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sowoozoo-7 · 4 months

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Love, Lust & Litigation | Ch 6 (JJK, KNJ)

Pairing: Jungkook x Fem Reader x Namjoon

Genre: lawyer!AU, coworkers to lovers, slow burn, eventual smut

Rating: PG-13 (whole fic M, minors DNI)

Warnings: alcohol consumption, swearing

Word Count: 4k

A/N: Happy New Year everyone! This chapter has been a long time coming. Hope you enjoy~~

mlist | ch 1 | ch 2 | ch 3 | ch 4 | ch 5 | interlude | ch 6 | ch 7

The whirring of the hotel elevator reverberates through your head as you, Namjoon, and Jungkook ride up to your floor. You landed, finally, in another city after what should have been a direct, three-hour flight turned into a thirty-six hour travel nightmare. You were supposed to arrive on Saturday night and have all of Sunday to prepare for a week’s-worth of depositions. It’s your first class-action suit and you wanted to be fully prepared for Monday morning, but thanks to the reroutes, thunderstorms, and airplane malfunctions, every moment you spend with your eyes open is another moment without sleep.

The firm booked a three room suite for the trip, for strategizing purposes, apparently. You suspect it was just cheaper, but at this point, you would take anything that has a bed.

Namjoon sags against the wall of the elevator. Jungkook, the traitor, can fall asleep anywhere and managed to get some rest on the plane, but even he’s clutching the handle of his luggage for dear life. A headache that started at the beginning of your last flight pounds behind your eyes. You’re ready to wash the smell of airplane out of your hair and you desperately need to brush your teeth. Sweet, crisp hotel linen is in your future and it’s the only thing keeping you going.

Before you left for the trip, you had the idea to sneak into Jungkook's room if the opportunity presented itself. Things have been going well with your maybe-boyfriend. You're still not sure what you are, and you're not in any hurry to define anything, especially since you blush like an idiot schoolgirl with a crush every time you see Namjoon. Namjoon, whom you have seen more in the past thirty six hours than you have in the last month. Endless meetings have kept him out of the office. Still, every time you see him, you can't help but notice Jungkook's eyes tracking him too. Things felt a little awkward at the airport as you waited for your flight, the conversation stilted, hesitant.

The elevator dings, and the door opens. Not that can spare more than a passing thought to all of that now. Your legs feel like lead, and you send up a quick prayer that the room isn’t in the furthest corner of the hotel, and that the keycard works once you get there. If the keycard doesn’t work, you may just curl up in a ball on the hallway carpet.

Namjoon waves the keycard in front of the reader a few doors down from the elevator. It beeps green and you sigh in relief as the door opens to a kitchenette and a small living area.

At first, you think you’re seeing things, that you’re just too tired to see the other bedroom doors branching off from the living room. That if you rub your eyes enough, two more rooms will materialize. Because this can’t be right. You get closer to the door to investigate, Namjoon and Jungkook behind you.

“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.”

Yeah, no. When all you wished for was a bed, you didn’t mean one singular bed.

You’re the first to take action, locating the room phone and dialing reception. It doesn’t take long to confirm your worst fears. There was a mistake in your booking and thanks to conventions and concerts in town, the hotel has no other available rooms for the night.

“So you’re saying there’s nowhere else for us to stay.”

“The couch in the living room should be a pull-out couch?” At least the receptionist sounds appropriately apologetic on the other end of the line.

You gesture to the couch, but as Jungkook tries to remove the cushions, they stay firmly attached to the base.

You sigh into the receiver. “It’s not a pull out couch.”

“All our couches are supposed to be pull-out couches,” she says in dismay.

“Maybe this one sprouted legs and switched places with a regular couch.” You wince as the words come out of your mouth. It’s not her fault, you try to remind yourself. Don’t shoot the messenger.

“I do apologize ma’am. Normally, I would be able to resolve this issue but we don’t have any other rooms available…”

The poor girl sounds like she’s about to burst into tears. You can’t help sighing once more into the receiver. “I understand, but I expect this issue will be resolved in the morning? A three bedroom suite for the duration of our stay.”

“Yes, ma’am. Understood, ma’am.”

The click of the phone into the receiver echoes through the quiet room. When you look up at Jungkook and Namjoon, they look back at you with dumbfounded expressions.

“You’re mean when you’re cranky,” says Jungkook.

You don’t have the energy to send a glare his way.

“So, what do we do?” asks Namjoon.

It’s clear none of you can think straight, not after all the regional airports and middle seat economy seats. No one moves. Your headache goes from pounding to piercing, and you pinch your nose to help you think.

The clock on the bedside table ticks over to three a.m. You have had enough.

“Okay, here’s what we’re going to do. We have—shit—five hours before we have to be out the door. We’re all exhausted, we all need sleep. This is king size bed. There’s plenty of space for all three of us.”

A look of panic comes over Namjoon’s face. “I’m sleeping on the couch.”

You let out a bark of a laugh. “I can’t even stretch my legs out on that thing.”

“I have to, it’s—“

“Go sit on the couch Namjoon, see if you can stretch your legs out.”

He does. It’s almost comical how hard he tries to stuff himself into a comfortable position.

“See? We’re only getting a few hours of sleep, so we’re all gonna do this on a comfy bed. You know how important this meeting is tomorrow. If it doesn’t go well, all our prep will be for nothing.”

They still look dubious. You feel delirious with exhaustion.

“Look, we’ll do this. It’ll be me, then Jungkook, then Namjoon.” You gesture to the bed, indicating where each person will sleep. “There’s plenty of room, we don’t even have to touch each other.”

Jungkook nods along, but Namjoon makes a choked sound. “But you guys are dating.”

You and Jungkook share a look. Even thinking about doing anything remotely intimate is exhausting. Jungkook looks like he can barely keep his eyes open.

“That is the furthest thing from my mind, but if you’re worried, you can be in the middle.”

He opens his mouth to protest again, but you put up a hand. “I don’t care what order we sleep in. I’m taking this edge, but I’m gonna shower first.”

Showering is a sweet relief, and the warmth of the water eases your tired muscles. As you come out of the bathroom in a cloud of steam, you don’t even have it in you to be self-conscious about being in your pajamas around Namjoon, or to get all swoony about sleeping next to him. You start dozing off as soon as you tuck yourself between the covers, eyes heavy and mind tired. The sounds of the guys getting ready for bed sound distant to your ears. You don’t feel the dip in the bed as Namjoon gets in next to you, your dreams already swirling with depositions and settlements.

“I had to share a bed with my colleagues. This is unacceptable.”

The receptionist, a different one from the one you talked to on the phone, glances over to Namjoon and Jungkook and fails to cover a smirk. Infuriatingly, they look refreshed and handsome as ever. You tried your best to look presentable, but it’s like you can feel the lack of sleep hanging in bags under your eyes. No amount of concealer could hide that.

“I am so sorry. That must have been an awkward night.”

“Don’t give me that look. I barely got any sleep.”

She lets out a strangled giggle.

“And not because of that either. They both snore like grandpas who need CPAP machines. Will the suite be ready for us by this afternoon, or not?”

There’s a slow heartbeat beneath your ear, and it’s dragging you up to consciousness.

Your mouth feels like cotton and just thinking that thought feels like someone reached into your head and squeezed your brain. How much did you drink last night?

You don’t want to be awake right now. You don’t even know if it’s worth it to be alive right now.

Maybe if you close your eyes even tighter, you can convince yourself you’re not awake. You snuggle in closer and try to will yourself back to sleep.

A thought floats slowly to the surface. Your arm is wrapped around a waist, but it is not the enviably tiny waist you're used to.

You don’t panic, not at first.

You crack open an eye only to squeeze it shut again. Morning sunlight streams in from the open window, sending a piercing pain through your head.

But… was that…?

You look again, squinting against the brightness. Yes, confirmed. That is Jungkook’s tattooed arm draped across the same torso you’re clinging onto. You lift your head, blearily seeing that the has his head tucked into a neck. And that neck is attached to…

Now you’re wide awake, your stomach flipping in surprise.

How the hell did you end up sleeping on top of Namjoon?

You poke Jungkook’s arm and you want to strangle him when he makes a bothered, mumbled noise and burrows his head deeper into Namjoon’s neck. The movement makes him stir, a deep grumble going through his chest. You feel it more than hear it. Your stomach does a funny flop again.

Several things happen at once:

1) Jungkook opens his eyes and freezes when he sees it’s not you he’s cuddling.

2) Namjoon wakes up and clocks that you and Jungkook are sprawled on top of him. “This has to be a dream,” he mutters, the sound vibrating through his chest.

3) You realize the funny feeling in your stomach isn’t because of Namjoon’s morning voice.

No, your stomach feels funny because you had one too many cocktails the night before. And several glasses of champagne. Stumbling back to the hotel room with Namjoon and Jungkook, who were just as shitfaced as you. You all tumbled in through the door together and —

Fuck.

You’re about to puke up the contents of your stomach. You bolt upright, pushing past the tight embrace of Namjoon’s arms around you. The only thing more mortifying than waking up as one of the slices of bread in a Namjoon sandwich would be to throw up all over the glorious sandwich. You make it to the bathroom, barely.

As you’re decanting the contents of your stomach, flashes of the day before come back to you. The claimants settling before noon on Tuesday. Celebratory cocktails for happy hour. Ordering too much sushi. A second round at a karaoke bar. Pulling Jungkook and Namjoon by their ties to your bedroom.

The rumble of deep voices comes from your bedroom as you hug the porcelain bowl. You’re never having alcohol again, you decide.

Once your stomach settles, you pull yourself to your feet. Your reflection in the mirror startles you. You look like shit, your hair knotted and tangled, mascara smudged under your eyes. The thought of Jungkook—let alone Namjoon—seeing you like this makes you want to heave again.

Wait, no. You do have to heave again.

It takes twenty minutes for you to be sure that your stomach won’t rebel again, and for you to wash your face and brush your teeth. Your hair, you decide, is a lost cause. You pull on a robe before leaving the bathroom, because even if you made a mistake and slept on your boss in your undies, you sure as hell don’t want to parade around without pants.

Namjoon and Jungkook sit on opposite sides of the bed when you come out of the bathroom, two feet of space between them. Jungkook looks like a dream, because life is unfair, and he always looks like a dream. Namjoon, mere mortal, looks like someone that just woke up after a night of drinking, face a little puffy, and hair sleep-mussed. They’re in similar states of undress as you, in undershirts and boxers.

Namjoon notices you first, but Jungkook speaks first.

”Are you okay?”

His voice is hoarse. He always goes too hard at karaoke.

“I’ve been worse,” you say, voice croaky from all the karaoke and all the puking. You clear your throat and try again. “I can’t remember when, but this is surely not the worst. Um, how are you guys doing?”

Jungkook looks down at his hands, his gaze flitting to Namjoon.

Namjoon scrubs his hands over his face and takes a deep breath. “I’m sorry,” he says, his deep morning voice sending shivers down your spine. “I don’t know what happened.”

“We drank too much is what happened,” says Jungkook under his breath.

Namjoon shakes his head. “Drinking is never an excuse. It wasn’t appropriate.”

You sink into an armchair in the corner of the room. “I’m pretty sure it was me who dragged both of you in here.”

“‘A win calls for a cuddle.’” Jungkook imitates you in a high voice.

If you had a pillow and the energy, you would chuck it at him.

A little crease appears between Namjoon’s brows as he frowns. “Still…”

“I need an aspirin if we’re going to keep talking about this,” you say. Your gut is a jumble of embarrassment, satisfaction, and yearning, and combined with the queasiness, you want to hit pause on this conversation. It takes you a second to muster up the energy to heave yourself off the armchair, but you get up, somehow, and go to your suitcase to take out the bottle of painkillers you always carry with you. “Want one?”

They both nod, looking as miserable as you feel.

You make your way to the kitchen to get yourself a glass of water. They follow you like little ducklings, copying you as you swallow down the medicine and several gulps of water. It brings sweet relief to your scratchy throat. You want to chug the entire glass, but the water sloshes around in your empty stomach, making you feel a little sick. The clink of the glass on the counter shoots through your brain. You climb onto the barstools by the kitchen counter and rest your head on the counter, the cool marble soothing. Your headache starts to fade a little, but not by much.

“I’m sorry,” says Namjoon into the silence.

“Stop apologizing,” you say into the counter, words muffled. “If anyone should be sorry, it’s me.” You hope the words sound sincere coming out of your mouth, but a voice inside of you keeps repeating that you don’t regret it at all. Not when you can still feel the warmth of him beneath you, the tight squeeze of his arms around you, too.

He shakes his head. “It wasn’t appropriate. I’ll report myself to HR when we return to the office.”

You sit up, room swaying a bit. Jungkook stands against the counter, worrying his lip ring with his teeth. Namjoon grips his water glass so tightly you fear he’s going to break it.

“Did something beyond sleeping happen, and I’m not remembering?”

A look of panic comes over Namjoon’s face. “I don’t think so.”

Jungkook shakes his head. “No.”

“Okay, then. We’re all adults here. I wasn’t touched in a way I didn’t want to be touched.” You try not to cringe as the half-confession slips from your lips. “Did you feel uncomfortable Namjoon?”

“No, but that’s not the point.” Your stomach does a funny flip and this time it is because of him. He doesn’t regret last night. “I’m your boss, and there’s a power im—“

“Jungkook,” you say, turning to him. “Were you touched in a way that you didn’t want to be touched?” He shakes his head. “Were you in a situation you didn’t want to be in?” He shakes his head again.

Something shifts in the silence that follows. Everything has been all but said, and you’re left feeling unbalanced. Or maybe that’s just the alcohol still talking. The throbbing behind your eyes makes it hard to think straight.

“There you go.” You put your head back on the countertop, unable to look at either of them directly.

“Still—“ Namjoon starts.

You hold up a hand without raising you read. “Stop beating yourself up about it. The worst thing we did was sleep in the same bed together. It’s not like this is the first time, anyway.”

Someone chokes on water. You keep your eyes closed, waiting for the painkillers to kick in.

No one says anything for a while.

Just as you’re about to fall asleep hunched over the counter, Jungkook’s quiet voice jars you back to reality.

“What’s the plan now?”

“What do you mean?” comes Namjoon’s response.

“We’re supposed to be here all week for these depositions, but now that they’ve settled…”

“I’ll check with the firm.”

You hear movement in the kitchen, clothes rustling, glasses being placed down. When you muster the energy to sit up, only Jungkook remains. He looks lost in thought, staring into space.

“I’m gonna shower.”

He only gives you a grunt in response, eyes focused on another plane of existence.

