyone, or if believed, have no effect on a person’s behavior. This is without question the most mystifying and infuriating form of ignorance I have ever encountered.
Of course, we all desperately want to believe that there is a clear line of distinction between the real fanatics, in a group like Hamas, and the Palestinian people. And this will be true for many Palestinians, I have no doubt. Those people are effectively hostages. But it’s not true for all Palestinians, and it’s probably not even true for most of them. For instance, whenever polled, support for suicide bombing against civilians has always been sickeningly high among Palestinians—around 70 percent. Support for specific terrorist groups like Hamas and Hezbollah generally ranges between 40 and 60 percent. So we’re not talking about just a few radicals.
Have you seen the videos of Israeli hostages being taken into Gaza on October 7th? The images of blood covered girls being dragged into vehicles and onto motorcycles? Have you seen the men swarming around these hostages, celebrating their capture, shouting Allahu Akbar? Put yourself in the minds of these men. Perhaps you can understand all this jubilance and malice being expressed over captured male soldiers—like the Black Hawk Down incident in Somalia. But imagine celebrating the kidnapping of girls—some whom have clearly been raped and seriously injured. In one of these videos, a young woman appears to have had her Achilles tendons cut so that she can’t run away. Imagine celebrating the capture of a terrified woman holding her children. Can you imagine this?
After 9/11, as an American, traumatized by an act of terror of a sort that we had never seen on our shores, imagine if Seal Team Six had captured some random Saudi women and children and paraded them as hostages through Times Square? Can you imagine dancing for joy and spitting in the faces of these terrified women? Imagine our soldiers dragging the mutilated bodies of other Saudi noncombatants along the sidewalk. Can you imagine people coming out of their offices and shrieking with joy and stomping on their bodies? Can you imagine Israelis doing this to the bodies of Palestinian noncombatants in the streets of Tel Aviv? No, you can’t. Culture matters. Beliefs matter. So whether they belong to the organization or not, the people you see in those videos are the same as Hamas.
Once again, I need to touch the handrail here, so you all don’t fall over: Am I saying that all Muslims are dangerous fanatics? No. Are they all aspiring martyrs committed to waging jihad? Of course not. And that is a very good thing. Do all Christians believe in the physical resurrection of Jesus? I am sure that many, many millions at this point don’t. It is, after all, getting harder and harder to believe such things. But it is, nevertheless, true to say that a belief in the physical Resurrection is absolutely core to Christianity. This is not controversial. It’s like saying Apple builds smartphones. Any debate on that topic is a fake debate. You want to be a Christian who thinks that the Resurrection was just spiritual, or metaphorical? Great. You’ve changed the religion. You’re making progress. We love you for it.
Any debate about whether Islam really teaches, at its core, a worldview that justifies the barbarism of Hamas, is a fake debate, because Islam does teach this. And much depends on the majority of Muslims worldwide reframing, and ignoring, or otherwise relinquishing some of the core tenets of Islam. Because they are absolutely at odds with our common project of building open, pluralistic societies. Acknowledging this and demanding that Muslims themselves acknowledge this is not bigotry. It is basic sanity. The opposition between radical Islam and Western values is an existential concern for Israel, and it could one day become an existential concern for the rest of us.
Am I saying that things are hopeless? No. In fact, it is a very hopeful sign that several middle eastern regimes appear to want normalized relations with Israel at this point. And the fact that the Saudis and Jordanians helped repel Iran’s recent drone and missile attack on Israel was also very promising. However, the fact that Arab monarchs and dictators can see the wisdom of changing their policies toward Israel does not mean that attitudes have changed on the so-called “Arab street”—and what the street will tolerate will limit what even dictators can do. These attitudes will, once again, be massively informed by Islam. There is also the fact that any Arab solidarity with Israel against Iran might have less to do with truly shared human values, and more to do with the sectarian schism between Sunni and Shia Islam. But if these autocrats want to drag their countries into the modern world, I’m certainly rooting for them.
However, the deeper principle is that there is a clash of civilizations between traditional Islam and Western values. And what we are seeing on college campuses is a very successful manipulation of Western weakness—wherein we can have our values of tolerance and diversity and self-criticism and compassion weaponized against us.
Ask yourself: What is it that we want and are right to want, and must defend without apology, in the West? Rational conversation, individual freedom, the rule of law, the consent of the governed, the peaceful transfer of power, a strong civil society, and yes, tolerance of difference—where that difference doesn’t put all other good things in peril. What do these good things give us? They give us open societies, where scientific progress, and creative intelligence, and increasing wealth, and social mobility, and personal security, and public justice, and a healthy environment, and institutional transparency, and a generous social safety net are, more and more, the norm. Obviously, we have imperfectly secured these goods, even in the best societies on Earth. But it is just as obvious that some places have none of them—and worse, some people, some groups, and even whole cultures don’t want most of these things. It is time to admit that not everyone wants a good life as you and I understand it. “Hey kids, Hamas does not want what you want. They would throw your LGBTQ+ friends off rooftops. And, I’m sorry to say, many Palestinians want what Hamas wants.” This is a hard truth, and it has made peace in the Middle East so far impossible.
The people of the future, and perhaps our future selves, will know what we can’t know now: which is, how we handled this moment: how or whether we rose to the challenge of having our deepest principles used against us. Carefully inverted and used against us—freedom of speech, tolerance of diversity, self doubt—these virtues can be used against their adherents cynically and with evil intent. That is what Islamic extremists are doing all over the world. That is what their organizations are doing inside our own societies. This is not a conspiracy theory. This has all been publicly visible for decades. And they are being facilitated by useful idiots, as is now especially evident on our college campuses.
Of course, we are also being played by Russia and China and perhaps other hostile foreign actors who are fanning the flames of our own partisanship and hysteria. But part of that hysteria is that many of us now perceive any effort to limit the spread of misinformation and social contagion to be the first signs of Orwellian repression from our own government. We live in a country where people go berserk whenever they learn that the government can access information, through a court order, that they themselves routinely give to random apps and other services just for the sake of convenience. It is utterly childish to imagine that our interests as a nation are best served by total institutional distrust—where we have people like Edward Snowden and Julian Assange hacking and leaking state secrets continuously. Most people haven’t spent five minutes imagining the gravity of what must be in every US President’s daily briefing. We have to grow up and do what it takes to protect our society from people and groups and foreign adversaries that actually want to destroy it.
Of course, it’s true that fighting terror and confusion can put the very freedoms we seek to protect in jeopardy. It is also true that in the presence of sufficient terror and confusion, we will embrace a regime of surveillance, and censorship, and even violence that could seem to justify the fears of every conspiracy theorist—and make it seem that the real threat to liberty is coming from our own side, from our own institutions and from our own government. We have to perform this highwire act successfully.
We can’t forget our actual values. Take immigration: Providing sanctuary to real refugees fleeing violence, and welcoming immigrants who are seeking better lives, and who want to build those lives in the West, is one of our core humanitarian values. We don’t want to get rid of that. Emma Lazarus’s poem inspired by the Statue of Liberty, which is now inscribed on a plaque there: “Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free!” That’s not just sentimental bullshit. That's the best of America. It’s never quite been our immigration policy. It’s always been aspirational. But we want to be a country that is strong enough and generous enough to be a light unto the rest of the world. Emma Lazarus, incidentally, was Jewish. The Great Replacement started there, fellas, with the Statue of Liberty. (You might want to get on that, Tucker. That’s your bread and butter right there.)
The question is how can open societies like ours maintain their values, and even improve them, in a world where we have real enemies? You don’t have to be a xenophobe or a Christian Nationalist or a Nazi or any other species of asshole to recognize that some people are coming into our societies with no intention of ever sharing our values. Again, this is about culture—ideas and their consequences—not the color of people’s skin. If we imported a sufficient number of communists into the United States, it would be no surprise if we one day discovered that we had a problem with communists seeking to demolish the very foundations of our economy. And it would serve us right—they were wearing their antipathy for capitalism on their sleeves the whole time. They were telling us, ad nauseam, what they want to accomplish—the destruction of capitalism. How could we be surprised if a massive influx of committed communists eventually posed a threat to our way of life? Similarly, if we import a sufficient number of Islamists and jihadists, we will eventually have a problem with political and militant Islam. This is guaranteed. And to my eye, much of Western Europe already has this problem to a degree that it should find intolerable.
It is completely rational, and not at all an expression of bigotry, as an American, to not want to follow Western Europe down that path. Does this mean that I was in favor of Trump’s idiotic ban on Muslim immigration? No. Given that we need to win a war of ideas within the Muslim community, given that we need to inoculate Western societies against Islamic extremism, some of the most valuable immigrants we could have, in my view, are truly secular Muslims, truly liberal Muslims, and above all ex-Muslims. We want people who come from Muslim-majority societies and who understand exactly why life in those societies is not as good as it is in the West—not just because we have more money, but because we have better values. We want people from Pakistan and Iran who are appalled by religious fanaticism. Put these people at the front of the line. There is not a shred of xenophobia, or bigotry, much less racism, implied by anything I have said on this podcast.
But let’s not lie to ourselves that our societies can absorb an endless number of profoundly ideological people who only feign tolerance of diversity because they are in a position of weakness—and who, when strong, will seek to impose their religious strictures on everyone else. The truth is, Islamists (to say nothing of jihadists) seek to impose their religion on everyone else even from a position of weakness. And Western Europe has been groaning under that pressure for decades.
As with immigration, so it is with free speech: I think the US is in a much better position than other country because we have the First Amendment. But the First Amendment isn’t a perfect guide for private platforms and publishers in deciding what speech to disseminate, or to amplify algorithmically, or to sponsor. We are simply drowning in lies that are rendering our society increasingly ungovernable. This problem exists equally, if differently, on both sides of our political landscape. Right of center, some of the most prominent voices in alternative media regularly launder Russian propaganda—about elections, and US foreign policy, and the War in Ukraine, and vaccines. Left of center, there is almost pure confusion about Israel and its enemies. At our best universities, we are witnessing a zombie apocalypse of profoundly misinformed kids. Of course, broadcasting divisive lies is generally legal, because it is protected by the first amendment. But that doesn’t mean private platforms and civil society organizations shouldn’t do something to contain the problem.
As I’ve said many times before, if liberals remain confused about Islamic extremism, the appetite for rightwing authoritarianism is going to continue to grow throughout the West. We need to do everything we can to avoid this.
#Sam Harris#hamas#hamas supporters#pro hamas#israel#palestine#pro palestine#terrorism supporters#islam#islamic terrorism#authoritarianism#islamism#jihadism#jihad
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living in a society that’s so ableist is so wild because as someone questioning if they have aspd the ableism makes you wonder if you REALLY do because you’re just “too human”. like yeah, i see children hurt and i get uncomfortable, i see parents post pictures of their children and i worry. is it really true worry? who knows! point is, the idea that you’re inhuman for it is just drilled inside you so hard that anytime you show any sort of “humanity” you wonder if you are actually antisocial, even if you fit the criteria fine because the idea of being antisocial is boiled down to being evil and incapable of emotions; subhuman in a way. I hope that makes sense and resonates with anyone; been questioning for a while if we (system :)) could have aspd because ableism keeps making us believe a false idea of how it appears on people.
aspd-culture is
#oh gosh I feel all of this#Please remember that pwASPD are still very much human#and whilst those of us that fit these stereotypes exist and are entirely valid#many of us if not the majority of us do not#many pwASPD feel for children in pain especially because that is what caused us to deal with this#and worry is in no way mutually exclusive with ASPD#it sucks that the world we live in makes pwASPD question themselves just because they act ‘’human’’#It makes it hard to recover when prosocials shove us in a box like that#because we struggle with healing vs feeling valid in our diagnosis#and that is just not a question anyone should have to worry about at all#aspd-culture-is#aspd culture is#aspd culture#actually aspd#aspd#aspd awareness#actually antisocial#antisocial personality disorder#aspd traits#tw ableism#cw ableism#anons welcome
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hm
#ah im not in a bad mood rn honestly but i cant stop thinking this#i say 'i need to get out' and okay great i guess but feels like every place in this world is also going towards a shittier future 😭#so like. where tf do i even go. i mean ive been basically thinking anywhere is better than this#which is TRUE still. imo#but also it is such a big and scary decision and i wanna do it right and i mean i dont even know if i will be able to do any of this sjdjd#yet here i am worrying abt these things every day#like. are Most places in the world a better option than what i have rn? probably yes 😭#but i dont knowwwwwww i dont know anything abt the world and living and stuff like. everything sucks forever can i pls get some rights pl#i sometimes think i developed some kind of a Stockholm syndrome with this country lmao#like. yes everything is incredibly terrible yet sometimes i just sit down and think#like why even try to get out. life is kinda tolerable here and it's not That Bad (lies)#anyway feeling very hashtag fleabag rn like wont anyone PLEASE tell me exactly what i should do in life. thank you.#i wish i wasnt born in a country where i have to question the possibility of living an Okay Life every day#and as i said I KNOW things are going pretty bad all around the world rn and so many more terrible things are happening#but. but. but.............. this one is completely a lost cause it feels like#anyway!!! i said i wasnt in a bad mood and it's true but i just had to come here and be a doomer sometimes#🗒#neg#i dont even know wtf will happen about any of this and i have to make Decisions and yeah. 👍 yeah#it's okay it's normal it's fine (i dont even know i'll be able achieve anything and even if i do how tf will i have the money to pay and-)#( do i even want this can i even do it do i even deserve this-)
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voice | m. sturniolo
i had this idea a million years ago, please enjoy!!
summary: chris wonders if you can tell his and matt’s voice apart
warnings: super fluffy!! a bit suggestive at the very end, i’m questioning if it’s good or not
wc: 1.6k
gif by @mattsturnioloarchive !
“i call shower first!” you exclaim the second the garage door is open, sprinting past matt up the stairs to his bathroom.
“there’s three showers,” chris says matter-of-factly as you blow past him on the steps, holding a hand out in confusion.
matt sighs and follows behind you, passing chris as well, “yeah, but you don’t have to share,”
you’re already on the mainfloor, running into matt’s bedroom to grab the change of clothes you’d left earlier.
“i’m so glad i don’t have a girlfriend,” chris mutters, earning a smack upside the head from nick, “jesus, fuck, what,”
“you’re just annoying,” nick says, deciding it’s a good enough explanation and getting a laugh out of matt.
“agreed,” matt’s still chuckling when they reach the kitchen table, setting down the take out the four of you had gotten on your way back to the house. he hears the water turn on in his bathroom, accompanied by the soft sound of your voice as you sing along to your music.
“oh she’s a nicki fan,” nick says to no one in particular, referencing the tik tok sound when he notices you’re listening to a nicki minaj song.
matt looks up from the bag of food and laughs.
chris sinks into the couch but looks over at matt, arm slung over the cushions, “i wonder if she could tell our voices apart,” he says after a second.
“what?” matt asks, thinking the question is mildy rediculous.
“like do you think she could recognize your voice?” chris explains, wandering into the kitchen now. opening a pepsi and leaning up against the counter.
nick chimes in now, having been fiddling with the vlog camera and battery, “like compared to you and me?” he asks chris, glancing back at matt as if to say ‘is this guy for real?’
“yeah,” chris nods.
“yeah, obviously she’d be able to tell my voice apart from yours,” matt is looking back at the food again, tone matter-of-fact, as if what he’d said was absolute common sense.
chris is quiet for about half a second and matt thinks that’s the end of that absurd conversation. it isn’t, of course.
“should we test it out?” chris asks through a sip of soda.
matt officially gives up on trying to set the food up, throwing his hands up in mock surrender before turning to chris, “and how are we gonna do that?”
chris shrugs, but nick has an idea, “chris, you could like, just go ask her for something, if you left something in the bathroom—“
“absolutely not,” matt shuts it down immediately with a shake of his head, “you're not going in the bathroom when my girlfriend is showering,”
“i won’t even go all the way in!! i’ll cover my eyes,” chris promises, but matt is still skeptical. “i’ll just like poke my head in the door and ask if i left like..a belt or some shit in there,” is chris’ next offer.
matt sighs and thinks about it, weighing the pros and cons. of course you can tell his voice apart from his brothers…right? he’s making himself nervous, pysching himself out and worrying they all sound the same to you. it upsets him for some reason, he can’t quite decide why.
“fine,” he agrees after a beat of silence, convincing himself you know whis voice well enough to separate it from chris’, and if you can’t, he thinks he might actually feel a sick twinge of unjustified jealousy.
“yes,” chris mutters under his breath, always excited to pull a prank on anyone.
“this is definitely going in the vlog,” nick says, still messing with the camera and coming to sit at the kitchen table where matt is now.
“i can’t believe i agreed to this,” matt mumbles, rubbing his eyes and taking a deep breath. he stands from his seat and walks over to the wall where he can see the bathroom door, feeling some what protective, like he needs to supervise chris to make sure he doesn’t wander too far into the bathroom.
“what should i say?” chris turns back arms pulled in close to his body as if he’s nervous. he’s already grinning and trying to keep from laughing.
“ooh, call her sweetheart, matt always does that,” nick suggests, wiggling his brows in matt’s direction to tease him.
“oh my god,” matt groans softly, rubbing at his eyes, “i fucking hate you guys,”
“okay, i’m going in,” matt drops his hands at that, eyes on his brother immediately. chris puts a hand over his eyes, just as he said he said he would before knocking on the door. nick has the camera out to record and is trying to stifle his laugh in the collar of his hoodie.
at the sound of the knock matt hears your voice, calling out for him, no doubt thinking it’s him at the door. he has to cover his mouth, partly out of nerves but also to keep himself from saying anything.
“yeah,” chris starts, needing to take a second before continuing because he’s already making himself laugh. “yeah, sweetheart, did i leave my belt in here?” he asks, barely stood in the doorway of the bathroom.
“uhh, i think it’s in your bedroom?” you say after a slight pause, about to poke your head out from behind the shower curtain, but chris has already mumbled a ‘thanks’ and essentially sprinted out of the bathroom, closing the door and crumbling to the floor in giggles.
“you’re not fucking real,” matt shakes his head, laughing softly himself and pushing off the wall to go back to the kitchen table. he’s a bit bummed that you didn’t realize it wasn’t his voice, but he keeps that to himself.
nick pans the camera over to matt’s face, which seems expressionless, even with both his brothers cackling outside of the frame.
you come out of the bathroom in a cloud of steam, heading into matt’s bedroom to drop the clothes you’d changed out of. matt is instantly sitting back up, the legs of his chair scraping along the hardwood floors.
“ooh, someone’s pissed,” nick turns the camera to himself, eyeing the now closed door.
“that was too fucking good,” chris says after a deep breath, still recovering from laughing so hard. he pulls a chair out next to nick and the two start to explain what had happened to the camera, eyes flicking up to matt’s door every few seconds.
in the bedroom you’re putting your dirty clothes back into your bag when matt comes in, looking a little bit pouty, “hey baby,” you turn towards him, laughing at the slightly pathetic look he gives you, “what’s up?” you wonder.
