#hope you have a nice day and it's cool outside and you can have a warm drink !! :DDD
Text
Maintenance Request Chapter 20
Joel Miller x f!reader | new chapter every Friday
18+ | ao3 | main post & chapter list
chapter word count: 3.3k
chapter summary: when Joel met Ellie 👀
a/n: thank you as always to @katareyoudrilling for being the best beta 💕
chapter tags/warnings: flirting, banter, fluff, cursing, food and drink mention, pet names (honey, gorgeous, darlin’, baby, sweetheart, pretty girl, good girl, handsome, cowboy), tricky conversations, typical Ellie bluntness
Chapter 20
Saturday, November 16
Twelfth week of the semester
In the week leading up to The Meeting, as Beth had been calling it for days (in a ridiculously deep, dramatic voice), you were nervous. You knew Joel was a good guy, and you wanted Ellie to like him. But you wanted her to like him on her own, not because you pushed her, or because she felt like she had to for you.
Beth joined you and Joel for lunch by the psych building on Friday, even though your schedules only overlapped for 30 minutes. Afterwards she blew up the group chat you had with Ellie with her review (“He’s pathetically into your aunt, like it’s written all over his face. He seems like a good one”). You got the go ahead from your sister (who was working that weekend), which wasn’t actually difficult but you were glad to have it anyway.
By Saturday, you were so nervous you googled breathing exercises on your phone while you waited for Beth and Ellie to come pick you up. Joel was going to meet you at the restaurant, after Tommy picked up Sarah to take her to soccer practice. You tried to tell yourself not to be nervous but it didn’t work. You felt like you actually had plenty to be nervous about, so you couldn’t trick yourself out of it.
You were in the process of breathing in 1-2-3-4 and holding it when your phone buzzed with a text from Ellie saying they were outside. You released your breath and took one more deep one before gathering yourself to leave.
Ellie was in the front seat of Beth’s car and stuck her tongue out at you, so you rolled your eyes and got in the back.
“Morning,” you said as you slid into the seat.
“Morning!” Beth sounded cheery, at least. “Here we go!” You sighed and tried to force the muscles in your back to relax.
The brunch spot wasn’t far from your apartment, and during the ride there you poked at Ellie a little bit to try to gauge her mood. She seemed fine, if wary. That was probably the best you could have hoped for.
Joel was waiting for you outside of the restaurant when you arrived. He was looking pretty nervous himself. He had his hands in his pockets and he was trying to look casual, but his shoulders were tense.
“Hey, darlin,” he murmured as he leaned in to kiss your cheek.
“Morning, Joel.” You smiled and gestured behind you. “You know Beth. And this is Ellie.”
Joel and Ellie looked at each other for a moment in silence. She was squinting at him fiercely and you could tell he was trying not to smile in response.
“Nice to meet you, Ellie.” Joel nodded at her and you were suddenly glad he seemed to intuit that offering a handshake was not a good idea. “Heard a lot about you from your aunt.”
“Hi,” she replied, eyes narrowed. “What did you hear?”
Joel couldn’t hold back the smile anymore. “Heard you made a pretty cool presentation about the Emu War. How’d that go?”
Ellie looked torn between her warring desires to give Joel the third degree or to monologue about the Emu War at any given opportunity. “Um, fine.” She visibly bit back something else and you sighed.
“Let’s go get a table and then maybe she’ll tell you all about it.” You gestured to the restaurant and Beth moved behind you to open the door.
“Bet I can recite your presentation from memory.” Beth grinned as she teased Ellie, who rolled her eyes.
“Bet me what? I bet you can’t.” Ellie crossed her arms as she entered the restaurant and you laughed.
“Hmm,” you heard Beth muse as you stepped up to the host station to get a table. “I’ll buy you another weird little guy of your choice.”
“Deal!” Ellie sounded gleeful. “Get ready to perform.”
You mentally thanked Beth for putting her more at ease in this unfamiliar situation as you all followed the host to a table and sat down. Joel sat next to you on your left, with Beth across from him and Ellie across from you.
Your conversation got stuck on the Emu War for a bit (Beth managed to postpone her performance and bet fulfillment until you weren’t in public) and you tried not to watch Joel and Ellie too closely. You realized you were twisting your hands together under the table when Joel reached over and gently laid his hand on top of yours, pulling them apart to tangle your fingers together and rest them on your thigh. You took a deep breath.
Before you could say anything, though, Ellie beat you to it.
“So, Joel. What are your intentions with my aunt?” She stared him down, eyebrows furrowed, arms crossed on the table in front of her. It sounded like she had rehearsed the question before asking it. Intentions, you mouthed to yourself. You caught Beth’s eye and realized your best friend was grinning.
Joel squeezed your hand before he nodded and replied. “I’m serious about her, about us. I care about her a lot. I want to be good for her.”
Ellie hummed, and was briefly interrupted by your drinks arriving. She took a long sip of her orange juice.
“I have some questions.” She said it like she was throwing out a gauntlet. You resisted the urge to hide your face in your hands.
Joel nodded, face serious. “Ask ‘em.”
And then rapid fire, she did.
“You have a kid, right? What happened to her mom?”
Joel didn’t even flinch. “She left, isn’t coming back. We weren’t together long. You’ll have to talk to Sarah for more details.”
Ellie squinted like maybe she wanted to ask a follow up, but proceeded to her next question. You were starting to suspect she’d made a list and wondered if she had it written down in one of her pockets.
“Have you ever been arrested?” You closed your eyes and took a long sip of your coffee.
“Not really. Got thrown into the drunk tank once and I wasn’t even drunk. My little brother was actin’ up in public, got us both in trouble.” You tried not to laugh at this new information about Tommy, even as you realized Joel had apparently chosen the path of extreme honesty. You didn’t want to interrupt Ellie’s interrogation but you wondered if there was a limit.
“Hmm. Ok. Have you ever done drugs?”
Joel shook his head. “Just smoked weed a few times in high school. Used to smoke cigarettes before Sarah was born. Quit when she came along.”
Ellie leaned back in her chair, hands tense on the edge of the table. “What’s your worst habit?”
Joel smirked. “Probably leavin’ my towel on the floor in the bathroom. And sometimes I’m a grouch.” You met Beth’s eyes and looked away sharply before you both could laugh. Joel pressed your clasped hands into your thigh, like somehow he knew you were struggling to hold it together.
“What’s your daughter’s favorite tv show?”
Joel grimaced. “She likes that dating show, the new one where they don’t see each other at first. I hate it.”
“Do you watch it with her?” Ellie raised her eyebrows.
“Sometimes. She likes watchin’ it with Tommy better, he likes it more’n me. She says I bring down the vibe.” He shrugged.
“When’s the last time you had an argument with her?”
Joel tilted his head, considering. “Maybe last week? Wasn’t really an argument. She made me drink some orange juice in the morning, said I can’t live off coffee alone. Or I guess maybe when she wanted to go to a sleepover but I wouldn’t let her. I haven’t met those parents yet. But you’d have to ask her what she thinks about it.”
You watched Ellie’s face carefully and could see that she was relaxing a bit. You could guess at her reasoning for some of these questions, but not all of them.
“Why do you like my aunt?”
Joel raised his eyebrows in response and Ellie raised hers right back, expression unchanged. “Well. Alright then. She’s the smartest person I’ve ever met, and I love learning how she thinks and how she sees the world. She’s funny, been making me laugh since the first day we talked. She’s got good taste in music.” He glanced at you and smiled the little half smile that you loved. “And she cares about people. You can see it in the way she teaches, in how she talks to her students. She wants to help them. She gives so much of herself to everyone around her. I want to do the same for her.” You bit your lip as you felt a sudden tightness behind your eyes. He winked at you. “And she’s gorgeous.” You laughed.
Ellie squinted at him again, frowning. “I mean, she’s the fucking best, I know that. But you better know that, too.”
He grinned at her. “I do know that. She is the fucking best.” He raised his eyebrows at her again when he echoed her curse. “And for some reason she seems to like me. I’m not arguin’.”
You elbowed him. “Joel, you know–”
He shook his head at you. “I know, darlin’, I swear I’ve been listenin’. But right now I’m tellin’ Ellie all the reasons I like you.”
You sighed, but Beth cut in. “Wait, I have a question.”
Ellie looked at her skeptically. You both did. Joel didn’t, but he hadn’t known her as long.
“What? I do!”
Joel smiled. “Go ahead.”
Beth grinned, and you started to worry. “Alright, we need to know, and you have to be honest. How bad at dancing is she? We’ve seen her dance! We know the truth!”
Ellie burst out laughing and despite your own annoyance, you grinned at the sight. “Yeah!” She agreed through her laughter. “Tell us!”
Joel looked at you and smiled, gently. “Nah, she was great. Didn’t even step on my feet. She followed my lead just fine.” You felt your cheeks heat in response.
“Oh, come on! That's it?” Beth nudged Ellie with her elbow.
“That’s it.” He nodded and squeezed your hand again. “I’d dance with her anytime.”
“Gross.” Ellie rolled her eyes, and you knew she was feeling more comfortable.
Joel straightened in his seat as the food arrived and released your hand. “Can I ask you some questions now?”
Ellie immediately looked suspicious but nodded, grudgingly.
“Alright. I heard you started the art club. What kind of art?” He took a bite of his food after he asked, looking at Ellie expectantly.
She glanced between him and you, clearly unsure. You nodded at her in encouragement.
“You want to hear about that?” She sounded skeptical.
He nodded. “I do. Sounds like maybe it took a lot of work. Are you in charge of the club?”
Ellie continued to squint at him but answered. “No, I’m the vice president. I didn’t want to be the president but they made me pick something.” You snorted and she rolled her eyes at you. “My teacher says I’m not enough of a people person to be president anyway.” She looked like she wanted to swallow those words back after she said them, and glanced at Joel warily. You frowned.
“Sounds like your teacher might need to work on their own people skills, if you ask me.” Joel grumbled and furrowed his brow at his plate and you wondered if he was thinking about Sarah’s mean chemistry teacher. Ellie looked like she wanted to agree and was conflicted about it.
“That’s what I said,” Beth agreed, nodding. “You’d be a great president.”
Ellie rolled her eyes. “I don’t want to be president, anyway.” She shrugged.
“Sarah’s thinking about trying out for varsity soccer next year, not just playing outside of school,” Joel offered. “I told her maybe she should start a club of her own, somethin’ to do with reading, since she’s been doing it so much.” He nudged you as he said it and you smiled.
“There might be a book club already,” Ellie offered, voice neutral. “I dunno what they have.” Ellie and Sarah went to different schools, on opposite sides of the town. The schools were almost identical other than Ellie’s having slightly more artsy offerings for students.
Joel nodded. “Maybe. I’ll tell her to check.” He took a sip of his coffee and glanced from you to Ellie and back again. “Got any more questions for me?”
Ellie furrowed her brows and frowned at her waffle. You watched as she straightened her shoulders and started to wonder how many questions she might have left on her list.
“How many people have you dated?” Your heart rate picked up at her words and you opened your mouth to interrupt, but Ellie shot you a stubborn look.
Joel answered just as honestly as he had been so far. “Well, I think your aunt and I will keep some of those details between ourselves. But I haven’t dated much, haven’t been in a relationship in a while, not since Sarah’s mom.”
Ellie eyed him and crossed her arms. “That’s it? How do I know you won’t hurt her?” Her face was fixed in a scowl and you didn’t know if you should say something or let Joel answer. He did before you could decide.
“Well, I won’t pretend I’ve always been perfect,” Joel’s voice was even and you could tell he was treading carefully. “But I would never hurt her on purpose. And I would try real hard not to do it accidentally either.”
Ellie narrowed her eyes, clearly not satisfied with this response. “I was there, you know. After Matt. I know what he was like.” You felt a tightness in your chest as you remembered how much of a mess you were when Ellie came to live with you, freshly free of your relationship with Matt and still figuring yourself out. She’d only been 9 at the time and you’d hoped you’d shielded her from most of it. You blinked against the emotion building behind your eyes. Beth sent you a supportive look from across the table.
“I believe you.” Joel nodded. “But there are parts of our relationship that are just for us, and I’d rather your aunt decide what to tell you about them. I will tell you that I already promised her I’d never treat her that way. She’ll decide if I’m good enough for her. And you should know Sarah would take care of me long before you could get to me, if I ever did anything like that.”
Ellie continued to scowl for a minute, looking first at Joel and then down at her plate. “Ok. I–” she trailed off, looking unsure. “Ok. One more question.”
Joel nodded and you took a deep breath, bracing yourself.
“Can you cook? Because she’s not great at it.”
Beth cracked up laughing and you gasped. “Ellie!”
She grinned at you, unrepentant. “It’s true, and you know it!”
“Well, I don’t know about that.” Joel turned to you with the half smile that sent shivers down your spine. “Dinner was pretty good the other night.”
Ellie rolled her eyes. “She can make, like, 5 things. Do not let her make soup.”
He raised his eyebrows and darted his eyes from her to Beth and back to you. “What happened? Soup’s easy, darlin’, what could go wrong?”
Ellie cackled and launched into the story of the Soup Geyser with infuriating glee. As she did, you looked up and met Beth’s eyes. She grinned at you and nodded, and you felt your shoulders relax in relief. She was right, even though she hadn’t said the words out loud.
Ellie was teasing you. In front of Joel. Something had gone right, after all.
…
After brunch, Joel offered you a ride, so that Beth and Ellie could go check out some more “weird little guys” before Beth dropped her off at Riley’s. You hugged them both (squeezing Ellie a bit longer than usual) and she promised to text you later. You took a deep breath, knowing that would probably be her final verdict. But she smiled and waved at you, so you hoped it would all be fine.
You found yourself standing next to Joel by the passenger door of his truck and realized you’d been silent for your whole walk from the restaurant. You looked over to find him looking at you, a smile playing around his lips. You smiled back, sheepish.
“Sorry, Joel, I was just thinking.”
He reached out to tangle your fingers together as he crowded you against the passenger door. “I could tell, sweetheart. So? How do you think it went?” He looked a little worried, which was sweet.
“Honestly, Joel, I think it went really well. Sorry about the interrogation.” You sighed as you leaned against the truck.
He shook his head. “No, I expected it, or something like. I’m happy to answer her questions. You know, to a point.”
You laughed. “She respects honesty. So you probably won some points, with all that.”
He smiled at you and leaned in to press a soft kiss to the corner of your mouth. “Good. I want her to like me. I want her to meet Sarah, too.”
For a moment the two of you just smiled at each other. You were shaky, like you were coming down from a huge adrenaline rush, and you supposed that wasn’t far off of what happened. You heaved a deep breath, shaking off your nerves. “Do you have some time, Joel? Want to come over for a bit?”
He grinned, a bit wicked. “Tommy’s taking Sarah to a movie after soccer practice. I’m all yours until dinner time, baby.”
You pulled him into a kiss. “Good,” you mumbled against his lips. “Take me home, cowboy.”
…
Ellie
(3:02 PM): ok, he’s maybe a little bit cool. he’s alright
(3:03 PM): I want to meet Sarah
(3:03 PM): but I think he checks out
you
(3:05 PM): thanks, Ellie. I’m glad you got along. even if you had to embarrass me to do it
Ellie
(3:06 PM): it’s not my fault you can’t make soup
(3:07 PM): do you think he meant it when he offered to teach me to play guitar or was he just doing that adult thing where you say nice things to kids 🙄
you(3:08 PM): he meant it. but I’d be there too. if you’re interested
Ellie
(3:10 PM): I’ll think about it
(3:14 PM): Beth was right though. he’s pathetically into you
(3:15 PM): like I thought you were bad
(3:15 PM): but he’s on a whole other level
you
(3:16 PM): I thought you’d be happy about that
Ellie
(3:17 PM): don’t make me admit to having feelings
you(3:18 PM): 😇
…
sis 👯
(4:12 PM): finally, my break! How did it go?
you
(4:15 PM): yay! I think it went ok? You should ask Ellie but her official verdict is that he’s “alright” and maybe “a little bit cool”
sis 👯
(4:16 PM): well damn. High praise
you
(4:16 PM): I know!
sis 👯
(4:18 PM): I’m heading back in but now I want to meet him, too
you(4:19 PM): of course! He’d love that. Also he offered to teach Ellie to play guitar and I could tell she was interested, but I promised I’d be there if she does want to take lessons. To make her comfortable
sis 👯
(4:20 PM): she’d probably love that, if she does actually think he’s alright. But yeah I’d want you there. And not until after I meet him.
you
(4:21 PM): of course 👍
...
a/n: they met! it happened! what do we think?
