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anto-pops · 4 months

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Cheirophilia - Sebastian Sallow x Female!Reader

Summary: Following the summer leading up to your seventh year, you return to Hogwarts to discover that Sebastian has undergone changes that greatly appeal to the eye. Your eye, to be specific. There’s no easy way to tell the man you’ve been dating for two years that your attention has been fixed on a part of him otherwise deemed normal, but after a while, you’re forced to face the truth of the matter.

Alternatively summarized as you have a hand kink and Sebastian Sallow has extremely nice hands.

Word Count: 10.7k

Warnings: 18+, aged up characters, explicit sexual content, hand kink, size difference

Full fic can be found here on Ao3 (with more diverse tags)

You had to be losing your mind. That was the only plausible explanation for the wild, unrestrained thoughts that had been plaguing your brain for the last week every time you so much as glanced at Sebastian. Yes, he was attractive. He was charming and confident, and quite frankly he was the epitome of male perfection as far as you were concerned. Not a day went by where you didn’t consider yourself lucky to be able to call him yours, and you knew he was just as enamored with you.

But your newfound infatuation with his hands had started relatively recently, and you had no clue what to make of it.

Sebastian was touchy to begin with, and he always had been. From casually brushing shoulders with you in the Great Hall during mealtimes, to tucking your hair behind your ears at night– the man was constantly finding ways to be closer to you, and your appreciation for his efforts knew no bounds. It made you feel treasured, wanted, revered, and a slew of other things that made your heart swell with affection. Maybe you could attribute your blatant ogling of his appendages to that, or maybe you had just finally started to notice after your Divination class last week.

Professor Onai, for all her outlandish preachings on clairvoyance, had taken a more mundane approach in teaching her students ‘fortune telling’ a few days ago. “Palm reading,” she had said, “is a delicate and fixed art. It can be as vague as it can be accurate, and it takes an expertly trained eye to decipher the true meaning behind the grooves in one’s hand.”

You were far from an expert in anything relating to Divination, but you did have an eye for nice things, and Merlin– were Sebastian’s hands exquisite. They were nearly twice the size of yours and covered in calluses, a lingering sign of the grueling physical labor he’d done over the summer in Feldcroft. His fingers weren’t as dainty as Ominis’, but they were long, thick, and lined with pulsing veins that stretched across the backs of his hands and coiled around his toned forearms. As you’d traced the lines on his palm with your fingers, he’d shivered at the featherlight feeling and chuckled at the deferential way you seemed to commit every part of the appendage to memory.

You didn’t even want to begin to recount the way your heart had hammered in your chest when it had been his turn to read your palm. Maintaining your composure had taken every ounce of willpower in your body.

Since then, your mind had wandered an unhealthy amount.

By some miracle, Sebastian hadn’t noticed your unwavering eye contact with his hands yet. The two of you had been kept preoccupied with the mountains of classwork that came with the start of the new school year, and as a result, your only opportunities to spend time with him had been during mealtimes. Today was different, however, because Lucan had finally set up the first Crossed Wands match of the season. You and Sebastian were both participating, and your boyfriend was all too eager to jump back into dueling after the summer months spent away.

Your eyes scanned him dutifully from across the room, watching with rapt interest as he chatted with Brattleby about the upcoming fight. Sebastian had grown considerably since your fifth-year, virtually towering over Lucan as he looked down at the curly haired Gryffindor. The latter had gone through a growth spurt of his own, but it was easy to overlook him when he was standing next to your boyfriend. Sebastian was big; broad shouldered with long, powerful legs and thick wrists that complimented his massive, mouthwatering hands.

Said hands were fidgeting with the cuffs of his shirt as he rolled them up, nodding down at Lucan as he replied to something the younger boy had said. You didn’t know what they were discussing, and quite frankly, you didn’t care. His deft fingers adjusted his uniform as he prepared for your duo’s duel, and instead of following suit, you were unabashedly studying his every move. That is, until a voice from your left drew your attention.

“Did something happen over summer?”

You startled easily, warranting an eye roll from Imelda as she crossed her arms over her chest and leaned back against the wall. It was a rarity to find her in the Crossed Wands courtyard, but you knew she had been hounding members of the Quidditch team to prepare for trial runs and scrimmages, and Sebastian factored into that assortment of people. Schooling your nerves the best you could, you started to shed your robe in an effort to simultaneously get ready for the duel and distract from the metaphorical eye candy across the room.

“What do you mean,” you asked vaguely, keeping your eyes pointed at the floor as you moved.

Imelda was having none of it– clearly smarter than you deigned to give her credit for. “Don’t play coy with me. You’re always checking Sallow out, but since we’ve been back it’s ten times worse. Did he sprout a second cock or something?”

You damn near choked on your own tongue as you whipped around to glare at her. “Do you have to be so crass all the time?”

She waved you off, “Yes, I do. Who else would rile you up this way if not myself? Now answer the question.”

Heaving a deep sigh, you draped your robe over a stack of crates and began to gather your hair back into a loose braid as you muttered, “No, nothing happened over summer.”

“But something is going on. Come on,” she implored with a taunting tone, her brown eyes glimmering with amusement. “At least tell me if it’s something bad.”

“It’s not bad,” you relented. “It’s– I’m not sure what it is, to be honest. We haven’t even done anything since we’ve been back, we’ve been too busy. But…”

You trailed off, staring at the wall behind Imelda as you brought your hair over your shoulder to finish off the plait. She waited patiently, however, all too eager to get the inside scoop on your love life. “But?”

“I don’t know– have you ever found yourself focused on other body parts? Like, really random parts of another person?”

The Quidditch captain’s face shifted into a confused expression as she chanced a look at Sebastian, evidently trying to figure out what on Godric’s green Earth you were referring to. “Uh, no? If you’re talking about his feet though then I’m going to ask that you forget I even brought this up–”

“No!” You blurted loudly, drawing the attention of a handful of students in the courtyard, Sebastian included. He cocked a brow at you from across the room, and you flashed him a bashful smile in silent reply before mouthing a timid ‘sorry’. Imelda snickered under her breath when you turned back to her, a deep scowl settling on your face. “Dammit, not his fucking feet. I’m talking about his hands. He has really nice hands– I never noticed before.”

“You’re telling me you’ve had your knickers in a twist for the last week and a half because of Sallow’s hands?”

To say Imelda looked dumbstruck would be an understatement, and you suddenly felt incredibly stupid for having said anything at all. You kept your eyes downcast as you tossed your braided hair over your shoulder and slid your wand free from its holster, doing your best to ignore the woman’s burning stare. “Nevermind– forget I mentioned it.”

“I doubt I could even if I wanted to, but for the sake of your dignity I’ll go grab a seat and let you get your head in the game.” You felt your cheeks heat up instantly in response to her snide comment, and you lifted your eyes in time to watch Imelda turn towards the far corner of the room with a smile on her face. She paused before taking off, murmuring over her shoulder, “Make sure you’re paying attention to your opponents and not Sallow’s hands.”

Sweet Merlin… you should have kept your big mouth shut.

***

As it turned out, your head was so far out of the game that it became collateral in the midst of your duo’s duel.

It was your own fault, really. Despite doing your best to focus on the task at hand, your eyes had continually wandered over to Sebastian, tracking his movements as he fired spell after spell in retaliation against your opponents. He had always been exceptionally graceful while fighting– be it in Crossed Wands or in the Highlands at your side– and his sudden growth spurt over summer had only added to his preexisting agility. It was all too easy for you to get absorbed in his fluid movements as he ducked and rolled, then blocked and countered every attack with astonishing finesse.

Unfortunately, that meant you were left wholly unprepared for the Depulso charm that sent you careening across the room into a stack of crates. Your head had been positively spinning as you pushed yourself up onto your elbows, but your vision cleared in time to watch as Sebastian abandoned the duel entirely to hurry over to where you lay prone against the broken wood. Lucan had shouted something about the match being called off, but you could hardly pay any attention to his words with Sebastian fretting over you, mere inches from your face.

“Merlin’s bloody balls, what the hell happened?” The brunet hadn’t even given you ample time to reply before he had hoisted you up in his strong, capable arms to carry you to the Hospital Wing.

That was how you’d ended up where you were now; laid out in an uncomfortable hospital bed with Nurse Blainey hovering too close for comfort while your boyfriend sat beside you with his arms crossed stiffly over his chest. His expression was virtually unreadable, but you weren’t able to focus on him for long without your head pounding in silent protest.

“Drink this,” Nurse Blainey dutifully instructed, thrusting a vial of Wiggenweld in front of you as she scanned your bandaged temple. “It will help with the swelling and the gods-awful headache I’m sure you’re sporting. My diagnostic spells came back negative for any internal injuries, but that doesn’t mean you can rush back to your foolhardy dueling club. A concussion is a concussion, no matter how small.”

Your tongue felt like lead in your mouth so you nodded in response instead of speaking– only to instantly regret the movement. Sharp, concentrated pain shot through your head, and you took it as a sign to carefully knock back the contents of the potion she’d given you. A soothing warmth overtook you in a split second, and the throbbing in your skull lessened considerably, prompting you to relax against the pillows situated behind you as your eyelids fluttered. Evidently pleased with your subdued demeanor, Nurse Blainey jotted something down on the clipboard that had been tucked under her arm before turning to Sebastian.

“I trust that you’ll ensure she actually takes it easy for the next few days, Mr. Sallow?”

Your eyes cracked open in time to watch Sebastian’s gaze flicker to yours, and the muscle in his jaw ticked as his attention zero’d in on the thick bandage that now adorned your head. “Of course. She’ll be a model patient for as long as needed.”

Satisfied with his agreement, Nurse Blainey pivoted on her heel and strode to the back end of the room, leaving you and Sebastian alone in a tense silence.

Heaving a heavy sigh, you gathered your hands in your lap and let your head tip back against the bed frame, wanting nothing more than for the ground to open up and swallow you whole. All of this because you couldn’t stop ogling your boyfriend for a measly twenty minutes when it mattered most… it was an embarrassing and stupid mistake to acknowledge. Moreover, you’d basically ruined the first Crossed Wands duel of the season– something you knew had to be bothering Sebastian, given his competitive nature.

“I’m sorry,” you mumbled half-heartedly. “I should have been paying closer attention.”

Sebastian scoffed to your left, and when you peered at him through the corner of your eye, his head looked like it was on the verge of imploding. “Are you seriously apologizing for getting a concussion right now?”

There was no stopping the frown that spread across your face, and you nervously started picking at your cuticles as your mouth opened, shut, then opened again. “Yes– I mean– no. I’m sorry that the match got canceled because of me. You were probably excited to get back into Crossed Wands and I just… messed it up. I wasn’t thinking clearly out there.”

“Obviously,” Sebastian countered easily, the amused glimmer in his eyes vanishing before you could take proper note of it. “You’re never one to let your mind wander when you fight, but you have to know I’m not mad about the duel. I was worried about you– I don’t think you realize how terrifying it is to see you of all people bleeding.”

You gaze fell to your lap as you pursed your lips and lifted your hand to the bandage taped to your temple, trying and failing to recall if you’d actually bled at all. It was all something of a blur if you were being honest. When you looked up at Sebastian once more, he had sat forward in his seat and was reaching towards you, wearing an expression that was equal parts concerned and curious. With your brain still muddled, all you could really do was stare wide-eyed at the nearing culprit of your misfortune; his Merlin-be-damned hands. Those long, flexing digits came to gently stroke the side of your cheek, turning your head to the side briefly to allow him a good look at your patched up face, and as Sebastian tsk’d disapprovingly, you were fighting back a slew of unholy thoughts that had no business arising in the midst of such a tender moment.

The side of his mouth quirked up as he thought back to your debacle in the clock tower courtyard. “Did your inability to ‘think clearly’ have anything to do with whatever you and Imelda were talking about earlier?”

Being reminded of your discussion with the Slytherin woman at such an inopportune time caused your face to flush a deep red, and you nervously clasped your boyfriend’s larger hand in your notably smaller one and drew it into your lap. You gently thumbed over the veins on the back of his hand, taking note of the constellation of freckles that ran up his wrist and forearm, and you saw Sebastian tilt his head to the side as he let you fondle the limb.

“Maybe…” you drawled lazily. Perhaps you would chalk it up to your concussion later on, or perhaps you just wanted to get your insane obsession off your chest. Regardless of the why, you steeled your nerves and swallowed thickly before muttering, “You have really nice hands.”

Silence. Sebastian said nothing– and that was considerably worse than him saying something– anything. Your brows slammed down just as you lifted your head to gauge his reaction, only to discover a bewildered smile plastered on his smarmy face.

“…I think you hit your head harder than I thought. Should I call Nurse Blainey back over here?”

Ah. He thought you were delusional. Brilliant.

Letting go of him as though his skin were heated metal, you sighed and sat forward to swing your legs over the edge of the bed, shivering slightly when Sebastian placed his hand on your hip to steady you. His face conveyed genuine apprehension as he asked, “Are you sure you should be trying to move right now?”

Part of you was thankful he hadn’t taken your confession seriously, but another stronger part of you was annoyed that you had said anything to begin with. Here was Sebastian, acting chivalrous and doting on you in the wake of you flying face first into a crate, and all you cared to think about was having his hands on you. On your bare skin, between your legs, around your neck…

Something was definitely wrong with you.

“I’m alright– stop worrying. I promise I won’t overdo it. At this point I just want to eat and go to sleep.” Thankfully he made no move to stop you when you stood yourself up on shaky legs, instead placing that damnable hand on the small of your back to help you keep your balance. You closed your eyes momentarily to will away the vile, uncouth thoughts that seemed to run rampant in your concussed skull, but if the way his fingers tensed against you was any indication, Sebastian clearly thought your brief pause was due to your injury.

“Fine,” he bit out, sounding all too displeased with your stubbornness. “Food, then straight to your dorm. But if I think for even a second you can’t manage, I’m carrying you to bed myself.”

It hurt to do it, but your eye roll was heavily warranted. “Thanks for the vote of confidence, dad.”

As the two of you walked from the Hospital Wing to the Great Hall, you realized just how serious Sebastian was about his promise to Nurse Blainey. His hands were constantly hovering at your side, ready to catch you at a moment's notice in the event you required the help, which you fortunately weren’t in need of. You didn’t think you could take any more coddling– or any more… hands-on-torment, so to speak.

Ominis joined the two of you for lunch shortly after you’d arrived, and you were unsurprised to discover that he was very much aware of your blunder in Crossed Wands earlier. He made sure you were in good spirits and feeling alright before he began nagging you in typical Ominis fashion.

“Honestly, a Depulso charm?” He chastised you further, resting his chin on his palm as his other hand came to tap absentmindedly against the surface of the table. “I would have expected something like Bombarda to finally end your win-streak, not a paltry Force spell.”

“That’s what happens when you get complacent,” Sebastian added helpfully, skewering yet another sausage from the platter in front of you. He had to have inhaled four of the blasted things already. Those deep brown eyes of his darkened as they shifted to the injury on your temple, and if he deposited his food on his plate a little more aggressively than normal, you certainly didn’t say anything about it. “She’s just lucky things didn’t end up worse.”

Ominis hummed in agreement and looked in your direction. “Yes, do make sure you’re not breaking your fall with your face anymore. I would like to think the three of us will graduate in one piece together, but between the two of you and your extracurriculars, my hopes are lessening by the day.”

“Ha ha, very funny,” came your monotonous reply. “Thanks for the words of encouragement, guys. You really know how to make a girl feel better about getting launched into a bunch of boxes.”

“Well it was quite the spectacle. I’m sure you’ll be the talk of the school for at least a few days, so get used to it.”

You didn’t even need to turn around to know Imelda stood directly behind you, presumably with her hands on her hips and a wicked smile stretching from ear to ear. She was exactly who you didn’t want to deal with right about now– especially considering she was the only living soul privy to your innermost thoughts regarding Sebastian– but she had no qualms about sidling up beside you and making herself comfortable at the table. Her face swam into your peripheral vision as she inquisitively scanned the side of your head now decked out in thick gauze and tape. “So, what’s the verdict? Brain hemorrhage? Cracked skull? Memory loss?”

“Concussion,” Sebastian answered around a mouthful of food. He fixed you with a stern look as though to remind you, “She’s been instructed to take it easy for a few days which means no broom trials, Reyes. Don’t even think about dragging her off the castle grounds.”

The Quidditch captain’s hands shot up in mock surrender, her expression the picture of innocence as she shifted back a little in her seat. “Wouldn’t dream of it. I take it that means you’ll be out of class for the foreseeable future?”

You answered swiftly this time around, lest your boyfriend deign to speak on your behalf once again. You’d hurt your head, not your mouth. “For today at least, yeah. I doubt I’d be much good in Transfiguration with a splitting headache.”

If you were only allowed one word to describe the look that overtook Imelda’s face, that word would be trouble. Her tawny eyes crinkled at their corners as a mischievous glint twinkled within them, and you could practically see her gearing up to say something you knew would piss you off. She folded her hands neatly over one another atop the table and leaned sideways on her elbow to shoot you a conniving look, and you couldn’t help but stiffen as a wave of apprehension crept up your spine.

“Well let me know if you need a hand getting notes for the day. Though I’m sure Sallow would be more than happy to assist. Isn’t that right, Sebastian?”

The emphasis she placed on the word didn’t escape you, and judging by the confused expressions on both Ominis’ and Sebastian’s faces, they didn’t miss it either. It took unwavering focus to maintain your composure and not react, and you prayed to whatever higher power existed that your cheeks weren’t as rouge as they felt. You sighed softly and glanced at the brunet through your lashes, all too aware of the puzzled look he now bore. “How about it?” You opted to simply play along for the time being in a bid to hide the true meaning behind Imelda’s telling comment. “Can you bring me the notes later?”

Sebastian nodded slowly, his gaze shifting between you and Imelda for a long moment before he set his fork down and ran his long, dexterous fingers through his hair. Your eyes tracked the movement against your will, which only seemed to intensify the curious glimmer in his dark eyes, and when he flashed you that sinful Sallow smirk you were all too familiar with, you swallowed nervously.

Surely Imelda hadn’t just helped him put two and two together, right?

“Am I missing something here?” Ominis chimed in from across the table, a scowl tugging at the corners of his lips.

“No, no,” Imelda said, the words dripping with false dismissal. The urge to throttle her was intense. “I was just implying that our dear friend here is bound to be a handful for the next few days, so she’ll need help. Let me know if I can do anything, although I’m sure you’d much rather have Sebastian be the one to–”

She was cut off by the booming slap of your hands against the tabletop as you clambered to your feet, desperate to escape her pointed comments and Sebastian’s prying stare. “Will do!” you exclaimed with too much bite. You lowered your voice and did your best to keep your tone even, “I’m sure I’ll manage, but I can’t be bothered to figure it all out right now. I’ll just– I’ll see you guys later.”

You didn’t dare look back as you swung your legs over the bench and took off towards the massive double doors. At this point, you were wishing that your collision with the crates had put you in a coma. Maybe then you could have avoided Imelda’s inevitable pestering, but even then you were positive your nuisance of a friend would have found a way to taunt you in your dreams. This was something you were going to have to acknowledge with Sebastian sooner or later, but until that day came you would do everything in your power to avoid any more awkward run-ins with Imelda. At least when Sebastian was with you, you reasoned. For now, you needed to get away from the general public and sleep on your deranged thoughts before anything else embarrassing could happen.

Apparently the universe had other plans for you, however. You recognized Sebastian’s heavy footsteps running up behind you without even checking to be certain, and even though you wanted nothing more than to fall into bed and sleep the remainder of the day away, when his large hand came to coil around your bicep to halt you in your tracks, you let him.

“Hey, are you alright?” His eyes softened as they took in your miserable appearance, but all you could pay attention to was the feeling of his thumb caressing the back of your arm as he held you in place. “I’m sorry if I upset you– I didn’t realize Imelda was trying to poke bruises, otherwise I would have told her to leave as soon as she came over.”

Shaking your head absently, you stared over Sebastian’s shoulder and directed your next words towards the wall, because that was infinitely easier than eye contact at the present moment. “I’m not upset, you don’t have to apologize. She’s just… a lot to handle right now.”

“I’ll say,” he concurred easily, moving his head so it was in your line of sight– only to furrow his brow when you ducked your chin to avoid looking at him. His jaw clenched and his hand around your arm tightened, if only briefly, and then he was tugging you along after him. “Come on, I’ll walk you to your dorm.”

***

He knew.

He had to know.

It was the only plausible explanation you could come up with to give reason to Sebastian’s over-exaggerated use of his hands for the last three days. At first you hadn’t thought much of it; you still had a staring problem and Sebastian still had really nice hands, but the difference in the last seventy-two hours was apparent. It was as though your boyfriend was modeling his hands for you, constantly finding ways to dangle the appendages right under your nose and simultaneously letting his touch linger against your skin for far longer than normal. It was driving you insane, and you were positive he was doing it intentionally.

Realistically it had started the day after your botched Crossed Wands duel. You, Ominis, and Sebastian had been sitting in the Library to study and work on assignments, your motley trio focused intently on your individual work for the bulk of the afternoon. Ominis was using his dictation quill to take notes, his foggy blue eyes narrowed in concentration while he muttered softly under his breath. Sebastian skimmed his own Herbology textbook with hooded eyes, the book propped against the knee he had crossed over his other leg, and his laid back posture coupled with the way his fingers idly played with the hair around his temples was enough to leave you entranced. Once he had taken notice of your staring, however, he’d smirked to himself and made a show of licking his finger to turn the page over, maintaining eye contact with you the entire time.

You didn’t need a mirror to know you’d flushed beet red at the suggestive act.

The day after that, the two of you had been in Defense Against the Dark Arts class. Sebastian had been asked to demonstrate the proper wand movement for Confringo by Professor Hecat, and shortly thereafter she had asked another student, Hector Jenkins, to take point across from your boyfriend for a friendly duel. Naturally you were prohibited from participating without Nurse Blainey’s go-ahead, so you’d stood at the back of the crowd and looked on ahead with rapt interest, eager to watch Sebastian make short work of his opponent, because of course he would. Chocolate brown eyes had met yours from across the room, and the movement that followed was subtle but obvious– at least, to you it was.

As Professor Hecat droned on and reminded her students of the rules that went hand-in-hand with dueling in class, Sebastian fondled his wand. Quite literally. His nimble fingers had run along the wood, stroking the handle with such a light touch that his pinky had remained elevated the entire time. His thumb and index finger came to pinch at the tip softly before skimming down towards the checkered handle, and he made a dramatic show of wrapping each one of his fingers around the base before deftly angling the thin wood at you.

Your breath had caught in your throat at the brazen motion, and Sebastian shamelessly winked at you before settling into the usual, confident persona he embodied while fighting.

To say you’d become a ball of nerves afterwards would be a monumental understatement. You wound up leaning back against the wall with your ankles crossed to ease the rampant ache that had settled between your legs, doing your best to not look like you were going into an animalistic heat, which was easier said than done.

Later on during dinner in the Great Hall, you found yourself seated next to Sebastian and across from Ominis, as per usual. The evening had started out much the same as always; with the three of you discussing the events of the day and planning for the upcoming weekend. The only difference was your boyfriend had seemingly taken it upon himself to distract you from the conversation entirely, covertly placing his hand on your thigh beneath the table to run the damn thing up and down your leg. Every time he reached your knee, he would steadily drag his palm higher up, teasing you with an occasional squeeze the closer he got to your center. Since you didn’t want to clue Ominis in on his best friend’s antics you were forced to keep your lips firmly sealed– left with no choice but to silently endure your boyfriend’s unique form of torture.

As Ominis idly discussed wanting to escape to The Three Broomsticks on Saturday, Sebastian’s grip on your leg tightened while he sat forward to spoon a serving of the night’s dessert onto his plate; a colorful fruit tart with a healthy dollop of whipped cream slapped on top. You swallowed thickly as he delicately skewered a strawberry with his fork and brought it to his lips, pausing to reply to Ominis before popping it in his mouth.

“I’m game, better to go now before Quidditch practice starts again. Merlin only knows how many trials Imelda intends on cramming into my weekends before long.”

Ominis snorted and set his cutlery down on his plate, “You say that as though she’s doing it to spite you and you alone. In case you’ve forgotten, there’s six other people to account for on the team, and not all of them were blessed with the free time to practice over summer like you.”

Sebastian side-eyed you briefly, and the corner of his mouth quirked up into a condescending grin. “That has a whole lot of nothing to do with me and everything to do with them being lazy. But my point still stands– that woman lives to invade my free time, so butterbeers this weekend sounds like a solid plan. What do you say, darling?”

The brunet chose that exact moment to sensually take the strawberry between his teeth and pull it free from the fork prongs, smiling wickedly at you all the while. A tiny bit of the whipped cream had stayed behind on his bottom lip, but before you could point it out to him or wipe it away yourself, Sebastian did exactly that, drawing his finger into his mouth to suck deviously at the remnants. Your eyes were wider than saucers as you watched his tongue lave over the pad of his thumb and forefinger, and the telling squeeze he bestowed upon your thigh immediately afterwards all but confirmed your fears.

He absolutely fucking knew.

***

“I think there’s something on your mind,” Sebastian said from beside you. “Something that’s been on your mind for a while now. Care to share?”

The two of you were on your way to the Room of Requirement, having just left the Hospital Wing after Nurse Blainey had summoned you there to evaluate your recovery progress following your mentally arduous week. She’d been all too pleased when Sebastian told her you had adhered to her guidelines to the letter– minimizing your physical activity and resting at every opportune moment, much to your boyfriend’s credit. After a few diagnostic scans, mobility trials, and a never ending list of questions designed to test your memory, she had deemed you fit to return to your usual activities– though not before making you swear to stay out of her sight for the rest of the year.

Affectionately, of course.

Sebastian’s comment reeled you back to the present moment, however, and you shot him a stern look out of the corner of your eye as you ascended the spiral staircase within the Astronomy Tower. “Unless you’re referring to how stunned I’ve been thanks to your obscene behavior this week, I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

He skipped ahead of you until he reached the top landing, spinning on his heel to face you as you breezed past him without so much as a second glance. “Oh, but I think you do. Surely you know why I’ve been behaving so ‘obscenely’. You’re the one who gave me the idea after all.”

Keeping your expression schooled was difficult, but you managed. As the wall concealing the door to the Room of Requirement began to shift and change, you were all too aware of Sebastian sidling up next to you so he could run the tips of his fingers up your arm and over your shoulder, sending shiver-inducing chills down your spine. The gesture was intimate and suggestive, and you sighed softly as you stepped out of his reach to make for the fully formed entryway in front of you– not particularly keen on putting on a show for any students that potentially milled about the tower.

You made it three steps inside the room before Sebastian grabbed you by your shoulder and spun you sideways, swiftly and effortlessly guiding you backwards until your back collided with the wall, and the startled gasp that ripped from your chest seemed to ignite a spark of interest in your boyfriend’s eyes. The hand he had on you traveled up along the smooth skin of your neck until he had a loose grip on your chin, and the sinful way his thumb trailed over your bottom lip spoke volumes about his intentions.

“Do I need to coax the truth out of you, or can you be a good girl and say what it is you want?” His other hand slipped beneath the fabric of your blouse, his touch blazing and leaving you hot with want the higher up your torso it traveled. The tantalizing feeling of his blunt nails scraping along the plane of your stomach had your muscles clenching and your breath hitching, and Sebastian dipped his head lower so he was directly in your line of sight. You knew he saw your rampant need for him reflected in your eyes when his pupils dilated, and he moved his thumb away from your lip to caress your cheekbone as you stared wide-eyed up at him. He cocked his head to the side as he goaded you further, “Come on, darling. You’ve never had a problem with saying what’s on your mind before, why switch up on me now?”

“Because it–” you started to say, cutting off mid-explanation when Sebastian curled his long fingers around your waist to press against your ribs in a way that nullified all coherent thought. His domineering presence over you left you nearly breathless.

He smirked, all too aware of the effect he currently had on you. “It what?”

Merlin, he was doing you in with barely any effort. Reducing you to nothing at the hands of his… well, hands. You were pathetic. He waited for your response though, his fingers dancing up your side promisingly while you worked to formulate a sentence. “I-It’s ridiculous,” you stammered out. “It’s embarrassing…”

The hand he’d tenderly ghosted across your cheek slipped behind your head, and his fingers tangled in your hair at the back of your skull to tug gently. The motion forced you to crane your chin up to follow Sebastian’s unwavering gaze, and his lips were close enough to yours that you felt his airy chuckle fan across your nose. “I already know what it is and I can tell you this much; you and I have very different definitions of what qualifies as ‘embarrassing’, darling.” His head dipped into the crook of your neck so he could better bestow wet, open mouthed kisses against your thundering pulse, and your stomach flipped at the sordid sounds he made as he went. “Come on, say it,” he implored you, his voice like velvet. “It’s only us here– tell me what you want.”