“m’ tired,” he tells you, slumping up against you for a hug. you wrap your arms around him and rub his back, letting him lay his weight into you.
“we’ll eat and go to bed, yeah?” you give his back another little pat when he nods against you, “mkay, let’s go,” you kiss his cheek quickly, only to have him turn his head in search of a real kiss. you oblige of course.
nick and chris have already started eating and updating the vlog on their day when you and matt come out of the bedroom. matt joins them at the table but you head for the fridge to grab a drink. “oh, did you find your belt?” you ask matt, still digging around.
“what?— oh yeah” he mumbles, gaze turned down to his fries.
“okay good. by the way you sounded so much like chris when you came in— it freaked me the fuck out” you say with your head in the fridge, still searching for the diet coke you know you left inside the door, “did one of you drink my coke–”
“wait what?” matt’s head snaps up, food forgotten.
“hmm?” you turn around to find all three boys looking at you. nick’s mouth open in a half smile and chris clearly trying not to burst into a fit of uncontrollable laughter. matt’s just staring at you with eyes a little bit too wide before he speaks up.
“what do you mean i sounded weird?” he asks, leaning forward. you notice nick’s shut up about whatever he was saying to the camera earlier, pointing the lens at you now.
“i dunno, when you said sweetheart it just sounded super fucking weird— why are you guys looking at me like that–” you have to ask, feeling slightly weirded out by the intensity of their gazes
“i knew it!!” matt cheers, punching the air and doing a silly little dance as nick doubles over and starts hitting the table.
chris’ jaw drops and he presses his fingers into his eyes as he laughs next to his brother, leaning on him.
matt bounds over to you with a grin, arms wrapping around your waist and lifting you off the ground slightly.
“whaaaat,” you giggle, clearly confused by their reaction.
“it was me,” chris manages to say between bouts of laughter, “we– we were trying to see if you could tell our voices apart.”
“of course i can tell your voices apart, especially your voice,” you turn towards matt, saying it like it should be obvious, like it’s silly they doubted you for even a second.
matt’s just grinning at you, feeling a strange sense of pride swelling in his chest, “i knew you could,”
“bullshit!” chris exclaims, both him and nick still leaning against each other as they laugh.
“he’s right, you were freaked the fuck out,” nick manages to say between giggles, “you watched chris like a fucking hawk when he opened the bathroom door,” he looks over at you, his smile contagious, “he was definitely freaked the fuck out,”
matt groans and drops his head against your shoulder. you brush your fingers through his hair and chuckle to yourself, “awe matt,” you coo, “i definitely know your voice, i’ll probably be hearing lots of it later anyways.”
tags ! @st4rswrld @urfavvev3lyn @mattsturnioloarchive @averysbestyears @its-jennarose
#matt sturniolo#matt sturniolo x reader#matthew sturniolo#matt sturniolo fluff#matt sturniolo imagine#matt sturniolo fanfic#matt struniolo x you#matt sturniolo blurb#matt sturniolo smut#chris sturniolo#nick sturniolo
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How To Balance Your Daytime and Nighttime Activities So That You Don't Burn Yourself Out More Than You Already Have
It had been a long few minutes since he'd opened the door and there were a lot of questions running through Dick's head. Most pressing of which was how this kid seems to have information he should not have.
"How did you..?" he asked, but the words wouldn't leave completely. There's so much he wants to know, so much he wants to ask.
"How do I what?" Danny tilted his head like the child he seems to be is.
"How do you know?" Dick knows he sounds weak. There's no hiding that, but there are a lot of implications in what the kid has said so far and none of it is painting a very happy picture for him.
"Oh!" Danny had the audacity to smile, "You want to know how I know you moonlight as a vigilante!" And of course he knows. Dick knows he knows, but he'd held a little bit of hope that the child Danny was mistaken. Danny's smile softened a bit as he explained, "Your hair and voice match up in both jobs almost perfectly. Not to mention your build and how you hold yourself. There's also the matter of your overall vibes, but that's not something living beings can normally pick up on." Excuse him? "Well, not living humans, at least, so no worries on that end!"
"Excuse me?" Dick was fairly sure his heart just stopped beating for a moment there.
"Anyway, I was a hero back home for a while, too. I know what it's like to have to walk the tightrope between maintaining a civilian cover and a hero persona. I know how it feels to have to keep secrets from everyone because anyone who knows will be in danger." he rambled, Though, admittedly, our circumstances are quite different. I was working as a hero all hours of the day as well as going to school. You only have to worry about properly balancing between day and night jobs. Either way, me having more to bounce between just makes me al the more qualified to help you!"
Oh. Oh he did not like that. He didn't like a single thing that just came out of the kid's mouth. Because that's what he is, a kid. "Are you...Are you alright?"
"Not in the slightest," Danny admitted with an even smaller smile. Then, it brightened, not quite to a grin, but to something similar, "But I'm here to make sure you are."
He gets points for being honest, but Dick felt his heart shatter. He knew for a fact that he'd never worked with this kid before. He also knew that the Justice League didn't know about him. If they did, he would've been picked up and dropped with either the Young Justice team or the Titans.
Dick wasn't going to ask why he became a hero because that's not his place. It's more of a 'third mission with the team' kind of questions, anyway. Most of the heroes didn't have many options when they took up the mantle. Asking what Danny can do is a more appropriate question, but he wasn't going to ask that, either.
"Now that that's out of the way," Danny turned a few pages from the table of contents to another one that was topped with 'Why Sleep Scheduling Is Important' in the blue glitter pen that Dick was starting to suspect he favored. "You're not getting enough sleep. Following you around - no one's been able to find me for a while, so don't worry about that - for the last two weeks has given me some really worrisome information on you."
Dick was worrying. He was worrying a lot and even more questions were coming to the forefront of his mind.
"Your dayjob is as an officer on the Bludhaven Police Force, or BPD for short." He was looking over the page he'd turned to very aptly and Dick realized that the kid had notes written on him. "The average hours per week for police across the country is forty hours. Gotham and Bludhaven are the exceptions. As a member of the BPD, you work a solid two days and two hours. Six nights a week, you work as Nightwing from eight in the evening to three in the morning. The last day, you take off, which is good. No deserable pattern, so good on you for that. Regardless, that's seven hour nights and ten hour days, with one day off and one day on call as an officer. Seven hours are now left in your day for personal time, eating, and sleeping. That's not a healthy way to live."
Oh, god, the kid had honest to god notes on him! What the hell!
Danny didn't even skip a beat as he pulled Dick's attention back to him and his binder. "I've drawn up a schedule for you to follow." The back of the page had a meticulously drawn schedule, complete with blocks of time to eat, sleep, work both jobs, travel, personal time, and still have a bit extra left over. It was titled 'Ideal End Result' in green marker. "Drastic changes right away will only affect you negatively, so we're starting off smaller." The next page over had another schedule titled 'Where To Begin'. "I've only pulled one hour from your Nightwing hours because I know important that time is to you and the city. I am, however, going to be having you submit an appeal to your boss to cut back your hours from fifty a week to forty a week. That way, you'll only be working eight hours a day and not ten. You'll still be on call for one day, and you'll have that last day off. Altogether, you'll be going be going from working seventeen hours a day to fourteen hours a day. Nine in the morning to five in the afternoon, and eight in the evening to two in the morning. Not including breaks at work or travel time. It opens up a few more hours for you to sleep!"
"You really think the chief is going to pull back my hours?" Dick raised an eyebrow in question.
"He will if he knows what's good for him."
"You know I can arrest you for that threat, right?"
"Yeah, but you won't." And, damn it, he's right.
Although, there was now another thing he had to know. "How to you plan on enforcing this schedule of yours?"
Danny seemed to have been waiting for this. He got a gleam in his eye as he pulled a black folder from his bag, not breaking eye contact with Dick. He placed it on the table and pushed it across. "Congratulations, it's a boy."
Part 1 Part 3
#part 2#please read part 1#I had to redo a detail there to make something here make sense#dc x dp#dp x dc#dp dc crossover#dcxdp#danny phantom#dick grayson#dick needs a hug#dick needs sleep#danny's a hypocrite#work life balance#excelt it's being explained by a hypocrite 7 years younger than him#reverse adoption#is it really adoption if the kid shows up one day and just doesn't leave?#danny is going to make sure dick takes care if himself#good thing danny's sister and friends drilled this into his head#'this' being the importance of a proper work life balance#I maintain that Danny is a hypocrite#It's not adoption papers btw#It's a backstory
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"Let me take care of you" - Max Verstappen
pairing . . . max verstappen x reader )
genre . . . smut )
summary . . . after a disastrous race, you take care of max the best way you know how )
warning . . . smut, 18+ MINORS DNI, oral (m receiving), p in v, unprotected sex, creampie, nipple play, use of petnames, sub!max, very soft dom!reader, traumatized maxie, not proofread )
word count . . . 2800 words )
a/n . . . this actually ended up a lot more emotional than i intended it to be but i hope everyone likes it anyway. i don't know if my smut writing is getting better or worse tbh. any and all feedback is always appricated <3 )
Max was a perfectionist; anyone could see that. He also had a desire to win like nobody else. He never let up. It didn’t matter to him if it was a title deciding race or a completely meaningless one, he needed to win. It had been instilled in him for as long as he could remember; second place is first loser after all. So naturally, when his brakes failed, and his car very literally caught fire in the Australian Grand Prix causing him to have to retire three laps into the race; you knew he was not going to take it well.
You were watching along in the garage, and the only thing you could think about as his smoking car pulled up to the pits was how hard on himself he was going to be. The fact that it was through no fault of his own was irrelevant. He had just handed a win to Ferrari, and that made his blood boil.
In typical Max fashion, you barely saw him after he retired too. He gave you a quick hug as he reached the garage but after that it was straight back to business. He made his way to the pit wall and immediately began discussing with Christian and GP what exactly happened and how do they fix it for Japan. He sent you a text that he was going to stay late at the track with the mechanics so that you should just head back to the hotel.
Truthfully, Max was avoiding you. You had only been dating Max for a couple of months, and so far you had only seen him dominate on track. And whilst you were concerned that that he would be beating himself up for disappointing himself or the team, he was busy focusing on how he had disappointed you. You had taken time out of your busy university schedule to travel to the other side of the world to see him race, and he had to retire three laps in. He was used to people living through him, taking his wins as theirs. He had never considered that all you cared about that he was safe and didn’t get hurt.
So, you went to the hotel and waited for him; or at least you tried to. Tiredness and jet lag eventually started to catch up to you, and you had just started to drift off to sleep when you heard the door open. Looking up greet Max, you could see immediately how heavy the weight he bore on his shoulders hung.
“Hey baby, how are you feeling?” You asked him sleep in your voice still evident. Max just hung his head and walked into the bathroom. He half expected you to berate him. To question him on exactly what went wrong and what he’s going to do to fix it.
“Maxie?” You asked again, as he came in from the bathroom and made his way to his side of the bed, his eyes routed to the floor. This time he just grunted at you in response before getting into bed and turning away from you. He did not have the energy to be told everything he did wrong and why - he had already had that from his dad.
“Please talk to me Maxie, I’m worried.” You pleaded at him, fighting the urge to wrap your arms around him. You wanted that more than anything, but you sensed that he maybe didn’t feel the same.
“What do you want Y/N?” He finally spoke, his voice cracking.
“Are you okay? I know that was tough result to take but it’s only once race. We both know you’ll be back better than ever for the next one.”
To your words, Max just grunted again. And this time you couldn’t help but reach over to hold him. Wrapping one of your arms around his waist and the other coming up to brush through his hair. You waited cautiously for him to pull away. A moment passed and he began to move, your heart sank; he clearly didn’t want to be anywhere near you right now. But instead of moving away, he just turned around, bringing himself closer to you, resting his head on your chest.
“I just hate to let the team down” he spoke, his voice no more than a whisper, like he wasn’t 100% convinced if he should be saying anything.
“But baby you didn’t let them down, you did nothing wrong. There was an issue with the car that isn’t your fault.” You gazed down at his face, your hands smoothing through his hair.
“I could have done something. Maybe I pushed the brakes too much. Maybe I went too hard. All I know is that I let the team down. I let my dad down. I let you down. You cam-“ He started to ramble, but you had heard enough.
“Whoa Max baby slow down. I can’t speak for the team or your dad, but you certainly did not let me down. All that matters to me is that you didn’t get hurt. I was so worried; you were literally driving a car that was on fire. You could have been hurt.”
As the words left your mouth, he looked up at you. Almost as if he was trying to see if you were telling the truth. When his eyes met yours and he realized you were being sincere, he hugged tighter into you.
“I love you Y/N” he spoke and before you could say anything, you felt him bring his mouth to your neck. Leaving hot open-mouthed kisses from your collarbone up to until he met your mouth. His lips crashed against yours. The kiss was hungry and desperate. His hands found your hair and his teeth nipped at your lips. He quickly found himself getting lost in you and you weren’t too far behind. But when his hands wandered towards the bottom of your pajama top, you had to pull away.
“Wait, Maxie. Are you sure you want to do this? You’ve had a rough day, are you sure you want to do this. We could just go to sleep if you’d prefer.” You didn’t want him to feel like this was something he needed to do.
But when his lips once again found your neck, it was clear you had your answer. “Please” he mumbled against your skin “I just want to forget” between each word he left a kiss on your neck, before beginning to nibble against that one spot on your neck that he knew always sent you completely insane. He left deep purple marks all down your neck and you couldn’t help but let a moan slip through your lips.
You were about to completely cave into his touch before you had an idea, and before you could overthink whether it was a good idea, you swung your legs over him until you had him pinned underneath you, your legs either side of his. A smirk plastered across your face
Max looked completely taken aback at your action, but the second you leant down to kiss him, your lips just slightly brushing against his; he was starstruck and could feel himself growing harder by the second, which only deepened your smirk.
“Let me take care of you baby” you whispered in his ear before beginning to grind your core against him. The whimper that left Max’s lips took you both by surprise but, taking that as confirmation that he wanted you to take control; you attached your lips to his neck, trailing kisses down his chest until you reached the waistband of his underwear. It was clear from the way that his hard dick strained against the cloth that Max was enjoying this new side of you, and you could be lying if you said it didn’t give you a bit of a confidence boost.
You started to tease him, placing warm kisses over his underwear, but when you hear him try and fail to beg you to touch him, it becomes clear that maybe today isn’t the day to tease him. So, you hook your fingers around his waistband and release him from the tight confines of the cloth. Immediately, your mouth found his cock, your lips wrapping around his tip. Max’s moans filled the air as he came apart like putty in your hands. The way that your tongue swirled around him made him go crazy. He reached out his hands to grab your hair in a makeshift pony, but you dodged him. Max honestly thought he was going to cry when you took your mouth off him.
“No baby, I told you I was going to take care of you, you just sit back and let me do everything” you told him before quickly placing a kiss on his lips before reattaching your mouth to Max’s throbbing dick and bringing your hand to the part of it that you couldn’t fit in your mouth. Max felt lightheaded; it’s not like you hadn’t given him a blowjob before, but never like this. He couldn’t ever remember being this turned on before. He had never even considered letting you take control, letting you take care of him so intently before; but now that he was experiencing it – he kicked himself for waiting so long.
The sounds coming from your boyfriend were music to your ears and only encouraged you to make him feel better and better. You could feel yourself getting wetter, completely desperate to feel him inside of you; but today was about Max, you’d happily wait longer for your own pleasure to take care of him. You began taking him deeper and deeper into your throat, earning more moans from Max. You had never heard him be so vocal before. Things got even better for him when you hallowed your cheeks and brought your hand up to his balls, massaging them in your hands as you worked his dick in your mouth. When his tip hit the very back of your throat and you gagged around him, he was so loud you were just slightly concerned that whoever was in the room next door would be up for a rude awakening.
“Oh, fuck baby, oh my god. I’m so close” Max just about managed to get out between moans, promoting you to once again let go of his dick. For a second Max looked at you with puppy dog eyes, silently begging you to take him back in your mouth. But as soon as you stood up and very slowly pulled your pajama shorts down, he realized that there were better things to come.
“Do you want me to ride you, Maxie?” you asked him breathlessly earning another groan from the man lying on the bed.
“Fuck, yes. Please please ride me I need to be inside of you more than anything” Max’s voice was weak; it was becoming all too much for him. And when you finally rid yourself of your pajama top, Max started to see stars. Your tits were his weakness, and you knew that all too well. All he wanted was to take them in his mouth, to suck and bite on your nipples. So, when you straddled him once again, that's exactly what he did. You thought about stopping him again, reminding him that tonight was about him and his pleasure; but when you caught sight of his eyes – usually so bright and sparkling. Now they were so dark, so filled with lust and desperation, you didn’t have the heart to deprive him of one of his favorite things to do.
You leant down to kiss him again, and the taste of his own precum on your tongue made him groan feverishly against your lips. Unable to wait anymore, you finally lowered yourself onto his dick. Now it was your turn to let out a string of moans and profanity. The way that he stretched you out was a feeling that you could never grow old of. After a beat to get used to having him inside of you, you began to bounce on top of him, pumping his dick in and out of your tight desperate pussy.
“Oh my god Maxie you feel so good, your huge dick sends me so crazy” You moan out, completely cock drunk. “You fuck me so good, god nobody makes me feel like you can” Your praise made Max moan louder than ever and then he simply couldn’t help himself anymore; he brought his hands up to your hips and began thrusting hard into you. You wanted to tell him to stop, to tell him to let you take care of him – but when he rammed his cock into g-spot you physically couldn’t ask him to stop doing something that felt so good.
“I love you so much Y/N baby” Max croaked out, bringing his mouth back to your tits and his hand down to your clit. Him touching you for the first time tonight meant it was now time for you to see stars. His expert hands rubbing against your clit brought you closer and closer to release and you could tell from the way that Max’s thrusts became deeper and harder that he wasn’t far behind you.
Wanting to finish what you had started; you placed your hands on his chest – signaling him to stop for a second. Max did so very reluctantly, but when you started to bounce on his dick again his eyes rolled back into his head. After each bounce you grinded yourself down on him, desperate to get him as deep as you possibly could. Your climax was getting closer and closer and soon you felt like you were ready to burst.
“I’m going to cum on your dick okay baby? You just make me feel so good I can’t help myself.” you told the man beneath you breathlessly, prompting Max to resume rubbing circles into your clit.
“Please do. Please cum all over my cock I need that so much” Max croaked out and with that you fell over the edge. A wave of pleasure washed over you and you screamed out for Max. It felt so good you thought you were going to pass out, completely taken over by the pleasure that Max’s hard dick had given you. For a few moments, you simply had to still yourself to let yourself recover.
Once you had ridden out the last of your orgasm, you were ready to go again; ready to make Max feel as good as you possibly could. You began grinding down onto him, squeezing yourself against him. After feeling you cumming all over him, Max knew he wouldn’t need long before he was right behind you.