You stand under the spray until your skin is red and wrinkly. When you come out, the sight of the rumpled bed reminds you of how warm and tight Namjoon’s embrace as around you, how right it felt to be with the two of them in the same space. You want to wail, because you got a taste of the impossibilities you’ve been dreaming of. It would have been best to leave it to your imagination. Why did you have to give in to your drunk impulses?

You pull on the closest comfy clothes that look clean and go to sit in the living room. Jungkook, also freshly showered, sits on the sofa, scrolling aimlessly on his phone. The way he’s looking through his feed, you can tell he’s not processing what he’s seeing. You slump down next to him and rest your head on his shoulder, closing your eyes. He takes his hand in yours, thumb tracing slow circles on the back of your hand. The repetitive motion almost puts you to sleep.

“Oh.”

You open your eyes to see Namjoon in the doorway, looking at you two on the couch as if he walked in on something forbidden. He starts to back out of the living room. You sit up, and take your hand back. Or maybe Jungkook takes his hand away; you’re not really sure.

“I didn’t mean to interrupt—“

“No, you aren’t. We were waiting for you,” says Jungkook.

You feel like all the air has been sucked out of the room. Namjoon looks like a deer caught in the headlights, not knowing whether to run away or come closer. The three of you are standing on a knife’s edge, waiting for something to tip you to one side or the other.

“Did you get in touch with the firm?” clarifies Jungkook.

Air fills the room again, and you slump back into the couch, winded. Back to pretending like everything is okay, then. Like nothing has changed between the three of you.

Namjoon clears his throat. “Yeah, we’re staying as planned.”

It’s Friday night, and the three of you are outside of the hotel waiting for a cab. Namjoon made a reservation on Yoongi’s recommendation for a trendy new restaurant that just opened. The cold, February air has a bite to it, and you pull your coat tighter around you.

The world felt askew all of Wednesday and Thursday, as if you were on a ship permanently tilted by waves. Work kept your mind off things, for the most part. As soon as Namjoon made the call Wednesday morning, Jimin and Hoseok got to work and scheduled a full afternoons of meetings for the remainder of your time on your trip. When you weren’t in meetings, you were in your room, sitting cross-legged on your bed as you answered emails and drafted briefs.

During your free time, you had to remind yourself to act normally around Namjoon, as if acting normal was the only thing keeping everything from careening out of control. Every time you looked at Namjoon, he was either turning his gaze away from you, or looking at Jungkook with a sad expression on his face. Jungkook, on the other hand... you were worried he would chew off his lip piercing with how much he fiddled with it as he worked.

Though by Friday morning, things felt like they settled down, with normal, easy banter between the three of you. It felt like a relief to laugh, and not feel on edge. You’re looking forward to going back home, to settling back into your normal routine.

“Oh hey,” says Jungkook as he checks his phone, “it’s Valentine’s Day.”

“Is it?” Your breath puffs out in a small cloud and you try to suppress a shiver. The longer the car takes to arrive, the more you’re regretting sacrificing warmth for fashion. You’re wearing your warm winter coat, but your legs are bare under your dress.

Jungkook wraps an arm around your shoulders and rubs your arms to warm you up. He whispers into your ear, “Will you be my Valentine?”

Even though he whispered it, you see Namjoon stiffen out of the corner of your eye.

You scoff and push Jungkook away, rolling your eyes, in an attempt to clear the tension. “It’s a stupid capitalist construct.”

“C’mon, I’ll buy you discount chocolate tomorrow.” He pouts and gives you puppy dog eyes.

Had you been alone, you would have made him beg for it. With Namjoon present, though, you want to kill Jungkook for acting like this.

Thankfully, the cab pulls up before he can do anything else.

“Okay, but only because no one else is going to put up with your annoying ass.”

Luckily, there’s no more talk of Valentines on the way to the restaurant. You worry a bit if you’re going to be surrounded by lovey-dovey couples and if that will make the whole evening even more awkward, but unlike other places, there’s no red hearts plastered everywhere, no romantic candlelit tables with pink confetti.

You get distracted by the good food in front of you and by the end of the main course, you forget about the tense atmosphere of the beginning of the night. A couple of drinks and everything gets right back to normal, the alcohol softening the edges of all the emotions you’ve been feeling. It finally feels like you’re at ease, like the three of you can go without blushing every time you make eye contact. It feels normal, instead of illicit, when Jungkook slips his hand onto your thigh under the table.

You’re laughing at a story Namjoon is telling about his first trial out of school, embarrassing in the moment, but hilarious in hindsight.

“Hey, hey, if it isn’t Rap Monster!”

“Oh no.” Namjoon cringes as he twists to see who called out.

Rap Monster? You try not to laugh as you exchange confused looks with Jungkook.

“Who’s that?” asks Jungkook.

“My past,” says Namjoon with a rueful smile. He gets up to greet the newcomer, a lean brunette with all the attitude of a carefree frat boy.

“Hey man, how’s it going?” The man extends a hand out in a handshake.

“Hey Jackson. All good man.” Namjoon takes it and pulls him into a one-armed hug. “These are my colleagues.” He introduces you and Jungkook. “This guy was my freshman year roommate in college and we went to law school together.”

“Oh, the stories I could tell…”

“Please tell us about Rap Monster,” you say.

Jackson lets out a loud laugh. “Believe it or not, Namjoon was an underground rapper back in the day.”

“No way.”

“You never mentioned that!” says Jungkook.

“With a name like Rap Monster, I’d like to leave that in my past.”

“I’ll send you a link on YouTube,” says Jackson in a stage whisper, winking dramatically. He turns to Namjoon. “You should have told me you were in town for work! We haven’t caught up in ages.”

“Big case. Took up all my spare brainpower, you know?”

“Last big case, then? Rumor mill says you’re moving on.”

You go cold. Namjoon’s eyes go wide, and he tries to get Jackson to stop talking, but Jackson keeps talking, unaware. You and Jungkook look at each other, then back at Namjoon, who looks like he’s watching a train wreck in slow motion.

“What’s that all about, bro? Jumping ship just as we all thought you were about to make partner at Bang & Associates.”

“You’re leaving?”

A/N 2: Sorry for the cliffhanger 😘 Next installment coming soon, I promise! I'd love to hear from you if you have any comments!

©sowoozoo-7 2024

Please do not copy or repost. I do not crosspost anywhere else.

#jungkook x you #namjoon x you #jungkook x reader #namjoon x reader #bts fic #junkook fanfic #namjoon fanfic #fic: love lust & litigation

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enviedear · 6 months

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nervous neighbor ⟶ ben solo

description ⌙ you're back at home from university, living with your parents for the summer because it's cheaper than trying to pay for an apartment while on a student's salary. but after you meet the new neighbor's son, ben solo, you're not so sure it's worth it.

pairing ⌙ neighbor!ben solo x f!reader

warnings ⌙ inebriated reader & ben, they're smoking weed and being petty together, mean!ben because when do i not make him a bit mean, ben jokingly attempts to solicit reader, reader has a blatant sort of fascination with ben, ben has severe blatant yearning for reader, reader is described to need a belt to wear ben's pants (don't question me it comes up), some high kisses (they're so fun oops), somewhat getting caught, tiny little bitty cliffhanger, ben's personality is totally based off this brent faiyaz song lmao

word count ⌙ 3.5k

— request (frl especially for ben/kylo) | masterlist

i love the idea of neighbor!ben so ofc i had to put my thoughts into a little fic! if anyone is interested... i wouldn't be mad at making this a series. i love neighbor!ben!

the sun is low in the sky, casting a warm and appreciated golden glow on the world around you. you revel in the sanctity of the suburban environment as you step outside your front door. the rays burn into your exposed shoulders, spaghetti straps lightly digging into the skin.

the fragrant scent of freshly cut grass hangs heavy in the air, leaving an earthy flavor in your mouth. you pull at the hem of your shorts, feeling the soft fabric brush against your exposed thighs as you make your way to the black mailbox straight ahead.

you flip through bills and junk mail, all in your parent's name for a minute before you hear the unmistakable rev of a car engine approaching. the engine seems to purr the closer it gets, and you're all too familiar with the sound. you feel glued to your spot as it approaches.

soon enough, ben solo's sleek aston martin swerves into his driveway, coming to a stop just a few feet away from his closed garage door. you watch as he gets out of the car, his dark hair falling messily over his forehead, and meets your gaze with his severe brown eyes.

there’s something about the way he looks at you that causes your heart to race. the sensation is unwanted or, at least, you tell yourself it is.

he looks like he always does; clad in dress pants and a pristine button-up, face etched with subtle haughtiness, and pink lips curved into a deliciously heretical grin. the previous sanctity you felt dissipates as his stare beats down on you, hotter and more all-consuming than the sun above.

"neighbor." he anoints, a slight smirk playing on his lips. "how much allowance are mommy and daddy giving you for checking their mail?"

"very funny," you retort, eyes rolling, "maybe they're drawing from the same funds your parents did when they bought you that ridiculous car."

you liked playing this game with ben. where he attempts to seem as if he's got something over you, some unspoken win. as if you're not both twenty-somethings still living with your parents.

he does have an actual retirement plan type job though, so, perhaps, he has you beat in some areas.

he works full-time, a fact you learned after dinner with your parents and his. brought up by your parents so they could dote on him— effectively buttering up han and leia further. the ass-kissing earned the family privileges to their in-ground pool though.

he's pretty prestigious, unfortunately. ben organa-solo, the youngest associate at his legal firm. he apparently had over forty offers of employment before he ever even looked at the bar exam.

he's doing well, sure— but the sheer fact that he still lives with his parents is enough to quell your nuanced jealousy. somewhat.

"my db-nine can never be called ridiculous. do you know the specs on this car?" he taunts, opting to lean against his aforementioned car.

you begin to turn away from him, not willing to go into a conversation regarding his stupidly expensive automobile. you can feel your ears warming as you try to ignore him, but ben is relentless, as usual, "you know, you really should relax a little, i'm only joking, kid.."

"excuse me?" you snap, fronting him again and crossing your arms defensively, "i am plenty relaxed, solo. thank you very much."

in truth, you haven't been relaxed or even casual since the organa-solo's moved in eight months ago. wealthy and recently retired, leia and han are amusing, charming, and almost constantly travelling.

the pair managed to befriend your parents the second they moved in. bringing over a plate of brownies, the duo easily meshed with your parents, making for countless dinners, conversations, and visits between the two homes.

the opposite can be said for ben and you. when you finally met him, a few weeks after his parents moved in, it was because he was yelling at your dog for 'purposely' pissing on one of his tires. since then, you haven't exactly seen eye to eye.

"mhm, of course," he drawls sarcastically, "that's why you're always so wound up,” he’s smirking now, "you ever thought about smoking a joint or something? might help you chill out."

"really?" you scoff, raising an eyebrow, "that's your solution? drugs?" you choose to ignore his quip about you being tightly wound. as if he's not— you've seen him after work, he always looks tense, shoulders tight. at the recollection of his job title makes you almost comment on his choice of illegal activity, but you stop yourself.

maybe this was his vice after hours of listening to legal jargon?

"i'm just offering a suggestion. i've got pot and an empty house." his voice is biting, holding his hands up defensively, "take it or leave it, kid."

your mind is wrought with confusion over his words. in the few months you’ve known him, you would have never thought he’d be suggesting what he is.

ben solo, who drives an aston martin, only wears button-ups or suits, and is always willing to make you look or feel idiotic, is trying to convince you to smoke pot with him.

you worry for a brief second if you’re deluded.

you would have never suspected the famed judiciary to unwind in such a way.

no, your first guess would have been whiskey, or maybe something a bit more scandalized and indecent. you try to shake that idea out of your head.

"fine," you blurt it out before you can stop yourself, surprising both you and the arrogant figure in front of you.

"seriously?" ben questions, his eyes widening in apprehension. "you're actually going to do it?"

"yeah, solo," you shrug, drawing out the first word, trying to sound more resolved than you feel, "nothing i haven’t done before."

"okay, cheech," he mutters, grinning wickedly, "let me smoke you out."

you follow him into his house, heart pounding in your chest. you're familiar with the layout— almost identical to your own home, only nicer. everything is nicer.

the air inside is cool and smells faintly of lavender, mixed with something decadent you can’t quite place. glancing around the space, you take it all in. it feels different now that you're alone with ben. less homey and more belly of the beast.

there are windows everywhere, letting in an abundance of natural light despite the evident tint. the furniture is modern and obviously hand-picked though comfortable and no doubt, expensive.

you try to make yourself cozy on the couch, tucking your legs underneath you. ben disappears for a moment and returns with a tray, a red grinder, a lighter, and a baggie of green herbs.

your hands go clammy as you watch him grind it down. you try to wipe them on your pants, hoping he doesn’t notice.

he doesn’t seem to, instead beginning to roll a joint, packing the herb down with his thumb. his movements, precise and hypnotic. he's defiling all previous conclusions you had of him. he’s sure, magnetic, and undeniably confusing.

“ready?” he asks, holding the rolled paper out to you. you nod, and he lights up the twisted end, inhaling deeply before passing it over to you.

you place the joint to your lips, feeling the warmth of the light spark grazing your fingers. the earthy plant kindles with a soft crackle, and you inhale deeply. smoke fills your lungs, coiling inside you.

the cloudy smoke immediately hits your entire sinus system, choking you on its descent down.

you cough and ben laughs, “shit, take it slow, kid.” he huffs, before handing you a tepid water bottle, no question he figured you'd wind up coughing a lung.

you drink gratefully, feeling the water cleanse your burning throat. you look at ben, who’s watching you intently.

your eyes are watery and slightly hazy, but ben has never look better. eyes red and low, posture easy with one arm behind his head, and faint pink flush.

“what?” you ask, self-conscious. the room seems to swirl around as ben sits beside you, close enough that you can feel the heat of his body.

"nothing, neighbor," his stare is mocking, "do you feel relaxed yet?" he asks with a smirk.

you give him a meager thumbs-up, suddenly lightheaded and giggly. your thoughts are wondering to ben's pretty lips, but your mouth remains whetted and silent. adorning thoughts remaining within your capricious mind.

the tension in your body melts away, and you lean back against the couch cushions, letting out a deep sigh. ben's hand brushes against yours to steal the joint away, and you feel the heat of his touch all the way to your toes. it's as if the world has narrowed down to just the two of you, and nothing else exists.

