#basically tomorrow i’m going to call my boss and be like ‘i don’t think i can come in for the rest of the week on account of my knee
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“You ready, Lou?”
“Duh.”
“Cecil? You’ve got full faith in your cabin?”
“Yep.”
“What about you, Will? Were your threats successful?”
“My bribes went wonderfully, thank you.”
“Then I think we’re a go.”
“Gods, this is going to be great.”
———
Knockknockknock.
Nico locks in on his game. He is so, so close to finally making it through this stupid quest, he can feel it, and if he doesn’t beat The Imprisoned before Percy he’s going to set the camp on fire.
Knockknockknock.
“Just — hold on a second!” He spams B, cursing loudly to himself, ignoring the twinge in his lower back from holding this position for so long. “Fuck, fuck, come on.” He clenches his teeth, knuckles white against the Wii remote, until finally — the boss falls. He cheers.
Fuck yes. Take that, Percy.
Tossing the remote on his bed, he jogs over to the door, sliding open the three bolts and unlocking the chains. On his porch is a blur of movement, hair frizzy and pulled-on, shirt rumbled.
“Oh, hey, Annabeth.”
She barely acknowledges him, focusing intently on pacing back and forth on the stone porch at the speed of light. He settles against the door frame, stretching out his spine, watching her mutter to herself.
“Chiron is leaving,” she says.
Nico raises an amused eyebrow. “I am aware.”
“With Mr. D. To some conference.”
“I heard.”
“He’s gone until early tomorrow evening.”
“Uh-huh.”
“He left me in charge.”
“Probably wise.”
“I need an allegiance, Nico.”
“Slow down and tell me what you mean, first.”
She sighs, coming to a stop in front of him. Her fingers still drum across her biceps, and her eyes dart around, evaluating. Her teeth dig into her bottom lip.
“Camp’s a lot of work,” she says finally. “I’ve never been in charge of so many people at once before, and like hell am I gonna let Chiron think I can’t handle it. I have a Plan, and you’re a part of it.”
Nico resists the urge to groan. Chiron leaving is supposed to mean he gets the next day or so off — no classes, no socializing, nothing. Just him in his cabin and the genuinely disgusting amount of junk food he has amassed.
(…And Will. Maybe.)
“It’s nothing crazy,” she promises. “I just need you to lurk.”
“…Lurk?”
“Yeah, you know. Chill in the shadows and scare people into complacency. You don’t even need to do much, just that thing where you stare at people like you know the exact day they’re going to die.”
“I do love lurking,” Nico admits. And to basically have a free pass to scare the shit out of whoever he wants… “I’ll do it.”
She smiles brightly. “Thanks, Nico! I knew I could count on you. I’ll meet up with you right after Chiron heads out, okay? To give you a list of people to keep your eye on.”
“Sure. Bye, Annabeth.”
“See ya!”
He closes the door and pads back to his setup, shaking the remote to get it going again. He can’t quite shake the smirk off his face.
The next twenty four hours are going to rock.
———
“Swiper No Swiping, initiate phase one.”
“Roger that, Sunny Dick.”
“…I’m revoking your code name priveledges.”
“No no no, I’m sorry, I’ll change it.”
———
Before Chiron leaves, he gathers them all in the amphitheatre.
“Children,” he calls, adjusting the bow slung across his back. “I am leaving now for my conference. I will be back before the sun sets tomorrow.” He gestures towards Annabeth, standing stiffly beside him. “Annabeth is in charge. Consider all my authority transferred to her before I return, am I understood?”
“Yes, Chiron,” courses the camp, some with significantly more attitude than others. Across the gathered crowd, Will catches his eye and winks. (Well, tries to. He has yet to catch on to the fact that he cannot, actually, wink, and instead just blinks really intentionally. Kayla and Austin have sworn him to secrecy.) Nico rolls his eyes, ears burning, and looks away.
“Good. Regular rules; no maiming, killing, or injuries above level seven. Any arson will result in a revoking of dessert privileges. Yes, Julia, even if you help in putting out the arson. It is the fire that is the issue, you understand. Excellent.” He claps his hands together. “I am looking forward to one day of peace. Try to avoid ruining it for me too quickly. Goodbye, children.”
With a wave and a fond squeeze of Annabeth’s shoulder, he trots over to Half-Blood Hill, ignoring Mr. D’s loud complaining about how long he took. With a snap of Mr. D’s fingers, they disappear. For a brief, uncanny moment, everything is still.
“Alright,” Annabeth shouts, clapping her hands together. Nico jumps. “Dinner is in an hour. Whoever is the first to fuck something up will be doing dishes. I will be watching. Dismissed.”
Wading through the swathes of ambling teenagers, she walks by where Nico is leaning against a pillar, half-hidden in the shadows.
“Lurk,” she orders, passing him.
Nico shoots her a mocking salute, fading into the shadow behind him. He barely catches her grin before he dissolves into the darkness.
———
“Phase two in effect. Ready to go, Sabrina Spellman?”
“Prepped to go, Teletubbies Sun Baby.”
“I hate both of you.”
———
“Halt!”
Across the common, three suspicious figures freeze, glance behind them, and then resume walking as casually as they can.
“I said halt! Do not move! Cease all function!”
Milling nervously towards each other, Dumb, Dumber, and Dumbest pause, shifting the three massive cardboard boxes they hold each.
“Hi, Annabeth,” Will says, smiling innocently. Cecil and Lou Ellen match him, eyes wide, expressions angelic.
Annabeth stomps over to them, fists clenched at her sides, entirely unmoved by the cherubic display in front of her. Nico stays right where he is, hidden by the shade of Cabin Eight.
“Explain yourselves,” Annabeth orders.
The three stooges exchange a look.
“Whatever do you mean,” Lou Ellen asks, shifting the boxes to free up her hand only to place it delicately over her chest. “Why, we are only helping our dear friend William —”
“Our dear, dear friend,” Cecil adds.
“— carry these many boxes of medical supplies, so as to lower his great burden —”
“Massive burden,” Will says sagely.
“— and free up his evening in order for him to spend his limited time with us, his most cherished friends.”
“Especially cherished,” Will and Cecil chorus together.
Unable to bite back a smile, Nico rolls his eyes so hard his skull hurts. They’re not even trying to not get caught, at this point. Idiots.
Clearly agreeing, Annabeth scoffs. “Yeah, right. Boxes down, all three of you. You’re being detained for suspected illicit substances.”
“Annabeth!” Will cries, hand to his chest, “after all I do for this camp, you would accuse me of being — illicit?! Me?! The outrage! The insult! The impugn, the —”
“Can it, Solace. Open the boxes.”
Huffing in perfect unison, the three of them carefully lower their boxes to the ground.
“Tape off.”
Intentionally slowly, they run a nail along the edge of the packing tape.
“Flaps open, guys, c’mon.”
With flourish, the trio fling open the thin cardboard panels. Inside each box is rows of bandages, packaged syringes, sterile bands, tongue compresses, and more that Nico can’t name. Annabeth glares at the boxes with perhaps more disdain than the situation calls for.
Then again.
It is camp.
“See?” says Cecil, gesturing grandly. “The shipment just came in from my dad.”
Like a hound dog locking in on a bleeding squirrel, Annabeth’s eyes narrow. Her lips spread into wide, frankly maniacal smirk.
“Your dad is in a conference with the rest of the Olympians right now, Markowitz.”
Caught.
“Well,” Cecil says, and then nothing else.
“He meant it in the royal sense,” Lou Ellen pipes up in his silence. Cecil nods frantically. “You know, ‘just’ as in, like, recently, as in this morning —”
“Do you three think I’m stupid.”
“It’s just medical supplies! You can look through them if you want —”
Even if they weren’t acting like criminals, Nico knows his friends. He knows his boyfriend, especially, and recognises that damn look on his face. He can also physically see Annabeth’s stress ulcer coming back.
Closing his eyes, Nico fades into Cabin Six’s shadow. It’s a quick jump, so the stretch is easy, and the darkness bows easily to his hold. He reappears silently behind the group, taking advantage of the setting sun, and darts out to grip Lou Ellen’s arm.
“Boo,” he whispers.
She shrieks at the top of her lungs, jumping three clean feet in the air. Coincidently, the boxes of medical supplies flicker, turning into a truly baffling amount of instant mashed potato boxes.
“I knew it!” Annabeth shouts.
On cue, all three doofuses turn to Nico, jeering and complaining about ‘ruining the fun’. Nico’s glare is ineffective on Doofus #1, but the other two can be cowed. He focuses on channelling the flames of hell to reflect in his eyes like his father showed him until they look away, muttering at the ground.
“We still don’t have any illicit substances,” Will insists, glaring right back. Nico sticks out his tongue. He crosses his eyes like a four year old. How immature, honestly. “So we’re just gonna take our stuff and —”
“Absolutely not, Golden Boy. Put that hand away.”
Wisely, Will draws slowly back from the boxes, tucking his hands in his pocket.
Annabeth stares, hard, at the three of them, flicking her dark eyes from the potatoes and back. The tips of her worn-out converse tap slowly on the packed grass, tip-tap-tip-tap, as they all squirm.
Understanding dawns on her quickly.
“It’s supposed to rain tomorrow, for the strawberry plants.”
They squirm harder.
“Oh, you godsdamn bitches.”
“It would’ve been really funny,” Cecil mumbles, staring at the ground. “Rain making the ground turn into a sea of mashed potatoes. Like Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs.”
“The only meatballs around here are the ones clogging up your skull!” Annabeth shouts, which doesn’t quite make sense but sounds clever coming from her anyway. “Who was gonna clean that up, huh? Magic?”
“I mean, probably,” Lou Ellen says, promptly shutting up at Annabeth’s glare.
“And you, Will! I cannot believe! Where is that responsibility you’re known for, huh?”
Will pouts. “I can be responsible and do fun things.”
“Fun, he says. I’m going to fucking kill you, how’s that for fun. The one day I’m left in charge, I cannot believe —”
“If it helps, it’s less about you and more about April Fools being tomorrow,” Cecil interjects tentatively. “Like, we were going to do this whether or not Chiron left.”
Annabeth glares darkly. “Of fucking course you were. It’s always you three, I swear to the gods. I should have known.”
“It’s honestly kind of embarrassing for you guys,” Nico adds. He smiles smugly at them, relishing in their rolled eyes and mocking hands. “Like, everyone expected this. You did this to yourselves, honestly.”
“Boo, you jag,” Lou Ellen protests. The other two knuckleheads joint in the booing, Will taking it an extra stop forward and blowing a raspberry, both thumbs pointing down. Nico responds with a wide grin and two middle fingers.
“Enough,” Annabeth says, rubbing her temples. “Extra chores, all three of you. Go help the cleaning harpies until sundown. And not another peep of complaint or I’ll have you on chores tomorrow, too.”
Without another glance at them, she turns around and walks away, muttering at least you caught it early at least you caught it early at least you caught it early over and over to herself.
“Pretty sure you guys have physical labour to do,” Nico says brightly when she disappears into the Big House. “I’d get started on that, if I were you.”
“Butthead,” Cecil mutters.
“Kiss-ass,” Lou Ellen agrees, making a face.
“Traitor,” Will whispers, pressing a kiss to his cheek as he walks past.
Nico watches them go, standing guard over the boxes in case they try to come back for them.
He can’t help but think that they all look a little too jovial for having their plans ruined before they even started.
———
“Is he still looking?”
“No.”
“Okay, Phase Three, let’s go let’s go let’s go —”
———
Every time Nico wakes with the sun, he sets aside twenty minutes of his morning routine to curse Apollo, his father, Apollo again, Phanes, and Prometheus. In that order.
He does like the bonus of getting breakfast. Usually he sleeps through it and has to hope Will saved him coffee cake, which he does, every time, because he wants to bribe his way into Nico’s affections. But there is something to be said about camp coffee cake when it is still warm, crumbly on the top and soft on the inside. It is a rare and occasionally worth-it treat, and on his bleary walk to the dining pavilion, Nico tries to keep this in the forefront of his mind. Fresh coffee cake. Fresh coffee. Fresh fruit. And Will, probably, not that seeing him is worth getting up early or anything. (So what that he gets all excited and energetic when he sees Nico up in the morning. If anything it’s embarrassing for him.)
For once, he’s actually early enough that there are very few people already at breakfast. He sees most of the Athena kids, still half-asleep over their mugs, and pretty much every camper under the age of eleven. A few head counsellors, too, watching out for the little ones or catching up on a rare moment of quiet. Nico makes a beeline for the breakfast spread, cutting a slice of coffee cake to leave on the platter and putting the rest of it on his plate. He puts a single strawberry in the middle of it so no one can accuse him of being unhealthy, then ambles over to the Apollo table.
“Neeks? Where’re you going?”
Nico pauses. He shifts his plate to one hand, rubbing at his bleary eyes. He looks at the Apollo table. He counts one, two, three heads — Kayla, Austin, and…Cecil?
“Nico? You good, babes?”
He turns, slowly, to face the voice. Picking at a plate full of pineapple, next to Reika Onason, Lou Ellen's sister, is Will.
“I know mornings are hard for you, but you’re meant to eat at your table,” he teases. “Come sit, doofus. Unless you’re taking advantage of Chiron’s absence to make friends elsewhere, I guess, but it seems unlike you.”
“You’re — what’re you — what?“ Nico says dumbly, struggling to reconcile the imagine in front of him.
For some reason, Will is eating his breakfast at the Hecate table.
And that is not all.
For some reason, his camp shirt does not say head medic. For some reason, he is wearing black jeans. For some reason, dozens of Celestial bronze rings adorn his fingers, carved with sigils. For some reason, his hair is clipped back, and there is black eyeliner around his bright blue eyes, and his nails are painted darker than Nico’s, and he is sitting at the Hecate table.
“What are you doing?”
“Having…breakfast,” Will says slowly. His lips turn down in concern. “Nico, are you okay?”
“I’m fine! It’s — you’re the one acting weird!”
Will and Reika exchange a look.
“Maybe you should go see Cecil,” Will suggests carefully. “Did you sleep okay last night? Maybe you hit your head —”
Nico looks desperately back at the Apollo table. They watch him strangely now, too, and after a second Cecil gets up from his — Will’s — seat, and walks over.
“Everything okay?” he asks, impish expression almost serious. “You look pale, Nico.”
“I’m worried,” Will says. “He’s acting — confused, Cece, maybe there’s a —”
“I’m not confused,” Nico scowls. “You two are — doing something.” He gestures vaguely between them. “As revenge for yesterday.”
Will snorts. “What, the potatoes? Don’t let Lou hear you discredit her like that. If you think she’d plan some revenge prank on you this early, you don’t know her at all.”
Nico’s head starts to hurt. He sets down his plate, rubbing his temples. Why would Lou Ellen be so bothered by that? Why isn’t she here, with her sister? What the hell is going on?
“Both of you — cut it out. Whatever dumbass prank you’re pulling is just stupid.”
“Did I hear something about a prank?” Bounding over from the camp store, arms laden with contraband junk food, is Lou Ellen, smiling brightly. “Whatever it is, I want in!”
“Oh, thank the gods, you’re back.” Will makes grabby hands at the pile. She tosses him a pack of twizzlers off the top, rolling her eyes as he tears into like he didn’t just polish off two and a half entire pineapples and three bowls of oatmeal. “I was going through withdrawal.”
“I’m not helping you when your stomach cramps up,” Cecil promises, snorting. His eyes follow the candy ropes in their harried journey towards Will's gaping maw. “You can sit in your misery.”
“Bleh bleh bleh.”
Nico narrows his eyes at them. Clearly, they’re all in on this — bit, or whatever it is. It’s a little too coordinated to be a quickly-planned revenge prank. They must have had a backup to the potatoes, although a pretty weak one. Unless they somehow managed to bribe the entire camp into agreeing to act along with their dumbassery, and Nico knows none of them can come even close to affording that, then all it takes is one person on Nico’s side before their little ruse is broken.
“It’s too early for this,” Nico says, interrupting their bickering. He picks up his breakfast and trudges off to his actual table, ignoring Will’s pouting. He has to brush the dust off the bench, but it’s worth it to avoid whatever headache the three of them will inevitably give him.
Coffee cake, save him.
———
“It’s not looking good, Katara —”
“I actually like that one.”
“— he’s totally onto us.”
“Just stick to the plan. Power onto Phase Four.”
———
To Nico's great satisfaction, many other people do double takes as they walk into breakfast.
As the Athena table, minus Annabeth, who is likely putting out a literal or metaphorical fire somewhere, wakes up, they start to notice the strange seating situation. It starts with Malcolm, who stares at Cecil in a lab coat with the same expression Nico has seen him wear when attempting to solve the Hodge conjecture. He leans over to murmur something in his brother’s ear, and then all seven of them are looking between the Hecate, Apollo, and mostly-empty Hermes tables with suspicious frowns and furrowed brows.
Nico catches Will’s eye, smirking.
Game’s up, he mouths. Will only shrugs innocently at him.
It’s Annabeth who finally puts a stop to the nonsense, striding in at the tail end of the rest of the slowly-waking crowd. She has grass in her hair and murder in her eyes.
Excellent.
“I swear to the gods, I just dealt with you three,” she snaps, raising her voice so they all can hear her. Coincidentally, it attracts the attention of every other nosy person at camp, which is everybody. “Just ‘cause Chiron’s not here doesn’t mean the rules go out the window. Back to your tables, let’s move.”
“We’re at our tables,” Cecil protests. “Why do people keep saying that?”
Annabeth takes a very deep, very long breath. She has a whole day of this, too. How unfortunate for her.
“Maybe because you are full of shit, Markowitz. Go sit with the rest of you troublemakers.”
Kayla clears her throat. “Annabeth, I’m not sure what you’re talking about.” Her thin eyebrows are drawn tightly together, lips turned down into a frown. “Cecil is exactly where he’s supposed to be.”
That gives her pause.
That gives a lot of people pause. Nico sets down his coffee cake.
“Cecil’s at the Apollo table,” Annabeth says slowly.
Kayla meets her gaze, face creased in concern. “...Yeah, I know.”
“Cecil is a Hermes kid, Kayla.”
She snorts. “Yeah, sometimes I think so, too. But as much as I would absolutely love to trade my brother —”
“Hey!”
“He’s a healer, Annabeth. He got claimed and everything.”
“I don’t have time for this,” Annabeth says, dragging her hand down her face. “Kayla, I don’t know what they paid you —”
“Oh, for goodness’ sake.” With a clatter of plates, Will clambers on the table, clapping his hands. “Your attention please, everyone!”
Without so much as a pause, Will claps his hands together. Immediately, a ball of green light expands from them, flashing almost too bright to look at. Nico watches, slack jawed, as he tosses it into the air, making it explode into a thousand little sparkles, descending gently over everyone’s heads. The little kids laugh in delight, reaching for them like they’re bubbles.
“Does that settle things?” he demands.
Silence rings for one, two, three seconds.
The camp erupts.
Dozens of voices overlap, all shouting over each other at once. Hands gesture wildly at Will, at Cecil, at Lou — trying to piece things together. Will is their head medic — isn’t he? Then why is Cecil wearing scrubs? And why is Lou chilling at the Hermes’ table, chatting with Julia over a bowl of cereal? Something isn’t right.
“Just — everybody quiet!”
It takes a minute, but everyone settles down, sitting back in their seats and fidgeting, looking around with half-confused, half-amused smiles. Like they’re laughing at a joke they’re half convinced is real.
“Who thinks this —” Annabeth makes some vaguely indicative movement at Will, Lou, and Cecil — “is weird? Raise your hand.”
Almost all hands go up. Only a handful stay down — Will, Lou Ellen, and Cecil, of course, but the entirety of the Hermes cabin stays oddly silent, as do Kayla, Austin, Reika, and, shockingly, Clovis.
“Stoll,” Nico demands before Annabeth gets the chance, “you’re buying this?”
“Buying what?” Connor says after a moment. He shrugs, eyes twinkling in amusement. “I’m just chillin’ with my sister, Nico. Cecil is great, but he hasn’t been in our cabin since he got claimed.”
The rest of the Hermes kids nod in agreement. Whispers filter through the tables — first Kayla, now all the Hermes kids?
“If I may,” interjects Clovis, yawning. “There’s an…energy, around.”
“Gods, yeah, I was feeling it too,” Will agrees frantically. “Almost a…blanket, of some kind. Something heavy and stifling.”
Malcolm looks over with interest. “You think we got cursed, or something? The whole camp?”
Will shrugs. “Maybe? Can’t think of any other reason you guys are remembering things weird.”
“It could be a god’s interference,” Nyssa suggests, raising her voice to be heard from the Hephaestus table. “I mean, that’s what happened to Jason and Leo and Piper, right? Their memories got fudged.”
“Yeah, but camp-wide…”
“Could still be possible.”
“There’s no way! They’re fucking with us, come on —”
It doesn’t take long for the arguing to start up again. This time, though, more people looked spooked — more people look to the dumbass trio themselves, eyes wide like they’re looking at ghosts.
Like they’re believing this shit.
Nico scowls, shoving away from his table and stomping over to his boyfriend.
“You are so full of shit I can smell you from across the room,” he says, raising his voice to be heard over the noise.
“I don’t know what you want me to say.” He wiggles his fingers in Nico’s direction. They spark with the same green light. “Want me to switch your eyes and ears again?”
That sounds horrifying. “Try it and die.”
“Alright, grouchy.” He holds his hands up, stepping back from Nico’s glare. “I’ll keep my hands to myself.”
Alarm bells go off in Nico’s head. This is more than just strange, it’s wrong. And not just ‘cause he looks different — so what if he looks different. Will could shave his head bald and tattoo himself purple, Nico wouldn’t care.
But his aura.
The essence of Will, that Nico has grown so used to be stopped noticing. The quiet, warmth strength, the feeling of a soft breeze in the summer, of walking past a window in the late afternoon, of smokey August campfires and scratchy guitar, is gone. Is different, rather; almost blocked. It feels like a cloud blowing over the sun, making everything warped and off and shadowy.
Something is afoot. Something is wrong, and not just some vague, made-up spell like the Trickster Trio would have the camp believe. Something like smoke and mirrors, something shadier.
He watches Will fall into step next to Cecil, ducking away from his ruffling hand. He frowns.
If there’s one thing Nico can do, it’s wade through the shadows.