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#joel miller x reader#joel miller x you#joel miller x f!reader#joel miller fanfiction#joel miller fic#tlou fic#maintenance request fic#JHCGBDM#ellie williams
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Reading your tag rambles makes me think of Night Vale! Kinda so random lol. I like how happy you always sound! Anyway, yeah idk whats up with the sudden bot-explosion on here! Wasn't this bad in a few months.
hfshfa thank you!! i just started listening to WTNV recently, it's definitely my vibe i love it :D
yea lotta thoughts lol, it's why i added the slashes so they're easier to read hfvhhs
and thaanks ◕ᵕ◕ sounding happy makes me happy so !!
really ! every couple months there's an influx, and sometimes a new theme! i think it's 'decay' this time loll
#just us hi#spins and spins and spins and spins and#/really enjoying wtnv!! it reminds me of the games my brothers and i play hfshfs#i love how there are odd things that are just unexplained‚ feels so fun and natural (how ironic lol) !!#i'm pretty early-in though‚ still on ep.10#i've been listening to them while i draw sometimes :3#//hfshf Yea#two slashes mean a topic change and one means 'this is somewhat relevant to the last tag group' in case you needa know lol :>>#//and thanks for the aaaaaaask it's very nice <33#spins and spins and spins and-#hope you have a nice day and it's cool outside and you can have a warm drink !! :DDD#//hordes of bot accounts#every now and then there's one with Such a name that i just can't do it#i can't block them hfhvas#i don't remember their names now of course but they're still here. somewhere.........#//GASP i have obtained a cookie#!!!!!!!!!#i must go. the cookie beckons me#au revoir !!!#/and thanks again for the ask ~+~+~ :DDD
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Scrybe cuddle pile (with you in the middle)
god. i wish.
#|| > that is the ideal...#but also probably uncomfortable . ? or at least it would be for me WHSHDHGJG#then again im horrifically touch starved ! i will take anything . !#it has to be texture hell.#youve got bark youve got fur youve got pines youve got metal youve got a resemblance of a person#and all of these temperatures range from hot to cold and just how are you supposed to position yourself in that arrangement#. okay. had to stop to think about it.#03 would realistically be on the outside of the pile in order for it to get out whenever and doesnt want anyone behind it#but theres also the consideration of if it can function as a cooling machine despite being a machine which normally means heat#can you imagine trying to rest your face against its chassis. not only is it entirely solid and doesnt give but also it is grimy and greasy#and AUUUGGGhh texchore hell...#[msg.outlook]#it has to itch. it has to itch so bad trying to hug mags.#unless you DO follow the beard hc in which i mean. ok. sure.#i think itd be nice to be spooned by mora though.. yeah....#for the sake of my absent dignity im gonna end it here ¡□♡●♡□¡□¿#fr tho. hard for me to think of the right posing#but to be fair im following bed physics and not chilling on a conveniently sized couch#mayve its time i sleep#good night anon i hope u have a lovely day
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garden song mockup no saving it cause it’s secret but this is the female rage song
(we’ve made it through many growing seasons / our kitchen adorned with flowers weekly / from my time in the garden, my back is sore / i’m afraid the soil can’t take any more / we’ve tried every fertilizer we’re willing to buy / at the end of the day we scream and cry / bottling our tears for tomorrow’s heat / hoping the next day’s fruit is a little more sweet / jam-jarred every happy moment / ready to move the excess to storage / our garden reached the end of season / all our produce rotten or eaten / things were sometimes okay / i remember how happy i was that day / when you showed up with gardening gloves / i couldn’t think of a better act of love / piles of compost and piles of dirt / i thought if we tried it could really work / many spring days and many summer nights / more dead leaves and many more fights / i thought i could die right here / it’d be okay, i’d nourish this field / with words so careful and compassionate / with all the love my body could give / you know i really, really tried / now i can’t fertilize what i despise / thank god i’m not too late / thank god i’m not too late / jam-jarred every happy moment / ready to move the excess to storage / our garden reached the end of season / all our produce rotten or eaten / all our produce rotten or eaten / all our produce rotten or eaten / all our produce rotten or eaten / i can’t go for another round / i tossed my gloves to the ground / i grew to hate what i loved / i cut both my thumbs off / all the flowers and all the leaves / let them burn together with the weeds / chunks of mossy ground collapse / leaving our garden dead at last / all our produce rotten or eaten / we thought if we held out we’d grow a new eden / goodbye to a garden with beauty so fleeting / the flames mark the end of season)
#basically since this is a mock-up recording that means the only thing that has to be correct is timing#and we succeeded at that in this mock-up which means that other stuff doesn’t matter. like audio balancing and vocals#basically we practiced with a metronome and set somebody’s phone to record what it sounded like#and then we play that in headphones to record our actual real parts for the song#which means i get to make vocal choices way outside of this copy. which is why i’m asking#for vague feedback on how to make my voice be good. or like what to change#there will also be a cello part i would also like to take advice on the cello part cause it’s very little much formed in my head yet#it just kinda. like there’s some notes that sound good but it would be cool to have a riff#ok those are all the things i can receive suggestions on. drum fills will be better when timing is not the focus#and metronome sounds will be eliminated and nature noises of frogs and leaves will be added. recorded live at nature preserve#but anyway i just kinda wanted to share cause. kml is where most of my creative energy goes these days and it’s nice to see it pay off a bit#even if i don’t particularly like the vocals. and if i mess up at bits. it still feels cool to have made something#so yeah here it is shdhdf. hope you guys like it. and again extremely open to advice for fixing bad parts#oh man. tara out here texting me. right now. best of luck to me myself. hope it is good things not bad#anyway i’m still around not asleep yet!! here if anybody needs anything#me. my post. mine.#delete later#tara wrote lyrics i wrote chords/melody
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Hii! I saw your requests were open and I thought I'd give you a hc/fic idea:
The brothers (or whoever you'd like to write for) reacting to Mc using their shampoo/ soap in the shower for whatever reason ^^
I hope this makes sense to you lol, anyways I hope you're having a wonderful day/night, don't push yourself too hard, and drink water!! You can also take any creative liberties you seem fit, or if you decide you don't want to write it I won't be offended ^^
°˖✧◝(⁰▿⁰)◜✧˖°
Thank you so much for the request!! This is absolutely adorable,
I hope everything is to your liking, Have a great rest of your day/night !!
Genre: fluff
Ship: Reader x brothers + Diavolo (individual headcanons)
TW: clingy demons, minimal cussing, no use of readers' pronouns,
second-person pov
When You Use Their Shampoo
Stepping into the shower, You were greeted with the nice hot/cool water raining from above, Going to start your routine, You reached for your shampoo bottle only to find it empty! Looking around you spotted his shampoo and conditioner, surely he wouldn’t mind… right?
Lucifer
100% smells it on you no matter how little you used
Won’t tease you in public but as soon as ya’ll are alone? Ho ho, he’ll never shut up about it
Smug, the definition of smug
You had to go and inflate the ego of The Lord of Pride even more
Very possessive afterwards
Congrats, You know have a scary guard dog demon!
Mammon
He probably wouldn’t even really notice at first
He’d probably compliment how good you smell, Then would slowly realize…
Great, Now he's yelling gibberish while his face slowly gets redder and redder
“You’re gonna give me a heart attack, don’t do that to me!” But will become very clingy
If you say his shampoo smells good, he may lose his mind.
“Well of course ya wanted to smell Like the great Mammon!”
Levi
Poor awkward nerd
He never saw this coming
I think he would realize you used his shampoo but won’t say anything
Flustered to the max
You have broken him
Levi.404 has stopped working, please reset.
After like the third day, You’re gonna have to bring it up
Secretly really likes it, Won’t tell you that though
Satan
I think he is very picky about scents so he knows as soon as you walk into the room
A little bit of a tease, asking if you were trying out a new shampoo
Smug 2.0
He would tease you a little bit around the others but not bad
He would flood you with compliments, You using his shampoo would make him very lovey-dovey
Expect him to ask for ya’ll to just use the same stuff from now on
Asmo
Oh honey, he knows.
He knew before you even got out of the shower.
But that doesn't mean he's any less excited!
Better plug your ears because he will let out the loudest squeal known to mankind
Seriously, Lucifer may come and check on ya’ll helicopter mom
Asks what you do and don’t like about it
He just wants you to feel as fantastic as he does when using it
Everyone will know you used his shampoo, He brings it up in every conversation
Would also 100% ask you to use his bath products 24/7
Beel
Now Beel has never been really into insane products like Asmo or Luci
So he may not really recognize it at first
If you decide to tell him, This man will become a happy demon puddle
He’ll give you a big smile and tell you you’re free to use any of his stuff at anytime
We don’t deserve Beel
Will bury his face into your hair and just stay there
Takes you out to Hell’s kitchen that night just because he loves you so much
Belphie
Oh this little shit
Tease! He won’t quit bragging!!
Smug 3.0
Such a brat about it too, He won’t let anybody near you, Well of course he’d let Beel, but who wouldn't?
He has practically locked you up in the attic with him
Why go outside when ya’ll can cuddle?
Diavolo
Has really expensive products
He may even have a custom scent
If so, He’ll know instantly that you’ve used his shampoo
He’ll bring it up with a large grin on his face
When you confirm his suspicions, he’ll just laugh
He’s so happy ya’ll are close enough to share things like that, You have no idea!
He may make a sly comment to Barbatos or Lucifer just because he’s a little possessive
Will follow you around like a lost puppy, Now Barbatos is mad at you because even less of his work is done
He can’t help it! He just loves you!
Will be the third on my list to offer ya’ll to just share bath products
#obey me#obey me nightbringer#obey me one master to rule them all#obey me x reader#obey me beelzebub#obey me diavolo#obey me fic#obey me mammon#self ship#obey me fluff#obey me hcs#obey me headcanons#obey me lucifer#obey me asmodeus#obey me leviathan#obey me satan#obey me belphie#obey me x you#obeymexreader#janus'writings#janus'asks#omswd#obey me fanfic#obey me fandom
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Sorry not Sorry guys...
I respect all your inter-companion romance ships, and I hope they bring you joy and endless inspiration, but I have a primal need for something different. I don't need my companions dating each other.
I need them to be the most dysfunctional yet supportive found family they can be
I need Karlach to be literal 'Mama K' and grab Shadowheart and Lae'zel by the scruff and put them on coat hangers, telling them that if they can't say anything nice, then shut the fuck up for five minutes and if they can do that, then she'll come and let them down
I need Astarion and Gale to get into such a spat that all dignity and posh goes out the fucking window, and they devolve into two grown-ass men having a 13-year-old style slap fight while calling each other the harshest of obscenities, but if anyone from the outside tries calling either of them less than fabulous, they join forces and fuck them up
I need Wyll, Shadowheart, and Lae'zel to do each other's hair while discussing all the ways they've taken down various opponents and monsters, and how they would have done things better
I need Jaheira just smacking everyone upside the head whenever they say or do something stupid. Because gods dammit why is she always the only one who can see trouble from a hundred miles away, only to have her perception check fail and stumble right into a trap Halsin had set up to catch food for dinner
I need Astarion to embroider offensive cross stitch into every other companion's tents when he's left behind at camp, for no other reason than he's feeling salty that day
I need Halsin to wildshape into a bear just so he can surprise Karlach with an actual bear and Clive having a tea party with flower crowns and drawings of the horrible ways Gortash will be killed
I need Shadowheart being a petty bitch and letting anyone who was being especially stupid in a fight get a little too close to death as punishment before finally healing them. Because that's just what healers do
I need Gale pranking people with his spells. Use mage hand to yank the rug out from under Lae'zel after she insisted that he was too squishy to fight properly. Casting 'create water' over Shadowheart to ruin her makeup in retaliation for saying last night's stew was a bit bland. Use Telekinesis to fling Astarion off in some random direction because dammit Gale just woke up, and the man needs his coffee before he can properly deal with all of that first thing in the damn morning
I need Lae'zel to take pillow fights just a little too seriously
I need Wyll begging Halsin and Jaheira if they can wildshape into a bear and a shark just so he can ride both of them through the Chionthar while recklessly casting Fireball and Lightning Bolt at the sky, because just think of how cool he would look doing it
#I just need this#bg3#bg3 astarion#bg3 shadowheart#bg3 lae'zel#bg3 wyll#bg3 halsin#bg3 jaheira#bg3 karlach#bg3 gale#bg3 headcanons#baldurs gate 3#baldur's gate 3#random thoughts#astarion ancunin#shadowheart#lae'zel#lae'zel of k'liir#jaheira#karlach cliffgate#halsin silverbough#wyll ravengard#gale dekarios#gale of waterdeep
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Could I ask for your headcanons on how the staff would take care of/look after the reader? I’m a sucker for the fics where they take a parental role
How The Staff Takes Care of You
TW: None!
Info: Crowley, Crewel, Trein, Vargas and Sam x Reader (Platonic)
🍓This one is short but sweet. I’ve spent a lot of time on the event, but I want to start on other requests outside of it too. This one looked fun and easy so I got it out within about an hour or so. I hope you enjoy!
Tags: @kitsun369 @bloomstruck
Crowley
-Lets get one thing straight, Crowley does not take care of you
-It’s hard to even say that Crowley cares for you. It’s hard to say he cares for anyone other than himself.
-Still… he does do some things correctly.
-He gives you a place to live (which he threatened to take away), food (which he threatened to take away), and funding (which he… threatened to take away).
-He DOES come to ACTUALLY care for you, just… not in the traditional sense, I suppose.
-He has frequent check ins with you to ensure that you are doing well.
-Occasionally he stops by ramshackle just to chat with you and ensure you have company.
-Believe it or not, he set up a lot of the things you do specifically so that he can ensure you are getting along with other students and have a support system here.
-He lets you keep grim around — even though he has cause countless issues for student and staff alike.
-He’s like your weird uncle. You hardly ever actually see Crowley around, but you know that he is looking out for you in his own way.
-Thats all that matters, right?
Crewel
-Crewel is also anther oddball when it comes to how he shows that he cares.
-He is… aware that Crowley does not do a very good job at caring for you, and he’s a bit easier on you because of that.
-He’s probably harder on you homework-wise than most other students though.
-He wants to see you excel and succeed in his class.
-It would be the biggest fuck you to Crowley ever, so he works hard to make sure that you prove yourself to everyone.
-He makes sure that you’re sleeping and eating well, and if he sees that you are not, he makes you stay ofter class to talk to him so you both can find a way to solve this issue.
-If it’s money issues keeping you from eating, don’t worry. He’s now making you a lunch — or at least he gives you some money to eat.
-The nicest thing he does for you, however, is he gets you clothes.
-Your uniform is pretty… bad, and he feels bad for you.
-So, he takes matters into his own hands and gets you a nice new one that actually fits you.
-He and Trein have a rivalry over who treats you better and who you like more. (Trein is winning by like one point and it drives Crewel crazy).
-Crewel very much is the one to tell you “Boys are stupid, don’t date — especially not the ones here.” Lol
-Again, more like a very ambitious uncle who just really loves his family but never wants kids of his own.
-Oh, also, his dogs love you. So that’s a plus.
Trein
-He has two girls of his own, and he really does love kids, he’s just… jaded from years of being a teacher for snotty kids like Ace.
-You though? He likes you a lot.