“I…” you began, shuddering immediately after when Sebastian nipped at the spit-slick skin of your throat. Finding the words was only going to get increasingly difficult from here on out, you wagered. “I want your hands on me. I haven’t been able to get the thought out of my mind since school started.”

As though to punctuate his retort, Sebastian’s hold on your hair and your waist intensified, and a barely there squeak weaseled its way past your lips as he pulled away from your throat to fix you with a heated look. “My hands are already on you, sweetheart. Tell me why, use your big girl voice.”

Bastard. Your eyes sharpened in response to his quip, and your palms came to rest flat against the larger man’s chest before you dug your nails into the fabric of his shirt. “Because you really do have very nice hands. Because the mere idea of having them on me does things to me that I can’t begin to describe. And because I’m asking you nicely,” you purred the last bit to the best of your ability, relishing in the insatiable, hungry look that crossed Sebastian’s face at your tone. “Touch me, Sebastian. I want you– all of you. Please?”

As soon as Sebastian’s lips captured yours, your inhibitions ceased to exist. All you could taste, smell, feel, and hear was him, and judging by the demanding way he pulled you flush against him by your waist, that was exactly what he was going for. You keened needily as his nails dug into your sensitive skin and the fingers buried in your hair wound tight around the strands, and your boyfriend eagerly bit at your lips before backing away just enough to stare at you through his hooded, lust-dark eyes.

“Keep talking to me like that and I’ll do anything you want,” he groaned, utterly captivated by the sight of you so wound up. You caved to his ministrations completely then, your stomach flipping over on itself when his chest pressed against yours and sealed you more firmly to the wall. His groin followed soon after– the long, hard length of him tangible through his trousers as he leaned into your spread legs further– and your own hands finally came to grasp at his shoulders when he rolled his hips against yours fervently.

“Touch me,” you implored him, the request practically a whisper as it fell from your lips. “Your hands– please, Sebastian.”

A pleased sound snaked its way through Sebastian’s clenched teeth as he obliged you instantly, releasing your waist and hair to run his hands down your torso before delving beneath your shirt. The rough, chill-inducing feeling of his calloused palms trailing against the bare skin of your stomach had you moaning in earnest, and your head tipped back against the wall with a thunk as he cupped your breasts in those heavenly hands you’d grown to adore so much. Sebastian took full advantage of your submissive position and buried his head in the exposed crook of your neck, his warm breath fanning across your skin as he murmured, “You sound incredible when you beg, darling. So fucking perfect– gods.”

No words came to you to formulate a reply, especially when your boyfriend’s tongue darted out of his mouth to lave down the slender column of your throat, the biting sting of his teeth on your shoulder following soon after. Your next breath caught in your chest when Sebastian ground his stiffening cock against you once more, and his airy chuckle against you was seductive and ripe with promise. Those nimble fingers of his clawed gently over the rounded tops of your breasts before pinching your hardened nipples, and that was what finally pulled coherent English from your lips.

“Fuck,” you groaned, unaware of just how much the brunet adored the needy timbre to your voice.

Sebastian’s hands left your body for the briefest of moments to push himself off the wall, then took you by the hand to guide you towards the small bedroom tucked away in the back of the Room of Requirement. Between the two of you, your combined excitement was palpable– thick enough to cut with a knife– and as soon as you made it through the threshold of the door, he was back on you in a heartbeat. It was all a flurry of lips, teeth, and tongue as he steered you backwards towards the spacious bed, those magnificent hands of his holding your hips steady with firm reassurance.

Once the backs of your calves connected with the mattress, Sebastian pulled away from your mouth with a wicked smirk, giving you a playful shove that sent you sprawling back on the bed with a startled yelp. It hardly mattered, though. Not when the man before you began undoing the buttons on his own shirt, exposing the tanned, freckled expanse of his toned chest. Not when he shrugged the attire off his sculpted shoulders and lowered himself to his knees so he could peer at you over your bent knees. Nothing else mattered aside from him.

“You know,” he started to say as his hands reappeared on your hips, tugging at the waistline of your trousers so they started to slide over your hip bones. “You’ve inadvertently given me lots of new ideas.”

A shiver coursed its way down your spine at the suggestive tone he spoke the words with, amplified tenfold by the unrepentant fantasies that flickered through your mind. “Oh really?”

“Really,” he agreed simply. The corner of his mouth twitched upwards and he gestured wordlessly for you to lift your hips so he could slide your pants down your outstretched legs. You obeyed, if only to get a move on with things so you could see the new ‘ideas’ Sebastian had apparently come up with. Dark, eager eyes met yours as he dropped your clothing to the floor, and then Sebastian asked, “Do you trust me?”

Without missing a beat, you murmured, “Always.”

Not another word was uttered, and you watched through hooded eyes as Sebastian prowled up the edge of the mattress to crawl over your prone form. Amusement seemingly glimmered in his lust-laden gaze as he set to expertly unbuttoning your shirt with his adroit digits, revealing inch after inch of your flushed torso, and goosebumps broke out over your stomach in the wake of Sebastian’s knuckles brushing against your heated flesh.

He didn’t bother removing your blouse fully, opting to instead flick the sides of the undone top outward to let them hang disheveled against your sides. The shallow, anticipatory breaths you let loose was the only sound you made as the freckled man above you gathered your wrists in one of his larger hands to pin them above your head, and the entire time he worked to restrain your arms, his eye contact with you remained unwavering. Warriness and excitement alike pooled in the lower pit of your gut, mixing with the telltale ache between your legs that fueled the heat that slithered through your veins.

Sebastian’s free hand came to touch you then, starting at the swell of your breasts before he gently thumbed over the peak of one of your nipples. The sensation had you sucking in a breath loud enough to make your boyfriend pause– only for him to repeat the motion a second time. “You’re rather pent up, aren’t you?”

Despite yourself, you narrowed your eyes in response to his taunting and rolled your head to the side in an attempt to hide the blush you knew spread across your cheeks. “Shut up…”

The hand on your breast flew to your face, gripping your chin and turning your head back so you were forced to meet his penetrating stare. “Come on, be honest,” he goaded you further. “You missed me. Say it.”

“Of course I missed you,” you relented quickly. “I didn’t see you for two months.”

That damnable smirk of his made its grand reappearance, and you hated how much you loved the sight of it. “You managed well enough last summer. Or were you lying through your teeth about handling the distance ‘easily’ on your travels?”

Your fingers twitched in his unrelenting hold, the urge to crane your neck away again taking over, but you were forced to keep your eyes trained on his. “I wasn’t lying then, but I still missed you.”

The way his head tilted to the side curiously reminded you of an animal attempting to get a better look at their prey. “So why the sudden change?”

Chewing your lip thoughtfully for a moment, you decided to voice your inner thoughts regardless of how bashful the idea made you feel. “Because you changed. You’re… bigger.”

Your drab attempt at an explanation didn’t escape Sebastian, but that amusement still glinted in his eyes as he released your chin and trailed his hand down your torso towards your aching center. “Bigger, huh? Care to elaborate?”

Skillful fingers slipped under the cotton of your undergarments, already damp with arousal, and you mewled softly when one of his digits slid through your wet folds before pressing down on your clit with delectable pressure. It nearly derailed your train of thought entirely, but Sebastian helpfully pulled away and snickered when your disappointed sigh slipped through your clenched teeth. “Dammit–”

“You talk,” he fucking purred down at you, looking far too smug for your liking, “and I work. Sound like a fair trade?”

His offer was emphasized by one of his fingers probing at your slick entrance, further enticing you to oblige his request. When you angled your hips to meet the feeling, he pulled back swiftly, quirking a brow at you with a knowing look.

Bastard, you thought.

Fine.

“Y-You’re bigger,” you started to say. “More muscular than before, and I think you grew a couple inches.”

Sebastian’s hand resumed its teasing exploration of your center once more, gingerly inserting his middle finger inside of you as his thumb took to rubbing titillating circles against your clit. The flutter of your eyelids brought a coy smile to the brunet’s face, and his hold on your wrists tightened a fraction as he increased the intensity of his movements. He mockingly said, “You like having a big, strong boyfriend or something? The scandal.”

You barely registered the gibe– not with his thumb slowly working over your clit in time with his finger. It damn near voided all of your brain’s function. All you cared to focus on was the bliss that came with finally having his hands on you. “Yes,” you groaned with blatant need. “I love it– I love it so much– you’re perfect, Sebastian.”

Spurred on by your praise, Sebastian leaned down to mouth wetly at your throat, biting and sucking at whatever smooth skin he found as he pumped his finger in and out of your wet heat steadily. Your head rolled to the side to allow him easier access as he presumably worked a bruise into your flesh, and you relished in the knowledge that he was rebranding you as his after the summer months spent apart. A guttural moan spilled from your mouth as he laved his tongue over the mark and covertly slipped a second finger inside your cunt, crooking the digits up to reach a depth you could never hope to when you were pleasuring yourself.

He took it slow, half for your sake and half for his own, but as Sebastian scissored his fingers and upped his tempo, he could see how you fell apart for him. You struggled to breathe, your every exhale colored with a panted, needy little sound while your thighs twitched and tensed on either side of his arm. When he shifted his fingers up just slightly, your entire body shuddered as your back arched off the bed and you choked on a breathy whine. You were so sensitive, so incredibly vocal, and it was driving him crazy.

Sebastian’s size allowed him to stretch over the majority of your upper body easily, his hold on your arms still firm as he dipped his head lower to lick his way down to your breasts. Ever so gently, he took one of your nipples between his teeth and clamped down with a cautious amount of pressure, increasing the pace of his fingers when he heard your breath hitch in your throat. You could feel his lips stretch into a smile against your chest as your heart rate sped up and your hips involuntarily bucked up into his hand in search of more friction– more of him.

“Merlin–” you writhed atop the sheets as that familiar ache took root in your gut, your finish approaching dangerously fast as Sebastian pressed the palm of his hand against your clit and somehow managed to pump his digits deeper inside of you. “Fuck, fuck!”

He pulled away from your torso to watch you with rapt interest, a flicker of something primal flashing in his brown eyes as he observed your features pinching together with obvious focus as you chased the euphoria he bestowed upon you. “You’re close, aren’t you? I can feel it… I never thought just my hands could do it for you like this, sweetheart. Consider me pleasantly surprised.”

His words meant nothing to you– not right now. Your climax was so close, so painfully close that all you cared to focus on was the steady rhythm of Sebastian’s fingers and his strength holding your wrists down to the bed. Brainlessly, you rolled your head to the side as Sebastian worked you towards the edge, only to blink blearily up at him when he released your wrists to grab the underside of your jaw and force your eyes back on him.

“Look at me while you come on my fingers. I want to see every second of it.”

Who were you to say no?

Your release was akin to a tidal wave– crashing over you violently and stealing your breath as you tried your hardest to keep your eyes open and glued to Sebastian. Mouth falling open around an airy moan, your boyfriend continued to finger-fuck you through your orgasm as he captured your lips in a desperate, lethal kiss. “That’s it,” he groaned into your parted lips. “Good girl.”

The brunet had the good grace to slide his fingers out slowly while he pulled away, laughing softly at the slight jolt your body gave when his palm grazed over your bundle of nerves once more. Dazed and twitching beneath him, you didn’t notice he’d brought his hand to his mouth until it was inches from your face, and the stars clouding your vision cleared just in time to watch him take the two fingers that had previously been inside of you between his lips.

“I– what are you doing?” Your incredulous tone didn’t deter Sebastian in the slightest, and he smirked around his fingers before pulling them out of his mouth with an audible wet sound.

“Tasting you,” he said casually, as if it were the most normal thing in the world. Then with a wink he added, “You’re very sweet.” Nearly all the blood in your body rushed to your cheeks in that instant, warming your face as your mouth fell open in silent shock. It was balmy– completely and utterly bewildering. Yet you couldn’t help but find the brazen move equally… arousing.

You’d officially lost your mind.

In a flash, he lowered his hand closer to your own open mouth, shoving the fingers past your lips and grinning when you squealed with indignant surprise. There was nowhere for you to go– nowhere for you to turn your head to escape the taste of yourself on his digits– and so you were left with no choice but to allow Sebastian to run his fingers along your tongue. The added knowledge that you found his hands so alluring only made the whole spectacle more intimate, and before you could stop yourself, you found yourself sucking shamelessly at his skin, working your tongue over his knuckles as you stared up at him with unrestrained desire.

“Gods,” he muttered, swallowing thickly before pulling his fingers free from your mouth. His voice was shaky, and you dimly registered that your eager submission had gotten to him.

You licked the remnants of yourself from your lips as Sebastian shuffled back to the edge of the bed, standing straight to hastily undo his trousers and shove the material down his long, toned legs. Numbly, you followed suit, sitting up shakily to shrug off your now wrinkled blouse and toss it aside to join the growing pile of clothing at your boyfriend’s feet.

Nude as the day he was born, Sebastian confidently stared down at you and took in the full picture of you before him with an animalistic hunger shining in his eyes. His chestnut hair was unruly and curled wildly in every direction, the breaths he hurriedly sucked down causing his shapely chest to rise and fall in a way that dragged your attention to his strong, capable body. You drank in the sight of his tan, freckled skin, your wide eyes roving lower and lower until they landed on his hard cock arching proudly against his taut stomach.

Maybe you were imagining things, but you could have sworn that was bigger too.

When your eyes jumped back to Sebastian’s, you were positive he knew exactly what you’d been thinking, if his wolfish grin was anything to go by. “See something you like?”

“Please fuck me,” you groaned, too turned on by the sight of him alone to be embarassed about how desperate you sounded.

Sebastian effortlessly crawled back onto the bed and settled over you, pulling you into another intoxicating kiss as he slipped between your spread thighs and rolled his hips, grinding his achingly hard cock against your slit with a dizzying sort of precision. You couldn’t help but moan into the kiss, your eyes squeezing closed before you tilted your head back and arched up against him. “F-Fuck, you’re so hard,” you gasped, loosely hooking your legs around Sebastian’s hips.

Groaning his agreement, Sebastian nipped at the side of your jaw and murmured, “You have no idea… want you bad.” He nuzzled your ear for a moment, humming at the way you shivered under him, then mouthed his way down your throat with hot, wet kisses that pulled a slew of tiny noises out of you as he rocked his hips again.

Before you could wrap your arms around his shoulders like you’d planned, Sebastian was sitting back on his heels to manhandle you exactly where he wanted you. Those big hands of his grabbed you by your waist, hauling you down the bed like you weighed nothing so your rear was balanced over the tops of his knees and he was perfectly aligned with your slick entrance. The way he easily moved you around spoke volumes of the physical labor he’d done over the summer, slaving away the muggle way to restore his Uncle’s former home for the two of you to use after graduation. Every stone moved, every log chopped, and every wheelbarrow trundled was cataloged within the corded muscles that lined his body.

If you weren’t already head over heels for the man, you were certain you would be deemed grossly smitten.

Sebastian’s hands slid from your waist to your thighs to better hold you in place as he bumped the tip of his cock against you, and your breath stuttered in your chest at the first steady roll of his hips, the head sliding home easily into your slick, tight, and warm heat. Your name fell from your lover’s lips in the form of a ragged moan, fingers digging into your legs as he rocked his hips slowly, feeling for any tension or resistance. Everything he’d done to soothe you, however, had paid off, and he found that once he pressed in more firmly, you took him perfectly, letting him slide deeper with every short thrust.

He really had gotten bigger.

“I could tell you thought so,” Sebastian said around a laugh. Had you said that out loud? “Your eyes just about bugged out of your head when you looked earlier.”

Embarrassed for the nth time in the last week, you looked away from him and quietly grumbled under your breath, “Whatever… don’t let it get to your head. Your ego is big enough as it is.”

“It’s not the only thing that’s big apparently,” he countered easily. As though to punctuate the statement, Sebastian pulled his hips back once more before spearing into you with brutal efficiency, and the gasp that ripped from your throat then was followed by a breathless sound that bordered on a wail.

It was so thick– Sebastian’s cock– and it filled you up and spread you open so incredibly, but it was the angle that was really rendering you incapable of thought. With your hips elevated, the blunt head brushed past your sweet spot with every dragging thrust, re-lighting that fire in your blood that threatened to set you ablaze. You wanted more, but you were almost afraid of how good it would feel, how high it would take you. Sebastian was all around you, with his hands gripping your thighs, deep inside you, stirring you up and coaxing brainless whimpers out of you, not bothering to hold back for your sake– and thank the gods for that.

A meek keening sound arose from your throat as you gasped Sebastian’s name, and the brunet responded with a rough growl, stroking your thighs tenderly before abandoning one of them to place his hand on the lower part of your stomach. He pressed down with his fingers splayed against your skin, thrusting into you deeper so you could really feel every long, delectable inch of him within you, and the added pressure made your head spin and your walls clamp down on him.

“Oh, fuck–” you moaned wantonly, arching your spine as much as you were able in a bid to feel as much as possible. Sebastian responded by moving his grip on your thigh to your waist, fucking into you harder until all you were capable of doing was whining for more with your eyes unfocused. Rational thought was gone– you were losing your mind with the way Sebastian was pounding into you now, that fire spreading through you– but you had quickly stopped being afraid of the feeling. The hotter you got, the more Sebastian’s perfect aim drove you higher until you were arching and pleading, noisy and half-coherent as overwhelmed tears filled your eyes.

When you finally caught hold of words beyond brainless, wavering cries, you threw your head back with a gasping whine to loudly beg, “Sebastian, please, please–”

“F-Fuck,” he stuttered out, moaning desperately into the empty air before he rasped, “You like it that much, darling? Want more?”

“Yes!” You clawed mindlessly at the hand he had clamped against your waist, urging him to use the damn thing in the way you had dreamt of every night since returning to school. Ever the fast learner, Sebastian obliged you mercifully and let go of your waist, leaving you to hook your legs around his hips as he brought his hands to your throat to pull you onto his cock harder and faster, the sound of skin slapping against skin filling the room and muddling your brain further.

“You look so perfect with my hands around your neck, darling.” Sebastian growled out in-between bestial grunts. “So pretty, so eager. Is it good?”

He wasn’t choking the life out of you by any means, but the pressure he applied on either side of your neck added a sort of high that left your tongue useless in your mouth. You could hardly formulate words, much less a full sentence, but you still managed to stammer out a raspy, “Y-Yes, fuck–”

You were fairly certain you were drooling all over yourself, but you couldn’t find the willpower to care. There were too many sensations to keep track of, and through the haze of it all, your climax came into sight. Your hand came to grasp at one of the ones Sebastian had secured around your throat while the other fisted in the sheets, squeezing as hard as you could as you rutted back against his hips the best you could. It wasn’t doing much as far as you were concerned, but Sebastian evidently appreciated your attempt as he groaned roughly, letting his head hang between his shoulders as he began pumping his hips faster.

“Shit– I’m close, I’m so close–”

Beyond your moans of encouragement, there wasn’t much else you could say. Sebastian took your motivating sounds in stride though, keeping one hand clamped around your neck securely as the other flew down to your clit, instantaneously rubbing urgent little circles around the nub in a bid to take you with him over the edge. Your voice was already raspy but so much louder and needier than Sebastian’s short moans of your name, and his half-baked praises and pleas intermingled with the distant banging of the headboard against the stone wall. Even through all that– through the spiking volume of your pleasure and the blinding need devouring you both– all Sebastian saw was you, and all you saw was ecstasy.

When you finally came you wailed, long and loud as your hands clung to the sheets beneath you and Sebastian’s thick wrist alike, the latter of which knew better than to stop now. Your muscles tensed dangerously tight, your toes curling hard and your nails scraping fresh tracks down Sebastian’s forearm hard enough to leave welts, and your boyfriend was already holding on by a thread by the time your cunt clamped down tight around him. It was almost too hard to move, but there was just enough give that your climax peaked impossibly further and Sebastian fell right after you, crying your name over and over with the rough, faltering tempo of his hips.

The two of you were hardly aware of anything as you both slowed down and came off of that high, but you eventually blinked the fog from your mind and came to realize Sebastian had long since abandoned his hold on your throat in favor of laying across your prone form, lightly peppering kisses against your collarbone as he sucked down breaths to catch his breath. The stinging twitch of uncoiling muscles and the swelling bites and scratches only served to bring you both back to reality in slow, leisurely time with one another, and at the end of it all it was Sebastian who found his voice first, murmuring yet another snide comment into the crook of your shoulder.

“Should I start wearing gloves now?”

Still breathless and spent from the last hour– hell, the entirety of the last week– your delirious laughter was uncontrollable as you realized and quickly accepted that the truth was now out there, and your boyfriend was more than ready to take full advantage of that. “I don’t think gloves will help, honestly.”

The remainder of the school year would end up being a testament to just how true that claim actually was, you guessed. Your boyfriend, on the other hand, would most certainly enjoy every second of it.

#sebastian sallow x you #sebastian sallow x female!reader #sebastian sallow x reader #sebastian sallow smut #sebastian sallow #hogwarts legacy #hogwarts legacy fanfic #hogwarts legacy oneshot #hogwarts legacy fanfiction #sebastian sallow x mc #kicking down the doors of 2024 with the longest oneshot ever to grace my google doc #dropping this depravity here and exiting stage left #my writing

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chloeangelic · 9 months

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Belong to me, I: Chosen

Line cook Joel x waitress reader

Line cook Joel AU masterlist

Summary: You desperately want a baby and hope that your grumpy coworker will help make your dream a reality.

Warnings: Smut, yearning, mild angst, age gap (Joel is 40, reader in her late 20s), mild brat taming, creampie, breeding kink, size kink, description of glass related injury/blood, social smoking, dom Joel (not degrading), ovulation sex, unprotected PIV, mutual pining, rough sex, size kink, ass play.

A/N: Posted a day early cause of the overwhelming response on the masterlist🥺🤍 I'm turning this into an AU that I can post to at random and just kinda use as a creative free space like I did with this, so there will be more parts :))

Word count: 4.8k Rating: 18+

You had a dream one night.

A dream that you were holding a child, your child, a little baby who came from you, whose home was your body for the overwhelming majority of her life. You held her in your arms, cradled her, ran the very tip of your finger over her little nose, stroked her soft cheek and looked into her eyes, seeing yourself in their reflection.

You had dropped her off at your friend’s house to watch her while you went and visited your parents, but when you returned, you could not find her. You searched and searched, asked every person you came across if they had seen her, but nobody had. And when you woke up, you felt that same gut wrenching anxiety over your missing child that you felt in the dream. Like she was still out there, but you had no way of getting to her.

And ever since then, you’ve felt a vacancy in your heart somehow, a pull towards something intangible, something you know you will love and cherish with your whole heart and take care with all the energy you can muster, as soon as it is in your hands.

Yearning.

A deep, almost excruciating yearning for a baby, the baby in that dream, a baby you will not have anytime soon if you are dependent on the presence of a husband or even a boyfriend to provide you with one. For as long as you can remember, you have wanted to be a mother, and it feels as though your opportunity is slipping through your fingers, even at your young age, as you watch friend after friend go off with their significant other and establish families, and you’re still single, not even looking for a special someone.

You want what they have, unbearably so, and have gotten to a point where you think you might crumble if you never get the chance to raise a child, but the idea of dating does not appeal to you, and you would rather just do it all yourself.

One time your friend asked you, “If someone put a gun to your head and told you that you have to have a kid with someone right now, who would you choose?”. You didn’t have an answer at the time, but you do now. It’s been simmering in the back of your mind for a while; the answer to that question. You’ve been thinking about it a lot lately, about how it feels like the right time for you to have this baby you so desperately want.

During the afternoons and evenings, you serve tables at a busy restaurant downtown. It’s not the world’s most interesting job, but you think you’re generally well liked at that establishment, you’re friends with everyone, and the shifts go by relatively quickly.

You walk in through the large doors, waving to Maddy as she escorts a couple to their table, swinging past the bar stools, making your way to the back office to take off your jacket and slip into your heels, giving your hair a quick look over in the mirror before you walk into the kitchen.

And there he is - the answer to your friend’s question. Too tall for the countertops and always hunched over, too broad for the narrow hallways at the back of the house. Big, very big, so muscular, with shoulders and biceps so large you wonder if he spends all his free time working out. Grumpy, never in what one would call a 'good mood', convinced that approving or disapproving grunts count as full answers when someone asks him something.

Joel, a scowling and silent mountain of a man.

Sometimes you sneak out during his break just to chat him up behind the restaurant, even stealing smokes from your coworker to give him a reason to spend more time with you. His scent is intoxicating every time you sit there huddled next to him, especially when it’s cool out and you shove your entire body into the side of his arm and his thigh, his skin as hot as a furnace.

Even his sweat, at the end of the worst shift one can possibly imagine, smells good. He smells like cologne and fresh laundry and what you presume to be combo shampoo and body wash considering he doesn’t give much of a fuck about anything that isn’t his daughter and he’s not exactly what one would call vain.

It seems, however, as if he gives a little bit of a fuck about you.

Sometimes it even feels like he looks out for you.

And you wouldn’t have had this suspicion had it not been for the fact that you brutally cut your hand on a shard of glass a few months back when a vase tumbled and you stupidly tried to catch it. You looked at your bloody hand, heard the snap of Joel’s fingers and a few commands before you were suddenly in his truck on the way to the ER.

He sat there with you, pressing a wad of gauze to the cut until you were called in by the doctor, waited until you came out, then stopped at the pharmacy to get an excess of things you might need, and drove you home. He even stayed with you until you were fed and passed out watching a movie on your couch.

After that day, you’ve felt like his eyes are always on you, his scowl seeming more concerned than menacing, his hands suddenly there to catch you every time you’re about to trip over yourself. Something about the feeling of being protected by him has made your heart and ovaries twist around themselves, making that yearning for a baby incredibly urgent.

You want his baby now, whether he’s present or not, and you’ve decided that you’re gonna ask him for a little favor when ovulation comes around and you feel slick and needy and desperate for his come.

Which just so happens to be tonight.

The restaurant seems to get busier the second you step into the dimly lit lounge, sending you back and forth between the kitchen and your tables more times than you can count, trying to think of how to formulate yourself, how not to scare him off.

You eventually check the time and see that it’s close to Joel’s usual forced break time, and decide that you might as well take your own break now too, needing to speak to him as soon as possible. So you hear the clicks of your heels as you nearly run through the kitchen, grab the lighter from the office and push open the doors to see him already sitting there outside, his face tilted up so the sun hits his skin and bounces off the silver in his otherwise brown hair.

“You mind?” you ask as you close the door, and he nods for you to sit down next to him, already reaching down to commit coworker theft. It always feels casual, calm, even relaxing in some way, to sit out here with him, but tonight you’re on the edge, knowing he’ll never speak to you again if your request falls flat.

He puts the cigarette between his lips and looks at you while he waits for you to light it, but your hands tremble around the lighter as you try to hold it up. His eyes narrow for a moment, then his hands come up to hold around yours, making them disappear under his large palms, holding them steady and looking into your eyes until the flame catches and he pulls back. “What’s on your mind?” he asks, his accent slurring the words together slightly.

You have a speech ready, an explanation about this longtime want and need and yearning to become a mother, a rationale for why you’re ready, why you want to do this as a single woman in her late twenties, an excuse for why you don’t want to go to a clinic and find a donor who’s a Harvard graduate in his early thirties.

Why it is you want him, Joel, to be the one to give this to you, and how he doesn’t have to do anything, emotionally or physically or financially, when you finally get what you want.

But your plan falls flat as you open your mouth, your gaze locked to his dark eyes. “I wanna have a baby” is all that comes out, breathy and longing and absolutely not casual like you planned.

You watch as he flicks the ashes off the cigarette and takes a drag, looking at you with an unreadable expression, then exhaling away from you before he says, “Sweetheart.. The fuck does that gotta do with me?”.