“are you cold?” he asks, taking a drag, dress shirt sleeves rolled up, leaving his arms on full display.

you look at him, bewildered for a second, and he continues with an eye roll, “you’re shivering.”

looking down at your body, you note that you indeed are. either from the weed or the proximity you have to your novel neighbor.

with a gentle breath, you reply, “i guess.”

he holds the joint with his lips as he stands to look down at you, “c’mon i’ve got blankets in my room.”

you look up at him, unsure of what to say, but find yourself bobbing in agreement. you follow him upstairs, the both of you languid in reaching the destination. when you do finally get to his room, you note the array of muted jewel tones and dim light, different than the rest of the house.

ben keeps his blinds partially closed and curtains that mostly fall in front of them. his bed is huge, pristine white sheets and an inviting navy bedspread.

you watch as he pulls out a thick woolen blanket from his closet and spreads it over your shoulders. you feel the weight of it settle over you, cocooning you in warmth.

"better?" he asks, voice low.

you nod again, feeling the hazy ardor of the drug swimming through your body. everything feels fuzzy, and for the first time you don't feel so out of place with ben.

he takes a seat beside you on his all too comfortable bed, the aroma of his pomelo-scented cologne filling your senses. you discern it's probably dangerous in some way to be alone with ben like this, but you can't seem to bring yourself to care or reason why.

you let yourself peer into his large and expansive open closet. clothes, mostly suits and dress shirts, hang neatly on identical black hangars. he's tidy. the fact feels unmistakable, and you think you should already know just by the way he carries himself.

ben's voice interrupts your absent mind, "anything you like?"

you look back at him, leaning up against the headboard of his bed, joint billowing smoke from its rested position in his fingers. he looks less severe like this, less perfect, more mortal.

you're certain the drug has taken effect now because when you move to get closer to him, it feels as if you're floating.

you take the joint from him, stealing another hit before replying, "you just have a lot of suits. i wonder if you own anything besides them. i've never seen you in anything but."

"is this one of your long-winded jokes?" he briefly closes his eyes, but you can see them roll through his lids, "because if so, i'll kick you out. i won't hesitate to send you back to your house, neighbor."

snorting, you take yet another hit of the joint, "i did see something i liked, actually." you confess, your drugged mind deciding to be just a bit genuine.

he hums, "really? i've never seen you in a suit, or anything formal."

the sentence sounds stupid coming out of ben's mouth, but you chalk it up to his tipsy state, "maybe you will. one day."

your reply sounds equally as dumb, but you feel good, and you're actually having a conversation with ben. one that doesn't involve him undermining you or snickering at what you're saying.

"really? wanna try mine on? for practice." ben is smirking, eyes narrow, searing, and bloodshot.

you give him a ditzy look, joint still dangling from your fingers, "whatever, solo."

ben lets out a genuine giggle at that, and in your inebriated state, you smile at the sound. his dimples are on full display as he leans further into his cushioned headboard, eyes glazed and focused purely at you, "i'll pay, if you do."

his face is gentle, almost winsome, but the words that tumble out of his mouth sound murky— riddled with a slight hint of hunger. for what exactly? you're not sure.

your lips contort into a frown before you reply, "you'll pay me to put on your clothes? god, ben how much did you smoke?"

you mean for your words to come off as a joke, easy and light. instead, it comes out as timid and shy. you'd normally feel a tinge of embarrassment but either the drug or ben's starved stare makes the would-be feeling detach from your mind.

"enough." he shrugs, answering your rhetorical question, "i've got five hundred in my wallet right now," he pauses, leaning over to you and grabbing the joint, fingers brushing against yours, "and i want a show."

your mind seems to blank for a second, leaving you to blink your dry, red eyes in front of him. when the small wave of shock subdues, you reply, "i don't know how to give you a show."

ben shakes his head slightly, his eyes still set on yours, “yeah you do. swear it's not hard, kid.”

“says you,” you giggle, “but i’ll try on your clothes. for the money.”

he breathes in, contented, “for the money.”

without much more thought, you rise from his plush bed and make way for the closet. it's big enough to be another room, a stark contrast from your own closet, and it smells of his citrusy cologne merged with the lavender scent throughout the home. you find it comforting.

you look back over your shoulder, ben's watching you intently from his seated position, "what should i start with, solo?"

he hums before replying, "your pick, neighbor. what's mine is yours."

you can't help the dorky smile that graces your lips at his sentiment, even though you know he's being flippant. you hastily turn away from him, hiding your weak-willed reaction.

taking a deep breath, you begin to rummage through his wardrobe. your fingers brush against the luxurious fabric of his suits before settling on a satin black button-up that looks silky smooth to the touch.

you grab it and turn around to face ben, who's now standing and walking towards you, his eyes fixed on the shirt in your hand.

"that's a good choice," he says, his voice low and husky, "you'll look better in it than i do."

you roll your eyes at his comment but can't help the warmth that shoots through your body at his words. you quickly slip it over your cropped tank, eager to see it on.

as you're buttoning it up, you feel his swarthy eyes on you, watching your every move. you can't help but feel giddy with his ardent gaze and your own euphoric state of mind.

as you finish up the last button, you catch a glimpse of yourself in the ornate mirror hung upon one of the closet walls. you look decadent in his pompous shirt.

the feeling of contentment that washes over you is startling.

it's a beautiful cut of fabric, but it's the way it represents the achieved man behind you that has you stalling. you notice ben's breath hitch as he takes in the sight of you.

"i was right. it looks much better on you." he says, his voice rough.

you grin at him, feeling a newfound confidence wash over you, "is that right, solo?" you question, your demeanor one of leisure.

without warning, ben steps forward, right hand coming to rest on your shoulder as he leans down to you, "here," he says, his breath hot against your ear, "you missed the first button."

his fingers dance at your chest, fastening the skipped button. you fight a smile at the act, keening at his rash action. high ben is certainly less sardonic than sober ben, finding a nice middle ground at graceful teasing.

"you pick the pants, and grab a belt so that they'll fit." you smile.

he hums, pulling away and trifling through his clothes. his nimble fingers card through various pairs of slacks, settling on a matching black pair.

he turns on his heels, facing you. he raises his brows, a silent request for you to take the pants. when you do, his hands begin to fumble with his belt.

your eyebrows scrunch in confusion, "what are you doing?"

"i want you to wear this one. just let me play dress up with you, doll." his black locks are falling into his eyes.

you huff out a weak chuckle, focused on his action and new endearment. when the belts slides away from him, you notice the way his slacks droop slightly.

with a curt and nervous smile, you slide up the dark pants, fitting his belt around your hips afterward.

you study yourself in the mirror, opting to tuck the shirt into the pants messily— an attempt to somewhat display your waist.

ben comes up behind you, hands resting on your shoulders, humming into the top of your head, "i quite like you this way. ever thought about getting an office job for me?"

you give him a sarcastic pout, "for you?"

he smiles, canines showing, "yeah, doll, just for me."

you're dizzy at his words, "yeah, then who'd watch my parent's house all day? it's a full-time job being a stay-at-home daughter, you know."

ben groans a bit at your words, "that makes you sound like a little brat, you know." he drawls out the last two words, mocking.

you smirk, facing him now, lips becoming level with his when he leans down to stare into your eyes, "my mom calls me a brat sometimes. she says i'm never going to find someone acting like one," you pause for a beat, "d'you agree, ben?"

at the emphasis of his first name he sighs and lets his hands fall to your waist, "i agree that you're a fuckin' brat," he cranes his head closer, breath brushing against your lips, "but i don't think i mind very much."

your eyes flutter against your better judgment, and ben takes an evident note of the fact. his hands tighten at your waist, fingers digging in possessively. you feel a beat of caution before it flies away from your resolution. you press forward just as he does the same, lips meeting in a slow, heady, absolutely exalting kiss.

ben's fingers dig into you, timidly pulling you further into him. you crumble at his touch, hands fisting into his hair as he deepens the kiss further. he tastes of sweet honey and sunlight that fills you with warmth and affection.

you're both weakly fighting for more— an incessant craving for each other that quickly overtakes your common sense. the looming man continues to cast an unbreakable spell with each aching kiss as his gentle hands caress every inch of exposed skin on your body.

you let his hands fumble with the buttons of the borrowed shirt, slowly slipping it away from you. it brushes past your shoulders, and ben breaks the hungry kisses to trail sloppy ones on your exposed neck.

you're lost in the feeling of him— all-consuming. neither one of you willing to be pulled back to reality— but eventually you both have to break away from one another with heavy breaths and flushed cheeks. ben looks down at you with an amused grin on his face before planting a chaste kiss on the top of your head.

you hum and he mutters against you, "you like that? hm?"

"duh," you steal a glance up, "feels s'nice." there's a stupid grin stuck to your face.

"you taste so good, doll," he places a teasing kiss at the dip at the bottom of your neck, "and your lips are so fucking soft."

you give him a questioning look, lips upturned, "really? sounds wild coming from the same man that just called me a brat."

he hums darkly, "you being a brat," he places another kiss to your exposed neck, "just makes this little game of ours more interesting," one of his hands lifts your chin, pulling you closer, "c'mere, kid."

his lips are back on yours, less languid and with much more fervor. you feel so full in his arms. divinely entangled in the coveted luxury of ben organa-solo.

suddenly, you hear commotion from downstairs, drugged mind abruptly anxious.

"what's that?" your voice is barely above a whisper.

ben growls, "fuck— i'm sorry doll, i think my parents are home." you catch the faint flush on his cheeks.

you bite your lip, concerned, "but... i'm high. and wearing your clothes."

ben is about to say something else when the deep baritone of han solo's voice booms from behind his closed bedroom door, "come on out, son. the neighbor's are over for dinner. their daughter should be here soon," han's voice drops a bit, "and try to ease up on the flirting this time, okay?"

you stifle an uninhibited giggle, earning a glare from ben.

"yeah, sure. just let me get out of my work clothes," he peers down at you, eyes wicked, "don't want them to think it's all i own."

your eyes widen at his subtle dig, and he seems to revel in your amusement.

han grumbles something back before leaving. your breathing is erratic for a good few seconds. ben's hands remain on you, gentle grin on his lips.

"you heard the man. dinner." his voice is low, and you fight the urge to pull him into another kiss. the thought of more than kissing weighing heavily on your stoned mind.

your reply knocks the smile off of his face, "how are you going to explain the fact i'm already with you and high off my ass?"

he groans, head falling into the crook of your neck, "shit."

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taavisplushies · 8 months

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some of my childhood stuffed animals!!!

let’s go!!! nostalgia time!!!

first up we will look at all the webkinz (except for my frogs bc those ones are on a shelf)

there was this lil store in town that would sell webkinz for cheaper than meijers, so if i got good grades or something my mom would take me there and let me choose 2! but meijers always had a better selection so sometimes we would go there, but they were more expensive so i could only get 1.

lil kinz grey n white cat my beloved… i got her from my aunt for christmas one year :’) first ever webkinz, i was so excited!!

my mom hated the mohawk puppy because she thought mohawks were a sin

the signature clouded leopard introduced me to the animal and i was obsessed with them for a while!

the clydesdale horse is kinda special! my dad got it for me from ebay :) he normally never got me stuffed animals because he thinks they’re a waste of money. i also thought it was cool, because the internet was new to me, and i didn’t know you could buy stuff online!

not going into details about the traumatic event obviously but it’s kinda funny, because basically i had to pack a bag super quick and i spent forever deciding which plush to take with me lol (i think i was in shock or something, because i was not thinking clearly)

okay that was a lot of plushies… now i am tired… oof.

claw machine prize time!

i love claw machines, i would play them all the time! my favorite was this little one at little caesar’s in the next town over. the machine was really easy to win! i also remember walmart used to have a bunch of claw machines!

not going through the whole box, because most of them aren’t very interesting.

my first ever claw machine win is the little angry tiger! i was probably 4?? and it was at walmart. my dad moved the claw into position and i pressed the button :) i was so excited!!!!

the black and white bunny was a win from the little caesar’s i mentioned earlier. i loved it! the plush is super soft and good quality. normally claw machines have cheap toys so i was impressed!

the carrot farmer bunny is super cool! she originally had a straw hat, but the claw ripped it off :( i was never able to get it…. but that’s okay! also one of her legs is sewn on backwards. weird. but i still think she’s super cute!

next is miscellaneous plushies

i am even more tired now, so i’m not going through the entire box… sorry

these are mostly from garage sales! some of them were bought brand new though (and those ones were always so cool to me)!

i loved that chipmunk so much. i carried him with me around the house and i would sleep with him every night. i got him from the zoo on a field trip! i remember there was so many plushies, it was hard to choose just 1! unfortunately i did puke on him once, so my dad put him in the washer then dryer. when i saw him after he came out of the dryer i was so upset. he’s different! i hate change. i cried. he’s not soft anymore. i still loved him though, because it’s not his fault that his fur got messed up.

i don’t remember where the white dragon is from, but she’s so cool! i’ve heard it could be worth money but idk.

okay i’m done. super tired now. gonna sleep on the floor. goodnight <3

#plushies #plush #plushblr #safeplush #stuffed animals #nostalgia #childhood #special

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sighthounds-and-sketches · 7 months

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Let's talk about flying to pick up a puppy by yourself

And some ways to make it easier on you.

Your prep starts honestly, about a week before baby actually comes home. Maybe 2 weeks.

For my pre-flight prep, I first picked out a flight carrier. I went with the one my breeder recommended.

It has expandable sides, and a little storage pocket. And it's resistant to chewing. I'm really glad I didn't buy a cheaper one, and I can't stress enough that it's cheaper to buy a quality one the first time than have a zipper break or a tear in the middle of your trip. My trip in total was 4 flights and 4 hours in the car, with him being with me for half of it and having the longest layover of my day. I could only really let him out a couple times, so this next part was incredibly helpful.

I mailed the carrier to my breeder,

at her behest. This was *huge* because the siblings got their scent on it and he was acclimated to being in it before I got to him. It acted as a secure place for him to ride in the car and for his first few nights here, he slept in there through the night.

And now that he's in his crate, the removable pad with scents on it has been instrumental in establishing the crate as a safe place for him.

Video of why I'm really glad I got the durable carrier.

Please consider what you're wearing that day.

Wear clothes you don't need to fuss with *at all* that's normal airport protocol- but I can't stress this enough, you're carrying the puppy in your arms through the TSA checkpoint and other people will be fussing over him. Make sure your appearance and personal bag is no fuss.

See: jeans, hoodie, puppy treat and potty bag that can be shoved into my personal Item, and a no fuss backpack.

In my personal travel bag I kept:

Pee pads, his food from the breeder, a change of clothes in case of incidents, a portable battery to charge my phone, collapsible food and water bowls, collar and leash incase one wasn't provided, and SEVERAL toys in there.

The toys were great for waiting in the terminal. I'd expand the sides of the crate and introduce a new toy to him to help him run a bit of energy out before we had to board.

Peepads: Even though airports have animal relief areas, chances are they're either kind of gross or your dog may be a little too young for it to be safe. I was traveling through one of the busiest airports in the world, and nobody was checking jack shit so I opted for potty breaks to occur in bathrooms with pee pads. He didn't end up going but it's better to be prepared.