“Fuck Y/N I’m really close, get off and I’ll finish in your mouth” Max just about got out between moans. When you didn’t get off and instead began bouncing faster and harder, Max really thought he might just die.
“Cum inside of me Maxie please, I need your cum fucked so deep inside me”
“Fuck really?”
“Yeah, i need it so bad.”
“Oh my god Y/N, you’ll be the fucking death of me”
The second those words left his mouth, he fell apart. A string of profanity left his lips, and you could feel his dick pulse inside of you as he painted the insides of you white with his cum. Max couldn’t believe how good it felt, sex with you was always great but that was on another level, he couldn’t remember ever feeling that good before.
“I love you so much Y/N”
He gently slipped himself out of you and you collapsed next to him on the bed. Exhausted wasn’t the word for how tired you felt after that. And apparently that was true for Max as well as in the time that it took you to waddle to the toilet to clean yourself up, he had managed to fall asleep. You couldn’t blame him of course; even before that it had been a very long tiering day for him. So, as quietly as you could, you got ready for bed and slipped yourself into bed next to him.
Looking at the very peaceful sleeping man next to you, you couldn’t help but snuggle down close to him. Placing a kiss on his temple before assuming the big spoon position that you know he loves so much from you. Your movement causing him to ever so slightly stir awake.
“You’re the best thing that ever happened to me” he spoke so softly you almost missed it before falling right back into a very peaceful sleep. You couldn’t help but feel so lucky to have a man like him cuddled close to you.
“Sleep well Maxie, I love you more than anything.”
#f1 fanfic#f1 x reader#formula 1#max verstappen x reader#max verstappen#max verstappen x y/n#formula 1 fanfic#formula 1 x you#formula one x reader#f1 imagine#max verstappen smut#max verstappen x oc#f1 smut#formula one smut#formula 1 smut
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cherry cola ☆ op81
genre: smut, humor, yearning, tiny bit of fluff, virgin!reader, innocent!reader, experienced!oscar, sub!reader (for a while!), dom!oscar (for a while!)
word count: 8.5k
After a painful break up, Oscar finds himself head-to-head with an enticing girl, filled with pure innocence. Also known as, his parents secret weapon, and his worst temptation.
nsfw warning under the cut!
18+...f!receiving, fingering, brief mentions of masturbation, face riding, missionary sex, doggy style
inspired by this !
cherry here!... hellooo anons, long time, no see haha sorry for the lack of posts, but hopefully this makes up for it, somehow? formal apology for my last post too while we're at it. though this fic is inspired by cola by lana del rey, it will not have a sour ending like past fics (iykyk). missed u all, so here ya go! enjoy :)
There is an apprehensive sensation that towers over him as soon as she walks in; shy mannered, tall, and firm with a hint of hesitation—it’s something he adores about her, but also something that has him feeling jittery. Oftentimes, her lips are his most prized possession, enjoying the way they move. All except at this very moment.
Everyone notices his bitter, broken, and quiet mood despite always laying low. He’s never been one to share his problems with others, and he most definitely was not going to start now. It should be the best moment of the season—his first win—but he doesn’t have the joy to celebrate it with anyone.
Oscar’s brown eyes are low and dull; empty. He’d be a damn liar if he said he didn’t see any of this coming. If he didn’t feel an ounce of guilt and misery. Should he have been more attentive, a better boyfriend, then he wouldn’t be regretting his life choices. Dramatic, but true.
“How are you spending your summer break? Are you and Lily traveling?”
The Australian tries to scoff at the innocent inquiry beaming from his teammate, but he settles with a wince, not being able to hide it. “She, um…we broke up, actually.” He’s never been a religious individual—has never even set foot inside a church—but for the first time in his life, he prayed no more questions would be asked.
Lando raises his thick brows, clearly surprised by the sudden confession. Sure, they were a private couple—likely the most in the entire paddock—but he never saw this coming from Oscar and Lily. Though he only met her a couple of times, simply exchanging a kind greeting, he would’ve bet his entire Rolex collection that the couple were smitten with one another. “Ah, I’m sorry, mate.”
The rude sound of his race suit being zipped up harshly makes the Brit flinch in the slightest. “Don’t worry about it. That’s life, no?”
Costa Rica—they were supposed to go to Costa Rica. Instead, now, he sits alone on a flight back to his home country. He’s ecstatic to be sleeping in his childhood room with outdated posters hung of all his favorite drivers, but the feeling lingers.
Sprawled like a koala, humid t-shirt pressed against his skin, he tosses and turns for an estimate of five whole minutes. He should be enjoying the beach, sipping on highly sweetened margaritas, getting the worst tan of his life, but he’s here. The hot summer air in Melbourne makes him spit out a string of dirty curses that would send his mum into a coma.
The brunette might as well be an only child since not a single one of his three sisters were here to keep him company, ditching him with his parents. He loved them, of course he did, but a full house was his ideal way to spend his break. His home gym isn’t even enough to help him forget, even for a second.
“Dinner is ready, honey,” Nicole announces, peeking carefully through the crack of the door. She grins widely. “There’s even pavlova—your favorite.”
He forces a polite nod, shaggy hair dangling just above his eyes. “Thank you. I’ll be out in a bit.” It actually takes a sum of thirty-minutes for him to jog down the stairs, a strong scent of apple expanding from his now washed hair. His dad hums as soon as he spots the McLaren driver.
“It’s rude to leave guests waiting, Oscar,” he warns with a deep voice.
The twenty-three year old assumes it’s a lame dad joke, perhaps, so runs along with it, taking a good look around the dining room. “Won’t happen again. I showered—”
“Where would you like to place the dessert, Mrs. Piastri?” a soft voice echoes down the hallway as he turns at the unfamiliar tone. You halt, caught off guard by the new presence. “I’m sorry, I didn’t know you would be here.”
“In my own home?” he finds himself squeaking involuntarily. The stern look that dances across his parents faces is enough for him to bite down on his tongue. He doesn’t even know why he said any of that—especially to a stranger.
They introduce you two quickly, though you’re just as fast as to say that you obviously knew about his existence. Do you follow my races? You shake your head, glossy hair shining. “I work for your parents, so…I sort of know. Plus, your sisters always talk highly about you when you’re gone.”
He blinks. “You work here?” Brown eyes flicker to his parents, confusion written all over. “What could she possibly do?”
“Oscar,” Nicole scolds. “I thought you left all the unnecessary questions back in junior high.”
Chris slides a large hand over her smaller one, calming her down just a tad bit. The older man sighs. “You know your mum, always looking for something new to do—”
“I wanted to grow a garden!” she squeals, delighted. “Like in all those magazines you get me for my birthday—oh, so lovely, honey. Only I realized, I don’t know anything about gardening.”
“And this lovely girl standing right here is a total natural. Her hands must be magic.” Oscar blushes hard at his dads choice of words. “She’s helping us out for the time being. Until we get back.”
The Australian's mouth opens, then snaps back shut, swallowing. “Get back from where?”
“Costa Rica!”
He gapes. “You’re using my tickets?”
Nicole winces. “Can’t let them go to waste, honey…”
His father butts in. “How is Lily by the way?”
The brunette groans, running his hands through his waves. “How should I know? Come on, you guys can’t be serious.” The tickets weren’t the problem; the fact that they were leaving was. He spots you awkwardly placing the pastry down onto the table. “Can you give us a minute?”
“Yes, of course,” you quip, glad to have a reason to flee far enough away from the premises. You turn to the Piastri’s who smile fondly at your understanding. “I’ll be out in the garden.”
As soon as you rush out, the twenty-three year old turns swiftly. “I guess I’m leaving too.”
“Don’t you dare, Oscar Jack Piastri—”
He fumes. “Why not? You’re all going to be gone!”
“She won’t—you are keeping her company.” She’s not asking; she’s demanding. Staring back in shock, the McLaren driver avoids eye contact, fidgeting like a kid at their first day of school. His mum stands up, makes her way over, and pecks his soft cheek. “She’s a sweet girl. She won’t be a bother—she’s just down the hallway.”
That’s where Lily would always stay back when they first started their relationship; too afraid of making a bad impression on his parents. He found it adorable. He rolls his eyes and releases a heavy breath. “Fine.” He stares out the glass window, focusing on where you patiently sit on the wooden bench, delicate hands pressing your dress down against your thighs. “Fine...”
-
The following morning, his parents wake him up at the crack of dawn, bidding goodbye. It comes as a total surprise, thinking he had a few more days left with them, but no. He’s barely registering any of it before they whisper inaudible nonsense and scurry out of his bedroom.
After some debating, he changes and decides to go on a quick run. The sight of Ms. Alleck watering her burnt grass makes him smile as he sets off. It would have been easier to not get as tired if it were a slight bit chilly, but it’s blazing hot. He cuts it short, dashing back home and immediately serving himself a glass of cold water.
“You’re up early.”
The brown eyed boy jumps in sudden surprise. Standing in a pastel yellow sleeping gown, you grin brightly. Long lashes lay flat, nose pinching rosy pink, and breath minty. “Yeah, my folks sort of woke me up. Couldn’t fall back asleep.”
“Oh.” You pout. “They left already?”
“You knew?”
“Yup. They mentioned it last night before bed.” A beat. “I hope me staying here isn’t making you uncomfortable…it’s just that they offered, and—”
“It’s not.” Lie. “Make yourself at home.”
Not much is seen or heard from him for the majority of the day; occasional glaces coming here and there. They put you in an uncomfortable spot yesterday—you had been working on the garden for a year now, damn it—but their son's demeanor took you by surprise. The pictures and stories were something you relied on as the only source of getting to know him: polite, tall, and swanky—boyish.
That was so far from the truth. Oscar Piastri has grown into his body; almost appearing to be a handsome giant. Despite his warm face, his attitude is a bit snarky. He has no problem in saying what’s on his mind. And he is most definitely not a boy.
He’s a man.
“What do you say?”
“Sorry?”
He chuckles, Adam's Apple dancing up and down. “Would you like to join me for dinner?”
It wasn't his intention to try and get close to you—not purposefully, at least—but he thought; why not? Who knows when his parents are coming back, when his sisters would, and he wanted to prove to you that he wasn’t some snotty guy. Summer is summer, after all. A friend to spend it with sounds quite nice.
Pursing your red lips, you nod, setting your book aside. The dinner table is already set up. Chicken and rice. That’s it. Given, it looks and smells amazing, but plain. You quirk a brow. “Aren’t you supposed to eat your greens? To drive quicker?” He burns up at you teasing tone.
“I didn’t want to risk burning the house down. We’re lucky I was able to get even this done.”
“Very well.” The refrigerator opens, colorful veggies staring back at him. You grin, slow and easy. “I’ll take care of it. It’s only fair, roomie.”
-
Oscar left home a few years ago, migrating to the United Kingdom for work, so it had been a while since he had stepped foot in his backyard. He faintly remembers his pirate treehouse, his sisters’ Barbie’s cluttered inside. It was a bone-chilling sight for baby Oscar back then, but now, the paint is chipping off, the wood looks a lot weaker. It’s a nostalgic feeling.
The new additions are stunning. A bunch of healthy flowers beam back at him and he swallows when he realizes he can’t name a single one. Waxflowers, Calamint, Dahlias, Peonies, Carnations, California Poppies. One by one, he admires with an open mouth. “They’re beautiful.” He turns to you with a proud smile. “You’ve done an excellent job.”
Pink feathers onto your already blushed cheeks, biting back a cheesy grin. You had decided to eat out on the bench, choosing to enjoy the now fresh air. Still humid, but less than before. The scent of coconut sunscreen makes his whiff constantly. “So…Costa Rica?”
He winces. It was too soon to talk about the situation, but something in your calm voice makes it easier to spit it out even though you probably already heard from his parents. All of a sudden, your savory carrots taste like complete shit. “T’was supposed to go with my girlf—my ex. My ex-girlfriend.”
You pout, sorrowfully. “Oh, I’m sorry, Oscar. I didn’t mean to…I had no clue.” And it’s genuine. Guess his parents were complete traitors.
“Tell me—how long have you been working on fixing the garden?”
“Since last summer,” you hum, chewing down on a piece of grilled chicken. “This is the first time I have actually stayed here, though. Your parents are sweet. As soon as they heard that you were coming back home, they insisted I kept you company.”
Sharp jaw clenches and he scoffs. You simply blink back innocently. Then, he notices it. The way it reflects against the yellow ray of the now setting sun. He knows what it is, so he doesn’t ask. Too busy staring off into the distance, you place your plate down. “Let me show you a few other things I’ve been working on.”
There’s row and row, further into the open area; every twist and turn makes his brows raise up higher, impressed by the noticeable updates. Coming to a halt, he spins his head around, brown locks hitting his temples. “Since when do we have a cherry tree?”
You beam, orbs shining with excitement. “Since last summer!” you repeat, cheerfully. You pick one, handing it for him to try. An embarrassing moan erupts once the sweet nectar slides down his throat. “Good?”
“Bloody amazing.” Every compliment makes you squeal with delight. “My mum is actually allergic to cherries, so how…”
“She was actually the one who brought it up. Said she knew how much I loved them, and that I deserved a little something for flourishing her garden. I couldn’t deny the chance to do so.” You bite down on your lip, sheepishly. “They are my favorite.”
Reaching for one makes him look away as soon as your dress rises up, soft legs poking through. Bare feet press against the wet grass as you tippy toe. He mustered a fake cough, but as soon as you bite down onto the bloody fruit, he clicks into a trance.
Plump lips; thick and juicy. Long lashes fluttering shut against your glossy cheeks. That could have been because of the summer heat, but it affected him just the same. The familiar sensation of attraction rushes to his cock as he stands stiffly—but also loosely. He was loose. So fucking loose.
Something hits his cheekbones and it rips him away from his drooling. A singular seed now lays by his feet; indicating what you had done. A crinkled, wobbly smile shines back at him, hands nervously flattening your dress back down. The Australian jokingly lunges towards you as you squeal, backing away.
“You were disintegrating! I had to get your attention one way or another!”
Oh, you definitely got his attention. Giving you one final scowl, he stops his steps. “Everything—all of it—it’s great. Thank you.” The wind picks up and you shiver. “...for doing this for my parents.”
Neat hair flies against the breeze, covering your eyes for a minute. Pushing it aside, you scrunch your nose faintly. “Anytime.”
-
Technically, what you’re getting paid for was to watch over the beloved yard; that’s all. But you offer to do more. Mow the lawn? Paint the chipped wall? Wash the windows?
“God no, darling,” Oscar’s mum laughs through the end of the line. “You are doing enough already. Please. Relax.”
But you can’t. Nibbling on your thumb, you brush the counter, strolling past countless family portraits. A smile slips when you spot a toothless Oscar. “I insist.”
So, here you are; decluttering the attic. After a bit of bickering with Nicole, she eventually gives in and asks for a favor. Clean and tidy the small room. Easy peasy.
“Ouch,” you hiss when a nail digs through your skin, gore immediately pouring out of you like a waterfall; you squeak. Just then, a certain brunette peeks their head through the entrance.
“Oh good, it’s you. I thought we had an intruder.”
Raising a skeptical brow at him and the thin duvet, you quickly take it from him, pressing it down to ease the bleeding. “Holy crap, are you okay?” In one motion, he steps closer to you, analyzing the injury with worried eyes. You groan.
“It’s only a little cut. No biggie.” But the way your face is slowly losing color lets him know that your words aren't true. Brown eyes flicker, searching for a spot to sit, but everything about this is crowded. You were just about to start tidying; the mess was still there. Crouching onto a tiny stool, he takes a seat, somehow still towering over you. Or at least that's what it felt like, because suddenly, you felt suffocated.
His long legs are spread as you stand between them, hand out towards him as he winces at the brutal cut. “Ah—that’s pretty deep.” He gags when he notices the underneath flesh. You suppress a giggle. “We should go to the ER.”
You scoff, ripping away from his grip, tripping over a box. Regaining your balance, you drape the cloth over your hand once again. “That won’t be necessary. I’ll be right back.”
After rinsing your hand with alcohol, covering the wound with the largest bandaid to ever exist, and balling your eyes out, you make your way back up. The Australian is drenched in sweat, huffing and puffing. “Got it,” he pants. Confused, you tilt your head to the side, but that’s when you pick out the nail in the palm of his hand. You blink, too bewildered to make sense of how he retrieved it without the help of a hammer. “I also found lots of old trophies. Extremely bittersweet.”
“Why’s that?” you hum, kneeling down next to him, reading through the labels. Each makes you more and more dazzled.
A minute passes by. “Because I grew up.”
“That’s…sad.” Shrugging, he digs for more. He laughs loudly, throwing his head back. “Dear G—I forgot this even existed!”
Oscar’s 81 Things To-Do During the Summer [List]
Learn how to bike.
Learn the Australian National Anthem (Sophie will be beautifully impressed)
Get better at being more outgoing (Mum is worried)
So on and so forth. “You were an extremely creative lad. Eighty-one things to do…eh.” A tongue click. “Possibly buy a pet dragon?”
He cringes. “Not all were realistic. I actually never really got around to it. Mainly added, if anything.”
Crimson red flashes. “I, um, I could tell.”
69. Oscar Piastri, you know what I mean.
The brunette chokes on his saliva, yanking it away as fast as he can. Standing up to his full height, he rolls up the piece of paper and points towards the exit. “I think I should, um…yeah. See ya.”
“Yeah.” He dashes off. “See you…”
-
Eighteen-year old Oscar was a horny bastard. But every guy that age is, so it’s not really fair to feel bad about his list. The writing is obviously his, but the things jotted down made him almost feel like it wasn’t. Blowjobs? Hand jobs? What was he thinking?
And then, there was you—a curious cat. He had to be a virgin; he just had to. Why else would he be embarrassed? You weren’t one to judge, though. You knew nothing about the sexual world, having never partaken. The thin band wrapped around your ring finger is enough proof.
And no—you weren’t married.
It would have been absolutely diabolical to mention sex in your household growing up. Being Roman Catholics is no joke, believing religiously to wait until marriage. You never had a problem with that; you would wait. Doesn’t mean you didn’t know what any of the common terms meant. Sort of.
Only now—for the first time in your life—there it was.
Temptation.
The McLaren driver was no newbie. He has had his fair share of experiences; before Lily, with Lily. He knew just about anything and everything. His good-boy act was no facade. At times he didn’t like that about himself, but it’s who he was. Obeyed the rules. Never crossed the line with anyone he wasn’t romantically linked to. And yet…
There you were.
The flowers were perfect; only needing to be watered. The cherry tree was much more…complicated. The chances of animals recklessly hunting for the sweet fruit was high, the chances of the red drupes rotting also was. Therefore, you spent most of your time there.
Maybe you were avoiding him; you told yourself you were already horrified at the dirty thoughts taking over like the plague. And perhaps he was doing the same; he had only been locked in his room for the past three hours.