You roll your eyes at him, never threatened or intimidated or insulted by his tone. There is something you find oddly charming about his ability to be grumpy for hours on end and seemingly never cheer up, any pleasant surprise met with the raise of his eyebrows and a slow nod. “I wanna have a baby, now, I don’t wanna wait to meet some prince charming and get married and do all that shit.. I’m happy raising it by myself, I-”

“And?” he asks then, the creases around his eyes getting deeper as a look of confusion creeps up on his face, “Why exactly are you tellin’ me this and not your girlfriends?”. You take a moment to figure out how to damage control, how to reel the situation back in and not scare him off any more, while you watch the smoke rising from between his two fingers, one thick arm resting over his knee.

“I want you to get me pregnant, Joel” you finally say, running your hand up his thigh, unable to cover the expanse of it with your fingers splayed out, and the feel of his muscle tensing under your hands makes you clench around yourself, warm wetness starting to seep out into your panties, “Please? I promise I won’t waste your time”.

He’s frozen, looking at your innocent expression and the subtle slouch in your shoulders. It’s too fucking hard to resist you, your doe eyes and little pout, and there’s something in your tone that makes his shock die down quickly, getting replaced by a strange feeling of flattery. A feeling he’s not used to. Not to mention the disbelief he feels at the prospect of you wanting to get in bed with him.

He can surely find it in himself do this for you without getting attached, without worrying about this child day in and day out, or about you. He hopes he can, hopes that he's too old to worry now. He won’t bother you, he’ll stay out of your business unless you need something. It’s an act of kindness from him, really, and it’s about time he does something nice for someone other than Sarah, who’s been the only one on the receiving end of all his care and love for the past sixteen years. Besides, you're a nice girl, why wouldn't he want to do something for you?

And more importantly, why on earth would he pass up the opportunity to fuck you? To have you under him, to see what’s hiding beneath those black pants stretched to their absolute limit by the thickness of your ass, to hear what you sound like when you come, to know what you taste like, to know how your lips feel on his, not just on his cheek when you thank him for putting food aside for you.

You’re too pretty and too young for him, he knows that, he’s known that since the first time he felt that little flutter in his chest at the sound of you calling his name. Now all he can do is cook for you, leave it under tightly wrapped aluminum foil on the desk in the back office so it stays warm, knowing you’ll look for it there when you run away from your shift in search of something to eat, with a post it note on top, your name sharpied on it, waiting for you.

Just like he waits for you, waits for the moment he sees you every day and hears you say his name again. Hey Joel, the same as always, nothing special, but bubbly when everyone else seems intimidated by him.

He has a little crush on you, a massive one actually, one he hates to admit that he's had for a while now. Ever since you sat out on the stoop behind the restaurant with him for the first time and shared a cigarette you stole from Jermaine. The guy thinks he hides the pack well, but sometimes when Joel comes out to get some air and you’re the only other one who shared the idea, you fish it out from under the steps and slip one out, seldom enough to where he’s sure not to notice.

You teased him for something that first time, and he can’t remember what. A year has gone by, but the sound of your giggle at his disapproval has rattled around in his mind every day since. You frequently tease him, wait for him to roll his eyes, then attempt to tickle him before he grabs your wrist and holds it tight until his break is over, and he pulls you up to your feet, with his other hand on your waist, letting you in the door first before he shuts it behind him.

One time, when he held your eyes for a little longer than normal, he considered asking you out, but thought better of it and closed his mouth as soon as it opened. He wonders why you're single, how it's possible for a man not to want to make you his, why-

“Fuck”, he jumps a little as he lets go of the cigarette and flicks his wrist frantically, trying to soothe the part of his fingers burnt by the ashes creeping down to his skin as he sat there speechless and not paying attention.

“Well?” you ask as if nothing happened, watching his muscles flex under his t-shirt, “What do you say?”.

“Jesus” he whispers, a contemplative shake of his head as his eyes dart around. He should ask why you want him to do it, should suggest every other dumbass working in this place, should tell you no, that he’s too old for you and you’re too beautiful and full of life and too good for this place. But he can’t find it in himself to pass up this chance, and he knows he would fuck you right. He would be good to you. He wants to be good to you.

“That’s all you want?” he asks dryly, then a long exhale, staring into your eyes, “You want me to fuck you?”. Ten years ago he might’ve been more subtle, but he's lived too much since then, and trying to find ways to sugarcoat what needs to be said feels like a waste of his time. The sound of his deep voice makes you shudder.

“I just need you to come inside me,” you purr, nervous as hell all of a sudden, wrapping your finger in his hair, ”And I’ve wanted you to fuck me for a long time, so.. You can do whatever you want to me”. He glances at your lips as you talk, shoulders shifting under his t-shirt and a swallow passing through his throat. “So you’ll do it?” you ask after a moment.

He’s not passing up on this chance, already half hard at the mere idea of being inside you and counting how many goddamn seconds he has left on his shift. All he does is nod in response, his eyes going a little wide. “Thanks, Joel” you say then, as you stand up and brush off your pants, “I’ll send you my address, I need you over tonight, okay?”. You lean down to place a kiss on his cheek and disappear back inside.

He stays sitting out there a few minutes longer than he’s supposed to, regretting not jerking off in the shower that morning, running his hand down his face and trying to figure out how he can make himself last longer than a minute.

More than anything, it’s strange to see him like this, to see a new side of someone you’ve been around so much. It’s difficult to conceptualize the side of him that is private, intimate, personal. You've thought about him as just a man sometimes, not a coworker, and wondered what he might be like in situations like these. In bed. You wonder if you’ll see him differently after this, if it’ll be impossible to look him in the eyes at work when you’ve felt the size and shape of his cock, when you know what he sounds like when he comes, how he tastes, what he likes.

“So, uh-” he says, as you sit on his lap with his feet planted on the floor at the edge of your bed, “What's the best way to do this?”. He corrects himself after a second, “How do you wanna do this?”. He has his hands around your waist, big and warm, and your arms are wrapped around his neck as you lightly tug at his curls.

“I didn't really think that far” you giggle, and he chuckles softly, likely picking up on your nerves.

“Do you want me to kiss you?” he asks then.

“Um, yeah, sure” is all you manage to say before you feel his hand around the back of your neck, holding the weight of your head as he kisses you like you've never been kissed before. The scratch of his mustache against your skin is oddly soothing, and his lips are soft, his tongue molten and slippery as it sweeps into your mouth. You exhale into him until your lungs are empty, becoming entirely pliant in his hold, one hand steadying your back as you try to keep from collapsing into his chest.

A whimper escapes your throat, and he whispers, I got you, as he lays you down on the bed and rests his weight on his elbows, hovering over you and spreading your legs. His clothed cock pushes into you as he rolls his hips, forcing more of those little whimpers out and you can feel your pulse deep down where you buck your hips to grind on him.

He undresses you carefully, not leaving a single item of clothing on, wanting to see your naked form. He rolls you onto your stomach and takes the opportunity to let his hands and lips and tongue explore every part of your backside, from your ankles to your ass to your shoulders, giving a little extra attention to your plush cheeks, that he pulls apart and then lands a swat to on one side, making you giggle as he soothes his hand over the mark, already starting to sting from his strength.

You roll onto your back again and start to claw at his shirt. He reaches back to pull it off, revealing the muscular upper body you’ve wondered about for what seems like forever - years, now. A strange smile tugs at your lips as you look at him, at his arm flexing as he opens your knees to spread your legs, and he leans down to kiss you as he drags his knuckles up and down your center.

He pushes two fingers into you and you moan, loudly, too loudly. He shushes you, kisses you again as you writhe under him and grind against his hand until he finds the right spot, the one that makes you arch your back and start begging him to fuck you. He slides his fingers out and looks down to see a thick, glossy string hanging between his two of his digits, raising an eyebrow in what you assume is awe. “Told you I needed you tonight” you purr.

He huffs a little in response, “I can tell”.

He immediately finds your clit with the pads of his fingers, and rubs, slowly then fast, slowly then fast, as he unbuckles his belt with his other hand and shucks off his jeans, then his boxers, and lays on your side with his hard cock resting against your hip.

You start to squirm as he pushes his thick fingers inside you again, curls them a few times and slips them out, going back to massage your clit. “I know” he coos, “You want more, huh?”. All you can do is moan and nod, feeling your orgasm starting to pool at the bottom of your spine.

“It's okay, just let me take my time with you”, he rubs you a little faster, firmer, as he watches your breathing get erratic, “Wanna fuck you right”. He wants to watch you come, has been fantasizing about it for such a long time, wants to see it and hear it and feel it. “I’m gonna give you my cock soon, okay?” he murmurs, “Don't want it to be painful for you, my girl, need you to come for me first”. And something about his words gives you the last push you need, making you come as you whimper his name over and over.

He gets between your legs then, knocking his knee against yours to open you up, and leans over, taking his cock in his hand and nudging the leaking head into your opening. You can feel your thick, slippery wetness spill onto him, and you hear him grunt, fisting his length a few times with your slick and pushing in slowly, stretching you obscenely and filling you to the brim before he’s fully inside.

You shouldn’t be surprised at the overwhelming size of it, considering how he towers over you and is the only person you know who makes you feel tiny, but his cock rubs against every soft spot inside you and stimulates every nerve in your body, reaching a depth nobody has ever touched before.

He fucks you with deep strokes, reaching all the way to the end of you before he withdraws halfway and pushes back in, breathing hard and squeezing his hands around your hips so tightly you can feel the marks forming. You need him even deeper. “Harder, Joel, please, please“ you beg, “I’m so fucking wet and you feel so good, I- please, oh god, please”. Your voice is filled with desperation, and he wants to hear it every day for the rest of his life, the sound of you on your knees for him, wanting him and everything he can give you.

“Relax.” he says sternly, shoving you into the mattress with a thrust and holding you there with his strong hands, trapping you under him and forcing you to stay still as his cock slides in and out smoothly.

“I can’t, just hurry up, please, fuck me faster, I need it” you nag then, whiny and annoying, snapping your fingers.

He pauses then, leans over to stare down into your eyes, “Do you want my come or not?”.

“Ugh, yes”, you groan, letting out a few soft grunts as you try to shift around in his grasp and push down onto him harder somehow.

“Settle then”, his voice is stern again, commanding but patient, as if he has all the time in the world.

“Come on, Joel”, you stretch your back and try to escape his gaze, digging your nails into his shoulders and feeling your walls fluttering around him.

His hand wraps around your throat then, and his face is close to yours, that dark gaze unrelenting and demanding your attention. “Settle down” he says calmly, and holds you pinned right there until he feels your body relaxing, your slick dripping down his shaft and your nipples tickling his chest.

He flips you over and pulls you up and onto your knees, arms stretched out over your head as he slides all the way into you and the pressure on your cervix makes you try to squirm away. A useless endeavor. His hands rove around your ass cheeks and you hear a quiet shit above you, followed by an equally low fuck me as he squeezes your flesh, pulls it apart, then spits onto your asshole.

You feel him smear it into your skin with his thumb, whining at how he teases you, pushing his thumb into your tight hole slowly while he jacks himself with his other hand. You plead again, a long, drawn out please, Joel, then another oh god, please, a last more, more for good measure, and then he’s pushing the head of his cock into you, filling you with his thickness and finally inching his thumb into your ass. The intensity is overwhelming, and your eyes roll back as another orgasm nears.

“Give me one more, baby, come on” he coos as he reaches around and rubs your clit.

You respond, barely coherent and not wanting him to stop, “I don't- I don’t think it'll determine if it takes or not.. How many times I c-come”.

He gives you a few strokes, overwhelming and hard and squelching with your arousal before he says, “I read in a fuckin’ article that it helps, or, I don’t know, something”.

You shift your eyes around a little, wanting to laugh, “You read an article saying that orgasms increase your likelihood of conceiving?”.

“Just shut up and let me make you come, sweetheart,” he drawls, “Stop talkin’ so much”. His voice is low and husky as he rubs the back of your hip with one thumb and the other sinks deeper into your ass as you tighten around it.

“Why?” you ask, breathy and whiny, “All I need is your come, I- I’m not expecting-”.

He cuts you off quickly, whispering, “Jesus…”.

“I’m not gonna have sex with you if you don't enjoy it, okay?” he says, “So just shut up and take my cock like a good girl, I know you can, I know you want it”. His hand snakes up to find your tit, squeezing it before rubbing your nipple with two of his fingers.

“Besides, I know it makes you feel good, you can't hide it," he runs his palm down your back, smacks your ass firmly, then grabs it tight to stop the recoil, “You're about to soak my cock, I can tell.. Gettin’ all tense and shit”. He lifts your torso with his hand on your sternum, pulling you up and into him, shoving his face into your neck so you can listen to his growls while he fucks you.

Your orgasm hits you quite suddenly, and your head falls onto his shoulder as you pant. “How does it feel when I make you come? Huh, little bunny?”. You can’t answer, too blissed out and too fucked out to think, only mustering up a mumbled, uhhh. “Use your words now” he says, and flips you onto your back.

He lines himself up and slams back in, folding your legs and pushing your thighs into your chest as he pounds you, “Come on, baby, tell me, how’s it feel to come all over my cock?”. You grab at the muscles of his arms, his shoulders and his chest, trying to get words out but only managing an incoherent mess of moans. So good, Joel, so good, you whimper.

Then he wraps your legs around his waist and slips his arm under your back, and supports himself on his fist right beside your head, lifting you up to pound you harder, deeper, with more force as his thrusts gradually slow down and he breathes heavily, staring down at how your tits slide up and down your chest. “Say you want me to come inside you”, his voice is strained, and you can tell he’s holding back by the way his cock twitches.

You take a deep breath, and coo, as softly as you can, “Want you to be my baby daddy, Joel”, and watch his face contort, his eyes closing and feel his arm tightening its grip around you. You moan a little, eyes rolling back at the intensity. “Come inside me, please,” you beg, “Wanna be full of you, want you to give me a baby, your baby”.

He groans at that, then pulls you up into his chest so closely you can feel the sweat dripping down from his hair and onto your skin, and his cock pulsating as he fills you with his come. You can tell it's a lot by how he throbs inside you incessantly, and moans, long and ragged, while he digs his face into the crook of your neck.

He lifts your hips up, staying buried inside you, and shoves a pillow under you as a mix of his come and your slick runs down between your asscheeks, onto the cover. He wraps his hand around your throat again and growls, into your ear, “You’re mine now, little thing, all mine”.

I have ditched my taglists, due to the majority of tags not working, and have created a notifications blog instead. Follow Angelic Notifs and turn your notifications on if you want my new fics served directly to you!

#joel miller smut #joel miller fanfic #joel miller x reader #the last of us smut #joel miller #dom!joel miller #the last of us #joel miller x you #brat tamer!joel #joel miller one shot

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prince-kallisto · 2 months

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I wonder why each little bird has someone to sing to, sweet things to, a gay little love melody (*´∀`)♪🎶

This drawing is a little celebration for Crowley’s card that will be dropping soon on the 19th! The lyric above is from Sleeping Beauty 🎶 Crowley and Lilia give me the vibes of those older couples who always like to dance or sing along to music, no matter how bad or good they may be at it. The Magical Gramophone is in the background, which can apparently play any song from memory. What song would they listen to? 🤔

(More headcanons and reference image credits below the cut! ^_^)

Ever since the Crowley-Levan theory became more well known, I heard many say that it meant that there would be potential romantic undertones (past or present) between Crowley and Lilia, and…I genuinely thought that was part of the appeal! ｡ﾟ(ﾟ´ω`ﾟ)ﾟ｡ Levan theory or not, I really like them. What is their ship name? Crowlilia?? If anyone knows, please let me know!🐦‍⬛🦇 Crowlilia nation where are you…

I don’t really think about headcanon stuff that often, so I thought it would be fun to think of some random headcanons as I went along with the drawing!

It would be fun if Crowley had feathers on his body that are usually covered up by his suit (I absolutely adore Falin from Dungeon Meshi). I see some incredible JP artists draw Crowley with these puffier sort of pants, which I also love. I think it would be interesting if Crowley had a sort of greyed-pale, slight splotchy purple and yellow skin tone, like a deceased body that has reached the pallor mortis stage? (*ﾟ▽ﾟ*) It causes an uncanny and uncomfortable feeling whenever most students look at him…there’s just something wrong with him and no one wants to ask NAJXJSJD (I’d like to think that it’s blot related, and his long-term exposure to it has Not Been Good for him 💀)

For Lilia, I think he deserves some bat-like ears ^_^ I imagine him to have scars all over due to his past as a General. I ended up drawing his torso and legs less as thin as they are in canon by accident, but I kept it because I think he’d have a better diet now than his General days as well! (*ﾟ▽ﾟ*) I am jealous of Lilia,,,I’d like to dance with Crowley! (● ˃̶͈̀ロ˂̶͈́)੭ꠥ⁾⁾

I’m really no good at thinking of relationship headcanons haha, so I’d love to hear everyone’s ideas about them! Even though their silliness would technically be combined in a relationship, I feel like Crowley and Lilia could balance each other out? Despite all the antics they would certainly get up to, there’s a mutual acknowledgment of each other’s life experience and age. I can imagine them idly talking about parts of their own pasts over tea or a stroll in nice weather…maybe not huge chunks of backstory, but just little moments from their long lifespan that has stuck with them since. Crowley could potentially become more responsible because he’d be fretting over Lilia’s gaming time ANJDJXBD. Crowley would absolutely eat Lilia’s cooking and to him it would taste good…crows/ravens can eat pretty much anything like meat, berries, garbage and carrion so I don’t think Crowley would be upset about the chopped liver randomly inserted into his meal 😭 Even if they don’t really look it, to me they really give off the vibes of the typical image of an older couple! 🤣🐦‍⬛🦇

Reference Image

Models: Suzy Parker and Robin Tattersall

Photographer: Richard Avedon

#i am cringe but i am free #twisted wonderland #twst #twst headcanons #dire crowley #lilia vanrouge #twst dire crowley #twst lilia vanrouge #Crowlilia #Crowley x Lilia #my art #kallistopost #why am I always one of the captains of a rare pair HELPP 😭😭😭#plaindonut I miss you…I will draw you again one day I promise #also one of these days are really want to buckle down and learn how to color…#I don’t really know what I’m doing and I want to experiment with more brushes and learn more about color theory 🤣

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megabuild · 5 months

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"Is Etho's Lab Autistic?" - the greatest thread in the history of MCYTblr, locked by a moderator after 12,239 pages of heated debate,

NOT INTENDED to be a diagnostic resource or an "accusation/truthing" of Etho being autistic, but rather comparing autistic criterion as printed in the DSM-5 with various clips and common autistic experiences, since he has many autistic fans who relate to him. Also because it's a little funny and it's always fun to see more Etho clips. Some of these clips may overlap categories.

A: Persistent deficits in social communication and social interaction.

Unaware of social conventions or context; makes socially inappropriate comments (especially to strangers)

Bdubs: "One of the first things he said to me... Bdubs, you are always sick. I never get sick."

"I was at the DMV, for like, fifteen minutes."

(Gem: "Sometimes the things that come out of your mouth are... unexpected.") "That's how you get laughs, Gem."

Lack of theory of mind (difficulty or inability to recognise cognitive differences- assumes everyone thinks similarly and will understand any references or explanations made, no matter how particular)

"PLETHORA!"

"It's the same noise tigers make when they chuff."

"Feel free to boo if you wish." ("Boo!")

B: Restricted, repetitive patterns of behaviour, interests or activities.

Idiosyncratic or metaphorical language (language that has meaning only to those familiar with the individual's communication style) (also extends to a very particular or idiosyncratic sense of humour that appeals only to themselves)

"The Office is a good show..."

"Objectify them! Objectify them real good!"

"What's the deal with bathroom... peanuts...?"

"This is probably the greatest story you will ever hear in your lifetime."

"And he's like, Etho, don't go in there."

Echolalia (immediate or delayed repetition of sounds, words or phrases)

"Meow!"

"Deh-deh-deh!"

"We got go get wool!" (More mature jargoning than echolalia, but still)

Rigid thinking (difficulty or inability to understand humour, irony, or implied meanings)

"That's Not What That Is."

"I don't have social skills, Grian.."

Particular interests, often on unorthodox things or with uncommon levels of intensity

Sourcing exact clips for this one is tricky, but being a Minecraft YouTuber is one of the most autistic things a person can do imo.

Specifically, a redstone Minecraft YouTuber. Who invents stuff like the Nexus.

(On fireworks, something he's made frequent references to and also tried to make as a kid) "I'm like a kid in a candy store right now!"

Anxiety around change/transitional periods

"Whenever I'm recording a new series with a bunch of new people, the stress... I start to feel it in my stomach." (Gem: "Aw, that's anxiety!")

C: Other things I felt were relevant but couldn't decide on a category for

"I used to go out after rainstorms and pick (worms) up..." (Guude: "Would you let them go ever, or-") "No, I usually forgot about 'em... found 'em later all dried up..."

Cleo: "To be fair, Etho never claims he's a grown up, he just sort of.. giggles and runs away."

"Guys? GUYS?!"

Hiding in the bathroom at MCC

Vaxxed?

Mannerisms such as his "sleepy" or monotone voice from earlier years, or "whisper-shouting" rather than actually yelling.

Thanks

#mine #there is Def more but im sick of this just sitting in my drafts im getting like anxious over it. its driving me crazy.#everyone be so normal and nice to me i just think its funny.#ethotism

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pandorasprongs · 11 months

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JAMIE TARTT | if it weren't for second chances, we'd all be alone.

PAIRING: jamie tartt x fem!reader

WORD COUNT: 5.5k

SUMMARY: in order to advance her career, reader has to write a profile about her usual subject of interest: jamie tartt. if he'll let her.

WARNINGS: language

A/N: hello! this is one of my shorter one shots and not much to say about this one, but i hope you all enjoy and the title is from 'second chances' by gregory alan isakov!

"There is no fucking way I'm working with her!" You hear Jamie Tartt say from a distance, as Keeley looks past his shoulder with an apologetic look. You give her a small smile, but let out a long sigh.

You knew doing this wouldn't be easy, but you didn't exactly have a choice. You left your job at the Sun after finally coming to your senses when Trent Crimm left the Independent. If the execs were willing to let go of arguably one of their best sports journalists, what would that say about your own career?

It's been half a year since then and so far, you weren't having much luck. You were doing freelance work in the meantime — to be able to afford your rent at this point, — but you couldn't just let yourself wallow in pity.

You decided to contact a popular sports journal, asking if they had any openings for writers. Your work experience helped boost your appeal, but they said they needed a solid portfolio to consider you. Since the Sun never really let you write actual sports-related articles and few of your tabloid articles were of substance, you asked if there were any articles you could join as a freelance journalist to prove your skills.

The only one they had was one titled, "Rocky Road: Careers of the Premier League's Up and Coming" and they had a particular player you wanted to write your section on.

Contacting Keeley Jones was the easy part. You've had enough interactions with her that your name was recognizable, so you were able to organize a meeting. Your first move was apologizing for every article you've ever mentioned her in, and then quickly explaining your predicament. The KJPR owner — having been in your place of being looked down for things out of your control, — was very willing to help you get your article done.

The missing piece was just the subject of your article: Jamie Tartt. Your relationship with him was similar to the one you had with Keeley, but you doubt he'd be as forgiving.

Your suspicions were confirmed by his reaction to Keeley organizing all of this for you. You had hoped that maybe he'd forgotten all the stories you'd written about his one-night stands, scandalous statements, and failed football plays, but obviously not.

You continued to sit quietly in Keeley's office, pretending not to hear her trying to calm the football player down. After a few minutes, the pair returns and Jamie begrudgingly agrees.

For a moment there, you're ecstatic and you start organizing your schedule of events. You’ve already written a short introduction, but the rest of the article is meant to come from the player and close sources. You're also supposed to shadow him for a week to get a feel of his current state as a player in the league.

You try and explain this to Jamie, but look up to find him taking selfies on his phone. Keeley grabs his attention, but a few moments later, he's back at it, hiding his phone under the table this time.

You finally have enough. "Look Jamie, if you don't want to do this,—"

"You're right, I don't." He finally looks straight at you and you hold yourself back from smacking his smug face. You don't care how many articles say he's gotten better; you still think he's the same prick you wrote all those tabloids about.

"Jamie, we talked about this," Keeley interjects. "It'll be good for your career and Richmond's standing for next season, if you do this profile."

"Yeah, but you couldn't get any other writer?" Jamie turns to face her instead.

"Look, she really needs this article," The KJPR owner pleads with the footballer, but that only gets him more riled up.

His gaze lands on you once again, with a smug look on his face. "So her career is in my hands?" He lets out a laugh, before standing up from his seat. "Message me if you find a journalist who’s more than a mediocre tabloid writer." Jamie leaves the room without another word and you slump into your chair.

Keeley tries to get up and chase after him, but you grab her arm before she does. "It's alright, Keeley. I didn't expect him to say yes," you admit.

"Well, I can try and ask the other players if they're willing to do it. I don't suppose you've written anything for the tabloids about them, right?" She asks jokingly, but you shake your head. The journal was very specific about which player they wanted. It's Tartt or nothing.

You get up to leave, but not without thanking Keeley for trying. She says she'll send Jamie the introduction you wrote, and you appreciate the act but aren't hopeful. As you leave the office, you decide not to go back to your flat just yet and let your feet decide where you're going.

Of course, you end up at Crown & Anchor. It's nearing 6 pm by then and you decide to just have dinner there. You send a message to your roommate about it, before ordering two beers and fish & chips from Mae. You really shouldn't be eating out given how you're already scrounging for jobs, but after the second beer, it didn't seem like such a bad idea.

It's 9 pm the next time you check the clock and finally decide it's time to go home. You see Mae walking over to your booth, so you pull your wallet out of your bag. "I don't have it in me to look at the bill, just grab whatever from here and let's call it a day, yeah?"

"Someone's already paid for your meal." She responds, dropping the receipt in your palm instead. You scrunch your eyebrows before she points at someone walking towards the table. You look up and focus your eyes to find Jamie Tartt standing there. He slides into the other side and takes the receipt from you.

Before you can say anything, Jamie pulls out his phone and reads off his screen. "After aiding in AFC Richmond's promotion back to the Premier League, it's clear as day that Tartt — like his hair with the blonde highlights — is changing for the better."

You perk up when you realize what he's reciting. The football player continues, "Keeley sent the first few paragraphs you wrote. I'm not much of a reader, but this is alright."

You give him a small smile, still trying to sober yourself up for this conversation. "Thank you," is all you manage to say. “How’d you find me?”

“I didn’t. Just ended up at this pub and saw you.” You shrug at that explanation before Jamie continues, "I'll consider doing the profile," Your eyes widen, but he adds, "Only if you explain why the fuck you were so obsessed with me at the Sun?"

That's enough to shake you awake. "I was not obsessed with you!" You protest, a little louder than you intended, with Mae sending a glare in your direction.

You take a drink of water and take a deep breath before finally putting it out in the open.

"I have a degree in Journalism from Leeds," you start, prompting a confused look on the football player's face.

"The fuck does that have to do with all this?" He asks and you hold your hand up to stop him. He rolls his eyes but doesn't say anything, so you take the chance to continue.

"I have a proper degree from a good school. I have watched and played football all my life. My dad helped me join a league as a kid because of how much we loved the sport." You lean into the table, emphasizing the last part of your statement. If Jamie had arrived five beers earlier, you doubt you'd be admitting this to him.

"I played the game up until secondary school when I started getting serious about my writing. I decided to focus on that more, but I only knew how to write about football." You look up to make sure Jamie is still paying attention and find him looking at you intently.

You take a breath and continue, "I started writing for my school's paper about our team's games and when I went to university, I did the same thing. I've practically been a sports journalist for a decade, so I can proudly say that I'm a fucking qualified writer. I initially applied to be a journalist for the Independent,"

"What, like the Trent Crimm types?" Jamie interjects and you nod.

"But they decided to refer me to the Sun instead. The only things they'd let me write about were tabloids. As in, if I wrote anything about football or sports, it'll get rejected like that," You smack the table, startling Jamie a little, and sigh.

"The closest I could get was writing about rumors about the players, but even then, I'd only really get a small part at the back of the paper. The first time I got a section on the front page though, was when I wrote that article about you. The one about you getting caught with two girls in a karaoke room?" You remind him and he flinches at the reminder but doesn't say anything.

"Well yeah, that one. Anyway, I realized that if I wanted a chance to become an actual sports journalist, I had to get my stupid articles on the front page first and my most popular ones were always about you." You try and gauge Jamie's reaction to that, but he's doing a good job at keeping a straight face now. Or maybe you're just too drunk to properly determine his features.