-You’re a troublemaker, sure, but you always try your best in classes and have been making the best of your situation.
-Speaking of, Trein hates the way Crowley is so lackadaisical about your position and treatment.
-You are a living person? How could he just leave you to almost starve or freeze in your rickety old dorm?
-Trein visits your dorm frequently after his school day is done, just to ensure you have food and are able to stay warm/cool in the respective seasons.
-If he finds that you do not have enough food or cannot afford it, he talks to both Sam and Crowley and scolds them into lowering prices for you and raising your passive income.
-He still buys you things with his own money.
-If you fall asleep in class and you look like you need it, he won’t bother you.
-Tells you that you can always come to him if you’re having trouble with anyone, and he will most definitely deal with them.
-Do you need extra help with homework, he’ll stay late just to ensure you’re understanding the material.
-Seriously the number one dad at NRC, and he’s really happy to have you around since you remind him so much of his girls.
Vargas
-The resident promoter of a healthy lifestyle and great workout routine at NRC.
-You don’t really spend that much time around Vargas, so you two aren’t close, but he knows about you through the other members of staff.
-He knows how Crowley treats you, and while he isn’t one to play favorites… he can make an exception.
-Especially since he knows you aren’y always eating enough thanks to your limited budget.
-The last thing he needs is a student passing out in his class.
-He still pushes you to work out and participate, but if you’re looking like a ghost when you walk into class he’s going to make you go change and get some rest.
-He’s a gym nut, not a monster.
-He’s good with dieting though, so he’s able to tell Trein and Crewel and Same what would be best for you to eat in your condition.
-So yeah, he’s likely the least involved in your life, but he does help you from behind the scenes.
-It’s better than Crowley, so that’s a win in his books.
Sam
-Other than Trein, Sam probably sees you the most frequently out of everyone.
-You come into his shop at least once a day for something.
-At first he treated you the same as every other student, charing you ridiculously hight prices for typically cheap stuff.
-Then one day you came in looking for something to eat, cause you’d run out of what little Crowley gave you, but you didn’t have enough money.
-He nearly cried at how heartbroken you looked when you realized you couldn’t get anything.
-He gave you the whole meal for free, didn’t even ask for what you had.
-Trein is also on his ass about how high his prices are, so he purposefully has a “discount” every time you’re there to buy something.
-He also gets to know you through your shopping and makes and effort to talk to you to feel out where you are physically and mentally.
-He reports what he notices back to Trein and Crowley, just to make sure someone who has the power to is taking care of you.
-You’ve got a friend in Sam, that’s for sure.
#twst#twisted wonderland#twst x reader#twisted wonderland x reader#x reader#bunni's treats 🧁#mozus trein#trein x reader#crewel x reader#divus crewel#crowley x reader#dire crowley#twst sam#sam x reader#vargas x reader#twst vargas
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touchdown*
⭒⭒⭒
⭒ Football!Harry / Coaches daughter!reader ⭒ frat boy harry ⭒ shy reader ⭒
warnings: smut, 18+, cursing, unprotected sex.
summary: harry is the varsity quarterback for their universities football team. after a practice harry is accidentally left at the field with no ride home. y/n is there to help him.
⭒⭒⭒
y/n’s dad was her universities football teams head coach which meant she was forced to go to most of the games. she didn’t have a huge interest in sports, but she went to support her dad.
she occasionally went to practices because she loved to study outside. she was studying film so she would film the teams pre-game videos and promos.
today was a beautiful day. y/n decided to go to the practice and sit up in the stands so she could study in the fresh air. the whole team knew who she was so it wasn’t awkward or weird when she walked in.
y/n was sitting in the first row of seats editing her film assignment. she wasn’t paying much attention to the running and yelling going down on the field. she heard her dad close up practice which meant she had to pack up and go get her stuff from his office.
harry was having a good day. he had an amazing practice and felt good. his frat was having a party tonight too so he knew that would be fun. harry liked to take a few minutes after practice to stretch so he wouldn’t injure himself. after that he did his normal routine of showering, changing, and getting a snack from the vending machine.
however, today he realized that everyone from his team had left together by the time he was done, and harry didn’t have a car. he looked around the locker room and field to see if anyone was left but he was completely alone.
maybe his coach would be nice enough to give him a ride. harry walked to the office looking for him, but instead saw y/n exiting.
“hey y/n!” he says with a smile.
“hi!” she was cute, very shy, but cute.
“do you mind giving me a ride home? they ditched me.” he laughs a little.
“of course!” y/n thought nothing of it. harry and her had an english and psychology class together so it wasn’t their first time interacting. they actually ran in the same big friend group. they just never hung out one-on-one.
the car ride was filled with quiet music and mindless chatter between the two of them. y/n always had a small crush on harry so she was a little exited about the private time between them. she would never admit it to him because he didn’t like her back, but she thought he was hot.
i mean who didn’t?
harry was practically the most wanted guy on campus. he had an array of tattoos covering his arms and chest, he had the most beautiful green eyes she had ever seen, and he was built. as she pulled her car up to harry’s frat house, he turned to her.
“are you coming to the party tonight?” harry thought she was hot. she wasn’t super out going, but he liked that about her. girls that were super loud and in your face weren’t attractive. she was sweet and cute. he secretly hoped she said yes just because he wanted to see her again.
“yeah i’m going with y/f/n!” she nods at him.
“cool we can hang out.” he smiles and hops out giving her a ‘thank you’ and a wave.
unlike most frat boys, harry was super sweet. he was always respectful and kind to her whenever they talked. which is why she liked him so much. that and the fact that he was insanely attractive.
she was almost bursting with excitement by the time the party rolled around. y/n was wearing a mini strapless black dress. she would never admit it, but she was wearing it to get attention from harry.
harry was just as excited to see her. he was wearing a thin black sweater and blue jeans. he put on a cologne that she had complimented one time when they were hanging out with their friends.
y/n and her friend pulled up to the house and it was already blowing up. harry was in the biggest frat on campus so everyone was anticipating this party.
when they walked in they were instantly struck by the large group of people filling the home. luckily, since they were friends with harry and others in the frat, they were let into the back where only select people were allowed to go. it was much less cramped in there and their friend group was sitting around on couches drinking.
“hey!” niall, y/f/n boyfriend walked over and greeted them. the rest of their friends welcomed them as well. y/n was immediately handed a drink from one of the pledges harry and niall had walking around serving drinks.
she accepted it and walked over to the couch to sit. niall and her friend were already making out so she needed to get away from them. y/n’s eyes started searching the room for the boy she had come to see.
“hey y/n.” she looked up to see harry standing next to the couch.
“oh hi!” she smiled and scooted over so he could sit next to her.
they talked for a bit and joked around with the other members of their friend group for a while until y/f/n walked over to you.
“c’mon let’s go dance!” she grabbed y/n’s hand and pulled her away from harry.
the dance floor was filled with people and the only thing that could be heard was ‘Rock your Body’ by Justin Timberlake.
y/n and her friend were jumping and dancing with the other people when she felt somebody walk up to her.
“missed me that much” she laughs at harry who was smirking down at her.
“oh it was terrible” he says dramatically.
they dance together and y/f/n gives her a look and a knowing smile before walking away to find niall.
when the song changes y/n feels harry grab her hips and flip her around so she is facing him. without any warning he leans down and kisses her on the lips. she was shocked by this and pulls back.
“fuck i’m sorry i shouldn’t have done that.” harry’s eyes widen. maybe he had misread the signals and she didn’t like him like that.
she doesn’t respond and instead stands on her tiptoes to give him another kiss. y/n wraps her arms around her shoulders to deepen the kiss. his lips felt amazing. he had his fingers in her hair holding her to him tightly.
“wanna go to my room?” harry says leaning down to kiss her on the neck. she nods and pulls him towards the stairs to his room. they had to get through a maze of people making out against the walls.
she has been to harry’s room a couple times before while they were working on homework and projects together. as soon as the door is locked harry is on her.
he leans down to pick her up against the door and press his lips against hers hard. y/n whimpers out and holds her hands on either side of his face to deepen their kiss. harry presses his hard on to her core and groans.
“see what you do to me?” he slowly grinds into her while they continue to kiss hard. “can i taste you baby?"
“please harry” she whimpers as he moves them from the door to his bed. he wastes no time in pushing her dress above her hips. harry presses kisses against her clit through underwear. “need you."
“where do you need me baby?” he teases her by running his fingers against her inner thighs.
y/n was too shy to say it. “you know.”
“no i don’t you have to tell me.” harry smirks. “here?” he presses a kiss to her inner thigh. y/n shakes her head.
“please harry need it so bad.” she begs him.
“only cause you’re so sweet.” he smiles and pulls her underwear off. he hastily presses an open mouthed kiss to her clit. “such a pretty pussy.” he licks a stripe from her slit to her puffy button.
harry brings his lip to her clit and sucks hard. y/n moans and wraps her legs around his shoulders. “fuck harry!”
this is all the encouragement he needs to go faster. he gives her clit one last kiss before leaning down to push his tongue past her entrance. y/n is experiencing true bliss from the feeling of harry’s thick tongue and his nose that’s pushing against her bundle of nerves.
he brings his hand up to press a finger into her entrance while moving his mouth back up to her clit. he fucks her with two fingers while suckling on the bundle of nerves. this has her approaching her orgasm faster than ever.
“fuck i’m gonna cum harry!” she gasps and pulls on his hair slightly.
“cum for me baby.” he moans out at her tug on his hair.
with one final kitten lick against her clit she cum's on his face.
“gonna let me fuck you baby?” he gives her cunt one last kiss before climbing back to press kisses along her neck.
“yes please need it so bad.” she nods quickly and leans down to help harry take off his pants and shirt. once they are both naked he wastes no time in pushing past her tight entrance.
“shit got the tightest pussy i’ve ever felt.” he moans and leans down to kiss her on the neck again. he starts rolling his hips into her hard.
“harder harry.” she whimpers at the feeling of his thick cock running deep into her cunt. she clenched tightly around him moaning louder.
“if you say so.” he picks up her hips and starts drilling faster into her dripping hole. y/n was losing it. he was thrusting at the perfect angle. his cock was hitting her g-spot perfectly and his hip bone was stimulating her clit in just the way she needed to orgasm.
“such a perfect little cunt.” he groans and thrusts harder. harry was obsessed with her. he was obsessed with her moans, her face while she was coming, and her cute little moans.
“let me ride you.” y/n turns harry over so she can be on top. she hastily raises her hips above his cock and drops down hard. this makes the two of them moan out in satisfaction. she grinds over his hard length which has harry groaning.
“gonna cum in you baby.” he moans and grabs her hips to help her move faster over his cock.
“cum with me.” she gasps and pushes her hands against his sweaty chest for stability. the two of them are experiencing pure ecstasy.
with one final grind against him y/n cum's on his cock while harry empties his balls deep inside her cunt.
“fuck why haven’t we done that before?"
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DIABLE. I feel your lack of inspiration deep within my soul as I, too, have been struggling.
That being said, I'm back on my Cillian Murphy bullshit and would love to see some domestic Tommy, maybe after a really long day of blood and gore he comes home to a plush world of softness and love and consideration and he can turn it all off.
My darling, thank you for sending this in, it definitely inspired me! I hope you enjoy this little drabble. <3
Summary: Tommy will always do what his wife asks of him, especially when he needs a few calm moments himself.
Warnings: nothing, just nudity, full on fluff and fun
Pairing: Tommy Shelby x fem!reader (about 800 words)
Somewhat of a follow up Drabble
It was a mild August evening, a day that had been too hot for (y/n)’s liking which had passed all too slowly. Perhaps it had been the fault of all the running around she had done – whatever it was, the second the kids had been put to sleep, she had told their staff to leave for the night, desperate for a few hours of silence.
The second she had been left alone, (y/n) had hurried outside, shoes long forgotten as she dragged the old, ceramic tub through the garden. Sweat had pooled on her forehead, forming pearly drops that dripped down to the ground, but she had been determined, set on cooling off while watching the sunset.
She had run back and forth to fill the tub, arms and legs begging her to slow down and rest for a minute or two. But (y/n) hadn’t stopped moving until the tub had been filled to her liking. And with a satisfied grin glued to her lips, she had shuffled out of her dress, underwear following moments later.
Her squeals had echoed through the evening as she had sunken into the cold water, unable to stop her laughter from clawing through her. She had been grateful that nobody else was around, they surely would have called her a hysteric madwoman, calling the doctors on her for the childish glee the cold water had shot through her veins.
(Y/n) was too focused on the sunset to hear the call of her name, she was also too distracted to pick up on the confused expression tugging on Tommy’s features as he spotted her through the windows. With a cigarette between his lips, he slowly stepped outside, undoing the buttons of his jacket as he moved closer.
“What a nice view to come home to, eh?” She jerked in surprise as Tommy spoke up, forcing her wide eyes towards her grinning husband. Tommy’s gaze wandered down her throat, watching the water drops stick to her soft skin. The water was clear enough to expose every inch of her body, leaving Tommy groaning as he dipped his head down to kiss her. “Tell me, how did that tub end up right here?”
“Well, what do you think? I doubt the faeries miraculously carried it over here.” A deep rumble of laughter vibrated through Tommy, momentarily reminded of the stories he had read to their children the night prior, feeding their obsession with faeries and mystical creatures. “Will you just stand there or join me like a good husband would?”
Tommy watched her for another moment before he threw his cigarette to the ground and began to shrug out of his clothes, exposing his body inch by inch. (Y/n) pulled her knees to her chest to make room behind herself, grinning in excitement as he began to step into the tub.
“Fucking hell, do you want me to freeze my cock off?” His curses left her giggling, eyes sparkling with mischief. But Tommy kept on moving with curses rolling off his tongue, till he finally got into a seated position. He pulled her against his chest with a hum, pressing a kiss to her cold cheek.
“How was your day?” (Y/n) murmured her words, eyes closed, head resting against Tommy’s shoulder. He interlaced his fingers with hers, letting his thumb run over the back of her hand with slow movements.
“Exhausting, sometimes I wonder if I’m still made for this life. I’m getting old, eh?” She froze in his grasp, let her eyes shoot open and slowly turned towards him. Her eyes wandered over Tommy’s exhausted features, instantly able to pick up on the hurt flushing through him, the anger he couldn’t shake, and the greedy desperation he had never been able to feed well enough.
(Y/n) cupped his cheek, she pressed a kiss to his lips before she began to speak up, “You’re anything but old, dear husband of mine. And trust me, if I’d feel like you’re getting old, I’d instantly sell you to the faeries.”
Loud laughter rumbled through him, a sound so carefree, (y/n) hadn’t heard it in a long time. And with a widening grin stuck to her lips, (y/n) pressed another kiss to Tommy's lips, knowing that their evening together was just about to get exciting.
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Honeyed
Summary: You hate being touched, but you might be willing to put aside your discomfort for a tattoo from Joel.
Pairing: tattoo artist!Joel Miller x f!Reader
Word count: ~11.7k
Warnings: slow build, no outbreak tattoo!au, reader has issues with touch and is mostly touch adverse, tattoos and getting tattooed (the reader only has one tattoo that is described in any detail), description of a past abusive relationship and a bad experience getting tattooed, insecurity, anxiety, loneliness, implied undefined past trauma with men, Joel gets to have both his daughters in this
A/N: We're ignoring canon and pretending like Joel can draw for this fic, thank you. I love this fic with everything I am and hope you all like it too. I'm trying something new with this header because none of the gif were giving me what I wanted, so I hope its not too cringe as I am not an aesthetic girlie. Thank you for reading! As always, I would love to know your thoughts! Please please please, be sure to leave feedback!
Summer is at its peak when you first happen by Joel Miller's tattoo studio.
The sky is a jewel bright, cerulean blue, the shining yellow saturation of the sun blurring the air around you in a washed out haze that reminds you of childhood summers past.