———
next
#can anyone guess what these dumb ass mother fuckers did.#pjo#percy jackson and the olympians#hoo#heroes of olympus#pjo hoo toa#nico di angelo#will solace#nico di angelo & will solace#solangelo#established solangelo#will solace & cecil markowitz & lou ellen blackstone#annabeth chase#nico di angelo & annabeth chase#my writing#fic#longpost
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Last Christmas - Jamie Tartt x fem!reader
masterlist | ao3 | ko-fi | fic recs
"Now I know what a fool I've been, but if you kissed me now, I know you'd fool me again"
@emeraldsandelderberries asked: jaime x reader christmas request :) maybe a second chance romance a la “last christmas” by wham! ?
Word count: 4.3k
Warnings: none really! I guess anxiety and panic attacks if you squint, but not really
Tags: fluff, second chance, christmas, drama, hurt/comfort
A/N: This request was soooooooo sweet!!! AH I LOVED IT, I'm so sorry it's this late! 😭 IT might be a bit more dramatic/moody than you've wanted but I really hope you like it! ❤❤
Christmastime in London was always special to you. You loved how the storefronts all dressed up into colourful decorations and cheerful lights, how the smell of warm cookies filled the air as you passed your favourite bakery on your way to work. Excitement and restlessness filled people’s hearts as they were waiting for a little break at the end of the year, a time of reflection and hope. And honestly you could’ve used a fresh start.
Work was hectic in the office before at the end of the year, but you always pushed through by thinking of the holidays approaching faster day by day. The last weeks before Christmas were all about secret Santas and Christmas gatherings at the office as well.
You were having lunch in the small kitchen at work when your phone lit up with your best friend’s name. She usually doesn’t call, so you answered suspiciously.
“I have a huge favour to ask” she said quickly without even saying hello. You put your face into your palm as you braced yourself for what was about to come and even like that you were shocked at her next words. “I need you to come to the company Christmas Party with me.”
“You what?” you asked, trying to conceal the sudden anger in your voice that was bubbling up inside you. It wasn’t like you to get angry easily, especially not on her, but this time it came so out of the blue. Why would she ask that?
“I know babes, I’m so sorry I wouldn’t ask you this if it wasn’t life or death!”
“How can a Christmas party be life or death?” you asked cynically, drumming your fingers on the table next to your lunch. You’ve lost all your appetite.
“I will die if you won’t come with me, that’s how” she joked, trying to lighten your mood.
“You’re so dramatic” you chuckled, but you pinched the bridge of your nose. “Go on.”
“Look, I don’t want to spend all my evening alone with my coworkers and their families and my rich boss, and insufferable football players!” she started. “You know this is not like a few-drinks-in-the-office kind of party, it’s full bling in a fancy hotel and shitton of food and booze!” you could basically see her waving her hand around while talking. “I thought just the two of us could hang out, get hammered and judge others. What do you say?” You rolled your eyes. She knew this was a compelling offer, but not compelling enough. Not when you could risk running into him.
“Okay, but!” You started and held up a finger like she could see it through the phone. “I have the right to leave at any time I want. Deal?” You heard her let out an annoyed groan at the other end of the line.
“Fine, whatever. I know you’ll love it.”
“I sure will. What do I wear?”
“Go all out babe. I’ll meet you tomorrow at 6. Love yous!” She hung up the call and you placed your phone on the table and just stared at it for a moment.
Your best friend was working at Richmond FC. The football club whose every match you’ve seen since you remember, up until last year. It was your family’s team. Now thanks to Jamie Tartt, you couldn’t even think of the name Richmond. And now your friend wants you to go back there, all dressed up, to an event where you could possibly – or even most likely – meet him and have to talk to him. Have to smile at him like he didn’t break your heart. Like you didn’t cry about him for months after he left.
But you weren’t that girl anymore, were you? Time has passed, you moved on, right? You didn’t cry about him anymore. But the twisting feeling in your gut when you thought about him, when someone mentioned him or even the team, when you saw ads with him told you otherwise. Told you that you in fact, have not moved on. But he doesn’t have to know that.
The walk on the way home was chilly and this time you couldn’t admire the flickering Christmas lights around you on the street, nor the sweet smell of cookies coming from the bakery. Your mind was filled with the thought of him, and the possibility of seeing him again. The thought of your friend being an asshole also crossed your mind a few times, but you knew she didn’t mean any harm. For all she knew you were over Jamie. And you were convinced of that too, but the squeezing feeling in your chest told you otherwise. You didn’t listen though. You didn’t care about him. You didn’t.
You told that to yourself the next day as you looked for that beautiful dress in your wardrobe that you might or might not wanted to wear to impress him. To make him feel like an idiot for throwing you away. You didn’t care about him. As you did your makeup a little more elegant than usual. You didn’t care about him. As you did the finishing touches on your hair. You didn’t care about him.
You picked up your purse and locked the door when you saw your friend calling, meaning she was there to pick you up with a cab. The cold air made you shiver a little and you were thankful for the ride. Wintertime was really not made for having these parties. A thin layer of snow covered the streets and the rooftops, the streetlights painting it a warm hue of gold. You let out a relieved sigh, suddenly you felt calm from the peaceful sight. You hopped in the cab and closed the door. Your friend let out an audible gasp as she looked at you.
“You look fucking fit, girl!” she squealed before she hugged you. You scoffed and chuckled before pulling away.
“Thanks, I guess” you smiled, heat crawling to your ears. Your friend gave the address of the venue to the cab driver, and you were off into the night.
“You really did go all the way, huh?”
“Your wish is my command!” you smiled at her, your heart hammering against your ribcage.
“I got you something” she said and started to rummage through her small purse before she pulled out a small bottle of liquor. You laughed.
“Aren’t we going to a party with unlimited free booze?”
“Wanted to have a moment for just the two of us. No offense” she chuckled and looked at the cab driver who smiled back at her. “Thanks for being here.”
“My pleasure” you replied and took a sip out of the bottle. You felt the liquid burn your throat before you handed it to her. Truth be told, you felt alright. Together with your best friend, dressed to the nines, having a fun night out. Who cares about Jamie Tartt?
When you stepped inside the giant ballroom, your breath got caught in your throat. You’ve been to fancy places before – mostly with Jamie -, but nothing of such magnitude. The room was framed by insanely tall walls with red velvet covering, and shiny accents. Christmas ornaments and decorations hung from the ceiling next to the chandeliers, and there was a beautiful Christmas tree in the corner, next to the stage where the band played soft jazz music. Round tables occupied half of the room in a neatly organised pattern, the other half was the dancefloor.
Kind men took your coat, and you clutched your purse to try to calm your nerves. You felt like you didn’t belong, you stuck out like a sore thumb among these gorgeous and rich people. You felt your friend’s hand squeeze your own as she led you further into the room.
“It’s gonna be fine. We’re eating, getting wasted, dancing then going home, ‘kay?”
“Okay” you breathed. You didn’t dare to look around the room in case you recognised someone. Him.
The two of you made a beeline towards the bar and ordered your favourite shot that you drank immediately. You hoped it would calm your nerves a little.
“Easy girl, the night is still young!”
“That’s especially why I’m drinking” you chuckled. You felt a tap on your shoulder and your heart dropped to your stomach, blood freezing in your veins. That was until you’ve turned and saw Sam’s face and his thousand-watt smile.
“I knew it was you! It’s so good to see you!” he cheered, his accented voice ringing in your ear as he hugged you.
“Sam, oh my God! Look at you, you look amazing!” you answered and rested your hand on his arms. “How you’ve been?”
“Good, good! We have a lot to catch up on, you should write sometimes y’know!” Fuck.
“I know, I’m sorry.” A frown settled on your face, and he immediately tried to lighten the mood.
“Just messing with you. But hey, make sure to come say hi to the others later, okay?” he said, and he gestured to the other side of the room, and your gaze instinctively followed. Mistake.
There he was, in all his glory, as tall and handsome as ever. His hair was different, a bit longer and had highlights in it. It really suited him. He wore a slightly unbuttoned shirt and had its sleeves rolled up, his jacket discarded on a nearby chair.
You’ve felt like throwing up, the content of your stomach making somersaults nonstop. Yet you smiled like nothing happened and nodded at Sam. Your friend who you haven’t spoken to in months because he reminded you of Jamie. What an asshole move. And he was so kind he just forgave you.
“We sure will” you answered and squeezed his arm before you let go. And as he turned you sneaked another peek in Jamie’s direction. You felt lightheaded as his gaze caught yours and you looked away in a blink of an eye, turning your back at him.
“Are you alright? I’m so sorry, look, we can just leave” your friend whispered as she looked at you concerned, but you just shook your head.
“I’m fine, really. When is dinner again?”
“In like half an hour” she replied.
“Mint, I’ll catch my breath outside and I’ll be right back, okay?”
“I’ll come with you.”
“No, it’s fine, really” you protested. “It’ll be just a minute, promise.”
“Fine” she sighed as she rubbed your arms. “But just a word and we’ll be out of here!” You nodded and headed towards the door that led to the back garden. Your steps were quick, and you had your head low to avoid anyone stopping you in your track. But you felt like your heels were too loud, that everyone was looking at you, that he was looking at you. In reality, only one of those was true.
As you opened the door, the cold air bit into your skin as you stepped outside. The garden was gigantic, and the grass was covered in a thin layer of snow. There were gravel paths going around in twisty patterns curving around shrubbery and statues.
To your surprise there were standing tables outside accompanied by tall heaters. You weren’t cold but you knew it was just temporary, so you took a beeline towards one of the heaters and stood next to the table under it. It was kind of magical, hearing only the distant music from the ballroom and nothing else, watching the snow-covered garden. You felt your heartbeat slow down and anxious thoughts leaving your head.
You heard footsteps approaching and you turned towards them with a smile, thinking it was Sam or your best friend. Of course, that was not the case. He took his jacket back on, but the top buttons on his shirt were still undone. He looked at you with a shy smile.
“I knew I saw you” he said, his hands in his pockets. You knew he was fiddling with them like he always did. You didn’t reply and you weren’t sure if it was the nerves or the anger. You stood in silence for a moment before he spoke again. “It’s good to see you again. I didn’t think you’d come.”
“Me neither” you replied, and your voice was colder than you thought it would be. It was perfect. He just couldn't see how he ruined you. He just couldn't.
“I can leave if you want?” he said, but it was almost like a question. A question you didn’t really know the answer for. Did you want him to leave? Or were you just over the moon that he was there, standing in front of you, with a heavy heart and a shy smile? You kind of never wanted that moment to end. You felt pathetic and you looked away from him, which he took as a cue to leave. “It’s alright. It was nice seeing you. You look beautiful.” What an asshole. What right does he have to call you that?
He turned his back on you, and you swallowed the lump in your throat as you looked at your shoes. The fancy shoes that you might or might not picked out to impress him. You did get what you wanted didn’t you? He did call you beautiful. So why was it making you so angry?
“I just” he hesitated before continuing. “Wanted to say I’m sorry. Truly.” You looked up at him. His body was halfway turned from you, and he looked back, head hung low and a few strands of his hair fell into his eyes. Your ears were ringing as your heart was pounding in your chest.
“I was a royal prick. And you-“ he scratched his throat. “You deserved better. And you deserve better than me ruining your night, so I’ll leave you be. Sorry. Truly, it was nice seeing you.” he said and turned away. You felt like your mouth acted on its own as you called out after him. His gaze snapped back and met yours.
“Would you-“ you paused. “Like to stay a bit?” You could see his shoulders relax as he let out a breath he was holding. A smile found its way past his lips as he stepped closer to you under the heater.
“I’m glad you asked because I started to freeze my arse off” he chuckled, trying to lighten the mood. But he was still very aware of his situation.
“Yeah, why can’t these company parties be held in the summer? You get all dressed up only to freeze your tits off” you smiled back at him. He was leaning against the table as he looked at you. It somehow felt right, being there with him.
“Well, some of us are more dressed up than others” he grinned as his eyes wandered up and down on your body. You pretended you didn’t see it, but the rising heat in your body said otherwise.
“I know, Rebecca looks insanely good tonight” you said to deflect the compliment.
“Yeah, she’s really good at this glam thing. Kinda jealous of her.” You cocked your eyebrow at him, but you didn’t say a word. Signalling him to go on. “Most of the times I just can’t wait to bolt at these events.”
“Why don’t you? Are you on the clock or something?” you asked, clutching your purse for dear life. The more reasonable part of your brain said you should just tell him to piss off. But you didn’t.
“Nah” he shrugged. “I just like the company a bit more than usual.”
You felt your heart flutter at the compliment. Then you immediately felt sadness. Then anger.
“Jamie, why on earth are you here?”
“Umm, it’s a company Christmas party?” he answered with a question, feigning ignorance.
“I meant here. And you know that. If you really would've liked my company, you probably wouldn't have dumped me to fuck around” you snapped at him and straightened your back, preparing to leave him. “Merry Christmas, Jamie.”
You turned on your heels and headed towards the main building. Now that you’ve stepped away from the heater the cold winter air crawled against your skin once more, tears prickling your eyes. You were stupid for coming here.
You picked up your pace before you felt a warm hand grip your wrist. You felt tired. You felt like you had no energy to do this right now.
“Please, love. Just give me a chance.”
“A chance for what, Jamie? To break my heart again?” you asked in a choked voice from holding the tears at bay. He let go of you and ran his hands through his hair. You hated how you knew he always did that when he was nervous. All this knowledge of him, all that love for him. What were you supposed to do with them now?
“What can I do to make it right? I’ll do anything.”
“Stop making a fool out of me. What do you want? A good nostalgia lay? A charity one, because it’s Christmas?” You were so angry at him. If all these were true, why did he just dump you? Say all those things he said. But at the same time, you wanted this to be true. But you weren’t ready for another heartbreak.
“Piss off, I’ve cried enough because of you already.” You turned your back on him again and stormed off. You saw your friend's silhouette at the door, and you felt relieved.
“I’m so sorry babes, I’ll call a cab, okay? I didn’t mean for this to happen.”
“It’s fine. I won’t give him the satisfaction of leaving” you let out a shaky breath and hugged your friend.
“What did he want anyway?”
“He said” you started but your voice choked up. “He said he was sorry. That he wanted to make it right.”
“You’re kidding. What did you say?”
“I told him to piss off, as you can see” you answered and let out a dry laugh.
“I can see that, but why?” she asked, and you snapped your gaze at her.
“What do you mean why? Don’t you remember he broke up with me to chase models instead?”
“But maybe he does want to make it right… and you love-“ she said but you broke her off.
“I don’t. Please can we just drop this? Let’s have dinner, what do you think?”
“Sounds perfect.”
Dinner was served by elegant waiters, all different kinds of soups, meats, salads, whatever you could’ve wished for. And fortunately, they didn’t hesitate to bring you drinks as well.
“No way!” you laughed at another guy who was sitting at your table. He was your friend’s coworker, or something like that. You actually had a really great time since the dinner started. These people were nice and funny, and took your mind off of Jamie for a bit. That was all you could’ve asked for.
“It’s nice to meet finally meet you guys in person, I’ve heard so much about you I feel like I’ve known you for ages!”
“Only good I hope!” another girl, Jenna chimed in and chuckled while your friend just rolled her eyes to hide her awkwardness. Mixing friend groups was always a stressful experience for her. Suddenly Jenna whispered something to the person who was sitting next to her – you remembered her name being Ellie.
“Yeah, for sure” Ellie said, covering her mouth while laughing.
“C’mon girls, didn’t they tell you it’s rude to whisper when you have company? Spill it!” your friend whined as she took another sip from her drink. Jenna rolled her eyes playfully before she leaned closer to the two of you.
“We were just talking about how shaggable some of our footballers are” she giggled, and you choked on your drink, what earned you a few weird looks.
“I’m sorry, I just tried to laugh and swallow at the same time” you replied quickly. During your exchange the wait staff started to clear your tables as the dinner was about to end, leaving place for the music, dancing, and drinking.
“Or maybe you fancy the gaffer? No shame in that he’s pretty fit himself” Ellie continued before Jenna cut her off.
“You bet he is. And he’s such a gentleman, I’ve ran into him at the cafeteria once. Maybe even too much of a gentleman.” She gave a knowing look before she chuckled. You knew this was going to be bad.
“C’mon girls, stop it! Anybody can hear you!” your friend tried to stop the situation from getting worse, but it was of no use.
“So, new girl, what do you say? Do you have a favourite guy on the team?” Jenna rested her head in her hands as she was looking at you, batting her eyelashes. She didn’t mean no harm; she had no way of knowing that you were in fact an ex-girlfriend of one of them.
“You know what, I’m kind of a Roy Kent girl myself” you said, and your friend snorted next to you, almost spitting her drink. You flashed a huge smile at her before clinking your glass against hers. The rest of the girls made approving noises before they got interrupted.
“That kinda hurts” his voice pierced your ears, and your heart went into overdrive. Of course. You turned towards him, and you swore your eyes shot daggers at him. He had one of his hands held out towards you, inviting you to take it. “Spare me a dance?”
You already drank enough to consider his offer. You felt everyone’s eyes on you and for a second you didn’t care.
“Sure” you replied in a low voice as you stood up. You heard a gasp from behind you, but you weren’t sure who it came from. You took Jamie’s hand as he led you towards the dancefloor. You heard your friend say “I told you anyone could hear it!” in the background and you smiled.
After you reached the centre of the dancefloor, he spun you around and put one of his hands on your waist, pulling you closer. You didn’t look him in the eye, but scanned the room for anything else to focus on. The band was playing a slow song and couples started to flock to the floor next to you. You saw Ted asking Rebecca for a dance and even your friend stood up and made her way to the floor with someone. You felt Jamie trying to be sneaky and pulling you closer into him with every sway, but you didn’t say anything.
“Do you remember when you taught me how to dance?” he asked, and you heard the smile in his voice. You did remember.
“Of course” you said, barely audible.
“We moved the couch to make space. And even then, I hit my foot into it.” He spun you around to the rhythm of the music, then pulled you closer than before. And you let him, as you rested your head next to his collarbone. He smelled so good, and you allowed yourself to get lost in the moment as you closed your eyes. Like you were in your living room again, like he didn’t break your heart.
“Do you think you can forgive me?” he asked abruptly.
“It’s not-“ you hesitated. “It’s not that I can’t forgive you.” You knew you could forgive him in a second, because you loved him. You loved him so much, not a day went by without you missing him.
“What is it then?”
“I just don’t want to be hurt again. I know you just take whatever you want and when you’re bored you just toss it aside.” You fought your tears as you buried your face into his chest.
“I’m not that person anymore, love” he said and stopped the two of you, lifting your chin up so your gaze met his. “I promise.”
“Why should I believe you? You promised before you’d never leave me and then you tossed me aside. Made me feel worthless.”
“Fuck” he exhaled, pressing his palms against his eyes. “Can we talk somewhere else? Can’t hear my own thoughts.” You didn’t reply just nodded before he took your hands and led you outside to the same spot you’ve talked earlier. Tears were prickling the corner of your eyes as you followed him, looking down at your joint hands. He stood under the heater before he turned to you and placed both his hands on the side of your face.
“Look. I was a major prick, I know that.” He searched your face as he spoke. “But I promise, I’ve changed. I shouldn’t have treated you like that, I was an asshole. I know that now” he paused.
“But I-“ he started then he stopped, his eyes frantically scanning your face.
Don’t say it.
“I just-“
Don’t say it.
“Fuck, I-“
Just say it!
“I love you.” You let out a relieved sigh as you closed your eyes. He pulled you closer as he planted a kiss on your lips, shy and chaste. Your heart was stammering against your ribcage, and you felt like it was your first kiss ever.
“I love you too” you whispered as warm tears rolled down your cheeks, contrasting the cold air. He kissed you again, this time braver, and he poured his heart and soul into it as he pulled you in with his hand on the nape of your neck, his fingers tangling in your hair. You wrapped your arms around his neck and your heart felt like a thousand suns exploded inside it.
“Please let me make it right.”
“Just make sure you won’t make a fool out of me again for saying yes to this, okay?”
“I promise” he said before he kissed you again. “But I have another question.”
“Yes?” you asked and raised your eyebrow.
“Are you really a Roy Kent girl?” You laughed at how real the concern was on his face as he looked at you with his puppy eyes.
“No, actually I’m a huge Jamie Tartt girl, have you heard of him?” you grinned as you caressed his face.
“Huh, sounds like he’s a lucky fella” he smiled before he leaned in for another kiss. Maybe it wasn’t so bad your friend invited you after all.
#jamie tartt x reader#jamie tartt fanfiction#jamie tartt imagine#jamie tartt x you#jamie tartt fluff#jamie tartt h/c#jamie tartt romance#ted lasso x reader#ted lasso cast x reader#fluff
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Heartfirst: A Ted Lasso Story - Chapter Three
Chapter Three: Meet the Greyhounds
Plot: On the first day of season training, the Greyhounds welcome the newest member of AFC Richmond and Y/n gets a crash course in Ted Lasso’s unconventional coaching methods.
Word Count: 5.4k
Warnings: language, use of f!reader (16+)
A/N: Here we are again, now with the Greyhounds entering the story…👀
As always, let me know if you’d like to be tagged, though I’m still only tagging 16+. Enjoy!!
————
Contrary to the whirlwind of her hiring, Y/n’s first week at AFC Richmond was nothing but calm waters.
The first few days had been spent mostly in meetings with Higgins, learning the basic operations of parts of the club she’d be involved in. She bounced back to the KJPR offices every few days for a meeting with Keeley. Already, there was a rhythm developing to her days.
Y/n took the weekend to set up her office, driving over a few boxes of books, wall hangings and office supplies to Nelson Road Stadium. Season training started on Monday and Y/n knew it was her last chance to get settled before the work truly started.
On Sunday evening, she stayed late organizing her desk the way she liked. When she was finally done, taking a final satisfactory look at the space, she collected her coat and locked up for the night. She was on her way out when she noticed up the stairwell, there were still lights on.
Thinking only her and the night cleaning crew were still around, Y/n shuffled up the steps. The closer she got, the better she could make out the light was coming from Rebecca’s office. Not only that, she could hear mumbled curses.
Y/n rapped her knuckles twice against her boss’s door, poking her head in just enough to show who it was.
“Oh,” Rebecca breathed, sat behind her desk, “Come in.”
Y/n took a cautious step through the doorway, giving a little wave, “I saw the light and didn’t know who was still here.”
“Well, I shouldn’t be here,” Rebecca replied, trying to put on a smile for Y/n, “Not till tomorrow anyway.”
Nodding, Y/n shifted her coat in her arms.
“You’re here awfully late as well,” Rebecca changed the subject.
“Oh,” Y/n answered, “Finally took the time to unpack everything. Figured it was a good idea before tomorrow.”
“Good,” Rebecca replied.
It went without saying that there was something wrong. Rebecca had no reason to be there.
“Is everything…” Y/n shifted in her spot a little. She was skirting one of the professional lines she valued. “Alright?”