"So I kept writing about you, whatever bullshit rumor or story I could get my hands on. I'd usually add some things at the end about your football performance thinking that an editor would see it and say 'Oh, she knows what she's talking about,'" You drop your voice an octave to try and mimic one of the executives you knew back then.

"But after a while, you started cleaning up your image and I started to realize that no matter what I did, no one fucking cared. I'd never get a chance to write what I actually wanted there, so I left." You lean back into your seat and let out a huff. "And now you're all caught up."

It takes a minute before Jamie finally speaks up. "I'll do it." A part of you still doubted that he'd agree, but with verbal confirmation, you allow yourself to internally celebrate. "But you better make me look good, yeah?"

"Yes, I promise," you reply, nodding your head furiously. "Oh, and thanks for paying for my dinner."

"Sure. I'll ask Keeley about our schedule next week." Jamie moves to get up but pauses for a second before jerking his head towards you. "Also, my hair is walnut mist, not blonde. You better change that in the article."

You wonder why this is what Jamie chooses to raise his voice about, but you agree nonetheless. He leaves you be and you sit there for a moment, still in shock. But once one of the servers comes to clean up your table, you finally get the sense to call your roommate to pick you up and share the news.

—

After a rough hangover the morning after, you check your phone to find a message from Keeley telling you Jamie changed his mind about it. You guess he decided not to tell her about what you said last night, much to your relief. You find another message from an unknown number.

I'm usually at the clubhouse by 10, so best to be there by then.

You were still too groggy to properly comprehend the message when another one pops up.

It's Jamie.

You save the contact on your phone before getting up and starting your outline. You already had a few questions lined up when you were planning the article, mainly topics that only he could comment on. One of those things is his career in the recent year.

After losing Lust Conquers All and being kicked out of Man City — arguably your biggest article, — there were fewer and fewer stories for you to write about the footballer, so your last few months at the Sun were pretty lackluster. You didn't have any reason to keep following Jamie's career, so you still had to fill that gap through your interview. But you decided to keep that till after you shadowed Jamie for the week since you also wanted to get the input of his teammates and coaches.

Over the week, you'd received mostly the same stories about the player. Massive prick, got sent back to Man City, came back and redeemed himself, and is now both a better player and teammate. It's nothing you hadn't heard before from second-hand sources, but at least you had direct quotes from his teammates for the article.

Watching training was the more exciting part of being at the clubhouse, especially getting to watch the improvements of the Richmond team as a whole. They seemed to be more united than before, probably because of the promotion high.

Your main focus was Jamie and you could tell that his teammates were right. Gone were the days of hogging the ball and only allowing himself to score a goal. He still had slight vibes of his old prick self, but you learned from the coaches that it was more of a tactic than anything. You even learned about their "signal," which they once did in a match a few months ago, you remember.

For the most part, you had avoided Jamie, still sensing a sort of resentment towards you. You couldn't blame him; he was already doing you a massive favor and it would be rude to get mad at him for justifiably being pissed off at you. It was only ever slight nods and greetings in the halls, and occasionally glances during practice.

Only at the end of the week did you finally have a conversation with him again to plan your one-on-one interview. Well, more of you enumerating your ideas and him only responding in nods.

"Is Sunday okay? Keeley said we can use one of the meeting rooms in KJPR for it." You're double-checking the message from the CEO as Jamie fixes himself up in front of his locker.

"Nah, too stuffy," is the first thing the football player says during the whole conversation. "How long's it gonna take?"

You had already lessened the number of questions for him based on the information you gathered from the team so that only left a select few. You didn't want to underestimate it though, so you tell him around 1-2 hours, depending on his answers.

"Then can't you find a restaurant or something for it? So I'm not starving the whole time." He asks, and you bite back from commenting on his tone. This is for the greater good. This is for the greater good.

"Sure, I'll find a quiet cafe for it, so no one will disturb us." You already had a few in mind that you used to go to when you needed a space to write.

"Okay, sounds good," Jamie responds and there are a few quiet moments before the footballer says his goodbyes. "Have a nice night."

"You too," You move to the side and the football player leaves without another word.

You exhale deeply and wait for a beat before heading into the hallway yourself. You start walking out of the building when you hear someone call out to you.

"Hi! I didn't know you'd be here today," You greet Keeley, who's rushing down the stairs.

"Oh, I'm just visiting Rebecca." She explains, pointing upstairs. "How's the article going?"

"It's going fine." You answer.

"Just fine? If Jamie's being an arse, you can tell me." You laugh but shake your head. Keeley seems to believe you and instead tells you, "Also, I've already contacted a photographer for Jamie's shoot. I'll send you his email, so you can plan it out with him. And, if you need any additional information, I'm sure I can help fill the gaps."

"Yes, thank you," You smile at her when a question pops into your head. "Do you know if Jamie's dating anyone right now?" Your first thought is to ask his possible partner for an interview, but you instantly realize your fault. "Wait, never mind, I shouldn't ask. That's way too invasive. Old habits die hard, sorry."

"It's alright," Keeley's quick reply relaxes you. "But no, I don't think he's seen anyone in a while."

That was more or less the end of the conversation with Keeley as Rebecca finally appeared and the two ladies went back to the latter's office.

—

The afternoon you're supposed to meet Jamie started rough. First, you realize you didn't charge your laptop the night before and now, it was completely dead. Next, your roommate had used up all the hot water, so you had to power through the freezing temperatures. Now, you're running late to the interview and sprinting through the street.

You finally get to the cafe and as you expected, there was only one other person there aside from the barista. You wave at the person at the counter, already familiar with them before approaching Jamie.

"12 minutes late," is all he has to say, as Jamie glances at his watch.

"Sorry, I just," you stop yourself from going on a whole monologue about how shit your day has been. "I got delayed, okay?"

Maybe he could sense you weren't in the mood to deal with his attitude, — when were you ever? — so Jamie instead informs you, "I ordered some food and the guy said he knew you, so he made whatever you usually get."

You try not to show your surprise at him paying for your lunch, but it wouldn't be the first time. "Thanks," The football player only nods, before crossing his arms.

You open your notebook and the voice recorder on your phone, "Okay, let's start."

You didn't expect this interview with Jamie to be so... fun?

You decided to start with the more surface-level questions like his expectations for the season, so it could break the ice a little. But after a sip of your tea ended up in the wrong pipe and launched you into a coughing fit, the tension was immediately broken.

Jamie started giving you more substantial answers and was more open about talking about his return to Richmond. How it really changed him, specifically Ted Lasso's effect on him and the club as a whole. You notice how soft his features had become talking about his coach and the team and you react with a smile.

After that and finishing your sandwiches, you shift the topic to his childhood and how it shaped him as a player now. You notice the sudden change in Jamie as if he's hesitant to start, so you reassure him, "If it's too much, we can change gears a bit. Talk about something else."

He shakes his head, "No, it's fine. There are just some things that I don't really want to share."

"That's fine. You don't have to. Just stick to the general stuff if you want." You pause the recording for a moment, trying to make Jamie more comfortable.

He pauses for a moment, before letting out a chuckle. "Do you think old you would be happy with letting me keep my secrets?" He changes his tone towards the end and you roll your eyes.

"Obviously not," you answer. "But I've been trying to bury that version of me."

"Why? You probably could've taken down the parliament with your skills." Jamie jokes and you finally break into a smile.

"Well, I never really used my skills for bigger and better things, did I? Just finding dirt on football players to make some money and build a mediocre reputation as a journalist." You answer honestly and the football player's expression changes.

"I didn't mean to be such a prick during the meeting." Jamie starts, but you shake your head.

"Nah, you had every right to. I wrote some pretty shitty things about you back then."

"Well yeah, but your life's kind of gone to shit since then, so now I feel bad." Your jaw drops and your eyes widen at his explanation and lightly punch him in the shoulder. Maybe the two of you weren't close enough for that kind of thing, but Jamie just laughed at your reaction.

"Fucking prick," you say in a joking manner. "Let's get back to the interview." You start the recording again, as Jamie recounts the first time his mum bought him a pair of boots.

He starts telling you about all the significant milestones over the years, and while you can tell he's holding back some things, — specifically about his dad, — you say nothing. It's the least you can do.

Maybe it's the fact that this has been the best part of your shitty day, but you started to see Jamie in a different light. Yes, everyone talked about how much he had changed, but this was the first time you saw it directly. You didn't even notice how late it's gotten till a brand new barista approached you about cleaning out the table.

"Shit, this is way past two hours now." You exclaim and check your notes to see that you've covered all the needed areas at this point. "But, I think we can end it now."

"Actually," you look back up at Jamie, who pauses to think. "Do you wanna get dinner? You pay this time,"

You don't have time to wonder about his reasoning for this and let your hunger take over. "Sure, but if I'm paying, I pick the place."

The two of you stand up and Jamie directs you to the door, "Lead the way," you playfully roll your eyes and start walking, with the footballer trailing behind you.

You head to a nearby Japanese restaurant, — one of the many perks of your flat's location — and settle down in a booth near the back. There were more people in this place and you weren't sure how comfortable Jamie would be being seen with you. You knew better than anyone how easily a scandal could be made from a simple picture.

The two of you pick out your meals and thank God it was an older lady taking your order who didn't recognize the footballer across you.

"Okay, why'd you want to eat dinner together?" You finally bring up.

The player just shrugs and leans on the table, "Thought I'd give you a chance to pay me back." You can't help but agree with that statement, so you let it go. Jamie continues, "Also, I'm interviewing you now."

"Oh God, don't tell me you're doing a profile on me." You joke and the player rolls his eyes.

He doesn't respond and goes back to his questions, "What got you into football?"

It was the first question you had asked him earlier. While he had given you a general answer initially, he added to it afterward, saying it was one of the few things he was sure he was good at as a kid. You decide to give him an honest answer.

"My brother and I don't have a lot in common. Didn't even feel like I had a sibling for the first part of my life. Till he realized I wasn't half bad at football. It was the only way to get a decent conversation out of the guy, and after a while, I ended up actually liking it." The moment you finish your answer, you realize you've never actually said it aloud to anyone.

For a brief moment, you think Jamie would say something serious, much to your dismay. You hated having to be emotional in front of other people. It was your job to pry at people's thoughts and feelings, not the other way around. But after building your writing career around the guy, you should've known he doesn't fare too well with feelings either.

"Think he's a fan of me?" He asks instead.

"Fuck no, not anymore," you're quick to reply and Jamie looks offended. You elaborate, "He's a Man City supporter. Fucking hates your guts now, honestly."

Jamie lets out a small laugh. "Runs in the family." The lady comes back with your food and that puts a hold on your conversation.

After a few minutes of eating, you finally break the silence. "You know I never actually hated you, right?"

Mid-slurp, Jamie looks up with a look of disbelief. "Really? You wrote all those articles and still don't hate me?"

"Yes!" You defend yourself. "I told you before. I did it for the job, nothing more. And objectively, you were a great player. You honestly have more of a reason to hate me than I do."

Jamie scoffs. "I don't hate you either. Annoyed? Yeah. Pissed off? Most of the time, but I never hated you."

You had already gotten pretty good at hiding your surprise about these revelations. "Well, I guess that settles it. We don't hate each other." You stick out your hand and Jamie looks at you in confusion for a section, before shaking it. The two of you laugh and continue your meal.

After paying, you end the night there and wave goodbye to Jamie outside the restaurant. If you from a year ago saw you hanging out with the footballer, she would've thought you'd lost your mind.

As you head back home, you have this weird feeling in your chest. Your whole job was finding ways to express things through words, but even then, you couldn't figure this one out. It's only when you get home and re-listen to your recording filled with jokes and exchanges that you realize.

You may or may not be developing a crush on the football player.

—

You hadn't physically seen Jamie since the photoshoot a few days after your interview and dinner with him.

You didn’t have a reason to anymore, since you had pretty much finished the whole article and already handed it to the editor for proofreading. They sent it back with minor notes, — just some grammar slip-ups and possible rephrasing, — which gave you hope that you might end up with a job when this is all over.

Getting the profile approved also gave you a chance to message Jamie after weeks of no contact, just to ask for his opinion on things. You didn't know if it was nerves or excitement making that pit in your stomach waiting for him to reply. All he had to say about the article was that he was glad you changed the "blonde" line in the introduction. Luckily though, it didn't end there. After that, he asked you what you thought of his new locker set-up.

That was the first of many times he would shift the conversation to random topics. You started spending your mornings and nights just messaging the football player. Sometimes he'd send pictures from training, saying it's extra material for the article and sometimes you'd send pictures from the cafe where you're writing, joking that you had new ideas for Jamie-related articles to send to the su!z

And when the rankings about the upcoming season came out and put AFC Richmond last, your first thought was to message him.

Fuck the pundits, honestly. You knew he didn't need any context, but you didn't expect Jamie to answer so quickly considering he was supposed to be at training.

I'm not worried. It's just poopy. You're not entirely sure what that meant, but at least it didn't seem to affect him so much.

I'm glad, then. You wait for a beat before sending another message. I know you'll do great this season. Why were you so nervous sending that? God, it felt like you were 15 again.

Thanks. Pretty sure 'tabloid writer you' is rolling in her grave.

You laugh to yourself as you reply. God, her head would be spinning knowing how I'm contributing to your already massive ego.

Jamie just sends a picture of him looking mad and you send one back sticking your tongue out.

A few days after, you send the published article to both Jamie and Keeley, along with a thank you for all the help. The latter answered sincerely, partnered with an invitation to the first game of the season, but of course, the footballer decided to answer jokingly.

Over time, you'd gotten over being so worried about interacting with Jamie. He was just another guy, even if he was an incredibly fit footballer for his day job. And now, you'd get to watch him play in the first match with Chelsea.

Despite your presence being welcomed by Keeley, Rebecca, the owner of Richmond, and Higgins, the Director of Football Operations, it didn't take a genius to realize how tense the three of them were at the match. Their club was the underdog of the season, so it was understandable to be nervous about the match, but you soon pick up on a different vibe involving an ex-husband and internationally famous football player.

"What do you think, then?" Keeley asks you when Rebecca leaves to try and convince Zava to join her team instead. "Do you think Zava's worth it?"

"Yes," you answer honestly, from the perspective of a sports journalist and a football fan in general. "Zava's objectively one of the best football players in the world, and his track record of wins outweigh his track record of diva moments."

"Well said," Higgins responds and you smile at him, before turning back your attention to the game.

When Rebecca comes back to your seats and explains the disastrous interaction, your reaction is the same as the rest of them: pure disappointment.

But as the game ends with a draw, you can't help but celebrate along with the rest of the Richmond fans. It may not be a win, but it was more than most people expected of the club, so that was something.

You join the other three briskly leaving your seats and avoiding the press conference of Zava until you hear him utter the name 'Richmond' in his speech.

"Holy fuck," you celebrate with Keeley and congratulate Rebecca since whatever she said to Zava seemed to work out in the end.

It was then that you felt a ping from your cell phone. You open it to find an email from the sports journal offering you a slot as a feature writer. You end up repeating, "Holy fuck," drawing the attention of the others.

Keeley glances at your screen and exclaims in happiness, "Oh my God. Congrats to you, too!" She goes in for a hug and despite still being in shock, you're quick to reciprocate it.

"Thank you, Keeley. Truly." Your face is just an expression of pure joy as you let go of her. As you continue to walk out of the stadium, you end up excusing yourself. Of course, you had to thank the main person for all this.

You find your way to the guest locker rooms and even from the hallway, you hear the cheering of the Richmond tram. They must've heard the news. You don't bother knocking and walk in to find what you expected: celebrating and rather sweaty football players. Well, there was one person who stood out.

"Jamie!" You call out to him from the door and the moment his somewhat solemn eyes landed on you, he made his way through the crowd to you.

"What're you doing here?"

"I just wanted to tell you that I got the job! I'm going to be a proper sports journalist." You inform him and his expression immediately changes to match yours. Catching you by surprise, Jamie envelopes you in a hug and you decidedly ignore his dirty kit as you reciprocate it.

"That's great," Jamie says, as he lets go of you.

You smile, before remembering the news earlier. "Oh and congrats, too! On the draw and getting Zava." The footballer's expression noticeably drops at the mention of the other player, and you finally get it. "You're not happy about getting him, are you?"

Jamie inhales sharply. "Rather not talk about that right now."

"Okay, sure," You back off. "But if it helps in any way, you'll still be my favorite player on the team."

Your heart skips a beat when Jamie gives you a cocky smirk, one that you used to despise. "Yeah? And you'll keep writing about me too at the new job, too?"

"It is my specialty. Plus, you're infinitely more interesting than Zava and his avocado farm." The two of you let out matching chuckles.

The cheering from the locker room seems to have died down and there were fewer and fewer people in the hallway. That's when Jamie takes a step forward closer to you.

When you don't pull away, he finally staets. "I was wondering, if you weren't busy,—"

"Yes," You interrupted him and hope you didn't do so prematurely. "If what you're about to ask is what's I'm thinking, then yes."

"Oh, you're fine giving me dirt on the other teams when you start your new job?"

You stop your expression from dropping and force a smile, "Yeah, sure."

But your disappointment doesn't last because Jamie starts chuckling, "I'm joking! I wanted to ask if you wanted to go out sometime."

You're not sure if you should be annoyed or ecstatic, so your reaction is a mix of both. "Oh fuck you, Jamie!"

The footballer's prick side is practically second nature. "If the night goes well."

You lightly shove his shoulders before answering, "Sure. As long as it's a private place. Those tabloid writers can be so annoying sometimes." You flash a playful smile at Jamie, which he's quick to mirror.

#jamie tartt #jamie tartt x reader #ted lasso #jamie tartt fanfiction #jamie tartt imagine #jamie tartt fic #jamie tartt fluff #ted lasso fanfic #jamie tartt fanfic #jamie tartt reader

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elysiansparadise · 4 months

Note

Hi elysian, can you do Mars in the 2nd house please ❤🤗

Mars in the 2nd house

Here we find natives who value themselves highly. They are aware of their abilities and favorable points, so they can become sensitive to criticism, or perhaps more sensitive than they would like. They are excellent at setting limits and will always defend themselves easily, since it is not their style to allow themselves to be trampled on by others. They have a strong sense of self. They take their time to evaluate whether a situation suits them or not and once they make a decision, they stick with it. They are people who rarely hesitate when making a decision. Since this is the house of all kinds of values, the presence of Mars makes them people who value actions more than promises, making them even a little skeptical of them. They can be somewhat impatient when they want something but that doesn't mean they stop working hard for it. They are naturally competitive, especially when they really like something and they hold pride in their victories. They are very protective people with those they love and can have tendencies toward jealousy. Values such as independence and honesty are very important to them.

This position of Mars can challenge you to have money quickly, but also to spend it just as quickly with things that would bring you momentary pleasure, so it is important to work on it using other qualities of this placement. One of these qualities is being quick when making financial decisions. Be clear about your priorities and evaluate what to spend on and what not to spend on. These natives like the idea of being financially independent and not having someone behind them telling them what to spend on and what not to spend on. They tend to be very ambitious people in this area, wanting to have a lot of money for everything it would allow them to do. These people have the idea of hard work deeply rooted, so they do not usually wait for things or particularly goods to magically find them, always being on the go so that money flows into their lives. They are people with a very entrepreneurial attitude.

They are people endowed with a lot of sensuality and physical attractiveness. Their drive complements their beauty and they go for it when they really like something. They are too passionate deep down, they just know perfectly well when and especially with whom to be passionate. One of the biggest turns of these people is those with stability in as many senses of their life as possible. People who work hard for what they want and even after having it, value it even more. Consistency is something seductive and appealing to them. Just as they are, seductive, that is something they really like about other people, especially if they are only seductive with them. Exclusivity, that they make them feel unique and valued. They focus a lot on making everything related to being with their person of interest pleasant, from courtship, before sex, sex itself, to aftercare. It can give them great pleasure to notice that they are pleasuring their partner effectively.

#mars in the 2nd house #mars #2nd house #natal chart #birth chart #mars in the 2nd #mars in 2h #mars in 2nd house #natal placement #astrology #astro note #astro observation

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neptuneiris · 8 months

Text

brooklyn baby (02/?)

we can go back to New York

pairing: rockstar!aemond × fem!reader

summary: you finally see the sexy guitarist again and after going through a disappointing time, things get interesting at a party where the whole band has been invited by Baela.

word count: 8.2k

previous part • next part • series masterlist

hi besties! here's the second chapter i'm so excited for you to read:) can't wait to read your comments, thanks for the amazing reception to the story, i love you guys! enjoy!

warnings: alcohol, smoking, kissing.

If there's anyone who hates the period a lot, it's you.

In desperate times many girls are relieved when it finally happens to them, fortunately you've never had a scare. But you feel completely sick and can't do anything when those days come every month.

Being irregular, you don't know exactly when it will happen, you've tried calculating, assuming and so on, you've even installed period apps, but nothing works. However, you should have known it was coming since you felt slight cramps this morning and since you started getting pimples two days ago.

But with so much to do from college, you didn't have time to prepare. And also a certain guitarist from a certain band wouldn't leave your thoughts alone sometimes.

Since that kiss almost happened, the next morning you were stalking him on Instagram, which is the only social media he has, compared to the remaining members who have Instagram, Twitter and TikTok.

But he's not even active.

The photos he has are only of the band promoting the tour, albums and songs, or also photos of some cities he has visited. He only has two posts with his brothers and cousins, where they are more like random photos before concerts. He has very few pictures of him and you can't even see his face since he doesn't see the camera, in all of them he plays the guitar and nothing else.

There is nothing about his day to day life really, just music. Also you notice that he posts photos every few months, although lately he has been posting more consistently due to the concerts, but it's all about the band.

You go into Aegon's account, trying to find Aemond in his pictures where he's not doing anything related to his guitar, but there's nothing of him if it's not that way. You see how Aegon takes funny pictures and uploads videos with his brother and cousins where they laugh and make jokes, but none of it shows him.

The same on Jace, Luke and Daeron's account, there's nothing from Aemond if it's not band related.

Instantly this catches your attention more, guessing that he most likely doesn't really like social media and keeps himself as private as possible, seeming so different to you, so mysterious and appealing in a ridiculous way simply because of that.

And yet he has many followers, which is understandable, it is obvious why in addition to his music, when he follows at most three hundred accounts, all of them music accounts, he also follows his siblings, his cousins and other people who must belong to his team.

You let out a groan and finally leave Aemond's account in peace, sinking your face into your pillow, feeling the cramps stronger than before, so you try to calm down and seek to feel more comfortable so you can let the pills take effect.

And even when the cramps are less, you still don't feel energetic or up for anything, entertaining yourself on your phone or watching TV, not wanting to leave the warmth of your bed because you really feel terrible.

So when you least expect it, you fall asleep. When suddenly, someone's scream wakes you up.

"Y/N!"

You raise your gaze instantly, startled, as you see frightened and confused Rhaena at the door of your room, entering, watching you in horror.

"W-what... what are you doing here?" you stare at her between irritated and confused now, still sleepy.

"What are you doing like that?" she asks you incredulously and on the verge of collapse to then watch as she looks down the hallway, "Baela, hurry up! She looks awful!"

You watch her seriously.

"Wow, thanks."

"What? What happe-oh shit," Baela also appears, watching you instantly in horror and shock, "W-what... what are you doing?" she looks at you blankly.

"What are you guys doing?" you ask back, irritated, "How did you get in?"

"It can't be, have you forgotten?" Rhaena looks at you incredulously, "Tonight is the concert of your sexy guitarist."

"Yes," says Baela, "Tonight," she repeats terribly serious, "Now can you explain why you're not ready? We have to go now."

"I'm not going," you say grumpily, laying your head back down on your pillow lazily.

"What do you mean you won't going? Are you crazy?"

"You better be kidding me."

"You guys... I'm having a horrible headache right now and I feel like if I get up now I'm going to throw up, not to mention that every breath I take I feel more blood coming out, so could you please leave my room quietly and let me continue sleeping in peace?"

The room falls silent for a moment.

"Oh no, don't tell me that," you hear Rhaena say disappointedly.

And then you listen as Baela complains, also disappointed.

"And you feel very bad?"

"Very," you answer her without hesitation.

"It's your first day?"

"Yes and I feel like shit."

"But Y/N... you can't miss it," Rhaena says worriedly.

"The sexy guitarist gave you the free tickets to see you again," Baela insists too, "I understand you're sick but wouldn't it be rude if you didn't go?"

You let out a huge groan against your pillow and then look at them with a pained expression.

"You think I haven't thought about it too? Of course I have," you let them know sadly, "I'm just as upset as you are, but what am I supposed to do? Everything hurts, I feel awful and besides you want me to let him see me like this with all my greasy, zitty face?"

Baela and Rhaena exchange a look.

"She's right," Rhaena tells her with a look of pity.

And again they both focus on you.

"Okay, we get it," Baela says resignedly, "So is there anything you want to send the sexy guitarist to say?"

"No," you tell her instantly, confused, "I already feel bad enough about not going. I don't want to be so cynical as to tell him I couldn't go but still thank him for the tickets."

And without saying anything else, your cousins don't insist but they are still disappointed since they will have to go to the concert without you.

You really wanted to go, you wanted to see him again and you wanted to spend time with him again like last time, to get to know him a little more and maybe... just maybe, to find out what else could happen between the two of you.

But now, once your cousins leave, you can only go back to trying to sleep, wanting to forget about the world for a while and not think about him or the concert that will happen in another hour that you couldn't attend.

So the hours pass, the sun in New York begins to set and the nightlife in the city begins, which is what characterizes it so much. And yet by the time severe hours have passed, you are still asleep, very tired and your period is not helping you to have any energy, submerged in a deep sleep.

When around two o'clock in the morning, you are again awakened and your peace of mind is interrupted by feeling absolutely nothing. And those responsible? Your cousins again, of course.

"What?" you say completely sleepy, closing your eyes tightly as the light hits you directly when are turned on.

"Wake up, you have to hear this!" squeals Rhaena excitedly, followed by Baela, both invading your bed, each lying on your sides, while you grunt and groan, sinking your face back into your pillow.

"Leave me alone," you plead weakly.

"Stop sleeping already," Rhaena shakes you, "I bet you've slept all day!"

"As I should."

"Y/N, seriously, you must know this," Baela insists as well.

"What? What thing? Talk now so you can leave me alone," you say irritably, still with your eyes closed.

"How mean you are," Rhaena says with a pout

"Let her, she's on her period, it's understandable."

"Then tell her!"

"The sexy guitarist asked us about you."

And that's more than enough for sleep to leave your system and you open your eyes, so you instantly turn to watch your cousins carefully, brushing your hair out of your face and looking completely surprised and now very interested.

"What?" you inquire, watching them intently.

"Yes!" squeals Rhaena excitedly, nodding, "And Baela made out with Jace," she adds innocently.

You open your eyes wide.

"What!?"

"It just happened," Baela shrugs, with a look of superiority, amused, "It was amazing, by the way. We exchanged numbers, too."

"And Aemond?" you ask more than attentively.

"Well, we were talking to Jace and Luke already by the time the after party was over. We were at the bar when Aegon joined us and he was coming with Aemond, so..." Rhaena laughs excitedly, "Jace and Luke were called I think by their manager, so we stayed with the two of them."

"He didn't talk at all, he was just ordering drinks," Baela clarifies.

"Yes and... when Aegon also ordered a drink, he did talk to us, but to ask us about you."

"He asked us where you were and we told him you couldn't come because you were sick."

"And he just nodded and continued drinking," Rhaena finished.

You avert your gaze from both of them for a moment, focusing on your TV, and then dropping your head back onto your pillow, your gaze resigned, so you let out a long sigh and go back to blaming your period for not being able to go tonight.

"But he looked disappointed, we know," Baela assures you with a small smile, "I even felt bad for him."

"Are you sure?" you ask her not really convinced about that.

"Yes, very. If he wanted to hide it, it didn't come out."

You let out a long breath again, bringing your hands to your face, wanting to let go of the frustration somehow, but you can't.

"Oh Y/N, come on, cheer up," Rhaena tells you without wiping off her smile.

"Yes, this is not the end," Baela adds.

"It's not the end?" you repeat confused, "This was literally my last chance to see him again and I couldn't go."

"Stop it, drama queen," Baela says to you again amused, "You've already forgotten Jace?"

"What about him?"

"That he and I are in contact now, silly."

"So?"

"God, I can't handle her," you hear her say to Rhaena.