Main Street’s sidewalk is hot enough to fry an egg, hot enough to boil soup. It sends shimmering waves up from the asphalt. Blinding sunshine pierces through the tired trees that line the road, undulating waves of emerald green and twinkling golden light shifting over the pavement. The leaves wilt in the heat. A single cloud floats on the sky’s horizon.
The sun feels nice, maybe a little like you’re baking alive, but you don’t mind it. When you suck in a deep breath of that sun warmed air, you feel at home—it tastes like dust and heat and the slightly floral desert bloom.
The town, just a couple hours outside Austin, already feels more like home to you than the city ever did. It’s idyllic, lush with shaded parks, an ice cream parlor and a coffee shop, plenty of restaurants and food trucks, a walkable little main thoroughfare not far from your apartment above a bookstore.
It’s more than idyllic; it feels like a town straight out of a novel. Quiet and quaint and safe.
And, apparently, it has a tiny tattoo studio that you’d somehow missed on all your walks through town.
The shop looks a bit rustic—all raw wood tones and metal—but the art that hangs in the front windows is beautiful. Paintings that seem to be for sale hang next to artfully taken photos of healed tattoos.
You step closer, pressing a hand over your brow to block out part of the glare that rains down from the sky in glimmering waves.
The lone cloud in the sky slides over the sun in what feels like a moment of divine intervention, just for you, so you can see the displayed art properly.
It’s lovely, and your skin begins to itch and tingle with a need you know well. You know exactly what you’d ask for, from the hand of the person who’d created that which hangs in the front window.
You want—need—another tattoo. You need this person’s art to live on your skin, to make a home there.
You step back from the glass as the cloud drifts on and the sun reveals itself again, perfect golden rays slipping over your exposed skin. The world seems to filter back in to you then. The heat of the day, the hush of the breeze that does nothing to cool the air, the sweat gathering at the base of your throat.
Children shriek at the park a block over, splashing in the fountain at the center of it all, parents reclined on benches in the sun, cold lemonade close at hand. The scent of sugar and sun and fried food burns through the air.
The buzzing need only increases as you note the name of the shop and move on to the record store and then the clothing boutique, your mind still hovering in front of the studio.
As much as you would have liked to just burst in, you want more than what a walk-in appointment could probably get you. That, and you needed to do some research about the place before you decided, no matter how much your skin itched with want.
To your dismay, the tattoo shop seems to only have one artist, though it shouldn’t have surprised you, considering the size of the shop. It’s tiny and you doubt there was room for more than one artist to comfortably work there.
A fairly new instagram account lists his name as Joel Miller, owner of, and soul artist at, the studio you had passed. The shop doesn’t seem to have a website, but the few google reviews that it does have are all glowingly positive.
Bookings appear to be wide open according to the instagram bio, but a different kind of itch crawls under your skin at the thought of being tattooed by another man. Your stomach goes foamy, gives an uncomfortable lurch, at the thought of any man at all having to touch you.
You scroll through the few posts that have made their way onto the account, the last dated two days ago. And, for the first time in years, you feel the need for this person’s art on your skin begin to outweigh your aversion to touch.
There are no pictures of Joel Miller, just his art, though some of the posts give glimpses of strong hands and thick forearms. Despite yourself, arousal pools in your belly at the sight. A few scars run beneath the wiry black hair on his arms, thick veins snake beneath his skin to collect in rough, strong hands that speak to hard labor. It makes you wonder if he’d always been a tattoo artist or if he’d made a career change at some point.
Some of the captions on the posts make you snort and you have to wonder if he runs the account himself. You somehow can’t picture the owner of those hands typing out the cheesy, often pun filled, lines.
You ruminate on it for weeks, passing by the shop anytime you have to walk through town to admire the ever changing line up of photos and art pieces hung in the windows. The second week a drawing of a doe appears among the photos and paintings—big eyes wide, ears alert as she looks over her shoulder, surrounded by a thick forest bright with sun and shadow. Bumblebees hover around her alert ears.
She looks familiar but you can’t quite place why.
Sometimes you go out of your way to pass by, just to check out the new photos, even making a day of it, buying yourself an expensive iced coffee and lingering far too long in front of the window, just looking, pretending like the small shop doesn’t take up your every thought.
You spend each evening hoping for a new post to the shop’s instagram page, hoping, too, that the new post contains glimpses of more than Joel Miller’s hands.
The man remains an enigma, a mystery, and if he’s ever in the shop when you stand in the window, you never see him. You convince yourself that if you could just get a glance at him, you’d know. You’d know if you could handle being tattooed by him.
You find yourself rolling your eyes at yourself often. You avoid hugs with friends, cringe your way through having anyone unfamiliar do your hair, tense at casual accidental touch. Phantom echoes of pain and want twin themselves around your heart, slide thick and cloying around your chest, breaking your breath from your body.
It’s inexplicable, how much you crave touch and fear it. It’s terrifying, how you wonder what Joel’s hands would feel like.
Probably it would feel like everyone else’s touch always has. Like your skin is too tight, like your heart might stop beating, like there’s something wrong with you for feeling like prey near capture, like the soft press of another person's hand might start burning.
One hot afternoon, you finally find out what Joel looks like.
The heat is relentless that day as it has been for weeks, the ice cream you’d stopped for at the local parlor rapidly melting as you completed your, now weekly, routine of stopping by the tattoo studio. As unbearable as the heat is, you somehow still find it blissful. On this day, a young woman stands outside the shop cleaning the front window. The door is propped open, frigidly cold air swirling out onto the street.
“Sarah?” A voice calls from within, graveled and gruff and warm. “You ‘bout finished up out there? We need to get goin’. Tommy’s waitin’.”
The girl, who could only be Sarah, turns away from the window, swiping a few errant strands of her hair away from her forehead, her opposite hand anchoring on her hip as she answers back.
You don’t catch her response, too distracted trying to glimpse the man just inside the door.
All you’re able to see for a moment is a crop of dark hair laced with a fine sprinkling of gray before his broad shoulders that test the strength of the t-shirt he wears comes into view. Dark wash jeans fit snugly around his thighs and narrow hips, worn but well kept boots on his feet. He’s certainly handsome and looks rugged, and that both scares you and thrills you.
When you glance back up to his face, you meet his eyes. The slash of sun, a spinning shard of light falls over his gaze when he pokes his head out the door. In the warmth of the Texas sun, his eyes are cast in honeyed tones. The man you know must be Joel Miller smiles at you, one forearm lifting to brace against the doorway, the lines by his eyes crinkling up. His beard is threaded with that attractive gray too.
“Howdy,” he says and he looks like he means to say more, but something seizes your throat and you avert your eyes and keep walking, barely managing to nod back politely. You don’t dare to breathe until you’re well past his shop.
It takes you two blocks to realize the ice cream in your fist had melted over the edge of the cup and dripped over your fingers and that the man whose art you’ve been lusting over for weeks is just as pretty as his hands.
Joel noticed you the first day you lingered outside his studio.
He’d watched you cup a hand over your eyes, squinting against the glare of the sun. Your nose had scrunched up too as you gazed in at what was hung in the window.
A curl of nervousness that he couldn’t exactly place had settled hard in his gut. But you just looked, eyes filled with wonder as honeyed sunshine fell in drafts around you. He half expected a colony of bees to buzz around you, like some long forgotten god.
You’d reminded him then of a deer caught by surprise, big eyes and searching gaze pulling him in, something skittish and troublesome looming around you.
It wasn’t in Joel’s nature to bother folks on the street anyway, but he suspected if he even cracked the door open you’d go flying down the street in a cloud of warmed sun, just like a deer that hears the first snap of a branch under a hunter’s foot.
Eventually you’d moved on, and he’d tried not to feel too bad about it, not that he had any real reason to.
His hand had itched as you walked away, to pick up a paint brush or a pencil or a whittling knife.
To his surprise, you start coming back all the time. A least once a week, and sometimes it seemed like you came by just to come by, like you didn’t have any other reason to be out.
His girls notice, too, when they visit because of course they do.
Sarah is kinder about it than Ellie who tells him to man up and talk to you.
He just tells her to mind her own business, watching you look at the things he’d created with wonder and reverence. It flatters him, really, makes an embarrassing blush he’ll never admit to heat his chest. He considers himself a pretty average artist.
But each time he thinks about following Ellie’s advice, he sees your doe eyes and knows he’d frighten you.
There’s a drawing that hangs in the window now—several actually—of a doe with wide, curious eyes, not necessarily afraid but cautious. He can’t seem to stop painting, drawing, whittling deer.
One deer really, a very particular doe that bees seemed to want to follow.
He wonders if you know that that painting in the front window is of you, if you recognize yourself. You surely don’t, because you keep coming by.
“Since when are you so obsessed with deer?” Sarah asks one evening. The light has faded from the sky in an orange and red blaze, the close blanket of night wreathing the street outside, street lamps buzzing haloing yellow light in patches down the sidewalk.
“Always liked deer,” he comments, mumbling it more than anything.
Sarah rolls her eyes. “Sure.”
He’s right not to disturb you though. The day he finally gets the chance to say hello to you, when Sarah had insisted on washing the front window free of the accumulated summer dust despite his protests that he would do it, fear darts behind your eyes, nervousness seizing your shoulders. You don’t so much as look at him, head ducked, feet carrying you swiftly down the road away from him.
A thread of worry that you’d stop coming by wrapped around his chest until the next week when you’d again lodged yourself in the window, peering in at the ever rotating catalog of his work.
He figures that’s fine for now.
He’d rather you be there, unreachable on the other side of the glass, than have you disappear entirely.
You are a creature of distrust. Of longing and starved skin, of loneliness and want. You aren’t sure where those things begin and you end, you aren’t sure where it started. Maybe you had been born that way, shoved onto the Earth and into existence with a mistrust of the world that shaped you into an infinitely lonely thing, an incredibly wary thing.
There’s always been something missing inside you, that might let you bridge that chasm inside you, climb to the other side and put yourself in someone else’s hands and hope they didn’t burn the path behind you.
Maybe you are skittish and adverse to touch by nature. Maybe it started when you were a kid, with your parents who have never been tactile, not even when you were a child, not even when you were hurt or in pain.
But you aren’t sure, you have never been sure.
What you do know is that it's left behind a raw hole, aching with a loneliness you can't figure out how to battle.
The times you had slipped your heart into someone else’s palm, wet and sticky with blood, the viscera of who you are, admitting to the pain that vibrated always at a low level frequency below your skin, you regretted it.
Mostly because you’re never able to explain it. It just is. You just are.
It’s who you’ve always been, and sometimes one step forward necessitated two steps back with how much you could handle.
Touch wasn’t even always bad, sometimes it was just too much. And no one wanted or tried to understand that sometimes it just felt too good, overwhelmed you to the point of exhaustion, and sometimes to pain.
You’ve always wondered if there would ever be anyone who’s touch felt safe, felt like it belonged.
The aversion you have to touch and the deepening trust issues that grew wilder every year were only solidified by your last boyfriend, by the tattoo he carved into your skin. He confirmed everything you ever needed to know about yourself, that you were not worth cracking the code on, that no one would ever be willing to try to handle you with care, to expose you slowly, to meet you halfway. To know when you asked not to be touched that you weren’t mad or punishing them.
If he wasn’t willing to put up with you, he’d said, to figure it out, then no one else would be.
You swore off having a relationship, content in the loneliness that you were destined to have claw at your heart, at least in that way.
But with that tattoo came too a deep mistrust, an aversion to anyone getting too close to you, a swearing off, a final nail in the coffin of trying for things to be thrown back in your face. He’s the reason you moved to this tiny town, away from Austin and all the memories that he’d left in you like jagged shards of mirror, reflecting everything you didn’t want to see.
Before he tattooed you, you’d been tattooed several times before. The experience had always been good, one of the few ways you didn’t mind being touched. It had always been the making of a happy memory for you. And he had taken that from you.
He hadn’t just stolen something you loved from you, but shut the door on vulnerability or intimacy with almost anyone.
Joel Miller’s tattoo studio, his stupidly attractive hands, the deep drawl of his howdy, and most of all the beauty of his art in the front window of the shop, captures your mind, ensnares your every thought. It’s woven a net around all the thoughts and worries that normally flutter around your head and calls for them to be silent.
“All I do is think about this damn tattoo,” you say to a friend back in Austin one evening, phone squished between your shoulder and your face as you cook dinner. “Is that normal? Like, I can’t just go get one somewhere else, by anyone else.”
No one knew about the sharp fanged demons that lingered in your past. The distrust and loneliness that ate out parts of your heart, bite by bite, year by year. But Leah does know about your ex, about the tattoo on your shoulder that still aches with long healed pain.
“You said it looks like he does walk-ins, right?” She asks, not unkindly. “Why not just go talk to him for a bit,” she eases you into it. “See if it might be the right fit. I know. . .things in your past haven’t been easy. But he might be alright. I can go with you, if you think that might help.”
And that doesn’t seem so bad. Just talking to him doesn’t seem so bad. You find that you want to. Then you would know if you couldn’t be tattooed by him, no matter how much you admired his art. Leah reminds you again of the nice google reviews, the funny little captions on his instagram posts, that he is not your ex even if he is a stranger.
“He’s running a business,” she says gently. “It isn’t like then.”
She’s right, you know she is, and you miss the experience, you miss getting tattooed.
So, the next morning you brace yourself and make the now familiar walk to the little studio, picking up an iced coffee to sip on the way so you hopefully won’t be too sweaty in the early morning sun that blooms rose pink on the horizon. It gives your hands something to do too, and you fidget with the rim of the plastic lid as you walk.
When you push the door open, Joel is standing at the counter. He has glasses perched on the end of his nose and is paging through a leather bound appointment book that sits next to an ancient computer that looks as though it hasn’t been switched on in a decade.
Something about the sight makes your shoulders loosen just a bit. You certainly hadn’t expected him to look like that, domestic and relaxed and calm. His pen scratches across the paper, a landline phone slotted against his ear.
He glances up at you in the still open doorway, surprise pulling over his features for a brief moment before he makes a hasty end to the call. It makes heat crawl up your body, the way his attention latches onto you and sticks. “Hey,” he greets when he sits the phone back into the cradle, sliding the glasses off. “I’ve been wonderin’ when you’d finally come in.”
There’s something light in the rough, drawling timber of his voice, like he’s trying not to startle you, like he’s inexplicably glad you’re there.
You stiffen and he chuckles, cold air pulsing around you in the doorway before you finally step fully into the shop and let it swing closed behind you. You remain there, just inside the door, trying not to feel like a fish in a barrel, easily caught, even more easily killed. “Caught me, huh?” You try to keep your voice light, waiting for a striking arrow that would never come.
“S’alright. Thought maybe you just walked this way a lot but you always stop to look,” he gestures at the front window. “My daughter is the one that’s always changin’ it around.”
“I appreciate her efforts,” you say, taking a hesitant step forward. “I look forward to seeing the changes. Best part of my week.”
He nods, looking just a tad embarrassed, and then closes the appointment book, giving you his undivided attention. “Lookin’ to get tattooed?” His eyes trace over your exposed skin, noting the few you already have.
“Maybe,” you answer, giving a half-shrug that you hope comes across as nonchalant. “I saw on instagram that you’re, uh, taking appointments.”
“That I am,” he answers easily.
You swallow and glance around the studio. It’s as tiny as it seemed from the outside, but homely and comfortable. The walls are a deep green that remind you of forests you’ve never seen. The walls are covered in photos and art, both created and bought, the styles too different to have been made by the same person.
When you squint closer, you see that a few of them have tiny plaques beneath them, etched with names and dates. Shelves line the walls filled with knick knacks and children’s drawings in frames, and what appear to be family photos. One shelf is stacked with records and coffee table books, an ancient turntable perched precariously on top. A door is propped open behind the dark wooden counter, through which you can see the actual tattooing space, clean and sterile looking.
A lone guitar is hung on the wall, and you wonder if he plays. Your imagination conjures up hands that you’ve been studying for weeks softly plucking at the strings, curling around the bridge.
It’s shameful, the way your body flushes at the thought, the ghost of strummed notes floating in the air around you.