The moment the question hit the air, Rebecca’s facade cracked. The edges of her smile drooped ever so slightly and whatever faux cheeriness had been masking her eyes faded.
“Do you read many tabloids, Y/n?” Rebecca asked.
“Not actively, but,” Y/n answered, her eyes darting between the floor, the lamp, anywhere other than directly at Rebecca until absolutely necessary, “I see things.”
Rebecca knew, without asking, what headlines she was referring to.
“My ex-husband recently purchased West Ham United,” the woman began to explain, “He poached one of our coaches from last season and…” Rebecca shook her head from the ridiculousness of it all, “There was just a headline that…”
Y/n waited for her boss to find the words, knowing they probably wouldn’t come. Nor did they need to.
Rebecca inhaled, “I suppose I shouldn’t let it get to me but…”
“Hey,” Y/n held up a hand, “There’s no judgement here.”
Rebecca gave a genuine smile, thankful for the understanding. “Well, we both need to get home and get some rest,” she said as she rose from her desk.
“We do,” Y/n was thankful the subject was shifting from personal matters, “Goodnight, Ms. Welton.”
“Oh, please don’t tell me you’re going to call me that the entire season,” Rebecca sighed, half-laughing at the formality, “Rebecca.”
It shouldn’t have mattered, but Y/n felt most comfortable with her barriers in place. However, going up against Rebecca was a fight she knew she’d lose.
“Alright,” Y/n conceded, the only time she planned on doing so, “Goodnight, Rebecca.”
“Goodnight, Y/n,” Rebecca said in return.
That night, once she returned home and settled in bed with a cup of tea, Y/n did research on the enemy. Rupert Mannion, Rebecca’s ex-husband, had indeed purchased West Ham United at the end of last season. He’d gone one step further and hired Richmond’s old coach, Nathan Shelley. There was much speculation as to why the former kitman had left and why he’d chosen specifically to work for Rebecca’s ex. Several tabloids had framed the upcoming season as a battleground not only for the Greyhounds and Hammers, but the ex-spouses as well.
Y/n shut her laptop and rubbed at her eyes. She could uphold all the professional boundaries she liked, but that didn’t mean she hadn’t become a part of a deeply personal fight.
—————————
Come Monday morning, the parking lot at Nelson Road was packed.
Season training had begun.
Y/n had gotten in early, having stopped by Keeley’s office to pick some papers up, and had yet to cross paths with any of the Greyhounds or coaches. She wasn’t trying to avoid meeting them, but she also wasn’t actively seeking out the opportunity. There was safety in the isolation of her office with the only intruder being Higgins every once in a while.
It was around 10 when the first knock at the door came.
Y/n looked up from her desk to see Sam Obisanya standing in her doorway.
“Ms. Y/l/n?”
“Yes,” Y/n answered with a small smile.
“Ah,” Sam took one step inside the office, “I just wanted to stop by and introduce myself. Sam-“
“Obisanya,” Y/n finished for him, rising from her desk to come and shake his hand, “I may not be a football fanatic, but I know your work.”
Sam laughed humbly, Y/n didn’t think there was such a thing until then.
“You’re very kind,” Sam let go of her hand, “I heard you were hired over our break and I wanted to be one of the first to say ‘welcome.’”
“That’s very kind of you, Mr. Obisanya,” Y/n replied, feeling genuinely touched.
“Please,” he smiled, “Call me Sam.”
“Sam,” Y/n nodded, she was 0 for 2…
“Are you finding everything okay?” Sam asked.
Y/n glanced at the space around them, “Everything I need so far, yes.”
“Ah, good,” Sam grinned, “Well, if you need anything, don’t hesitate to ask. It’s a lot to get used to.”
“Well, I’ll agree with you there,” Y/n chuckled, “But really, Sam, thank you. I genuinely look forward to getting to see you play this season.”
“Ah,” Sam’s hand briefly touched his chest, “Thank you. I hope you have a wonderful day.”
“You as well,” Y/n replied as the midfielder headed back through her office door. Her Youtube observations had been correct; Sam Obisanya was as genuine off the pitch as he was on it.
A few moments after settling back at her desk, a second knock came.
“Hola, Ms. Y/n!”
Dani Rojas.
“Hi,” Y/n greeted, a little surprised, “You must be Mr. Rojas.”
“Dani, please,” the player grinned, “I wanted to come and officially welcome you to Richmond.”
Y/n rose from her desk and crossed the room once again. “That’s very kind of you, D- oh!”
Dani had pulled her in for a hug and had practically lifted her off the ground. In any other case, Y/n would have slingshotted them both into the HR office, but she could tell his intentions were 100% pure.
“I hope you will be very happy working here with us,” Dani said, finally releasing Y/n from his arms, “It is like one big family.”
Y/n chuckled awkwardly, trying to hide her dismay at the thought from someone who was the human embodiment of joy.
“I’m sure I’ll be quite content,” she replied politely, “And I look forward to seeing you play, Dani.”
“Oh, thank you,” Dani said, his grin hadn’t dropped half an inch since he’d arrived, “I look forward to getting to work with you.”
“You too, Dani,” Y/n nodded, “I hope you have a great day.”
“You as well,” Dani wished cheerily before exiting Y/n’s office.
Y/n stayed in the middle of the room a moment longer, trying to process the interaction. She was half sure that within the next thirty seconds, another Greyhound would come through her door.
She wasn’t wrong.
Five minutes after Dani, Colin Hughes and team captain Isaac Mcadoo showed up. While their greetings were less personal than Sam’s and they let Y/n stay on the ground, unlike Dani, they took their time to welcome her. Two minutes after them, Thierry Zoreaux swung by. Just as he was leaving, Jan Maas took his place. In and out, the Richmond players seemed to form a never ending stream of well wishes.
As Will, the team’s kitman, was on his way out from his introduction, Y/n decided answers were worth seeking.
“Can I ask,” she tapped her pen against her desk, “How did you guys even know I was here?”
“Oh, Coach Lasso told us,” Will answered plainly, “He wanted us each to stop by and introduce ourselves. See if you needed anything, officially welcome you to Richmond.”
Y/n nodded, it all made sense now.
“Got it,” she politely smiled, “Well, thank you, Will. I definitely feel welcomed.
With a polite farewell, Will left Y/n on her own once more. She felt like locking the door just to ensure she could actually get some work done. She was pleased to know that the team she worked for wasn’t comprised of inconsiderate pricks, but their kindness had been more than overwhelming.
“Alright, Ted Lasso,” she mumbled to the empty room, “Message received.”
Itwas an hour later, after five more stop-bys by various Greyhounds, that Y/n escaped her office. She headed to the cafe to grab a tea before her morning meeting with Rebecca and Higgins. She made it in and out without any more ambushes, and headed on her way to Rebecca’s office.
Just as her eye caught on one of the placards on the hallway wall, a door swung open at Y/n’s side. She froze as the emerging body nearly bumped into hers.
“Whoa,” the culprit said as they too stopped in their tracks.
Y/n awkwardly laughed as she held her tea in the air, trying to prevent a mess.
“Sorry, that was on me,” the man apologized as the door swung back into place.
“No, no,” Y/n exhaled, “It’s on me for not paying attention.”
The man breathed out a laugh as Y/n brought her arm back into her side.
“And nothing’s on anyone so,” Y/n gestured to her tea, “Could’ve been worse.”
Finally looking up at the man in front of her, Y/n recognized him instantly.
“You’re Jamie Tartt.”
Jamie pursed his lips and pointed a finger at Y/n, “And you’re the new girl? Keeley’s new hire?”
Y/n didn’t love the sound of her position being explained so casually. “Miss Jones hired me to do some work for Richmond, yes. Y/n Y/l/n.”
“Ah,” Jamie nodded, attempting not to laugh at the formality, “Coach wanted us all to come by and introduce ourselves.”
“Well, you saved yourself a trip,” Y/n replied, somewhere between a polite and genuine smile.
Jamie chuckled, his hands awkwardly clasped in front of him. “Well, good to put a face to the name.”
Y/n nodded a little, “Same to you.”
“Right, well,” Jamie bent at the knees and flashed Y/n a smile, “See you ‘round, I guess.”
“See you around,” Y/n returned.
Without another word, Jamie and Y/n walked off down opposite ends of the hallway.
As she climbed the stairs up to Rebecca’s office, Y/n made a note that the Jamie Tartt she’d (quite literally) run into was, indeed, far different than the ill reputation he’d built for himself. He seemed perfectly pleasant, a little blunt, but polite nonetheless. It didn’t seem like the Greyhounds didn’t have any bad eggs.
Switching back to work mode, Y/n knocked on Rebecca’s semi-open door.
“Ah, come in, Y/n,” Rebecca quickly greeted.
Y/n walked in and saw that Higgins and Ted were already standing across from Rebecca’s desk.
“Hey, it’s the newest Greyhound,” Ted said cheerily.
“So sorry I’m late,” Y/n apologized, setting her purse and tea down on the coffee table. She was happy to bypass Ted’s greeting with nothing more than a polite smile.
“Oh, no it’s fine,” Rebecca waved her concern off before turning back to the matter at hand, “As I was saying, everyone alive has picked Richmond to finish in 20th place this season.”
Y/n came to stand between Higgins and Ted.
“Except for the The Daily Mirror,” Higgins interjected, “Which has us finishing ‘twentyelf.’ An adorable but devastating typo.”
Ted hummed, “Okay. Well, you know what? I predict all their predictions ain’t gonna come true. So it looks like we got ourselves a prediction Mexican standoff,” Ted turned to Y/n and Higgins, “Or as they call them in Mexico, a prediction standoff.”
Y/n wondered if the man had an off button.
“Well, the worst part is they’ve picked Rupert to finish in the top four,” Rebecca said with a heavy sigh.
“Rupert’s gonna play this year?” Ted asked in all seriousness.
“What?” Rebecca replied, “No.”
“You’re referring to West Ham United,” Y/n spoke up, trying to move the conversation along, “Correct?”
“Precisely,” Rebecca said, “Everyone thinks he’s better than us.”
“They,” Ted corrected his boss, “Everyone thinks they are better than us.”
Rebecca nodded a little too fast to be considered normal, “Yes, that’s what I said. They. So, what’s the plan? How are we going to beat him?”
Once again, Ted caught the error that Y/n knew was no error at all. “Them.”
“Exactly,” Rebecca replied.
“Oh, boy,” Ted said lowly.
“You know, this might be a good time for us to update our roster,” Higgins spoke up, “Put some more firepower in the team.”
Rebecca pointed towards Higgins, “That is an great idea, Leslie.”
“I agree,” Y/n threw in her support, thankful the conversation was moving back towards work, “Plenty of opportunity to make a big fuss over it, get people excited, pack the stands a little more.”
“Let’s put some feelers out, shall we?” Rebecca continued, glancing over to her manager, “Ted?”
“Well, I know Roy and Coach Beard are workin’ on some new tactics,” he answered, “And, you know, the fellas we already got are gelling real nice. I think we’re gonna do just fine this season.”
If Y/n could have measured the indignity on Rebecca’s face, she couldn’t have.
“Ted, this team doing ‘just fine’ is a far cry from you telling me we’re going to win the whole fucking thing.”
Y/n’s eyebrows raised just as Higgins exclaimed, “Whoa!”
“Did I really say that?” Ted asked, just as shocked.
“Yes, you did,” Rebecca’s voice raised an octave as she pointed towards her couch, “Over there after the Man City loss. Just before you blasted half a liter of Pellegrino in my face.”
The memory finally rang Ted’s bell, “Oh, right.”
“Wait, what happened?” Higgins confusedly asked.
Y/n nearly raised her pen to ask questions but decided against it.
“That,” Rebecca pointed towards Ted, “Is the Ted Lasso I want coaching my team this season. The one who’s willing to fight. Understood?”
“Yes, ma’am,” Ted nodded, “You watch, from now on, I’ll be floating like a butterfly and stinging like a bee. Except I won’t die immediately after using my stinger. I plan to float and sting for the entirety of the whole season.”
“Excellent,” Rebecca’s expression finally shifted and she looked to Y/n, “I apologize if we’ve thrown you into the deep end of our problems.”
Y/n held up a hand to signal there were no issues, but she was a little confused as to what the purpose of the meeting had been.
“I have a very important lunch meeting with one Miss Keeley Jones,” Rebecca continued as she collected her purse and came out from around her desk, “For some much needed girl talk.”
“Hey, tell her we said howdy and…” Ted wished before looking to Higgins.
“Yo,” Higgins added in a deep voice.
Rebecca looked to Y/n last.
“Tell her I’ll be in tomorrow,” Y/n added, still holding onto her binder.
“Okay,” Rebecca left out the door, off to the KJPR offices.
Y/n sighed as Ted and Higgins began to converse over the later’s out of character greeting.
“Hey, Y/n,” Ted tapped her on the arm, “You settling in alright?”
“Yes,” Y/n nodded, adjusting the waist of her skirt, “Very excited to get started.”
“Well, don’t be afraid to stop by if you need anything,” Ted smiled, missing the slight edge to Y/n’s words, “Or if you just wanna chat. Roy and Beard’d love to meet you.”
Y/n gave one more cordial nod before crossing the room to retrieve her belongings. “I’m sure we’ll cross paths at some point,” she replied, desperate to escape, “But I really do have a few things that need to get done. I’ll see you both later.”
With a trail of goodbyes from Ted and Higgins, Y/n vacated the office as quickly as she could without being too obvious. Not only did she feel it was a waste of a meeting to simply discuss the team’s standings, but no work had really been accomplished. She did, however, learn a great deal more about Rebecca’s mindset for the season than she’d set out to know.
When she returned to her office, Y/n shut the door and locked it. No more interruptions, no more distractions, she could do what she was here to do…her job. If the only way she could do that was by literally shutting Richmond out, so be it.
—————————
Much later in the day, Y/n took her second scheduled leave back up to Rebecca’s office. There was a West Ham press conference being held and Rebecca had requested her presence for the viewing. Something about PR strategies, but Y/n suspected she was partially valued as another essential piece in the takedown of Rupert Mannion.
She arrived just as Higgins was coming to stand behind Rebecca’s desk with her.
“Has it started?” Y/n asked as she crossed the room.
“Just about to,” Rebecca breathed, steel in her voice already.
“Are you sure you want to watch this?” Higgins made a point of asking.
“No, I don’t want to, Leslie,” Rebecca replied, as she loaded the stream link, “But it’s part of my job. I need to be ready to comment if Rupert were to say something snide about me or the team.”
Y/n came to stand on the other side of Rebecca, “I agree. Preparation isn’t always fun, but necessary.”
Rebecca blindly gestured to Y/n as she clicked away on her screen, she only looked up to glance out her window. “Where are they, by the way? Shouldn’t they be training now?”
Y/n peeked out the glass, she hadn’t noticed that the team was completely absent from the pitch. Odd for the first proper day of training.
“Oh,” Y/n said, coming to stand a little closer as the laptop screen changed, “It’s loading.”
Rebecca scooted her chair closer as the feed went live and a West Ham United backdrop became visible. Striding in from off camera came Rupert Mannion, calm, collected and charming.
“Ladies and gentlemen of the press, welcome,” he announced, “Lovely to see you all, and thank you for selecting our humble little football club to do so well this season.”
As the press let out chuckles, Rebecca reached into her desk drawer and pulled out a small pink box. Y/n watched as her boss pulled it open and angrily shoved a bite of a thick biscuit in her mouth.
“Twat,” Rebecca mumbled through a half-full mouth.
“The person you are here to see,” Rupert continued in a grandiose tone, “The Wonder Kid himself, our new manager, Nathan Shelley.”
Rebecca’s ex extended a hand towards his right and seconds later, Nathan and him exchanged places in the center of the room.
“Thank you,” Nathan smiled once he was seated, “Very nice to be here. I’m pretty sure I said ‘wunderkind.’”
Silence from the press.
“This is the same Nathan Shelley who was the kitman here,” Y/n said, half-asking, “Became assistant coach and then stole over to West Ham?”
“Yes,” Higgins answered as Rebecca was chewing, “Rather a hasty and heated exit.”
Y/n hummed in reply, nothing about the man struck her as particularly hasty or heated. The tabloids had painted a much different picture of the man. As Nathan stuttered over his answers, Y/n sensed nothing but a rather awkward humility.
She was proven terribly wrong over the next two minutes.
Nathan’s answers came quicker and were delivered with more confidence. At some point, they became biting. The sudden character shift felt like a reverse of Jamie Tartt’s, from the little Y/n had observed of both.
“Coach Shelley, regarding your old team, AFC Richmond,” one of the reporters began, “Any idea why everyone is expecting them to finish 20th this season?”
Y/n shifted in place as they awaited Nathan’s answer. Something about the smile that pulled at his cheeks just before he spoke unsettled her.
“Probably because there’s no 21st.”
If there was tension in the room before, it had just intensified tenfold.
“Meow,” Higgins commented.
Y/n turned to her co-worker, “Hasty and heated, you said?”
Before they could hear the next question, the Twitter alert on Y/n’s phone sounded from her jacket pocket. She’d set up alerts for the club, each Greyhound and the coaches. Pulling out her phone, the keyword ‘AFC Richmond’ was the first one she saw.
Her eyes widened, “Oh, no.”
Higgins tugged out his phone half a second later.
“What is it?” Rebecca asked.
Y/n and Higgins looked to one another, Higgins braving it and showing Rebecca his phone. Displayed on both their screens was a picture of the Greyhounds, led by Ted Lasso, climbing down a manhole into a sewer.
A PR nightmare.
Y/n distractedly looked up at Rebecca’s computer screen, still scrolling the tag. Someone had asked Nathan a question regarding the photo.
“Yeah, well, it makes sense,” Nathan answered, “They probably have to train in a sewer because their coach is so shitty.”
The press both gasped and laughed, each reporter’s eyes lighting up at the headline possibilities.
Rebecca slammed her laptop shut, fuming.
“Oh, boy,” Higgins broke the silence.
“Coach Lasso needs to address this,” Y/n spoke up, going into strategy mode, “Immediately. This is being turned into memes as we speak.”
Rebecca took a deep breath, pressing her hands together and to her lips in an effort to retain calm. “I will be speaking to him the second they are back,” she answered, before looking up to Y/n, “Come up with some potential response for the press conference.”
“Absolutely,” Y/n nodded, already out from behind Rebecca’s desk, “It’s best if the players don’t say anything either. Don’t give Coach Shelley any more ammunition.”
The day had officially turned and while Y/n had prayed for actual work to do, she hadn’t wanted it like this. Was this the gig? Digging Ted Lasso out of whatever absurd headlines his actions created? Combatting bitter ex-coaches?
Come 2:15, fifteen minutes before Ted’s press conference was scheduled to begin, Y/n gathered the notes she’d made and headed downstairs. She waited outside the press room until Ted came out of his office.
“Coach Lasso,” Y/n called, coming to walk alongside him, “The press are all ready for you but I think it’s important to address the matter of the picture trending on social media. The best strategy is not to stay on it too long, but don’t laugh it off. I wrote down a few responses that might be of use.”
By the time she’d finished, they were stood outside the press room once more.
“I appreciate it, Y/n,” Ted thanked her, “But I think I’m gonna Buffalo Wild this one.”
“You’re gonna-“ Y/n began to question the sentence before connecting her dots, biting down on her lip, “Wing it?”
“Exactly, Tom Clancy,” Ted smiled easily before heading in through the side door and leaving Y/n in the hallway.
With no one else around, Y/n took the opportunity to take a deep breath, throw her head back in frustration and scrunch up her face. Things were about to go from bad to worse.
After collecting herself, she rounded the corner of the hall and entered the press room through the back door. Rebecca was already waiting at the rear of the room.
“Did he take the suggestions?” Rebecca whispered as Ted began to speak.
Y/n inhaled deeply, “He did not.”
Side by side, the two women tried to contain their emotions and project confidence towards whatever was about to be said.
Though his ability lay in questionable standing, Y/n was surprised at how well Ted handled himself. The reporters and him had a rapport that Y/n shouldn’t have been shocked by. For all the comical flaws he possessed, Ted Lasso was likable. It wasn’t many coaches who would compliment a reporter on her new choice of hair color before she asked her question.
“Coach, how are you feeling about the unanimous opinion that Richmond will be relegated at the end of the season?”
“Yeah, that’s true, isn’t it?” Ted replied, “Expectations for us are as low as a rattlesnake’s belly button, huh?”
A few chuckles and smiles from the press.
“But, hey, we got 38 chances to prove all them folks wrong though, right?” Ted continued, “Yeah. And my hopes are as high as a giraffe’s top hat. Next question. And if it’s ‘why is a giraffe wearing a top hat?’ Don’t ask me, man. Go ask a giraffe.”
Y/n felt like she was regaining the ability to breathe as the midwestern wit was accepted. Ted chose his next interrogator, Marcus Adeybo, who was clearly known but in a new position judging by the ‘oohs’ and ‘ahhs’ of the press room.
“Do you have any response to comments made earlier today by your former assistant coach, Nathan Shelley?” Marcus asked.
Y/n tightened her hold on her notebook, Rebecca pursed her lips. They waited with bated breath as Ted thought over his next words with great care.
“Uh, yes, I do. Yeah,” Ted began, pausing with a small smile before continuing, “I thought it was hilarious.”
Through her peripherals, Y/n could see Rebecca was less than pleased. She was thrown herself, but decided to wait for Ted’s full answer before reacting in full.
“I mean, he came and got us, didn’t he? No doubt about that,” Ted laughed, “Hey, but that’s Nate the Great for you, you know? He’s the same way on the pitch. He’ll find the tiniest weakness in a team and just wanna attack that, you know? I mean, he’s a junkyard dog, man. And smart. They’re real lucky to have him over there at West Ham. I wish him the best of luck.”
For all her schooling and experience, Y/n found herself watching Ted in pleasant surprise as he pulled out a strategy she never would have thought of.
“I guess I am a little surprised that’s all he could come up with,” Ted kept going, shrugging slightly, “Especially against me. You know, not one joke about me being a dumb American? Come on, man. It’s sittin’ there. I mean, I’m so dumb…”
Ted’s grin hung open as he waited for a reply to a joke that clearly only served on one continent.
“Y’all are supposed to say ‘how dumb are you?’” Ted helped them out. One reporter raised their hand, “Gary?”
“Why?”
“I-I mean, it’s just classic joke structure,” Ted answered, “Give it a shot. I mean, I’m so dumb…” he nodded towards another reporter, “Lloyd?”
“How dumb are you?”