Golden hour. With your hands on your hips, you squint, admire the polished drupes, tickling with water. Walking back to the bench, you lay down, picking up on your reading, occasionally taking sips from your Cherry Cola.
Pacing the small bedroom, Oscar mutters to himself. Maybe she didn’t read all of it. Maybe she doesn't know what it means. Yeah—he was exaggerating. Clicking his window open, he gasped for needed air. As soon as he spots you reading, he grunts.
White skirt brushes down your smooth legs, challenging the sun to see who shines the brightest. Lips wrap around the glass bottle, puckering in the slightest. And he wonders; would you taste as sweet as the cool beverage?
He’s a grown man; an adult. There’s no need to be uncomfortable. Sex was a part of everyone's day to day life. He was the one making it a bigger deal than it actually was. Still, he slips on a pair of sunglasses, perched perfectly onto the bridge of his nose.
“Is it any good?”
His voice makes you flinch, dropping the book flat on your face. A tiny groan rings through the air. Flashing him a weak smile, you sit up straight, fixing your clothes. “Want one? There’s plenty in the fridge.”
He had noticed, of course he had. Never in a million years did he think he'd see his refrigerator stocked up with the sweet drink. He never cared enough to ask who they belonged to; figured they would just expire.
Wavy hair swings back and forth when he shakes his head. “Gotta keep in shape.” I see, you murmur, loopy eyes peeking over at him, taking another gulp. The sizzling feeling is utterly childish compared to what he’s making you feel. The burning sensation between your legs is annoying and painful, you almost want to plead for help. “I meant the book, by the way.”
“No!” You laugh, nervously. “I mean…it’s alright?”
After he stormed off and left you a breathless puddle, you biked and biked—until you hit the local bookstore. You weren’t looking for anything in particular, simply browsing, but as soon as you reached the section of Erotic Literature, you stopped.
So many—many—wrong choices. Still, humiliated, you paid and fiercely ran out. Maybe this was some sort of punishment for reading what you’re reading; had to be. And Oscar asking questions wasn’t helping. Licking your berry lips, you swallow a thick layer. “What have you been up to?”
Fuck, he moans, large hand sliding up and down his cock; more and more pleasure intensifying. Your tiny dresses. Your short skirts. Your angelic face. The way your lips would separate before every sentence. Your sweet scent that would have normally given him a headache, but instead made him chase after you like a dog.
Finishing all over his thighs, he shudders. White liquid never looked more sinister than at this very moment. After changing, he paces the room with regret.
Pushing the frames further into his face, he hums. “Oh, you know. Just… cleaning up my room.”
-
It’s been a week in a half now and you’re happy to announce that you have fallen into a routine. While Oscar did his daily workout, you would make breakfast. While you worked on the garden, he cooked dinner. Though, he was unbeknownst over the way you would drool over him when he would walk out the door; a compressed shirt hugging his built body tightly, arms begging to be kissed. You were unaware of the way he would rub his face in desperation when you walked out, banging his head purposefully against the cabinet; the way you would skip out with your book and infamous drink, or how you would prettily tie up your hair before you even got started.
It was a mess.
A mocking mess.
This afternoon though, you aren’t flying out the door to the yard, but rather frolicking over to Ms. Alleck, ready to assist. I try my best, but they always wilt! Could it be the humidity? Laughing, you toss your hair up into a bun, messy strands poking out as you cock your head to the side. “Could be, but don’t you worry. We’ll find a way to make it work. Promise.”
He had always known you were kind, gentle, soft spoken…pure. And you doing this only added to his attraction. It’s salad, spaghetti, and salmon that afternoon. Sweaty, you pant. I’m going to squeeze in a shower real quick. But you weren’t sweaty, like you believe; you were glistening.
“This is so cute,” you chirp, sitting cross cross in the old treehouse. A few spider webs make your blood run cold, but he quickly took care of it, apologizing. The brunette blushes.
“I wanted to use it one last time. Before we get rid of it.” Neat brows furrow. “It’s just that it’s old—only a matter of time before it plunges down.”
“What?”
“O-obviously not now!”
After a bit more convincing, you finally relax and enjoy the way the crickets sing against the night. Small feet press against the wall, white tube socks turning slightly brown from the lack of sweeping. For a moment, he shuts his lids, breaths shallow, body loose. The high temperature almost made him feel as if he was cuddling into the warmest blanket; it felt nice.
Whoops, you mumble when hollow glass pounds against the wooden floor. He perks up at the sound, brown eyes burning with high alert. “You do shit on purpose?” he screeches when he detects scarlet blood. Wincing in pain, you curl your hand towards the hem of your dress.
“Help me,” you plead, slight annoyance written all over your face. He must’ve broken the world record of running into the house to retreat the first aid kit, and running right back to you. The way he sanitizes the skin, to the way he wraps your hand with a gauze pad, is honestly hilarious.
“What so funny?” he murmurs, attention never leaving the wound.
“Mmm. Nothing.” He snickers and you giggle harder. “It just seems as if I’m making you a professional. You ought to be ready if anyone else needs your help to treat injuries.”
“Oh, of course. I’ll tell them a certain klutz made me learn from day to night with all her clumsiness.” His voice drops, laced with concern. “Seriously though—you were just healing. You have to be careful.”
Plump lips part with the sound of his delicate voice, accent almost disappearing. Wandering eyes admire the way his brows are knitted together and orbs soften. Swallowing, you nod. “I will.”
“Good.”
The once vibrant room is now hazy and suffocating. Does he not know what kind of effect he has on you? The type of power he holds? Oscar doesn’t seem to, though, with the way he chugs down his entire glass of water. Stuck in a trance, your hand briskly reaches out for your own drink. He roars with laughter, clutching his stomach. “You just broke your bottle, you don’t have a drink anymore.” He picked up the Cherry Cola you had offered, but he had declined. “Take mine.”
You don’t put up a fight, simply allow him to open and give it to you. The sweet drink doesn’t do a great job at hydrating your foaming mouth, but it helps as a distraction. On the other hand, the brunette can’t seem to not watch the ways your lips suck in and out, eagerly. As if this were the only source of air. He shudders.
“We should probably head down…”
Wiping your lips with the back of your hand, you comply, already standing up. From the floor, he has a good view of your legs; long, soft, sweetly scented. He wonders if you use honey as lotion because that would explain his urge to nuzzle his face against them. Picking up the broken glass and plates, you turn back. “Coming?”
A sigh rings through the air once, and suddenly—he’s cradling your face with high intensity and lust, molding his lips against yours. Tomato sauce stains his shirt and your dress from the plates that still remain between you two. One second, you're wide eyed, and then the next, you're allowing yourself to kiss him back.
You want to cry with how pleasant the feeling feels and he wants to scream with how much he wants to fuck you. But alas, one of you pulls away first—you can’t really tell who— and you’re both left gasping for air. Completely winded and fucked.
You both are fucked.
-
The treehouse comes crashing down the day after your first kiss. Yes, first kiss. You would like to blame him and say that he stole it from you, but the arousal that was dripping between your thighs last night was a clear indication that you could never actually say so because you liked it so much.
The wooden house tearing down is something you take as a sign; you’ve sinned. Okay, maybe that was a bit too dramatic, but you were honestly thinking about it. That night you dreamt of the wildest things imaginable; his pretty face in between your legs, large hands squeezing your perky breasts, fingers swirling inside your velvety walls, cock tearing you in half.
It was unacceptable.
So, while Oscar worked on picking up the tiles with a hometown buddy, you marched right over to beg for forgiveness. Kneeling down against the cushion, you say a silent prayer.
I don’t want to think like this—not when I know I can help it, but God this is getting way too out of hand. And you know I’m not like this, you know that! But he just—AGH. Maybe it’s his personality that makes him so attractive, or maybe it’s his sudden growth spurt, but please let me get a hold of myself. He’s just a friend, he’s just a friend—HE’S JUST A FRIEND.
“Would you mind keeping your words to yourself, sweetheart?” an older lady whispers, two rows ahead of you.
Pink feathers onto your cheeks. “Oh, yes, of course! I’m so sorry…”
I don’t ever ask for much, no, that’s never been necessary, but I am now. So please. Hear me when I say: Push this desire I have, far, far, far away.
-
If you were to say, there was a ninety percent chance that you would walk away. Not even spare him a passing glance. He would call you out on it later, but whatever—too late. Ignored you, you say? No, really I did? I had no idea, I’ll make sure to not let it happen again!
If Oscar were to say, there was a ninety-nine percent chance that he would let you walk away. He didn’t need your company; he was doing just fine. But then again, that one percent tugs at him like the devil on his shoulder.
“Hey. You’re back.” Cool. Calm. Collected.
“Oh! I suppose I am.” Cool. Utter. Mess.
He grins, eyes crinkling like the leaves that hang upon the crimson tree. Signaling up, he cocks his head in deep thought. “Just finished. Cole said his uncle could shred…” A pause. “He owns a massive wood chipper.”
Blinking like a deer in headlights, you chew on your bottom lip, simply nodding along. “Sounds good? I think. No. Yes. Very good.” You wince at all the uncontrolled mumbo-jumbo. “I’m sorry I was no help, too. I had to…talk to the man up above.”
“Eh, don’t worry about it. That must be why your pretty little knees are bruised.”
Your breath comes to a harsh halt, ears burning like a wildfire. The Australian just keeps his brown eyes set on the tree for a second longer before turning to face you. Quickly, you relax your muscles. “You could make up for it by helping me with something else.”
You gulp. Suddenly, your mouth is overflowing with hot saliva. “With what?”
Dark orbs glue onto your delicate figure, a slight smirk playing out. And it looks so unfamiliar, not his own, that you create a distance. And just like that, it’s gone. Vanished just as fast as it slipped onto his pink lips. “Get on.” He crouches down and your jaw drops.
“Wha—like onto your shoulders?” Rolling his eyes in a goofy manner, he nods, picks you up safely, and places you on top. You screech, dizzy by the sudden altitude. “Put me down!”
“You’re fine. Just help me reach those. Been craving them all day,” he murmurs, voice raspy. The twenty-three year old is still slightly sweaty from his hard labor, and that’s clear when you cling onto his brown locks. Other than that, you’re as high as a kite; both figuratively and literally.
You’ve known—seen—how tall and broad the Australian was, but being perched onto his wide shoulders was a sweet confirmation you couldn’t help but enjoy. “Move a bit forward.” He follows instructions, wide hands gripping onto your thighs to keep you steady. You giggle when a few fruits hit your face. “Watch it—and don’t you dare drop me.”
“Get,” he commands.
About three minutes pass by. You rip the cherries carefully, candy aroma filling the air, and plop them onto the basket. By all accounts, you’re well aware of your actions. The basket was full, now overflowing, really, and you could plant your ballet flats back onto the tall grass—but you don’t.
There’s something about feeling his touch; high electricity, shock waves nipping at your skin, soft pants. It’s pathetic how much you crave any ounce of physical touch he’s willing to give you, unknowingly.
“That should be good,” you whisper, meekly. He doesn’t respond, just swings you down as you let out a yelp. All of a sudden, you’re magically magnetic. And he wonders; if only. You hand the basket over, waiting nervously for him to thank you, at least.
“Thank you,” he feels himself saying. “What do you say we play a little game? No prize. Only bragging rights.”
“O-okay.”
A singular cherry is handed over. He grins. Can you tie a knot using your tongue? “Wait—are you being serious?”
The red fruit dissolves inside his mouth, spitting the seed somewhere far enough away. Then, the stem flips into his mouth. “Come on. I’ll give you a head start.”
With wary hands, you rip the stem away from your own drupe, fitting the thin stick into your suddenly dry mouth. He stares intently, clenching his jaw, “Go on. Ten seconds.” Quickly, your lips start to move, twisting and turning. Pouting, then sucking back in. Your low breaths become heavy after a few tries. You think you’re getting it done right, the sudden ball forming is enough for you to guess that you must be doing something correct.
The sound of his low mewls is what ends you. Doe eyes flicker up to face him, paying close attention to how his brown eyes wander up at the sky in concentration, occasionally squinting due to the bright sun. You can feel a thin layer of sweat hug you like a blanket as your movements slow down; a snail's pace compared to before.
For good measure, you fake your twists as you continue to simply admire. Too far gone, you blink hastily when he sticks his pink tongue out towards you, a stinking knot sitting nicely atop.
“I won.”
Gulp. “You sure did. Good job, Oscar.”
Long lashes flutter shut momentarily, head tossed back, sighing. “It wasn’t a fair fight. You weren’t doing anything. Other than staring at my lips.”
Flustered, you dig your hand into the bucket. “That’s not true! At all. At all, at all.” You munch harder, splitting a seed in half. You spit it out sourly. “You're just better at using your mouth than I am.”
It goes straight to his cock, your words. Opening his eyes, the brunette scrunches his nose. You’re avoiding his gaze. You’re good at doing that. A pro. But it leaves him to wonder some more. And that itself was dangerous when it dawned on him.
He doesn’t like daydreaming anymore.
“Fuck it,” he grunts, kissing you harshly, like the night before. And you thought that blew your mind, but this? This left you gasping and reaching out for him even though he was pressed right against you. You could feel him buzzing, pinching your hips against his large hands. It’s perfect.
You don’t really understand how you end up straddling him on the grass, green straining your knees as you grind harder onto him, forcing your skin to burn with each stroke. This—this—must be as good as it gets. There can’t be more, but you weren’t complaining. It was enough.
When his fingers dance underneath your dress, you halt, and everything comes crashing down. “No,” you pant. “I can’t. I’m sorry. I really am.”
“Why is that, baby?” he mumbles, lost on sucking the side of your neck. Looking up, his straight brows drew in together with concern. “What is it?”
“It’s just that…I’m—” Why is it so hard to admit? Brushing a strand of hair away, you purse your lips. “I’m a virgin, Oscar. It’s odd, I know, but I can’t sleep with you.”
“You think I didn’t know that?’
You freeze. “What?”
His thumbs circle your thighs, gently, swooning with how soft you feel. “I figured you were. Your purity ring sort of gave it away.” You blush hard, rolling off of him, playing with the thin band.
“I wish I could do this—God, I really want to—but I can’t.”
Respecting your decision, he pats your hand with reassurance. The hot feeling remained between your legs and the pain between his. This was torture, you both know that, but what was there to do? It’s awkward for a while, that is, until he starts asking you about things that shouldn’t make you glow with happiness.
How was your day? I want to hear all about it. Do you think it’s bad to eat an entire bucket of drupes? Must be, right? In the long run? Hey, would you mind teaching me how to garden? You make it look intriguing.
That seems to do it for you. Everything you ever promised flies out the window as you climb back onto his thick lap, and this time, he’s surprised by your actions. Clumsy fingers try their best to unzip his pants, but he only stutters against your kisses. N-no, we don’t have to rush anything. I, you, we—
“Shit, o-okay,” he sighs when you finally touch him, even in the slightest. He may be touch deprived, but so were you, so how far would any of this go? Flipping you over to lay against the tall grass, he winks teasingly and that effectively makes your heartbeat quicken. “Relax, sweetheart. Do that for me, yeah? Can you?”
“Yes. Yes. Yes.”
The McLaren drivers press a kiss on the inside of your thighs before licking them. You shiver, though try your best to even your breaths. You shut your eyes, maybe if you act hard enough, you could somehow convince yourself that this wasn’t a war itself. To see how long you’d last. No—you would last. You had to.
“I’ve thought about it.” He slips your panties down, inch by inch. “A lot, as of lately. If you would taste just as sweet as I imagined. As sweet as those Cherry Cola’s you're overly obsessed with.” And he dives in, licking your arousal clean as you pant, chest heaving up and down like an erupting volcano.
What were you supposed to feel—relaxed? In a frenzy? Most likely the latter because considering the way he was making your head spin said it all. The sounds he’s making forces you to involuntarily shut your legs around his face and his hand that now lies between you two. The stretch is a burning sensation that leaves you both gasping and moaning; it’s too much, but not enough.
More. Grinning up from in between your legs, he shakes his head full of curls, all thanks to the Aussie weather, and your dirty foreplay. “Does it feel good?” You whimper. “Good—good, baby. That’s all I’ve ever wanted.” Velvet walls clench around his long digits. “Hey, hey, look at me.”
Once your soft orbs connect to his intoxicating ones, his cock grows harder. “Okay, listen, it’s going to hurt a little bit, okay? But that’s completely normal; it’s like a…a stingy feeling. Do you understand?” I do, you pant. He grits his teeth when his calloused fingers brush against your g-spot and your head lolls back, exposing your sharp clavicle. He itches to mark you all over. “Do you want it, then?”
A zing. “Fuck, Oscar. I fucking want you.”
The brown eyed boy is all over you, kissing you up and down, gripping you tighter. It was an addiction in its truest form. For a split second, you frown when he slips out of you, but as soon as he starts unzipping his pants, you feverishly lick your lips.
It dawns on you that you aren’t scared, nervous, or anything; you’re bubbling with excitement. You watch carefully as he jerks himself off a bit, his already large girth growing bigger. How is that possible? “I’ll start with the tip.” Leaning down, he pecks your pouty lips and you smile. “Let me know if it’s too much, we’ll stop and take a break. Or do anything, really,” he adds, cheekbones flushing red.
“I’ll be okay,” you whisper. “I swear.”
You were being skinned alive, it was excruciating pain. You know he notices it when he starts brushing your hips, hoping to comfort you in some sort of way. Heavy breaths, numb lips from biting too hard, exposed breasts arching straight for him. He didn’t know whether to enjoy this or worry.
“Breath, darling, breath. In through your nose, out through your mouth. There you go,” he congratulates, admiring your shaky breath. “You’re doing so good.”
“Osc, move…please.”
There was no more confirmation necessary that you were ready to go. His hips find motion, thrusting into you slowly. Nails scratch down his back as you moan loudly, almost yelping. “Y-you’re so big.” So, so, so, so big. “So good.”
Nearly animalistic, he releases a grunt, pounding deeper into you, getting lost with the way you hug him tightly. You mewl, pressing your naked chest against his, and he nearly slips from his hands being set on top of the cold grass, but it was beautiful torture, all at once.
From the way you tremble, to the way you look up at him, he loves it all. He realized it been too long, he’s missed this, he’s missed having a body undeaneath his, as fucked up as that sounds.
And he—he must be a saint, himself. There’s a sort of invisible halo that lightens up around him, nearly blinding you. There’s a gut-wrenching stare he’s gifting you, making your stomach churn with pleasure.
Wrapping his mouth around your sore buds, you let out a shaky sigh. Skillful tongue swirls the way one would suck on a lollipop; the heat intensifies. “Close?” But you’re not sure, you just know it feels good—ridiculously good. He must have known so, and must want to make your first experience the best you’ll ever have, because suddenly, you’re on all fours.
As he slips in and out with such ease, you grip harshly at the tall grass. You can hear the sad rips with every thrust and every tug, but how can you feel bad when he feels so good? His cock rapidly brushes the magic spot, and you’re left seeing stars. “Oh God. I feel it, Oscar, fuck, fuck, fuck—”
“Tell me. Describe it.”