"Just tell her. That way we'll make her feel better."

"Yeah, just tell me so i can keep sleeping," you tell her too.

You listen as she lets out a long breath.

"The band will be taking a short break. Their last concert will be next Saturday here in Manhattan and Jace has invited us."

She finally tells you and even though you don't show it, you feel interested to hear such news.

"So now you get to see your sexy guitarist," Rhaena tells you with a mischievous tone.

After an exhaustive search through your closet, making combinations with a lot of shirts, skirts, pants and shoes, you finally put together your perfect outfit.

Thank God your period is over and another horrible week of stress, frustration, worry and this time pain is over, until it's finally time to have a good time. And since you're going to the concert, you decide to choose your all black outfit.

You choose a black skirt, a black sleeveless shirt that exposes part of your stomach, black high boots and a black blazer on top. The only colored thing you bring with you is your small white hanging bag. (click)

Your make-up is not too much, but it is elaborate, because you really want to look good. So at the end you apply a matte red lipstick and style your hair in light waves, leaving it completely loose.

You choose silver jewelry and in the end you love the result, seeing yourself with a little smile in your full-length mirror, happy and excited. Then you head to Baela's apartment, which is actually in the same building and in the same hallway as yours.

You both go to NYU, only she studies fashion and you study business management. You always wanted to live alone, you love your privacy and having a place to yourself, so you got your apartment with the help of your parents and Baela joined you shortly after, although it's really like you both live together.

Rhaena just started college months ago and lives with her roomie, Sara, in the dorms provided by the university.

"Wow."

That's the first thing Baela says to you when she opens the door to her apartment and looks as ready as you do.

"Yeah, wow to you too," you tell her laughing.

"Oh my god-you look so hot," Rhaena says to you, appearing behind Baela.

"Thanks, you too, both," you assure them, "So are we leaving or what?"

"In a moment, I'm waiting for Jason to answer my messages," Baela tells you with her phone in her hand.

"Jason?"

"Lannister."

"Jason Lannister?" you repeat confused, "Your friend the rich guy who lives in that huge, fancy apartment in Upper East Side?"

"That same one. He's having an party tonight and I asked him if I could bring the band after the concert is over. The after party will only last an hour and Jace had said that after that they wanted to go out and celebrate."

"Oh," you nod, "Well, that sounds great," you say, as inevitably a wave of excitement washes over you.

"Oh-he has replied!" she says excitedly, her gaze fixed on her screen, "And he said yes!"

"Great! Now let's go, I want to see Luke," Rhaena says desperately, ushering you both out of the apartment.

Driving doesn't take as long as last time, as you literally crossed half of Manhattan in order to get to Brooklyn and also half of Brooklyn in order to get to the club where the concert was.

And once you get to the club, finding parking is a bit difficult but you make it and finally Baela hands the three tickets to the security man to let you in. Once inside, you get the feeling that there are more people than there were in Brooklyn, seeing all the girls very excited and rushing into the club to get to the front of the stage.

You see Baela texting with Jace and the three of them make it to the front, in a seemingly exclusive section with a great view of the entire stage where they are allowed in after she shows security her phone screen.

"What did you show them?" you ask confused and curious.

"Some messages from Jace," she says with a certain superiority, making you laugh and shake your head at the same time.

Rhaena insists that the three of you take selfies and so you do, killing time as the concert begins. The minutes go by, the place slowly starts to fill up, security brings order, everything is ready on stage and after the lights are turned off for a moment, calling everyone's attention, the concert finally starts.

The first to come out is Aegon, clearly, greeting the whole audience and the other guys follow him, causing the excited and euphoric screams of all the girls.

Instantly your gaze focuses on him, on Aemond, making you smile a little as you watch him focus totally on the music, not even looking much towards the audience, taking a seat at one of the speakers, completely focused on his guitar. And again you become totally absorbed in him.

He looks so handsome, like it's not an everyday thing, with his black pants and a plain white t-shirt, making his black electric guitar stand out, while his hair looks as good as ever.

And the way he plays his notes, the way his face concentrates and the way he lights up the occasional cigarette during the concert, he looks completely sexy.

And you are not the only one who notices these details, you see how some girls around you focus the camera of their phones on him, you also hear how some of them scream his name or go crazy in his solos, all wanting to get his attention.

But then again… Aemond doesn't react much with his audience and only gives head gestures, that being enough for him and stay focused on the music. This especially catches your attention a lot, as his behavior is totally different from Aegon or Daeron.

In fact you were hoping that he will manage to see you in the whole audience, as Jace and Baela although they are not far away but not too close either, both still exchange glances and he especially focuses a lot on your cousin most of the time.

Then comes another solo from Aemond, looking extremely sexy in the way he focuses on hitting his notes perfectly, filling the place with more screams. And you watch in admiration, because even if you wanted to, you couldn't play guitar like that.

You see how there is a man with a camera taking pictures of everyone and him especially at that moment on stage, probably being the band's photographer. There are lots of lighting effects, the whole club looks great and they all put on an amazing show, since it's the last one.

You sing and dance along with your cousins, really enjoying the moment, since even though you were suffering all the week before because of your period, you still started listening to their songs and learned them.

You take more videos together, you also take several videos of everything and you may have focused on recording him a little bit more sometimes, unable to help it.

When it's time to finish.

Aegon again takes charge of dismissing the whole band, causing screams and applause from the whole audience towards them, all the girls screaming and throwing bracelets and necklaces on stage. The five of them say goodbye at the same time, Aemond again without showing much emotion and it's all over.

The after party takes place right there, as the club has its own separate pub-like bar section, so the girls with tickets to meet the band are guided, among them you too with your cousins, by security guards to a huge door that will take them there directly.

Upon entering the pub, everything is empty except for the bartender and more security people. The bar is also free and all the girls start getting ready with their t-shirts, caps and posters more than ready.

"I'll meet Jace before he comes out. I'll be right back," Baela says to Rhaena and you, visibly excited.

It's not as if she can be stopped, as she quickly heads down a hallway where you assume must be those break rooms where everyone in the band keeps their stuff while they tend to the fans and where they must all be now.

"Do you think Baela will take him to his apartment when Jason's party is over?" asks you Rhaena with a knowing look.

"Don't even doubt it," you assure her.

Then finally the band starts to come out, causing the screams of all the excited girls, quickly wanting to head towards them, but security instantly starts to bring order, controlling everything and asking all the girls to line up and wait their turn without scandal.

You don't move from where you are, but watch everything carefully, wanting to find Aemond. But it's just like last time… everyone shows up but him.

"Done," Baela suddenly appears with a small smile, "Jace sends his greetings."

"Wow sis, you didn't even sweat," Rhaena tells her amused and you let out a loud laugh which makes Baela look at her serious.

"Very funny."

"And what else did he tell you? Everyone is going to Jason's party?" you ask her interested.

"Everyone or Aemond?"

"Aemond," you answer reluctantly.

"Yes, everyone is going."

"And where is he?" asks Rhaena confused, watching the guys with all the fans, "They are all except him."

"I don't know, he was in that room with everyone, he looked… serious and bored."

"He's hiding, like last time," you say, "Eventually he'll have to come out."

"And you're going to talk to him?" says Rhaena excitedly to you.

"I think so," you nod to her.

"She's going to talk to him," Baela says in affirmative mode, serious and threatening.

Then Rhaena is the one who wants to approach Luke, so she asks you to go with her, while Baela takes the opportunity to order something from the bar, so when you start to wait in line, the wait is long.

Rhaena suddenly starts talking to some girls who are behind you both, also waiting, so you entertain yourself on your phone, killing a little more time, although from time to time you participate in Rhaena's conversation with those girls about the band, their favorite songs and so on.

When you briefly inspect the pub, you notice a platinum-haired person starting to join in, catching your attention. You step aside, as Rhaena obstructs your view a bit, and then finally there he is.

As soon as he leaves the hallway, a bunch of girls rush towards him, all smiling and excited, clearly happy to finally see him, to which the security guys instantly bring order and he starts signing and taking pictures with them.

You watch everything with a small smile, inevitably starting to feel nervous and you don't understand why, since he hasn't even seen you and doesn't even know you are here, but his presence in the same place as you already makes you feel that way.

At that moment your mind starts to plan what exactly you will do to get closer to him, telling yourself that you can choose a poster this time and have him sign it for you, but just thinking about it and such a simple action already makes you terribly nervous.

You think that Rhaena or Baela might come with you, but you don't even have the slightest idea how to start the conversation or what exactly to talk to him about, fearing that your nerves will betray you and you'll act like a fool.

So you also think you might as well do nothing and wait for a miracle to happen and he will notice you.

You let out a long breath, since of course you can't decide to do nothing if the man gave you free tickets and you didn't go to the concert, so this is the least you can do, however, you feel very nervous and you also start to get frustrated.

"There's finally your sexy guitarist," Rhaena says to you suddenly, excited, looking in the same direction as you, "Are you going to go to him?"

"Later, I'm just feeling nervous," you confess to her.

"Relax. When he sees you, he'll probably feel as nervous as you do, too, so you won't be the only one."

You frown.

Aemond nervous? You don't think he's nervous at all.

You can't focus on him anymore because the line starts to move faster, so now you focus on helping Rhaena with the pictures and also to want to see her shyly flirting with Luke, who is also shyly flirting with her.

Rhaena and Luke's moment unfortunately passes quickly, but he still tells her that he will see her at the party, in a whisper obviously, and then the following girls come by to meet him and talk to him.

Then again you focus on Aemond, but you are surprised to see that he is no longer with all the fans around him, he has simply disappeared.

Confused, you start looking around, not understanding where he has gone, bewildered, as it was only a brief moment when he was attending to fans and he should stay longer or not? When you are directing your gaze in all directions, you finally focus on that hallway where he had come out before, finding him.

However, what you see is definitely not what you expected.

You see how he heads to the men's restroom, which is normal, but what catches your attention is how a girl or rather a fan goes after him, not hesitating to follow him. And then they enter the restroom together, as he closes the door behind him.

And it's clear what they both went to do, you're not stupid.

You continue to stand there for a few more moments, staring at the closed door, feeling slightly surprised as you really didn't expect to see him like this and you also begin to feel disappointed.

Unable to help it, sadness and anger come over you, as you also feel discouraged now.

With a sad and disappointed look, also a bit serious, you avert your gaze to head towards the bar, all the while biting the inside of your cheek and trying not to let your emotions show too much on your face, but you cannot.

As you take a seat on the stool, you watch as your cousins are with Aegon, so when you inevitably start to think more about it, disappointment washes over you as well along with everything else you're feeling.

You had expectations of him, but you never expected him to be that kind of guy, that's why you feel so disappointed and you can't help it, not even having the energy to be here anymore.

That's why he offered to give me his merch inside that room in Brooklyn.

You think, since that's why you feel angry, not because you saw him with another girl, but because he wanted the two of them to be alone that one nigh and it happened, the two of them kissed, but what would have happened if Aegon hadn't interrupted you? Probably you two would have fucked, as was his purpose.

You start to feel really bad about that and get frustrated with yourself, because even this you should have expected, yet you didn't even though it was too obvious.

He is absolutely handsome and plays in a band, so he meets a lot of girls almost every day and every single one of them he has at his feet, so… who would be fool enough to say no to him? No one.

You were just going to be another one of the crowd.

You say to yourself, really sad, disappointed and upset.

You want to get out of here but you continue to wait for your cousins at the bar, order a drink just to kill time and try not to think about him, knowing perfectly well that you must have a very cold face.

You let out a long breath, continuing to wait, wait and wait, until Baela and Rhaena appear.

"Hey, did you talk to the sexy guitarist?" asks Baela, excited and interested.

"Yes," you lie, trying to put on your best possible face.

"And what happened?" asks you now Rhaena, also excited.

"I'll tell you later."

Luckily they don't insist and Baela again turns to Jace, so Rhaena stays with you, showing you the photos and videos she took of the concert, also the ones from a few moments ago with Luke, asking her which one is the best to post on her Instagram stories.

You're with her for a while, when you raise your gaze to observe the whole pub for a second, although you unconsciously look towards that hallway as well, when then your breath is cut short and you see how Aemond comes out of there to join the inside of the pub again, with Aegon by his side.

You must have averted your gaze the second you saw him come out, for suddenly Aemond casually glances over to where you are, both of your gazes crossing at that moment.

You don't manage to read his gaze, as again nerves and disappointment wash over you, so you instantly avert your eyes from him and focus back on Rhaena, trying to not let his gaze on you affect you.

However, you can feel how he continues to watch you, his burning gaze completely on you, but you don't respond to him anymore, in fact you feel more the need to get out of here now that he has already noticed your presence.

Out of the corner of your eye you watch as he attends to more fans, while at the same time talking to Aegon, who also attends to fans, but every now and then… you feel his gaze on you again, one that was screaming for you to watch him as well, but you didn't.

"The girls are already leaving."

Rhaena tells you, pointing to the doors and watching as the guards ask the fans who have already had their moment with each member of the band to leave.

"I'll go talk to Luke, I'll be right back," she tells you, starting to get up from her stool.

"Actually," you get up too, stopping her, "I'll go ahead to the party. You and Baela are going with Jace and Luke right?"

She frowns.

"Yes, but…

"Great. I'll see you guys over there then, you tell Baela please."

You start to walk past her, heading towards the doors.

"Wait, Y/N," Rhaena stops you, grabbing your arm, "Are you okay? What happened?" she asks you softly, confused, "I thought you wanted to be near Aemond, did something happen with him?"

You bite your lips, hesitant, as you really don't want to lie to your cousin, but you also don't want to tell her and look so dramatic about it, as it has nothing to do with you but you still feel disappointed and like a fool.

"Yes," you finally tell her, in a whisper "But I'll tell you later."

"You promise?" she looks at you, not entirely convinced.

"I promise," you assure her, "I'll see you there."

She has no choice but to let you go, telling you to call her in case of anything, so you nod and are finally able to walk away, starting to walk out of there with your car keys in hand, not letting go of that burning stare on you until you leave the pub.

At first you thought about deciding not to go to the party, sounding like a good plan for you, however, you were well aware that Baela would kill you and probably never forgive you if you decided such a thing, so now you are here, in Jason Lannister's luxurious apartment and with a bunch of other college students enjoying the party.

As you walk in, you greet a few people you know and also Jason, who asks you about Baela, Rhaena and those guys in that band she told him she was bringing.

You catch up with him, telling him they shouldn't be long and then you notice how all the people here are Baela's friends and also studying fashion, except Jason is studying law, so there are more people from that faculty as well.

You decide to help set up the beer pong tables, just to entertain yourself and start enjoying the party, while you talk to Jason and his friends, when not too long after, a half hour maybe, your cousins with them finally arrive.

You watch them almost from the other side of the huge apartment, watching as Baela greets her friends and introduces the band, where Aegon, Daeron and Jace look more than ready to start enjoying themselves, while Luke stays more calm and relaxed with Rhaena.

And even though you didn't want to, you still inevitably focus on him.

He closes the door behind him with a completely relaxed and unconcerned expression and posture, to your bad luck already having a cigarette on his lips, as he watches the whole party around him, now wearing a different black t-shirt.

And of course, his arrival starts to draw the attention of all the girls at the party and not only on him, on all of them, seeing them with a few small smiles and more than interested.

You avert your gaze, deciding not to make a big deal out of it, continuing to place the plastic cups on the table, though really, it's only a matter of time before Baela finds you, bringing them all with her.

With Jason at your side, she introduces them to him and he starts talking to them, while you continue to set everything up, deliberately ignoring his burning gaze when he sees you, not letting it get to you.

And after that it's only a matter of time before the real party starts.

People start dancing and your cousins along with all of them take a seat on some couches, starting to drink, so it's only a matter of time before Aegon gets up and now he's in a corner making out with a girl mercilessly, just like Jace and Baela, this surprising you but you're very excited for her.

Rhaena and Luke are also in a corner close together, but they're both talking, both with shy but willing little smiles, so you're sure that by the end of the night, something will have happened between them.

And at the end, Daeron and Aemond are still sitting on the couches, both drinking, with one girl already talking to Daeron, both very flirtatious, but you don't approach him.

Wherever you move in the apartment, you feel his gaze on you, always. However, you drink and enjoy yourself, although you don't go over one beer either, since you have to drive. But you admit that his gaze on you makes you very nervous and as much as you don't want to give it any importance, you can't.

Until one moment when you are talking to Jason, just for once you decide to return his gaze, and that's what happens, you look at him and he is already watching you so intensely and with a look between serious and curious.

But the moment doesn't last long, because just when you both exchange glances for two seconds, suddenly a girl appears and takes a seat next to him, starting to talk to him, her intentions clear, so he looks away from you to her.

You look away, finishing what's left of your bottle of beer with just one gulp, then you leave the empty bottle on the kitchen island and decide to go out to the balcony for some fresh air, as the place is getting more and more crowded and it's starting to feel suffocating.

Once outside, you enjoy a bit of the quiet, even though you can still hear some music although this doesn't bother you, as you observe the view offered by some New York skyscrapers around you, looking beautiful and eye-catching.

You don't know how long you last there, but you enjoy it, wanting to take another moment before going back to the party. When suddenly… you must have expected that the moment of the night would come for you and Aemond.

The doors open letting in more music and you turn around, this getting your attention, when again nerves and shame come over you, seeing that it's Aemond. But he is not alone… he enters the balcony along with Aegon, who laughs along with…. Cregan?

"Man, all this stuff I missed if I had gone to college," Aegon says, smiling.

Cregan laughs, giving him a friendly tap on his shoulder.

"Oh dude, you don't know what you're talking about."

When then both of their gazes focus on you, to which you wave your hand and smile a bit apologetically, but not for them, but for him, who continues to stare at you like that.

"Y/N?" inquires Cregan, approaching you, watching you incredulously.

"Hi," you smile at him.

"My godness, I haven't seen you in ages!" he exclaims happily, then locks you in a tight hug.

"Please, it's only been months," you tell him amused, reciprocating his hug.

"It's been years for me," he tells you melancholy, pulling away.

And you both laugh.

"So you know Baela's cousin," Aegon says without wiping away his smile, stepping closer, watching you and Cregan continuously.

"Yes," Cregan says, "You know them?" he asks you, pointing at him and Aemond, who stands apart.

"Baela and Rhaena are hanging out with their cousins," you tell him, nodding.

"Oh yes, the drummer and the bass player."

And you nod.

"And how do you two know each other?" asks Aegon, interested.

"We were classmates in business management," Cregan explains to him, "But I decided to change careers to law."

"At NYU?"

You both nod, as does he, now understanding, while Aemond still continues to stand apart, but at no point do you fail to feel his gaze on you, making you still very nervous but distracting with Cregan at your side.

"I didn't know the three of you knew each other," you decide to say, confused and slightly interested.

"Oh, we didn't know each other," Aegon says.

"We only just met a few moments ago when we played beer pong together," Cregan tells you with a small smile.

And you don't say anything else, that being so random, since the two of them barely met and apparently are now best friends, Cregan and Aegon more than anything, since Aemond continues to be just as serious.

"Anyway, have you seen Alysanne?" asks you Cregan, interested and hopeful.

"Yes, a while ago," you nod to him.

"Great. I'm going to go look for her, I haven't seen her in years either."

"Good luck," you smile at him.

"I'm coming with you," Aegon says instantly following suit, "Maybe your girl has a hot friend she can introduce me to."

Cregan laughs and just as they arrived together laughing and as best friends, they leave, only now you're left alone... with Aemond.

So there it is again… that tense air, but not a bad one somehow, as the both of you are left alone and there is an appropriate distance between the two, but again, you can't help but feel terribly nervous.

And even though you don't want to, still that moment of him going into the restroom with that girl keeps replaying in your mind, unable to help it. And that's why you look everywhere but at him, trying to distract yourself with the view.

Then he starts smoking, both of you without saying a word, just listening to the music and the sound of the city around you, which makes you feel a little uneasy, since you can't just leave like that, it would be too rude.

And again… that almost kiss invades your mind and doesn't leave you in peace, while you bite your lips and try to control your nerves, not having the slightest idea of what to do or what to say.

The slight smell of cigarette reaches your nostrils and you try to act as nothing, just like him, whom you see out of the corner of your eye and apparently, compared to you, he is comfortable and unconcerned.

Until he speaks.

"Are you always this quiet?"

He asks you and you bite your lips again, this making you feel more nervous, as you feel him watching you, but you don't look back at him.

"No," you reply, trying to act just as unconcerned as he does, "I'm just… relaxing."

"Hm," he says and you watch just for a second as he takes a drag on his cigarette, " You don't like parties?"

"Yes, I do," you reply softly.

And there you finally dare to look him in the eye, but you regret it the second you do, as he is already watching you and in that way, again as if he wants to see right through you, so burning and intense. So you steel yourself and continue firm, not letting him weaken you.

"I actually thought you didn't like parties," you decide to say, just to create a topic of conversation.

"I don't like them," he says and exhales smoke through his lips, looking away from you for a moment, "But I wanted to come," he says to return to watching you with such intensity.

And God, all you can think about is how ridiculously handsome he looks tonight, from his clothes, his face, his posture, the way he's looking at you, even the way he's smoking, basically everything about him.

There is a brief silence between the two of you, not uncomfortable fortunately, when suddenly he says to you:

"You didn't go to the concert."

Shit.

And there it is again, the nerves, which makes you look away from him for a moment and bite your lips.

"Yeah, I know, I'm sorry," you tell him softly, "I got sick."

"Yeah," he nods, "Your cousins said something like that. But don't apologize, it's fine."

"But I wanted to go," you clarify.

He places a small grin on his face, watching you intently.

"Did you?"

And you nod.

"At this concert you didn't even stay until the end."

Fuck.

You curse, thinking fast, again with that moment of him and that girl going into the restroom replaying in your mind, which was the reason you decided to leave early and why you decided to ignore him.

But ignoring him didn't work for you anymore since now you're here with him… alone.

"Of course I did, I saw the whole concert," you play dumb.

"I mean the after party."

He tells you softly and you again avert your gaze, terribly nervous, having no idea what to say to him now, since you can't tell him you left because you saw him that way with one of his fans. So instead, you lie, making an excuse about the party.

"I had to come here earlier to help set everything up," you explain, looking at him again, trying to sound convincing.

At this, he lets out a long breath, averting his gaze, bringing his cigarette to his lips.

"What a shame," he says in a sigh, then takes a drag.

This catches your attention, but you say nothing more, only until after you think clearly about what you are going to say before you speak.

"Baela said you're not giving any concerts until about a month," you say and he looks at you again.

"Yes, that's true," he says and you watch as he casually slides further towards you, beginning to close the distance between you, "But you could still come."

You frown.

"To where?"

"To rehearsals and then to the concerts."

At this you say nothing, you just continue to watch him, beginning to have a dilemma in mind about it and also beginning to be affected by how he is gradually moving closer to you, doing it so casually and so calculatingly, without stopping smoking, that you hate that he is already starting to make you feel that way.

You don't want to be another one of the crowd, remember?

Your serious mind tells you, since that's why you were crying before and why you decided to avoid him and get to this party earlier.

But God, you think, since he, everything about him, affects you and so much, so much so that you can't even avoid him anymore, starting little by little to let yourself be carried away by him.

And well says Baela that the flesh is weak.

You think grumpily.

"Or what? You really don't want to see me anymore?"

He asks you with that grin, weakening you more completely and making you more nervous, averting your gaze from him for a moment, really not being able to because of the way he's looking at you and making you react.

"N-no, I mean, yeah," you reply foolishly, "Yeah, okay," you look at him, "I'll go."

Then a small satisfied smile appears on his lips.

"Very well, but if you don't go…"

He begins to say, leaving his sentence in suspense and completely stealing your breath when he finally shortens the remaining distance between the two of you, at the same time as he tosses his now non-existent cigarette away, watching you attentively and determinedly.

You tense up completely and watch him completely attentive and nervous, unable to move, your legs and mind not reacting at all at that moment, starting to feel your heart beating too fast.

"If I don't go what?"

You can formulate in the midst of your nervousness in a mumble, as a distraction, as you inevitably look between his face and his lips with your lips parted.

"If you don't go like last time I'm going to be very angry and very disappointed."

You watch him in complete surprise, just at that instant also realizing how incredibly close the two of you are, the two of you completely invading each other's personal space, his entire presence and essence enveloping you completely.

And then this whole scene, it's just like when you both were about to kiss like last time, close to each other and with that tense air. When Aemond says something to you that steals your breath away.

"It was very rude to leave me waiting, you know that?" he says to you in a hoarse voice, his whole gaze determined and his eye dilated, full of desire.

"Did you really want to see me?" you ask him in a whisper.

"What do you think?"

Again your breath catches, as you focus entirely on him, watching or rather admiring the closeness of his face to yours, not being able to help it anymore, not wanting to pull away and wanting more of him.

Then you know there is no turning back when he raises his hand and places it on your cheek gently, caressing your skin with his thumb, continuing to watch you with that attention and with that desire at the same time that he sticks your chest with his, pulling you to him.

Again you watch his lips, completely absorbed in him, feeling your heart still beating too fast and completely enjoying this moment.

"If I don't see you again Y/N…"

He says again, not letting you go, with that direct, firm and challenging tone from before, but leaves his sentence in suspense again.

"What?" you ask him, wanting to know what's going to happen if he doesn't see you again.

But he doesn't say anything more to you, on the contrary, he starts leaning towards you, making you feel like your heart will jump out of your chest at any moment, when his other hand places it on your waist and the atmosphere changes completely.

And then you close your eyes, letting yourself be completely carried away and finally… you feel his lips touch yours.

And as soon as you feel the contact, you are enveloped by a sensation you haven't felt for a long time and you lift your face a little more towards him, pressing your lips more firmly with his.

A slow but completely purposeful and deep kiss begins, as he moves closer towards you, clinging and you let him, beginning to move your lips more constantly, as does he, as you bring your hands up and place them on his chest.

The kiss is perfect and with exact timing, as you feel him cling to you completely, not wanting to let you go, feeling him pull away an inch to take another angle and kiss you again, as you grab his shirt in a fist and pull him closer to you if possible.

You feel perfectly as he gently bites your upper lip in a way you haven't experienced before but firmly enough to make you gasp into his mouth and he takes the opportunity to enter your mouth, making you gasp in the middle of the kiss and bring one of your hands up to his hair, caressing it.

Now it's a fight, as you feel and hear the sound of saliva every time you move your mouths, being a wet kiss in which neither he nor you want it to end.

Everything about him is completely addictive, he is definitely an excellent kisser and you don't want him to stop, ever, enjoying the faint taste of cigarette and mint in his mouth.

"You're so beautiful, did you know that?"

He pulls away to tell you in a husky murmur, instantly attacking your lips again, never stopping caressing your cheek, at the same time he starts to pull you back until your back hits a table out here, now being trapped between it and his body.

You smile in the middle of the kiss, continuing to caress his neck and cheeks.

"You are so beautiful too, Aemond."

You manage to say between his lips, to again both resume the kiss, while you feel how he holds your waist tightly, which will probably leave marks on your skin since it's too firm, but you don't care.

Then his caresses start to be taken further, bringing his hand dangerously close to your ass, but you don't mind this either. When he suddenly lifts you up and sits you on the table behind you, making his way between your legs and caressing your thigh with one of his hands.

The mood changes completely, the whole air feeling too hot and with a need starting to appear in your lower abdomen.

Aemond caresses your thigh firmly and gently, which begins to bring waves of arousal to your core, especially as he grinds very gently against you, but pressing his hips right there as you hold him between your legs.

You gasp into his mouth, feeling too good and starting to drive you crazy, not only by his movements but also by the way he continues to kiss you, having you perfectly where he wants you.

You begin to feel his clear arousal against your center, as he grunts and continues to kiss you, bringing both hands to both of your thighs, caressing you and grinding himself more firmly and steadily against you, seeking relief, as you do, beginning to feel everything about you pulsing in an achingly delicious way.

However, the good things can't last forever.

Suddenly the doors to the balcony open again unexpectedly and this catches the attention of both of you, breaking the kiss and the moment instantly, seeing that it is a group of apparently already drunk friends, starting to make room for themselves on the balcony as well.

They notice you both but say nothing, going back to their own thing, to which you turn your focus back to Aemond, looking just as disappointed as he does at the interruption of the moment.

His lips are red and swollen, just as you must also look, so you try to get off the table, but he instantly won't let you, pressing his hips right back down there firmly, causing you to watch him in surprise and in alert.