I flew Delta and used Skymiles accumulated from our credit card with them that we pay off monthly, so the only thing I paid for out of pocket was 95.00 to bring Argos on board. My flight only costed 20k miles total, and that was only a small portion of what we'd accumulated over the 6 months we've been using the card. I think it's worth considering if you're planning to fly to a breeder. It enabled me to go anywhere in the country that Delta flies and not worry about costs.

Day of hack: double check your flights on the airlines app and switch your seat if possible. I swapped one of my return flight seats to an empty row for 15.00, which meant I could have my carryon and him with me at the same time and that was very nice for readjusting where my stuff was and taking a damn nap. Because at this point, I'd been up for about 18 hours and still had 7 hours of traveling before I'd get home.

I think my last thing is that if you're like me and you do have an invisible disability- ask if you can preboard. Dont be afraid to say "hey, i have this problem and standing in the heat while carrying a bunch of stuff is potentially going to cause an episode. " The employees were extremely nice, and willing to work with me. Ultimately, I went through all of this because he's a service dog prospect and will hopefully help.

Small things for me specifically prior: ate in the morning and right before I picked him up, he was able to chill in his carrier while I ate dinner at a restaurant in the airport- didn't make any sounds. He slept the whole time. I don't think I couldve eaten in the food court, too much to carry between him and my main bag.

I think that's it. I may add to this if I remember anything I forgot.

Edited to add: for my besties with miscellaneous illnesses-

A baggie with your medicines is IMPORTANT. Do not forget some dramamine, advil, Tylenol, whatever, pack it if there's a small chance you'll need it!

I ended up getting migraine symptoms like 5 hours into travel, and that was not a day I could afford to have blurred vision. <3 remember to take care of YOU on the journey.

#argos #flight travel #traveling with a puppy #flying with a puppy #dogblr #silken windhound #kingfisher silkens

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gasolinerainbowpuddles · 10 months

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Fly Me To the Moon║ ⒸⓄⓁⓁⒺⒸⓉⒾⓄⓃⓈ

| FLY ME TO THE MOON | part of the A Weight Off Your Shoulders collection ║ series masterlist ║ main masterlist ║ | PAIRING(s): Joel Miller x plus sized!fem!neighbor

| RATING: explicit material | 18+ | WORD COUNT: 5.5k | CONTENT: age gap (Joel mid 40s, neighbor late 20s), struggles of body image and self-worth, Joel gives off some himbo and “he’s so babygirl” vibes (an absolute chef’s kiss of a combo), these two dorks are so down bad for each other it’s stupid

| SYNOPSIS: Joel convinces you to take a weekend trip together.

✧this is the fourth installment of a oneshot collection but can (probably? sort of?) be read as a standalone✧

✧◦◦║ Part 1 ║ Part 2 ║ Part 3 ║ Part 5 ║ Part 6 ║◦◦✧

“Damn, I can’t even remember, darlin’,” Joel drawls, thumbing circles against your leg absentmindedly as he looks up at the ceiling in thought. “Ppfftt. Years. Years.”

“And you were the one telling me that I needed a vacation?” you huff in a laugh.

“Time ain’t got nothin’ to do with it. I’m still right. You need a damn break,” he shoots back with firm but loving kindness.

The airport intercom buzzed with static overhead before an announcement by way of a way too chipper, absolutely-cannot-be-her-actual-voice informed you that your flight would begin boarding in 10 minutes.

“How’d you hear about this again? This deal package thing?” you ask.

“Buddy a’mine from work.” He’s studying the ticket in his hand and glancing at yours. He’d made you print yours out instead of just using the digital ones he’d been issued. Because of course he had. And in the same middle aged man fashion, he’d hauled you to the airport way too many hours before you actually needed to be there. You didn’t really mind, though. It just meant the two of you could sit and talk and relax for longer. A nice start to the quick 3 day vacation to Cabo San Lucas that Joel had all but insisted you take with him.

“Your work friends take cute little weekend trips to Cabo?” you snort.

Joel smirks at the tickets as he reads over them for the 5 millionth time to ensure all the details haven’t magically changed since the last time he checked them. He pushes his glasses up his nose from where they had steadily crept down.

That’s one of the things you’d learned about Joel early on. He wore contacts almost exclusively when he was working on major projects or during the busier time of year for contracting - “safer’n tryna stack safety goggles on top of some glasses” - but opted for some seriously unfairly adorable glasses the rest of the time. He looked good either way, of course.

You follow the line of his nose to where the bridge of it now correctly supports his frames. There was numerous things about Joel’s appearance that you loved, but his nose had snuck into the lineup at some point. Probably something to do with how much you loved when he’d drag it into you when he was lapping you up, the tip of it bumping and stimulating your clit until you couldn’t take it anymore and–

The announcement overhead informs you that the First Class flyers could “ready themselves for boarding at this time.”

“So do they? Bunch of manly, manly man men taking beach getaways?” you taunt.

He lifts an eyebrow and tears his gaze away from the tickets.

“No, just my dumbass buddy who’s on his third wife ‘n has managed to learn enough that a romantic gesture here ‘n there is a helluva lot cheaper than a divorce lawyer,” he chortles.

“Pretty good motivator, I guess,” you admit with amusement. “So what’s your excuse?”

“My excuse? For what? Bookin’ this trip?” he asks. You nod, and he shrugs.

“I’ll be honest with ya, I’m tryna get into this girl’s pants, and I think a coupla beachside margaritas’ll do the trick. She seems like a bit of a slut, to tell ya the truth, but that works out just fine ‘cause I’m a slut, too.” He wiggles his eyebrows theatrically and grins at you when you playfully swat his arm. He leans in closer and grips the inside of your thigh.

“Truth be told, I’m hopin’ to catch sight’a her in this lil pink stringy bikini I’m rather fond of,” he rasps into your ear. You erupt in goosebumps and half-heartedly nudge him away with a bad impression of a chiding look.

“Yeah, well, let’s hope there’s not any turbulence or else the only thing you’ll catch sight of is that girl with her head down the toilet for the rest of the night,” you deadpan.

Joel makes a dissenting noise and trades his grasp on your leg for your hand. “Baby, it’s alright. It’s not a long flight. Promise. I checked the weather and all that. Sunny. Not even a cloud out there. It’ll be alright,” he soothes.

You’d let him know ahead of time that you did not like flying. You wouldn’t go so far as deeming it a phobia, but flying in general made you anxious enough that any amount of turbulence was enough to set you off entirely. You were too embarrassed to share the other reasons of why you hated flying. Joel wouldn’t have made you feel bad about it if you had, but you hated that it was even a thing in the first place.

It was a commonly shared experience that flying was little more than “sardines packed into a tin can” that commoners just had to deal with. Then of course there was the lost luggage or the crying babies or the seating disagreements. Common ground for just about anybody who traveled enough. There was a reason why so many comedians had made airline and flying jokes their bread and butter.

Then there were the additional drawbacks for “passengers of size,” as they were so lovingly called by airlines. Those who carried “more than their share” of poundage being seated beside - or worse, in between - smaller passengers meant you ended up a source of annoyance. An easy, uniting point of focus for disgruntled flyers to project all their grievances onto. How dare you squash into the seat like the rest of us, except you’re bigger so it’s somehow a personal insult to them that you’d make an unpleasant experience even more so.

Because it was so preventable, right? Just be smaller. Eat less. Control yourself every once in a while. Put down the cheeseburger and go for a run every now and then. If you would just stop being so selfishly huge, the rest of us wouldn’t have to put up with your body spilling over into our seat. We wouldn’t have to deal with you shoving and squeezing past everybody because you don’t fit. You aren’t meant to be so big, that’s why you don’t fit. Take the hint and drop a few pounds. For our sake. For your sake.

Or at least have the decency to buy yourself two seats and spare us all the unpleasantries of being made to deal with your bad decisions, your lack of control, your lazy life that has made you too big. We shouldn’t have to pay for the consequences of your bad choices.

Yeah. You dreaded flying.

But how could you possibly put such a damper on this nice gesture from Joel? He’d been so eager and sweet to suggest it. He’d even bought the tickets before even talking to you so that he could guilt trip you into treating yourself to a vacation if you turned him down.

It didn’t take much convincing, though. The thought of Joel half naked and all to yourself for multiple days in a row clouded your judgment. Now that you were about to board, reality was sinking in fast. You tried your best to not let your anxiety get the better of you, but your leg was jumping up and down already.

Joel’s hand cupped the side of your face and turned you to look at him. “Hey, c’mon. I’m right here. I’ll stay beside you the whole time, alright? Get myself permanently banned from the airline when I pee into a water bottle instead’a gettin’ up to use the bathroom. Promise.” His playful attempt at distracting and comforting you works.

“That’s so gross, Joel,” you groan with a scrunched face.

“Just sayin. I’ll do whatever I hafta if it means you’re comfortable, baby,” he says in all sincerity. He brings your hand to his lips and trails a few kisses along your knuckles.

“Let’s go before I gotta chase you down and drag you onto this metal tube myself.”

You roll your eyes and laugh, feeling slightly more relaxed. You just hope nothing embarrassing happens in front of Joel. You don’t think you could stand that level of humiliation.

You hand your ticket to the woman, and she scans it wordlessly with a bored look. You walk ahead of Joel who calls for you to go ahead as he doubles back to the terminal seating where he’d dropped something from his pocket.

You move along the small boarding bridge until you reach a curve in it where you can step aside and allow others to pass. You notice the lingering looks from a few people. The tell tale “god, I hope I’m not seated next to her” expressions flashing before being politely buried and exchanged for a forced, tight-lipped smile.

Joel finally meanders along and gives you a quick peck before you both board. Joel is walking in first and puts both of your overhead luggage away in the bin. His bicep flexes with the movement, and you think to yourself you might just be able to distract yourself enough with certain things to make this flight go faster.

You glance around the plane as Joel finishes loading up the suitcases and closes the cover. The flight is packed. You don’t spot more than 7 empty seats, and there are people behind you. Great. You should’ve looked at your tickets closer like Joel had because maybe then you’d know if either of you had the aisle seat. At least that way you could shove some of yourself into the aisle and give everyone else more room.

“You first, honey,” he prompts, placing a gentle hand on your lower back.

“Um, I’ll just- I’d actually just rather sit in the aisle seat,” you say. “I don’t know if either one of our tickets–”

“I got the aisle seat on my ticket. You take it, baby.” He slides into the middle and pats the aisle seat beside him for you to sit down. You shimmy as gracefully as you can, praying that the armrests won’t dig into your sides too noticeably. You breathe a sigh of relief when you settle into the seat without having to fight the vice grip of metal bars on either side of you.

Joel lifts the armrests that divide the three seats. He wiggles with approval at the less confining arrangement and scoots closer to you.

“Mmmm thas’better,” he hums as he leans a kiss into the crook of your neck and grabs at the inside of your thigh again. His hand is working its way across your lower belly roll when you warn him under your breath to not get you worked up right now when you’re just gonna have to wait hours until he can do something about it. He doesn’t bother to hide the smug expression he’s wearing, all too proud of himself for getting you turned on so easily.

You anxiously await the arrival of the third person bound to put an end to the pretend private party you and Joel are having. You look around confused with a growing thrill when it appears that everyone has boarded the flight. The seat next to Joel’s is empty. You turn your neck to see if there are more open spots in the otherwise packed flight, but you can’t see any from where you’re sitting unless you stand to get a better view.

“I can’t believe we get the whole row to ourselves,” you whisper excitedly to Joel.

He smiles softly at you, taking a moment to soak up the shift in your mood where delight has taken the place of anxiety. “You must be a lucky charm, baby,” he coos before giving you a quick kiss.

It’s the usual spiel: exits are this way, put your own oxygen mask on first, don’t get up until the seatbelt sign goes off. Your last bit of nerves over securing the belt around yourself slip like grains of sand through open fingers when Joel leans over and buckles you in himself. As always, he plants a quick kiss on you before getting himself buckled.

He also unbuckles you once takeoff is done and everyone is “free to move about the cabin.” He cups your face, reminding you gently that he “told you it wasn’t gonna be too bad.” You grin at him. A small heat simmers from your chest to your cheeks at all the comfort and attention he’s showering on you, unaware of just how many things he’s helping you through.

When you repeatedly crane your head to look out the window, Joel asks if you still want the aisle seat.

“Oh. Sorry. I was just-No, I was just curious is all. The aisle seat is good,” you lie.

Of course you want to have the window seat. Everybody loves the window seat. It’s the best seat.

But you never get the window seat because that would mean you would be stuck in the corner, nowhere to lean your body to give others room, having to hold your pee because you can’t scoot past the other two seats and don’t want to be the spectacle of the fat girl making everyone else in your row get up so you can get out.

So, yeah. Aisle seat is fine.

Joel rolls his eyes at you and pokes your thigh. “You’re in my seat,” he says pointedly. You start to argue with him that no, seriously, it’s fine! you want the stupid aisle seat and not the much obviously better window seat, but then he decides to play dirty.

“I’mma call a stewardess over here and have her remove the unruly passenger that’s refusin’ to give me my seat,” he challenges with a playful jut of his chin towards you.

“OHMYGOD,” you huff. “FINE.”

Joel squeezes over and past you, and you shimmy over to the window.

“There is seriously something wrong with you, Joel,” you try to say as sternly as possible, but the wavering giggle in your tone gives you away.

“Shutup, baby, you love it,” he murmurs with a chuckle as he presses himself flush against the side of your back and rests his head on your shoulder. You both sit like that for a bit, looking out the window together with his hand holding yours in your lap.

The rest of the flight is over in record time after you amuse yourselves with the product catalogs in the seat pockets. You and Joel marvel at the dumbest shit that has ever been “invented,” and it somehow gets worse with each page. Joel mercilessly teased you at one point when you tried to hide your genuine interest at the lawn gnome that was fashioned like an accountant. Well, a banker. But still. Close enough in looks and all. And it was only $47.99 plus shipping and handling. Okay, that was an awful price for such a tacky, cheap garden decor item, but it was cute.

He still wouldn’t let it go after you landed and made your way towards the exit. “So lemme get this straight,” he starts with a devilish edge in his voice. “You give me grief for my ‘middle age man bullshit’ like, I dunno, gettin’ to the airport early enough so you’re on time for a flight, but I’m not supposed’ta say anythin’ about you tryna order from a damn airplane catalog?”

“Joel, you told me one time The Eagles made better music than Nirvana,” you scoff in defense of your position.

“That’s not what I said!” he huffs right back.