“Okay, well,” Ted raised his voice loud enough for the room to hear, “I’m so dumb, that the first time I heard y’all talkin’ about Yorkshire pudding, I thought it was a fancy word y’all had for dog poop.”
A few laughs came quietly.
“I mean, I’m so dumb,” Ted continued, waiting for the next line. A slightly confused chorus of questioning his intellect followed.
“Yeah, okay, well, whenever I text someone over here about money, I still spell pounds L-B-S.”
Y/n allowed herself to smile, realizing that there had been no point in giving Ted any suggestions. He was far better on his own.
“Look, man, I’m not a great coach,” Ted shrugged, “Probably ain’t. You know, I’ve been doing this sport now for three years, and I still get a chuckle every time someone talks about a handball violation.”
Shaking her head as it happened, Rebecca nudged Y/n with her elbow and held up her phone. There was a text from Keeley.
Way to let Ted be Ted!
Quickly, Y/n pulled out her own phone and opened up Twitter. Sure enough, there were tweets pouring in under Ted’s name, filled with nothing but praise and ‘LOLs.’
“Yeah, and not one crack about my appearance?” Ted continued, “About this mustache? I look like Ned Flanders is doing cosplay as Ned Flanders.”
Finally, the whole press room was laughing. Even Rebecca had found her smile once again, reserved as it may be for the unconventional approach.
“When I talk it sounds like Dr. Phil hasn’t gone through puberty yet.”
Y/n covered her mouth as she snorted.
“Yeah, I’m more corny than Kevin Costner’s outfield,” Ted waited for the joke to land, with no such reward, “Oh, I lost you on that one. Yeah. Field of Dreams? No?” Ted glanced to the back of the room and spotted Y/n who gave him a slight nod, signaling she understood it. “I guess y’all don’t really like baseball over here, so why would you like movies about it?”
Ted briefly bent down to check his phone, giving Y/n and Rebecca the chance to glance at one another. Rebecca sighed and Y/n shrugged with one hand, the wheels were entirely off and there was no point in trying to reattach them.
“Well, hey, how ‘bout this one?” Ted went on with a new strength, it seemed, “Regarding my panic attacks, I’ve had more psychotic episodes than Twin Peaks.”
The room filled with laughter again, including Ted’s.
“I mean, I’m so crazy…”
This time, both Rebecca and Y/n joined the reporters in asking just how crazy Ted Lasso was.
“There we go,” Ted said approvingly before continuing another round of self-depreciation.
As Y/n watched the room, and Twitter, sing Ted’s praises and reject Nathan Shelley, she made a mental note. No more notes on speaking to the press. Ted was aiming to kill with kindness, and she wasn’t planning to stand in his way.
Names and press conferences, the only things she planned to bend on.
—————————
By the end of the day, Ted was trending heavily and by association, so were the Greyhounds. The manhole picture had been thoroughly memed and it would take a week or two for the image to get lost in the Twitter-verse. Regardless of how good Ted was with the press, Y/n suspected there’d be several more sewer-type messes to clean up.
The sun was just setting as Y/n headed out to the parking lot. A few stray players had stayed late and were trailing out, most of whom she’d already met.
As Y/n searched through her bag for her keys, she heard a familiar voice wishing a teammate a good night. Jamie Tartt.
Y/n glanced up as the striker walked towards the car parked two spaces apart from hers.
“So tell me,” she called across the lot, “Do you guys save the sewer visits for special occasions or am I going to have to get used to doing this kind of damage control daily?”
Jamie chuckled, slinging his bag over his shoulder, “Uh, yeah, that was a new one.”
“Uh-huh,” Y/n’s smile was barely perceptible.
“Coach was tryin’ to teach us a lesson,” Jamie explained, standing at the boot of his car, “See, everyone’s got us finishin’ dead last, but we’re supposed to let that shit flow,” Jamie made a sweeping gesture with his hand, “Like the canals in the sewers.”
Y/n’s tongue poked her cheek as she tried to understand the teaching moment.
“I know it sounds bizarre,” Jamie admitted, most of Ted’s methods sounded insane outside the Greyhound’s locker room, “But he had a point.”
“Uh-huh,” Y/n replied, before grabbing her keys, “Well, whether the shit was literal or metaphorical, you guys just made my job a hell of a lot more interesting.”
“Hey, you didn’t have to fuckin’ go down there,” Jamie’s voice jumped an octave.
The two shared a laugh before moving to unlock each of their cars.
“I’ll see ya,” Jamie said with a smile.
“See ya,” Y/n replied, sliding into the driver’s seat.
Once she shut the door, she let her head hit the headrest. The day had felt like one big preview of how the season would go, and if it continued that way, Y/n was in for much more than she’d bargained for…
——
Heartfirst Taglist: @lalla-04p @optimisticsandwichgladiator @makingmunson94 @taytaylala12 @storysimp @sokkigarden @lightninginab0ttle @poohkie90 @alipap3 @verra-nerevarine @shineforever19 @spaceagechimera @burnafter-reading @qardasngan @cyberpvnk-enthusiast @sogoodtoheritsvicious @buckybarnex
#ted lasso fanfiction#ted lasso fanfic#ted lasso fic#ted lasso imagine#ted lasso x reader#rebecca welton x reader#keeley jones x reader#jamie tartt x reader#heartfirst
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FLOWERS
summary: harry and y/n become best friends throughout the filming of don’t worry darling
face claim: raven lyn
Liked by harryfan1, harryfan2 and 13,872 others
hsupdates Harry seen with y/n l/n on the set of don’t worry darling!
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harryfan1 OH
harryfan2 are they together?
↳ harryfan3 they’ve only seen seen together once chill.
harryfan4 SHES SO GORGEOUS
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yourinstagram bestie took this
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harryfan1 not going to lie if harry’s dating her..he’s one lucky man
↳ harryfan2 I think they’re just friends
↳ harrystyles bestfriends.
harrystyles I’m bestie.
↳ yourinstagram you don’t have to end everything with a period harold
harryfan3 HARRY??
florencepugh WIFE
↳ yourinstagram I MISS YOU I’LL BE IN SET TOMORROW
oliviawilde pretty 😍
Liked by harryfan1, yourinstagram and 20,625 others
dwddrama video proof of director, Olivia Wilde sending Shia Labeouf a video begging him to stay on the don’t worry darling set and calling out florence pugh and y/n l/n for not allowing him to work with them. more info in my bio 👀
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harryfan1 NOT HER CALLING FLO AND Y/N “MISS FLO AND Y/N”
harryfan2 who would want to work with a abuser?
yourinstagram I didn’t feel comfortable allowing someone I care about working with someone who has a reputation of being an abuser especially because of what the movie is based off of. I was told that my complaints were reasonable and were understood completely.
↳ harryfan3 oh poor y/n :(
↳ harryfan4 her protecting florence 🥲
harryfan4 literally so disrespectful of Olivia to disregard her feelings.
Liked by harrystyles, florencepugh and 615,827 others
yourinstagram oh my god..it’s on harry
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harryfan1 WHAT IS GOING ON??
harryfan2 stop why so many flowers?? 😭
harrystyles you started it.
↳ yourinstagram I only gave you 8 flowers!!
florencepugh a history event I’m witnessing
harryfan3 they’re giving each other flowers 🥲
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yourinstagram venice film festival
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florencepugh LOOKING GOOD MISS Y/N
↳ harryfan1 NOT THE MISS Y/N
↳ yourinstagram thank you miss floo can’t wait to see you!!
harrystyles that’s my best friend 😍
harrystyles also why do I have 30 flowers in my hotel room?
↳ yourinstagram it’s actually 36 but who’s counting..
harryfan2 I WAS WAITING FOR THIS
harryfan3 her not going to the press conference is a girl boss move😍
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hsupdates “me and y/n got really close throughout the filming of this.. she’s my best friend and uh she started a war with me which basically has us getting each other a bunch of bouquets of flowers..she’s winning right now because this morning she shipped 36 flowers to my hotel room, I’m planning on getting her back soon.” Harry talking about the flower war with y/n!
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harryfan1 AWW HARRY CALLING HER HIS BESTFRIENDDD
harryfan2 STOP I LOVE THEM
harryfan3 olivia’s face while harry was talking about y/n 😭
harryfan4 harry got so smiley after talking about herrrr I love their friendship
yourinstagram guys he’s so funny that he thinks he can get me back
↳ harryfan5 Y/N 😭
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hsupdates HARRY AND Y/N HUGGING DURING THE RED CARPET!
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harryfan1 STOPPP
harryfan2 I was there! when he was leaving he told her “I got you” do I know what the means? no but it was a adorable interaction and y/n’s looked so confused afterwards.
↳ harryfan3 MORE FLOWERS??
harryfan4 most of the cast avoiding olivia 😭
Liked by harryfan1, and y/nfan2 and 13,872 others
ynupdates y/n Instagram story with the caption “now I know what you meant. harrystyles”
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harryfan1 STOP HOW MANY WERE THERE??
y/nfan1 there’s probably over 37
↳ yourinstagram close..60
harryfan2 HE GOT 60 FLOWERS FOR HER??
y/nfan2 the best friendship ever.
harryfan3 I’m so sad we’re not going to get a lot of harry and y/n content now that the film is out :(
#harry#harry styles#harry styles fake instagram#harry styles fake social media#harry styles one shot#harry styles x reader#harry x y/n#harry images#harry imagine#harry x you#harry styles x oc#harry styles fandom#harry styles fic
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Idk if u do smut but imagine being leons coworker that he flirts with and like, he spots you at a bar??? Like him walking up to u and offering to buy you a drink???? Idk if this makes sense my brain kinda just jumbles my thoughts
Disclaimers: F.O.S (field operations support) is the same sub area Hunnigan works, basically reader is an operator, fingering, missionary.
Note: So I was originally not going to do this request as I have something similar here (It's not the best though, because It was my second ever work written) but I just went ahead with it. And btw my whole account is smut lmaooo.
An ice cold drink and a comfy place to sit was just what you needed. After a long and exhausting day at the F.O.S telling relevant information to random agents you’ll never speak to again.
You smirked as you picked up the glass in your hand, shaking the ice that clinked inside as you thought of that one particular agent.
Leon was definitely something. He was outgoing with his flirting remarks that you had just assumed he was single. Maybe you’d shoot your shot one day, who knows?
But that’s when you remembered you had some important files that needed to be sent off to your boss before you got chewed up and spat out. Groaning you buried your face in your hands.
Someone called your name making you turn confused as to who would be here that you knew at this time of night.
Speak of the devil, that it was none other than Leon himself. You called out a hey and waved him over as he sat done in the chair opposite you.
“Why’re you all alone here, pretty girl?”
You scoffed, crossing your arms and tilting your head to the side. “Pretty girl? I’m nothing but that right now today was so hectic. My job consists of yelling at dumbasses who half the time ignore my words.” You rubbed your temples, eyes rolling at the thought.
“Well I guess I’m one of those dumbasses, huh?”
“Oh I didn’t mean you Leon… you're definitely not a dumbass. I actually enjoy working with you.” You mumbled the last part but he heard it.
“Oh yeah you do? I mean all the ladies who assist me do so why don’t I buy you a drink?”
He leaned his elbow against the wooden table, chin in hand waiting for your answer.
“Not that I don’t like you Leon, but I don’t think I should drink anymore because I have to drive home.” You rambled.
He was so close, you could feel the effects of his words on your flushed skin. He looked infatuated with you, you weren’t sure why. Why? You were extremely boring, you had nothing to offer but you didn’t want to let go of Leon.
Maybe you could make him yours just for tonight?
And maybe you were both tipsy and you’d both wake up tomorrow morning and realise this was a mistake. Somehow you shared a sweet kiss while still sitting at the table, his hand held yours as he just couldn’t get enough of your addictive taste.
Don’t ask how you made it home, but with a little surprise of Leon on the side. As soon as you fumbled for your keys, feeling Leon nuzzle into the nape of your neck, hands tight around your waist shivering at the warmth that rushed through you as he pressed you to the now closed door making out with you harder.
Rougher, faster and stronger. You pushed him to your bedroom door and he groaned at the sight of your bed. What a lucky man, getting to fuck you straight in your bed. A private space where you had masturbated to the thought of him so many times that you’d lost count.
Call yourself a pervert, but you knew Leon was definitely doing the same. Why had you waited this long for this? You were missing out and you gripped onto Leon’s arms as he pulled down your jeans, seeing the white underwear you had on.
So thin. So delicate. Easy to rip and that’s what he did. The lack of sheer control had gotten to Leon’s head. Pulling the now ripped panties of your bare legs, inhaling them deeply like a perverted teen he tossed them aside as he spread your legs wider.
“You're so wet, did I do this?”
You nodded moaning as Leon rubbed a finger from your clit to your hole, the friction was building and all you wanted was for him to bury his thick fingers inside you. To make you his, and have you screaming his name.
But this didn’t feel like one of those cliché one night stands you see on tv.
No. This was romantic in a way. You felt the passion coursing through the part where your bodies met. Where he was fully sheathed inside your warm, wet cunt.
Huffing above you he looked like an angel that had fallen from the heavens. An angel that made out with you under the moonlight his name falling from your lips like a prayer over and over again.
100% was not thinking of og re4 in this case..
#leon kennedy#leon kennedy smut#leon scott kennedy#leon kennedy x reader#leon kennedy x you#resident evil smut#resident evil x reader#leon s kennedy#resident evil#re4 leon smut
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modern!steve harrington + mine cause i just KNOW he’d love that song and daydream about a future with his girl listening to it 😭💜
mine (steve's version)
warnings: hurt/comfort, my fingers slipped and put angst
wc: 2.1k+
an: okay i completely goofed here and made this far angstier than you wanted, and did not realize until AFTER it was done. 😭 i'm gonna apply the same logic as miss swift does with surprise songs - since i technically messed up, if you'd like a redo with more sweetness, let me know and i've got you haha 😭 i also just processed you wanted him to listen to the song and that image broke my brain so basically what i'm saying is this one will definitely get a redo haha sorry nonnie <3
It had all started over a stupid fight. A fight that he didn’t even recall how it had started. That’s how stupid it had been.
Steve had been tired, coming home from a long shift at the diner. It had been a shit show for the entirety of the twelve hours that Steve had been there, instantly making him regret pulling a double to cover one of his coworkers who called claiming they had a fever, but that he’d definitely seen posting on their stories about being out for drinks very late the night before. But he wasn’t going to tell his boss that — he’d been there. One too many beers on one of his rare free nights with friends, and he too would call out, claiming something along the lines of food poisoning.
He wasn’t fully lying. That much alcohol probably had poisoned him considering the way he felt like death the next morning.
The coworker wasn’t what had him in a sour mood, though. Nor was it the one elderly couple that had kept trying to have terribly long conversations with him when he knew he had food to run. Nor was it that obnoxiously large group of preteens that seemed to have no self awareness as they’d reeked absolute havoc on the diner for the final hour before closing. No, none of that really phased Steve anymore — he was just tired. He was tired, a bit too easily irritated, and just wanted to sleep.
His plans for the night had been crawling into bed with you, watching some TV show or movie he wouldn’t pay attention to with his head in your lap as your fingers would scratch soothingly at his scalp. His plans for the night didn’t include this fight. If he could have stopped, God only knows he would have.
“They’re going to shut off the water, Steve,” you stress, on the verge of tears at this point. Steve didn’t know if they were from stress, exasperation with him, or if you were hurting from how flippant he’d been since he walked through the door. Regardless, it didn’t matter; seeing you misty-eyed twisted the knife in his chest all the same, “What the fuck are we going to do if they do that? This isn’t something to talk about tomorrow.”
“They’re not going to turn it off tonight!” he shouts right back at you, throwing his hands into the air in defeat, “Fuck, I- what do you want me to do about it? What can I do about it tonight?”
You snap your mouth shut at that, lips pressed tightly to avoid any quivering.
“I just worked twelve fucking hours, I just wanted to come home and relax, I’m not in the mood-“
“You’re never in the mood,” you flatly interrupt him, tone a stark contrast to all the overwhelming emotions prominent on your face. Your voice doesn’t even waver — he knows that whatever you’re about to say, it’s been on your mind a while, “It’s always we’ll talk about this tomorrow, or we’ll figure it out. But we never talk about it. We never figure it out, Steve. We can’t just- You don’t think I’m tired, too?”
His heart breaks a little. You’re right. You’re standing there, still in your scrubs from your own twelve hour shift, and fuck, you’re right.
Things hadn’t ever been easy. Back in high school, there had been the issue of Steve’s parents. After graduation, it had been the terrible decisions of what now. When you two had decided to pack up and get the Hell out of town, it had been the stress of finally dealing with all the uncertainty, all while desperately trying to keep afloat amongst stacks of bills and adult responsibilities neither of you had expected to drown in. Things had never been easy, but Steve didn’t care about easy — he just cared that you’d always been there, by his side, on his team.
Right now, it didn’t feel like you and him versus the world. For the first time, it feels like there’s only you two in the boxing ring.
“This isn’t a competition, we’re… we’re supposed to be on the same side.”
There it was — your voice cracks, and the moment the first tear falls from your eyes, you’re quick to reach up and swipe it away, pretending it never happened. Pretending that one tear wasn’t ripping Steve apart from the inside out.
“It’s not a competition! But Jesus Christ, I feel like I’m suffocating-“
“I’m suffocating you?” the tears are falling more freely, and you make no move to erase them.
That’s not what he meant. At all. He’s only making it all worse. So, so much worse.
“I-“ he starts, but he doesn’t know what to say. He doesn’t know how to make this better.
He doesn’t know how to fix this.
In an instant, his hands go from threading and angrily tugging at his hair to flaring at his side as he suddenly walks sharply down the hallway. He’s making a beeline for your shared bedroom, doing the only thing he can think of to fix this for you. For tonight, at least.
You’re quick to follow, only two steps behind him, “Where are you going?”
“I’m-“ he pauses, yanking a random drawer open to the dresser, finding himself staring at a pile of your clothes rather than his own. He huffs through frustration and his own building tears, “I’m gonna stay at Eds’ tonight. Give you some space.”
“Give me space?” you laugh back in disbelief, not daring to take any more steps closer to him, “You’re the one who’s being suffocated-“
“You’re not suffocating me,” he stops all movement, hand still on the knob of his drawer. He turns to you suddenly, a new found confidence, “That’s- That’s not what I meant, okay?”
He can’t make this right, but he can’t leave you thinking that’s what he meant. You could never suffocate him — and even if you tried, he’d find it to be the most heavenly way to die. But you didn’t know that, not in this moment, and that was what was currently killing him.
You take a deep breath, one step forward, before asking quietly, “What did you mean, then?”
One last chance. An opportunity to make this right.
“You could never suffocate me,” all the shouting and the frustration has vanished, only softness and hurt left in their places, “Ever. Don’t you ever think for one moment that it’s you. It’s not, okay? I love you. You’re the best thing to ever happen to me, you are-“ he chokes up, looking into your glossy eyes. He can still recall the way he felt all those years ago when they’d first laid eyes on him. He’s memorized the way it felt, because every time you look at him, it still manages to feel like the very first time, “You are everything to me. You’re- Fuck, honey, you’re my entire future. When I think about the future, all I think about is you.”
You take another step forward. Steve’s own tears now track his own face, his heart racing painfully.
“I love you so fucking much, it’s crazy. And I just- I feel like I’m fucking all of this up. You deserve more than this, and I try to give it to you, but I can’t-“
“That doesn’t all fall on you, Steve,” your hands shake as you lift them, finally close enough to touch him. Each palm rests delicately on his chest and you can’t look him in the eyes, “I don’t want you for your money. Never have, never will.”
He laughs wetly. You’ve more than proven that. When his parents cut him off completely, you hadn’t blinked an eye.
“I want you because I love you. I’m in love with you, Steve Harrington. Okay? I’m so in love with you, I followed you across the goddamn country.”
“Eddie and Robin did too, to be fair,” he reminds you, almost jokingly. All the tension from the fight is quickly fading. His hand drops from the drawer.
“They did, but I guarantee I love you more than them,” you scrunch your nose, almost grimacing before adding, “No offense to them, of course.”
“Of course,” he echoes, slowly reaching up and holding your hands that had been pressed to his chest. You don’t pull back.
“I’m just- it’s stressful. We’re both stressed. Neither of us were prepared for this,” you look him desperately in his eyes, “I meant what I said, though. This isn’t me versus you — I never want it to be us fighting each other. It’s always us versus the problem, okay?”
He nods when you wait patiently for his response, “Okay.”
“And I want you here,” you continue, “I want you here, in our home and in our bed. I want you here, even screaming back and forth with me, as long as you’re here. With me. Go to bed mad at me, I don’t care. Just… don’t walk away.”
You smile through the residual tears, squeezing his hands that hold yours.
Steve thinks about all the examples of love he’d ever been shown. His parents, in a castle of ice. The way the fights always ended in separate rooms, sometimes separate houses. His father storming out to spend the night in a hotel rather than having to be around his mother a second longer. He remembers the way that even with an abundance of money, they were never happy. They never loved each other. A marriage of convenience rather than love. Lasting only out of obligation, not dedication.
He didn’t want that with you. He couldn’t ever imagine what the two of you have being reduced to that.
When he looks at you, all he can see is happiness. All he can feel is that love bursting from his chest. Images of the two of you by Lover’s Lake, the way the waves of the lake had sent shattered and sparkling flares of light across your cheeks as you’d laughed at him as if he was the funniest person in the entire world. All the nights spent over the phone, talking about nothing and everything, desperate to just fall asleep to the sound of each other’s voices. The ridiculous nerves he’d felt on the first date, King Steve shaking at the thought of putting his arm around you because for the first time, he was truly scared of fucking this up.
You made him a better man. You saw everything inside of him that was broken, that he had spent so long trying to hide, and you’d simply sat down beside him with glue in hand, prepared to spend as much time as he needed to piece it all back together.
Go to bed mad at me, I don’t care. Just… don’t walk away.
“I can’t do that, sweetheart,” he finally sighs. Your face starts to fall, but he’s quick to clarify, “I can’t go to bed mad at you. Ever. And we can fight, us versus the problem like you said, all we want but… I don’t want to go to bed mad. I don’t want… I don’t want that. Whenever my head hits that shitty pillow every night,” you both break to laugh, because God, you both really did need new pillows (and a mattress, if you were being honest), “All I want to know is that you’re mine and I’m yours. Sound fair?”
You smile, and it’s the best thing he’s ever seen. It makes all the long shifts worth it as you nod slowly, “Sounds fair to me.”
“Good,” he guides the two of you to the center of the room before he drops your hands from his, sighing and letting his shoulders finally drop, “Then in that case, I’m staying.”