Your jaw locks, and your arms give up, flying down towards the grass, round ass high up in the air as he continues his movements. He groans at the sight, slapping your sweaty skin. Whining, you look back at him, grinning from ear to ear. The Australian looks up at the open sky, trying his best to push back the feeling of his upcoming orgasm, but it's hard to ignore the fact that an absolute angel takes him like no other.
And an Angel you were.
“Can feel your cock, Oscar. The way it pulses—so thick, so veiny, so sweet.”
An Angel with a vocabulary of Heathen.
“God, fuck me harder, please, Oscar, please.” He’s pretty sure you’re half-gone, half-present, but it only adds to the lust he carries for you. Just then, you feel the fresh cherry pressed up against your lips. Open, he demands and you follow straight away, ripping it from its stem. You nearly choke on the seed when he suddenly speeds up, limbs and arms burning from holding upright. For a moment, you stare back with an open mouth, admiring over the way his abs contract with every brutal push.
“Now spit.” Two seeds fly out towards the grass, laying there to taunt you as you pick up on your moans, ringing through the air. If you squint hard enough, you can spot the stars that mock the daylight sky. It doesn’t make sense, but then again, none of this does. “So pretty, sweetheart.” You swoon, feeling his arms hold you down. “Again—open.”
You’re expecting another set of cherries, thinking this might be some sort of prize, but as soon as you feel the familiar stick, you pout. No, you cry out. He chuckles. “Yes.” A pause. “You only get to come until you tie a knot.”
“You’re not being f-fair, holy shit.” Long fingers rub slowly against your puffy clit, throbbing with pain, begging to come all of his numbing girth. You clench your jaw, eyes screwed shut.
“We don’t have all night, go on. Move that pretty little mouth of yours.”
It’s a mission, it’s a task, it’s a fucking wreck. It’s impossible. You’re not that surprised, though, not when he thrusts into with twice as much force, triple speed; what a man. Loose tongue swirls at a weak attempt, but then he pinches your swollen bud, and you’re back to square one. You’re nearly there, excited to prove to him how much you wanted this and how you were able to multitask, but then he’s pulling all the way back, only his rosy tip awaiting by your entrance, and he’s coming back down, full-throttle.
It was cruel.
But two can play that game, you suppose.
You pull away quickly, he blinks, and then you’re pushing him back, sprawled on the grass. He nearly whines from missing your warm cunt, but as soon as you climb to sit on his face, he grows more and more turned on. “Go on,” you push. “Use that pretty little tongue of yours.”
Dark eyes stare up at you, enjoying the way your body moves, hips rolling, riding his face at an impressive rate. The white nectar you're willing to spill out makes him lap at an embarrassing speed, desperate to taste the sweetness.
Meanwhile, you’re gripping his hair, trying to feign indifference with the way his nose rubs against your lips, the way he keeps you in place with his watch covered hand, the other playing with your clit. It’s even, this is fair, but you still needed to reach your end.
“I’m close,” you moan, head rolling back, but jaw continuing to tick. He hums and the vibrations cause you to squeeze your legs around his face. That seems to make him enjoy this far more. Unless you show me you’ve done it, then no, you’re not coming anytime soon. Your molars grind harder, white spots forming throughout your vision. “Shut up, just—fucking stop talking.”
“What do y’know? Miss Perfection has a potty mouth.” He pokes his tongue against your hole. “Dirty girl, eh?”
With one final suck, and one soft moan, you cum all over him. The Australian is quick to lick you clean, groaning pathetically deep. Gasping, you fall from your climax, slightly twitching with sensibility as he hauls you onto his lap. You giggle when he raises a teasing brow.
“You got away with it—this time.”
“There’s going to be a second time?”
He stiffens, trying to play it cool. “Well, not anymore, you didn’t do what I asked for you to do—”
Opening your mouth, you stick your red tongue out, displaying the most perfect knot. He gapes, sticking his fingers in to retrieve it. “H-how?” A beat, sharp and accusing eyes. “Seriously, how?”
“Does it matter?” you ask, wide eyes back on for show. “I did it.”
“I…yeah, yeah you did,” he repeats in disbelief. He laughs. “You’re wickedly talented. That's an art.”
“Thanks,” you mumble, slowly, mixed with a giggle. “I tried my best for you.”
“I see that.” The brown eyed boy pinches your hip. “How was it?”
Sighing dreamily, as if napping on a cloud, your eyes twinkle. “I get it now. Why people have casual sex, I mean. It was amazing. Thank you.”
Casual, casual, casual, yes. Of course this was casual, why wouldn’t it be casual? He’s not looking to have anyone new in his life, and you’re barely understanding what any of this is, so yeah. Casual.
“Was I bad?” you ponder, chewing on your bottom lip. “I know I’m no professional, but I—”
“You were perfect,” he reassures with a soft smile. “Best thing to come around, solemnly swear.” Swatting his arm, he snickers, catching your hand. You purse your lips. “I was right,” he murmurs when his lips graze over your own. You open your mouth, waiting for more.
“About?”
“You tasting as sweet as a Cherry Cola.” Then he connects your lips, and you’re left utterly smitten. You can hardly feel him slip your ring off, but you know so when your finger feels empty since the moment you first put it on. “Guess you won’t be needing this anymore?”
“Guess not, no. Keep it.”
“Could take it to a Pawn Shop, sell it for a couple dollars…”
“Hey! Be nice, you dimwit,” you warn. “You should feel special. Stupidly special.”
“I’m kidding. I’ll cherish it.”
“Creep.”
He groans, slapping your ass as you squeal. “There’s no right or wrong answer, it seems like. Very well, let's just leave it at thanks. So…thank you for trusting me.” You blush, looking away. Awkwardly, you reach for your dress, slipping it over your head. He coughs, dressing himself before choking back a much needed chuckle. “Looks like we got dragged through the mud.”
“Ah, ew, I can’t. I need to shower.”
Reaching your end of the hallway, you press your back up against the wooden door as you sheepishly giggle when Oscar does the same. “Okay then…see you around?”
“Around town?”
“Around the house.”
“In the garden?”
“In the attic, too, maybe. It still needs a good sweep.”
He rolls his eyes. “Do we still have time?”
“Before your parents get back from Costa Rica?”
“Yes.”
“Which is in—”
“A week.”
“Which is—”
“Seven days.”
“And roughly…”
“Enough time.”
“Enough time to do what?”
He laughs, eyes crinkling suggestively, and your heart pounds hard against your ribcage. “Come here and I’ll show you.”
“Yeah,” you ponder in deep thought before your lips stretch out into a bright smile of your own. He raises dark brows as you scurry over with bruised knees, a muddy dress, and an exploding heart. “Yeah, okay. Just until they get back.”
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can i request spencer reid w bau!reader and their married but reader forgets to put her wedding ring back on and derek’s asking spencer about what happened/if theyre having marital problems and spencer starts panciking but she just forgot about it in her pocket😭
Derek's brow is knitted in real, authentic concern when he corners Spencer in the BAU's kitchenette, and it turns Spencer's stomach. Usually, Derek has a teasing glimmer in his eyes, but it's scarily absent today, and he braces a large hand on Spencer's lanky bicep.
"Pretty boy," Derek starts, and his tone is soft, soothing, kind, "Anything you wanna talk about? I'm here if you need me, y'know."
Spencer tries feigning calm, which is terribly hard to do as someone who's fraught with nerves constantly, but he keeps an even tone when he speaks.
"I don't think so. Should I want to talk about something?"
Derek smiles sympathetically, almost a grimace, and Spencer feels a flash of fear run through him. Has Derek heard something about his mom?
"I don't think anyone else has noticed yet," Derek assures Spencer, "But I saw Y/N's not wearing her ring."
It's not what he'd been expecting, dreading, but it's not pleasant either. Spencer's eyes dart hurriedly to your hunched form, shoulders bent and crowding your desk as you devote yourself entirely to your paperwork. Sure enough, your wedding ring is absent from your finger, leaving an uncomfortably blank space on your skin, and Spencer's brows knit together.
"I didn't know," Spencer admits, keeping his voice to a low murmur, "I- But- we aren't having any problems. I don't think."
Derek shoots that awful pitying grimace his way again, and Spencer shakes his head, his stringy hair flying.
"No, no- we're not- we're not having problems," He asserts, but he's not sure if he's trying to convince himself or Derek more, "I mean, we bickered about coffee this morning, but not- not marriage problems bad. She just forgot it."
Spencer knows what expression will be on Derek's face if he looks, so he doesn't. He busies himself with stirring the rest of the sugar into his coffee, excusing himself before Derek can press the issue even further.
On his way out of the kitchenette he snags a donut from an open box on the counter, slipping a napkin beneath it and trying not to rush to your desk. He doesn't want to seem obvious, but he's a flaming bundle of nerves.
"Angel," He gets right to the point, placing the donut beside your hand on the desk and leaning over the back of your chair. He nestles his cheek to yours, pressing his lips against the curve of your jaw and blocking your conversation from view of the bullpen with the way he shrouds you from behind.
"Spence," You begin, alarmed at the sudden ambush of sugar, both literally and figuratively, "What-?"
"Are you mad at me?" He asks, sounding rather like a child worrying to their parents. You're only more confused after his question, and you tentatively shake your head.
"No? Should I be?"
"I don't think so," Spencer hums, "But you're not wearing your ring."
You blink, glancing at your bare ring finger.
"Oh!" You gush, your shoulders pressing back against his own as you maneuver your hand into your pocket. It's difficult sitting down, but you retrieve the ring and jam it back onto your finger, "I took it off earlier because I was taking the trash out. I didn't want it to get all goopy, and I guess I just forgot it was in there." You let your explanation hang in the air for a moment, but your eyes flash with sympathy, remembering Spencer's initial question, "Oh, Spence, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to freak you out."
"It's okay," He breathes out a shaky sigh of relief, reluctant to straighten up from where he's hugging you from behind, "You didn't even freak me out. Morgan did."
You laugh, and the sound soothes those frayed nerves in his chest, the ones that had lit with sparks of panic at Morgan's pity, "Well, don't listen to Morgan from now on. However," You reach for the donut, tearing it in half and holding one end out to Spencer while you catch the other between your teeth, "If it means I get donuts in apology, maybe I'll forget my wedding ring in my pocket more often."
#spencer reid x reader#spencer reid imagine#spencer reid scenario#spencer reid oneshot#spencer reid one-shot#spencer reid one shot#spencer reid headcanons#spencer reid headcanon#spencer reid hc#spencer reid hcs#spencer reid fanfiction#spencer reid fanfic#spencer reid fic#spencer reid blurb#spencer reid drabble#spencer reid dialogue#spencer reid fluff#spencer reid x reader fanfiction
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The Radio Demon fucks a Human Sacrifice (part two)
This is part two! Here is part one. I lied, there is a bit of smut! Oopsie daisy. Inspired by @moonmark98 ‘s story idea of reader trying to forget Alastor and failing. I hadn’t planned a second part initially so I hope you like it 🥺
⟢ part1♡̶sidestory♡̶part2♡̶part3♡̶part4 ⟣
You return to earth and spend a year trying to crawl out from under the memory of Alastor. When an employee tells you a terrible past trauma, you end up right back where you started.
<Tags/Warnings/Promises: Alastor x reader, light smut, not as explicit as part one, masturbation, implied childhood trauma, justified homicide regarding said implication, stabbing, death, a realistic description of my former job, gerbil slander, your bitch aunt Sara, hiking as a hobby, guns, shooting, choking, florida weather, mentions of the 2021 Loo Loo Land fire>
minors DNI
“Ooh my, this is highly unusual. Charlie is right, you really shouldn’t be here.” Stolas fretted over you. “Uuunfortunately I don’t have my book at this particular moment however I can just snag it from Blitzy and be back soon.”
“What’s a blitzy?” Angel looked around the room to no one in particular.
“What isn’t he?” Stolas cooed.
“Wait a minute!” Husk snapped his fingers, “Is that the imp who burned down loo loo land?”
“The very one!”
“He also takes hits out on people on earth, doesn’t he?” Husk gave Stolas a sideways look. Alastor hummed in acknowledgment.
“Ah haha yes” Nervously chuckling, Stolas scratched at the feathers behind his neck, “Anywho! I’ll return shortly and get you back where you belong, little one.” He flashed his kind smile to you before bowing to Charlie and portaling out of the room.
“Are you sure you’re okay?” Charlie sat beside you on the edge of the bed. You’d been escorted immediately to an empty room upon arrival, sat down while the core staff of the hotel flitted about wildly upon hearing Angel’s recounting of events.
“You smell dirty”, the tiny maid cackled and ran to you before being lifted by her apron by Husk.
“That is a”, you rubbed your wrists nervously, “complicated question…”
“There’s nowhere safer in all of hell than this room. With Vaggie and me and Alastor”, Charlie brought her hands to her mouth, “or— not Alas- I mean” She looked at Vaggie, “What do I mean??”
“Nothing and no one will lay a finger on you here.” Vaggie was staring at Alastor when she said it.
“I don’t think its fingers anyone’s worried about”, Angel shifted his gaze from Alastor to you and back.
Alastor turned his head slowly to meet Angel’s eyes, “Did you say something, Angel Dust?”
He shook his head and quickly left, Niffty and Husk in tow.
“I think you should leave, too.” Vaggie crossed her arms.
Alastor replied by taking a step closer to you, gesturing with his microphone, “I don’t see what all the fuss is about. She is safe and sound, barely a bruise on her.” He looked over you, the side of your face still slightly pink from the way you hit the ground hardly an hour ago. He could hear your body sliding across the wooden cabin floor still, what a strangely exciting noise. What else could he drag you across? What surfaces could he slide your over? What noises would they make? What noises would you make?
“You took her fucking soul, Alastor. In a coerced deal!”
“If I remember correctly, that is exactly what I had been asked to do.” He grinned, taking his monocle off and cleaning it on his sleeve. Vaggie looked to Charlie, who shrunk from her horrified face. “Plus, she’s still alive. Who knows if the deal even counts. I’ve never made one with a living person.” With an exaggerated shrug, Alastor took a seat on the sofa opposite the bed, legs crossed. “Either way, she isn’t anywhere near Val anymore.” His eyes met yours, for the first time since…
You looked away. He wanted to grab your chin and force you to see him. He wanted to read what was written on your face. Shame? No…yes, but something more. Embarrassment. Confusion. Ah— You clenched your jaw, finally returning his stare. Anger. “Did I not do exactly what I had promised I would? What I had warned you I would?” Your lips curled over your teeth. “While yes, I hadn’t explicitly stated the number of times-“
“Stop talking! No, no. Enough of that.” Charlie waved her arms as if she could dissipate the very topic away, “Alastor could you please give me a moment alone with her?” She looked at him with big, worried eyes, “Please?”
Through gritted teeth Alastor acquiesced, “It is your hotel, Princess. I’ll be just outside the door.” The last sentence was for you, you could feel it like you could feel his shadow still ghosting over your legs.
As soon as the door shut, she closed the distance between you, looking to Vaggie who offered her a supportive nod.
“Seriously, are you hurt? Did he— Did he hurt you?”
Oh, you wish he had. That’d be easier to say. Easier to process. You wish he’d knocked you around like Val had done earlier. That left you indignant, enraged. But this — whatever this was — you couldn’t find purchase on a reaction. You didn’t even want to think the things bubbling under your consciousness.
“Just my pride. Uhh,” you shifted, your thighs and cunt sore to the touch, “He really did warn me. Got my okay, kind of. And he didn’t hurt me, except dragging me around and flipping me but-”, You noticed Charlie’s alarmed expression, “I’m physically fine.”
She nodded, her expression still oozing concern, “Well that’s good, then.”
“What… You both seem humanish, but what exactly are-“ You tipped your head in the direction of the door.
“Well I think Angel is some kind of spider…Husk, not entirely sure honestly”, Charlie looked up as if searching for a memory, “Alastor is a deer. It’s all tied to how people lived and died, I think.”
A deer? You shook your head, “Nothing about that man resembles a prey animal.”
“His death sure did.” Vaggie commented.
“So if I have some weird death I’ll end up here? If I drown… I’ll come back as a fish?” You were mostly thinking out loud, and hadn’t expected Charlie to nod in agreement.
“But don’t think about that! You might still go to heaven. Like Al said, he isn’t even sure the deal is binding.” She beamed and clapped her hands together.
It felt binding.
When that green light had erupted from beneath you, you thought you could feel him. Not the tentacles, or the memory of his hand. It felt like he was in the light itself, casting shadows on the ceiling in the shape of you. It felt alive, every ray of light a breathe washing over you.
You looked down at the robe, white and silky. Where were your clothes? Where was your fucking aunt? What about your phone? You had a car, too. Wait, no… did you drive to her house? Or did she…You hadn’t slept since being dragged to hell. Staring at the hem of the sleeve, you tried to focus your mind but suddenly you were wading in cognitive mud.
Shadows gathered near the foot of the bed before you saw Alastor rise out of the cluster. Charlie said something, Vaggie said something but sharper. It sounded far away already. Your body was beginning to feel heavy, an ache settling across your back and thighs.
“Perhaps you should lie down, my dear.” His voice cut through the murky waters of your thoughts. The bed sunk beside you as he pressed a hand down, the other lifting your chin to force eye contact. Vaggie made a loud noise, Charlie a smaller one, a longer one. Was it words? Were they speaking? Your lids were heavy over your eyes, Alastor’s face beginning to blur. His smile looked strained, eyebrows knitted together in an emotion almost recognized. Concern? His grin threw it off. You raised your eyebrows to try and open your eyes wider but the effect was minimal.
You heard yourself groan as an arm hooked under your knees, another catching your shoulders as you fell to the side. It felt like you were floating. Your legs came down slowly, you could feel the robe adjusting around your waist. Your head went back before comfortably straightening. A warmth spread down your neck, leaving goosebumps to runaway down your shoulder. It was dark now, and in the haze you heard from somewhere so close it felt like maybe you had thought it yourself, “In perpetuity, mon cher.”
You didn’t recognize the room at first, but when you finally managed to lift yourself out of bed you sighed. Home. You only knew it had been real because of the robe and busted lip. Well, mostly sure.
No one noticed you were gone, which wasn’t shocking. Working backwards, you could piece together you had gone to visit your aunt on Saturday morning. You awoke early Monday in your own bed some 60 miles from your aunt's home. Your car had been found abandoned off an old dirt road way outside of town.
You tried to get back to life, get to work. But you were clearly only half there.
Your aunt was found dead the following weekend, half submerged in a swamp just outside of Tampa. Her funeral was funny. Not “haha” funny, “Say hi to Val for me” kinda funny. When they lowered her into the ground you wondered what she looked like. What's the animal manifestation of a selfish, raging bitch? What’s the most untrustworthy home appliance?