“Darlin’?”
Joel’s voice pulls your eyes away from the guitar and back to his face. Embarrassment drops like hot coal into the pit of your belly. You like the shape of that word in his mouth.
“I just wanted to stop in and see if maybe we’d be a good fit,” you explain hastily, not thinking about the words before they fall like broken promises from your lips. “If you’d be interested in tattooing me.” Before he can open his mouth to respond, you continue, “That wasn’t what I—I don’t mean to take up any of your time. Just if you have a moment. I should have messaged maybe—”
Joel waves you down and gestures around at the empty space. “No, it’s alright, hardly got anyone comin’ through here. Next appointment ain’t ‘til this afternoon.” He reaches below the counter, callused fingers catching on another notebook which he sets on the counter with care.
You follow the motion of his hands, your eyes snapping back to his when he continues, “What are you lookin’ to get done?” The knot of anxiety in your chest loosens a little when he seems to take your nerves for concern over the piece you want done.
Joel’s hands are ones that are familiar to you now after all the times you’d spent looking at the spare pictures of them online. That want, the heat, crawls back up inside your lungs and curls up to stay, making a home among the throbbing tendon and muscle. Though you’d glimpsed him that day on the street, it's a very different experience to stand for an extended period in front of him. His voice paired with the broad set of his shoulders, the cut of his brown eyes focused on you, all adds up to something devastating.
Another vinegary squirm of nerves in your gut is accompanied by your treacherous heart squeezing tight in your chest, battering something long abused, long closed off.
“You can show me reference pictures if you’ve got ‘em,” he offers when you don’t respond again, instead just looking at him, his presence calming in a way you can’t really explain. You blink and pull out your phone, approaching the counter slowly. The ice in your half finished coffee rattles as you set it on the counter, away from the appointment book so the condensation won’t accidentally get on it.
Joel unsettles you, but not in a way that people usually unsettle you. Not in the way your ex-boyfriend had from the very beginning. Instead of feeling the need to flee, you feel the urge to stay.
You show Joel the inspiration pictures you’ve been collecting the last few weeks, swiping slowly through what you have saved in your camera roll and describing what you imagine as best you can. When you lean closer to show him, the scent of clove and cinnamon and leather washes over you. The smell makes you a little dizzy, runs circles around your head.
His brow is furrowed, concentration etched into his features. “I’ll need some time to work out some designs for ya.”
“That’s alright,” you nod, watching those rough fingers sketch broad lines in the notebook he’d pulled out.
“Sorry, sweetheart, don’t know where my manners went. I didn’t get your name,” he says, and glances up at you. “I’m Joel,” he holds out a hand.
Sweetheart. You’ll be hearing the low timber of his voice whispering that and darlin’ in your dreams, you’re sure of it.
You find yourself smiling, your mouth involuntarily pulling up at the corners. You take his hand without thinking. His hand is warm and firm; his fingers engulf yours.
He hums as he takes his hand back, pencil already between his fingers again, and you’re left feeling chilled, like there’s an empty space in the middle of your hand that needs filled. “Real pretty name y’got.”
Oh. You like the hum of pleasure in your chest that chases the nerves below your skin. It’s a pleasant kind of warm.
“You can send ‘em on to me on that. . .app,” he grumbles. And you have to laugh. Between the landline phone, the physical calendar book, and that app he sounds just like the kind of cranky that you find endearing. “Uh, just so you know if you get a reply that don’t sound like me, it’s because my daughter runs it for me.”
“Sarah,” you guess, thinking of the young woman you’d seen cleaning the window.
“Ellie, actually. She thinks she’s a goddamn comedian.” He rolls his eyes, but you don’t miss the affection lodged in his gaze. He gestures at one of the pictures framed on a shelf where two teenage girls are slotted on either side of him. “Got two of ‘em,” he clarifies. “Sarah—she does the window. You saw her that day you passed by, the taller one there in the picture.”
You tilt your head, Joel’s eyes following the motion. “They help you run this place.”
“They’re my marketing team,” he grumbles. “Self-appointed, if you couldn’t guess.”
You find yourself leaning on the counter, watching Joel’s pretty hands sketch absentmindedly. “That actually sounds like fun.”
“They seem to think so,” he agrees, glancing up at the same time you do. A touch of pink colors the high points of his cheeks. The delicate little shading makes something warm curl into your gut. “Anyway,” he clears his throat. “We don’t get a lot of foot traffic around here, you might have noticed. Ellie’s thinkin’ that account might lure people up from Austin.”
You nod. “It’s a good idea. People have traveled further for tattoos. And we aren’t too out of the way up here.”
“I take it you live around here,” he glances down again, like he finds looking at you hard.
“Not far,” you confirm. “That’s how I found you.”
He goes silent for a moment, fingers continuing to twitch around the pencil before he looks back at you. “I’ll, uh, have somethin’ to ya in a couple a’ days. You can let me know if you want any changes and we’ll set a date.”
You straighten, feeling only slightly dismissed. “Oh, yeah, sure. Thank you.” You start to turn when you remember yourself. That’s not really what you came here for. “Actually, listen, I don’t want to waste your time. You don’t need to start on anything. Not yet. I’m not sure just yet, I just wanted to meet you. I really admire your art.”
You leave it at that. Pouring out all your other issues would just make you look insane.
Joel raises a curious brow at you, waiting, a question in his eyes that he doesn’t ask as you take a step back. “Alright,” he agrees. “I won’t start on anythin’ just yet.”
“Okay,” you back further away, trying desperately not to turn and run, aware you must look odd. “I’ll see you around.”
“I hope so, honey.”
Though the tattoo shop is cold, heat that rivals the temperature outside dissolves the bones in your chest from the way his eyes linger on you.
But that want—need—is within reach now, and something tells you that you can trust him.
At least with this.
Joel sees you more often after the first day you actually come into the shop.
Well—
He supposes he sees you about the same amount, but now you actually come inside. You always pause in the doorway for half a second, those watchful doe eyes going wide, like your instincts always kick in a second too late.
But once you make it inside, you talk to him, share snippets of your life as you watch him draw, eyes focused on his hands.
You breakup the monotony of his days, those times between appointments and the few walk-ins that he does see.
Sometimes, most times, you bring him coffee from the shop at the end of the road, and he hates that you feel obligated to bring something for him. “For letting me hang around,” you always say.
Most times he feels like he’s trying not to scare you away, like one wrong move will send you bolting right back out the door. But he comes to rely on your presence, the sunshine earthy smell you bring inside with you, the cautious questions and wide eyes, the way you dart to your feet and disappear the second a sign of work for him appears, even if he wouldn’t mind you waiting, taking up room in the tiny front room.
Joel has to wonder what happened to you, if anything, or if you’re just a nervous person. Maybe it’s just in your nature to be distrustful. He doesn’t mind you coming in all the time, in fact he likes it, hates the empty spaces you now leave behind. The studio seems impossibly empty and cavernous without you around now, asking about the guitar on the wall, about where he learned to draw, about his girls.
Still, summer passes by slowly, like a jar of molasses catching sun in a window. He watches you come and go, watches you get to know him through tiny encounters that loosen your shoulders more each time you stop in.
He doesn’t tell you that he spends most evenings working on a design for that tattoo you may or may not get, that he has a dozen different versions of it clogging up his notebook.
He figures if you don’t end up getting it tattooed then he can just give you some of the sketches to keep.
Like he’d ever find a damn way to do that without feeling like a fool.
Toward the end of summer, with heat still burning up all the air in Texas and showing no signs of abating, you push the door open with your chin lifted and a smile on your face. Heat, like the rush of burning air from an oven, whips around you and into the shop.
He tells himself the heat is why his mouth suddenly feels dry. He tells himself it has nothing to do with how your ass looks in those jeans you always wear or the curve of your hips in the snug fit or the tank top that shows off your shoulders and arms and chest. All topped off with you smiling at him.
“Hey Joel,” you greet, crossing the studio in a couple strides where you deposit a cup of coffee onto the counter next to his hand. He likes the way you say his name, breathy and quick. “I think I’m ready.”
“Ready?” He questions, bewildered.
His mind takes a moment to catch up to what you mean. The tattoo. You’re ready to get your tattoo.
And Joel becomes aware that he is distinctly not ready for that. Because then what excuse will you have to stop by so often? “Right now?” He asks.
You smile. “Not at this exact moment, obviously,” you say with a roll of your eyes. “Just…generally. Whenever you have time for me. I know you’ll need time to work on a design. I’ll send the inspiration photos to the instagram account so you can look at them again.”
“Yeah,” he agrees, the notebook with your designs tucked under the counter burning a hole in the corner of his vision. “Shouldn’t take too long.”
Your smile widens. “Thanks. I can’t hang around today.” You wave a hand back in the direction of the front window, “Errands to run. I just wanted to say that I really love the new painting.”
“The—”
“The new deer. She’s beautiful. More confident than the other ones. I think, or maybe it’s the same. I really like the new one though. You’ve been doing a lot of deer lately.”
He swallows and nods. “Yep.”
Your head tilts to the side before you take a step back, anxiety pulling at your face. “Okay,” you say, your voice noticeably smaller. “Well, I’ll see you around. I’ll message Ellie.”
Before he can stop you, you’ve bolted out the door.
He sighs and rolls his shoulders back as he watches you walk down the street in the honeyed sunshine. When you’re finally out of sight, he pulls the sketchpad out and starts on yet another design.
“Dude, you’ve got it baaaaaad,” Ellie accuses as she sets a platter of fried chicken on the dining room table. “He didn’t even ask for a fucking deposit!”
“No deposit?” Sarah asks, adding a bowl of salad next to the plate. “That’s just bad business practice, dad.”
Joel rolls his eyes. “Not everyone takes deposits.”
The girls glance at each other. “Yeah, but you usually do. You told me not to ask for one!”
He grumbles under his breath, settling at the table, just glad that his girls were there at all. He’d half expected the standing weekly dinner to fizzle out once he moved out of Austin, but they always made the drive up, or he went down to them each Friday.
His girls had their own lives, Sarah still in college, Ellie still trying to find her footing as an apprentice at a tattoo studio in the city.
“Did she seem interested?”
Joel assumes Sarah is asking about the tattoo.
You seemed exactly as he’d thought. A little nervous and wary, but mostly curious and eager. He’d been blushing like a kid, the warmth you always tugged along with you into the shop no match for the air conditioning.
“Yeah,” he answers, shrugging. “Ellie’d know more than me—”
“I mean does she seem interested in you?”
Joel glances sharply up to find both his kids grinning at him. “I’m talkin’ about the damn tattoo,” he says, exhaling sharply through his nose before he reaches for a plate.
“Well, that’s obvious,” Sarah mutters with a roll of her eyes.
“Yeah, c’mon, man,” Ellie leans back in her chair. “Isn’t she there, like, every fucking day?”
Joel frowns at her. “Manners,” he reminds her.
He gets an eye roll from her too, before she tilts her chair back down onto all four legs.
“Watch it,” he says, “Your eyes are gonna get stuck like that.”
“Joel—”
“She’s nervous enough as it is,” he grumbles. “Never met someone s’damn skittish.”
“What, like a horse?”
“Like a deer,” he corrects. “She don’t need me makin’ passes at her. I think she’s just now comin’ around to the idea of trustin’ me so don’t say something stupid to her.” He directs the last bit to Ellie. “Clear?”
She spears a piece of chicken. “Clear,” she grumbles.
“I think she likes you dad,” Sarah says, primly cutting into the chicken on her own plate. “I don’t think she’d mind it.”
Ellie sends you scans of a couple designs two days after you abruptly tell Joel you’re ready to get tattooed. It’s accompanied by a message that makes something in you squirm in such a pleasant way that you worry there might be wrong with you.
the old man told me you know i manage the account for him. he’s really excited about this one and can’t wait to tattoo you. he worked on the design for weeks - ellie
Another message pops up almost immediately after the first.
don’t tell him i told you that
A warmth that has nothing to do with your open balcony door and the heat pouring into your apartment floods your veins. He’d said he’d need to work something out for you.
The two designs she sends are beautiful, and it's easy to see not only the talent but the time he put into them. Clearly he’d been working on a design since you first talked to him all those weeks ago.
Your whole body goes awash with heat, warming you pleasantly from the inside out.
You message her back to figure out the day and time, before flopping your phone face down on the couch, a nervous thrumming centering in your body. It folds your veins up into anxious little knots. The phantom echo of his low, drawling voice reverberates around your brain, the casual little sweethearts and darlin’s he throws your way kicking your heart into overdrive, a skittering pounding knocking against your ribs.
A thrill goes up your spine. At the prospect of a new tattoo, at the thought of spending so much uninterrupted time with Joel, of his hands on you.
The last thought jolts you a little.
That that’s something you’re looking forward to.
You aren’t expecting another message, not after finalizing a date only a few days in the future. But your phone buzzes again, yet another message waiting for you.
just a heads up - joel said you’ll have to sit for two or three sessions. he doesn’t want to wear you out.
Well, at the very least he was more considerate than the last man to tattoo you.
A rare rain splashes down the morning of your appointment, driving away the humidity that had curled in the air like a choking wraith the last few days and cooling the temperature down to something mild. It’s the first false start of what will always turn out to be a warm fall.
You take your time getting ready just to ease your nerves, hydrating and eating a bigger breakfast than you normally do.
In the afternoon, the walk to the studio is dreary. The street smells like petrichor and summers long gone. The gloom only makes the interior of the shop feel more cozy.
And more intimate.
When you push the door open, Joel’s daughter, Ellie, is standing at the counter complaining loudly about how old fashioned Joel is as she slowly pages through the leather bound appointment book that seems to never leave the side of the ancient computer you suspect is rarely, if ever, switched on. She seems to be logging appointments from her phone into the book.
Her eyes snap to you the moment the door swings shut, then glances at the clock. “Early,” she says. “Joel is still setting up.”
“That’s okay,” you say, pointedly sitting down on the leather sofa that takes up most of the floor space of the front room. “I can wait.”
You snap your mouth shut to avoid the waterfall of words that want to cascade from your lips. Nerves tingle under your skin, buzz lowly just beneath the surface.
Waiting makes you hot, makes heat rise from your skin in painful waves, as your anxiety continues to crest.
At the counter Ellie snaps the appointment book shut, now grumbling about Joel’s chicken scratch, when you peel off your sweatshirt. “Oh,” she says, surprised. “I didn’t know you had tattoos already.”
You jump a little, eyes flashing to the woman leaning on the dark wooden counter. Her chin is propped in her hand. You aren’t quite sure what to make of that, that she thought you didn’t have any.
“Yeah,” you stand and move closer to the counter. Maybe she’s just trying to distract you. “Why is that such a surprise?” You smile and offer her your arm. “I not look like the type?”
“Joel just said you were nervous,” she says, turning your arm in her hand, inspecting the tattoo on the top of your shoulder, and then the one that wraps around your bicep. “So I figured it was your first.”
Joel had talked to his daughter about you.
Maybe he talked to her about all his clients; she did manage the instagram account for the shop after all.
“I’m always a little uneasy beforehand.”
Your excuse is weak but Ellie doesn’t call you on it. Her eyes are latched onto the tattoo over your shoulder, the one your ex had done. You know what she’s seeing, how a few of the lines are blown out, how it healed badly.
She releases your wrist with a nod, her eyes more knowing than you would like. “Scared of the pain?”
“No,” you shake your head. “It doesn't hurt much, usually. It's relaxing more than anything.” You nod to the tattoo on your shoulder. “But, that one was the last and it did hurt and, uh, it put me off getting more for awhile.”
She looks it over for a minute, brows furrowing at what you know is shoddy work. Your gaze slides to the tattoo on Ellie’s forearm. “You don’t have to worry about that with the old man,” she informs you and releases your arm, her tone serious. “He might not look it, but he’s got a light touch.”