Even with crying tears on your cheeks, you’re still the most beautiful person he’s ever seen. You’re still the best thing Steve Harrington has ever had the privilege of calling his, “Yeah?”
“Yeah. So if we’re gonna fight — let’s fight, baby.”
He puts his fists up comically, and you only giggle and grab at them, shaking your head.
“I think we've fought enough for one night,” you mumble, bringing one fist to your mouth, kissing each of his knuckles gently.
Once you’ve placed your final kiss, he quickly placed the hand beneath your chin, lifting your lips to his. He kisses you in quick succession, and between each one, he repeats the sincerest I’m sorry he can muster.
He only stops once you’re smiling too wide for him to continue.
After his lips leave yours one last time, pulling back slowly as he savors it and you, he finally sighs, “I am curious, though — what the Hell are we going to do if they do shut off the water?”
You shrug, “Like you said, we can talk about it tomorrow.”
“Or we can use Eddie and Robin’s shower.”
“Or we can use Eddie and Robin’s shower.”
As it turns out, Steve Harrington was wrong — when it comes to you, he can always fix things.
"brace myself for the goodbye, 'cause it's all i've ever known. then you took me by surprise, you said 'i'll never leave you alone'."
#speak now (ghost's version)#steve harrington x reader#steve harrington x you#steve harrington blurb#stranger things#steve harrington
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“Grandmother!” Adam shouts dramatically, practically kicking her door open and striding inside. Abuela comes hobbling out of the kitchen, cane in hand and eyebrow raised.
“Who?” she says, hands on her hips.
Adam grins, walking over to kiss her loudly on the cheek. “Hi, Abuela.”
She clasps his hand in hers and squeezes it. “Better, mijo.” She heads towards to chairs on the porch, tugging him along. He keeps a hand on the curve of her elbow to help her down the stairs, guiding her to her rocking chair and curling up next to her.
The late summer air is sweet, a welcome relief from the staleness that permeates every room in the Garrison. He’s not sure if the sunlight feels soft because it really is or because he’s relieved it’s Friday, but he revels in it anyway. It gently warms his skin, and he closes his eyes and basks in it, aware of Abuela doing the same beside him, smile slight and wrinkles deep and beautiful.
“I was thinking of you.”
Adam opens his eyes, glancing over. The sun glints off Abuela’s glasses, half blinding him, but her grip on his hand tightens, callouses scraping familiarly across his knuckles.
“Yeah?”
She hums. “Always. Lots to worry about with you.”
Adam scowls. “There is not.”
She looks at him with an expression that is simultaneously deeply fond and deeply judgmental. “How many times have I picked you up from a principal’s office, Pomposo? Ten? Twenty?”
“Eleven,” Adam says huffily. Past him is a bozo. He should have simply suffered in silence. Besides — he was justified! Having a smart mouth is something teachers and bosses make up as tools of oppression. Calling his tenth grade English teacher a self-important fool was not having a smart mouth, it was a perfectly understandable response to a bullshit grade.
But then Abuela laughs and he forgets to be annoyed. She has a raspy laugh, left over from years of cigarettes before anyone knew they were harmful, and it has always fascinated him; distinctive and joyful.
“You take exactly after your mother.” she says, and Adam doesn’t doubt it. “Her sister, too.”
“And you?” Adam asks cheekily.
She flicks him in the forehead. “Down to the core of you,” she agrees.
They watch for a while as cars pass by on the quiet street, waving at bikers and cooing at dogs walking by with their owners. One particular dog is being pulled along by a young girl half his size, and her determination makes them both giggle.
“Have you talked to your cousin, lately?” Abuela asks as the little girl disappears down the corner.
Adam purses his lips thoughtfully. “No, was he asking for me?”
“Oh, no,” Abuela dismisses, still half-focused on the road. “He just loves you.”
Adam freezes.
Abuela looks over at him in concern. “Everything okay, tesoro?”
Adam thinks he is three seconds away from bursting into tears.
“Yeah, no, I’m fine,” he tries to assure. His voice wobbles. Abuela squints at him, half concerned and half suspicious, but eventually shrugs, letting it go.
As soon as she’s leaned back into her chair, Adam slide show phone out of his pocket with his free hand, tapping open a contact.
to: the boy
CHILD
Lance answers immediately
from: the boy
Yes?
Adam grins at the proper punctuation, the capital letter. Lance has just barely had a phone for a couple months — he doesn’t know how to text like a normal person yet. He once sent Adam a text with a semicolon. He laughed until he cried.
to: the boy
are u busy tomorrow
from: the boy
I don’t think so what’s up
Adam doesn’t actually know what’s up. He doesn’t have a plan. He just knows that he has to see his cousin immediately, basically. Squeeze his cheeks, perhaps. He’ll hate it by virtue of being thirteen, but something tells him he’ll tolerate it.
from: the boy
I have to do my homework now so my phone is forbidden
from: the boy
So text my mom instead of me
Adam snorts, dutifully pulling up Tía Marcela’s contact. She’ll be pleased. She’s very gung-ho about Lance doing things that aren’t video games all day.
to: tía marcela
hey tía!! is lance busy tonight?
The message is quickly marked as read. Adam sets it aside for a moment, knowing she’s probably rushing around to find her reading glasses that are almost one hundred percent resting on her head. After a few minutes, a message dings in.
from: tía marcela
Hey!
from: tía marcela
I don’t think so. He has some homework, but it’s math, so he’ll be done soon. Why?
Adam snickers. Nerd. He probably got excited about the homework. Last Christmas Adam got him a math workbook as a joke and he was unironically obsessed with it. It was adorable.
to: tía marcela
i’m gonna come pick him up when he’s done maybe
to: tía marcela
we’ll get ice cream and go for a drive
The typing bubbles flit across his screen for a few seconds. Adam watches them, humming to himself. They could go to that old place off highway seven, maybe. It has that pineapple flavour Lance likes like the little weirdo he is.
from: tía marcela
O.m.g. he would love that!
from: tía marcela
He’ll be done in an hour.
Adam sends one last confirmation text, then tucks his phone away, sighing happily.
“Making plans?” Abuela asks.
“Yep! Gonna take Lance for ice cream.”
Abuela beams. “Oh, he’ll love that! He was talking to his friend on the phone last time he was here, bragging about how his cool older cousin thinks he’s funny. He thinks you hung the moon and stars.”
Adam has absolutely zero control of what his eyes do in response to that.
“Why would you tell me that,” he asks, sniffling, blinking rapidly to try and cool the re-emerging tears.
Abuela smiles, leaning over to kiss his forehead. “I think you needed to hear it, amor.”
———
Adam turns down the music as he turns into the neighbourhood, conscious of the slowly setting sun. He rolls to a stop in front of the oldest brick house at the end of the block, door paint peeling in bright blue flecks, bicycles and skip ropes strewn about the lawn.
He lays on his horn. Immediately, like he was waiting, Lance’s face peeks out of the open window, grinning wide enough to show off his braces.
“Get in, loser, we’re going shopping!” he shouts.
Lance doesn’t waste a second, throwing open the door with enough force that it bangs into the wall.
“Bye, Mamá!” he shouts. He pauses. “Sorry about the door!”
Adam doesn’t hear Marcela’s response, but seconds later Lance is sprinting towards the car, backpack swinging madly, throwing open the door and practically diving into the seat. He puts his seatbelt on so enthusiastically he brains himself with it.
“Hey, Metalmouth,” Adam teases, not even attempting to hide his laughter.
Lance flaps his hands. “Hey!” he shouts, way too loud for a small car. Adam can’t bring himself to care, grin stretching across his face so widely it aches. He digs his phone out of his pocket and tosses it at his cousin, waving at Marcela who’s watching from the door and putting the car in gear.
“You may queue three songs,” he says, craning his neck to check his blind spots. “If you choose terrible songs I am revoking the privilege for eternity.”
Lance pouts, knowing exactly what incident Adam is referring to. “It wasn’t that bad.”
Adam cuts him a dry glance. “It was gorilla noises set to loud drums.”
“It was alternative!”
“You’re alternative, brat.”
Lance taps determinately at the phone. His dark eyes are narrowed in the same concentration Adam has seen him apply as he decides whether or not he can get away with deliberately infuriating his older siblings. Adam pokes him in the cheek because he can, and because he is simply so fun to bother. Lance bats him away.
“I picked songs from the movie you said I should watch,” Lance says eventually, turning off the phone and putting it on the dashboard. “I watched it yesterday. I liked it!”
“That’s because you’re as much of a dweeb as Gabriella,” Adam says sagely as Bop to the Top starts blaring. Lance sticks his tongue out at him.
They get to the ice cream shop pretty quickly, Adam poking and prodding at Lance every three seconds because he can and because gentle bullying is the best way to show affection. Lance doesn’t seem to mind, and amuses himself by kicking Adam’s ankles and stealing some of his ice cream.
He tries to offer Adam money for his scoop of ice cream, no doubt from the pokémon cards he trades. Adam, in response, traps him in a headlock and gives him a massive noogie.
“I don’t need your money, you goober! I am an adult! With a job! You are an infant child!”
“Blegh! Get off of me! Butthead!”
But he’s laughing when he finally wrenches himself away, sprinting back to the car.
Adam takes the long way back.
By the time he finally makes it back to Lance’s house, it’s well after dark, and Lance’s eyes started to drift shut somewhere between the soundtrack of Mamma Mia and Victorious. He blinks awake when the pull into his driveway, yawning into his elbow. Adam shuts off the car and walks around to his side to help him out. He’s half-asleep on the way up the steps, leaning heavily on Adam’s shoulder.
“I’m so gonna brag to Rachel,” he mumbles to himself.
Adam smiles softly. He vows to take Lance out more often, and especially when the school year starts back up in the fall. It’ll certainly help with the homesickness.
“You do that, kiddo,” he whispers, pressing a kiss to his forehead. “Love ya.”
Lance is too out of it to answer. But his hand, clenched rightly in the fabric of Adam’s jacket, speaks loudly enough.
#dedicated to my cousin who apparently feels this way about me and made me Cry#abuela’s and adams conversation is the exact convo i had w my nonna and i cried for like forty minutes i love my cousin#vld#voltron#lance#lance mcclain#adam#adam & lance#kid lance#fluff#brown eyed lance#autistic lance#my writing#longpost#fic
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The boss, aka Teaching you Respect pt II (Jake Seresin)
Summary: When Jake invites the boys over for an unplanned guys' night, you have to remind him who's in charge.
3.7k words
Author notes: Sorry this has taken so long... I had too many ideas and couldn't put them all into practice. I swear I could write a whole book about sub Jake! 🤔 Also, I know nothing about college football, so forgive me if any of this is wrong! As always, thank you so much for reading - all comments, shares and feedbacks are very welcome. Also @fuckyeahhangman the bedroom scene was the one I wrote on the train... although the story your photo inspired will be on its way soon!
Warnings: Basically porn with a tiny hint of plot. Minors, this is definitely not for you - move along and do not engage! Femdom, p in v, oral (both m&f receiving), bit degradation, rough sex, a little angst, bad language, unprotected sex (be safe!). I think that's all but tell me if you spot anything I've missed!
The Boss
Part 2 of Teaching You Respect
It had been a long day and all you really wanted was the sofa, Jake, and a glass of wine, so when you arrived back to find three cars parked in front of your house you couldn’t help but let out a small groan.
Walking through the front door to cries of “pizza” mixed with the overly loud sounds of a football game felt a little like the final straw, and you wondered for a moment whether tears, screaming, or heading back out of the door would be a better move.
You hadn’t even kicked off your shoes when a handsome blond head appeared through the door, grin broad and green eyes crinkled at the side.
“Oh hey babe, we thought you were pizza.” He took a pull from his beer and strode barefoot towards you to press an open-mouthed kiss on your lips.
“Boys night?” You asked, your tone cold as you looked up at him.
He narrowed his eyes. “I told you, didn’t I? It’s my team against Coyote’s.”
You pursed your lips. “Doesn’t ring a bell. Any idea when you told me?”
The Hangman grin only widened, and he tilted his head to the side. “I definitely told you. We talked about it during flight practice last week and I said I’d talk to you the next day.”
“Day I got called away early right and we didn’t each other at all?
You thought about raising your voice, thought even about telling him to send his friends home. But if truth be told, you didn’t have the energy. So instead you shrugged on a sigh and ran a hand up the back of your neck. “You know what? Whatever. Just as long as I don’t have to be sociable. I’ll go get a drink and just head on upstairs while you have your boys’ night.”
He stepped aside but followed closely as you headed into the kitchen to grab a snack and a bottle of water, stepping behind you to wrap his arms around your waist as he kissed your neck. You shrugged him away as you continued to find food, but he only pulled you around to face him.
“Babe it was a genuine mistake, are you mad?”
You rolled your eyes. “I’m just tired Jake, it’s been a hell of a week and I could’ve done without coming home to a house full of people.”
He sighed and pulled you tight against him. “What if I promise to make it up to you later?”
You wriggled free of him. “Tonight’s not the night Jake, it’s been a shitty day. Just go have fun with the guys and we’ll talk about it tomorrow.”
Gathering up your snacks, you made your way upstairs, seething silently with every step you took and trying to block out the sounds of the football that blared from the room below you. Upstairs you changed into shorts and a tank and went to settle in bed, finding the new cheesy rom com Netflix had been promising you all week. But ten minutes in and the sounds of the game - not to mention the guys watching it - were way louder than anything you could comfortably manage with your own movie.
Could you turn the TV down please? I can’t hear myself think up here.
He read the message immediately, and you saw dots dance before you.
Babe you can’t watch football quietly. Can’t you turn the TV up?
This time the seething wasn’t so silent, a stream of curse words hissing out from your lips.
Not if I want eardrums. Come on Jake don’t be a dick.
The reply came quickly this time.
I thought you liked it when I was a dick. Liked the chance to remind me who’s boss 😈
FFS, are you kidding right now?! 1. I can remind you who’s boss without you being a dick and 2. Tonight is not the night.
This time there were no dancing dots, and though you waited for a moment, the TV downstairs continued to blare.
You were contemplating dressing again and heading out for a drink - ideally somewhere far far away from Jake… or maybe men in general - when the bedroom door opened slowly and a pair of piercing green eyes appeared around the side, Jake closing the door gently behind him as he made his way across the room.
“Babe,”
“Jake, don’t babe me. Just turn the fucking TV down, it’s not a big deal.”
“Easy for you to say.” Leaning over the side of the bed, Jake pressed his thick arms on either side of you and moved his lips over the side of your neck. “If I go back down there and tell the guys that you say we have to turn it down, they’ll think I’m whipped.”
You rolled your eyes. “Oh, and we can’t have that from the best pilot in the navy, can we?”
He pulled back, eyes burning into yours in a way that made your core tighten in spite of you. “Do you know what they’d say y/n, if they thought I did exactly what you told me?”
This time as he moved back toward you you pushed him away, a gentle hand on the Longhorns jersey that covered his muscular chest. “If you did exactly what I told you we wouldn’t be having this conversation right now.”
“Is that what you think?” Jake’s jaw was set as his eyes gazed pleadingly into yours and his voice hit a new low. “Because you know the power you have over me. You know I’ll do whatever it is that you want from me, all you need do is say the words.”
You couldn’t deny that it had an effect on you. Of course it did, because Jake knew all of the right buttons to push. So of course you reacted.
“Touch yourself. Right now.” You murmured, eyes never leaving his as you began to speak. “Touch yourself exactly as I tell you. Do you understand me?” He nodded, but you only shook your head in response. “Words Seresin.”
You saw the smile begin to form on his face, but he caught it just in time, nodding as he replied, “Yes ma’am,” and tugging down the heavy black material of his shorts and tight boxer shorts beneath to reveal the long, hard flesh protruding from a neatly patch of dark blond curls.
Slowly, you learned forward and took his hand, turning it up to spit on his palm before nodding towards his cock. Jake’s breath was heavy as his hand closed around the thick length, and as he paused to await instruction you found yourself mesmerised.
“Pull on your cock.” You whispered. “Hard. Show me how you do it when I’m not around and you have to think about me, to wish I was there.”
His hand began to move, slowly at first, eyes drifting closed and lips parting in a sigh.
“Does that feel good?” You asked, and when he only nodded you continued sharply. “I said does that feel good lieutenant?”
His eyes flew open and you met them steadily. “Yes ma’am.”
“Good boy. Now I want you to go faster, as fast as you can, while you tell me what you think about when you do this? When I’m not around.”
Jake swallowed audibly, the noise quiet compared to the blare of the television downstairs. “I, I think about your tits.” You nodded, encouraging him on. “About burying my face in them, about-,” he grunted softly. “Sliding my cock between them. Having you push them together tightly around me while I fuck in and out until I coat them in my cum.” His breath caught and you saw his hand stutter, but only nodded, your face expressionless despite the fire that had taken over your core.
“Oh lieutenant,” you tutted, leaning forward to place your hand over his until his grip had tightened further. You nodded encouragingly, “Such a needy boy for me, aren’t you? And what about when you’re at work. Do you touch yourself like this for me on base?”
Again he swallowed and nodded, silently at first until your raised eyebrow inspired a rapid “Yes ma’am” from him. Before moving your hand back, you swiped a finger over the tip of his cock and Brough the pearl of pre-cum you’d collected back to your mouth. As you licked it clean, you moved the other hand for him to continue.
His jaw slack, Jake shook his head in awe and began to move faster as his voice stuttered. “I think about you all the time on base. Think about sneaking you into my room. Putting you in - a flight suit and sneaking you into my room. Then having you take it off slowly until all you’re wearing is lingerie. Having you in front of me there in just those black lacy panties and bra. Then I’d - bend you over in front of the mirror, pulling your hair back while I fucked you hard, talking dirty in your ear until you wanted to scream, then putting a hand over your mouth so-.” Jake’s eyes fluttered closed and he hissed as his hand stuttered.
“Did I tell you to stop lieutenant?”
He shook his head and his Adam’s apple bobbed. “Need to stop, gonna cum.”
You nodded. “I see. Pull your underwear up.”
He followed your instruction through narrowed eyes, his skilled hands pulling the boxer shorts back up over an erection that was visibly throbbing. Once the shorts were fully back in place, you shifted onto your knees on the bed and crawled towards him, reaching out a hand to grip his hard cock through the fabric.
“You’re so desperate for me aren’t you Seresin? So desperate that you can’t even get through a week at work without thinking about fucking me?” As your movements quickened, you heard him whimper softly. “Listen to you talk, as though you’re in charge, as though I’d do anything you ask me to. As though I’d be the one who needs to be kept quiet when your cock is inside me.” You laughed and cupped his balls with your other hand, giving them a gentle squeeze that made him shudder. “As though it’s not the other way around. Who’s really in charge here Jake?”
Jake’s eyes were heavy-lidded and his breath was coming in loud, heavy pants as he croaked an answer. “You. You are ma’am.”
Continuing to pump him, you moved your other hand up to cover his mouth, gently at first. “That’s right. Which means you do what I tell you, right?”
He nodded, letting out a soft whine that only made you tighten your grip over him.
“And I want you to cum. Cum for me lieutenant, right now.”
His hips rutted against you, and all it took was three more tugs, firm and heavy, until he was twitching in your palm, soaking the material beneath one palm while the other muffled a loud groan. You continued to tug on him through the orgasm, feeling stream after stream of thick, hot cum spill into his underpants as you did.
It took what seemed like minutes before he stilled, his breathing beginning to settle and his eyes fluttering open.
“Oh Jake,” you murmured, your voice saccharine as you removed your hands and planted a chaste kiss on his lips. “You came in your shorts.”
He looked down, those green eyes dancing on top of flushed cheeks. “I wonder how that happened? Guess I should go clean up before the guys start to ask where I am huh?” Jake leaned forward to kiss you but you moved out of his reach.
“No no, there’ll be no cleaning up Jake.” He raised an eyebrow as you continued. “After all, you were the one who wanted to bring the guys over and watch the game, I wouldn’t want you to miss another minute.”
“But babe I’ll be uncomfortable and -.”
You laughed gently, “You mean the great Hangman will be uncomfortable being reminded that he doesn’t call the shots? That he’s really just a desperate, needy slut that came all over himself because he was told?”
Jake pursed his lips and began to shake his head slowly, but the fire in his eyes was all lust as he adjusted himself and nodded sharply. “No ma’am.”
You planted a kiss on his lips and shared a grin with him as he headed back downstairs.
The TV didn’t get any quieter once he’d gone, but you’d given up on caring. The unfulfilled heat between your legs had sent the movie far, far from your mind and instead had you drawing slow circles on your clit through increasingly dampening panties as you tried to decide whether you could wait until the end of the game for the mind-blowing orgasm you knew you could expect from Jake, or whether you needed the temporary fix of your vibrator until the game was over. As the heat within you increased, you found yourself becoming more and more daring, visualising increasingly teasing ways to get what you wanted from Jake without having to wait all night. Eventually, a plan firmly in place in your mind, you changed and got to work.
I’ve been thinking, maybe I should get in on this football game after all.
The message was followed by a photo; you wearing a Longhorns baseball cap together with the black lacy lingerie you knew was his favourite.
The reply was almost immediate.
You come downstairs like that and I promise game night will be over!
You grinned to yourself, impressed at how well you knew your man.
Jake! Of course I wouldn’t come down like that when your friends are there. I’d need some clothes on too.
Another photo - this time with one of his khaki uniform shirts worn over the lingerie, falling part way down to your knees.
Fuck. I’m on my way back up.
No need. I need another drink. Meet me in the kitchen in two.
You threw your phone on the bed and crept down the stairs, excitement and lust pulsing though your veins as you hoped to God none of the other guys would go to the bathroom while you were out in the open dressed like this. As you passed the living room, you heard Jake speak,
“I’m out of beer. I think we have more in the garage - I’ll go check.”
It was enough to make you hurry, running silently past the door so that you were waiting for him in the kitchen when he arrived, looking you up and down with a sinfully readable expression visible on his face.
“Baby you-,”
You held out a hand and removed the cap, placing it on his head as you shook your hair free and began to whisper. “Ah ah lieutenant, don’t get too carried away, Make no mistake that I’m only down here because you missed one very important job while you were upstairs before, and that means you have some serious making up to do, do you understand?”
He swallowed and watched wordlessly as you moved to close the kitchen door then began to unbutton the shirt, slowly.
“You see, it’s all well and good you telling me how desperate you are for me. All good you following my orders like the good little sub you are. But Jake, I expect you to make me come, do you understand?”
Jake nodded, and you swore there was a hint of drool on those perfect pink lips.
“Use your words lieutenant, you’re never going to be an ace if you don’t respect the people in charge.”