"This is what I'll do the next time I see you if you don't go to the rehearsals and concerts," he tells you again with that determination and that honesty, his voice completely low and hoarse, not letting you go.

And at first you don't understand what he's talking about, still very overwhelmed and shocked by what happened, but mostly because he keeps pressing his hips right against your center.

But you remember what you were talking about earlier.

"W-what?"

Then that grin reappears, her gaze still full of desire and completely stealing your breath.

"I'll kiss you again without permission."

taglist:

@melsunshine @fan-goddess @toodlesxcuddles @helaenaluvr @tsujifreya @queenofshinigamis @manonmccrory @nockerin @iloveallmyboys @at-a-rax-ia

#aemond targaryen #aemond targaryen fanfic #aemond targaryen x reader #aemond targaryen x y/n #aemond targaryen x you #aemond fanfiction #aemond x fem!reader #aemond x oc #aemond x reader #hotd aemond

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michaeljoncarter · 11 months

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i always thought chris and damian's potential friendship could be a lot more interesting than jon and damian. the fact that the origin of chris did not prevent clark from considering him his son could create amusing dynamic with damian's early life views "blood matters, adoption is not" instead, we've been receiving a narrative "supersons are the only real children of superman and batman" from dc for years 😒

i've been wanting to ramble for an obnoxiously long time about about all the issues i have with jon, especially as he relates to chris, his relationship with damian & just… this whole recent shift toward focusing more and more on biological relationships for a while now, so i'm gonna take this ask as an opportunity to just get it out of my system

this is about to be an absolute BEHEMOTH of a post. like seriously, apologies in advance for how absurdly long it's about to be lol

this was/is my biggest issue with both Supersons & jon as a concept even before i really got into superman comics, and jesus christ. it is SO much worse when you go back and see everything that was scrapped to try and make way for jon, and nowhere is that more true than with chris. the absolutely insane amounts of potential just deleted for seemingly no other reason than wanting to give clark a biological son instead of an adopted one WILL make you want to strangle someone

seriously, i know most people are probably at least vaguely aware chris existed, but i don't feel like enough people know enough about him to realize just how fucking criminal him being replaced with jon really was. i certainly didn't, anyway. all i really knew was that lois & clark already had an adopted son pre-flashpoint, which was already enough to make the optics of deleting him in favor of the biokid not great, but it's sooooo much more annoying than that

not to be dramatic, but having a character of this caliber sitting right the fuck there (with a final appearance pre-flashpoint that was literally just setup to make him as easy as possible for future writers to bring back) but deciding to delete him in favor of a character as painfully generic as jon kent should count as some sort of crime against humanity

(and this is all without even getting into arguably the worst part about him being erased (and then brought back but evil & with a different name), which is that chris was co-created by richard donner & named christopher as a tribute to christopher reeve. dc what the fuck is wrong with you)

but it's ESPECIALLY frustrating since one of jon's main claims to fame is being the super to damian's bat. you could not have created a more perfect counterpart to damian wayne than christopher kent if you'd tried

this character was made for damian, and i really might mean that literally. after spiraling down this rabbit hole, i'm pretty convinced damian & chris were originally created as a set. like... did you know they were introduced at the same time? because, again, i know i certainly didn't

but we'll circle back around to that in a minute because all the weird connections & suspiciously convenient timing aside, intentional or not, they were an absolute goldmine of potential, plotwise and thematically

either dc just made characters that perfectly mirrored each other by complete accident & missed a hell of an opportunity by failing to notice it OR it was intentional and they just decided to throw it all out in favor of replacing chris with creativity void that is jon because... a biological son seemed more appealing? and/or easily marketable/adaptable? i'm honestly not sure which is worse lol

these two were perfect foils. seriously, there are so many little details about chris's character that are just damian-but-backwards. they mirror each other so closely that even their literal births reflect, with damian being a human grown in an artificial womb like a kryptonian and chris being a kryptonian born naturally like a human, and they so easily could've had such an incredibly unique & complex relationship

but, yeah, probably the most important contrast between them was the (initial) fixation on genetics & bloodlines with damian vs chris fully rejecting his biological parents & considering himself 100% a kent. this has been a problem with damian's character for a while now, but jon & Supersons really took it to the next level, and i hate it

in the interest of not letting this spiral into a 20k+ hatepost, i'm gonna try to not get too in the weeds about the specifics, here, but in this post-Supersons world we live in, i've seen quite a few people (including, most recently, tom king) talking like this shift away from focusing on adopted family in favor of blood started with damian's introduction. and... i really couldn't disagree more. if anything, damian was kind of the anti-jon kent

i famously hate a LOT about morrison's batman era, but their handling of damian's integration into the batfam is the one area where i feel like they (and the other writers of this era) absolutely stomped just about every other writer that's come after. it really seems like they were well aware of just how bad a biological kid could end up being for a story where adopted/chosen/non-traditional family is such a core component, and they were very careful about how they went about it

say what you will about morrison era batman (and believe me, i know there is plenty to say), but there was way less of this weird friction between damian's character & the chosen family aspect of the batfam

i'm not about to sit here and pretend i prefer morrison's damian as an individual character over tomasi/gleason's. damian's character arc in Batman & Robin (2011)/Robin: Son of Batman blows what little, incredibly subtle character development he had pre-flashpoint out of the water--not exactly surprising, seeing as tomasi/gleason tend to be more character-focused & morrison really just loves their huge, complex plots, with character work tending to take more of a back seat

he's a much more solid, fully formed, just overall better character now, but specifically in terms of handling him in relation to the capital-T Themes of the batfam, morrison was very focused on pushing back against the idea that being the "blood son" made him more legitimate than the other batkids, which is something that writers since have largely not really cared about and/or seemed to actively disagree with

i'm gonna come back to this weird shift toward bruce-centrism with his character in a minute, but it's just pretty wild to me that "SON OF BATMAN" has basically become the zero-negative-connotations tagline for his character & how he introduces himself 99% of the time when that was originally something that was framed like this

(Batman #657)

Supersons definitely didn't cause this issue, but it definitely didn't help

damian & jon are both characters whose concepts are pretty heavily based around the same ideas of like... bloodlines & inheritance & all that, but jon's entire character is based around just accepting the inherent value & importance of who your (specifically biological) parents are at face value with ZERO interest in taking any sort of critical look at how important genetics are to just about every aspect of him

a character like damian shouldn't even be allowed in the same zip code as a character like jon, let alone given a teamup book dedicated to making the fact that they're the blood sons of batman & superman the basis of their entire relationship, and equating damian's place in the batfam to jon's place in the "superfam" (which didn't/doesn't even really exist anymore because literally everyone else was deleted in favor of jon), and hurtling right past just failing to push back against the dicey subtext right into just kinda… endorsing it

not to be calling out this random person, but i feel like this comment under one of the issues from the Last Son arc on a website i've obviously never used kinda sums up the problem with the unintentional messaging of Supersons, and it makes me want to actually die every time i see it

there's nothing inherently wrong with stories that center around biological family, obviously, and there's nothing inherently wrong with the concept of a character popping out a kid of their own that grows up to be like them, but the problem is these stories aren't happening in a void

when you have stories that have historically been as focused on these capital-T Themes of found family & adoption as these, you need to be careful with how you handle something like the addition of a biological child. shifting more and more away from focusing on families of choice to fixate more and more on blood & biological relation ends up saying something whether you intend it to or not

the reason this drives me particularly insane specifically re: chris is that his concept could've made up for the exact thematic issues with damian that sticking him next to a character with a concept like jon's has brought to the forefront & shined a giant, uncritical spotlight on

intentional or not, chris was/is exactly the sort of counterbalance a character like damian needs because... i don't know how else to phrase it other than damian is a character that needs to be challenged. he needs someone in the story that he can thematically butt heads with so he doesn't end up just butting heads with The Theme itself

originally, tim was kinda the like... adoption advocate, for lack of a better term, put up against him, but imo this could a bit problematique. making him conflict with someone from the same family unit just kinda makes it come off as weird favoritism

like... bruce deciding damian should stay with dick after he came back from the "dead" and going to team up with tim was very thematically appropriate, so good job there, team, but the way bruce was just like "wow, thanks for raising my kid while i was gone, dick… and keep up the good work! because i'm moving to japan! bye!" and never looked back lol??

there needs to be something there to balance him out & serve as a sort of counterargument to the whole "blood son = real son" idea, but imo it'd work a lot better if it were someone outside the batfam so we wouldn't have to sacrifice the relationships there & make the dynamics all weird in service of Theme

chris could've done all that and then some because it's not just that he considers his adoptive parents his real parents. it's also that the biological parents he rejected were both villains

chris had nothing but "bad" blood. his mother and father were both genocidal maniacs whose goal in life was to enslave and/or wipe out the human race, and he was born & raised in a kryptonian superprison like some sort of alien bane

by all accounts, he probably should've turned out to be an absolute terror, but he DIDN'T because the idea that people don't have to be defined by their genes or the circumstances of their birth is like... the entire point (of post-crisis superman comics, especially. which is one of the biggest reasons why jon is so goddamn annoying, but that's its own 50k+ word post)

and this is the other big thing i find so annoying about the change in narrative around damian's character post-flashpoint. his decision to leave his old life behind & become a hero tends to be framed more like… choosing one biological parent over the other. like everything about him was just as genetically pre-determined as everyone else in this universe, but lucky for him, not all of his genes were evil, so he had a fighting chance!

and this is true not just of him but like... 99% of other "good" characters who have villain bioparents. they almost always have one bioparent who's a villain and the other is good or at least more neutral--damian, kon, (preboot) joey, rose, lian, spoiler, obsidian, jade, jackson hyde, emiko queen, etc, etc, etc

don't get me wrong, i'm not saying i dislike the whole one "good" parent, one "evil" parent trope as a concept. i'm a huge sucker for it when it's done right. that's basically just a list of my faves, and with most of them, this is a nonissue. i'm just saying there are almost no good characters who come from purely "bad" blood

we're getting more and more characters whose entire personality is based around & whose goodness is attributed almost entirely to who their biological parents are, but there's a serious lack of anyone the complete opposite side of the spectrum. we need more characters who reject their families altogether and exist completely in spite of where they came from & who they were born to sort of balance the thematic scales

there might be others that're just slipping my mind, but in current comics, cassandra cain is the only prominent character i can think of who is a "good" person despite coming from from nothing but "bad" blood

(i mean, i guess you could argue all the brainiac descendants still technically exist in current continuity, but like... do they? do they, really?) (EDIT: no, they do not! not in a way that makes them applicable here, anyway. i forgot vril dox ii was brought back in rebirth & retconned to be exactly like his father (thank you, anon who pointed this out). so this is actually just another example of the next point....... l o l)

instead of more characters like this, we've been getting the opposite. kids of villains who were fundamentally good and pointedly nothing like their parents have been rewritten to just be exactly like their shitty parents, actually, because evil is just as genetic as heroism, i guess

this is something that's been annoying me for a while, but i just kinda assumed my super cynical takeaway was just my own personal biases making me read way more into it than was actually there. i'm sure that's definitely a big contributing factor, and this wasn't even something i was really gonna get into, but in the time it took my slow ass to actually get around to answering this, i'll be damned if if tom king didn't go and announce his new, Supersons-inspired character, and just flat out say that the exact same, fucked up message i've felt like i was getting from dc for a while now is exactly what her character is meant to be about

now, i can't judge a character that hasn't even been introduced too much, and to be honest, a character like this seems like much less of an issue (in this respect, anyway) in wonder woman comics, which have tended to have more of a focus more on biological family (with diana and hippolyta and even kinda some versions of donna (and also… y'know... lyta)) than batman & superman comics

this wouldn't be nearly as much of an issue if it were just happening on its own, but it's that this is yet ANOTHER character on the way whose concept begins and ends at "biological child of hero," where it's just kinda meant to be understood that means they'll be a hero, too. just like the shift in how damian's framed, it just seems reflective of this larger trend where the the underlying theme of dc as a whole is increasingly starting to feel like "the apple doesn't fall far from the tree."

(eta from the future to account for king's bullshit ww run: somehow, it's even worse than we could've imagined lmfao. but regardless, my point here was more about this tk quote & how it perfectly encapsulates this whole issue, less about the actual character herself, so i feel like it still stands. she's still annoying as all hell, but just for different (and arguably worse?) reasons than we were originally led to believe... lol)

and again, there's nothing inherently wrong with a character popping out a kid that takes after them. the issue with it as an overarching Theme is that while it makes for a cute little story about makin' ma an' pa proud in some places, it makes for some real bleak, depressing shit in others, and unfortunately, chris is a perfect example of that

when he was "brought back" in rebirth, intentional or not, he was changed to better fit the new theme of post-jon superman comics and turned into just... a mirror version of jon, basically. instead of being a character who pointedly was not defined by his shitty parents & horrible upbringing, he is now, of course, COMPLETELY defined by who his biological parents are. he's just lor-zod, son of general zod & commander ursa, who was just kinda doomed from the start

(Action Comics #997)

(booster being complicit in this arc is one of the worst things that's ever happened to me btw. somebody please revoke jurgens's custody i can't do this anymore)

(and i seriously doubt anyone cares enough to bring this up, but just for posterity, i feel the need to acknowledge that, yes, i'm aware this was an alt future version, but he showed up later in other comics acting pretty much exactly the same as a kid, so... lol)

anyway. i'm not trying to accuse any dc writers of being weird, cartoonesque supervillains sitting around twirling their evil mustaches and like... deliberately including themes of biological determinism or whatever the fuck. i'm sure it's all unintentional, but like i said, when you have a story that's based around one message and you rewrite it in a way that conveys essentially the opposite message, it ends up saying something regardless of intent

this thing where we take characters whose concepts are all about them being fundamentally, pointedly good despite where & who they came from and turn them into supervillains just as bad (or worse) than their shitty parents has always been a problem--the last couple decades of constant character assassination for joey wilson is probably the most obvious example--but it's gotten noticeably worse over the past few years

all this to say i think not just damian but dc as a whole would've really benefited from a character like chris. in superman comics specifically, ignoring everything that's happened post-reboot, he would've been/was a great way to offset some of the issues caused by tt03's lex clone retcon making kon biologically related to clark & turning him into yet another "only half evil" character. execution notwithstanding, i definitely think the new version of kon's origin is more interesting than the original, but it would've been nice if we'd gotten a character to fill the niche westfield clone kon left empty

chris was so fundamentally incompatible with the whole "apple doesn't fall far from the tree" idea, he wouldn't even have really had to do anything. he would've been doing some pretty heavy lifting, thematically speaking, just by existing. fixating on blood & genes to the extent that they have probably would've been a bit more difficult with a character like him standing in the same panel

obviously, just swapping out one character for the other wouldn't fix everything. the issues with jon & all this other mess are just symptomatic of the much larger issues at dc, but it's kinda hard not to wonder when things so easily could've been so different, which is how i'm gonna segue into the WAY less serious part of this post because i'm really not convinced chris being such a perfect fit & counterbalance was just an accident

this is fully some tinfoil hat level nonsense. take everything i'm about to say with a grain of salt, and just know i'm fully aware of how pepe silvia-esque i'm about to sound

so... if we're going by cover dates, Last Son (the arc that introduced chris) started in december 2006, the same month that Batman & Son (the arc that introduced damian) wrapped up. that they were introduced consecutively would already be kinda weird, but the thing that makes it really weird is just how similar the two storylines are

to massively oversimplify, both arcs were about the secret biological son of one of clark/bruce's most dangerous/obsessive villains (and i'm not a fan of morrison's talia, but that is how she was being portrayed at the time) that no one knew existed until one day they were suddenly dropped in clark/bruce's lap as a part of some sort of world domination plot by their villain parent(s), and both end with damian/chris disappearing with said villain parent while trying to help stop their evil plan

and this was right at the beginning of the era of the batman & superman titles running pretty closely parallel. not too long after Last Son ended, the whole World Without/Against Superman during New Krypton also kicked off the same month as Battle for the Cowl

right alongside dick's batman era, superman comics had mon-el (who i always feel obligated to note is nothing like the cw version. please god) serving as replacement superman after clark was forced to leave the planet to deal with the new krypton thing & struggling to adjust and uphold the symbol for clark

there was no real interaction between them or acknowledgement of the similarities there, either, but later on, there was a little crossover comic about the similar states of the batfam & superfam in this era

(World's Finest (2009))

all this to say seemingly intentionally parallel storylines in the batman & superman titles that went largely unacknowledged weren't at all unheard of around the time chris & damian were introduced. it really doesn't feel like too much of a stretch to me to think that damian & chris could've been part of that trend

…

and also the artist for Last Son, who designed chris, and the artist for Batman & Son, who designed damian, are brothers. i KNOW that doesn't automatically make everything they do connected!! but you can't just find out something like this while digging for connections for your conspiracy theory post and then NOT mention it. this is the kinda shit red string & pushpin people dream about at night

anyway.

just to be clear, i'm not saying think chris was created specifically for a future teamup with damian. he was pretty clearly meant to be his own, standalone character, but it just kinda seems to me like they were conceptualized with each other in mind

but conspiracy theorizing aside, intentional or not, there was a truly maddening amount of potential here

their basic character concepts were so similar. again, to massively over simplify, they were both the sons of villains raised in secret in some sort of Evil Organization, damian with the league & chris with zod's loyalists, both the son or "heir" of the leader of said organization, and both ended up rejecting the way they were raised in favor of joining their respective heroic fathers instead

characterization-wise, though, they were exact opposites. their overall circumstances were similar on the surface, but their actual experiences could not have been less alike. neither childhood was ideal, obviously, and growing up in the league definitely had its downsides, but overall, damian was treated like a prince & kinda spoiled rotten, where chris was treated like dirt & horrifically neglected/abused, and they came out of their respective origins with personalities & outlooks that were just as opposite

i could ramble on about every single little contrasting detail in their characters for days, but jesus christ look at how ridiculously long this post is already

there's just so much that could've been with them!! so many things about their respective characters that could've played off of each other in such interesting ways. you already had a ton to work with just in chris's concept on its own, but combined with some of his later arcs?? the whole nightwing thing could've so easily been reworked into something amazing

chris was so unique and well thought out, he would've been an absolutely perfect fit & done a lot for damian and superman comics and just dc as a whole. he had more than enough staying power, and everything about his erasure is so frustrating. if you haven't read much/any preboot superman, i really can't stress enough just how easy it would've been for them to bring him back. i'm not exaggerating when i say his very last appearance from right before flashpoint hit was literally just setup to make him as easy as possible to bring back after the reboot

(Superman: War of the Supermen #4)

he was re-babified and ready to go. the less savory aspects of his later storyline were already being kinda soft retconned away via phantom zone memory weirdness, so they wouldn't have even had to address that--not that that would've been a valid excuse for not using him, anyway, seeing as nobody's actually given a shit about continuity in years, especially where superman comics are concerned

it's just so disappointing that a character as stacked with potential as chris has been essentially erased in the main universe and relegated to extremely occasional elseworlds appearances in favor of jon, whose incredibly generic, one-note concept really would've been a much better fit for a cute but depthless one-off character from a random alternate universe

he was cute enough as a kid, sure, but he was always much more of an accessory to the other characters around him than a unique, standalone character himself. the past few years have just been book after book after book of writers trying and failing to mine a shred of potential from his shallow concept and find a way to make him individual or unique or necessary in any way (and stomping all over the stories he's meant to be adding to in the process), which is annoying enough on its own, but that it really seems to have happened for no other reason than dc preferring the idea of biological kids makes it so much worse

it sucks, man, but... well, i guess at the very least, we'll always have Multiversity: The Just with its weird, spoiled brat au of damian & chris's supersons on earth-nepotism to give us a taste of what could've been 💔

#ask #anonymous #damian wayne #chris kent #dc critical #and for blacklists:#anti jon kent #LONG POST #god this is ridiculously long lmao #ths is like 6 different half-written posts all stitched into one so. forgive the mess #(eta way later bcs i reskimmed this months after the fact and it's bothering me:#i did a lot of (unintentional but still) conflating of adoption & 'chosen family'#bc i was talking about the batfam ((mostly) adopted family) and preboot superfam ((mostly) chosen family) at the same time/interchangeably #but those aren't the same thing #actually there's a lot in here that i don't like the wording of/don't think i explained very well in retrospect #but given that i was mostly yelling about the de-legitimizing of adopted kids #the fact that i kinda accidentally did the same thing by misnomer-ing especially sticks out & felt like it needed to be addressed lol)

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formula-hamilton · 1 year

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Little White Lie | Lewis Hamilton x reader

Summary: On your first date with Lewis you told him a small lie that you soon came to regret. Word count: 1.7k Warnings: None I think? Just an excessive amount of sport + fluff. A/n: Just a small one shot based on an idea I had after watching Lewis’ latest running story on instagram.

It started as an innocent lie. Just a small fabrication to make yourself appear more appealing. In hindsight, it was completely unnecessary, but you wanted to impress him. Find common ground and then he’d hopefully find you worthy of his time. Sadly, you didn’t realize just how unnecessary the lie was until it all became too much.

It was on your first date. Lewis had picked you up at your flat and taken you to a small Indian restaurant in London. A very intimate place, quite fitting for a romantic dinner for two people getting to know each other. As the waiter showed you your table, Lewis held his hand on the bottom of your back, gently following you. And as the true gentleman you had expected him to be, he pulled your chair out before sitting across from you. The conversation was a little careful in the beginning, both being nervous and a tad shy. You couldn’t help feeling a bit intimidated by him, afraid of saying the wrong thing. But as you shared a bottle of wine, your nervous demeanor slowly slipped away as the conversations got deeper and you both felt a connection growing. You remember thinking it at least felt like a third date.

Of course you touched the subject of his job and his journey in the sport. This lead to talk of his love of racing and sports in general and of course you discovered just how much he loved being active. It shouldn’t have surprised you, him being a professional athlete and everything, but still it blew your mind just how much he loved doing sports and running. That’s how you found yourself a little overwhelmed and frankly quite unable to relate. But you were scared. You were so infatuated by him that you felt scared he would find you less interesting or less compatible, and that’s when the words slipped out of your mouth before you had a chance to think them through.

“I love doing sports as well!” You found yourself gushing and before you could stop yourself you talked him through just how much of an active person you were. Truthfully you hadn’t done any serious sports since your time at university, but that didn’t sound quite as good.

This lie of course led to Lewis suggesting more active activates for your future dates. And unfortunately it wasn’t the sexy kind. On your fourth date he invited you to play tennis with his friend and his girlfriend. You went shopping and bought the nicest tennis fit you could find, hoping it would keep him distracted and unaware of your lack of fitness. Luckily for you, Lewis was such a good player that he didn’t notice how much you lacked in the skills department. Your team easily won and that was definitely no thanks to you. After the game Lewis slept over at your place for the first time and you could finally be physical in a way that left you way more satisfied than any sport could ever do.

Clearly Lewis found the tennis game so successful that he for the next date invited you golfing. This time you were honest with him and told him you hadn’t tried golf before. You simply couldn’t see how you could fake it as well as the tennis match. Fortunately for you, Lewis took it upon himself to teach you and you really didn’t mind him wrapping his arms around you when you had to swing.

Two hours of playing in the scorching sun and you were completely exhausted. You were sweating like crazy and your body ached in ways it had never done before. You had no idea just how physical draining golf would be and you honestly wanted to call the quits on your whole untruthfulness. As you were standing there, being a little dramatic, thinking you were possible having the worst time of your life, you complemented just how you would confess. Before you got a chance to put your thoughts into action, Lewis put his arm around you, grinning.

“I’m so happy that we can do things like these together. I think it’s such a great way to get to know each other. Much more interesting than dinner and a movie,” he said with the sweetest smile on his lips, eyes meeting yours. That’s when you saw just how much he appreciated these dates and you found yourself melting. How could you ever let him down? How could you ever tell him that dinner and a movie was your idea of a perfect date?

Therefore you went on with the golfing and hid just how difficult you found the whole situation. Naturally, you loved the time spend with Lewis. Just as you had known since the first date, you definitely had a deeper connection with him and there was no doubt in your mind that you could see this go somewhere. And even though you were really pushed out of your comfort zone, the time spend with him was much cherished.

For your next date you were quick to beat Lewis to it. This time you invited him to an art exhibition hosted by one of your old friends. It wouldn’t require quite as much energy and you really felt a need for something that wasn’t as physically draining.

The art exhibition was followed with numerous dinners, but just as many tennis matches, golf dates, cycling and your least favorite of them all: running. At least you could carry a conversation with the other sports, but that was simply impossible with running. It was always 45 minutes of pure hell each time. It got a little better with time, but you couldn’t find it in yourself to enjoy it. But you must take the bitter with the sweet and boy was everything else with Lewis sweet.

As the months had passed, your feelings for each other only grew. He was everything you were looking for in a man so when he asked you to be his girlfriend there was only one answer on your mind. You knew you were being silly, but as the months passed, you also grew scared of what Lewis’ reaction would be if he found out just how much you dreaded your active dates. First of all you knew it was wrong to have lied in the first place, and even more wrong to have kept it going for as long as you had. Secondly, such a big part of the time you spent together involved doing sports and quite frankly you were scared he would lose interest in you if you lost this common interest.

Once again Lewis and you found yourself on one of your runs. This time in Monaco where he had invited you for a weekend trip. Today you were struggling more than usual, the warm weather was making the whole experience very difficult for you. Your lungs were burning like never before and you felt absolutely disgusting being drenched in sweat. It was only 9 am and you would give anything to just be able to sleep in with Lewis for once instead of being out and about on your small holiday.

Just as you were trying to keep up with Lewis’ pace, you found yourself cursing your past self for even coming up with such a stupid lie just to impress someone. Even if it was Lewis Hamilton. Being completely caught up in your own thoughts, you didn’t watch your step and suddenly you felt yourself tripping on rock on the side of the trail. Your arms saved you from landing face down on the ground, but your ankle wasn’t as lucky. It hurt like hell and there was no doubt in your mind that it was strained. You knew the pain from when you strained it playing football when you were 14 years old.

“Shit, are you okay love?” Lewis rushed over and bend down to put his arm around you, worry filling his eyes.

“No!” You felt tears rushing to your eyes. Both from the pain and all the pent up frustrations. “Do I look alright? I almost fell face down on the ground and I’m pretty sure my ankle is sprained. And it’s all just because of a man! I can’t do this anymore Lewis.”

Lewis stared at you with wide eyes, looking taken aback by your words. As you uttered your last words his face dropped and sadness filled his eyes. “Do what? What do you mean? Do us?” he frantically asked you.

“No, god no, not us!” You rushed out, feeling the first tears escaping your eyes. The dam had broken and the words would not stop leaving your mouth. “I can’t do all of this running anymore. Or tennis or golf or cycling or god knows what sport. I simply can’t do it. I’m not that type of person, I would much rather just stay in and relax with you baby. Or go for dinner or the museum or a nice walk.”

“I thought you loved doing these things?” Lewis frowned at you, small pout on his lips as he looked confused by your words.

“I don’t. I’m so sorry Lewis, I lied. I wanted you to like me and I wanted to find something we had in common so you would want to keep seeing me. And then it just kept going and I didn’t know how to tell you. You were so happy that we did these things together and I didn’t want to disappoint you,” you told him with tears streaming down your face. “I understand if this means you can’t trust me. I really am so sorry I took it so far.” As you finished talking you buried you head in your hands, ashamed to look at him.

“Baby. Baby, listen to me. I don’t care what we do. I don’t care if we lay in bed all day or if we run a marathon or if we go shopping or whatever. I just wanna spend time with you,” Lewis told you while brushing your hair with his fingers.

“Please don’t let me run a marathon,” you whispered, finally meeting his eyes. Lewis giggled and held both his hands to your face, wiping your tears away.

“I promise I won’t,” he smiled at you, giving you a small kiss on your forehead before moving to your lips. “Come on darling, let’s get you home and cleaned up. Then we’ll just watch movies all day and I’ll cook for you.”