You only have yourself to blame for the 6 minute Now That’s What I Call Dad Rock! explanation that followed with all the “complex layers” that “determine good bands from bad bands.” Joel was quick to drop the subject entirely when you casually mention that you knew he had Black Eyed Peas in his iTunes library.

“Sarah must’a added that. Don’t even know what that is.” The nervous neck scratch and patchy pink on his cheeks suggested otherwise.

When you finally made it to your hotel, you can’t believe you’d ever considered not coming. Joel confesses that he upgraded the existing package for a “villa suite.” You considered lecturing him over “wasting his money on you,” but you settled for a “thank you” and a kiss when you correctly reminded yourself that this was for both of you.

You feel the hot burn of overwhelming contentment in your gut as you watch Joel list off all the activities included in the package. The snorkeling, sunset yacht cruise, and jet skiing all sound fun. The horseback riding, parasailing, and kayaking stand out as the biggest NOPEs for fat girls.

Joel calls down to the front desk to arrange the sunset yacht cruise for the two of you a few hours from now. He wants to shower - “fuckin’ airplane oxygen makes my skin crawl” - and you wave him off as you help yourself to some fruit the staff has left for you on a decadent looking platter arrangement. You hear the water cut on in the shower. You open the sliding panoramic glass doors to listen to the water from the beach that makes up most of your view.

You feel cliche the moment you think it, but you really do feel like you’re in paradise. Not just the location, either. Here, with Joel. Who pushed you to do something spontaneous and fun and spendy. Who comforted you the entire plane ride. Who made you feel special. Who still hadn’t pressured you to put a label on your relationship and seemed content that you were mutually exclusive and just needed more time to adjust to the idea of getting into another serious relationship so soon after you broke off your engagement with your shitbag ex Michael.

Another side of you was nervous for this trip because it was a very undeniable “couple in a serious, longterm, committed relationship” move. Not that Joel had ever mentioned it as such or even made you feel that way. It was all in your own head, like most of the things that held you back from doing what made you truly happy.

You shake your head and decide you’re going to focus on the amazing time ahead of you. Just as soon as you can get the price of your plane ticket from Joel so you could balance your digital register and pay him back. You’d talked him into letting you split the cost of the hotel package, but then he’d gone and upgraded it to this villa. You felt antsy about your airline ticket still being outstanding when you know Joel must’ve spent a good chunk of change for this nicer, more secluded lodging option.

“Hey, babe?” you call into the bathroom. He answers back with a watery yeah?

“Hey, how much did you say the ticket was? For the flight?”

A beat or two of silence. “Uhhh, I dunno off the top’a my head, baby. I can tell ya when I get out of the shower, though. Be just about 10 minutes, okay?”

“Alright,” you call back.

You turn and walk back into the bedroom portion of the villa. You see Joel’s clothes discarded on the floor. His phone, belt, and wallet littered on the neatly made king size bed. A thought crosses your mind that makes you smile. You pick up Joel’s phone and stare at the lockscreen. You didn’t know his password, but you didn’t have to. He’d unlock it for you if you ever asked to borrow it for a second. He wasn’t anything like the “suspiciously protective of their things” guys you’d been with before who didn’t want you to go through anything of theirs, especially electronics.

You hum to yourself and take a bite of pineapple. You’ve just come up with a little game, a test for yourself, to see if you can guess Joel’s password without any help from him. Worst case scenario it’d lock you out for a little bit and you’d have to wait to get your ticket price. Best case scenario you prove to yourself and to him that you know him like the back of your hand. That, and you can check his email for the flight receipt.

Hhmmmmm. Seven numbers. Must be Sarah’s doing. Joel wouldn’t go out of his way to add more digits to a passcode just to make it harder to get into. Path of least resistance was Joel’s general approach to technology. You take a bite of a strawberry. Then a mango. Oh my god, this shit is delicious. Fresh fruit had to be one of the best things on earth.

Seven. Seven. Seven. Hhhmmmmmmmm.

Your face lights up. You know it. You know his passcode. It HAS to be this. You’d wager a good amount of money that you’re correct. You start to punch in the numbers.

8 0 0 8 1 3 5

It unlocks the second you hit the 5. You let out a victorious cackle. This DORK. Of course his password is “boobies” in numerical form. Of fucking course it is. Just when you think you can’t fall for this man any more than you already have, he goes and has that for his phone passcode.

“Fuckin’ perv,” you giggle to yourself with immense delight.

You are giggling and smiling to yourself as you click open his email. You scroll down until you see the airline name and then tap it open. Your brow furrows. The giggle that had been bubbling up your throat goes away in an instant. You don’t notice the sound of the shower being turned off or the rustling of Joel toweling himself off.

Joel’s words from earlier echo in your mind. “I’ll do whatever I hafta if it means you’re comfortable, baby.”

You stare at the screen, scrolling up and down and back again to make sure you’re reading it correctly.

“Everything okay? You aren’t answerin’ me,” Joel asks from the bathroom doorway.

You turn towards him, and he can now see you clutching his unlocked phone in your hand. The glow of it reflects off your glossed eyes where tears are prickling at the brim. A look of realization from Joel.

“Baby, I– Please just let me–” he starts in a hurry.

“You bought three plane seats? You bought the whole row?” you squeak out.

“I’m– I did, but it wasn’t–”

“Why’d you do that?” you demand. You already know why.

“Baby, listen. It’s not like that! I knew you’d be annoyed at me putting up the money for first class, so I just did it this way instead. You weren’t supposed’ta find out,” he implores.

He slowly approaches you, sensing the teetering mood that’s been set. His eyes are searching yours and begging for forgiveness all at once.

“First class? Because of, because they’re bigger seats? And-And a whole row so a third person didn’t have to squeeze in? So just me and you could sit together in the row?” you mumble.

You make a frustrated noise when you start replaying the day.

“Oh my god. The pocket. Your thing you said you dropped from your pocket? That you went back into the terminal to get? You didn’t even drop anything! Did you? You just needed to make sure I couldn’t see the lady scan two tickets!”

Joel swallows thickly and looks like he has no idea what to do or say.

Something akin to embarrassment threatens to take hold of you, but instead an overwhelming sense of love and security takes its place. Joel wanted to buy you First Class seats for a more comfortable flight, but he knew you’d get stuck on him spending that sort of money. So instead he bought an extra seat in economy class just so you could have enough room to move around comfortably. So you’d have a good flight. So you’d have a good start to the amazing weekend trip he’d planned.

“I-I did it because I-I just wanted you to have a good flight and be comfortable. Please, it’s not what you’re thinking. I know you get anxiety flyin’, and nobody fits good in those stupid seats anyway.” He’s a bit more frantic in his explanation now that you’re just staring at him, blinking slowly. He grabs your hands in his.

“Please. Please. Don’t be mad at me. Please,” he begs.

“Mad? At you?” You’re confused. Joel thinks you’re mad at him. For doing one of the most considerate things anyone has ever done for you and without any prompting. Somebody who’d probably never been more than 10 pounds “overweight” their entire life. Somebody who had no lived experience occupying a fat body. Somebody who because of those things would have to care deeply for someone to think of them in such an intimate, personal context. To even consider what their experiences were like. To imagine how they might be able to do something to make those experiences safer, nicer, more palatable for them. Joel had come up with this idea because he cared about you that much.

His head shifts sideways, sharing in the confusion. “Aren’t you?” he wonders.

“That is… the nicest thing… that anyone has ever–,” you break off when your voice cracks with emotion.

Joel’s expression softens when he gathers you aren’t furious with him. You close your eyes and take a deep breath before opening them again and wrapping your arms around Joel’s middle.

“No. I’m not mad. At all. You… You’re … Just.. I just….” You shake your head as you look up to him. Trying to collect yourself and your thoughts feels like the hardest thing that’s ever been done in the history of doing hard things.

He shakes his head back at you. “You can– You’re allowed to be upset with me. I shoulda told you. I shoulda just told you the truth. I just didn’t want for you to, I dunno. Didn’t want you to feel embarrassed or somethin’. Not that you should feel embarrassed. Just that I thought you might feel embarrassed ‘bout it. ‘Cause of nerves or how you’d fit in the seats. Didn’t want you feelin’ self-conscious about any of it. Jus’ wanted you to be comfortable. Thought it was the best way to go about it, s’all. I know it was dumb. Shouldn’t’a kept it from you.”

“Take this stupid towel off,” you order.

“I-what?”

The quick turn in the conversation stuns Joel for a moment. You don’t wait for him to catch up. You shove the towel off his hips and let it drop to the floor. You walk him backwards until the backs of his knees hit the bed. A hard shove lands him onto his back against the soft mattress.

“The hell?” he mutters. There’s confusion in his tone but zero resistance to the surprising but welcome turn of events.

He’s sprawled out against the large bed, and you take the opportunity of his wide spread to start licking anywhere and everywhere. His hips buck at the first pass of your flat tongue against his balls.

“Gahh-Goddamn. Fuck. The fuck is goin’ on?” he rasps.

You laugh at his suspended disbelief and bewilderment as you slurp both of his balls into your mouth and start a pull of light suction on them. A whiny moan grumbles in his throat at the sensation.

You release him and let the slobber drip down your chin. “M’showin’ you how not mad I am at you.”

His eyes roll back when you take his entire length into your mouth with one motion. His hips jerk when you bottom out.

“Ooohhh-hngggg jesusfuckinchrist,” his voice crackles and strains. You work his length with such fervor that your drool is running down his shaft, dripping onto the curly brown hairs at his base, sliding in hot streaks down his ass on either side of his ballsack. You so rarely got to please him like this. He always preferred you riding his face or letting him titty fuck you. You hadn’t really ever shown him your particular skillset in this department, but you were sure as hell gonna clear that up today.

“Ba-Baby. Agh fuck. Lemme tast–” Joel is sputtering through his sentence, but it drops off entirely when you start to jerk him off and bury your tongue into his asshole. His legs snap up into a loose bend at the knee. His hand flies to the top of your head.

“OH FUCK,” he blurts out, raising his hips off the bed slightly for you to have better access.

You trade off between rolling your tongue with firm presses against his hole and darting as much of your tongue as you can inside of it, and he sounds borderline hysterical. You move up to his balls again and suck them into the vacuum of your mouth more urgently than before. By the time you make it back up to his dick, he is blabbering absolute nonsense.

“Gah-jus’ wanna— hhhngggg, oh fuck haahhhhhh, christ— if I wanna – but wanna fuck your–”

A strangled moan cuts his incoherent musings off. The fact that this man thinks he can last long enough to fuck you? In the state you’ve whipped him into? Actually hilarious. He’s about to spiral, and you’re almost done showing him how not mad you are. You know what will get him there, and quick.

“Joel, shut the fuck up already and turn my throat into a daycare,” you growl.

“JESUS CHRIST, YOU’RE GONNA FUCKIN’ END ME,” he practically sobs when you take him into your mouth again.

You bob the tip of his head in your throat and massage his balls. His entire body stiffens as he grabs for your hair. He makes a sort of pained noise just before you feel him twitching inside your mouth. The loud, distress-adjacent moans ripping from his chest are almost enough to make you get off, too.

You work him through his release, swallowing and bobbing as his spend shoots into your throat. You don’t stop until he gently pulls you off of him.

You are a complete mess. Slobber and cum dripping and sliding every which way. You couldn’t give less of a shit. Joel’s astonished, blissed out look right now makes your day. You wished your phone was closer to you could snap a picture of him, looking like he’d just seen a sleep paralysis demon do a long division math problem before running off to play hopscotch with some Keebler Elves.

“You okay?” you laugh as you crawl up next to him and wrap your arms around his neck. He turns to look at you with wide-eyed awe. You can’t help but crack up at his astonishment.

“You’re acting like nobody’s ever sucked your dick before, Joel,” you gibe.

“NOT LIKE THAT THEY HAVEN'T.” His voice perfectly compliments his expression. Bewildered. Satisfied. Reverent.

You laugh again. You made mental notes of your performance. Save that routine in your back pocket and bust it out when you need it. A real “BREAK GLASS IN CASE OF EMERGENCY” type blowjob. Always a good thing to have.

“Told you I wasn’t mad,” you titter. You place wet kisses against his neck and snuggle closer. He relaxes against the bed and slowly comes back to his senses. You feel his chest shake with a laugh.

“What? What’s so funny?” you demand.

“Turn my throat into a daycare?” he echoes your words back to you. He sniffs an impressed, incredulous laugh through his nose. “Absolutely foul, Roxanne.”

You bark a laugh at his use of your full name. You could probably count on one hand the times he’d used it, and it was always when he was being very serious about something. The fact that he’d used it in this context felt like the funniest thing you’d ever heard in your life. When your rolls of laughter subsided, you took him to task on his declaration of you being “foul.”

“Uuuhhhhh, that’s real rich coming from the guy who has BOOBIES for his passcode! If I’m a pervert, then you’re a pervert,” you assert.

“Damn, guess you’re right,” he tuts. “Sounds like we really deserve each other.”

Your breath catches, and you lock eyes with one another. You don’t think he meant for it to sound as meaningful as it did. He opens his mouth and closes it a few times before settling for silence. His face is so open yet impossible to read.

“Yeah. I think you’re right. I think we do deserve each other,” you agree in a low voice and a shy smile.

Joel wordlessly brings your mouth to his and captures you in a slow, deep kiss. It feels like he’s saying whatever it was that he couldn’t just a few moments ago. For now you greedily take what he’s able to communicate, but you know eventually you’ll both have to work up the nerve to talk about it and say all the things you’ve been saying through touches and gifts and looks and gestures and acts of service.

But for right now, you’re just going to take the time to enjoy what’s right in front of you.

me, to the characters I am writing and putting into the very specific situations I'm reading: OH MY FUCKING GOD, YOU TWO JUST KNOCK IT OFF ALREADY AND ADMIT YOU LOVE EACH OTHER

me, before anyone can ask why this is being posted before the sub!Joel fic that was supposed to come out next:

catch ya later, ♥Puddles♥

#fic: a weight off your shoulders #joel miller #joel miller x plus size reader #pedro pascal #pedro pascal characters #joel miller hbo #tlou fic #the last of us fanfiction #oneshots

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strangersteddierthings · 8 months

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Daily Ficlet 3

I'm challenging myself to write a little ficlet every day, using the prompts from this list. Today's prompt is foggy mornings.

"Do you miss it?" El says as she pulls her legs up under her and leans more into Dustin's side as she sips at her hot chocolate.

Dustin takes a sip of his coffee before asking, "miss what?"

"Being a superhero. Saving the world."

Dustin snorts at that because he was never the superhero. Just a kid, friends with another kid who'd gone missing, and life was never the same after that. But, even not being the superhero, he can't help but admit, "kind of. You think that makes me a bad person?"