Before you can respond, Joel emerges from the back, rubbing his hands together as he glances between the two of you, his eyes wary. “Ellie,” he says, his voice that low gravel. “You stickin’ around, kiddo?”
“Nope.” She stabs a finger into the top of the appointment book, “Get fucking rid of this.” She grabs her jacket and hops up onto the counter, swinging herself over it, as Joel snaps at her not to. “Too late,” she chirps already out the door. “See you Friday.”
When you turn back to Joel, those splotches of pink and cresting red are back in his cheeks and neck and you have to wonder if he heard what Ellie had said. “That girl,” he grumbles. “Come on around here, darlin’,” he gestures with a roll of his eyes. “You don’t have to climb over the counter like a wild animal.”
You round the end of the counter and follow Joel into the back room where he’s already meticulously prepped everything. He sits on a rolling stool and gestures you in front of him. “I take it you already know the drill?” He asks.
You hum in affirmation and try not to jump when his hand brushes yours. “Easy,” he mumbles, almost to himself. It doesn’t stop a flare of heat from spiking in your blood. “You already decided on your left forearm, right?”
“Yeah,” you answer, holding your arm out to him.
You wonder what it is about Joel that makes him so magnetic, that makes him feel so safe. His hand, already in a sterile glove, slides around your wrist to hold you steady while he cleans your skin thoroughly. The sharp scent of antiseptic blooms around you, chasing away the clove and leather scent that usually lingers around Joel. “You alright?” He asks, glancing up at you to watch your face.
“Yep,” you answer tightly.
“Alright,” he agrees warily, like he doesn’t quite believe you. “I’m gonna haveta shave the area.”
You nod, you already knew that, and watch him pick up a disposable pink bic razor from the tray to his left. Despite having gone through this whole thing more than a few times before, this feels different, it feels more intimate and reserved.
He drags the razor over your skin slowly, carefully, then sanitizes your skin again when he’s finished, the cool flush of the moisture against your skin almost shocking. You go back and forth about the placement of the stencil. Your body tenses when you waffle for what feels like too long. You expect him to get frustrated with you but he doesn’t. His voice remains unbothered and patient.
Maybe your standards are in hell, maybe he’s just being a proper tattoo artist like all the others that had tattooed you before your ex, but it still makes a knot form in the back of your throat.
Eventually Joel presses the stencil into your skin when you give the go ahead. He rubs at it gently, warming your chilled skin, before he peels it away. The warmth of his touch is surprisingly soothing, the loss of it leaving you cold. “If it ain’t right, we can do it again,” he says, jerking his chin at the mirror in the corner, the picture of calm. “Go on and take a look and let me know.”
You both agree the placement looks good, and then comes the moment when you have to climb onto the table and put yourself in his hands. You will have to lie there and let another person touch you, albeit professionally. It doesn’t make it any better, any easier.
Your skin is so empty, so hungry, and Joel’s attention makes you feel like wax held too close to heat.
It already feels like too much and he’s barely touched you.
A cold prickle of fear slides down your spine too, pulling your shoulders in tight. The last time you did this you—
“You comfortable?” Joel is watching you, his eyes shaded and attentive.
You nod, aware that you are the picture of uncomfortable as Joel changes his gloves. Your hands are in fists, your spine hard and tense. All the air seems to have been sucked out of the room, cold and sterile and icy in your lungs.
“I ain’t touchin’ you until you relax,” he says when he turns back to you, settling next to you on a stool, hand hovering over the tattoo gun on the tray by his elbow. “You don’t gotta—”
“I am relaxed,” you interrupt in a bite, harsher than you mean to. You grit your teeth, your hand only curling into a tighter fist.
“Sweetheart you’re as taut as a bowstring,” he says gently. “Take a couple breaths.”
You do and your heart rate slows. Now isn’t like then. Now is different. “Good,” he says and the praise slides warm against you. “I’m gonna touch you now.”
You nod and the buzz of the tattoo gun starts, his free hand curls over your fist, warm and reassuring and so present it makes tears sting at the backs of your eyes. You realize then that Joel has been touching you quite a lot, and that you haven’t exactly minded.
“Relax, I got you,” he reassures. “You’ll tell me if you need a break,” he says and it’s not a question.
You nod anyway, not sure which part you’re agreeing with.
Joel talks while he tattoos you, mainly about his kids, his two daughters who are clearly his entire world, the point that his life hinges on.
The pride in his voice, the love there, makes you smile.
Joel is much chattier than usual.
Normally you talk his ear off while he works as he silently listens and nods along. Joel is the gruff quiet type, not that you much mind. You’d expected to sit in relative silence, to listen to the rain still drumming against the roof and the low hum of the tattoo gun.
Listening to his voice is a welcome change. You would listen to him read from a dictionary.
Sarah is from his first marriage, Ellie adopted. Sarah is going to college— “Gonna be a doctor someday,” he says proudly. “For kids. Pediatrician.” Ellie is following in Joel’s footsteps, apprenticing as a tattoo artist. “Hope it's what she wants to do,” he says, equally as proud. “She’s got some art out there on the wall—well, I’ll point it out later, much better than mine—it took me long enough to make this switch.”
“What did you do before?” You ask as Joel swipes a damp paper towel across your skin. Ellie had been right, he does have a light touch, a gentle touch.
“Carpenter,” he answers, and you can’t decide if the way he squeezes your wrist is conscious or not. “Long hours, hard work.”
So you’d been right about the look of his hands. Hands that so carefully held yours as his other drew over your skin. “Mm,” you hum distractedly. “What convinced you to take the jump?”
“My girls convinced me. Gettin’ outta Austin helped. Havin’ the money to finally slow down.” He chuckles to himself. “That’s why the marketin’ is a little ridiculous. Moved all the way out here just to complain about the foot traffic.”
You find yourself smiling, watching the flex of tendon in his forearms as he works. His mouth is set in a concentrated line, a divot between his brows. “Looks like you’re doing alright.”
“We manage,” he says with a groan, straightening from his position hunched over your arm. Something in his back creaks and then cracks before he goes back to work. “Although I regret not startin’ a little younger. My brother, Tommy, manages our business now.”
“Carpentry business?”
“That’s right,” he hums, leaning in closer to your arm, his breath ghosts over your arm, goosebumps racing across your skin. You swallow and your hand clenches reflexively beneath his. “You doin’ alright?”
You wonder if he knows his hand is still cupped over yours, if he can feel the racing of your heart beneath his fingers. Maybe he did that with all his clients, just a way to steady himself and you.
You don’t expect him to be looking at you when you lift your eyes back to his face.
Heat blooms in your chest, the flutter of wings beating against your ribs. “Mhm,” you give a nervous hum, trying not to show the feathering thoughts that float like down through your mind, swirling and impossible to bat down.
“Y’have to tell me if you need to take a break.”
“I don’t,” you say quickly, wondering if you should explain yourself a little, if it would be better or worse for Joel to know exactly how fucking nerotic you are.
It shouldn’t matter if he thinks you’re crazy or not.
But it does.
“Just…I’m not so good with touch,” you admit. “I never have been and my last tattoo was…”
You aren’t sure how to phrase it, so you stop and look at his hands again. His hand swallows yours, barely any of your skin visible beneath his touch. You wait for your skin to prickle, for the urge to rip your hand away to swim up the back of your throat, but it never comes. “I’m fine, really. I’d tell you if I needed to stop.”
“I know it,” he says, not blinking, watching you carefully. “I’m just checkin’.” He looks back down, adjusting his grip before he continues, his thumb sweeping over your wrist. “Was it the one on your shoulder?”
“What?”
“The tattoo that was a bad experience?”
You suck in a deep breath through your nose and look away from the top of his head, away from the graying brown that makes your belly clench and the butterflies that live permanently in your chest swing back to life.
The breath you pull in does nothing to steady you, instead flooding your senses with the clean woodsy smell of him. It’s dizzying. “That easy to tell?” You sigh.
“Just a few of the lines are blown out,” he says, not unkindly. “Thought maybe an apprentice did it or somethin’.” Joel’s voice is mild, only lightly prying, an extended hand that you could lie a pearl truth in if you wanted to.
The nerves subside a little. “Apprentices aren’t usually that bad,” you joke.
“No,” he agrees. “Ellie’d never get ya like that. Shouldn’t be tattooing on people yet if you’re gettin’ ‘em like that.”
He doesn’t ask what actually happened, but you find yourself answering anyway. You find that his hand still securely over yours acts like an anchor rather than a weight.
“I had bruises for a couple weeks after,” you admit. “It hurt. He wanted it to hurt. And it healed really badly.”
Joel’s hand pauses, the needle lifting away from your skin, but he doesn’t look up. A long moment passes, and his voice comes out in a forced calm. “Who wanted it to hurt, honey?”
“My ex,” you say and Joel leans back, dark eyes flashing to yours. “He wasn’t my ex then, obviously. He wanted to tattoo me, but he wanted it to be his name. I wasn’t going to do that. He wanted to compromise for initials but I just…couldn’t. Something about it felt wrong. I let him—” you wave your free hand at your shoulder. “—do that. And…I don’t know what happened,” you say. “I think he wanted to brand me. He wanted to leave a piece of himself on me, whether I wanted it or not.”
Joel doesn’t say anything for a while, just blinks away from you and slowly leans over your arm again to continue working.
The tattoo your ex did is the only one that ever hurt, but Joel is gentler than you remember. Or, maybe you simply can’t remember the other times as well, pain of the most recent one blotting out the memory.
“I don’t want you to think about this like that,” Joel says eventually, not looking up. “I don’t.”
“What do you mean, Joel?”
His hand stills, his fingers flexing around your wrist, thumb subconsciously sliding against the side of your wrist. “I mean—I’m not puttin’ something of mine on you,” he says. You frown and open your mouth to protest. “I made it for you. This is yours,” he says adamantly.
You watch him for a long moment, not sure what to say, an emotion you can’t name welling up into the back of your mouth, swollen and trembling.
“I want you to think about it like that,” he says, looking up at you from beneath his lashes, his mouth a hard line. “I’m not markin’ you, because it's not mine. It’s yours. It’s for you.”
You just nod, not trusting yourself to speak.
You avert your eyes, blinking away the water that crests against the edges of your lash line.
Though you’ve been bothering Joel for the better part of the summer, you don’t really know much about him. Today is the most he’s talked, about himself or otherwise. All you know is that he makes you feel oddly safe, that he has gone out of his way to try to make you feel comfortable. You can hear the words he doesn’t say, the quiet anger that vibrates under the surface of it. What happened to you was wrong, I would not do that to you.
He wants you to believe he’s gifting you something, and you suppose he is.
You remember Ellie’s message, how she’d said he’d been working on the design for weeks. You think of every moment you spent hanging around his shop for the last few weeks while he worked on a design for you, never saying a word about it, knowing you might decide not to get tattooed.
“Joel,” you murmur, carefully lying your free hand on his shoulder. Muscle flexes beneath your hand, thick and warm. “I know you wouldn’t do that. And you know I wanted to do this, right?”
Joel’s hand squeezes yours again. “I know it,” he shrugs and leaves it at that.
Something unspoken passes between you though. He would not do that to you, but you also sense he would never let anyone else hurt you like that again either.
You watch the feathering of his lashes against his cheeks, the firm set of his mouth, the way he keeps sliding his thumb over your wrist. You study his nose, the line of scar on the bridge, the hard ridge of his brow, the wrinkle that pulls at the skin of his forehead.
“You don’t have to be mad about it,” you say. “I already have that covered. I think I’ve been angry for a long time.”
The room is quiet, the sound of rain on the roof having abated in the hours you’d been there. Joel doesn’t say anything for another long moment, the only sound his breathing and yours, the sound of the tattoo gun buzzing its familiar tune. “I could, uh, fix some of it for ya,” he offers, eventually, leaning back to study the progress he’s made on your arm. “The lines where they’re blown out, we could think of somethin’ to blend it into.”
You look away again, not able to answer around the thick knot braided into your chest. You try swallowing around it, trying desperately to think of something to say. His hand is starting to feel a little heavy on yours. The aching clawing that is two steps back begins to threaten you.
This time, unlike the others, you aren’t quite sure if you want him to stop touching you or for the feeling of his hand to melt into yours, if you’d just rather he became a part of you instead.
You decide to try to ignore it, to focus on the nice parts of it all — how warm his skin is, the calluses you can feel, the scent of his skin and hair, so close you could press your nose into him if you leaned forward a little.
“You have really nice hands,” you comment, entranced by the flex of muscle and vein and sinew even through the black nitrile gloves.
Joel glances up, his face close to yours. You can see the threads of honeyed gold and warm hazel in his eyes, almost sun-spotted “That so?” He asks with a quirk of his brow, fingers tightening over your hand.
You swallow, glancing away from his eyes to focus on anything else, and give a nervous hum.
“You still alright?” He asks, his thumb slipping back and forth over the back of your hand. “Still comfortable?” When you just nod, suddenly too anxious and warm to do anything else, he leans back and releases your hand to strip off his gloves. “Let’s take a break.”
The loss of his touch is—you aren’t sure what it is.
You just know you hate it, and that has never happened before.
“I’m alright,” you protest.
“You’re startin’ to shake, which means you’re goin’ into shock. I’m sure Ellie told you this’d take more than one session,” he says, matter of fact about it.
“She did,” you breathe.
He grunts and offers you a hand down from the table. “Let’s get you wrapped up and then I’ll take you to get somethin’ to eat.”
“Oh,” you say, surprise and that spark of warmth flooding you again. “And you do that for all your clients?”
“Just the ones I like,” he deadpans, fitting a second skin over your tattoo before giving you the usual spiel about how to care for it once the second skin was removed. You hardly listen, thinking only about how Joel said he likes you. “But I assume you know all a’ that,” he says, twisting your arm. “And ya know where to find me if somethin’ ain’t right.”
“Mhm,” you hum, trying not to let the disappointment show when he releases you again. “I’m something of an expert with tattoo care, I think.”
“Three tattoos makes you an expert?” He asks, not looking at you as he meticulously cleans up.
“Well, three that you can see.”
He turns, eyes sliding over you. You’re awash in that warm feeling again, the one that is an anchor and not a weight. “You got more than three, honey?”
You just smile and make a show of looking over the work he’d done on your arm, ignoring his question.
Joel chuckles, “What else do you have?”
“If I told you I’d have to kill you.”
He laughs again and herds you out the back room when he’s finished cleaning up, keys jangling in his fist. “Shouldn’t I pay—”
“Nope. You’ll do that when it’s done. Should just need one more session.”
“Joel really—”
But you’re already out on the street, the door firmly closed behind you. You watch him lock up and then gesture you down the street with a jerk of his head. It’s dark outside, the sky still tinged with dark blue on the horizon. The road smells like heat and rain, like damp dust and lightning.
“You really ain’t gonna tell me what other tattoos you got?”
“You really ain’t gonna let me pay?” You ask, imitating the gruff cut of his voice.
He rolls his eyes. “Alright, fine.” He walks away, leading you down the street, light from the streetlamps cartwheeling over his face, throwing his jaw and eyes into sharp relief and then plunging him into shadow. “C’mon now. You need somethin’ in you.”
You’ve never ventured into the center of town after dark. You’re always at home long before that, curled on your balcony with something to read.
Cicadas light the air with sound, the crisscross of wired lights spear butter yellow onto the pavement below where a bar is serving drinks and a local food truck still idles.
Someone has set up a speaker that folks twirl each other around to, old country music, the good kind. Others park themselves on benches, chatting and eating. It’s nice.
It makes you feel incredibly lonely, reminded of all the gaps in your life, all the places people should be, all the places love and familiarity should be.
Before you can sink into that mire, Joel’s guiding you into line with a careful hand against your back.
His palm is broad and warm, heating you from the inside out. It rivals the warmth pulsing around you, the leftover heat of the day leaching into you.
“What d’ya want?”
“Shouldn’t I get you something?” You offer. “You worked all day, I just laid there.”
“I drew a nice picture,” he retorts. “You lost blood. Pick somethin’ sugary.”