#lewis hamilton #hamilton fic #lewis hamilton x you #lewis hamilton imagine #lewis hamilton x reader #lewis hamilton fic #f1 fanfic #f1 one shot #lewis hamilton one shot #lewis hamilton fanfic #m writes #f1 fic

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fallinfl0wers · 2 years

Text

They wear your clothes

fandom: genshin impact characters: xiao, albedo, scaramouche reader type: female, taller than them, tried to make it ambiguous enough so it can be read as reader being chubby too! summary: they've heard of the custome of borrowing clothes from your significant other, usually, a girlfriend borrowing from her boyfriend. since their clothes wouldn't exactly fit on you, they decided to try yours instead... genre: fluff notes: self-indulgent because i can't relate to almost half the posts on this trope (and a lot of other posts with some very specific descriptions on the reader compared to the character...) due to me not being dwarfed by most of my husbandos despite not being the tallest person around HAHA, also, i didn't consistently do this before, but from now on i will put in the tags the gender of the reader on each post rather than just in this section!^^

Xiao

He's heard of this strange habit humans have about borrowing their lovers' clothes, and at first, he didn't see the appeal.

But as he thought about it from time to time, he wondered... would you like to do something like that?

Listen, at most, Xiao only has about three or four outifts that look exactly the same and he uses them all if they don't get destroyed beyond repair during his fighting against demons, so it's not like he has many clothes to spare, let alone clothes that would fit comfortably on you if at all, considering your body is bigger than his.

He doesn't bring it up not to make you uncomfortable, though. He knows it could make you feel self-conscious.

He has never been truly self-conscious or insecure about his height, though. He thinks it's useful because it lets him be lighter and move faster than others.

But, man... if he hears you say you wish you could borrow his clothes too just for a while, he'll lowkey wonder if you'd be more comfortable if he was a bit taller and his clothes could actually fit on you--

So one day, while you were taking a shower and he waited for you in your room, he saw a fluffy, slightly oversized sweater of yours laying on your bed.

He blinked down at it.

And proceeded to take off his accessories and sleeve to try it on and see once and for all why humans seemed fond of stealing each other's clothes.

The sweater was already a bit oversized on you, so you can imagine... it was very oversized on him.

And he thought it wasn't that big of a deal but then he kinda looked down at himself, felt the soft fabric against his body, smelt the scent of the soap he knows you always use, the scent of you, impregnated on the sweater...

He looked tiny. And felt tiny too, in a weirdly good sense. He felt as if he was being surrounded by you, and since you were his comfort, it felt as if he was being surrounded by comfort.

When you get out of the shower wrapped on your towel, you can't even begin to process the picture before your eyes: Xiao, your beloved boyfriend, wearing your favorite oversized sweater and staring at you while his cheeks slowly gained a pink tone as he came out of his mind.

The moment you try to speak Xiao is already in front of you, gently throwing your sweater on your face so you won't see his expression.

"I... only wanted to see if it was warm. Um. It is warm. Wear it so you don't get sick.

After that day, Xiao sends hints to you that he wants to wear more of your clothes.

It isn't often, but at some point, when he's free and tired and you're not available, he will simply rummage through your wardrobe and pick the first sweater, hoodie or jacket he can get to feel closer to you.

He gives it a 10/10, wearing [name]'s clothes is free therapy and happiness.

And since his own clothes really won't fit you, at least he lets you wear his necklace at times. Plus, he personally crafts jewelry and other accessories of the like for you to wear instead, all filled with protective charms to keep you out of harm's way.

Albedo

He knows of this human custom, and he was never interested on it, honestly.

He can lend you his lab coat, it's a tight and small fit on you, and he wouldn't recommend you wore it if you were to actually participate in any sort of experiment; if you're ever interested on alchemic stuff, he already has a coat with your proper measurements.

Besides his uniform of the knights of favonius, I think he mostly wears dress shirts and that sort of elegant-casual clothes, always with his lab coat on because he spends most of his time experimenting anyway.

He actually overheard you talking with Klee one day while you were babysitting her when she asked whether or not you borrowed his clothes at times.

And, fairly enough, you sometimes borrow a scarf if you forget your own- but nothing more than that.

Albedo did what he knows best, and did his personal research on the topic: couples borrowing each other's clothes as a form of affection.

He spotted many couples throughout all of Mondstadt doing as much- many of them being a smaller female wearing a larger male's blazers, shirts or other garments alike.

Though, aside from that gendered trend, he identified that the most important variable in this situation was height and perceived weight between the lovers in question--

A conclusion he reached quickly during his first ten minutes of observing, something rather obvious: it is only functional for the smaller person in the relationship to wear the bigger one's clothes rather than the other way around, excluding cases where the builds of the two are similar.

He still quite didn't get why people liked it though.

So one day, you enter your room to look for something real quick, and tilt your head in confusion as you find Albedo wearing a dress shirt that belongs to you and is clearly not his size, staring at his reflection on the mirror analytically while smoothening down the fabric.

You frown, and if anyone saw you, they would see the question marks floating above your head.

The alchemist turns to look at you, and gives you a smile.

"[Name], good evening, how was your day? Hm? This? Yes, it is your shirt. I'm sorry for not asking beforehand, I'll do better next time. I was curious about this 'clothe stealing' thing some people do with their partners... I think I get it now. It is rather... comforting and reassuring."

From then on Albedo will ask you if he can borrow your shirts whenever he knows he'll have to spend a lot of time on his lab at Dragonspine, he says it makes him feel less lonely up there.

He still lets you borrow his scarves, and if your hair is long enough to be tied, also his hair ties.

For practical purposes, he can't simply buy oversized clothes to wear so you can wear them too and feel what he feels when he wears yours, but alchemy goes a long way, so he'll most likely gift you a bracelet, ring, collar or other charm of the like made with your favorite flowers, alchemically modified and solidify to last at least a hundred years intact.

Scaramouche

He might have a little... problem with his own height, but since he's convinced he's far too strong and amazing, no one can really know it unless they purposefully push his buttons (or look at the gigantic robot he piloted in Sumeru)

He's been around for a while, alright, but to be honest he really never interacted with a lot of couples enough to pick up on these kind of affection.

Probably though, during his time as a harbinger, he saw a couple of recruits exchanging coats before a particularly hard mission while spouting promises of "I'll return safely and we'll be together!" or something like that.

He thought it was just another weird human habit he wouldn't concern himself with because it was ridiculous AAAAND then you came into the picture, somehow broke down his walls and made him feel things he didn't want to feel again

Like attachment and happiness and joy and hope. Ew, what are those? He doesn't want them! (He does tho)

And since you're obviously bigger than him, while you hugged him, he suddenly understood that strange custom.

When you hug him, he feels all warm and fuzzy and fluffy inside- it's a comforting feeling that... well, feels so good he wants to cry.

So maybe, he thinks, wearing your clothes would have a similar effect.

And so here you have him, he made sure you wouldn't be around to see him do this, so he has no shame on dugging through your wardrobe until he finds the sweater you wear the most and puts it on to test his theory.

He looks at himself in the mirror and glares at himself for blushing-

Your sweater... it was soft. And fluffy. And warm. And it smelt like you.

He puts a hand over his chest, on the empty space where his heart should be.

He has no heart, so why does he feel like something just skipped a beat?

He closes his eyes, and he can almost feel as though you're holding him in your warm embrace. And he only puts your sweater back on place when he knows it's almost time for you to return home.

"I'm wearing your sweater today. ...? I'm not asking, I'm telling you. [Name], what's mine is yours and what's yours is mine, I don't have to ask for this sort of thing! ... ...I just want to, alright?! Geez, you just want to know every little thing, don't you?! it's just so comforting... hah..."

Man will let you borrow his clothes if you want honestly, he can't guarantee you'll be comfortable but if you want to, go off I guess.

He'll lend you his hat, especially during rainy days when you're stuck out on the rain.

No matter how taller you are, an inch or five or more, he'll claim you're his umbrella for the day even though you say you've brought a far more comfortable, actual umbrella.

He loves this arrangement secretly, despite how uncomfortable it can get. He's very close to you this way and he loves it!

Man will also gift you jewelry and he'll make some himself too- and if he suddenly has far too many new jewelry himself and leaves it "forgotten" in your desk or plainly on your lap, you don't need to know why! Just wear it!! (please)

2022. fallinfl0wers.

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sanjisboyfie · 5 months

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in a world of boys, he's a gentleman

requested by: @benitobissexual absolute king ty for this beautiful prompt yumZ 🫰🏼

-> nami x sugar daddy male reader

-> silent pining. like theyre so downbad for each other , i feel like i made them so annoying and lowkey...pathetic ooooooopsssssss ubt all forgiven since theyre cuties at the end guys // i probably will publish the [part 2 - nsfw] later in the day <3

there was an odd domesticity that lived in [name]’s luxurious apartment. nami sighed, looking out the windows (floor to ceiling, by the way) and ran a hand through her fiery hair, feeling herself thank whatever god was up in the sky for the life she was blessed in obtaining.

“you never make enough coffee for two,” a voice spoke from behind her, making her lips naturally curl up into a smile. she turned around, seeing the man that made it all possible stroll into the kitchen space from her position in the living room. his figure moved elegantly and carefully, despite being in his own home, and his shoulders made him look like he took up even more space than he really did.

“cause you can make your own,” she teased back, kneeling onto the couch and watching as he rolled his eyes at her. instead of brewing his own cup, he came walking over and sat in front of her.

“the audacity, wearing my shirt, drinking out of my mug, with the coffee beans i bought,” he said with a smirk, obviously joking. nami didn’t fight his hands when he reached for her cup (his cup) and brought the steaming hot drink to his lips.

“the audacity for the man that pays for me to be here to be lecturing me,” she shot back, laughing when he dramatically clutched his chest as if he was in pain. she moved forward, crawling to be in between his legs and putting her hands on his hips. “are you busy today?”

sometimes, nami wished that she could have had a better read on [name] and his expressions. they have had this dynamic for over a year now and he was still the hardest book to read. no matter how many times nami had told him that he can touch her, just simply touch her, not even anything sexual, he never really did.

it was always polite brushes of his hand on her hips and waist to guide her through a crowd, or his fingers simply gracing over her own to get her attention, or how he would only ever bring her body close to his if they were in a crowded space.

this reserved act of his pissed nami off a little bit. it made her feel as if her appeal, her natural attractiveness and beauty, had no affect on [name]. and she would never, ever boil her worth down to how a man reacted to her.

no, that wasn’t what she was doing now.

what she was doing and feeling now was all related to how she wanted [name] to show some sort of positive reaction to her touch and company because he was [name]. she liked him! obviously she would want him to show some interest in her.

and sure, he did. pretty strictly, only numerical values. from the day they met to now, [name] had never touched nami in a sexual way, or even in ways that alluded to promiscuity.

she liked [name]. he was a gentleman, a true, kind man, that really respected her comfortability and happiness. there was never a time that she ever felt the least bit unsafe in his company. she liked the safe haven he provided to her. at first it was just about keeping that steady income of money, but after getting to know [name], she really cherished him for his personality and for who he was and what he believed in.

that’s why, right now she was kind of getting pissed off. she was sitting right in between his legs, hands on his bare skin, and looking up at him expectingly. and all he was doing was nursing the cup of coffee in his hands with a look on his face that screamed that his mind was thinking of something else. something else unrelated to the beautiful woman in front of him.

nami huffed at his lack of response, snapping him out of his daze. he brought his hand underneath her chin, gently tapping up against it with his knuckle and laughing at her pout.

“not busy if you wanna do something, doll. you wanna go out with me today?” he offered, making her nod her head in agreement.

without further explanation, she took the mug from his hands and placed it onto a coaster on the coffee table and pushed him down onto the couch. he was shocked at her actions, but didn’t fight it. and now she was practically straddling his waist, a grin on her face as he looked up at her expectingly.

“let’s stay in for a little while longer, then we can go out shopping,” she planned, making his pearly whites come into clear vision for her. then her eyes trailed off from his beautiful smile and then down to his hands, which were just resting and at his sides.

she just wished he’d have at least hold onto her waist or legs, some sort of touch that he initiated.

was she really that dismissive of a presence to be around?

she sighed, going down to press her chest to his own and resting her cheek against his shoulder. he took the remote and began playing a random channel on the tv for them to watch.

meanwhile, in [name]’s mind, he was fighting every single urge within him to not indulge himself in the woman that was on top of him. nami was really going to be the death of him. surely, she was going to be the death of him before she was the death of his wallet.

she was an alluring woman, that knew exactly how to get what she wanted with a clear goal in mind of what it was that she wanted. from their first meeting that point was made clear. [name]’s hands clenched at his sides, fighting the urge to just run his hands through her hair, hold onto the bare skin of her thighs — that were currently slotted in between his legs, or even just resting them on her back.

he restricted his movement in touching her, keeping a strong resistance to her natural charm and beauty.

[name] had promised himself the moment he went into this environment of sugar daddies and sugar babies — he’d never touch them first or at all for that matter. he would never initiated any truly intimate moments with any of his clients. because he assumed they were only there for his money, which was fine!, but because of that assumption, he never really offered anything beyond that. and he didn’t want nami to think he was expecting anything beyond that transactional relationship.

besides, it was in their contract to begin with: no sexual favors in exchange of money were to happen between the two parties.

and, obviously, not every touch between two people would lead to sex. but for [name], if he was given the approval from nami that he could caress her curves, he doesn’t think he’d be able to resist. he doesn’t think of nami as just an object for lust, she was so much more than that. but if he were given free reign in exploring her body from the woman herself, he doesn’t think he’d be able to hold back.

even if the signs of permission were “obvious” with nami batting her perfect lashes up at him or her taking initiative in pushing him down onto the couch first and climbing onto his lap, he wouldn’t take anything but her word as permission.

in nami’s head, though, she was frustrated because at this point her willingness to be touched by [name] was so obvious at this point. she nuzzled her cheek against his skin, trying to use that as a physical distraction from her thoughts.

quickly, she grew bored of the show on the television and lifted her head from his naked chest.

“let’s go?” she questioned, watching as he easily nodded his head in confirmation.

it was the weekend so he didn’t have to worry about work obligations, at least.

“go get dressed, pretty, there’s new clothes for you in the closet,” she felt her smile become even wider, moving forward to press a brief peck to his cheek before she was excitedly running to the walk in closet that was all hers.

everything custom fitted to her measurements, [name] made sure only to get the best clothes for his best girl.

and as [name] sat up from the couch, he groaned when his pants get tighter. he cursed, shaking his head to physically rid himself from the memory of what nami’s body felt so closely pressed against his. her frame was much smaller in comparison to his, that was enough to get his heart pounding and mind racing, but the fact that all of her body weight was put onto him and he felt that she was as light as a feather.

how easily he could lift her

he stood up and walked to his own closet, opening one of the many drawers to pick his outfit. he changed out of his sweats, into a loose pair of slacks and a black dress shirt to drape over his torso. as he was going through his options for a tie, nami poked her head into the spacious room.

“can you zip me?”

“really? it’s only midday and you’re already going for a dress,” he teased, turning around to see her figure coming towards him, “can’t complain when you look so beautiful in them, though,”

“took the words out of my mouth,” she said, pinching his arm, “be grateful this is all yours,”

he didn’t bother correcting her, biting back his tongue to prevent himself from saying, “even though i wish we were, we’re not each others to have.” that would have just easily killed the mood. so instead, he lifted his hands to pull the zipper of her dress up her spine until he was finished.

”look beautiful, nami,” he repeated, noting the color of her dress and finding a tie to match it.

“also, you’re not one to talk,” she commented, “not when you’re fitting yourself into that suit to make yourself even more handsome,”

he brushed her compliment aside, offering her nothing but a chuckle. and she sent him a dirty look over her shoulder, one that he didn’t pick up on, when she realized he wasn’t at all acknowledging her flirtatious tone.

she went back to her room with a roll of her eyes, finishing up her look with a mini purse of her favorite brand into her hands and a pair of heels on her feet. one would think they were uncomfortable to walk in all day, but when [name] would dotingly massage her feet and legs at the end of the day, it was all worth it.

“ready, pretty?” that petname he gave her sends her into a euphoric state each time.

“ready,” she confirmed, smiling when he lifted his arms for her to loop her own through. with her wearing heels, their height difference was less obtrusive and allowed them to walk arm in arm with one another easily. maybe that was a secret reason for nami on why she loved wearing heels so much.

as they rode the elevator, [name] grinned when he saw her taking some pictures of them standing next to one another. with a smooth maneuver, nami was able to make him drape one of his arms over her shoulder, which made for a perfect photo. and when they walked out of the elevator, those in the lobby turned their heads to catch sight of [name] and nami.

he squeezed her shoulder softly, guiding her to the sleek black car that the valet just brought to the front of the apartment building. he opened the passenger side for her first, softly shutting it before walking over to the driver’s seat.

nami pretended her heart didn’t flutter when she saw [name] easily hand the valet two hundred dollars as a tip. god, seeing a man so easily throw his money aside with no worries was really unreasonably attractive. another new thing nami had learned about herself over their relationship: the way [name] doesn’t flaunt his money, but somehow still makes it known he has more than enough was really attractive.

he never boasted about his wealth, but he would slide his card over to any restaurant at the end of the night — not even bothering to look at the total. just hands his black card to the waitress, who briefly marvels at the sight, and doesn’t even bat an eye.

he had made it clear that if they were together, no matter the setting, he would never let her pay for anything.

it made him so much more attractive to nami, [name] being so confidently financially stable and never failing to spoil her. she didn’t want to sound like a material girl because truly she wasn’t, but [name] does woo her very often with how purposefully he throws his money at her.

“hm, there was a new place that opened down at the mall, we can go there,” he offered, placing the directions into the gps and starting the car. she hummed in confirmation, watching as his fingers glided over the screen before latching onto the wheel of the car. without wasting a beat, she took his right hand and placed it into her own, playing with his fingers with a grin on her face.

he didn’t pay her fiddling any mind, driving just as comfortably with just one hand on the wheel. nami pretended, once again, that that sight didn’t make her stomach do flips.

before nami knew it, they were already at their destination and the second most exciting part of her day was going to start soon. her first exciting moment on days like this is when she gets to wake up beside [name]. second, when she can use his credit card on anything she wanted.

[name] allowed himself to be dragged through the street into the store, a pleasant smile on his face.

“oh, this place is so cute, [name]!” she said the moment they stepped through the shop’s doors, “this is so cute. do you like it, [name]?”

“i think it would look amazing on you, darling,” he said, before putting his finger under his chin, “but i feel like this style suits you more,” he motioned to a mannequin that was wearing a different dress.

she took note of his taste and observation, dropping the product she was just holding and going over to him, “you’re right, i really like it a lot,” she praised, eyes practically shining as she picked up the piece from the clothing rack.

it was a long dress and skin tight. it was body-hugging and that was what nami loved more than half the time. she loved her body and loved to flaunt it, especially if it was for [name] — in the clothes that [name] bought for her.

she grinned, taking it into her arms and walking over to [name] to announce she was going to keep it. without saying another word, he took the clothes from her arms and told her to keep looking in case anything else caught her eye. she grinned ear to ear at his nonchalance, resisting the urge to pull him down by his tie to kiss his cheek.

she had never felt being spoiled to her heart’s content until she met [name]. and at first she thought that was why she had began feeling romantic attraction to him: his money. but over time, she realized that she had just fallen head over heels for his entire personality. he was so kind and understanding.

“this place is bigger than i imagined,” she heard from behind her, smiling softly when she saw some more clothes that [name] had picked out in his arms, “i thought you might like these, of course, you can pick and choose which you’d like-”

“they all look great, you have good taste [name],” she said, running her fingers over the racks of clothes, “give yourself more credit,”

“well, it’s only when it comes to you,” he commented, shrugging, “so used to seeing what you wear and buy, i just remember your preferences,”

her heart skipped beats and she felt her cheeks become hotter. [name] and his smooth talking were going to be the death of her.

the man hovered behind her, his hands lightly playing with the ends of her hair as she looked through the clothes. eventually, she got bored of the selection and told him that she wanted to go to a different store. he smiled, offering her his arm to hold as they approached the counter.

she didn’t bother hiding the proud smile on her face as she held onto his arm, manicured nails gently tracing the skin. she looked at the total her clothes went up to, hearts in her eyes as [name] easily tapped his card against the device without even blinking at the price.

“where do you want to go next, nami?” he asked gently, turning his head away from the cashier that was bagging their (nami’s) goods. the orange-haired woman hummed, tilting her head to the side in thought.

she had seen that prada had dropped their fall collection, but it wasn’t really her cup of tea. if anything, dior’s was a much better selection. she easily said her answer to him, smiling when he accepted her choice. as he took the bags from the woman behind the counter, nami saw how she was in awe of the entire transaction.

as [name]’s back was turned, the woman even mouthed to nami “wow” which only made nami's grin widen.

“do you ever think about what would our lives have been if we didn’t meet each other?” nami asked as they walked through the minimally busy mall, “i mean, i obviously think about it a lot, but does it ever cross your mind?”

[name] looked at her in interest at her sudden question, but answered easily, “i think about how my days would have been much more boring if you didn’t accept my offer. i mean, none of my past relationships with the others ever was beyond the dinner table. which i was fine with, but i’m glad that you had opened up more around me, you’re so exciting and fun to be around that i think if we hadn’t met, i’d be living a really uneventful life,”

nami’s heart hammered against her chest at his confession, hiding her ablaze face by pressing her cheek against [name]’s bicep and resting her head there as they walked. the man looked anywhere, but nami, to try and distract himself from the woman on his arm. if he had stopped and looked at her blushing face any longer, he would have definitely just taken her into his arms and kissed her as if they were the last two people on earth.

what he didn’t know was that nami wanted just that.

the two arrived at the luxury store, the man at the door greeting their familiar faces with a kind “hello” and allowing them into the store. the moment they stepped in, the staff was already tending to them. one woman walked up to them with a circular tray, two glasses of champagne in her hold. nami took it with a grin while [name] politely rejected the offer. the next staff member immediately dragged nami away to show her their newest collection in a private fitting room.

knowing that he can trust those in nami’s company, he patiently stayed back and roamed the rest of the store.

“so, sir, when are you going to make it official between the two of you?” a voice from beside of him asked.

he looked at the figure, their wide eyes blinking rapidly at him. before he could evne properly respond to the man’s question, he just continued on, “she looks at you with nothing but love! she loves you! from the first time the two of you had stepped into this store to now, she has been silent in her feelings, but trust me they’re there,”

[name] put his hands up, showing the man he needed to slow down, “you’re really overwhelming, you know that?” it was a rhetorical question, but it seemed the man took it seriously with the way he just shrugged his shoulders uncaringly. “and secondly, there’s no way that’s true. nami and i are just committing to a transactional relationship.”

the unnamed staff deadpanned at [name], looking at him as if he were stupid, “there’s no way you’re this oblivious…”

“i’m not oblivious, i’m realistic!”

“your perception of what the reality is is especially far away from the truth is,” the man said, looking at [name] in disappointment, “we all can see it,”

[name] turned his head around at the other staff, who ducked their heads away from his gaze since they were caught eavesdropping in their conversation. [name] pinched the bridge of his nose at their mentality, but only sighed to hold off his obvious annoyance.

”i’m telling you, what you’re saying is far from the truth. nami sees me as nothing more than my wallet, which i am fine with,” [name] explained, “but there’s absolutely no way she feels the same way about me as i do her-”

[name]’s e/c eyes widened at his indirect confession, and of course to his luck, the man in front of him dropped his jaw in realization too.

“see!! you like her as well!” [name] resisted the urge of clamping his hand down on the man’s face, shushing him loudly to drown out his loud exclamation from reaching anyone else’s ears.

“it’s not “as well” it’s just me liking her and her not returning my feelings!” [name] scolded, genuine annoyance shining through his usually calm demeanor, “i can’t believe this is what you want to talk about with me! i feel like this is hardly appropriate.”

“you two have been playing this game for too long, someone had to say something,”

“and like i said, there’s no game being played. i’m the one that knows her, not you, i think i can read her emotions pretty well,” [name] sighed, glaring at the man before turning his head around to try and find nami. if only she could save him from this guy and his uncomfortable questions.

“you’re blind in love to even notice how she feels, that’s exactly how it always plays out,”

“i can’t do this anymore,” [name] said, walking away from the conversation with his hands in the air in exasperation. despite his status of wealth, there were some times his childish side had shone through his trained, guarded demeanor. and when he was confronted on his genuine feelings that he had for nami, that side of himself made itself obvious.

it was because he was afraid of verbalizing his feelings, scared that she would possibly overhear it and then their entire relationship crumble.

“[name]? are you alright, your face is getting quite red,” nami said, waltzing forward to meet him halfway, a worried look on her face, “are you feeling okay? you’re not sick, are you?”

her hand came up to his forehead and pressed it lightly to his skin to gauge the temperature. but he just shook his head, taking her hand in his and holding it. he smiled at her cute expression, once again having to fight the urge to kiss her.

“i’m alright, just got a hot flash or something,” he noticed that she was carrying some clothes in her arms, so he immediately moved to free her hands of them. “is this all you wanted, nami?”

“yeah, they’re really cute, i’ll give you the usual runway show when we get home,” she teased, making his smile grow in size, “but i think i wanna try their new heels on.” an attendant walked over to [name] and took the clothes off of his hands, allowing nami to grab ahold of his wrist to drag him to their shoe section.

he plopped himself down onto the lounge chair and watched nami carefully skim the variety of heels and flats. she took a cute pair of black heels with a bow tied in the back and walked back to [name] with an excited grin on her face. wordlessly, he moved to kneel in front of her now sitting figure to undo the clasp of the heels she was already wearing.

taking her ankle gently into his hold, he tried to ignore how intimate their actions were. the feeling of the staff all watching the scene unfold didn’t help his case of blushing cheeks in calming down. nami’s breathing hitched ever so slightly as she felt [name]’s hands expertly remove the heels from her feet, trying her best to relax.

she never got this flustered with anyone else. [name] was so unintentionally talented in getting her to feel all sorts of emotions she’s never experienced before. she also thinks of how the sight of [name] kneeling in front of her was one she would never get tired of, ever.

he replaced the heel on her foot with the one she picked out, delicately tying the bow back into its pretty position before repeating the action with the next. his fingers remained confident in touching her, skin to skin, but they still were only fleeting touches.

then he looked up at her and nami almost swore under her breath. with him looking up at her past his eyelashes and subtle smile on his handsome face, she should have pulled him up to her height by his collar and kissed him. but of course, all she did was reach out for his hand to hold hers to steady herself in standing up.

“they’re perfect,” she breathed out, watching [name]’s reaction in the mirror. but all she got was a dazed look on his face as he watched her movement with utmost concentration. it was as if he were trying to memorize what she looked like now. and his e/c eyes bearing into her every movement made her feel embarassed.

“sir [name], wouldn’t you agree?” a new voice joined the conversation. and the man grimaced at the familiar tone, recognizing the staff member to be the one that was previously lecturing [name] on his feelings for nami.

he threw him a warning glare, a subtle look, before nodding his head in agreement.

“she looks beautiful, as always. the heels simply make her even more breathtaking,” he complimented, flashing a smile to nami. then he nervously gulped, eyes trained on her long legs before raking upward until he reached the part of her thighs that the dress she was wearing began covering. when his eyes flitted upwards to meet her eyes, he almost flinched in surprise at how she was already looking at him.

internally, he cursed himself in so obviously ogling her. labelling himself a creep for so blatantly looking her up and down. meanwhile, nami was feeling a surge of confidence bloom in her chest at how she had caught [name] showing obvious attraction to her.

the attendant merely sighed at their shenanigans, offering to ring the two of them up at the counter to conclude their shopping spree.

now, the two were walking through the mall with bags of new clothes for nami’s closet and bashful looks on both of their faces.

“how about lunch?” [name] offered, thinking of the perfect, quiet place, “there was a new place i wanted to try with you, if you don’t mind,”

“i don’t mind at all,” she answered easily, tucking a strand of her fiery hair behind her ear as she let [name] guide her gently back to their car. the bags were carefully placed in the back seat before they were off to their next destination.

in the near silence of the car, the two were left to their own thoughts. nami was thinking of how hungrily [name] was staring at her earlier, blushing and smiling to herself at the memory. [name] on the other hand kept thinking back to how intimately he was touching nami and eyeing her figure, bringing his hand to rest on the window to his left so he could subtly cover his mouth with his hand.

finally, the two arrived at the restaurant and nami’s eyes glowed at the extravagant, but cute, decorations. she immediately reached out for [name]’s arm to hold as they walked towards the entrance.

[name] spoke to the hostess briefly before they were seated in a more quiet, tucked away part of the restaurant. the place wasn’t busy, but there were still a couple others people in their company.

“this place is beautiful,” she said, looking at the menu with curiousity, “they even have my favorite here!”