“Yes ma’am,” he whispered, hands twitching at his sides as he fought the urge to touch you.
You nodded. “So here’s how this is gonna go. After you left me hanging up there - guess we know how you got your callsign after all - I had to do all the hard work myself, so I’ve already gotten myself nice and wet.” You slid a finger inside the lace of your panties and brought it back to your mouth, swirling your tongue around the wetness before sliding it inside your mouth and then letting it go with a soft pop. “But what I really need is to be fucked.” You slid your panties down your legs slowly, and watched his erection grow again as you stepped out of them completely and pulled him closer to you by the orange fabric of his shirt. “I thought about using a vibrator but why would I? When I have a perfect fuck toy down here just waiting to be used?” Your lips were less than an inch from his as you exhaled the next words, your pussy-scented breath heading straight into his mouth. “So your job is to fuck me. To make me come on your cock, do you understand?”
He nodded, “Yes ma’am.”
Your hand moved to grip his sharp jaw. “Good boy,” and you pulled him into a deep kiss.
Jake’s nails gripped your bare hips tight enough to bruise as he kissed you back with a ferocity that almost sent you over the edge in itself, moaning softly into your mouth as your tongue and teeth made quick work of reminding him who was boss. When you were done you pulled back, staring him straight in the eye as you hissed the next order. “Now fuck me.”
He didn’t have to be told twice, and when you turned around to lean forward against the table, his hands immediately found your hips again, lining himself up at your entrance and thrusting his sticky cock balls-deep between your lips.
You heard his breath catch in unison with yours, and the low voice that chided him was much more shaky than you had expected. “No noise lieutenant, your buddies are in the next room remember?”
When his eyes met yours in the kitchen window, you saw absolute an arrogant determination reflected back that only served to make your walls flutter.
“Tell me again, what was it you wanted to do to me on base?” You asked.
Again, Jake didn’t need further instruction, the hand that wasn’t digging into your hip coming up to pull a ponytail into your hair and tug hard enough to arch you backwards as he pulled you further onto his cock. You let out a quiet sob and began to pant faster and faster as he moved, his rock-hard length plunging again and again into the most sensitive parts of you as they drove your pleasure higher and higher.
“To bend you over and fuck you, with everyone else right through the wall. Pulling your hair. Covering your mouth if you made a noise as you came all over my cock.” He paused and ground against you, the change of motion enough to make you breathe out a moan. “Fill you full of my cum and then sneak you back out with it still dripping down your legs.”
You squeezed your eyes shut, your breath a continuous rhythm of sobs as you brought a hand to your clit, desperately trying to relieve the deliciously painful pleasure that was fast approaching breaking point.
“You feel that babe?” Jake hissed in your ear in a low, arrogant Texan drawl that his buddies next door would recognise as the absolute epitome of Hangman. “Feel how much I’m turning you on? How, even when you’re the boss, I can still turn you into a quivering wreck? Why do you think that is huh babe? Because I’m the best there is.”
He punctuated the last three words with hard snaps of his hips, bringing you right to the brink of your orgasm; so close that he was right - you physically quivered as you writhed your way off his cock and turned to face him, snatching the hat off his head. But it didn’t matter; there was only one person going to be in charge tonight.
“On your knees Seresin, put that mouth to use.”
If Jake was pissed at the change of plan, he didn’t show it, face splitting into a wide grin as he dropped to his knees and grasped your butt with one hand, pulling you closer and closer to him until his nose rubbed mercilessly at your clit while he feasted on your soaked slit as though it was his last meal. When he slid two fingers knuckle-deep into your cunt, curving them into just the right angle, it was just too much. You shoved a fist into your mouth, biting hard on the flesh to prevent yourself screaming as you exploded around him, spilling out onto his hand and face.
As you stood there panting, Jake only grinned up at you.
“Clean yourself up this time lieutenant,” You told him quietly, trying to control the tremble in your voice as you recovered yourself enough to button the shirt again and collect your panties from the floor.
On command, Jake licked his fingers clean and ran the back of a hand across his face to catch the remaining wetness.
“I’m going to go in there smelling of pussy.” He murmured as he climbed to his feet.
“Good, it’ll let them know who’s in charge.”
He raised an eyebrow. “And I’m going to go back in with a raging hard on.”
You shrugged and balled your panties up into your breast pocket. “Then I guess you’d better hurry up and send your buddies home once the game has finished so we can take care of that for you.” You stepped forward to kiss him, the tangy taste of yourself on his lips as you rubbed a hand softly over his crotch. “Now go back in there and tell the guys I’m sorry I’m not up to seeing them.” You put a hand on the door before turning back to him. “And Jake, don’t forget their beer or they’ll wonder what we’ve been doing.”
And like that you were back out of the room, tiptoeing quietly across the carpet and back up the stairs wondering if maybe a guys' night was exactly what you'd needed after all?
#jake seresin x reader#Jake Hangman Seresin x Reader#top gun: Maverick fanfiction#top gun maverick fanfiction#Jake seresin x reader smut#Hangman smut#hangman x reader#top gun maverick smut#jake hangman seresin
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Coffee and Kisses (Steven Grant x Male!Reader)
Summary: When Steven starts his new job at a coffee shop, he quickly finds himself infatuated with his new coworker.
Requested by @inactive-things
Sorry this took so long to get out, I had to auditions at my local theatre (yes, I’m a theatre nerd), and then a vacation! Hope this is what you wanted!
Warnings: Slight sexuality crisis from Steven, Caffeine(is that a warning?), Kissing ig, It’s pretty much just feel good fluff
“Wait! Hold on!” Steven called out, racing to catch the bus before it pulled away. He managed to get on right before the doors closed, breathing a sigh of relief as he took a spot. The bus was rather crowded, causing him to have to stand, holding on to one of the handles which hung from the ceiling.
He pulled a crumpled up paper out of his pocket, checking it nervously for the third time that morning. An address was written on it in his own handwriting, having received it over a phone call and not wanting to forget it. The last thing he needed was to get lost on his way to his first day at work.
He could hardly believe he had been able to get the job after what happened at the museum, but he wasn’t about to complain. While making coffee didn’t sound as appealing to Steven as spending his days surrounded by Egyptian relics, at least it would pay his bills. Hopefully, his new boss would be better than Donna.
The bus lurched to a stop, pulling him from his thoughts. It took him a minute to push through all the people, but he managed to make it off the bus before the doors closed, driving off into the morning traffic. Pulling out the note one more time, Steven walked down the street only a little ways before he found it; a small cafe on the corner.
He walked up to the door and pulled on it; locked. He hesitated for a moment before knocking on the door.
Someone came up to the door; it was hard to see through the frosted front door window, and the blinds were still drawn in the larger windows on either side.
Steven heard a voice call out; “Hold on! We don’t open for another 15 minutes!”
“It’s Steven!” He called back, earning a few strange looks from passerby on the street. “Steven Grant, I’m meant to start today I think?”
“Oh! Steven! Yes, just hold on a minute-“ The door was pulled open, and the smell of fresh pastries and coffee immediately rushed into his senses. Standing there was a man with a blue apron on, the cafe’s logo embroidered on the front pocket. His face was handsome, and held a warm smile, the kind that made Steven’s heart leap in his chest. A name tag had been pinned in the right corner of the apron; Y/N.
“Come on in.” The man said, and Steven obeyed, stepping into the shop. The man closed the door behind him, a small bell above the door ringing as he did so.
“I’m thankful to have more help, we’ve been rather short staffed as of late.” The man, Y/N spoke as he walked behind the counter, Steven following awkwardly behind him. “I’m supposed to show you the basics! My name is Y/N.”
“Are you my boss?” Steven asked sheepishly.
“No, I’m sorry! Wish I was.” He smiled again, causing a warmth to blossom in Steven’s chest. God, he was cute.
“The manager will be in tomorrow though, so you’ll get to meet her then. It’s just me and you today, Steven!”
For some reason, Steven felt he preferred it that way. Y/N gave him the basic rundown before opening up shop. As he explained to Steven how to clean the expresso machine, Steven found himself admiring the other man. The way he spoke and motioned as he explained, the gentle curve of his jaw, and his eyes. God, his eyes. They were beautiful, bright, and filled with emotion. Steven had heard that the eyes were apparently windows to the soul; if that were true, then Y/N’s soul must breathtaking.
As his thoughts raced and he felt the heat going to his cheeks, he frowned inwardly. He liked women, he had known that fact for awhile, but he had never considered that he may like men. Did he like men?
“Got all that?” Y/N looked up at him, meeting Steven’s eyes. His thoughts stalled immediately, and he quickly realized that he hadn’t been listening to a single word the man had said.
“I-I think so? Uhm, I mean, maybe?” Steven stammered out, trying to cover for his blunder but failing.
“It’s alright if you didn’t, I’m more of a hands on learner myself. I’m sure you’ll be able to figure it out, and if you can’t, I’ll be here!” Y/N grinned, and Steven found his worries melting away.
…..
“Bloody…stupid….machine!” Steven cursed, struggling with the coffee grinder for the second time today.
“Something wrong?” Y/N turned to Steven, just finished handing a coffee to a customer.
“Can’t get this thing to work.” He sighed heavily. “Must hate me or something.”
Y/N chuckled at his comment. “It’s inanimate, Steven, it can’t feel hate.” He walked over to him. “But even if it could, how could anyone hate you?”
Heat rushed to Steven’s cheeks at the compliment, his hands freezing in the midst of their struggle with the grinder.
“Here, let me help.” The man leaned right over Steven’s shoulder, his chest pressed against his back as he reached his hand forward. He was close enough that Steven could smell his shampoo, the sweet aroma mixing with the smell of coffee which created a unique scent that Steven wouldn’t be able to replicate if he wanted to. Steven could feel his warm breath against his neck, and he was close enough to him to feel the vibrations in his chest as he spoke:
“Just like this, aaannnddd- there! Fixed!” Y/N pulled back, grinning happily at his accomplishment. Steven found himself missing the other man’s warmth as he took it with him when he walked away. “Let me know if you need anything else!”
…..
“I did it!” Steven called out happily. Y/N whirled around to find him standing there, holding a tall, cold latte, topped with whipped cream and caramel syrup. A triumphant smile shone on his face.
“Good job Steven!” He called back, the customers giving them a few strange looks. Steven had been working there for a couple of weeks, but had yet to master the shop’s specialty latte. Until now, of course.
Steven’s grin lingered on his face as he handed over the latte to the customer.
“You’re starting to really get a knack for this, Steven.” He smiled at him. “You’ll be a master barista in no time.”
“Well, I, uh, couldn’t have done it without such a great teacher.” Steven smiled sheepishly, fidgeting with his hands.
Y/N could feel the warmth rushing up to his cheeks at the compliment. “Well, thank you, Steven.”
.....
Steven turned the key in the lock, closing up the shop for the day. The shadows were getting long outside, and less and less people were milling about the streets. Y/N stood behind the counter, sipping on a large latte.
“How many of those have you had?” Steven asked as he turned back around, bringing the keys back to the counter.
“I don’t know, like...” He thought for a moment. “...five?”
“Five? Bloody hell, Y/N, you’re going to give yourself a heart attack!”
The man shrugged. “Hasn’t killed me yet!” He smiled happily, reaching behind the counter. He pulled out the remote for the music and turned it up. “I love this song!” Y/N walked out from behind the counter, placing down the half finished coffee as an upbeat song continued to play over the speakers.
Steven watched as Y/N started dancing and laughing. It was uncoordinated and clumsy, but shit, it was cute.
“Dance with me, Steven!” He cried out happily, veins coursing with caffeine as he spun with vigor around the coffee shop.
“I’m not really much of a dancer...” His cheeks flushed from...embarrasement? No, this was something else. His stomach began to flutter just like it had when they had first met.
Y/N shrugged. “Suit yourself!” He grinned as he continued to whirl around.
The setting sun filtered in the open widows, cause a golden hue to surround Steven’s coworker as he moved. He was illuminated with an almost angelic light, his laughter mixing with the music. Steven found himself wishing the moment would never end.
“I love you.” Steven blurted out, his brain not even comprehending what he had said until Y/N turned to look at him. Uh oh.
“You love me?” The man murmured quietly, unsure of what he had just heard. The music became mere background noise as they met each other’s gaze.
Y/N walked closer to Steven. “Steven?” He asked carefully. “You love me?”
Steven’s heart was pounding in his ears as he tried to think of something anything to use as an excuse. When he came up empty handed, he took a deep breath and resigned himself to his fate.
“Yeah. Who wouldn’t love you?” He starred down at his own hands, unable to meet the other man’s eyes as he waited for a reaction. He braced himself for rejection, or hatred or disgust, his mind racing to the worst outcomes imaginable as his heart ached.
Y/N walked to Steven, reaching out to hold his hands that were fidgeting out in front of him. They stilled, his chest still rising and falling nervously.
“I love you too.”
Steven looked up in surprise, his eyes meeting the man’s warm gaze. The way he looked at him made Steven want to melt on the spot, his breath hitching in his throat. Y/N leaned in, close enough that their noses were almost touching.
“Can I?” Y/N asked.
“Please.” Steven replied without hesitation. They kissed, slowly and gently, like something out of a sappy romance movie. Y/N reached up and cupped Steven’s face with his hands as Steven wrapped his arms around the man’s torso, pulling him in closer. The kiss lingered, neither wanting to be the one to pull away first as weeks of pinning bubbled to the surface.
Finally, they had to pull back for air. They stayed close, lips nearly touching. “I’ve been wanting to do that since I met you.” Y/N murmured against his lips, causing Steven’s heart to flutter.
“Can we get dinner sometime?” Steven asked sheepishly, as if he was still afraid he’d say no.
“Of course.” Y/N responded. “But first…” He gave Steven a quicker peck on the lips, “…will you dance with me?”
So sorry this took so long! I got halfway through writing and my computer decided to break, so apologies if it is formatted weird. I will be trying to be more active. Thank you so much for reading!
#moon knight#steven grant x male reader#steven grant x reader#steven grant#moon knight x male reader#coffee shop au#steven grant fluff
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Envy pt 2
WARNINGS NSFW!, self pleasure, drink ppl, alcohol, pregnancy, sex
fluff, smut
no use of y/n
miguel X spider!reader
NO MINORS! DNI
You knew, Miguel was desperate for you, it showed in his face. You wanted to kiss him for how delicious that elote was, but only that. You never got to take a good look at the screens that he clicked out of so quickly, but you assumed they were confidential.
You went to find your dorm and stumbled into Mayday on the way. “Where’s Peter?” You sat on the ground and bounced her on her leg. You noticed that Peter frantically ran through the hall, but as soon as he saw you you saw the relief in his face. “Thanks, Rose, I lost her while i was eating, crazy how fast she crawls.” He said, out of breath. “Oh, no problem, Pete!” You handed Mayday back to her dad and carried on your way.
All off the rooms looked the same up until yours, it was surrounded by roses and vines that would prick any other, all mine, you thought to yourself. You began to strip so that you could take a nice relaxing shower. (You wouldn’t have showered if you didn’t have a date tomorrow) Might as well, right? You quickly wrapped yourself in a towel and went to the bedroom. You dumped the towel into your hamper, the cold air that hit your body made your breath hitch. “Damn, why is it always so cold in my room.” As soon as you got your preferred sleep ware on (tshirt and underwear) there was a click. “What the hell?” You go in to the living room to find that the heat has been turned on. That’s weird, it’s the middle of spring… you thought to yourself. You brushed it off and hopped in bed, no covers were needed, as the heat was on now. As soon as you drifted off you saw miguel’s stupid face. You woke yourself up, not wanting to continue a dream with Miguel in it. You lied in bed staring at the ceiling until you gave up. You sighed, “gotta sleep somehow” you reached over to your bedside table and grabbed a vibrator. You put it up against your cunt and sighed out, “damn that’s good.” There was knock on your door, “Mierda. ¿Quién podría estar aquí ahora?“ You put away the vibrator and headed over to the door. “¿Si?” You looked down to find a box, “¿qué? I didn’t order anything?” You decided that it wasn’t yours and left it out there. As soon as you hit the bed this time, you slept, no Miguel either. You woke up early to get ready for the date. Makeup, and a dress that hugged your body in all the right places. You went to go knock at Peter Stacey’s door to see if he was there and ready. On your way there you stopped over to say hi to Miles and Gwen, who were training with Miguel. They were on water break so you had a chance to talk to them. Mid conversation you went to re apply lip gloss that you had accidentally smudged, but you dropped the bottle. This dress was short, so you didn’t know if you wanted to bend over. You did anyways, who would be looking at you? Gwen? You didn’t think about Miguel who was watching you from behind, basically eye-fucking you as you bent over. You look back at him staring at you, “are we gonna have a problem?” Miles put his arms behind his head and Gwen whispered, “mom and dad are fighting.” They both snickered. You went up to him and slapped him in his face as hard as you could, almost knocking him over. “maldito pervertido que mierda enferma.” <Damn pervert, what a sick shit> You said under your breath, Miguel looked shocked. You stomped away in your heels and heard Miguel say, “que perra” <what a bitch> you called back, “I’m only a bitch for Peter Stacey, cunt!” You stuck your tounge out and flipped him off. Gwen smiled at Miguel, “I don’t think she likes you.” Miguel replied, “no shit.”
“You look mad.” Peter B said as you headed to your date. “You think? tell your boss he should get a life. He’s a fucking perv.” Peter covered Mayday’s ears. “Sorry May” you apologized. You hurried on your way and finally got to the date. You enjoyed it, Peter was funny, he was nice. You were falling head over heels for him. You got a text on your phone when the date was over. “Yo call me.” -miles. You answered his FaceTime and he went, “look.” Flipped the camera, and to your horror, Miguel had cameras of you, and every room in your dorm, and every room in your house. “Can you give the phone to Miguel? Porfa.” Miles came out from hiding, “Yo big man! It’s rose~” Miles cooed. He threw the phone over to Miguel. “How long have you been watching me?” Miguel looked into the phone like a boomer. “Huh?” He said cluelessly. “Don’t act stupid Miguel. No eres gracioso. <you’re not funny> You are seriously starting to piss me off. First it was when we were at the lab, second at the cafeteria, third you are a total stalker.”
Miguel said nothing. He ended the call. You screamed profanities into the phone to the point that people who lived in Nueva York stared at you.
1 week later you had not talked to Miguel. You hadn’t made eye contact, or even went on a mission together. Until an anniversary event. It was the 10th anniversary event of the spider society and there were drinks, many drinks. Everyone knew Spider-Rose couldn’t resist a good beer if offered. So incidentally you got a little drunk. Peter offered to take you to MJ so that she could clean you up, but you declined. Hell, many people offered, all were declined. So you sat on a bench at 1 in the morning still drunk, and almost knocked out. But, you thrived, the energy drinks that were still there in the empty halls kept you up and running. You stumbled into what you thought was your room, but ended up being Miguel’s.
“Rose?” Miguel looked at you and tried not to laugh. “What are you doing in my room.” You managed to blurt out. “This is my room, rRose.” You tried to punch him but your slow pace landed you on the floor. He decided to sit you on the couch and give you some orange juice. “Miguel?”
“Yes?”
“Do you love me?”
“Well, I do, but you don’t love me back.”
he sat down next to you and the couch sighed. “What if I did love you.” You asked. Miguel looked at you, “I would kiss you.” “Then kiss me.” Your drunk smile grew. “No, I couldn’t rose.” You leaned in for a kiss. But he backed away. “Rose. You’re drunk.” “But-“ he kissed you back. He picked you up and stumbled through his dark apartment and laid you on his bed. He waited for your smile of consent. He leaned down into you and started to sprinkle your neck with kisses.
He sighed into your neck and his hands roamed your body. He slid off your tights and hiked up your dress. He moved in closer to you. You felt his cock between your legs. You wanted it. You needed it. You weren't that drunk. You wanted him and you wanted to do this. He leaned down to you again and kissed your lips. "You want it?" You nodded. "Please. Fuck me baby." You had never called him baby before. Not even in a mocking way.
He kissed you deeper and started to move down. His hands found their way to your waist and he slowly lifted up your dress. He moved his hands up your stomach and reached the top of your bra. He gently squeezed and pulled up on your bra. Your nipples popped out. He lifted off the bed to see them. They were large and soft. He lowered back down to you and started to kiss your breasts. He licked and sucked one of them. His other hand reached around and unclasped your bra and let it slide off your breasts. He grabbed it with his teeth and pulled it down, releasing your breast from its hold. He kissed it again. "You're so pretty." He said. You reached down and started to unbutton his jeans. He watched your fingers. You unbuttoned the bottom and unzipped them. He lifted up and stood at the end of his bed. You helped him take them off. Your eyes watched his cock for the first time. He had a nice sized cock. A little bigger than you were used to.
He kneeled back down next to you and pulled your panties off. You didn't protest. He looked up to your eyes and slowly started to lick your cunt. He moaned. "Oh rose..." He licked you deeper. "Mmmm baby you taste so good." He had a strange way of talking. "Miguel." He moaned again and slid one of his fingers into your pussy. "Baby... you're so tight." He put another finger in. "You're so beautiful." He said and then began to lick your clit. You felt him slowly move in and out of you. You were being filled by him. You wanted more. He was slow but intense with his actions. His tongue felt so good. He got back up to his knees and looked at your pussy. "Do you want it rose?" You looked up at him. "Please, yes baby." He moved up between your legs and slowly started to push into your cunt. "Fuck you're so tight." He said.
He put one of your legs on his shoulder and went deeper into you. You felt a new wave of pain. But you wanted more. You wanted him. You needed him. You didn't think it would be like this. He went deeper until his full length was inside of you. "You're doing so good baby." He said and kissed your leg. "You feel so good around me. So tight." His hands found your tits and started to play with them as he began to move. His movements were slow but steady. "Oh fuck..." You moaned. "Fuck me baby." He moved faster and deeper into you. "Rose." He moaned. He pulled out and flipped you over on your knees. He kneeled up and put the tip of his cock at your asshole. "You sure you want this rose?" "I'm sure baby." He slowly slid into you. You took it. You took every inch of him.
He pulled back and went back in. He pulled out again and slid into you again. You loved the feel of him. His hands slid down your back and pulled your hips back to meet his thrusts. You were filled with him and you never wanted it to end. He began to move faster and his thrusts became stronger. He pulled you up onto all fours and started to fuck you. You looked up to him and he leaned down and kissed you. He kissed you so good. "Rose..." He moaned. He kept thrusting. "Oh fuck, fuck, fuck!" You moaned. "I'm gonna cum." "Cum baby." He moaned. He reached between your legs and started to rub your clit. You couldn't take much more. You came first. You screamed into the night and he came soon after. You felt him release inside you. His body was hot.