"No. I miss it, too," El confesses in a whisper.

He switches his coffee mug from his right hand to his left so he can slither his arm out from under El and around her shoulders. She snuggles in closer and they both let out matching sighs before deeply breathing in the morning air. The hotel balcony looks over the foggy sea, and it's a little chilly, but that's just fine. Maine is chilly this time of year. More reasons to sit so close and share their warmth.

"I think we miss it for the same reason," El continues, "and it is not a bad one. We were all together, back then."

She's certainly got a point. None of them ended up in the same college, much less the same state. Then getting jobs didn't exactly bring them together again. Will's in San Fransisco, Lucas and Max are in Florida, Erica is Washington, and Mike isn't even in America anymore (a semester abroad in Italy stole him away and he only returns for holidays occasionally). Dustin's fallen out of touch with Nancy, Jonathan, and Argyle, so he's no clue where they are these days. Steve would be able to tell him.

Steve's still in Indiana, though it's Indianapolis now instead of Hawkins. Speaking of Steve and everyone being scattered, the last time they were all together was for Steve and Robin's lavender marriage two years ago. Robin got better school loans (she's going for that doctorate now) being married and Steve was happy to help. It was more a 'Congrats on Your Cheaper Education' party than a wedding.

Robin even convinced Eddie to get his band to do covers of wedding songs.

"Yeah. I miss everyone," Dustin agrees, turning to plant a kiss to the side of El's forehead. He gets a mouthful of hair for his trouble but it's worth it to hear her contented hum.

"Well. Good news is that we can probably get everyone together again next year," she says.

"You know something I don't?" Dustin asks.

"Spoke with Max last night. She is going to proposing to Lucas on Thanksgiving if he has not done it yet. She said I could tell you."

"Did she now?"

"Yes. She said 'go ahead and tell Dustin, since I know you can't keep a secret' so I am telling you."

Dustin smiles to himself as they fall into silence and listen to the ocean waves. He likes the ocean, and so does El. It's why they picked Maine for their vacation spot. They would have stayed in Boston but Dustin's been there four years now, and El for two, so they've seen most of the sights. They didn't want to drive all the way to a warmer climate.

He thinks they both prefer the colder weather anyway.

His thoughts turn back to Max and Lucas and their pending wedding. He would like to say he always knew they'd get married, but they were broken up for four years after high school, and managed to just find their way back to each other.

"Do you think you'll ever want to get married one day?" Dustin asks. he feels El's head shift and turns to meet her gaze.

"One day. Yes. I would like that," she smiles at him, and Dustin can't help but return it.

He thinks about the ring he has stashed in his underwear drawer back home. He's had it for almost four months now, but knows in his heart it's not something he can spring on El. No matter how sure he is that he wants to spend the rest of his life with her. He's taking his time. This won't be the last time he'll ask her if she wants to be married one day; just the first.

Dustin thinks he knows her pretty well after all these years. He'll know when her answer means 'I do' without her needing to say it. And right now, it's just a maybe. He can live with that, so long as he gets to share her warmth on chilly mornings.

#henderhop #my fic #daily ficlet #enjoy this little slice of life look into a henderhop future

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dumbass-tumbler-cryptid · 11 months

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Paz lives modern au part 4

part 1 part 2 part 3

The Quaritch-Socorro household has money. They are firmly upper middle class. You wouldn’t know it though from how the family looks and acts.

They are cheap asses. Not like extreme cheapskate levels of penny pinching but if they can save a buck they will.

Clothes from Goodwill with a few holes that Paz can easily patch up? Hell yeah she got three bags of “new” clothes for her family for $7!

Miles is taking his family for a “fancy” night out? They’re going to the all you can eat Chinese buffet in the Walmart strip mall. Adults eat for $10, kids $6.

If you think Paz is disappointed that this is what her husband considers fancy then think again. For her this is the lap of luxury

They don’t leave until everyone’s had at least three plates because the kids grow like weeds and “mama and papa are getting our money’s worth”

Miles goes hunting with his squad mates and loads up their deep freezer with deer meat.

Paz gardens not as a hobby but because growing food yourself is cheaper than buying it.

She cuts everyone’s hair too, including her own because “why the hell would I pay for that. I can cut a straight line.” (She’s completely unaware that her own curly hair would look like a hack job if she ever straightened it out. Luckily curly hair can hide a lot of mistakes)

Miles has her cut his at the end of every month like clockwork but one time they skipped it.

One of their kids had been born a few days earlier so Miles just let it go for the first time in years.

He was on leave too and helping his wife manage the household so what did he care.

He grew a beard during that time too and Paz was shook.

She didn’t even know her man could look that good, with his curls starting to come in and his mountain man beard.

She pouted for days when Miles went back to work and had to be all “clean cut” again.

We all already know that Spider likes to keep his hair long.

His mom doesn’t care but his dad isn’t a fan.

He blames his wife for it.

When Spider was a toddler, with his long blond curls, he started getting mistaken for a girl

Miles didn’t like that so he started insisting that his wife cut it.

Paz couldn’t bring herself to do it though. Spider’s curls were so pretty. Just like her’s and Miles’ if he’d ever let it grow out just a little.

“It’s not like it won’t grow back”

“Yeah but it’s baby’s first haircut”

“So what! We’re having another baby right now.”

“But he’s my first baby!”

Miles eventually convinces her and they get all set up in the kitchen only for Paz to not be able to go through with it.

She was five months pregnant and overly emotional so can you blame her.

Miles rolled his eyes, took the scissors and just started cutting away himself

Spider was completely unbothered until mama started crying

“He looks like a little man!” Miles just ignored her

But then Spider started crying because mama was crying, which made papa get frustrated, which made them both cry harder.

Miles told Paz to just leave, which she did because she could see how she was affecting her son.

But that only made things even worse because Spider screamed for his mama, trying to wiggle out of his seat, making grabby hands in the direction she’d gone.

Until Spider was five getting his haircut would result in a tantrum.

“It’s because you traumatized him,” Miles would half jokingly half seriously tell Paz. She’d just roll her eyes because yeah he was right but it’s not like she was going to admit that.

No matter how old Spider got he just didn’t like getting his haircut for some reason. He wasn’t sure why. He just liked it long.

To Miles' chagrin his other sons emulated their big brother.

So he’s this gruff clean cut military man, with a wife who despite being ex-military herself wears her curly hair long and wild, dressing like a hippy (loose flowy, comfortable clothes, in fun colors because she had to wear neutrals for too long in the military) his oldest son dresses similarly to his mom, but more skater style. When he gets a little older he starts doing his hair in impressively elaborate braids. Spider's younger brothers more or less copy his style (they also don’t have much of a choice because they get Spider’s hand me downs) and his little sister is mommy and daddy’s little princess and dresses kinda like a nature fairy, all flower patterns, pinks, greens, blues and glitter. So much glitter.

All this to say Miles looks boring while his family looks kinda excentrique.

Some of Miles' work colleagues have caught him out and about with his family a couple of times and if they weren’t scared shitless of the man then they’d probably roast him for having such a “sloppy looking” family.

Miles has more or less made his piece with it though. He might tisk disapprovingly at one of his children's styling choices every once in a while when he’s in a bad mood but after four kids you learn to be less of a control freak

Paz and Miles are low key doomsday preppers

It’s not that they believe the world is actually going to end in some biblical plague or something.

They are just extremely prepared for natural disasters (and terrorist attacks, or World War III)

There basement is loaded with enough food rations and bottled water to keep the entire family going for about twenty years give or take

They run preparedness drills for every scenario they can think of once every three months

The kids hate it

Mom and Dad even ran one while Spider was in school, picking up the ten year old in the middle of the day and taking the entire family on a “camping trip” to a cabin in the woods six hours away

When he was twelve his dad told him that was practice for what they’d do if there was a nuclear attack on major cities.

When Spider was four and really started climbing on things Miles took it upon himself to build his son a “jungle gym” in the backyard

It was really a baby version of an American ninja warrior obstacle course.

Low key Miles was doing military training on his son but Spider fucking loved that obstacle course so it was really a win win.

Miles has a lot of way of “low key” instilling his kids with a military mindset and physical prowess

As a punishment he’ll make the kids do things like fifty push-ups or ten laps around the house

Both parents run the house on a fairly strict schedule, breakfast at 7, dinner at 6, then all the kids do their homework, twenty minutes of the kids cleaning up after themselves, then it’s off to bed.

On the weekends Miles and Paz teach their kids “practical skills” which are really just survivalist skills

During the summer the kids go to “wilderness camp”

Which is really just a rotating cast of their parents' old squad mates taking them into the woods and showing them stuff.

Miles joins in on the weekends or if he can take the days off to teach his kids things like hunting, tracking, fishing all that jazz

Needless to say the Quaritch-Socorro kids are kinda scary because of this.

When Spider was like seven he told a classmate in detail how to shoot and skin a squirrel with a sunny smile on his face. As if he was talking about a cool dinosaur fact or something

The kid cried, the teacher got involved, Spider was sent to the office and his parents were called.

Paz was basically like “yeah his dad taught him that. So what? It’s a good skill to have.”

When dad picked him up from school that day he took Spider out for ice cream as a reward for remembering everything so well.

#miles spider socorro #spider socorro #miles quaritch #paz socorro #colonel miles quaritch #avatar fanfiction

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theshippirate22 · 7 months

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maybe it’s because i’m a broke college student with crippling depression but i love the idea of Aziraphale meeting this broke college student who came into the shop to see if he had a cheaper version of the textbook they needed and like instantly just fell in love with them in the same sense that you realize a puppy is a part of your family or that a piece of art would not make your house home unless it’s there. So he miracles them the textbook and loans it to them free of charge and they don’t really know what to do with that so they keep insisting that there has to be something they can do in return and Aziraphale randomly comes up with some task for them to do.

but actually shocker! they end up needing a whole bunch more books throughout the year and they always go to check Aziraphale’s shop first. He’s always thrilled to see them and the same sort of exchange occurs where they request a book, he miracles it into the back room and then they perform some menial task to “pay” for it, like changing lightbulbs or dusting shelves or even once helping assemble a new shelf that had come in the mail and Aziraphale had no idea how to go about hanging it on the wall but a drill and a youtube video later it’s ready to go.

this goes on for a long time, this little charade, and “Good morning, Mr. Fell,” becomes “Hello, Aziraphale,” becomes “Azi! Are you here?” and “I’m looking for-“ becomes “Do you know anything about-“ becomes “I’ve brought coffee-“

Slowly, Aziraphale catches on that this kid has a bad relationship with their parents and a worse relationship with themselves and it’s a whole load of nonsense to reassure them frantically that they’re always welcome in the shop and really, it’s no trouble at all, and you needn’t come and “make yourself useful. sit right there, i’ll bring you some tea.”

Until eventually they’re stopping in three or four times a week to look at whatever Aziraphale’s gotten his hands on that he’s particularly excited about or to have a cuppa or to taste whatever Aziraphale’s been baking (he’s gotten loads better, they must admit) or just to be away from school/dormitory/home for a while

sometimes, Azi’s… partner… is there, usually flung about whining about something or other and drinking, and at first they believed him to be standoffish but realized quickly that it was all just a bit of a farce to get Azi to take care of him. He’s awfully good at fretting, they would know.

Crowley even helps with maths homework sometimes, when they’ve got their head face down on the desk over Calculus, and he’s quite good at it really, knows lots of things about numbers and measurements. sometimes, he says he has to know, how else could he build galaxies and nebulas the way he did? They think this is one of his dramatic bits; he’s got a few of those, but sometimes when it gets dark out, he’ll pull out a star chart and show them all the little pieces of a section, and he’ll tell them what the stars looked like when they’d first been born, describing such lurid color and beauty that sometimes… they wonder if he really does know something…

That bookshop becomes the quietest, softest, homiest place in the country and really they’re there more often now than home and seeing Azi and Crowley more often than their own father and mother and really, maybe there is no point to wanting to kill yourself because Crowley will go on his little bit about the farm and Azi will roll his eyes but assure them that actually, he’s right, hard things are ineffable but life is worth living and there’s something so sacred about falling asleep hunched over Psychology textbooks in the dim light and knowing that Azi will carry you into bed like a child (he’s says theyre a tiny little thing; even if it’s not true) and the lights will all get hazy and Crowley will put on records if gets the chance- usually something slow and low unless Azi can get Saint-Saens on first- and it’s the feeling of being loved again, with the laughter and whispers from the other room and yes, you know what? They’ll be properly good on the farm, bad days are ineffable, but life is worth living

#good omens #ineffable husbands #let me project in peace #ficlet #headcanons

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mosylufanfic · 1 year

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5 Times They Almost Met (and after they did)

Merry Christmas, @koltarmi! You asked for “the red thread of fate” and here is what I came up with! I hope you like it as much as I enjoyed writing it. I was also delighted to remember that red was the color of the Force and Force worshippers, as per the costume designers on Rogue One.

5 Times They Almost Met (and after they did)

When she was very small, and still believed in magic and the Force and that her mama and papa would always be there, Jyn heard about the red thread for the first time.

Her mama, who often wore a red sash when they were at home, used it to tickle her nose. "The Force," she said, "binds the universe together. It's a thread through all of us. And sometimes it pulls - " She looped her sash around her daughter's waist and tugged so Jyn tumbled, giggling, into her lap. "People together."

"Like you and Papa," Jyn said confidently, weaving her fingers through the fringe on the ends of the sash.

"Yes, like me and your papa."

"Can you see it?" Jyn looked around herself as if she could spot thin red lines tracing themselves in the air around her.

"No, only its effects. It'll pull you toward the people you're meant to know, over and over again. You might walk by each other in the street. Meet their eyes across a room. Something they do will affect you, but you won't know it was them, not yet. Then you'll go your separate ways, not knowing how important that person is going to be to you until the day you finally meet, the way you were meant to do."

Jyn snuggled into her mother's arms, eyes still searching the air for invisible threads connecting her to people she would one day know.

"Lyra," her papa said. "If you tell her things like that all the time, she's going to start to believe them."

"Good," Mama said. "That's the point."

17 BBY

Papa was hard-faced and silent, and Mama was tense, and both those things made Jyn's tummy hurt. She was whiny and pouty until Papa snapped at her and Mama snapped at him and then she curled up in a ball in the corner of the speeder's seat and shoved her hot face into the squeaky cushion.

Papa sighed and put his heavy, warm hand on her head. "Stardust," he said. "I'm sorry. None of us want to be here. Hang in there and we'll be gone soon."

"Why did I have to come?" she muttered into the seat cushion. "Why couldn't I stay on the ship and play?"