[name] grinned in pride, nodding as he spoke, “i looked into restaurants in the area that had your favorite, but the only ones that had good enough reviews were pretty far from home. so, since we were in the area of this one and i remember reading good things about it, it was the perfect chance to try,”

nami looked at him with furrowed brows, “you remembered my favorite?”

easily, he responded, “of course, what type of boy-” he cut himself off with a cough before continuing with a stammer in his voice, “what type of…” he tried again, rewording the sentence entirely, “how could i not know your favorite at this point! that’s what i meant to say, sorry…”

nami blinked at him for a couple of seconds before tearing her eyes away from him. lifting the menu up to cover the bottom half of her face, she gave herself the freedom to smile as wide as she wanted to.

‘he almost said boyfriend,’ she thought to herself with a newfound blush.

their conversation after his slip up was still comfortable, nami not bothering to bring it up, and they were going back to laughing and enjoying each others company without worries. the food was delicious, [name] ordering nami her favorite drink as well, and grinning whenever she hummed on about how this was going to be her favorite restaurant.

after [name] handed the waitress his card, once again not even bothering to look at the total of what the check came out to be, he slid over a couple bills towards nami that added up to a total of five hundred in cash.

she was going to refuse, but he didn’t allow her the chance to, giving her a warning glare. she really didn’t like this aspect of their lunches or dinners together. after each sit down restaurant [name] and her visited, he would pay her a couple hundred dollars. it only reminded her of how this really wasn’t the relationship she so desperately wanted it to be.

but after his slip up earlier, there was no way she wasn’t going to fight for it to be more.

the ride home was filled with conversation regarding a bunch of different things, but mainly just to fill the silence. and when they arrived back to the apartment complex, [name] handed off the keys to the valet of the building. he forced all the bags of nami’s to fit in one hand, so that his other one could remain free on resting on the small of her back to guide her.

and as the elevator brought them up to the top floor, nami grinned to herself as the perfect plan spawned in her head. usually after their day spent together, [name] would put all the new clothes he had bought for nami straight into her closet and then slide her over another check for her company. then he’d offer her the room to sleep in or to call for a cab to take her home.

right after he finished putting her clothes away, she would ask her what he had meant by what he said in the restaurant. she didn’t want to bother “beating around the bush” anymore. there was no way she could just live with that memory of what he said without pestering him for more answers.

so they separated for a moment, [name] going to put her clothes away and her going to change back into more comfortable clothes. the dress she was wearing was thrown onto the bed and the oversized shirt of [name]’s was her new “dress.” a pair of pajama shorts finished her outfit, making her grin at the comfortability.

and now all she had to do was wait for [name] to join her in the living room.

when he did walk out to meet her, a comfortable pair of sweatpants and a loose shirt adorning his figure, nami had to pressure herself to really ask [name] the question on her mind.

“so, since we spent more than half the day together, i was thinking of giving you a thousand,” [name] said, getting straight to the point. under the assumption that was the only reason nami ever stayed, he didn’t want to waste her personal time.

but when shocked him was when her hand went on top of his, to stop him from writing it out onto the check. he looked up at her in confusion, tilting his head in inquiry. she only responded with that pretty smile of hers.

”what’s wrong? i can give you more than just a thousa-”

”what did you mean when you said boyfriend earlier?” she asked, getting it out all in one breath before she could stop herself.

[name] audibly gulped before urging himself to answer, “it was nothing! it was nothing,” he said, trying to convince himself of that fact, “it was really nothing, ha, the guy in the store was just going on and on about shit that wasn’t even true, it put my whole head in a mess,” his hands were nervously playi

“what was he saying?” nami asked, subtly bringing her body closer to [name]’s as she tried to get him to blatantly say it.

noticing her movement, [name] nervously looked anywhere but her plush thighs that were sitting right in front of him. but then, in his desperate need of avoiding her beautiful features, he locked eyes with her own. and that only made him more nervous.

“he was just saying a bunch of bullshit, like i said. it wasn’t anything, nami, really,” he said, pleadingly looking at her to drop the subject. but she was going to let that happen. not with that smirk on her lips.

“no, what did he say to you that made you call yourself my boyfriend?”

“i didn’t! it was an honest slip up!” he defended himself, but she didn’t look pleased with just that as an explanation. so he sighed before continuing to explain, “he basically was talking about how we’re in love with each other or something, which i know is untrue because it just can’t be. there’s no way you feel the same way- i mean, there’s no way-”

nami grinned at the confession, as well as the panic that flashed over [name]’s face at his wording. there’s no other reason for him to be panicked unless he accidentally spoke the truth on how he really felt. with that mental note encouraging her, nami was leaning forward and kissing [name] without a second to waste.

instinctively, he returned the kiss, desperately pressing further into her action and almost groaning at the feeling of her lips against his own. but just as fast as he kissed back, he pulled away.

“no, no,” he said under his breath, a look of panic on his face, “nami, this isn’t what i wanted — you don’t have to do this, we agreed nothing like this was going to happen when we signed that contract-”

“fuck the contract,” she breathed out, still on cloud nine from their first kiss, “[name], i like you a lot and it’s not because of your money. i just want you, [name], i mean it. so tell me, do you like me back or did i make a fool of myself?”

there was silence as [name] processed her words. and the two stayed in that silence for a couple seconds longer before [name] asked, “do you really mean that? you like me?”

she nodded in confirmation, eyes still trained on [name]’s glistening lips. then those lips spread into a grin as he replied, “i like you too, nami, from the moment i saw you i was just in a trance,” his hands rested on her hips and she had to bite down on her lip to prevent a noise of ecstasy escaping.

he was finally touching her where she wanted him to. all that longing and tension had built up to its limit and it was going to finally be freely released.

“i want you, too,” he whispered, leaning forward to bury his nose into her neck, breathing in her scent, “fuck, nami, i’ve waited so long for this,”

“why didn’t you ever do anything?” she asked, hands going to grip the roots of his hair as he peppered wet kisses onto the skin of her neck, “i always thought you weren’t interested.”

“no, no, i always wanted you, you were all i thought about,” he confessed, pulling away to show the sincerity in his eyes, “but i didn’t want you to think i saw you as just something for me to use. that’s why i never wanted our contract to say anything about sexual favors,”

nami smiled at the sweetness of his words, leaning forward to kiss him one more time. his sincerity and genuine admiration he had for her didn’t go unappreciated. now that she knew that that was why he was reserved in touching her, she honestly felt her heart flutter at the amount of respect [name] revered her with.

it only made him more attractive, made nami more eager to kick start their newfound relationship off with a shift in their dynamic. to show just how much longing they were feeling for each other. and when nami sets her mind on something, she always finds a way to get it.

[name] was going to give it to her, provide that feeling of euphoria to her. spoil her rotten until all she could think about was how lucky she was that she had [name] wrapped around her pretty little finger.

and just like he had been doing for the past year, [name] would make her the happiest woman in the world, all throughout the night.

something about nami just being a blushing mess because of [name] is just so chefs kiss. oh and if you didnt rlly like this one tht amuch, i have so many more one shots for these two, im excited to publish themmm (mini series moment) also shiutout random dior employee someone had to snap [name] out of it and even that wasnt a realistic situation it had to be done 🫰🏼

#≡;- ꒰ ° sugar daddy series ꒱#one piece male reader #nami x male reader #nami male reader #one piece x male reader #nami imagines #male reader #x male reader #one piece imagines #sugar daddy male reader #nami x sugar daddy reader #nami x reader #nami reader

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icycoldninja · 26 days

Note

Headcanons for the Sparda boys and V with a s/o that got turned into a demon? (As for how: My best guess is something like the Ascension ceremony from DMC4.)

Reader shows up to the Devil May Cry one day after healing from a cooking related injury (burned hand, knife slipped and cut them, whatever), because they were kinda hoping the people at Devil May Cry could help. They'd probably be hesitant to tell anyone they're a demon right out- if that's even what they are, because they're not really sure themselves- but the lads could probably piece it together. Or just sense/smell the other demon nearby. Reader probably just thinks the shop and the shop employees stink, but if trying to be polite about it.

Not sure if humans/human blood would smell tasty to a new demon, but maybe? If so, that's another horrifying change they'd have to deal with and ask for help on.

Very interesting concept, hope I did it justice. Enjoy!

Sparda boys + V X Demon!Reader headcannons

¤ Dante ¤

-Your transformation was relatively recent, but terrifying. You'd managed to keep it a secret from everyone since the day you discovered your sudden change, but coping on your own was hard.

-You were constantly anxious about hurting the others unexpectedly, as demons are known to do, and couldn't concentrate on most of your tasks.

-You ended up burning your hand on the stove one night while trying to heat up some dinner, and in your panic, decided to head to Devil May Cry to see if someone could help you.

-At the same time, you hoped someone would notice your situation and help you out, though how could they? You had no physical changes, just internal ones.

-When you set foot into Devil May Cry, your heightened sense of smell caught the scent of something oddly appealing. You had no idea what it was, or why it smelled so good, but it did, and following the scent led you to the staff.

-The girls didn't think anything of it and assumed you were just disoriented because of your burn, but the boys--Dante specifically, noticed your behavior and thought it was weird that you were behaving the same way as demons did when they were tracking their prey.

-After your burn was dressed, he pulled you aside to ask you if anything was wrong. The concern in his eyes as well as the unusually grim timbre of his voice proved that he knew something was wrong. There was no other choice than to come clean.

-And so you revealed your secret, explaining how you'd been forced to take part in some sort of dark ritual whose side effects manifested days later. You broke down in tears, sobbing over your changed state, expressing your worries that you'd never be able to turn back.

-Dante took your hands and pulled you into his chest, pressing kisses to your head as he assured you everything would be fine. He'd help you find a cure, no matter what it took.

-He told you that no matter what you turned into, he'd still love you, and he'd be more than happy to offer up some of his blood if you need to feed, as some species of demons do.

■ Vergil ■

-The day you noticed your transformation, which came in the form of scales breaking out all over your body, as well as sharp fangs that replaced several of your teeth.

-You tried to hide it, but Vergil was a very observant man. He knew something was wrong, but chose not to say anything because he wanted you to come to him on his own. Also, there was a chance it was just you being moody, in which case, he didn't want to get involved.

-Your scales soon spread to your hands, making it hard for you to feel things with your palms and fingers. This made chopping food with knives very difficult because you couldn't feel the knife or the food in your hands.

-At one point the knife slipped, cutting the back of your hand. Swearing like a sailor, you bundled your hand up in a rag and stumbled off to Devil May Cry for someone to heal the injury.

-The moment you got there, you smelled something awful. It was worse than rotting food; it was beyond putrid. Just what was that smell?!

-Then you walked into the kitchen, where everyone was gathered at the time, and the smell got worse. It quickly became apparent that the smell was coming from the staff.

-While the girls helped fix up your wound, you did your best to keep your disgust from being expressed upon your face. Despite your best efforts, Vergil noticed that something was definitely wrong with you.

-He approached you, hoping to inquire about your strange behavior, but the proximity between the two of you resulted in the horrible smell getting worse, untill it was too much to bear.

-You started coughing and gagging, your hands flying up to clutch your throat. When Vergil saw the scales on your hands, he instantly realized what was wrong with you.

-He immediately stepped back into the next room and spoke to you from afar. You confessed, begrudgingly, that you'd been turned into a demon somehow and that you were able to smell human blood, which was disgusting. You expressed your fear and discomfort, to which Vergil assured you he would find a cure.

-In the meantime, your task would be figuring out how to grow accustomed to your demonic sense of smell--and the stinkiness of human blood.

□ Nero □

-Nero was actually present when you turned during the ceremony, and therefore was more involved when the aftershocks began to surface.

-You grew a tail, your eyes changed color, and your pupils dilated to slits. You also became noticeably more hungry for raw meat.

-Nero started to freak out over your erratic behavior and was very reluctant to leave you alone, but you insisted, and so he complied.

-Unfortunately, Nero's fears became more justified after he learned you tried to grab a steak off a steaming hot frying pan, burning your whole hand in the process.

-When you reached Devil May Cry to ask him to patch up your burnt hand, you smelled the unmistakable, extremely appetizing scent of human blood.

-Had Nero not been physically holding you back, you might have leaped forward and tried to devour everyone in the shop.

-After tying you down to a chair and dressing your burns, Nero made a vow to search for a cure for you as soon as possible--before the transformation got any worse and turned you into a full on, bloodthirsty demon.

-He would be gone for a long, long time, leading you to lock yourself inside your own home and give Nero the only key so you couldn't break out and wreak havoc while he was away.

-The next few months, or maybe years, would be trying times, but the both of you were strong--you'd get through this, no doubt about it.

● V ●

-When you noticed your transformation, it was already too late. You suffered from violent muscle spasms, headaches, and pain in your joints as a result of the dramatic changes your body was undergoing.

-You never reached out to anyone, especially V, because you had no idea what was happening to you.

-You were afraid, and feared dragging anyone else, including your beloved, into your problems.

-Sadly, your body had other plans. It decided to force you to undergo a seizure in the middle of your kitchen, during which you temporarily sprouted an extra limb. All the flailing and trashing you were doing caused you to bash several of your body parts against the counteracts, hard.

-By the time the seizure was over, you were throughly and entirely bruised.

-Casting aside your pride, you dragged yourself to Devil May Cry to reluctantly ask someone to bandage your aching limbs.

-It was there where you ran into V, who noticed your bruises and exhausted appearance, which made him worry. He pulled you aside, pressed ice packs to your aching bones, and gently requested you tell him what was wrong.

-It took a lot of convincing, but V managed to get you to confess your issues. You explained how something was making your body change, and with teary eyes, described the pain you went through because of it.

-V had no idea why this was happening to you, but he was sure you two would figure things out together. The first step was to deduce what was afflicting you, then, to find the cure.

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discluded · 1 year

Text

MileApo and the rise of Thai soft power

Mile and Apo talking about the Thai period film at the Vogue Thailand Gala on 2022/9/21

I've been meaning to sit down and write about this for a while now, ever since I saw the pattern of Mile and Apo injecting it into their talking points about the 2023 historical film, but it's taken some an effort to actually lay it out. Hopefully the time I sat with it will make the it a more insightful, rich reading experience.

Disclaimers:

(1) I have no formal experience in international relations aside from reading and watching the news, but my strong point is research. Folks with a more formal backgrounds in policsci or IR are welcome to add their input!

(2) Comments about policies or political actions of nations, whether positive, neutral or negative, are not meant to reflect on private individuals of the nationality, even those with a notable amount of social-cultural capital. Private individuals, despite their positions of social influence, most often have little to no individual influence on a policy level**.

So without further ado:

What is soft power? (aka soft power for dummies)

Joseph Nye, a then-Harvard professor, coined the term soft power in the 1980s/early 90s. He described it as:

“A country’s ability to influence the preferences and behaviors of various actors in the international arena (states, corporations, communities, publics etc.) through attraction or persuasion rather than coercion.”

In his book Bound to Lead, Nye established that three prongs of a country's soft power were its culture, its political values, and its policies. Here are two different graphics that further break down what those look like when evaluating soft power in practice.

If you feel like all the above is still vague to the point of unparsable in an applied context, I spent the majority of the time researching how to demystify the term especially in the way MileApo discuss it, and found this great explainer:

A strong nation brand and positive soft power perceptions allow a nation to promote itself as a place for people to visit, invest in, and build a reputation for their quality of goods and services. [...] it is often overlooked that a strong nation brand and soft power can deliver better outcomes at home. Primarily it encourages domestic tourism, the consumption of domestic goods and services (rather than imports). Less tangibly it also just makes people feel better about their country.

Expressed in this context, soft power can be understood as the act of building trust in the cultural products of a nation domestically -- some more abstract in the form of art (music, film) and culture, some more concrete like products including fashion and beauty -- in a manner to appeal to its own citizens while also broadening the appeal of cultural goods abroad in a which can drive international tourism, trade, and commerce.

In other words: yes, our collective desire to actually taste Farmhouse bread.

The Thai government and the push for soft power

While my interest in this topic was originally piqued by MileApo's comments, soft power policy has to originate at the government level. Note again that Nye's definition of soft power is centered around "a country’s ability to influence", therefore soft power policy must always formally be expressed nationally.

Around the time MileApo consistently began promoting soft power in alignment with the period film, I noticed a slew of references in Bangkok Post, one of the reputable English online publications based in Thailand.

Back tracking through some of the articles as a reflection of national conversation, since 2020, there has been a consistent theme in terms of what the government is attempting and how well it's going (or not going):

On Thailand's soft power and positioning in the world, Feb 2020:

According to Kitti Prasirtsuk of Thammasat University, who has carried out extensive research into Thailand's branding and repositioning in the age of interconnectedness and social media, Thailand and its culture, values and foreign policy have charisma and high persuasive power which can attract admiration and cooperation. But the Thai people and bureaucrats must change their mindset and perceptions and appreciate their country in real terms first before they take up new challenges.

Within Asean, Thailand is behind Singapore as No.1 [among SE Asian soft power rankings]. The report stated that Thailand has the potential to rise into the top 30 in the world, if the country can strike the right political balance between the rural poor and urban elite. It went on to say that Thailand's weaknesses are problems related to corruption and inequality. It also said that the Thai government is failing to showcase the full potential of Thailand's rich cultural offerings beyond tourism. One more weak link is its poor performance in public diplomacy and digital infrastructure.

(Mile, Apo, and Bible all attended Thammasat University, which is considered one of the premiere universities in Thailand. Apo later transferred and graduated from a different university.)

On Milli, a Thai rapper who performed at Coachella in Spring 2022:

The presence of the 19-year-old rapper Milli at the Coachella Music Festival in the United States has reinvigorated Thailand's soft power ambitions -- an area the Thai government has not fully explored nor exploited. Milli, whose real name is Danupha Khanatheerakul, is the first solo Thai artist to perform at Coachella, a music festival that draws tens of thousands of fans annually.

[Milli's prescence at Coachella] was able to advance Thailand's soft power [in ways previously stalled]. It is not that the government is clueless about "soft power". For decades, governments have focused on presenting Thailand's soft power to the world. However, that iteration of "soft power" mainly consisted of Thai customs and traditions such as food, costume, classical dance, Buddhism rituals and the wai. These aspects of our cultural heritage, despite being charming to foreign tourists, are not sufficient to catapult Thailand's into a stronger position in the global market. Thai cultural heritage has failed to catch up in the digital age…

Milli's song also includes ideas relevant to international audiences. One of her songs openly discusses sexual consent. Being relevant is one of the keys to increasing the nation's presence among diverse populations. The cultural impact made by a young girl like Milli should make the government rethink its cultural promotion strategy. More support is needed for progressive Thai artists and innovators.

An opinion rebuttable on Milli's performance and the government's blundering of reaching for soft power while not meeting basic domestic requirements:

One of the minister's advisers belted out a long speech that did not seem to address how Thailand will become a "soft power" but used the term multiple times. One can't help but wonder if the ministry knows what it is doing, or what the so-called "soft power" it is espousing is about.

Milli's self-taunting line "I don't ride an elephant" may sound a bit old but her rapping about how "the country is good, people are good, our food is good but the government is bood," seems to have struck a chord. "Bood" means rotten in Thai. It is thus understandable if the government was not too coherent when discussing anything about the phenomenon that Milli created. Indeed, [Thailand's Prime Minister] Gen Prayut should feel awkward discussing the "soft power" of Milli and mango sticky rice when he filed a defamation charge against the teen rapper himself back in June last year.

Talented as Milli is, and extraordinary her achievements both locally and at one of the world's most famous music festivals have been, the teenage rapper really has nothing to do with so-called "soft power" which government figures are talking about. Her success is largely individual. Milli created a sensation and a craze. For Thailand's "soft power" to be built, let alone recognised globally, it takes more than one successful artist…

The whole product must be good if it is to exert influence. As experts argued, it takes a wide range of qualities for a country to say it has "soft power". These include the quality of its political institutions, education, digital development, innovation, cultural appeal, strength in arts or business brands. That is why it is odd for everyone to talk about Thailand's "soft power" now when we don't seem to have ticked any of the basic requirements.

On Bangkok International Fashion Week (BIFW):

BIFW2022 has been [a] major and continuing mission to promote and drive Thai fashion to international levels. The event strategically aligns with the government’s strategy to empower Thai fashion industry as fashion is one of the most influential soft power that stimulate economic growth.

Note that multiple actors in BOC walked BIFW2022 in September, as well as multiple actors from other Thai BL shows that aired in 2022.

On the increasing popularity of Thai BL:

Thai BL is now popular across Southeast and East Asia[, and] has been gaining traction in Japan, the home of BL, since 2020. Posters of famous khu jin were put up in a train station. Magazines that cover Thai drama, including BL, are rolled out for the Japanese audience. The Tourism Authority of Thailand has launched a Twitter account that uses BL to engage Japanese consumers. They are conducting research on these issues in the context of soft power.

Yes you read that correctly. No joke, BL as a facet of Thai soft power is so prevalent now that the government is literally tracking its popularity and Twitter conversation around the topic.

So what does this all mean?

Thailand is a country within Asia and internationally that has a lot of appeal as a tourism destination. However, with many competitor alternatives in both entertainment (particularly film and music) and beauty/fashion, which are major drivers soft power within Asia and internationally, and domestic dissidence of policy and politicians due to social conditions, Thai cultural power is not as prominent as it could be and also suffers at the international level.

While there is appeal of specific Thai cultural products internationally (such as Milli at Coachella or in the case of Kinnporsche the Series) the government has failed to activate these prominent media products as part of a cohesive soft power strategy.

However, the government does seem aware of the potential, specifically in the realm of BL. Thailand has always maintained an image of being LGBTQ-friendly among all the Asian countries, and may now be looking to push LGBTQ-aligned media (BL and GL dramas) specifically as part of its soft power strategy to increase pop culture and media appeal.

MileApo on Soft Power

Part of the reason my ears perked up at MileApo's consistent talking point of soft power is again, because even without a polisci background, I'm aware that soft power is expressed at the country policy level. Thus when both of them started specifically using the term to discuss the film in pre-production phase, it got my brain gears turning.

Mile talking about the film on 2022/9/24 at the D7 Grand Opening (vid/txt)

"Nong Po will act with Hia Mile -- please look forward to this movie next year, please look forward to that a lot. We want to expand Thai culture and soft power..." Apo on the Thai period movie at the KPWT Send off on 2022/9/11

Mile Phakphum's speech on Mother's Day in Kalasin, 2022/8/5

Here's what we do know. Apo's dance training for the film is with a teacher affiliated with the academy that also produces dancers who specifically entertain the royal court.

And here is what they individually said in the Vogue Thailand print interview (completed in late August 2022, published October 2022)

And I would be remiss and dishonest to not point out that Mile's family is prominent in Thailand and his mother is part of the Queen's inner circle. Keep in mind that Thailand is a constitutional monarchy where the monarch has limited powers in practice (think: Japan or UK), and Thailand has a history of cyclical political instability that does not displace the monarchy. So believe him when he says he has limited power compared to Kinn. He travels on a private citizen's passport like all the rest of the cast. (Though my eyes start watering when I'm thinking about baby chaebol CEO Mile and destiny.*)

That being said, what these connections likely did get the production team was access to cultural resources such as the dance expert and most likely credentialed historians to consult on the period film. I would surprised if there aren't ministers' offices who are in the loop about film's production in a way they would not pay to other film or show production teams. I'm sure we will find out more about the interesting and important people involved in the production process around the time the film is released.

Another aspect that stood out to me is the fact that Mile and Apo, neither of whom have policy backgrounds, started iterating the discussion point of soft power in a way you don't see Milli, or Mew Suppassit (who let's not forget was also a RSIFF invitee and the first Thai artist to break into the Billboard World Song Chart), talk about it. Mew actually has talked about soft power a couple of times, but only in the context that he is part of a cultural wave that can increase Thailand's influence globally and never specifically in relation to a project he is promoting. That speaks a lot to the team behind the scenes involved in the writing and consulting (and marketing) process of the 2023 historical film.

The timeline of when these comments popped up is also interesting. While they do coincide with the release of the trailer post KPWT Bangkok, most likely what's happening during this time period is that BOC and more specifically Mile is shopping for sponsors to the project.

Think about Mile speaking about Thailand soft power to an audience of mostly older businesspeople at the mother's day event -- what would the purpose be except an ask for partnership on a project that he is on, which can become a vehicle for Thai products both domestically and globally? Look at the timing of the announcement of the Srichand partnership (end of August), and how successfully that broken the brand into the lucrative Chinese market, moving millions of THB worth of product for a brand that had struggled to get any traction previously. While Srichand's focus is currently on China, working with a Thai beauty brand for a film where the trailer highlighted many historical makeup elements is an actually ideal brand partnership and project alignment.

(Sadly for us, I don't think the film will be the second longest bread commercial in existence. But based on the Farmhouse CEO's comments, I would be unsurprised if they signed on to support the film project too. Ancient Thai bread I guess *jazz hands*)

In Conclusion

MileApo's soft power talking point was an intentional move specifically to shop the film project around for sponsors. The Srichand partnership proved MA-as-a-brand's ability to move product in a lucrative, hard-to-crack foreign market, though Srichand (and Giffarine) as brands aren't necessarily able to stand in the market independently as of yet. Their past brand partnerships' success simultaneously showed how lucrative it is to book MA for a product domestically. I'm sure we'll see a slew of new interesting sponsors and brand partnerships this year. This is only the beginning of MA's power as a cultural brand domestically and internationally.

Mile and Apo have also expressed their pride in the past in being cultural ambassadors of Thailand, both at the RSIFF and when speaking about engaging tourists who are visiting Thailand. Their praise of Thai products (for example, the artistry of Thai silk in the Vogue Th Gala interview) and their active choice to work with mostly Thai brands speaks to their values as businessmen who genuinely want to uplift Thailand's influence in the global market.

That being said, the Thai cultural ministry cannot rely on a single cultural emissary to advance its soft power agenda globally, and as of right now, despite ...some attempts, a cohesive government strategy around soft power does not exist.

MileApo have demostrated their brand has strong impact, and that they can influence purchase behavior internationally (e.g., KPWT ticket sales, Srichand) in ways many Thai media figures have not been able to as of yet. But they are not formally tied to the Thai government, nor should the government intervene and attempt to direct artistic expression.

Culture is one aspect of soft power, and political/humanitarian expression is another major component that advances an international soft power agenda. There are already articles discussing Thailand's problems of political corruption and self/journalistic censorship due to political conditions that prevent full freedom of expression. But that's the government's problem to address that. There is a lot of unharvested potential in multiple realms.

This essay is not about that though. I'm just a fan.

Can it be December 2023 yet 🥺

Additional notes that don't fit into the essay under the cut:

(1) There was a lot of fandom hand-wringing in August and September about Apo publicly having working dinners with Pond over the film project. Let's not forget Mile is someone who cares deeply about the art he makes, and he and Apo both have said multiple times they talk almost nightly about their artistic intent. If Mile talks to Apo and Apo was talking to Pond, why would Mile, a person who cares deeply about art, not be talking to Pond in pre-production? Obviously the answer is a division of labor in the relationship: Mile was working on funding which is just as important, and Mile also needs to sleep and rest and not work. There wouldn't be anyone else he would trust to convey his artistic intent to the director except for Apo. True power couple behavior right there.

(2) * everyday I go feral over baby chaebol CEO Mile. If someone made a kdrama about a handsome chaebol baby who was a CEO but also an actor and model who met his soulmate in university but it was a missed connection and then the soulmate went on to become a famous actor/model who quit because of bullying, but then they met again when the baby chaebol WHO IS STILL A CEO BUT ALSO AN ACTOR met at an audition for a drama... *foams at mouth* I would call this show bizarre, nonsensical and incoherent, and yet HERE WE ARE IN REAL LIFE. The jetsetting supermodel with wealthy CEO part of reality which is now bending around MileApo so they can live their wattpad fanfic life. What the hell am I looking at, I ask myself every day.

(3) ** this statement does not include billionaires like Elon Musk or Jeff Bezos whose net worth exceeds those of small and mid-sized countries. Per today's estimate, ~50 people/families have more wealth than 90 of 190 countries. If your net worth can run the economy of half the countries in the world, then your wealth/resources hoarding behavior can control what the media says and influence otherwise free and fair elections.

Once again, Some of you need some contextualization of how comfortably wealthy vs. billionaire resource-hoarding rich looks like.

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