He laid next to you and you looked to him. "I love you." He said. "I know." You said and fell asleep.
When you woke up Miguel was still next to you. You shoved him awake. He looked up at you tiredly. “Shit! Fuck Miguel. Did you use a condom?” You removed the crusts from your eyes and patted down your nearly hair. “No?” He looked back up at you. “Miguel! Why wouldn’t you! I’m not on my birth control!” He quickly sat up. “You better hope you have some weak fucking sperm, Miguel!” You quickly got up and took pants and a hoodie from his drawer and slipped them on. “Where are you going?” You looked back at him, “to get a pregnancy test to take next week.” You weren’t actually going to get one right away, you were too lazy. You headed to the cafeteria to meet up with Pavitr and Hobie. “What happened to you?” Asked Hobie.
Pavitr gave you a funny look, and then smirked. You glared at him. He smiled back. “well, I don’t know, just hungover,“ you yawned, you didn’t want to tell them what actually happened.
You all ate silently. Hobie and Pavitr looked at you with concerned eyes, they knew something happened. You sighed. They looked at each other and you knew what that meant. They were going to have to sit through a conversation. They followed you into your dorm. They looked at you confused as you started to pace. They looked at each other confused, why were you pacing. You sat down on your bed. You looked up at them. You had tears in your eyes. Hobie frowned. You looked at him and then you started to cry. You shook your head and let the tears roll down your face. Pavitr hugged you tightly, rubbing his hands through your hair. Hobie pulled you out of Pavitr arms and hugged you. You gripped onto him tightly. Pavitr held you and rubbed his hand up and down your back.
After a while your crying came to an end. You looked up at Hobie, “you wanna tell us what’s goin on chum?” Pavitr nodded. You sniffled. You looked at them. Your voice cracked. "I might be pregnant."
They both stared at you. "huh, ok" said Hobie. Pavitr seemed surprised, but quickly recovered and nodded.
Pavitr held your hands in his and smiled. "you know I support you no matter what you decide." You nodded and wiped your eyes. Hobie smiled at you.
You took a deep breath. "I really think I should go ahead and take the test now, so I'm not doing this all week." You stood up and headed to your kitchen to grab the test from under your sink.
You returned with a test in your hand. You took a deep breath. Hobie grabbed your hand and looked up at you. "We will support whatever you decide, ok?" You nodded. "Thanks" you said quietly. You walked to the bathroom.
After you took the test and waited the longest ten minutes of your life, you looked down at the results. Positive.
You felt numb. You opened the door to find Pavitr and Hobie in the same spot, still looking worried. You held the test in your hand, looking down at the two pink lines. You showed it to them. “So uh, who’s dad?” Hobie asked. Pavitr nudged him with his elbow and gave him a mean look. “No, it’s ok Pav.” You started to tear up again. “The dad…is Miguel.” You wiped your eyes and sat down. They both hugged you.
"what do I do?" You looked down at the test in your hand and sighed. "I don't know." Hobie looked at Pavitr who nodded and looked back at you. "I think I'm gonna tell him"
Hobie looked up at you confused. "You wanna tell Miguel?" You shrugged. "I want to see if he wants to be a part of the baby's life... if he doesn't I don't know if I'll tell him or not." Pavitr rubbed your back. You nodded. "I think that's a good idea." You stood up and sat down next to Hobie.
You sighed and leaned against him. He put his arm around you. "What are you going to do if he says no?" He asked softly. "I don't know..." He looked down at you.
the next week went by slow. You had tried to avoid Miguel at all costs. It was hard keeping it secret, as your baby bump grew faster since you were a spider woman. It was all going well until he saw you at training, rubbing your belly.
You all ate silently. Hobie and Pavitr looked at you with concerned eyes, they knew something happened. You sighed. They looked at each other and you knew what that meant. They were going to have to sit through a conversation. They followed you into your dorm. They looked at you confused as you started to pace. They looked at each other confused, why were you pacing. You sat down on your bed. You looked up at them. You had tears in your eyes. Hobie frowned. You looked at him and then you started to cry. You shook your head and let the tears roll down your face. Pavitr hugged you tightly, rubbing his hands through your hair. Hobie pulled you out of Pavitr arms and hugged you. You gripped onto him tightly. Pavitr held you and rubbed his hand up and down your back.
After a while your crying came to an end. You looked up at Hobie, “you wanna tell us what’s goin on chum?” Pavitr nodded. You sniffled. You looked at them. Your voice cracked. "I might be pregnant."
They both stared at you. "huh, ok" said Hobie. Pavitr seemed surprised, but quickly recovered and nodded.
Pavitr held your hands in his and smiled. "you know I support you no matter what you decide." You nodded and wiped your eyes. Hobie smiled at you.
You took a deep breath. "I really think I should go ahead and take the test now, so I'm not doing this all week." You stood up and headed to your kitchen to grab the test from under your sink.
You returned with a test in your hand. You took a deep breath. Hobie grabbed your hand and looked up at you. "We will support whatever you decide, ok?" You nodded. "Thanks" you said quietly. You walked to the bathroom.
After you took the test and waited the longest ten minutes of your life, you looked down at the results. Positive.
You felt numb. You opened the door to find Pavitr and Hobie in the same spot, still looking worried. You held the test in your hand, looking down at the two pink lines. You showed it to them. “So uh, who’s dad?” Hobie asked. Pavitr nudged him with his elbow and gave him a mean look. “No, it’s ok Pav.” You started to tear up again. “The dad…is Miguel.” You wiped your eyes and sat down. They both hugged you.
"what do I do?" You looked down at the test in your hand and sighed. "I don't know." Hobie looked at Pavitr who nodded and looked back at you. "I think I'm gonna tell him"
Hobie looked up at you confused. "You wanna tell Miguel?" You shrugged. "I want to see if he wants to be a part of the baby's life... if he doesn't I don't know if I'll tell him or not." Pavitr rubbed your back. You nodded. "I think that's a good idea." You stood up and sat down next to Hobie.
You sighed and leaned against him. He put his arm around you. "What are you going to do if he says no?" He asked softly. "I don't know..." He looked down at you.
You tried avoiding baby-daddy Miguel. But he soon found you rubbing your belly in the cafeteria when you were talking to Hobie and Pavitr, cause why wouldn’t he find you? And you still had some of your glow, even though your eyes were red and you looked like you hadn't slept in a week. You looked like you'd been crying a lot, like you'd been crying over him. Like you missed him and wanted him back.
And you looked guilty and you looked like you'd lost a fight in war. And even though you'd had your first appointment at the clinic and you were bound to be a mom, you looked like you were holding something in. You looked like you were carrying a secret, like you were trying to keep it safe, even from yourself. You looked like you were struggling and Miguel could tell something was eating you from the inside, he could see it on your face and in your eyes.
Miguel approached you
You had your lunch with Hobie and Pavitr and they were both discussing something you had no clue about, some weird new thing they were trying. And then Miguel sat down next to you and Hobie and Pavitr exchanged glances
You were trying to act as if everything was ok, and you weren't completely aware of the fact that your bump had become more obvious over the last week. And now Miguel could see it. You felt his stare and you looked up and made eye contact with him. You knew he'd found out and you couldn't help but feel guilty and it was as if he knew that. You thought he looked upset. And your eyes began to water.
Then Pavitr and Hobie got up to leave, Pavitr said something to you in Hindi, you nodded and smiled.
Miguel had tried not to get in the way of your friendship with Hobie and Pavitr, they seemed to be nice to you and you guys always seemed to have fun when the three of you hung out together, so he didn't want to be the guy that wrecked your vibe, so he stayed back at the table and didn't speak much.
He tried to act like he wasn't watching you and he tried not to let you know that he could see your bump but you knew he could see it. And he saw you touch it a few times in the last 30 minutes, and you looked uncomfortable when you did. And he could see you looking at him, you'd glance at him then quickly look away again when he'd look at you. He was kind of glad he hadn't talked to you much yet.
You got up to leave.
Miguel didn't say anything
He wanted to. He wanted to know what happened, why your eyes were red, why your voice was scratchy. He wanted to ask about the bump that was so obviously bigger than it was last week, and he wanted to know if you were ok, if something happened. But he couldn't bring himself to talk to you, and you were leaving anyway so you didn't notice that he hadn't said anything, so he just watched you go.
pt 3?
#miguel o'hara#miguel spiderman#miguel spiderverse#atsv hobie#atsv miguel#hobart brown#hobie brown#hobie my beloved#hobie spiderverse#miguel ohara#miguel#miguel smut#miguel x reader#miguel x you#2099#peter b#astv#spiderman 2099#pavitr#pavitr prabhakar#atsv pavitr#spiderverse pavitr#pavitr my beloved#pav#hobie#spiderpunk#pregnant#pregnancy
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My Jiujiu Wikes His Boss
"My jiujiu wikes his boss," Jin Ling helpfully told Jingyi's dad while they were eating soft ice cream at the cafe in the company building where his Jiujiu worked.
"Oh really?" Lan XiChen asked with a smile. He had known Jin Ling for more than a year but he had never seen the boy's uncle. "Is the boss handsome?"
"Vewy handsome! He has wong, shiny haiw, pwetty face, and majestic nose!"
"Jin Ling!" Jiang Wanyin came to the cafe, sweat beading all over his face. "Why did you leave the kindergarten without supervision?"
"Jiujiu!" JL put his ice cream down and opened his arms for his uncle to pick him up.
JWY wrapped his arms tightly around the boy as he took him into his arms. "Gods, you worried me."
LXC raised a brow at his secretary. JWY was JL's uncle? Now, this just got fun.
JC noticed his boss and he immediately bowed despite still holding his nephew. "I'm so sorry, sir. I hope he didn't bother you."
LXC shook his head, his smile quite naughty. "Oh, he didn't. But JL sure provided me with very INTERESTING news."
JC blinked a couple of times. Holy shit. What did JL say to his boss??? He wracked up his brains for anything. Anything at all until it tunneled in around one information that JL definitely found /interesting/ to share to anyone. 'Oh, my gods... Please no'
JC cleared his throat and hid his panic. "O-oh, i-is that so, sir?" He chuckled and looked down at JL's cute and chubby face. The face that he'll bite later until he's all satisfied.
"Yes... Very interesting indeed." LXC got up and walked closer to the duo before gently patting JL's head and planting a kiss there, his face an inch away from JC's. "JL, don't leave the kindergarten without supervision again, okay?"
The boy nodded and looked up at the handsome man--LJY's daddy. "Daddy of JY, you'we handsome too. Maybe my jiujiu wiww wike you too."
'Oh, please, dear gods above. Just take me.' JC prayed. LXC smirked at JL and patted his head once more. "Well... Do you think I'm pretty enough for your Jiujiu to like me?"
JL put his head on Jiujiu's shoulder and hummed as he stared at JY's dad. "Yes. I think so. But maybe Jiujiu's boss is still pwettiew than you."
"I doubt it," LXC replied before patting JC's stiff shoulder. "You can go home early today, Wanyin. Make sure you take care of JC. See you tomorrow."
'Maybe see you never, boss. I'll never show my face around here anymore. I'll file a re--'
"Don't resign. I won't allow it."
-----
The next morning was an eventful time. JL was throwing a tantrum, saying he didn't want to school, JWY being forced to wait for LJY by the school gates so JL would walk in, and of course, LJY being accompanied by his father.
"Morning, JL and JC," LXC greeted.
"Morning, boss," JWY made sure not to meet the man's eyes and let JL grab LJY's hand. "JL, be good, okay? No more escaping."
JL looked up at Jiujiu and nodded. "Okay, Jiujiu. JY is with me. I wiww be good."
LXC chuckled to himself. JY was anything but good after all. JWY and LXC watched the boys walk into the school building hand in hand.
"So... I guess you like your boss, huh?" LXC teased, making JWY screech and try to make a run for it but LXC was fast. He grabbed JWY's elbow and basically tossed his secretary into the car. "Sir..." JWY basically pressed himself against the door, wanting to escape this awkward situation.
"What will you do if your boss like you too?" LXC asked, his smile bright and mindless of the driver.
JWY gulped a couple of times. "Uhm... I'm... Sir... Uh..."
"What? Are you afraid of me?" The boss teased, loving how the usually irritated and serious secretary was now stuttering.
"N-No! Not... Not at all!"
"I can hear you lying, Jiang Wanyin."
"I'm not lying, Lan XiChen," JWY finally snapped. "You're being ridiculous."
LXC raised a brow. "Is that so?"
"Yes! Just because my tattletale of a nephew said something doesn't mean that you should believe it."
"Huh... And yet you called him a tattletale. Meaning there's truth in there."
"Oh, shut up." JWY huffed and crossed his arms over his chest, his cheeks burning from embarrassment. "You may be my boss but I won't allow you to play me."
"Oh, why would you think I'd play you?" LXC asked.
JWY's eyes were sharp on the older man. "Lan XiChen. #1 most eligible bachelor of the decade. Playboy. Changes partners like he changes his clothes. Sugar baby to half of the billionaires we know. Really? Really, SIR?"
LXC chuckled. "Excuse me? I am NOT anyone's sugar baby."
JWY turned to the older man and raised a brow, obviously calling him a liar with just one look.
"I am just someone who enjoys the best in life. It's not my fault people are willing to pay for my time."
"So... A sugar baby."
"Minus the sugar, of course. I only sleep with people I'm interested in." LXC smirked and looked JWY over slowly. "And I'm interested in you."
"So this is about sex?" JWY asked, slightly hurt by it.
"Not at all," LXC shook his head. LXC looked at JWY and smiled. "How about a trial time? You and I go on dates for a while and if we realize we're good together, we can start being in a serious relationship?"
JWY shook his head. "Look, boss, it's unethical for you to do this."
"Hmmm? How?"
"I'm your employee. I am not really in a position to say no to what you want. What if I realized I don't like you after all? What if I realized I don't want a relationship with you? I won't have the power to say that w/o the thought if getting fired."
LXC glanced at JWY and shrugged. "Then you can transfer under WangJi's wing. I'll have WWX as my secretary."
JWY narrowed his eyes at his boss. "You are aware that LWJ and WWX are dating."
"Yes." LXC smiled at JWY as if he'd just made a point. JWY rolled his eyes. "LWJ is in love with WWX. WWX has him wrapped around his fingers. You, on the other hand, just found out from my nephew that I may or may not like you. It's not the same."
"I think it's quite worse. LWJ is more in love with WWX than WWX is in love with him. LWJ can control him."
"It's LWJ we're talking about. Not you. You playboy."
"And I'm your boss but somehow, you still don't care enough to talk back to me." LXC chuckled. "Coz you're quite a himbo," JWY pointed out, sighing when the care finally slowed down.
"Keep driving," LXC ordered and the car sped up once more. "Himbo, huh?"
"Yes. A himbo."
"Then I guess himbos are your type."
JWY laughed at that. "Can't deny it. Himbos can be cute."
LXC leaned back and chuckled, rolling his eyes at JWY. It looked like he'd have to woo this pretty secretary. ---
Wasn't it such a good thing that JY and JL are such close friends? JL became LXC's spy on JWY.
"So... What does your Jiujiu like to drink?"
"Coffee. No chugaw..." JL replied happily while building his skyscraper with JY. ---
The next day, a cup of coffee, no sugar and no creamer, was waiting for JWY on his table with a sticker of a smiley white rabbit in the cup. ---
"What does your Jiujiu like to eat?" LXC asked JL one time while JL and JY were playing together.
"Wotut Toup." JL replied before grinning at JY's papa.
/Dear gods above, give me enough strength to control myself. I'm itching to bite this kid./
---
JWY frowned at the sealed lunch box on his table. His gears moved, making him know that it was from his boss. But what the heck is he supposed to do with these random gifts? Upon opening, his mouth watered. Lotus Soup. How the hell does the man know what he wants? But he won't complain. So he sat down and took his fill of the delicious food provided for him.
LXC watched JWY and gave himself a pat on the back. So far, so good. ---
"What flowers does Jiujiu want?" LXC asked JL, watching his son and JL build a building made of Legos.
JL paused and frowned. "Uhm... Hy... Hy... Hydwa... Hydwajeya...? Puwpwe and bwue widdwe fwowew."
"Purple and blue? Little?"
"Hydrangea, A-Die," Jingyi helped. JWY blinked at the flower pot he found on his desk. A beautiful little hydrangea. So good. "Boss," he popped his head inside the office.
"Hm?" LXC looked up at the gorgeous man.
"Do you like curry?" He asked.
LXC blinked and nodded. "Ah, yes."
"Does JingYi like it too?"
"Yes, he eats anything. As long as it's not too spicy."
JWY nodded. "Come for dinner then. I'll cook."
---
Lan XiChen made sure that JingYi looked good for their dinner with Jiang Wanyin and Jin Ling. Donned in identical casual white shirts and black jeans, LXC & LJY held hands as they walked towards the front door of the Jiang house. LJY was holding a bouquet of peonies for Jin Ling (a request he made for his Diedie to buy because JL loved the flowers) and LXC held a small pot of hydrangeas.
The CEO pressed the doorbell and had the chance to hear two pairs of feet scrambling to get to the door. "I GOT IT!" JL yelled but when the door opened, it was JWY who had it. "I TAID I GOT IT, JIUJIU!"
JWY chuckled and shook his head, "too bad, you're so slow." He smiled at his boss and LJY. "Well, hi, good evening."
"Good evening," LXC greeted, his eyes scanning the younger man shamelessly.
The purple button-up shirt was tucked into a pair of white shorts that stopped an inch above JWY's knees. His feet were bare too.
"Good evening, Mr. Jiang. Good evening, A-Ling!" LJY stole the spotlight easily. He gave A-Ling his bouquet and he waited for Mr. Jiang to let them in.
"Good evening, A-Yi!" JL greeted back as he took his flowers, his cheeks turning a bit red from pleasure. "Come, A-Yi, we can go pway!"
JWY patted A-Yi's head. "Good evening, A-Yi, welcome to our house."
The two boys ran into the house and went directly to A-Ling's play area which was caged with colorful plastic fences. In the play area was a small tent where they could lie down if they wanted. All of A-Ling's toys and books were there too.
The adults went to the kitchen. "Please have a seat, sir," JWY offered before wearing his duckling-yellow apron that screamed A-LING'S PRETTY JIUJIU in what looked like a child's scribble. "The curry is almost done."
"Might as well call me XiChen now, Wanyin," the CEO pointed out. "Okay, XiChen," JWY tried, thankful that he had his back turned to the older man because he was sure his face was red from the embarrassment.
"You look good, Wanyin."
"I know, XiChen."
"Date me, Wanyin."
"No, XiChen."
"Why not, Wanyin?"
"Because you're my boss, XiChen."
"I like you, Wanyin. And you like me too."
"I can't deny that, XiChen, but it's not so easy."
"What's stopping you, Wanyin?"
"You're my boss, XiChen, and--"
"Should I step down from my position, Wanyin?"
JWY turned to his boss and shook his head. "You're really stubborn, aren't you, XiChen?"
"You know that more than anyone, Wanyin."
The secretary nodded with a sigh. "If I date you, you promise not to ever change how you treat me?"
XiChen blinked a couple of times. "I can't ask you to eat lunch with me?"
"Of course, you can but no unnecessary touching. No inappropriate words. No telling the others about us," JWY listed, hoping that it would scare the older man off. But another part of him wished that LXC would still want him despite those.
"But after work, I can hold your hand, kiss you, hug you, drive you home, prepare meals for you, and all that?"
JWY's cheeks reddened but he continued his task. He measured rice on 4 plates and topped them with curry. "Yes, of course. Unless I tell you not to."
"Then I'm alright with anything you want, Wanyin. There's no reason to say no to me now, is there?"
JWY chuckled at that and shook his head. With a small movement, he leaned over the kitchen island and planted a short but sweet kiss over LXC's lips. "Yes, XiChen-ge. Take care of us."
//End
#mo dao zu shi#mdzs#mdzs fanfiction#jiujiu#jin ling#jin ling and his jiujiu#lan xichen#jiang wanyin#jiang cheng#aling#a-ling#xicheng
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🥸🧥 hello i am a humble stranger here for the secret wip knowledge... 📓
welcome to secret wip corner mysterious stranger 😎
so i literally have a whole doc of my rogue yeehan ideas when i’m not thinking about cage OR when i’m pretending that my custody battle au that i need to update doesn’t exist. so i will let loose one of my ideas from the aether: one of my i have a kink about cassidy’s voice fic idea.
hear me out like
cassidy’s voice is hot as shit and i’m a weak sad sad man and i feel like hanzo is the same and you can pry this from my cold dead hands.
i don’t have a name for it yet but it’s a “sales call center au” (ive worked at both a call center and have done my fair share of phone sales so more of this au hinges on my experience from phone sales lol) and basically cole gets hired by some company (overwatch ig) to sell services over the phone. his easy humor, smooth voice, and non pressuring vibes have led to numerous sales so someone (idk who yet) asks him to pursue the toughest nut to crack: hanzo’s company—shimada whatever. no one has been ever able to get past the gatekeeping front desk staff let alone talk to the ceo. so cole does some digging and manages to get the ceo’s (hanzo’s) personal number. he leaves a few messages which hanzo ignores, but cole isn’t one to leave this shit hanging. finally one day hanzo picks up and is all Will you Quit Calling. and cole is like okay one growl at me more daddy what—but he’s like sugar gimme a second of your time but hanzo hangs up on him.
now at the company i worked for (and any phone sales company) getting hung up on didn’t mean don’t pursue; in fact they said hey keep trying until you get a good convo and a formal no then push them out for a few months and come back (basically pester them to death you know businesses gotta business LMAO). the only exception is obviously dnc lists and whatnot. so cole keeps calling. and more and more he and hanzo start to actually talk. it’s pretty flirty from jump and their talks get longer and longer to the point that they don’t even talk about sales or any of that shit just about each other. cassidy “takes work home” a night or two on his personal cell (and they have phone sex cough). and then eventually hanzo’s like alright tell me about this product of yours so i don’t make your superiors think i’m wasting your time. cassidy does the full pitch, hanzo actually considers it because he’s built up so much rapport with cole and it WOULD be beneficial for the business… so he’s just like cole i will consider your proposal and partnering with your company on one condition… and cole’s just anything sugar name your price. SO hanzo’s like i do not do online payments. i will only provide you a check… in person. and i will only sign if you are physically in my office. CLEARLY he’s saying “cole i need you in my bed and i’m willing to make this fucking happen” and cole knows but obviously it’s a recorded line when he’s in the office so he’s like hon lemme put you on hold. goes to talk to his boss and reyes (ig who is his boss i haven’t thought much about the company structure yet) is like: boy, if you get the shimada’s to sign i will promote you the second you come back WITH bonuses. and cole explains how hanzo will only sign if he goes in person and reyes is like i’ll book the flight for tomorrow LMAO. so cole goes back to his phone to talk to hanzo and said can i count on you to pick me up at the airport? and he can hear hanzo smiling over the line and HUEHUEHUE
yeah anyway when he gets to hanzo’s city they see each other in person they’re so fucking horny, they go to hanzo’s penthouse and fuck nasty style and then the next day hanzo goes over all the terms, signs the check and huzzah business partners lol. they probably get married in the future too LMAO
is it ethical?? idc the fic is hot to me LOL. one day i’ll write it 🌚
#yeehan#this fic doesn’t have a name it’s just yeehan (company i worked for) au in my notes#LOL#idk what i would call it#persistent maybe?#tell me ur thoughts on this nonsense valen pff#i have so many fic ideas i could be here all day#about renjamin
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That’s when, somehow, the proprietary logic of our emotion, what Alva Gotby calls our “emotional reproduction” of one another and ourselves, along these propertarian lines, is weakened and loosened. Instead we see outbreaks of Red Love, as Alexandra Kollontai called it. Red Plenty, was Mark Fisher’s term. (I’m not sure Mark Fisher was down for our family abolition at all.) I think the emotional level of “red plenty” is the feeling that we are secure in the very contingency of our caring and cared for-ness. Where we don’t need containers like the family, like marriage, like private property, to reassure us that we will be held tomorrow, as well as today.