Nobody answered her. When she looked up, her mama and papa were looking at each other with that grown-up expression of things they weren't telling her. She sighed and hugged Stormy, tucking him under her chin.

After another eternity of dull silence, she sat up and pressed her face to the window to see out. They'd spent so long in hyperspace that even the dull, grey, rainy outside was interesting to her.

"Who are they?" she asked, pointing at the line of men winding away toward the hills in the distance. They were all wearing the same kind of blue jumpsuits, their shoulders and hair darkened with rain.

"Prisoners, darling."

"What did they do?"

Her mama's eyes tightened at the corners. "I don't know. Shh."

When her parents said Shh like that, Jyn knew to shut up immediately because if she kept talking, someone other than her parents might not like it. Like probably the guard - no, she'd got the word wrong, the guide - who was driving their enclosed speeder and wore a big heavy gun on his hip.

The guide said, "They're going mining for us, little girl."

Jyn scowled. She wasn't little. She was four, and she could put on her own clothes now and everything.

"The hyperbarite?" her mama said.

"Nothing else worth mining in those hills."

"It's industry standard to use droids to mine hyperbarite," Mama said. "Due to the dangerous nature of the mining process."

"But these are much cheaper," their guide said, and laughed. He laughed a lot, at things that weren't funny. Jyn didn't like his laugh. There was something mean about it.

Mama didn't laugh. She looked angry, her brows pulled together.

Papa said, "Lyra," very quietly, and then neither of them said anything else.

Jyn stood up on her knees and put both hands on the transparisteel. Nobody told her not to, so she watched out the window. Then she saw the boy.

He wasn't her age. He was a big boy. But not grown-up. Almost grown-up, maybe.

The almost-but-not-quite-grown-up boy had a big pot in his hands. It looked heavy, and every so often as he walked, a little something would slop over the edge.

His dark eyes met hers through the window. His hair, as dark as his eyes, hung dripping wet and curling around his face. He was wearing the same clothes as the grown-up prisoners, the cuffs of his pants rolled up but still dragging in the mud, the sleeves pushed up to his elbows.

"Mama," she said.

"Yes, darling."

"Why is that boy here? Where are his mama and papa?"

"I don't know, sweetheart." Her mama reached out and scooped her into her lap. "Don't look."

Jyn put her head on her mama's shoulder and looked out the window for the boy again. But he was gone.

On the ship back to Coruscant, her parents had a hissed argument while Jyn was in bed, with occasional words leaping out like fishes. "Prisoners . . . a boy! A child! Fourteen if he was a day!" "Can't . . . Krennic . . . " "We have to - "

And a month after they got back, they left again, fleeing Coruscant with only her very favorite toys and some clothes shoved in a bag. But she was all right with that, as long as she was with her mama and her papa.

5 BBY

It was supposed to be a quick job. Stand around with a blaster, shoot anyone who got too close. Get a cut of the take. Not really a cut, if the size of it was anything like she'd heard. More like a shaving.

But that was fine. She hadn't done the hard work, after all. And even a shaving would feed her for a week or so, which was more than the contents of her pockets would do now.

Jyn Erso was sixteen years old and on her own, and behind the hard expression on her face, she was terrified, all the time. Every moment. She was hoping this job, and the handful of credits it promised, would soften the sharpest edge of that terror.

Her lip hurt where it had split. But that short, nasty fight over a picked pocket had caught the attention of her current employers, who'd peeled her off the street and said, "Want a job, kid?"

She knew full well that they'd almost tossed her back anyway. She looked too small and delicate and, well, young. Nobody here had ever heard of the Lion of Onderon, or his Cub. This was as good a way as any to start establishing her rep, before the world outside the Partisans ate her alive.

But the so-called quick job had stretched out to two hours, then three, as they waited around in a cantina for the call from Balyag's contact. She hadn't minded it at first, as they'd bought a round of drinks, and she'd eaten three bowls of bar snacks down to crumbs. But she was getting antsy.

At a table against the wall, her employers muttered to each other. The other muscle hired for the job muttered to each other too, especially after one of them detoured close enough to the back table to overhear the conversation.

Jyn wouldn't unbend far enough to ask, but she tipped her head to hear the conversation.

"Where are they coming from?"

"Aldhani, they said."

"They're late."

"Had some trouble. They stopped to get medical."

"How long?"

"Another half a day."

"Half a day?" Jyn tossed her drink back, scooped up the crumbs of the fourth bowl of bar snacks, and said, "Kriff this." She made for the door.

The man who'd hired her stepped into her path. "Where are you going?"

"Got another job." She didn't, but she'd found this one. She could find another. "I can't afford to be sitting here with my thumb up my arse."

"We paid you good money to sit around with your thumb up your arse."

She glared up at him with all the ferocity that the Lion's Cub could muster. "You haven't paid me anything, karkface. Now let me through or I'll cut my way through."

5 BBY - a month later

When Jyn saw the prices in the bar, she winced. She'd avoided the city center where all the tourist traps were, but apparently the locals' cantina was as jacked up as the rest of this stupid planet.

Still, she bought herself the cheapest beer they had. If she was going to try and pick up work, she couldn't get kicked out by an annoyed bartender.

The being behind the bar gave her something that might have been a sympathetic glance and refilled a bowl of bar snacks, pushing it down toward her. Even knowing they were probably thirty percent salt to make her thirstier, Jyn pulled it closer to herself. Food was food to her echoing belly, and there’d been many a day when bar snacks were all that filled it.

He turned and started wiping down the bar. When the door swooshed open to a gorgeous woman with explosive curls, he called out, "Windi! Haven't seen you around lately. What did you, pick up some tourist?"

"Yeah, but he hoofed it yesterday morning. Went out 'for a walk'" - she made quotes with her fingers - "and that was the last I saw of him. Rental kicked me out today."

"Easy come, easy go," the barkeep said, not without sympathy. "Working the beach again, are you?"

"Yeah." She took out a deck of fortune cards. "Let me practice on you?"

"Oh, you've told my fortune plenty of times." He nodded down the bar. "That one there, she could use some good words about her future, I think."

Windi turned to her, smiling a bright, sparkling smile. “Well? Want some help with the mysteries of the universe?”

Jyn shot her a suspicious glance. "How much?"

She looked her up and down. "Free for you, little bird. I'm rusty. I need the practice."

Jyn considered, then shrugged a shoulder. What could it hurt? Saw always said -

Never mind Saw. He certainly wasn't thinking about her.

"What's your name?" Windi asked, shuffling the fortune cards with a dexterity that Jyn tried not to be impressed by.

"Kestrel," Jyn said, plucking the name out of the air.

The other woman's sharp eyes flicked up to hers. She smiled a little. "Maybe I'm not so rusty. Here." She held out the deck.

Jyn didn't take it. "Why?"

"Needs your touch, little bird. Shuffle them, cut them a couple of times, and think hard about what you need."

She shuffled, staring a hole in them. Just cards. Just stupid fortune cards. But - I need food. I need money. I need security.

"Three card spread, I think," Windi said. She plucked them from the middle of the deck and laid them out in a line, face-down.

The first was a tower, lightning striking the top, figures falling from the windows. "This is your past," Windi said sonorously. "You've had a shock. Something broke, something was destroyed. Your world fell apart."

She gave Jyn a sympathetic look.

Jyn avoided her gaze, trying not to think of Mama falling into the wet grass.

"But you're strong. You can begin again. As many times as you need." She traced her fingers over the back of the second card. "For the present . . . " She flipped it over. The picture was upside down, showing a wizened old man in a cave. It was hard not to think of Saw again. "The hermit. You're alone."

Jyn couldn't help herself. She snorted. She hadn't needed the cards to tell her that.

Windi smirked at her. "You're angry and resentful. Not without cause, I think. Still, you need time to come to terms with what happened. Maybe with your past." She tapped the tower. "You also don't let your feelings surface."

"Believe me, that wouldn't do anyone any good," Jyn said caustically.

"Maybe, maybe not." She fluttered her fingers over the last card. "And now for your future." She flipped it. "Ahhhh," she breathed. "The Galaxy."

It was a work of art, this card, all glinting paint and clusters of stars, and two fat babies reaching up for it.

"Let me guess," Jyn said. "I'm gonna roam? Lots of glamorous travel?"

"Nope. You're going to achieve your goals."

Her goals of having food in her belly and a roof over her head? Well, fine. All right then.

"The Galaxy, upright, means success and happiness. You're going to celebrate, and be celebrated. Lots of joy." She smiled. "It's a good future."

Jyn suppressed another snort.

Windi considered the cards. "All major cards," she said. "Some say that means you're at a crossroads in your life, and you really need to pay attention to what they're telling you."

"Do they?"

"But I always think it means your life is going to have huge effects." For a moment, the glittering, twirling Galaxy card reflected in her eyes. "Things look dark now, but you, little bird - you're going to rise like the dawn."

Jyn swallowed hard. "Nice," she said. "Nice scam. You make a lot of money at that?"

"Oh, enough." She scooped her cards back together and shuffled the deck again. "What's your line of work?"

"Fighting, mostly."

"Fighting," Windi echoed. "I don't know how you got here - "

"Ship," Jyn said. And a captain who thought he was entitled to more than he was paying her for.

"Mhm. This isn't a fighter's town.This is a scammer's town, and unless you've got some scammer's skills, the bucketheads'll have you in front of some judge and packed off to an Imperial prison for the rest of your life before you can say boo. You've got good hands. Ever done three card monte?"

"No?"

She held up the card with the queen on it. "Watch the lady."

She taught Jyn the card game, including the deft movement necessary for hiding the lady away before you started moving the cards around.

"Why would you teach me?" Jyn asked once she'd got a handle on it. "Now I'm competition."

"No," Windi said. "You, with that sweet innocent little face - "

She felt herself flush hotly. "My face is not -"

"Oh, it is, and nobody will ever expect you to be running a distraction while I pick pockets."

Enlightened, Jyn gave a short grunt. "Then I get half of the total."

"Twenty percent."

Jyn got up. "Good luck with that."

Windi laughed. "Okay, little bird, forty percent. I'll be doing the hard work. Let's go."

Jyn considered it and decided forty percent wasn't bad. The hard bit would be the patter. But Windi said she could insult people. That would be fun.

As they walked toward the beach and the tourists all waiting to be fleeced, Windi grumbled about the man who'd left her high and dry.

"Never known a Keef who wasn't a dumbass," Jyn contributed. She'd never known a Keef, period, but she did know that women who'd been dumped by men enjoyed hearing them bashed.

Windi sighed. "Stupid name, but he had money. And he was good in bed."

Jyn shrugged. Her experiences with that, thus far, had been unimpressive.

Windi gave her a sly smile. "Just remember, little bird, nice guys finish last."

3 BBY

Shouts echoed behind her, and Jyn's eyes darted around for a hidey-hole that she could still escape from if cornered.

Stupid, she cursed herself as she ran. Stupid, stupid! Check around for their backup before trying to kick the shit out of a stormtrooper, even if he'd been trying to shake her down for bribe money first.

There! If she wasn't mistaken, that alley fed out onto a busy street on the other end, and even if they saw her go in, she could lose herself in the crowds when she went out.

She swerved, her shitty boots skidding on the icy streets, and scrambled into the alley.

Fuck.

She'd been mistaken.

It was a fucking blind alley too, one end boarded up into a dead end.

She allowed herself two seconds to curse in rage before clamping her lips shut and tuning her ears to the sounds of her pursuers. Who were - yeah. Closer.

Dead end indeed.

She looked around frantically and found a ladder, stretching up the side of the building next to her. But the lowest rung was just above her flailing fingers. Hissing to herself, she backed up as far as she could, took the few steps the alley permitted at a run, and leapt.

Her right hand slipped but her left hand closed around the lowest rung. Her body swung and slammed into the brick wall, forcing a grunt from her lips. She braced her feet on the wall, got her right hand on the next rung up, and hauled herself up as fast as she could go.

Not quite fast enough.

A voice echoed. "I've got this one! You all, take the others!"

Just shy of two floors off the ground, and about eight floors from the roof. She swung herself around the ladder and wedged her body in between it and the wall. Her heart slammed itself against the cold rung pressed to her chest. She breathed as slowly as possible, mouth open to let the air drift in and out without making a sound.

Was she far enough in the shadows? Did her drab clothes blend with the dimness? Or did she stand out like a moth on a snowbank?

She slid her hand into her jacket and curled it around the butt of her blaster.

The officer stepped into the alley, eyes flicking around. He was young, with a sharp line of beard running down his jaw and chin, and a crisp olive-green uniform, slightly crumpled and rumpled with all the running.

Don't look up, she chanted in her mind. Don't look up.

Funny that he hadn't brought troopers with him. Didn't that type always want backup?

He looked down at the ground. Her throat knotted as she realized that her boots had left scuff marks on the plascrete.

His dark eyes roamed upwards. Jyn's stomach folded in on itself, her throat tightening up. Her finger clenched on the trigger of her blaster. If she shot him, she'd give away her position - but if he shouted out, that would give away her position too.

He turned away. "Nothing down here," he called out.

She kept her finger on the trigger until his footsteps had faded away. Then she shoved the blaster in her jacket and scrambled for the roof.

She'd been so damn lucky he hadn't seen her, she told herself once she was well away. So damn lucky.

His eyesight must be shit, though. She could have sworn he'd looked right at her.

3 months BBY

"Can you shift it or not?" Jyn said.

The woman behind the counter of the shitty little market stall looked over her magnifiers. "I can shift it," she said. "Problem's the timeline. I can take it on consignment. Could probably get two hundred, maybe three hundred with the right buyer."

"Consignment? You mean I'd have to come back here for my money?"

"Never said that. You got a holonet account I can drop your credits into?"

She snorted. "Not on your life." She'd sliced into enough of them not to trust any holonet based money account. She believed in cold hard credits, and occasional cred-cards, with little enough on them that losing them wouldn't be a disaster.

"Well, if you want credits on the table today, I can do you a hundred fifty."

"A hundred fifty?" She reached out for the heat sink. "I'll find that three-hundred-credit buyer on my own, thanks."

The woman shrugged and flipped one of her long braids over her shoulder. "Good luck with that."

Jyn wavered. The smirk on the other woman's face told her that she'd have a far more difficult time finding a buyer than this woman would, market stall or not. She scowled. "A hundred seventy-five, and a fifty percent discount on whatever I need from here."

"Twenty percent discount."

Jyn hissed through her teeth and slapped the heat sink back onto the counter.

"Watch the merchandise," the woman said absently, crouched down to unlock what was probably a safe. "If I have to repair it, I'll knock it down to one-twenty-five."

Jyn poked around the stall, feeling as if she ought to make use of that twenty percent discount now that she'd argued for it, but mindful of not using up too many of her hard-won credits.