“Bossy,” you comment, feeling alight with nerves as his fingers flex against your spine.
“Mhm, that’s what Sarah and Ellie are always sayin’.”
You glance at him—at the rough cut of his jaw, the thick tendon in his throat—and swallow, nerves pinching at your belly in a way you haven’t felt in a very long time. You press back, so his hand rests more firmly against your back and hope he doesn’t notice. If he does, he doesn’t say anything, just humors you by tracing his hand up and down your spine. “Maybe they’re onto something then.”
“Definitely are.” He glances back down at you, “Pick somethin’ yet?”
You look over the menu as the line inches forward, and pick something to drink. Something sugary, as Joel had demanded.
But when he orders he makes a show of not letting you pay and ordering something for you to eat too.
“You should after sittin’ for as long as you did,” he argues when you settle at one of the picnic tables. “You don’t gotta, just thought I’d offer it.”
You and Joel face each other, one leg on either side of the bench, knees brushing. With each tiny touch, lightning zings up your spine, settles in amongst your bones and blood. You have a feeling you could lie all the bones and blood and viscera of yourself right at Joel’s feet and he wouldn’t so much as flinch.
“Right,” you say, picking at one of the tacos he’d ordered. “I can see why you have such nice reviews on google if you’re taking your clients out on your dime after tattooing them.”
“I wouldn’t say you’re that,” he scoffs.
“Mm,” you nod, not sure exactly what he means by that. “What does that make me then?”
You glance up at him and Joel just stares at you for a long moment, something unreadable passing behind his eyes. “You really not gonna tell me about your other tattoos?” He ignores your question to go back to his own.
“Nope,” you take a sip of the lemonade you’d ordered. Despite what you said to Joel, you are exhausted, muscles still trembling in little starts, and the sugar does help. “But you can guess.”
You know he won’t try to guess. He’s too gentlemanly, too mindful of his manners to go around pointing at body parts and guessing if there might be something inked there.
Joel raises a brow, taking a bite of his own taco. “Are you using my manners against me?”
You shrug, smiling. “Maybe.”
“That ain’t playin’ fair,” he accuses, leaning in, the inside of his jean clad thigh brushing against the outside of yours. Your belly clenches, the center of you suddenly aching.
“Who said anything about fair?” You manage. “Do you have any hidden tattoos?”
He shakes his head and glances briefly up, like he’s asking for patience from the stars. But he doesn’t answer your question.
It makes you smile. “Fine, you can keep yours a secret. I won’t pry,” you tease.
“Mhm,” he grumbles again, ignoring your jibe. “You’re mighty brave tonight.”
And suddenly your teasing feels dangerous, falls flat against the stone shore of Joel. The air seems to go frosty, a shiver raking down your spine as you shuffle back a little, suddenly aware of how close you are, how very brave you’ve been. You aren’t sure when Joel started to feel familiar to you.
Since you first met him, you suppose. You’ve carved out a place on that rocky shore whether he wanted you to or not.
“Sorry,” you say, starting to stand, thinking of how annoying you must have been all evening, all day, every single day you’ve taken up his time. You let him comfort you, plied him with trauma you’ve barely touched yourself, let him buy you something to eat against your better judgment when clearly it’s his manners that made him do so. “Don’t know what’s gotten into me. I’ll message Ellie to figure out the second session. Thanks for everything. You didn’t have to—”
“Your hip,” Joel says, curling his hand around your wrist so you can’t move any further away than you already have. You pause, your mind spinning as he clutches you gently.
His voice is steady, like you’re a spooked animal that might dart away at any moment.
“What?”��
“I bet you one of your other tattoos is on your hip,” he drawls.
He squeezes your wrist again, now familiar and comforting. You fight the urge to pull your hand away, and instead let the feeling of his skin sink into yours, no cheap plastic gloves separating you now. You can properly feel the calluses on his fingertips, the catch of them against your skin, the soft center of his palm and the lines carved into his skin.
“No,” you lower yourself to the bench again, a tentative smile tugging at the corner of your mouth. “None on my hip.”
“How many other one’s you got?” His hand stays around yours.
“Two, not including my new one,” you say, laying a hand over the ink, your skin warm under your hand. “That’s my prettiest one, for sure. And it’s not even done.”
Joel ignores your compliment entirely, like he always seems to. His eyes rove over you, trying to guess the places you were inked, trying to picture it you would guess. It makes you squirm, the thought of him trying to imagine your bare skin, all the hidden places you might be tattooed.
He nods, his gaze heavy on you.
“I’ll just have to keep guessin’ then,” he says, taking a long sip from your cup of lemonade.
You glance away and bite the inside of your cheek. “You’ll be guessing a long time, I think.”
“I’ve got time.” He releases your arm when you start to squirm under his attention, chest burning, lungs compressed into too small a space. Your chest doesn’t seem large enough to contain the feelings beating to life in your heart. “So long as you keep comin’ by.”
A smile pulls at your mouth again, feeling unreasonably charmed. “Okay, fine, I’ll tell you what they are, but not where they are.”
“I ain’t askin’ you to,” he says, even as a smile tugs at the corners of his lips, mustache twitching, like this concession is the only thing he’s ever wanted for.
“One is a honeybee,” you answer. “The other is antlers.”
Joel goes still and doesn’t say anything for a moment. “A bee?” He asks, like he’s never heard of the creature before. “And…antlers. Like a deer?”
“Yeah, like a deer. With flowers and vines and moss all tangled around it.”
“Huh.”
“What? Don’t like deer?” You smile. “Funny isn't it? You’ve been drawing them a lot the past few months.”
He eyes you and then shakes his head, “Don’t like ‘em? Jesus Christ, no. I think I’m gettin’ to be real partial to deer.”
💞 Thank you for reading! Comments and feedback are so appreciated. 💞
#joel miller x reader#joel miller x you#tlou fanfiction#the last of us#the last of us fanfiction#joel miller#pedro pascal#pedro pascal characters
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gone to shit
pairing : jake peralta x fem!reader
prompt : "can i have one more hug?" "aw, babe you don't have to ask, c'mere..."
𝐧𝐚𝐯𝐢𝐠𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧
your day had been going too well for it to continue.
you had gotten to your local coffee shop before it got too busy, gotten up to the bullpen without getting catcalled by some jackass outside and you and your boyfriend were the only ones in the office which was nice.
it was quiet and the first 30 minutes your day was spent sat opposite jake just talking until your friends and colleagues filtered in through the elevator.
and then everything came crashing down.
multiple people in the holding cell caused the bullpen to be filled with noise which was unsettling.
the coffee you had gotten this morning spilled over your desk and your lap.
your phone had died half way through a conversation with your sister and you knew she wouldn't appreciate it seeming like you hung up on her.
and you had misfiled some evidence and had to talk to holt to fix it.
you hoped he would be in a good mood so this wouldn't end up with you getting reamed out.
unfortunately that was not the case.
while he didnt yell you could sense the annoyance & slight disappointment in his tone as he told you do leave so he could deal with it.
and you did leave.
but instead of heading back to your desk you went to the evidence lock up, heading towards the back corner and sinking down onto the floor, the cool surface bringing you out of your head very slightly.
but it wasnt enough to stop the hot burning tears from falling from your eyes.
this wasnt something you should be getting so upset about, there were people in the world that had it a lot worse than you and here you were crying over the tiniest things.
just because they had happened in quick succession it felt so overwhelming.
you were way too in your own head to notice your name being called quietly into the room.
it was only when you saw a set of shoes infront of you that your attention was pulled from the spiralling thoughts in your head.
your hands instantly lifted to wipe at your cheeks to try and pass it off like you weren't crying.
" woah woah, hey. what's wrong, babe? "
the sound of jake's voice did not relax you as much as usual.
you shook your head, trying to shake off this awful tightness in your chest but that did nothing to calm jake's worry.
he crouched down beside you momentarily before sitting down next to you, knowing that his gaze on you could overwhelm you even further.
his arm dropped to around your shoulders and your head instantly dropped down onto the soft fabric of his hoodie.
" you wanna tell me why you're hiding in the evidence lock up ?" he asked, his fingertips running over the fabric of your shirt.
" everything was just going so well this morning and then i spilled my coffee, the holding cell is so full of jackasses, my phone died and then i misfiled some evidence... it all just went to shit "
his small motions on your shoulder were calming you slightly but not by much, your shoulders were still shaking and you couldnt bring yourself to take a full breath.
jake didn't reply for a few moments but his fingertips kept tracing shapes over your shoulder.
" ok, well these are all easy fixes. rosa has a charger in her desk she'll let you use, the holding cell is thinning out really quickly and you left a spare pair of jeans at my apartment a couple days ago and i brought them to give back to you, so you can change into those. "
how he managed to solve all of your problems so quickly you'll never know, but you were just so grateful.
you turned your body further into his, smiling softly when he wrapped his arm tighter around you and pressed a short kiss onto the top of your head.
" thank you "
" you're welcome, babe " he said quietly.
both of you remained sat on the floor of the evidence lock up for a couple more minutes before jake moved to stand and lead both of you back to the bullpen.
before he could take you outside you pulled him back by his hand, a soft and playful pout resting on your lips.
"can i have one more hug?" you asked, tilting your head back to look up at him.
a grin spread across his face.
"aw, babe you don't have to ask, c'mere..."
you quickly closed the two feet between the two of you and wrapped your arms around his torso, your head buried against his chest.
another 5 minutes were spent surrounded by weapons in boxes just hugging your boyfriend.
but when you returned to the bullpen, everything seemed a little bit better
#·˚ ༘₊· ͟͟͞͞꒰➳ 𝐟𝐢𝐜#·˚ ༘₊· ͟͟͞͞꒰➳ 𝐣𝐚𝐤𝐞 𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐚𝐥𝐭𝐚#jake peralta#jake peralta x reader#jake peralta icons#jake peralta imagine#jake peralta smut#jake peralta x you#b99#b99 quotes#source: b99#b99edit#b99 meme#b99 icons#b99 incorrect quotes#b99 spoilers#brooklyn 99#brooklyn nine nine#brooklyn baby#brooklyn nine nine icons#brooklyn nine nine x reader#brooklyn nine nine imagine#raymond holt#amy santiago#charles boyle#rosa diaz#andy samberg#andy samberg icons#lonely island#peraltiago
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Roommate or boss?
Pairing: f!reader x Katsuki Bakugou.
Warnings: a lot of yapping. Male masturbation. A bit of violence from Katsuki’s part when a guy tries getting in your pants.
Word count: this part is 2.4k, added to the others (part 1, part 2, part 3) it’s 8.9k.
Next part: part 5
"It's too hot" you mewl while lying on your couch. “Step back, it’s my turn to be in front of the fan” you add, getting up and walking towards Katsuki.
“Fuck no, it’s been 3 minutes since you had a go at it. Go back to the hell hole you came from, pest” your roommate answers while throwing daggers at you.
You poke your finger in his exposed bicep. He doesn’t budge. Damn, this man is hard as a rock.
“Come onnnnn! This is the time when you should be a gentleman and let me cool down my beautiful face. Do you really want to be such a brute, Mr. Bakugou?” you bat your eyelashes seductively, trying to convince him.
Bakugou stares at you like your face is green and you’re a slimy frog that just came out of a pile of mud.
“I don’t fucking care. You’re a big girl and I ain’t no prince charming. Step the fuck back or I’m throwing you on that damn sofa. Wait your shitty turn” he says, flicking your forehead.
You whine some more, whisper “bitch” (it gets you another flick) and then turn back to lay on the floor. It’s colder than the couch, at least.
It’s summer, there’s 41°C outside, and your AC broke the other day. It’s so hot that you take out the ice from the freezer and it melts in 4 minutes (max). You happened to have one old crusty fan, that you and Bakugou take turns using. You have been surviving on iced coffee and iced lemonades. You feel like you’re slowly dying.
“You know, this is the only time I really wish my boss would call me in early. He might be a ghost, but he sure uses money for the AC” you blabber while staring at the ceiling, contemplating booking a trip to Alaska.
“What do you mean a ghost?” the blond asks. He’s been much more talkative in the last few months, maybe because seeing you being so domestic was doing something to him. In the last few days he really wants to be your friend, but not because he’s suddenly nice: he thinks he could bribe you to gift him the fan if he’s kinder and breaks your defenses. He’s even planning on asking you to go to a cafe nearby and offer you one of those sweet fuzzy iced drinks you like so much. He’s scheming.
“A ghost because I’ve never seen his face. Can you believe that? My colleague says he’s an asshole though, so maybe that’s for the better” you answer. You get on your elbows to see him better, then squint and frown, “I feel like you could be my boss, you know. Seeing as you’re an asshole too, making me die here on the floor like a common drug addict”.
Yeah, screw the fan. He was asking you out to kill you.
“I hope he fires you”.
“Fuck you”.
“Likewise”.
You throw yourself back on the floor. The movement makes your boobs giggle, and he catches himself staring at your white tank top. You didn’t wear a bra since it’s indeed still your house and it’s indeed still hot as hell.
Things have been going so much better between you two. You now bicker like you’re siblings, but you do also take walks together sometimes, mainly to get groceries, and talk about stuff. You even convinced him to watch Keeping up with the Kardashians with you, and even if he doesn’t want to admit it, he likes the drama more than you.
At work you have a new manager and she’s super nice. Her name is Mina, and you found out that she and Kirishima are engaged, even if they’re 22 like you. She’s a great worker, and you’ve gone out for drinks a couple of times with her and Momo. She’s been at the cafe for 2 months, but you feel so much better already. She throws you weird looks sometimes, like she knows something you don’t, but you pay it no mind.
The timer on your phone rings, and you jump up before throwing your whole body on Katsuki’s. He’s distracted and you get him off guard, managing to move him away. He notices your tits touching his arm.
“Hah! My turn!” you say triumphantly, positioning yourself in front of the fan. The cold air makes your nipples harden. He seems to not be able to look away.
“Awh, Katsuki, cat got your tongue? Don’t worry, baby, the floor is not that bad” you snicker.
He snaps out of his trance and looks at your smirk. Baby? Did you just call him baby?
Fuck, what is he doing? The heat is getting to him. He hastily turns around and starts walking.
“Fuck off, I’m getting in the shower. You can have your fucking fan until I get out” he grunts while almost running away. He needs to have a cold shower.
“We’ll see!” you smile devilishly at him, not having noticed how he’s furiously blushing while slamming the bathroom door.
Katsuki puts his back on the door and slides to the floor. He rubs his face before staring at the obvious tent his semi is causing in his shorts.
Have you always been so hot?
He gets out of his clothes and jumps in the shower, hoping this feeling will go away once the scorching temperature of his skin gets back to normal. But after a few minutes the icy water does nothing to quell his desire, his fully standing cock a statement to that.
He curses under his breath, then wraps one of his hands on his shaft. He feels so dirty doing this, and the fact you’re one door away makes him feel even more embarrassed.
“Let’s get this fucking over with, fuck” he says to himself, pumping his member slowly.
He imagines the way your hand would feel instead of his, or your big eyes staring up at him like you did before, just that in this case you were forcing yourself not to cry while choking on his cock. His hand would be in your hair instead of on his dick, pushing your mouth snugly against his pubes. Your mouth would be hotter than the sun outside and he'd give you a reason to sweat. If you pleaded hard enough he'd fuck you too. He’d really throw you on the sofa, ripping your damn white top and sucking on your nipples. Fuck, what if you pierced them? Your tits would look so good covered in his-
He cums, grunting. "Fuck, this is the most embarrassing shit I've ever had to do to cum" he adds, whispering to himself.
He makes sure to scrub the shower wall clean before putting on the pair of grey short sweatpants he was wearing before. He decides on not to put his black compression tee on, since it’s drenched in sweat.
He exits the bathroom and finds you lying on the couch with the fan blowing directly on your face. Your eyes are closed, and the peaceful expression you're wearing makes his dick throb again.
"Oi, wanna go out? We're short on ice" he finds himself saying.