Probably a gerbil, or a toaster.
You found yourself doing that a lot, What will they look like in the afterlife?
It took a good six months for you to stop sleeping in the robe. You couldn’t trash it, it was evidence you had been spirited away. It smelled like smoke and baby oil. Like Angel. It was soft on your skin, like—
Oh. It took less time for the dreams to calm down. Maybe a month of waking up in a cold sweat.
At first they were stressful. Val backhanding you. The feeling of leather chafing against your wrists. The cabin. The real one, not the set.
But then one night they weren’t stressful. You could remember the dream like it had really happened. A large hand cupping your cheek, another roaming past your hips before hooking under your knee. The warmth of a breath on your neck, on your navel. More hands. Everywhere. Your back, your ankle, your neck.
You woke up and the first feeling you felt was disappointment. It hit you like a truck.
The dreams slowly ramped up until some nights you awoke mid-orgasm. Never in your life had you experienced wet dreams; you didn’t even know women got them.
And it wasn’t always him—- well, not at first. You’d be kissing someone, a stranger or your ex or whoever. You’d have your hands in their hair, enjoying the feeling of their tongue sliding over yours. You’d be positively humming into their mouth. They’d pull you forward, lie you down, tugging your pants down your legs.
When they’d kiss up your arm and nestle into your neck they’d whisper hottily into your ear, “My doe.”
Sometimes you woke up, but many times you didn’t. Many times you grabbed his face and kissed him, letting him take control and direct you. You’d shrink beneath him, allowing him to use your body as he pleased. You’d surrender, you’d melt. He’d fuck you into the ground of god-knows-where, nails cutting into the flesh of your ass as he pulled you up to meet each punishing thrust. There were trees and starlight and you felt the humidity on your skin.
You’d always squirm away, try to escape the pleasure and he would find joy in pulling you back onto his cock. It felt like a game where you both already knew the outcome. “Going to cum, sweetheart?”, would be the last thing you heard before the real life spasms of your release stirred you awake.
The first man you took home after returning to earth was sweet. Gentle. Too gentle. You’d try to direct him, to let him know you wouldn’t break but he’d shy away from asserting dominance.
Other partners were more in charge, but it didn’t sit right. If you were going to allow someone control over you, you felt like they had to deserve it. You needed to respect them in some capacity.
You tried choking during sex, while it did heighten the pleasure their hand felt so small it broke your concentration. Bondage was fun, you got a rush from shibari, but all it did was inform your dreams.
You tried femdom, and while it was impowering it didn’t scratch that itch. You tried being a sub, but like before you found the people over you as unworthy of you. You didn’t think so highly of yourself, it’s just that autonomy was precious and these people were, well, just people. Mortals.
Your friends enjoyed your hoe era, self titled, but it was short lived. It had been eight months since you returned when you bought your first real sex toy, and took up hiking. It felt nice to be outdoors, and the days you spent in the forests seemed to make for nights of less intense dreams.
Your toy was, ashamedly, selected for its three points of contact. A pink little vibrator, big enough to need some work into you but not painful. The first time you used it you clung to your pillow, heart ballooning against your spiked blood pressure, and screamed a chorus of his name. The two points inside you vibrating in tandem with the small suction cup shape extending from the base doming your clit brought back delicious memories.
Every time, you felt embarrassed after. You could imagine him hearing you all the way in hell and chuckling at how pathetic you were. Satisfied at how empty you felt after.
It wasn’t just about the sex, you were never a very sexually needy person. You were chasing that feeling of surrender, of being both safe and out of control at the same time. The little bit of danger with the pleasure. But not, “local woman found dead in the woods” kind of danger. “Corrupt your soul and ruin your afterlife” kind of danger.
After a year of being earthside, life had finally calmed. Were you still fucked in your dreams? Yes, but a manageable once or so a month. Your toy was nice, but not necessary. A man, or anyone, hadn’t touched you in months. And that was alright. You felt almost normal, except the mornings you woke up hoping to see a pair of red eyes somewhere in the room.
You chalked it up to escapism.
Work had promoted you, twice, which helped distract you from boredom. While performing one of your monthly employee meetings, you met with a young man you’d recently hired. He was still in college, but he had a good head on his shoulders and made quick decisions. You were confident he’d be your equal within the year.
(Implied childhood trauma below the line; not graphic but it’s implied to have happened)
⊹˚₊‧───────────────‧₊˚⊹
“Tired?” He asked you while you logged back into your computer.
You nodded, yawning into the back of your hand, “Spent most of Sunday at Shallow Ridge. Scoping out a good camping spot for when it warms up.”
“No shit, my dad hunts out there. Every Sunday, too.”
“I didn’t take you for the hunting type”, You blinked away the exhaustion and opened his employee file.
“Nah I’m not.” He shook his head, “He used to take me all the time when I was little.”
You nodded, not looking at him and only half listening, “Aww, sounds fun.”
He scoffed. You found the audio file of his graded phone calls, double clicking it. The file seemed corrupted.
“Not fun?” You absentmindedly asked.
You opened the program to manually find the call file. The silence began to creep over you until you felt your chest heavy under the weight of it.
You finally looked at him. The look in his eyes was distant, the color from his face was gone.
“Hey”, your tone changed, your subconscious recognizing something before you did.
He snapped back up, looking at you now. His smile didn’t meet his eyes. You didn’t say anything, just pushed your chair from your desk and looked directly at him.
“What?” He averted his gaze.
“You know you can tell me anything, right? You’re not just a resource here. Hell, I see you more than my own flesh and blood.”
He nodded, and when he finally brought his eyes back to yours his composure cracked and tears fell down his cheeks in streams. “It’s fine” he forced a laugh, “It was like a million years ago.”
You took off the rest of the day, and after providing hugs and your own tears and information on company sponsored counseling and resources, you went home.
Well, first you went to the camping store. And then home. Your dreams that week were calm, as if they knew you couldn’t enjoy a romp in a field.
When Saturday night bled into Sunday morning, you drove your car to Shallow Ridge. You placed the keys on the front seat and left your phone under the seat itself.
You waited for four hours, but eventually a truck pulled up and the man you saw in various Facebook photos and tagged family Christmas cards made his way into the dense forest. You circled back on the trail, head dizzy.
You knew you couldn’t overpower him, but you weren’t trying to win. You just wanted to make him hurt. You’d met men like him before. You’d suffered men like him. Survived men like him. When you two crossed paths on the barely marked trail and you were a beat behind him, you stopped, took out the hunting knife you were told could cut bone, and brought it down into the crook of his neck with both hands.
He whipped around, shock and panic on his face as his hands came back from his shoulder bloody. When he scrambled for his gun you sliced at his chest, then again at his throat but it wasn’t deep enough to stop him.
As he advanced on you, fumbling with his shotgun, you tumbled backwards. He fell with you, pinning you down beneath the full weight of his body on your stomach. Twisting beneath him you almost got onto your side when you sunk the knife into his inner thigh, remembering the artery there from your mother’s surgery. He got the gun loaded, aimed it at your chest, “Crazy bitch!”
“Fuck you.”
He fired.
Your breath left steam as it flitted weakly from your body, frost still on the ground. Your mouth was open as blood held your face to the forest floor. As your vision darkened, you watched the man slump over and onto the ground beside you. His eyes were open and unmoving.
A burst of green erupted from beneath you, and you smiled as you sank down into the light.
“Did you miss me terribly, my little doe?”
(Part three)
༻Masterlist༺
#alastor smut#alastor x reader#alastor x reader smut#hazbin hotel smut#hazbin hotel#hazbin hotel x reader#Helluva boss#helluva boss x hasbin hotel#Hasbin hotel x helluva boss#Smut#fanfic#fanfiction#hazbin hotel alastor#18+ content#hazbin alastor#alastor hazbin hotel#alastor#alastor x you#the radio demon#radio demon#alastor the radio demon
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Are all the themes in “in other lands” supposed to be a commentary on something? Or do you just like writing sex scenes between minors, age gaps, and reverse misogyny?
Genuine question.
Ohhh, my dear anon, I don't believe this is a genuine question.
But it does bring up something I've been meaning to talk about. So I'll take the bait.
Firstly. Yes, my work contains a commentary on the world around us. I wonder what I could be doing with the child soldiers being sexually active in their teens (people hook up right after battles), and the age gap relationship ending in the younger one being too mature for the elder. What could I possibly have been attempting when I said 'how absurd gender roles are, when projected onto people we haven't been accustomed by our own society to see that way'? I wasn't being subtle, that's for sure.
Secondly. Yes I do enjoy writing! I think I should, it's my life's work. Am I titillated by my own writing, no - though I think it's fine to be. The sex scenes of In Other Lands aren't especially titillating, to be honest. It is interesting to me how often people sneer at women for writing romance and sex scenes, having 'book boyfriends,' insinuating women writers fancy their own characters. Women having too much immoral fun! Whereas men clearly write about sex for high literary purposes.
… I have to say from my experience of women and men's writing, I haven't found that to be true.
I’m not in this to have an internet argument. I prefer to leave my anons open since not everyone has a tumblr, as @neil-gaiman says it’s an internet backwater, but a lovely one for those like myself who enjoy an essay about fictional characters! Still I will close my inbox to anons if I must. Mostly people use bad faith takes to poke at others from the other side of a screen for kicks. But I do know some truly internalise the attitude that writing certain things is wrong, that anyone who makes mistakes must be shunned as impure, and that is a deeply Victorian and restrictive attitude that guarantees unhappiness.
I've become increasingly troubled by the very binary and extreme ways of thinking I see arising on the internet. They come naturally from people being in echo chambers, becoming hostile to differing opinions, and the age-old conundrum of wanting to be good, fearing you aren't, and making the futile effort to be free of sin. It makes me think of Tennyson, who when travelling through Ireland at the time of the Great Famine, said nobody should talk about the 'Irish distress' to him and insisted the window shades of his carriage be shut as he went from castle to castle. So he wouldn't see the bodies. But that didn't make the bodies cease to be.
In Les Mis, Victor Hugo explores why someone might steal, what that means about them and their circumstances, and who they might be - and explores why someone else is made terribly unhappy, and endangers others, through their own too rigid adherence to judgement and condemnation without pity. The story understands both Jean Valjean the thief and Javert the policeman. Javert’s way of thinking is the one that inevitably leads to tragedy.
Depiction isn't endorsement. Depiction is discussion.
Many of my loved ones have had widely varying relationships to and experience of sex (including 'none'). They've felt all different types of ways about it. If writing about them is not permissible, I close them out. I'd much rather a dialogue be open than closed.
I do understand the urge to write what seems right to others. I've been brain-poisoned that way myself. I used to worry so much about my female characters doing the wrong things, because then they'd be justly hated! Then I noted which of my writer friends had people love their female characters the most - and it was the one who wrote their female characters as screwing up massively, making rash and sometimes wrong decisions. Who wrote them as people. Because that's what people do. That's what feels true to readers.
I want my characters to feel true to readers. I want my characters to react in messy ways to imperfect situations. I love fantasy, I love wild action and I love deep thought, and I want to engage. That's what In Other Lands is about. That's even more what Long Live Evil is about. That sexy lady who sashays in to have sexy sex with the hero - what is her deal? Someone who tricks and lies to others - why are they doing that, how did they get so skilled at it? What makes one person cruelly judgemental, and another ignore all boundaries? What makes Carmen Maria Machado describe ‘fictional queer villains’ as ‘by far the most interesting characters’? What irritates people about women having a great time? What attracts us to power, to fiction, and to transgression?
I don’t know the answers to all those questions, but I know I want to explore them. And I know one more thing.
If the moral thing to do is shut people out and shut people up? Count me among the villains.
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the tiktokification of ao3
or: some of you fundamentally misunderstand ao3 and it really, really shows
i was talking about this with a friend a few days ago and since then i've seen multiple posts of various sorts that have just made me think about it more, so. here is me breaking down a disconnect i see particularly with younger members of the marauders fandom (i say marauders specifically just bc that's the only one i'm plugged into):
okay, so i've seen many (usually younger) marauders fans either talking online about how they wish ao3 was more like social media (specifically regarding algorithms) OR talking about ao3/fanfiction/fanfic writers as if they are operating under the same etiquette/guidelines/assumptions they would bring into social media platforms. this ranges from being mildly irritating to genuinely harmful, and i want to talk abt why.
first - you have to understand that social media, in this day and age, exists in a profit economy. and when i say social media here, i'm referring to platforms like tiktok, twitter, instagram, etc. all of these platforms exist in a profit economy where content is a product that can be monetized. this leads to a few important distinctions:
people posting on these social media platforms are generally posting with the intent to get their content seen by as many people as possible, as quickly as possible
they post with this intent because once their content is consumed by enough people, it becomes a product that they can monetize
therefore, if that content gets popular enough, these people can become influencers, where content creation is an actual job and their audience are, in a sort of vague and obscured way, similar to consumers purchasing a product
because of the profit economy surrounding social media, there are certain assumptions + forms of interaction that bleed across almost all social media platforms. the ones relevant to this little essay include:
operating under the assumption that anyone posting anything on the internet wants to go viral, ie. be seen by as many people as possible as quickly as possible in order to grow an "audience"
these influencers are creating content for us, their audience, so they should want to please us. they should also be trying to appeal to the broadest possible audience. therefore, if we dislike their content, we have a right to make that very, very clear.
in that same vein, we have a general right to critique content creators, as they are making a profit and we are the consumers purchasing their product--much like you might feel entitled to a certain standard of service in a restaurant where you are paying for the food.
when you carry these assumptions over to a platform like ao3, it creates problems. why? in a nutshell: because ao3 exists outside the profit economy
ao3 is a non-profit. it does not have an algorithm because it is not trying to sell you anything. this means that the writers posting their work on ao3 are not making a profit. we are not influencers. we are not creating monetized content to sell to a consumer-audience. where consuming content on other social media platforms might be comparable to eating at a restaurant, reading fanfiction on ao3 is more like coming over to someone's house and eating cookies that they made for free. you are in their house. the cookies are free, given as a gift. so what happens when those assumptions outlined above start to bleed over from other social media?
assuming that anyone posting fanfiction online wants their work to go viral -- i've seen this with popular fic writers getting questions like, "are you worried x isn't going to be as popular as y?" those questions are usually not ill-intended, but they demonstrate a fundamental lack of understanding about why writers post work on ao3. it's not to go viral. it's not to build any sort of online following. most of us who post on ao3 have jobs or schoolwork or other commitments, and writing fanfiction is something done for fun, out of a love for writing. those sharing their work online might be seeking community, but that is fundamentally different from seeking an audience, and in no way involves internet virality. if someone is posting fanfic on ao3 with the hope that it'll "go viral," then they likely either won't continue writing fanfic for long or will reach a point where they have to re-evalute their motivations, because seeking joy and validation by turning your art into a product for consumption just isn't very sustainable.
influencers are creating content for us, so we have a right to let them know if we don't like it -- nope!! fic writers are not influencers. yes, even the popular ones. no matter how much other people might blow their work up on social media, fic writers are still outside the profit economy. they are not creating content for an audience. they are not creating content for you. they are writing because they love it, and they are generously sharing it. if you don't like it, don't interact with it. you are never entitled to loudly and publicly proclaim how much you dislike a fic. i talk about this more here
we have a general right to critique fic writers, the same way we do with content creators/influencers -- again, no. you should not be treating fic writers the way you would treat an influencer on another social media platform, no matter how popular they may be. this is not to say fic writers are beyond all reproach; rather, it is a call-in to check your entitlement. fic writers are not little jesters entertaining in your court. they are not subject to your whims. they do not have to do things for you. they do not have to write things you like. in that post i linked on point 2, i talk about what etiquette might look like if you're really concerned that a fic writer is doing something harmful, but that is not what i'm talking about here. i am talking about the proliferation of negativity i have seen, especially on twitter and tiktok, where people essentially just talk shit about fics or fic writers as though they are entitled to have those fic writers working to please them. this is gross, and it needs to stop. you wouldn't go over to someone's house, eat the cookies they baked to share, and then spit those cookies back in their face and start shouting about what a shitty baker they are. or maybe you would--in which case, congratulations! you are Not A Good Person.
anyway, at the end of the day, a lot of this can be boiled down to: Because ao3 exists outside the profit economy, fic writers are not influencers, and you should never be treating them as though they are. i think i see this disconnect largely with younger people just because they've maybe only ever really understood social media within this sort of influencer-consumer-culture economy, and genuinely don't understand how to interact differently with the internet. so, consider this post a call-in to reevaluate the way you interact with fic writers and the etiquette you use when it comes to engaging with fanfic on ao3! i promise that ao3 being different from social media is a very, very good thing, and also a very, very rare thing, so let's treasure it and focus on fostering community rather than trying to morph it to fit the mould of influencer-audience dynamics that we see almost everywhere else <3
#tldr: fic writers aren't influencers#stop acting like they are#it only creates problems!!!!#anyway if you have engaged in some of these behaviors that doesn't make u a bad person#it just means u should maybe shift ur perspective moving forward#capitalism is a lifeless desert that grows every day and ao3 is a little oasis#let's all enjoy it while we can#instead of trying to place it within a consumer economy#ranting and raving#txt
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Late (Bucky Barnes x Reader)
Summary: When Bucky overhears you telling Natasha about your period being late he immediately knows what this could mean. To ease your mind until you know for sure he tries to subtly show you that he’d be there to care for a potential child. You find yourself surprisingly happy about this possibility. (Female Reader)
Word Count: 4,986
Warnings: Mild Pregnancy Scares, Talk of Menstruation, Baby Fever, No Y/N, Petnames (Doll, Sweetheart)
Crossposted on AO3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/54538210
A/N: Also, quick question, would anyone be interested in a smut fiction with Bucky, containing choking?
---
"I’m really late.”
“How late?”
“My period should have started about seven days ago. I’ve never been this late, normally I’m almost always on time.”
“That really is pretty late.” Natasha mused and turned to face you as you stood next to her on Clint’s porch, overlooking the rainy fields. You were all visiting the Bartons after Clint had gotten injured on a mission, leaving him with a broken femur and you all coming over to try to make the house easier for him to get around with his injury. “Have you talked to Bucky, yet?”
You quieted down for a second, opting to turn back toward the rain rather than look at Natasha’s face, knowing that she would urge you to talk to your partner about this. And you knew that even with such an intimate topic you could always talk to Bucky. Menstruation wasn’t a taboo subject in your relationship, so when you were on your period Bucky was aware of it and when you needed him to comfort you or run to the store to get you supplies he was quick to do so.
The two of you had also talked about the possibility of having children before and you had both agreed that one day you would love to have some of your own but that this day was still in the future. So, you knew he wanted children one day and after being with him for years you also knew that he wouldn’t react negatively to all of this. But you didn’t want to worry him because you thought that your period was late for a whole different reason.
“I was so stressed and busy lately. I even calculated when I should have ovulated and at the time we were flying around the world, trying to take down that crime syndicate.” You explained, not meeting her eyes just yet. “I’m sure it’s just the stress that delayed my ovulation and with that also my period.”