A burly man ducked into the stall and she felt herself go tense. But he walked past her and up to the counter, leaning over it to kiss the woman hello.

"What are you doing here?" the woman asked, kissing him back. "Something happen down at the docks?" She leaned back, studying him as if counting all his limbs.

"Don’t worry, love. I just knocked off early. Got a special cargo come in." He gave her a significant look.

She frowned at him, then her eyes widened. "He said he couldn't make it for a visit until after - " She rested a hand on the swell of her belly.

Jyn didn't know why anyone would bring some poor kid into this craphole galaxy, but whatever. It wasn't her lookout.

"Work brought him through,” he answered. “Thought he should stop by in case he couldn't later. He was going to come with me, but I told him things were too hot around here. He's at the house, but he can't stay. Probably just for dinner."

They both looked at Jyn. She pretended to be examining a case of vibroblades, just as deaf as could be.

"Let me get rid of this customer and I'll close up."

She poked around the shelves for a few minutes, just for the look of it, then brought a couple of pieces up. Whoever it was that had come into town for dinner, the owner of the stall was eager enough to see him that she actually gave an extra five percent on a vibroblade when Jyn pushed for it.

Unfortunately, it got taken off her when she was arrested and tossed in Wobani. But it had been a good deal, anyway.

5 ABY

"Look at us," Jyn said, settling into her seat. "All respectable. Flying under our own identities, even."

Cassian shivered. "Don't remind me."

She tossed her leg over his knee, grinning into his face. "Not too late to fake our scandocs and double back to cover our trail."

He snorted, acknowledging that he was being ridiculous.

It was strange to be taking regular transport, after years of bugging out on whatever transport the Rebellion could scramble up, having multiple extra identities on their persons at all times, and tensing up every time they saw stormtroopers.

Almost like peace.

She'd never known peace. Neither had he. Watching it dawn on the horizon was mildly unsettling.

"These friends of yours," she said. "How long did you say you knew them?"

"Since I was young," he said. "Brasso was like a big brother to me when I first got to Ferrix."

"And Bix was your first love."

"Mmmm. They've been married - damn, it must be seven years now."

"Hmmmm." She rested her cheek against the window and watched the planet retreat below them.

He slid his arm around her. "Bix might've been my first love," he murmured, kissing her ear, "but you are my last."

She elbowed him. "Stop being mushy somewhere I can't jump you. And I know that."

He kissed her ear again. "Then what are you worried about?"

"I - " She slouched into his side and muttered, "What if they don't like me?"

Normally she would have said kriff anyone who didn't like her. But these were good friends of Cassian's. He'd taken time to see them more than once over the course of the war, when free time was something he had to scrape together like smeared clay. They were his last connection to the planet where he'd spent his teens. He'd lost so much over his lifetime - multiple homes, his entire family twice over. This couple was all he had left of his past.

If they didn't like her, he'd be caught in the middle.

"They already do," he said.

"What'd you tell them?"

"Only all the best stories. But you've met them."

She sat up, frowning at him. "No, I haven't. When?"

"You remember Ganji Moon?"

"I went so many places, Cass." And she'd rarely wanted to remember any of them.

"Water moon," he said. "They mine and fish out in the ocean and bring it into about three or four different islands to get exported off-planet."

She shook her head at him, smiling incredulously. Cassian's head for details was so astonishing, and sometimes he thought everyone else remembered like he did.

"It would have been a little before you went to Wobani. You traded a heat sink at a market stall and bought a vibroblade."

A vague memory came swimming back. A woman with long braids and a huge belly, and her man, a massive cargo worker of some kind. "I - maybe. Yeah, could be. She haggled like a demon, that woman."

"She said the same about you. Bix is a hustler. She appreciates hustle."

She poked him. "Why didn't you say something before?"

"I wanted to see if you'd recognize them. Thought it would be a funny story. I didn't know you were so worried about meeting them."

"I wasn't worried. Exactly."

"Mmm."

She slid him a sidelong look. "How'd you know we met, anyway?"

"I was in the area the same day because I was tracking you."

"Me?" Right, yeah, right before Wobani, he would have been.

He nodded, mouth curling up at the side. "I took a gamble and stopped by for a few hours. Their first son was due in about a month and I didn't know what the war was going to do. I showed them your holo because I thought Bix might run into you. She did a lot on the grey market then. They both recognized you as her last customer before Bix closed up the stall to come see me."

"You're joking."

"Nowhere near. I went running to the market and then the spaceport, but you were gone. I caught your trail, but didn't catch up to you again until you were in Wobani."

She shook her head. "You mean if you'd come with Brasso to the market the first time, we might have met that much earlier?"

"You would've bolted," he said.

"Well, yeah. But who knows what would have happened from there."

He took her hand and kissed it. "Chirrut would say everything happens the way the Force wills it. Near misses and all."

"My mum used to say something like that," she said. "That the Force drew people together over and over until they finally met." She rested her head back against the window, smiling at him. "Wonder how many times we've almost met?"

"It can't have been more than that one time," he said. "It's a big galaxy, and that was when I was looking for you."

She shrugged. "Who knows, right?"

FINIS

#rebelcaptainsecretsanta #Cassian Andor #Jyn Erso #rebelcaptain #fanfiction #mosylufanfic lives up to her damn name #andor-compliant #star wars #5+1

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possuminabathtub · 29 days

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Who is your favorite gremlin OC? The one you gotta dig out of the trash can, brush off, and tell people "I promise he is friendly, I love him"

I want to say Firebird, but she’s at least a well trained gremlin, I think the gremlin title has to go to Mel, the truly Most-gremlin-of-all-time™️. Mel is my demigod oc that I created in the depths on my teenage angst phase, and then she got about three or four years worth of character development, and yet, remains gremlin.

She’s a daughter of Melinoe, and her major life events include watching her family die, being a homeless little street rat at age twelve, receiving mass amounts of trauma, finding her way to a demigod camp, receiving further mass amounts of trauma, becoming a pivotal character in said camp despite being a sarcastic and prickly recluse with spooky powers and a minor tendency to lean into her ability to create and feed on fear. Her best friend is a shapeshifting disaster bisexual witch, and he gave her a cat that she promptly named Dr. Sherlock Pepper (although she briefly considered Sappho). She goes dumpster diving on the regular, lives in an abandoned cabin above a series of spelled catacombs, and can and will bite anyone given the slightest provocation. She has a passion for knives, blunt weaponry, and getting tattoos, and dyes her hair a new color every few weeks because it’s cheaper than therapy.

Can be found in or behind a Waffle House dumpster any day of the week, and will hiss at you like a feral cat

#My oc’s #Mel #Mel is my feral little darling and she doesn’t have rabies I promise #demigods

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duchessofostergotlands · 5 months

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Hi, sorry to bother you, I kinda need some cat owner advice. I can't find it now through any of your blog's search functions (or I wouldn't have asked directly) but I seem to remember your cat had chin acne problems? Mine does too and I was wondering if you can share tips/solutions from your experience. Thank you so much! If I'm misremembering or confusing you with someone else please feel free to ignore this! Have a nice day!

Hey :) Sorry it took me a little while to get to this. You are correct about the cat acne problem being me, and I'm very impressed by your memory! I barely remembered what happened this morning.

So first thing I did was get gel off Amazon. It had good reviews - it's called Anicura. But the problem is that it's got a very strong apple vinegar smell and cats are both very sensitive to smells and (usually) very opposed to being wet or sticky or any being exposed to any unexpected textures. So my cat learned pretty quickly that when he smells the horrible apple vinegar smell, it means he's about to get the wet liquid on his chin and he ran away and hid. So yeah, that didn't last very long and I don't know how much it helped.

One thing I think helped was a new bowl. I read that a cat's skin is more sensitive to plastic and there are sneaky bowls that look like metal but are actually plastic so I got one made out of stone. Also the usual shape you get for cheaper bowls is apparently not very good for them, it should be a wider dish rather than a bowl. Like this one: https://www.petsathome.com/shop/en/pets/beco-printed-ocean-waves-cat-bowl. I got Ru a new bowl and that definitely helped him.

The last thing I did - and I have no idea if this is what's recommended or not - is to interrupt his behaviour. I don't know if you've experienced this but sometimes if I'm a little cold and start shivering/my teeth start chattering, I get caught up and can't stop even if I'm not actually cold anymore. I need something to snap me out of it. Or like when you jiggle your leg if you're nervous but don't realise until someone points it out. When my cat started scratching I just interrupted him when he got carried away. I did something weird or draped a blanket over him or made a loud noise. It took him out of the compulsive scratching and distracted him, and so because he wasn't scratching as much it gave it time to heal. I think those little behavioural things are probably cat dependent, they might not always work, but worth trying to find out if there's something specific that irritates your cat.

Hope that helps!

#ask #sofialexandrovnarostova #cat #cats #non royal #pet #pets

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theoldaeroplane · 3 months

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little sketchy harpy!fray and about 1k words of a short story to go with him. i thought it would be funny to trap him in a room with april so

---

To hear the old ones tell it, to be tribute to another aerie is a great honor. Tributes bond the aeries across the great distances that separate them. Tributes keep the aeries from ever growing too alien from one another. Tributes infuse new blood into family trees, bring knowledge and culture across the miles, are necessary to weave the tapestry of harpy-kin into its most beautiful form.

But, as someone who has been tributed not once, not twice, but three times, Aueril knows what it’s mostly used for: getting rid of irritants.

Mostly, anyway. It’s true that the Frayed Saint of Wrought-Aerie is not an irritant. The mere fact Wrought’s council is giving him up is testament to the debt they owe Deka-Aerie. (Aueril’s unclear on the details, but she’s pretty sure whoever Deka sent over last year is to thank for the sudden boom of better, cheaper food.) But it’s gouche to only send one tribute, or something, even when that one is worth ten.

So: Aueril is being sent along, too. (This is probably because of the fight she got into with the general’s pet bastard. Aueril’s nose will never be quite the same, but the bastard will limp for the rest of his life. Fair trade.) She’s not particularly looking forward to learning her way around another new aerie, but Deka’s supposed to be all soft, sheltered harpies who spend their days drinking and dancing. If nothing else, whoever runs the guard there might not be such a hardass. Maybe they'll even be naive enough to ignore the fact she's supposed to have another five years in her sentence.

She’ll find out in a month, anyway. The gliders are swift, but it’s hard for anything to keep up with an aerie.

---

Two days, and the Frayed Saint is already homesick.

The glider is shadowy, dim. It does not have the clear dome overhead he’s used to, so for the next month he will glimpse the sky only through portholes. He’s already itching to feel wind again. And it’s small. Without the sheer size of a proper aerie, the whole of its livable surface area is no bigger than his quarters in the Wrought barracks. Worse, he must share it with … her. That soldier with the scar-blistered face.

The one who’s been staring at him for the last ten minutes, like she might be thinking about killing and eating him.

Fray is accustomed to eyes on him. It’s one of the things that comes with ability like his. He doesn’t particularly enjoy it, but he’s used to it, or he thought he was. Most people look at him with interest or excitement, or even hope. She has the flattest expression Fray’s ever seen. It’s not dislike or annoyance, both of which he could handle. It’s just … a stare. It’s like she’s examining each one of his feathers individually and isn't particularly impressed by what she sees. He can feel her eyes (bright blue, one permanently screwed up into a squint) boring into him even when he turns away.

He’ll ask her something, he decides. She’s said barely a word to him since they boarded, and obviously he hasn’t spoken either. Maybe that’s the problem; maybe, somehow, she doesn’t realize he doesn’t speak. Isn’t she from Gill-Aerie, which is not exactly known for its stellar communication? Maybe she thinks he’s a stuck-up cad with an inflated ego. Maybe that’s why—

“Why a sword?”

Aueril’s voice is almost as flat as her expression. The upward lilt at the end of her sentence is barely detectable enough to indicate it as a question. Fray jumps; Aueril snorts. “Don’t hit your head.”

Fray shakes himself. His eyes fall to his part of the sleeping quarters, where his sword lies in patient silence. He takes a breath, which he hopes is not an obvious a self-soothing tactic as it feels, and sizes his companion up. He knows little about her: she's a guardsman like him; the general did *not* like her, especially after that fight that left Ruum with a limp; and the personal stash of food she brought with her consists almost entirely of sweetmeats. The startle must have knocked his better sense under a rug somewhere, because instead of anything sensible he signs the first thing that comes to mind. “You can talk?”

It’s meant as a joke, and he makes sure to indicate that as much as he can. His tail curls high over his back, the brush of feathers at the end nearly falling over his shoulder, and he smiles.

Aueril continues staring.

Fray’s smile falters. He wants to apologize to her, though she hardly reacts as if she’s offended. (Can this woman be offended?) Discomfort crawls through his plumage as the silence stretches—could it be she really doesn’t read full Sign? Surely the general would have informed him if he were to spend a month trapped on a glider with someone unable to understand him, right?

His thoughts are getting away from him, and it’s then that Aueril says, as flat and uninterested as ever, “Only on Lunedays. If the wind is right.”

It’s an unexpected enough answer that a little bark of a laugh escapes him. Whether it’s at the fact she made a joke, or relief that she can understand him, he does not know. “Why a sword?” she repeats. “Normal weapons not enough of a challenge?”

She says this with her taegla in her hands, the tail-strapped weapon most guardsmen use. The wicked blade of the axe head embedded in its leather gleaming in the transport’s low light. (Fray briefly wonders if he needs to worry about that.) She's on the highest perch available to them, which is only about a half-meter above where he sits on a cushion, but it's enough to make her all the more intimidating. She's big, at least compared to him. (Most people are, though.)

Shit. She's waiting for his answer.

"I like swords," Fray signs, and instantly feels like an idiot. It's the truth, though, so he carries on. "It was the first weapon I learned to wield."

Aueril nods. Whether she is interested in the answer or not is up for debate.

Another pause.

(For someone as quiet as he is, Fray thinks, he's finding he's remarkably uncomfortable in silence here.)

Then Aueril says, "Is it true you won't wear a taelga because you're too vain to cut your tail feathers?"

This hits Fray like he's run into a clothesline. Like the rest, she's delivered the question in much the same way one might inquire about the time of day. But that's the thing, isn't it? As much as there was limited curiosity in her first question, there is limited judgement in this one. Tentatively, he shrugs. "I'm better with a sword," he signs. "But … maybe a little vain."

She nods, looking back down at her axe. "You should be," she says absently. "I was there when you downed that darchid last year. That was with a sword too, right? You cut its throat."

It's possible Aueril will kill him, he thinks, but it might not be the way he had thought.

#the aerie #aerie fray #aerie april #aerie aueril #corgiwrites!

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