Indeed, those containers that I just mentioned, family, and all the mechanisms that come along with it (like inheritance and marriage and so on): they are already quite fallible. They do fulfill certain social reproductive functions adequately from capitalism’s point of view. But everyone knows a husband can walk out on you (or worse, maybe, not walk out on you, in some cases?). It is us that the family is not serving. It’s serving the market and the state pretty well.
I keep noticing that the conversation about the crisis of white masculinity in America doesn’t really refer to the ample evidence, the sociology, that shows that men benefit massively from heterosexual marriage. Even with all their complaints, like: “there’s no male breadwinner household anymore” and “women aren’t respecting men anymore.” Whatever narrative is being peddled by Jordan Peterson, basically. The hard evidence is basically that marriage is a great deal for men. It’s a great labor deal for heterosexual men. That’s why they don’t leave marriages. They cheat, but they don’t leave (unless their wife has a life-threatening disease).
TFSR: One of the things that you said that’s really important that comes in feminist and Gay Liberation texts from the ’70s is this idea that the family gives to the worker this mini hierarchy. You get yelled at by your boss at work, but you come home and you get to lord over your wife and children. And then there’s a chain of hierarchy there too, where the husband has power over the wife, or the wife maybe has power over the children. It’s the little laboratory in learning your place. And then also the violent pleasures of having power over someone, too.
I think that’s really an important thing to pull out. That’s how I tried to explain to myself this current movement of, in a moment of devastation and economic precarity for so many people, why there’s a parental rights movement. Why is that the thing? That’s one place where these people are naturalized into having power over someone where they have no power in any other situation perhaps?
SL: Yeah, yeah. That’s fascinating.
Gosh, there’s something I literally thought just a minute before getting on this podcast with you, Scott. Someone shared a snippet of Hannah Arendt, who is a philosopher I’ve always disliked. She’s very, very conservative, in my opinion, anyway. But there was a section of an essay by her that I’d never read, which was her essay opposing desegregation! I didn’t even know this existed! Anyway, she argues that it is too great of an infringement on parental rights, basically, to demand that children go to desegregated schools if their parents don’t want to create a desegregated family culture. She has this fantastically clear and strong statement in favor of the primacy of family: the supremacy of parental authority over the realm of the public. I don’t know if this is actually useful, you may want to cut this from the recording. But I was just thinking about the social crisis that she was writing from within. The tumult of that moment. She’s writing from this moment of racial justice, upheaval, and movement and she’s saying, “The Family is threatened by this, and I choose to uphold the Family.”
I think we need to get braver. I think we need to be able to say, against the right-wing assault against Critical Race Theory: yeah, fine, this does threaten the family. I think there are so many similarities between that “integration” fight and this moment of organized assault on trans children and trans life more generally. Do people have the guts to understand the structure? The way in which the far right is sometimes onto something when it accuses anticapitalists, feminists, leftists of seeking to undermine the sanctity of the Family? Against Arendt, for example, can we insist that that parental rights can go get fucked, when appropriate?
I think the missing part of left discourse is the willingness to say, “Yeah, we do oppose the Family on x and y fronts.” Or even the willingness to merely criticize the family. I’d like us to be able to say: “We do not consider parental rights a supreme value on this terrain.” But we have to be very clear that at the same we oppose the devaluation, dispossession, expropriation and dehumanization of Black parents. There are many groups whose “parental rights” are always already pretty much null and void within the Child Protective Services industry.
Dorothy Roberts has important scholarship on family policing and the very, very white supremacist structure of parenthood as it is defined in settler-colonial law, and in child protection generally. We can, according to her, and I agree, seek to abolish family policing (and to that extent, basically argue almost for the voices of Black parents to count more), while at the same time fighting for family abolition, as a longer term anticapitalist goal. We can defend disenfranchised parents and at the same time struggle for parental rights to be limited or balanced out (relative to the rights of children).
But family abolitionism is full of these slightly tricky-to-think-through contradictions. Because we live in a world in which family is always already a racially bifurcated technology. Which is not to say that Black, or racialized, or immigrant, or queer, or proletarian working class families aren’t part of the privatization of care into private households. As I said, that privatization is the main thing about the family, so, even these alternative forms of household and social reproduction and kinship (which in many ways have skills and experiences that are going to be super useful for family abolitionism) are part of the family regime. It makes no sense to make exceptions for these sorts of marginalized and underserved and underbenefited families. People who benefit the least from the edifice of family values and the regime of familism (as an economic system) should not be used as a reason to shore up the family!
Saying like, “Oh, we don’t mean those families, we just mean, like, the white bourgeois family!” is much safer. People always want me to say that. They want me to specify that, when I say family abolition, I mean the white bourgeois family. But I think if you define the family—as I think it is correct to do—as a mechanism that really affects everybody and is reproduced, wittingly or not, by everyone, then then you really have to be talking about the privatization of care. It is non-bourgeois, non-white, non-settler people who are going to benefit the most from family abolition. In that sense, they deserve it the most. They should not be exceptionalized, or for that matter, romanticized. Because the private nuclear household is not somehow a wonderful thing, just because it happens to be situated in a racialized, proletarianized community. Unfortunately!
TFSR: Yeah, I want to get to the trans stuff, but where you’re leading me is thinking about the selling out of the radical liberationist movements of the women’s movement and gay movement by taking family abolition off the table. Is that another moment of white supremacist consolidation? I’m thinking about gender abolition, for example, or the word gender itself already includes the power structure. I think family maybe does, too, by thinking that family is related to blood and naturalized relationships, it erases other forms of relating to people that happening, but get called the family maybe, wrongly, and reproduces a kind of racialized logic that our belonging is based on blood.
So, what I’m thinking about here, and what I want to ask you about is on the one hand, why was it taken off the table? Do you think it has to do with this racialized logic? On the positive end of this question, how do we relate family abolition to these other kinds of abolitionist movements? Connecting it back to the abolition of slavery, but also police and prison abolition, which is explicitly Black liberationist and fighting against an anti-Black world? Do you have thought on why that was sacrificed in the vision of the movement and how we can make those connections now?
SL: Yeah, it’s really interesting. The collapse of that imaginary at the height of the struggles that proliferated around 1970 is definitely linked to, simply, our material defeat. It’s literally just the epistemic consequences (epistemicide) of the murder, frankly, and repression, that the state successfully carried out. Our people were stomped into the dust. We can’t really state that enough.
You can look at the beginning of the ’70s and the end of the ’70s and simply compare the texts! I found two things that struck me that were amazingly different. From the early ’70s and, then, in contrast, the early ’80s. A text by Pat Parker, who is a Oakland-based Black liberationist radical nurse and “third world” feminist, who has a speech that she gave at an anti-imperialist convergence, and it is all about how white women on the left need to get with the program of family abolition and stop being scared, because capitalism and the state will not fall until women and children explode the cell of the family (i.e. the private nuclear household).
That text [of Pat Parker’s] is amazing, because it puts Black women really squarely at the forefront of that politics [of family abolition], which I personally kind of imagined, like everybody else imagines, until I looked in the archive, was probably most forcefully articulated by the white, Jewish feminist Shulamith Firestone. It’s just not the case. Actually, Black women were saying it way harder, I discovered.
But then 10 years later (and, again, we have to think of all the successful State repression of Black liberationist struggle in the interim), we have Hazel Carby’s very famous and also very well articulated open letter, White Woman Listen!. I think that’s from 1984. And it’s basically about why white feminists’ excessive emphasis on the family as an oppressive structure is harmful to Black women. And she says, “Black feminists do not deny that the family can be a source of oppression, but it’s also, for us, an important site of survival and resistance to the state.” That’s the text that everybody knows. What people don’t know is the previous one, the one 10 years before that. Because as I said, the memory has been erased.
I find it so interesting that essentially, we’re talking about the defeat of Black feminist abolitionism in the widest sense. The abolitionism of the present state of things in its entirety: family, capital, state, criminal justice system, all of it. That intensity was actually voiced by the Black feminist imaginary. Which makes sense given, for example, Hortense Spillers’ analysis of how it is the Black woman who falls out of the symbolic logics of gendered humaneness in the grammar of American life. And it is the Black female social subject who needs to be made a place for. We don’t know what that place would be. She says she doesn’t know whether that place would be called a family anymore. That’s possible.
Tiffany Lethabo King reads Hortense Spillers’ epochal text, “Mama’s Baby, Papa’s Maybe,” as potentially family-abolitionist. Tiffany Lethabo King is one of the Black family abolitionist theorists thinking and working today. And she’s not the only one. I quote in my book from Lola Olufemi and Annie Olaloku-Teriba, who are working on “patriarchal motherhood” from a Black radical perspective in the UK right now. I do think maybe it is the defeat of Black power that we must point to, if we want to explain why family abolitionism was no longer thinkable by the end of the ’70s.
#repost of someone else’s content#The Final Straw Radio#Sophie Lewis#nuclear family abolition#feminism#antiblackness#Black liberation#leftism
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Copybat Ch. 3
Bale!Bruce Wayne x Trans!OC
Warnings: Toxic friendship, mild transphobia, no Bruce Wayne(He'll be in the next chapter, I promise!)
Word Count: 1,235
Victoria dials her best friend’s number, needing to tell someone about tomorrow night.
“Toriiiii!!!” The other line exclaims. “Where’ve you been? You didn’t answer me at all yesterday!”
“Hey Liza, yeah, I’m sorry about that!”
“Where were you, girl?”
“It’s a long story, but basically I was assaulted and ended up in the hospital! Concussion!”
“You were probably over dramatic,” Liza laughs over the phone. “I’ve had concussions before, and I just slept it off for a few hours.”
“My head was bashed into a wall,” Victoria states. “I blacked out and someone had to call an ambulance for me. I spent the night in the hospital and was out cold for at least three hours.”
“Okay, jeez!” She groans. “No need to make it a competition!”
“I DIDN’T--” Tori catches herself from screaming over the phone. “Whatever, anyway, I haven’t told you the best part.”
“And what’s that?”
“The aforementioned person that called me an ambulance, wanna know who he is?”
“Oh my god! Just tell me!"
“It was…” Victoria lowers her voice again, even though she’s alone in her apartment. “It was Bruce Wayne.” Liza is silent for a minute. “Liza?”
“BRUCE WAYNE CALLED YOU AN AMBULANCE?!”
“And… I’m going on a date with him tomorrow night.”
“YOU’RE GOING ON A DATE WITH BRUCE WAYNE?!”
“Mhm!”
“HOW ARE YOU NOT FREAKING OUT RIGHT NOW?”
“I don’t know,” She shrugs. Her heart is beating but she’s cool on the outside. “But…I was wondering, wanna help me choose what to wear tomorrow night?”
“Is that even a question? What time should I come over?”
“Later today, maybe at like, 6?”
“See you!! Love you!”
“Love you too!” Victoria hangs up the phone before going to clean herself up. Showering, changing into fresh clothes, she goes into her home office to look at her creation. Fresh eyes looking at her hand crafted batsuit, working weapons and all.
Without the mask, she’s not the most confident in herself. She has the skills to fight back, but when she’s faced with a situation like being cornered, Victoria tends to freeze up. With the mask, she knows it’ll be different. It has to be if she wants to be what the Batman is. She holds one of the arm pieces, smooth and sturdy, and just admires her work.
The rest of the day passes by, a slow Saturday for her, until Liza comes over at least. The more she thinks about it, the more excited she is about her date. She can’t begin to fathom how the prince of Gotham is interested in her.
Her doorbell rings, and she rushes to answer it, but not before making sure she locks her office door.
“Liza!” Victoria exclaims, opening the door. “You’re on time!”
“Babe! You’re going on a date with THE Bruce Wayne! Of course I’m gonna be on time to help you pick out an outfit!!” Liza rushes through the house and to Victoria’s closet. “Okay! What did he tell you to wear?”
“He said something nice,” She followed her friend to her room, sitting on the bed.
“That’s it?”
“Yep.”
“Then text him! At least ask where you’re going!”
“No! I’m not going to text Bruce Wayne on a Saturday!”
“Why not?”
“Because he’s Bruce Wayne! And technically my boss!”
“Ugh, I keep on forgetting that you work at Wayne Enterprises!”
“How? You constantly bring it up!”
“I don’t know,” Liza shrugs. “I just forgot. Maybe it’s because I haven’t seen you in two months!” Victoria can’t argue with that. She had essentially shut herself off from the rest of the world, using her built up vacation time to avoid being fired.
In her defense, she doesn’t have many people she could contact. Since coming out, and more so transitioning, her family has cut her off, and Liza is the only one who’s stuck with her.
“I know, I know, and I’m sorry.”
“You texted me like, twice!”
“I was busy.”
“FOR TWO MONTHS?”
“YES!” Victoria crosses her arms. “What about when you went radio silent when that rich ex boyfriend of yours took you to the Bahamas for a week?”
“That’s different.”
“Is it though? You didn’t tell anyone.”
“Whatever, I’m done talking about this if you’re gonna have such a bitchy attitude about it!” Almost as if it’s a different person, Liza is smiling and happy again. “So, what are you thinking of wearing?”
“I don’t know,” Victoria’s voice is quiet, crossing her arms in a defensive manner. “A dress, I guess.”
“Short or long?”
“Long. I’m thinking my black strapless one.”
“That would look soooo cute!” Liza squeals. “Oooh! And you could wear those Christian Louboutin’s that I got you!”
“Yeah, that could work.” Victoria takes a deep breath, resetting herself. “But won’t it be cold? I should have a jacket.”
“But don’t you want to show yourself off?”
“I don’t want to die from freezing.”
“He’d lend you his jacket!” Liza suggests. “He’s a gentleman after all! He called an ambulance for a concussion and asked you on a date! He’s so into you!”
“But what if he learns my personality and doesn’t like it? What if he’s creeped out by my knowledge and love of the Batman?”
“Girl, you serious?” She snickers. “If I were you, I’d be a lot more nervous about him finding out about…other stuff.” Liza motions to Victoria. “Are you gonna tell him?”
“I don’t think I should have to,” She grips the hem of her shirt. “I’ve transitioned fully so if we do anything…he won’t be caught off guard.”
“What if he wants kids?”
“Tomorrow is my first date!” Victoria jumps up. “We’re going to dinner! THAT’S IT!”
“Okay Jesus, I was just trying to be helpful!”
“It’s not working!” She raises her voice. “I am nervous as all hell about this and I wanted you to help pick me out an outfit!”
“FINE! I HELPED! I’M LEAVING!” Liza storms out of the house, slamming the door in the process.
Victoria flops down on her back, sighing, and just spaces out for a while. Her energy is completely drained from Liza, and she turns on her tv to try to clear her head. She doesn’t have anyone else, though, so she can’t really drop her best friend.
On the TV, there are reports of a robbery and shootout at the bank. All of the assailants, wearing clown masks, are dead. She’s heard of this psycho criminal, known as the Joker. Leaving a Joker calling card at every crime scene.
Victoria has been trying to find as much about Joker as possible, but when he surfaced, she was locked away, hardly paying attention to anything else. She’s been picking up things about him, and he fascinates her. All his methods seem to be provoking Batman.
One thing she completely missed was Harvey Dent. He was being appointed as the District Attorney the next day, and it completely slipped under her radar.
Victoria’s phone buzzes. A text, from Bruce.
You don’t care that I’m introducing you to a few of my friends tomorrow night, do you?
She’s not good with new people at first, and Bruce Wayne’s friends? What is she going to talk about with the ultra rich? But seeing as it’s Bruce mother-fucking Wayne, she knows he’s expecting a ‘yes’ and the question was nothing but a courtesy.
No, not at all.
Great. I’ll see you tomorrow night.
#bale!batman#bale!bruce wayne#batman#bruce wayne#christian bale#christian bale batman#batman x reader#bruce wayne x reader#bruce wayne x oc#batman x oc#bale!bruce wayne x reader#men over 50#fanfic#dc comics#original character#the dark knight#batman begins#alfred pennyworth#the dark knight trilogy#dark knight rises#slow burn#slow burn i guess
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I didn’t expect to finish Pizza Tower in literally one day
Which I guess is still the case, since I didn’t get the true ending and have to get all the treasures tomorrow now
Still, what a great concise experience!
I always appreciate games that are designed to be fun for multiple skill levels; aside from needing to get enough of the Toppins to unlock each boss fight, everything else is completely optional and just a way to build and show mastery of the mechanics. I’m not going to go out of my way to 100% the game, I know I don’t have that kind of skill or the time needed to gain that skill, but the game feels so fun just to play that I completely understand people who do feel compelled to strive for P-Rank in every stage
This was everything I wanted from a Wario-like and more while still being very clearly its own game. The Mach Running mechanic honestly feels more like a modification of Sonic’s Boost Formula, which in and of itself I appreciate greatly because I’ve never really liked that style of Sonic game, so I’m glad to see an interpretation of the basic mechanic applied in a way that I so thoroughly enjoyed
Along with games like Antonblast and Treasure Tech, I really hope that this inspires a new wave of Wario-like games and officially launches a new genre. I’m partial to calling them Frantic Platformers, but with so few representatives, I don’t feel like it’s feasible to come up with a universal label just yet. I know it’s weird to say that about a thirty year old franchise, but I just don’t think six games in one series quite makes a genre
I don’t know what’s next for Pizza Tower, if the developer plans to expand it, make a sequel, move onto another game, never touch game dev again, but whatever they do, I’m super grateful for this experience and this game will likely be a huge inspiration to me going forward in whatever artistic endeavors I end up pursuing. I’ve always wanted to make a Wario-like of my own, so this will definitely prove helpful if I ever motivate myself to!
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George texts Alex for advice, despite many years of friendship suggesting that this is a terrible idea.
What should I bring to Toto and Susie’s house tonight
That says basically
“Thanks for having me round for dinner, fancy a fuck?”
You are an unwell man
Ok thanks but what should I bring to Toto and Susie’s
GEORGE
He’s your BOSS
Yeah I am aware of that
I don’t tell you whether to fuck jorts
*jost
Lmao jorts
Anyway to the point, I’m not going to fuck jorts or Jost!! Because im not CLINICALLY INSANE
Fine can you pass my question on to Lily please
NO text her yourself
You’re a nightmare.
Lily says ‘roses and tell him good luck!’ which im not doing i do NOT wish you good luck i hope you go down in flames
Thanks x
Text me tomorrow to say how it goes
Pervert
He listens to Lily, as her instincts are usually sound for this sort of thing: picks up a giant profusion of scarlet roses from the M&S by his house, and also a box of Belgian chocolates, even though none of them really eat chocolate. They just seem appropriately amorous. He looks nice, he knows that, and he’s wearing what Alex unlovingly refers to as his “on the pull” aftershave. Time to see what happens.
Things don’t get off to the best start. He gets lost in rural Oxfordshire and has to call Toto for directions, but Susie is warm and welcoming when he eventually finds the house, in a little hamlet deep in the woods. “It’s a nightmare around here, no mobile reception at all. You did well to find us,” she says. She’s smiling at him, taking the flowers, telling him they’re lovely, so kind of him, ushering him through to the kitchen; he sits at the breakfast bar while she fusses with the roses, and looks around the room. He’s pretty sure Carmen would call it “cottagecore”: big wooden beams in the ceiling, diamond-paned windows looking out onto the garden. An Aga. It’s really not what he would’ve pictured for Toto, and he says as much to Susie.
She winks at him and says, “I picked this one,” and gives the roses a final poke. “Well, that’s as good as they’re going to get, I’m afraid. My flower-arranging skills extend exactly as far as ‘plonking them into a vase.’”
George wants to say They look nice but he isn’t sure if that would be, like, complimenting his own gift, so he just smiles. Susie smiles back and the silence isn’t uncomfortable, exactly, but it’s—weighted. After a moment Susie says, “Let me get you something to drink. Cab sav ok?” George nods: he’d never say it aloud, but wine pretty much tastes like wine to him. Just kind of… winey; it’s generally fine.
Susie pours him a generous glass, the red splash of the wine rich and jewel-like in the warm light of the kitchen. She says, “You will stay over tonight, won’t you? It’s miserable, I always think, trying to relax and have a nice time when you can only have one glass because you’re driving.”
“Oh, uh,” George says.
“We’ve got the guest room all made up for you,” Susie says. “And kiddo’s with his grandparents tonight, so we won’t be disturbed.” She leans over the breakfast bar and smiles at him. George has to fight to keep his eyes out of her cleavage. He mostly wins.
He says, “Yes, all right. Thank you.”
“Oh, it’s our pleasure.” She looks behind him and says, “And here’s Toto! At last.” She says something in German, quickly, and Toto says something back. It must be nice, George thinks, to have a secret language with your partner. Not that German is secret exactly, but it’s certainly code to him.
He says, “Hi, Toto.”
Toto smiles at him. George thinks absurdly, My, what big teeth you have. Toto puts a hand on his shoulder, and the weight of it is warm and heavy; George swallows without meaning to. “George! We have so been looking forward to having you.”
George smiles nervously. For the first time it occurs to him that perhaps, in this particular fairy tale, he’s not the wolf.
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