“But have you talked to Bucky about it, yet?”
“Not yet. As I said I’m pretty sure it’s just the stress I’ve been under, so it’s probably not a serious issue and I don’t want to worry him with it. I know that everyone immediately assumes that a late period means someone is pregnant, so I don’t want him jumping to conclusions when it might just be from the stress and will probably resolve itself.” You explained before turning to her. “Can we talk about something else? If I don’t get my period within the next week, I’ll talk to him, alright? But for now, let’s please change the subject.”
“Alright.” Natasha nodded and thought for a second. “How was your date night?”
Before you could answer you heard the screen door open and turned to find Bucky stepping onto the porch. Your eyes locked with his and you smiled brightly, making his face light up as you walked up to embrace him. He pulled you to his side and pressed a kiss to your head.
“Where have you been all day?”
“All around the house really, talking to Steve and Sam, helping Laura and everyone else move things around to make it easier for Clint to get around with his cast on.” Bucky said nonchalantly, leaning over to press his lips to your cheek. “I heard you talking about our date night.”
You looked up at him, worry rising in you for the flash of a second, concerned that he’d heard the previous topic of conversation. But you quickly overplayed your concerns with a bright smile as you nodded and went on to tell Natasha about the museum you’d been to where they were currently showing an exhibition about Captain America. When you started talking about how many children had been there Bucky piped up.
“Sweetheart, do you remember that young girl who recognised me as the man from one of the photos?”
You nodded quickly and turned to Natasha with a bright smile. “He was in the historical photos there and a little girl, no older than maybe five or six years old, recognised him. She was too shy to talk to him at first but we saw her pulling at her father’s sleeve and pointing Bucky out to him.”
“How cute!” Natasha smiled and looked back at Bucky. “Did you go talk to her?”
“He did.” You answered for your partner, a warm smile on your face. “He went up to her and asked her if she could point him to the display of the shields. It was such a good idea because it meant she could be the one to help Bucky.”
“That was exactly why I did it and it did the trick. It put her in charge of the situation and she pointed me to the shields. She tagged along with us as we went there, chatting away with me about how she’d read books about me and Steve, how she wanted to be just like us when she grew up and asking me all sorts of questions. “
Natasha smiled at that, putting her hands on her hips. “Sure you don’t want to switch professions and work in childcare, Buck?”
“No, I’m quite fond of the whole superhero business.” Bucky chuckled and then nodded his head toward you. “I’m also more fond of the idea of having my own children.”
Natasha shot you a pointed look but you remained quiet and simply leaned back into his side, changing the subject of the conversation to an elderly lady who had also approached Bucky after recognising him at the exhibition. Bucky’s hand tensed on your arm for the fraction of a second but before you could even look up he was already talking to Natasha again.
---
It took another hour for the rain to lighten but as soon as it did Clint’s children were outside in the garden, Cooper getting on the tyre swing and pulling out his book, Lila going back to practising her archery which the rain had interrupted her at and Nathaniel running to get his soccer ball to play with. That’s when you heard Clint calling out to all of you, asking for someone to help him get outside onto the porch. Natasha was quick to rush inside to help him while you and Bucky kept an eye on the children.
“Come on, Lila!” Nathaniel complained from down on the field as he approached his sister who put her bow down to look at him. “Why won’t you play with me?”
“I want to practice my archery, Nat.”
Nathanial groaned in annoyance before walking over to his brother. “What about you? Can we play soccer?”
“I just want to finish the chapter first.”
The boy crossed his arms and hung his head in disappointment, kicking his ball to the side and slumping down on a nearby log. You were about to go down into the garden, to try and mediate, comfort Nathaniel or offer to play soccer with him when you felt Bucky’s arm slip off your shoulder. When you turned your head to look at him you saw him giving you a small glance before walking down into the garden, waving at Nathaniel.
“I’ll play with you!”
“Really?” Nathaniel looked up, a smile immediately spreading on his face as he watched Bucky come up to him. “Thank you, Mister Barnes!”
Bucky smiled at his excitement, picking up the ball on the way. “Call me Bucky, alright?”
“Alright!” Nathaniel nodded and then moved across the field, waving Bucky after him. “You be the goalie, alright?”
“Sure, but go easy on me. I’m not a professional soccer player.”
“But you’re a superhero!”
You watched a genuine soft smile spread across Bucky’s face. “Do you think we defeat bad guys by challenging them to a game of soccer?”
Nathaniel shrugged and then grinned up at Bucky. “Have you ever tried?”
“Actually, no. I might have to give your idea a try, buddy.”
Crossing your arms over your chest you watched Bucky play soccer with Nathaniel, a soft smile spreading across your face and a warm feeling engulfing your heart. You still thought that stress was the reason for your late period but you knew that even if you were expecting Bucky would make a great father -- but then again, you had always known that. Nathaniel kept scoring goals and though you could tell that Bucky was letting the ball go in on purpose from time to time, sometimes he looked genuinly surprised at the boy’s aim. Sighing softly, you leaned against one of the wooden support beams of the porch while Natasha helped Clint sit down on a nearby chair and you watched Bucky cheer Nathaniel on.
“Sure you don’t want to talk to him?”
You winced in surprise when Natasha’s voice sounded off just beside your ear and you turned your head to find her standing right next to you. Sighing softly, you shook your head and leaned back against the beam, turning to continue watching Bucky and Nathaniel play.
“I’ll wait a couple more days but I will eventually talk to him about it.” You promised, keeping your voice down so Clint wouldn’t hear your conversation. “But I know that I have nothing to worry about. Even if I were pregnant, I think Bucky would make a great father.”
“Definitely.” Natasha said, her smile evident in her voice as she whispered back to you. “If you want to wait a few more days, do so. But you have nothing to worry about. He’s a good guy and he will stand by you no matter what happens.”
“I never doubted that.”
A clap of thunder made everyone look up at the sky and Clint called out to the children to come back inside. They didn’t have to be told twice. Lila started packing up her things while Cooper got off the swing to head for the porch. Nathaniel clutched the ball to his chest as he looked up at the sky in fear but Bucky was quick to react, crouching down next to him and holding out his metal arm to him.
“Hold on and I’ll carry you inside. We’ll be super fast, I promise.”
Nathaniel turned to look at Bucky and at another encouraging nod from the man he grabbed onto the metal arm’s biceps, holding on tightly as your partner stood up, lifting the boy off the ground and leaving him dangling from the arm. While they set out for the porch, you could hear Nathaniel laughing as he swung back and forth on Bucky’s arm, his hands clasped tightly around his biceps. What stood out to you was the fact that Bucky’s eyes kept flicking over to yours, almost as if to see whether or not you were looking at him. But you couldn’t really think about that observation because you found yourself distracted by a strange sense of longing settling in your chest.
---
It was two days later that you two found yourself in a furniture store, looking for a new dresser and despite your period still being late, you were no longer focused on the worry you felt about that and more thinking about the longing you had felt when watching Bucky play with Nathaniel two days prior. It made you wonder if having a child with Bucky was something that you might want sooner rather than later.
“I cannot believe we broke your dresser.”
You shushed Bucky, heat rising to your cheeks as you remembered how exactly the dresser had broken and how much teasing you had already had to endure from your fellow Avengers. “Will you keep it down?”
“You didn’t tell me that last night.” Bucky grinned and wrapped an arm around your shoulders when he saw you roll your eyes, leaning over to press a kiss to your cheek. “But then again, that is part of the reason why we’re here.”
Once more you rolled your eyes but you couldn’t help but chuckle as you leaned into him. “Just remind me that we’re only here for a dresser when I will inevitably find twenty other things that might come in handy. I need you to be the voice of reason here and tell me I don’t need every little thing I see.”
Bucky chuckled at that and threw you a playfully wary glance. “I don’t know if I can turn down any of your wishes, Doll.”
The two of you kept walking until you came to the department for children’s furniture beyond which you knew lay the department for regular bedrooms. As you walked past the displays of cribs and bunk beds, the walls behind them decorated in images of stars with stuffed animals and mobiles all around, you felt a strange longing return. You cuddled closer against Bucky’s side, making him turn to you but you didn’t see his facial expression because you kept looking around. He was quiet for a few seconds before he leaned over to press a kiss to your head.
“When we have a kid one day, what theme would you choose for their nursery?”
You blinked in surprise at his question, noticing how the longing feeling lightened just the smallest amount at the first word of the sentence and you couldn’t stop yourself from asking the first thing that came to your mind. “When?”
“We spoke about having children one day. Is it a surprise that I use ‘when’ instead of ‘if’?” Bucky gave you a comforting smile. “So tell me, what theme would you choose for our future child?”
“The space theme.” You smiled softly, looking back at the displays. “Imagine our baby sleeping under those glow-in-the-dark stars or under a mobile of the planets. It would also fit so well because our first proper date was to an exhibition about space travel.”
Bucky’s smile was clear in his voice when he spoke up. “I like that idea a lot.”
You leaned closer to him again and his hand came up to squeeze your shoulder lovingly as you two started walking again. But your peace was interrupted when you rounded the corner to find a couple fighting over what sounded like the choice of a crib, making you stop in your tracks. Against your better judgment, you spoke up, directing their attention to you and Bucky.
“What’s wrong? Do you need help?”
The blond woman rolled her eyes and nodded to the redhead next to her. “My wife here thinks we should get the crib with the wooden frame but it’s much more expensive than the metal frame one.”
“Yes, I know that but I think a crib is not the piece of furniture to cut costs at.” The redhead crossed her arms and shook her head. “Our baby is going to sleep in that bed every night. If you want to cut costs anywhere why not on something like the dresser? If that’s a bit cheaper it won’t be as bad!”
“Would you like an outsider’s opinion on it?”
Both women turned to look at Bucky who took his arm off you to approach the two and they gave him a shrug, agreeing in almost perfect unison that someone else’s opinion might be helpful for their situation. You watched with an interested expression as Bucky smiled and inspected the cribs for a few minutes, reading their descriptions and taking a closer look at them before he turned to the two women again.
“I wouldn’t get either of these.”
“Why not?”
Bucky glanced at you as he spoke up again, once again seemingly making sure that you were paying attention before he said anything. “The one with the metal frame may be an inexpensive one but the mattress that comes with it is not tight fitting enough and that’s a safety hazard for the baby.”
The blonde woman quickly distanced herself from the metal frame crib to examine the wooden one once more. “Why can’t we choose the wooden framed one? The mattress fits better than the one in the other crib.”
“It does but it has those cloud-shaped cutouts on the headboard. The baby’s head or limbs could get caught in it and that’s a safety hazard, too.”
“I totally forgot about that. We even looked up crib safety before coming here and I forgot.” The redhead mumbled and sighed, turning to her wife. “And I’m sorry for going off at you like that. I’ve been so stressed lately.”
“I get it, I wasn’t any better. It’s all forgotten, don’t worry.” The blonde sighed and took her wife’s hand into hers before turning to Bucky. “Got any recommendations on what crib to buy?”
Bucky smiled and nodded toward a crib a few metres away. “I’d get this one. I know that it’s a bit more expensive than the other two but it is convertible, so it can be turned into a toddler bed. It will last you two much longer, so I’d say it’s worth the price.”
“It would look great with the changing table we picked out.”
“It would.” The redhead agreed to her wife before smiling at Bucky. “Thanks for the help, we really appreciate it.”
The blonde nodded before turning to smile at you. “You got yourself a very knowledgable baby daddy there. He’s a keeper.”
Bucky smirked proudly as he turned back at you, watching you come over to embrace his arm and look back at the two women. You didn’t correct the first statement and you didn’t even question why as you answered. “He really is a keeper.”
---
After buying a new dresser the two of you had decided to get lunch together and take a walk around the park afterwards. Your hand was in his as you walked down the walkways, passing by the other people in the park until you heard something that made you stop dead in your tracks. Someone was crying and it sounded like a child. Bucky seemed to have also heard it because he looked around for the source of it before his eyes stilled on a spot next to a large patch of shrubbery. You followed his gaze and found a young girl, no older than four years old sitting on the ground, legs drawn up to her chest and face buried in her arms as she hugged her knees. Before Bucky could react you were approaching her, calling out to her so you wouldn’t startle her as you came close.
“Are you alright?”
“I want my Daddy.” The girl sobbed brokenly but she looked up at you and only then could you see the bloody scrapes on her knees. “I-- I saw a kitty and went after it and-- and I got lost and I fell and my knees hurt real bad!”
You felt concern and pity wash over you at seeing the girl so distraught and hearing that she was lost, so you knelt down next to her. “How about my friend and I help you find your way back to your family?”
“You would? But-- But I don’t know where to look and-- and my knees hurt.”
“Let me check to see if I got some bandaids in my purse.” You said softly and began rummaging through your purse as Bucky crouched down next to you. When you found your small first aid kit you held it up triumphantly. “Look at that, we can patch you up and find your family, alright?”
She was still crying but she let you put bandaids on her knees after spraying some wound disinfectant spray on them. The sting of the spray made her cry even harder but when Bucky let her hold his hand, she calmed down a little. You ignored how he was once more eyeing you as you helped the girl.
“You did so well. You were really brave.” You smiled at her before sitting back on your haunches and introducing yourself by name. “And what’s your name?”
“Penny.”
“It’s nice to meet you Penny.” Bucky said softly, smiling at her. “I’m Bucky.”
Penny wiped her eyes and when you got up, offering her a hand to help her stand she accepted it. Once on her feet, she kept her hand firmly in yours as you surveyed the area, hoping to find someone who looked like they were searching for her.
“What is the last thing you remember? Were you at a playground or a picnic area? Do you remember anything like that maybe?”
“We were at a fountain.” Penny mused, her index finger on her chin as she thought. “We were taking a break.”
Bucky looked back at you with a smile. “I know where they might be. There’s a big water fountain not far from here. We should start there.”
Penny looked up at you before pulling at your hand. “Can you carry me, pretty please? My knees really hurt.”
“Of course.” You smiled and bent down to pick her up, letting her wrap her arms around you as you set out with Bucky leading the way. “Let’s get you back to your Daddy.”
The three of you walked for about ten minutes, with Penny telling you all about her day and you listening intently, only interrupting her to ask questions to keep her talking. Bucky kept glancing back at you, a soft smile on his face. When you came to the fountain you were immediately greeted by a panicked-looking man that Penny quickly reached out to.
“You found her! Thank you so much!” He exclaimed as he took her into his arms and held her close. “I looked away for five seconds to talk to my wife and when I turned back Penny was gone.”
“I saw a kitty, Daddy.” Penny explained before pointing at her knees. “And I fell and hurt myself. But the nice couple helped me and gave me bandaids.”
“Again, thank you so much.” Her father said with a smile. “I hope you didn’t have to search for us for too long.”
“Not at all. Penny was really smart and told us you were at a fountain.” You explained, taking Bucky’s hand and nodding to him. “And Bucky knew where the fountain was so it was no trouble finding you.”
“But even if it had been, we wouldn’t have minded. There’s no need to thank us.” Bucky explained, squeezing your hand and smiling at the man. “We’ll be on our way then.”
“Have a good rest of your day. And again thank you.”
Penny smiled at the two of you, waving from her father’s arms. “Bye-bye!”
You two waved back at her, said your goodbyes and then left to head back to the car. On the way, your hand migrated from Bucky’s hand to hold onto his biceps. Your head leaned against his shoulder and he turned his head to look at you with a small smile.
“You would be a great mother.”
The longing was back and by now you knew exactly what it meant. And you wondered if he felt the same, given how many references to having children he’d made during the past few days, from speaking about it to Natasha to asking about potential nursery themes with you to flat-out telling you you would be a great mother. The glances he kept sending your way whenever either of you interacted with a child or talked about anything that had to do with child-rearing made you question if he was doing all this on purpose.
“You think so?”
“Definitely.” He said and then looked back ahead, a gentle smile spreading across his features. “I cannot wait to have a family with you one day.”
You decided to keep the fact that there was a slim chance that day might come sooner rather than later to yourself for the time being, opting to wait a few more days. Yet, you suspected that you wouldn’t even have to tell him about your worries because by now you were sure that he’d heard all you had said to Natasha. It seemed that Bucky was trying to show you that he’d be ready to raise a child with you. And you were surprised at how happy you were about that slim chance that you might have been pregnant.
“I can’t wait, either.”
---
“Don’t think I don’t know what you’ve been doing.”
Bucky looked up from where he was putting away the dishes, giving you a confused look. You just leaned against the counter next to him, giving him a warm and thankful smile because now you not only knew what he had been doing but you also had an inkling as to why he’d been doing it.
“What do you mean, Doll?”
“Showing me how good you are with kids, how well prepared you would be for raising a child, talking about how much you want to have a child with me, telling me that I’d be a great mother and always making sure I saw how good you were at everything to do with childcare.” You explained softly, reaching out to take his hand into yours. “Thank you.”
“What are you thanking me for?”
“You overheard me talking to Natasha two days ago, didn’t you?”
“How you talked to her about your period being late?” He asked and when you nodded, so did he. “Yes, I overheard it before I came outside.”
“And I assume you thought it meant I might be pregnant.” When he nodded, you gave him a soft smile. “Did you do all of that to show me that you’d be ready to raise a child with me should I be pregnant?”
Bucky nodded and turned to face you fully now, moving so he could take both your hands into his. “I want you to know that should you ever have the suspicion that you’re pregnant you can talk to me and that I’d be willing to step up to be a father in an instant.”
“I love you so much, Bucky.” You said and pressed a small kiss to his cheek before drawing back again. “But we won’t need to worry about that for now. I got my period just after I got out of the shower, so I’m definitely not pregnant.”
Saying it out loud made you feel almost sad or disappointed but you tried your best to overplay these feelings. But Bucky was a very observant person, especially when it came to your emotions, and the frown on his face showed that he’d realised that you weren’t all too happy at the moment.
“Are you happy about it?”
“It would have definitely been a big change and a very sudden, unplanned one at that.”
“That’s not what I asked, Sweetheart. Are you happy about it?”
You swallowed at his question and shook your head. “Not completely, no. I’m obviously happy that nothing unplanned has happened because I know that it-- it would have been a big and sudden change. But these past few days I’ve seen how prepared you truly are for a child and how good you are with children and-- and you got called my baby daddy and you kept talking about how much you were looking forward to us having children. I really started liking the idea of having a child with you, James.”
“Come here, Sweetheart.” Bucky whispered as he heard the sadness in your voice and immediately drew you into a tight embrace. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s not your fault.” You protested through the tears in your voice but you held on to him nonetheless. “I just got so-- so excited about possibly being pregnant but I knew from the start that it was likely not the reason why my period was late.”
“Yes, I heard you talk to Natasha about that, too.”
“But that doesn’t change the fact that I felt so excited, so happy and so ready for it.”
Bucky gently drew back from you, mustering your face for a few seconds before he spoke up again. “You feel ready to have a baby?”
“Yes.” You nodded after a small pause before you looked up at him again. “But if you’re not ready then please don’t feel forced to do anything you don’t want to just to make me happy. I can wait, I promise.”
“Doll, what about the things I did and said in the last days makes you think I’m not also more than ready to have a child with you?”
“You want to try for a child?”
“I think we should try for a baby if we’re both ready.”
“I like that idea.”
You squeaked in surprise when Bucky all but hoisted you onto the counter behind you, capturing your lips in a kiss as he got between your legs to get closer to your body. The kiss deepened as he tipped you back and pulled you closer, and when he pulled back you gave him a breathless laugh.
“For the record, I didn’t ask you to impregnate me right this instant.”
“Then I think some signals got mixed there.” Bucky chuckled and pressed a kiss to your head. “But if we’re going to try, what’s stopping us from starting now?”
“For one, I’m on my period right now.”
Bucky leaned over to gently kiss your jaw. “If you’re uncomfortable with sleeping with me right now then obviously we’re not going to and I respect that. But if you’re worried that I’ll be uncomfortable, let me just tell you that a little blood doesn’t scare me.”
“I think we can wait a few more days to start trying.” You chuckled softly, running your hand up and down his neck. “There’s no need to be in such a hurry.”
“Of course, Doll. Whatever you want.” Bucky said and drew back to give you a warm smile. “I guess I’m simply excited to start a family with you.”
“I am excited to start a family with you, too.”
#fanfiction#textpost#writing#marvel cinematic universe#mcu#marvel#marvel x reader#bucky barnes#bucky barnes x reader#bucky barnes imagine#female reader#no y/n#reader insert
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Eidetic Memory Be Damned -Spencer Reid
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
•Pairing - Spencer Reid x FemFBIAgent!Reader
•Rating - 18+, Minors DNI - Smut - NSFW!!!
•Summary/Prompt - Spencer is tired of only having the memory of you to enjoy during his spicy times , so he just has to intrude into your hotel room after a case is finished…
•Warnings/Content - p in the v unprotected (hey kids- DONT DO IT) ; cursing ; Spence loves to beg to nut in you and does so ; creampie ; some pain play? (just a lil hand on the throat dealio and some hair pulling) ; LOTS of praise on both sides (good boy, pretty girl, etc) ; very mf horny lol ; (basically they do just about everything from first base to last bestie slay)
•Word Count - 3.3k
•Authorʼs Note(s) - Iʼm so mf rusty at writing smut so this is probs not the best, I just wanted to write some Spencer spice cause I had a spicy dream about him lmao RIP >_< Also this'll be my first official post of my writing on Tumblr slayyyyy
•Additional Tags - Switch!Spencer , Switch!Reader , Spencer is a needy brat LMAO , Team has ‘no ideaʼ you two are hooking up (Be so mf fr they do) , Good aftercare is so valid , Spencer loves being cuffed and teased muahaha
As much as this last case had taken out of me, I was more than happy to get to spend some time in my hotel room while the jet refueled and everyone got their bearings. Itʼs not home - far from it, Iʼd been missing my own bed for the majority of our time here in whatever state it was now - but at least it was something.
But of course, the reprieve wouldnʼt last long - a sharp knock on my door confirmed that, about 20 minutes after Iʼd laid down to sleep.
“What…ˮ I groan, frustratedly looking over at the clock.
The knock, again, more persistent this time. And I recognize its pattern now, three short tap-taps. Spencer.
My heartbeat, despite my minor annoyance at being woken up, is hammering now. Spencer seems to do that to me, from the moment Iʼd realized I have feelings for him, carrying into whatever it is that we are now. Secret trysts that Iʼm sure are no secret to our team members, especially Garcia, because sheʼd pried it out of me almost immediately and now waits in her dark little room with nothing else but excitement for the latest updates on us, it seems.
“Are you awake?ˮ A gentle but still much-too-loud voice asks.
I tumble out of bed, rushing to the door. I donʼt even have time to make sure I look okay - Iʼm much too worried about anyone else hearing him. The door is unlocked and pulled open in record time, a stunned lanky man quickly and semi-quietly forced inside.
“Spence, someoneʼs gonna hear you if you keep on like that.ˮ I chastise him, shutting and locking the door behind us. No sooner have I done so, than his lithe form overtakes me, nestling into the crook of my neck with a groan that seems both relieved and not relieved at all.
“Donʼt care,ˮ He pushes me back, until my legs meet the mattress and fold. Quickly following on top of me, he sighs, “Been too long. I miss you. You know I have an eidetic memory, yeah? Doesnʼt mean shit when Iʼm up late and even thoughts of you arenʼt enough to keep me satiated.ˮ
“Someoneʼs gonna-ˮ Hear, I want to say. He knows, of course he does. And Iʼm only half-complaining, with his lips at my neck and his leg sneaking up between mine the way he also knows.
“Donʼt care.ˮ He repeats, the low moan at the back of his throat breaking through into the silent room. “I told you I miss you. Should I tell you about what I use my memory for? And just how much that hasnʼt been enough lately? Or should I show you?ˮ
Itʼs clearly a rhetorical question, but still, he seeks the permission I am more than happy to grant.
“Tell me. Uh, show me. I mean-ˮ
“I can do both,ˮ Even in the dark, I know heʼs got that matter of fact smirk on his lips. He reaches down, holding me by the hip with one hand while the other slips into my pajamas, a practiced motion heʼs all too good at by now. “Usually this is what I remember first. The way your skin feels, how nice it is to make you tremble beneath my touch.ˮ
I buck up, and he chuckles.
“All too eager, arenʼt you? Clearly youʼve been thinking about it too, huh, pretty girl?ˮ A pointed question he knows Iʼll struggle to answer, with his hand and his voice torturing me so.
“No eid- identical- uh, no memory recall whatever for me.ˮ
“Still wouldnʼt satiate, I bet.ˮ He remarks, casually rubbing circles and patterns over my panties. This is how he operates, surely and with no warning. A gentle but firm kiss to my jaw, and he continues, “Itʼs like that for me, at least. I know no amount of recalling how you feel under me will be enough to match just how nice it is.ˮ
Heʼs right, and of course he is; I can barely handle the teasing, the tone his voice has taken in this short amount of time. And I currently dont care if weʼre heard, either.
“Spence-ˮ
“What is it, sweetheart? Too much for you? Not enough?ˮ
“Please?ˮ
“Words, honey. Youʼve gotta use your words. Or you can show me, Iʼm okay withthat too.ˮ He guides my hand down to his.
“More.ˮ I plead, working to undress myself before his hands take over.
“You only have to ask.ˮ
True to his word, Spencer pulls the fabric away, no longer allowing it to be a block between us. Itʼs lost somewhere in the sheets as he kisses me, his practiced hands no longer in the mood to tease. He slips a finger in, and when I let out a keening whine, another, his free hand going automatically to my mouth.
“Now as much as I say I donʼt care, youʼve gotta be a little quiet for me,ˮ He goads, knowing this will only make it harder for me to do so. His breath is hot in my ear, his fingers working a motion thatʼs both breaking pent up weeks old frustration, and yet causing more tension in my belly. “Much as I love your voice. Your sounds. The-ˮ
I rut up against him, my lips opening around his thumb. He works it into my mouth, his voice lowering even further.
“Cmon, show me how much you missed me, huh, princess?ˮ
I moan, words lost in my mind as it spins. Every tug of his fingers between my thighs is building a high Iʼm chasing, and when I get to this point, Iʼm not talking - he is. And he knows it, knows the right words to say to build and break me.
“This is what Iʼm after, this is what I canʼt just remember. Because itʼs all too much to remember how good it feels to destroy you.ˮ
Please, please. I canʼt hold off much longer.
“Now are you gonna cum for me, sweetheart?ˮ
I nod, lips opening and letting his hand free from my mouth as my breaths grow heavy. “Canʼt - Please, Spence, please-ˮ
He presses me further into the mattress, murmuring sweet and dirty nothings into my ear as the dam breaks and I ride my high. Iʼm far too sensitive following, and when I try to push him away for a moment, allow myself to collect some sort of reprieve before we continue, he chuckles lowly.
“See, I can recall that clear as day. But itʼs so much sweeter to have it happening in front of me, you know?ˮ He nestles in beside me, turning me to face him.
Nigh immediately, Iʼm reaching for his belt buckle. Of course he wouldnʼt have changed into comfortable clothes, not even this late- Iʼm sure this was his plan all along, and he tried to fight it as long as he could.
“Someoneʼs eager.ˮ He quips, the smirk growing.
“Youʼve got me thinking about it,ˮ I sigh, letting him maneuver himself out of the constricting clothing. “Coming over and getting me all hot and bothered. I really ought to…ˮ
“Ought to what?ˮ He goads, pulling me onto him with a low noise as we brush together. “Hmm? Are you gonna say…you ought to punish me?ˮ
I nod, rubbing back against him. He lets out a moan, hands gripping my hips tighter.
“I remember how that feels,ˮ He pulls me closer, voice dropping. “But for your sake, maybe you should refresh me.ˮ
When he reaches for me again, I pull back, pinning his hands down above his head. I know he could get out of it if he really wanted to - Iʼm strong, but not stronger than him - but he most certainly doesnʼt want to get out of it. And Iʼm enjoying it far too much to stop myself now.
“Whatʼre you gonna do, cuff me?ˮ He snaps, the bratty attitude far too practiced and already making me a soaking mess.
“I might.ˮ I reach for my pair, knowing all too well that heʼll absolutely lose it once I let go on him. I can hardly stand the anticipation. “Scared, Reid?ˮ
“Terrified. Please, donʼt. Iʼve been a good boy, I swear.ˮ
I push him back while he pleads, tightening the metal around his wrists. The look on his face, muffled as it is by the darkness of the room, is more than enough to spur me on.
“Not thinking about this at all, huh?ˮ I shed my top, if only for the knowledge that his inability to reach for my breasts drives him utterly insane. “And Iʼm sure you havenʼt spent many late nights with the memory of me riding you, have you? Havenʼt had your hands on that pretty cock of yours, thinking about how it feels when itʼs me, yeah?ˮ
“N-Not at all.ˮ
“Itʼs a shame, then.ˮ I tease, feeling him harden beneath me with every word. “Iʼll have to make you confess, I suppose.ˮ
His eyes follow my every move as I back up, slotting between his legs and bending down to kiss along his hips.
“Youʼll never get it out of me.ˮ He groans.
“Is that a promise or a challenge?ˮ I ask, not breaking eye contact as I place a kiss on his sensitive head.
“Challenge? Would I…challenge you?ˮ He still holds onto a moment of sanity, until I take him in my mouth, and itʼs lost with a sigh of, “Oh, would I.ˮ
I bob my head, my practiced motions coming in handy now. The usually-full-of- remarks Spencer Reid folds under my touch, soft deep moans and babble of confessions and wish I could pull your hair passing his lips while I work him out.
After a few moments of this, I let him free - at least from the torture of my lips.
“Where are you going? Please, I wanna cum for you, Iʼll tell you everything I did while I couldnʼt stand to wait for you.ˮ He keens.
“Oh, Iʼm far from done with you, Spence.ˮ I slowly, agonizingly slowly, climb back on top of him, making sure to back right up against him as he tightens against the cuffs. “Donʼt you worry, Iʼll have every measly confession pouring from you. You know I will.ˮ
“Please, let me out- Gotta touch you, I just gotta-ˮ
“Shh, be good for me, wonʼt you?ˮ I lift myself over his face, pressing my folds to his lips. “Unless you wanna stay in those forever.ˮ
He shakes his head, vibrating a ‘noʼ against me.
“Good. Now youʼre gonna pay your dues and clean up the mess youʼve made.ˮ
Eagerly, he laps at me like heʼs never had it before. His utter submissiveness overwhelms him, letting me ride his face to my hearts content. Words are muffled and entirely lost in it, and I know by now that the sounds Iʼm making alone will be heard, but I donʼt really care. Iʼm too far gone in how good it feels to finally have him making me cum again.
“Can I touch you now?ˮ
I slide back onto him, teasingly letting myself rest with just the edge of him pressing into my folds.
“Can you?ˮ I look pointedly at his wrists.
“I-oh, my god, clearly not, but-ˮ
“How about this?ˮ I amend. “You give me a confession, you get a reward. Sound fair?ˮ
“Yeah, sounds just fine. I couldnʼt get off without coming here, you realize that, donʼt you? Youʼre the only thing that gets me off anymo-Oh-ˮ His confession is cut short as I slide him a bit further in, just enough to spur him further. “I mean, I get off, donʼt get me wrong here. But nothing feels as good as when itʼs with you. Nothing.ˮ
“Keep going, youʼre doing good.ˮ I praise, sinking a bit deeper.
“Goddamn you feel so good.ˮ He moans. “Like, my hands canʼt even come close to this, are you kidding? I can try all I want, and believe me, I have - Oh, my god, please donʼt stop - Iʼve been trying all the time, I admit that, canʼt hardly stand being around you and not being able to just fuck you whenever I want.ˮ
I push down further, the stretch he gives me loosing my own moan. “How much do you wanna fuck me, Spence? Tell me, please.ˮ
“God, all the time. Itʼs all I can think about when I get down to it - baby, can I please touch you now?ˮ
“Punishment is a bitch, isnʼt it, Reid?ˮ I smirk, starting to push him in and out of me, slowly and with a devious grin that falters at just how damn good it is.
“Baby, Iʼm gonna get outta these and fuck you so good-ˮ
“Try it.ˮ I raise an eyebrow, stopping my motions.
“Oh- No, Iʼm sorry, please donʼt stop. Iʼll be good, I promise.ˮ
“Yeah, you will.ˮ I drop as far as I can take him, savoring the stuttered animalistic groan he lets out as I press down onto him, pulling his hair and moving my hips around him. As he is want to do, heʼs thrusting up into me, even if heʼs unable to reach me with his hands held up as they are. “Eager, sweet boy. Iʼm gonna ruin you.ˮ
And ruin him, I do. The tension and heat in my belly rides and breaks several times, with him unable to form real words except for the continuous begging of please donʼt stop repeated on a loop until I feel Iʼm satisfied with his demeanor.
Once Iʼve tortured him enough, I reach for the cuffs, ready to let him off the leash - knowing that once I do, the balance will shift. Truthfully, Iʼm just eager to let him be true to his word and fuck me like heʼs been dying to.
“You donʼt need any more confessions from me, then?ˮ He huffs, sweat slicked across his brow from the effort of holding back - though heʼs not really done so, has he?
“One last one, I suppose.ˮ I pull off of him, and the pout he gives nearly makes me sit right back down on him again.
“Alright, Iʼll be good and honest with you, then.ˮ He continues while I set to unlocking the cuffs, “You know the other day, just after we got the final piece of evidence put together?ˮ
I nod.
ˮI was so psyched, I couldʼve taken you right there. I donʼt care that everyone would have known, would have seen. Itʼs just something you do to me.ˮ He finishes, his tone light. Oh boy, Iʼm about to get railed. “I love you. And now Iʼm gonna fuck you like Iʼve been wanting to for weeks.ˮ
No sooner is he free, tearing off the shirt he was wearing and looming over me with the hungriest of looks at my body before pressing himself into me. No wait, no teasing - heʼs not got the control for it, clearly, and Iʼm not complaining one bit.
“Next time, you get the cuffs, pretty girl.ˮ He promises, his hands all over my body now that he can manage it. Hard, precise thrusts, his voice heavy and fucked-out.
“And Iʼll show you just what Iʼve been wanting to do that Iʼm gonna savor in my mind after.ˮ
My nails are leaving deep trails in his back, surely leading to marks that would raise questions if anyone else saw. Heʼs so far in me, almost bottomed out, and itʼs almost too much and yet not enough all at once. I pull him closer, and his hand tangles in my hair while the other clasps around my throat.
“Youʼre all mine.ˮ Spencer growls - truly, thereʼs not other word for it, the purely animal drive taking him to a world where itʼs just us, just this. And Iʼm there too, crying out with the ecstasy his body causes my own.
“All yours.ˮ
“Thatʼs right, pretty girl. Say it for me, I wanna hear you say it.ˮ
“Iʼm all yours, Spence- oh, my god-ˮ
“Good, thatʼs good. My pretty girl. Youʼre so tight, you feel so good wrapped around me, donʼt you? God, what a sight.ˮ Here he is, in his rambles now, and I can hardly contain how close I am. “Wanna tell everyone this is mine. Iʼm the only one that gets to have you, gets to fuck you like this. See you break for me. Only me.ˮ
“Only you, Spence, only you-ˮ
“Cʼmon, I know youʼre close, I can feel it. You get so much tighter, god, if itʼs even possible-ˮ
“Spencer-ˮ
“Thatʼs my girl, cum for me.ˮ
“Donʼt stop-ˮ I can feel the cord in me ready to snap, chasing my most intense orgasm of the night with his words and the feeling of him slamming so deep inside me. “More, Spence, you can give me more-ˮ
“Sweet girl, of course, I know you can handle it.ˮ He pushes himself fully in, my breath catching at the slight pain, yet itʼs still so good, I canʼt stop it, I donʼt want to. “Want me to fuck you so good with all of me, donʼt you?ˮ
I nod against his grasp, and he loosens it a bit, kissing me fervently.
“Please, please cum for me, I wanna feel you all over me, beautiful.ˮ He reaches down, his thumb rubbing circles on my clit. Itʼs the last thing I need to send me over that edge, and I cry out, his name slipping past my lips unwarranted. “Oh, baby, love how you say my name. Like itʼs a prayer, like Iʼm a god.ˮ
“Donʼt stop, Spence-ˮ
“Iʼm close, baby- Oh, I wanna cum in you-ˮ
Another orgasm follows near immediately after this one, and Iʼm grasping at him while heʼs chasing his own, his hands fumbling and his thrusts getting sloppy. He grips the sheets, his breaths stunted.
“Cum in me, please-ˮ
“Iʼm gonna, god, Iʼm so fuckinʼ close-ˮ He tightens around me, muscles shaking as he lets loose, and now itʼs his turn to moan my name a lot louder than he should while he cums. Heʼs so pretty when he does, too - the crease that works between his brows, the round pucker to his lips. Partly through, he kisses me, hard. And when heʼs done, his grip loosens, falling slack on top of me with a contented sigh.
A few moments pass where he just holds me, peppering soft kisses across my face and telling me you did such a good job, baby. Then, he pops up with a smile and comes back with water and a towel, cleaning up after himself.
“Satisfied?ˮ I chuckle, slowly pulling my clothes back on.
“Almost.ˮ He dips his head down, capturing a nipple in his mouth for a few moments. I groan, overstimulated, but still too happy to appease him. “Now, Iʼm satisfied. Iʼm staying in here, okay? Donʼt care if someone sees at this point.ˮ
“Spence?ˮ
“Mmhm?ˮ
“I love you, too.ˮ
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