You open one eye, but when you realize he's half naked you hastily close it and throw him the pillow you were resting your head on.
"When has this become a whore house?" you scream.
He rolls his eyes. "You're such a prude. It's not like you've never seen a man naked" he scoffs, while throwing the pillow back at you.
You open your eyes again and glare at him. You know you must be as red as a tomato.
He looks so good with his hair still dripping wet. You've known that he works out, but now that you see his torso this close and with so little covering his whole body, you find yourself feeling shy. There's a particular drop of water that cascades just in the middle of his pecs, and you follow it with your eyes until it reaches his belly button.
"Earth to y/n. I know I'm hot, but stop ogling and answer my fucking question" your roommate says smirking, snapping his fingers in front of your face.
You throw the same pillow you threw before right on his smiling face. "I'm coming if you're not gonna be naked!" you say, hastily going towards your room.
"But wouldn't you like it, baby?" he mocks the tone you've used with him just 30 minutes ago.
"Fuck you. I'll be there in 10" you respond, slamming your bedroom door, feeling hot and bothered.
It must be the summer.
You and Katsuki go to a store nearby to get ice.
“When is the landlord gonna repair the AC?” you ask, since he was the one to make the call.
“He said he’ll come next week, probably even the next one. Said he’s on vacay or some shit” he grunts from next to you.
“I can’t survive 2 weeks like this” you whine. “Oh, you know those noodles you did the other day? The spicy ones? Want to make them for dinner today?” you change the topic, looking up at him.
He spares you a glance before smirking and saying “you just said you’re dying, you sure you wanna eat spicy things?”.
“It doesn’t matter, that’s not the question” you say, pouting.
He smirks again. “Sure. Go and take the noodles, I’ll get the vegetables. Call me when you’re finished if you can’t come back here, I know you get lost like a dumbass”.
You slap his arm. “I do not! This place is just big, asshole”. Then you turn around and march straight towards… the wrong aisle. Katsuki shakes his head. You’ll find a way. You always do, somehow.
After 10 minutes you’re still not back and you still haven’t called, so he sighs and gets his phone out.
He missed your texts from 3 minutes ago.
Y/N: Help
Y/N: I feel like a guy is following me
Y/N: I’m next to some spicy sauces, I guess
Y/N: Mom come pick me up, I’m scared
He raises an eyebrow. You’re usually too prideful to text him when you don’t find the ingredients he tells you to search for, so this situation is weird. He tries to remember where the spicy sauces are, and goes for that aisle.
Meanwhile, you were right and a creepy guy was indeed following you. He’s slim, not that tall and looks like a predator. For the past couple of minutes he’s obviously been trying to get in your pants, and you don’t know how to remove yourself from the situation.
“Come on, just give me your number. You got a boyfriend? Is this why you’re being so… spicy?” he says with a low tone of voice, walking towards you and effectively blocking you from the eyes of the people who are walking down your aisle. From outside, he just seems like he’s talking to you.
“I said I’m not interested” you repeat for what feels like the 10th time. Then you decide to lie: “and yes, I do have a boyfriend. He gets crazy when he’s jealous, I wouldn’t want to anger him if I were you”. You hope you sound confident enough.
“Awh he doesn’t have to now, baby girl. It can be our dirty little secret… I love spicy little things like you” he says seductively, touching your arm and licking his lips.
You’re just about to raise your elbow high enough to break his nose when you feel a familiar voice behind you.
“Step the fuck back before I break your fucking hand” Katsuki says to the man in front of you.
You snap your gaze to his eyes, but he’s looking at the guy with a murderous intent.
The slimy guy in front of you doesn’t let go, in fact he just strengthens the hold he has on your arm and you wince. Katsuki notices this.
The guy is definitely intimidated, but still manages to say “mind your business bro, we’re together, this is my bitch-“. But before he can finish the sentence he finds himself crashing on the sauces of the aisle.
“I said step the fuck back. I don’t like to repeat myself. Don’t ever call my girlfriend your bitch again, or next time I’m breaking your damn nose“ your roommate says while putting a hand on your small back.
He then looks down at you, and while he’s looking deep into your eyes, tells you “you good, baby?”.
You nod. You feel your knees shaking, but not because of the guy who’s currently on the floor.
Which, by the way, is now scoffing and declaring “oh so this is your crazy boyfriend? Nobody likes good guys anymore, huh”. He then stands up, adding “you were never pretty enough for me, anyway”.
Katsuki looks at him and suddenly he laughs. “You’re a pathetic ass bitch if you really believe someone like you could ever be near someone like her. You’re not a good guy, you’re an awful piece of shit who only tries to get his dick wet by forcing girls to have sex with him, and you’re obviously failing at that too. Go back to your room and rub one out on some shitty porn like you always do, fucker” he spits out. “You have 5 seconds to get out of my fucking face”.
The asshole thinks he’s joking, so he doesn’t move from his spot, but Katsuki is obviously not playing. He looks super scary, and he’s towering over the pathetic boy.
Katsuki is losing his patience. “5, 4, 3…”.
The guy gets that he’s serious and flees the scene, running with his tail between his legs.
Your roommate takes a big breath before mumbling “I hate people”. You snicker, before looking up at him. “Thank you, you know” you say smiling.
Your gratefulness blinds him, or maybe it’s just that you’re that pretty.
“You’re welcome”.
He doesn’t remove his hand from your back for the rest of your walk, and it feels so natural to be so close to him that you don’t say anything.
A/N: If you want to be put in the taglist make sure your age is visible on your blog first, and then tell me so in the comments <3
#bakugou katsuki#bnha#and they were roommates#bakugo fluff#bakugo x reader#katsuki bakugo x reader#soft bakugou#bakugou fic#bakugou x reader#bakugou smut#bakugo smut#mdni#barista au#bakugo katsuki
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hellooo i saw your 'genshin men asking for a kiss' and i loved it sm your writing is amazing <333
can i request relationship headcanons for the genshin men. specifically alhaitham but idm who else you add
stay cool and have a good day/night :)
genshin boys as your boyfriend
includes: alhaitham, scaramouche, kazuha, diluc, kaeya, childe, xiao
tags: established relationship, endearments, fluff, not proofread, non-mortal/adeptus reader in xiao's
a/n: thank you so much ♡⸜(˶˃ ᵕ ˂˶)⸝♡ aaaah i am back after being mia..! the writers block is beating me up so hard rn + its 3am :') i wrote each part in different time frames so the writing might seem inconsistent aghuahgu i hope its still ok :( anyways, as always .. enjoy !
ALHAITHAM
he asked you to be his s/o while you were playing tcg together. you were in the middle of your turn when he asked you, and it'd be an understatement to say you were shocked.
(y/n): i'll use this support ca-
alhaitham: will you be my s/o?
(y/n): what? (shocked)
alhaitham: what? (questioning)
while alhaitham is a bit aloof, he does loves teasing you. he would hide your things and help you look for the lost item like he doesn't know where it is.
when you're eating outside, he would step on your feet under the table. you can confront him about it all you want, but he will keep acting innocent.
if he's standing behind you, be wary because he might just throw his coat over your head as a joke, and then act like he did nothing.
alhaitham: do you want help putting on my coat?
(y/n): seriously, haitham?
alhaitham: yes? i'm seriously asking if you want my help.
when it comes to cooking, he'd leave you to do it. alhaitham would rather look forward to a meal you cook rather than a meal he helped make.
dinners are usually quiet, but if you want to tell him about the person that skipped in front of you in line today, then he's all ears.
the first time he told you he loved you, you were giving him a gift. you were smiling so brightly when giving it to him that he didn't know whether to be thankful for the gift or for you.
or at least you think that was the first time he said he loved you.
it was actually when you were asleep the first time you slept over. a very meaningful "i love you" was whispered softly in your ear.
SCARAMOUCHE
he brought you somewhere with a nice view. he grabbed your hand without warning, and when you asked him where he was taking you, he said, "no need to be nervous, just want you to see something."
(y/n): thank you for bringing me here, scara.
scaramouche: you're my s/o, there is no need to thank me.
(y/n): i'm your s/o...?
scaramouche: are you not informed about that or what?
it turns out that scaramouche planned to ask you a long time ago, and from the amount of times he's rehearsed in his head, his mind convinced him that he already asked you.
you laughed at him when you witnessed the moment he realized he forgot to actually ask you. he huffed at your reaction.
he acts annoyed whenever you ask to try on his hat, but his actions contradict his words as he places it on your head.
scaramouche: there are a lot of places where you can get hats, i don't even know (places hat on your head) why you want mine.
(y/n): :D
scaramouche: if it falls, i'll laugh at you.
(y/n): >:(
scaramouche would make you food if you ask him to. he's glad to do it, but he wouldn't want you to thank him. he thinks thanking him for things he's happy to do is a waste of effort.
it's somewhat his unspoken rule to never leave you alone at the table. even if he doesn't join you for the meal, he'd sit down just to accompany you while you eat.
he denied it when you heard him tell you he loved you. the three words escaped his lips when you were busy picking fruits together. or, rather, you were the one picking fruits while he holds them.
you asked him to repeat what he said, but he was quick to reply with "it'd be a waste of effort to repeat what i said."
but he knows. and you know. you both know he loves you.
KAZUHA
while he was out on sea, he wrote you a letter asking you to be his. along with all the other letters he wrote you, he made sure this was was sent out especially.
(y/n): welcome back, kazuha! about your letter...
kazuha: yes, what about it?
(y/n): my answer is yes.
kazuha: i'm glad. thank you, (y/n).
he loves taking you out on adventures. even when he doesn't have a certain goal in mind for the day, kazuha will always find an excuse to bring you along with him.
you will always find him surrounding himself in nature. thanks to his extraordinary sense of hearing, he enjoys being outside even more. the world has a lot to offer.
one day, you ask him what his favorite sound of nature is. immediately, without fail, his reply is 'your voice', which you're flustered by.
(y/n): that doesn't even make any sense... i asked about your favorite sound of nature.
kazuha: the world is full of nature, correct?
(y/n): your point being?
kazuha: you're my favorite sound of nature because you are my world, (y/n).
you both take turns cooking, always excited to try each other's new recipes. it's become sort of a competition of who can suprise the other one more.
his reaction is the cutest when you compliment his dish. if you're happily chewing the food he fed you, watch out because his hands will pinch your cheeks.
you two were hanging out one night, and you asked him to create a poem for you on the spot. he liked the idea, and immediately got to it.
without any hesitation, without thinking twice about it, he ended his poem with a very sweet "i love you."
when you stayed silent afterwards, kazuha got nervous. but his nervous expression soon washed away when you wrapped your arms around him, complimenting his impromptu-poem-writing abilities.
DILUC
he was closing up the tavern for the day, and you two were the only one there after work hours. he decided to take his chances and ask you right then and there.
diluc: can you pass me the wash cloth?
(y/n): sure!
diluc: can you fix the chairs?
(y/n): sure!
diluc: can you be mine?
(y/n): sur- wait.
he's never said it outloud, but diluc actually enjoys having senseless conversations with you. just last night you told him he reminded you of an owl, which he found amusing, and he asked you to explain why.
whenever diluc takes shifts at the tavern, you'd be somewhere around helping clean tables or wash dishes. he has enough staff at angel's share, but he appreciates your assistance nonetheless.
if you know how to play chess, he would regularly ask you to play against him. he thinks it's a great game to play while also being able to converse with others. he loves talking to you.
(y/n): the main character realized—check—his feelings too late, and lost the love of his life to someone else. it's sad.
diluc: what happened—oh, good move—to the main character after that?
(y/n): he was never able to express his true feelings to her. he should've taken the chance.
diluc: hm.. i agree. he was too coward when he had the opportunity. and checkmate, by the way.
(y/n): wh- hey! i didn't see that move!
diluc: better luck next time, my dear.
when you offer to cook dinner for him instead of the maids, diluc doesn't try to hide his smile. you've prohibited him from entering the kitchen, wanting to cook something for him all by yourself.
he will always stand by the archway and watch you cook. you go over to him occasionally, asking him to taste some parts of the meal you're making. these are some of his favorite moments with you.
it was when you were eating dinner that he first told you he loved you. you had just finished cooking a meal, and you were sharing details from your day with each other while eating.
halfway through the meal, he says, "i've been wanting to tell you something all day. may i?"
as you nod your head, he tells you he loves you. or, rather, he tells you he's in love with you. but what's the difference? diluc is all yours.
KAEYA
you brought klee back to the knights of favonius' headquarters after playing with her outside all day. albedo and jean thanked you, but kaeya wanted to express more than just gratitude.
kaeya: klee always returns happy whenever you're the one bringing her back.
(y/n): she's precious. i'd do anything to keep her smiling.
kaeya: likewise. but i also want to keep you smiling, sweetheart.
(y/n): what do you mean?
kaeya: be mine, (y/n), and i promise i'll always make you happy.
you, klee, and kaeya are always seen running around mondstadt. not only in the city, but also around the mountains. you'd all go find a big, empty space for klee to blow up.
rest assured he will always invite you for a drink, even if it's the morning. you've rejected about 90% of his offers, but he will always, always, make sure to invite you.
he is one call away when it comes to you. you have something urgent and needs his help? he's on it. you simply just miss him? he misses you too, he's on his way to see you.
(y/n): kaeya, aren't you supposed to be working right now? what would acting grandmaster jean say?
kaeya: i missed you. that should be enough reason.
(y/n): kaeya.
kaeya: what? just wanted to see your face, sweetheart. i- ow! okay, okay, i'll go back now!
kaeya really enjoys when you cook for him. of course, he'll step in to help you, but the thought of you making him his favorite food is so heartwarming.
he insists on feeding you, even embarrassing you sometimes by pretending the spoon is a crystalfly and your mouth the cave it's about to fly into.
he first told you he loved you immediately after you agreed to be his. after you said 'yes' to his confession, he was quick to tell you those three words, and your heart fluttered at his boldness.
he will never forget to tell you he loves you. when he greets you good morning, when you drop by to pick up klee, when you come back to drop off klee, and so many more instances.
there was never a moment you doubted his love for you. he constantly reminds you of it, and kaeya will never let you forget it. he loves you. so much.
CHILDE
he had it all planned out when he asked you to be his s/o. he made restaurant reservations at your favorite place, and even made sure it was on a day where not much people visited.
childe: (y/n), will you be mine?
(y/n): are you serious? yes!
childe: you are the only one i've ever been serious about.
(y/n): you're so corny.
whenever he gets back from missions, he always makes sure to bring you back a little gift or a souvernir. one time, he brought you back a ruin hunter eye because "you're the light of my life" he says. it didn't make any sense.
the first time he brought you to snezhnaya, he wrapped you in so many layers that you were better off rolling on the ground than walking.
he absolutely loves it when you play with his siblings. when he comes home tired, he'll immediately be energized if he sees you and his siblings spending time together.
(y/n): ajax, join us! we could use another person to play tag.
childe: do i get a kiss if i win?
(y/n): ...i was just kidding, you don't have to play with us anymore.
childe: hey! okay, okay, i'll join. no kiss needed, i swear!
cooking is one of his favorite activities to do with you. doing something so loving and domestic as cooking with someone he loves is heartwarming.
no matter how much you try to keep yourself clean, childe will find a way to get you messy. he says you can't blame him if you can never catch him wiping his hands on your shirt.
he wasn't the first one to tell you he loved you. his siblings did it for him, actually. well, who was going to stop them? childe was asleep, and you weren't.
he brought you all on a camping trip outside snezhnaya, and he promptly passed out first after story-telling time. as you were cleaning up the campfire, his siblings all walked over to you.
"(y/n), our big brother loves you very much."
it was very random, but very sweet. you smiled at them as you gave them a hug each, asking them why they were suddenly telling you this.
"if you leave him, you leave us, and we don't want you to leave. he loves you a lot, we swear!"
XIAO
being uninterested in relationships, neither of you ever asked each other. but you've been together for as long as you could remember, and your memory goes back for centuries.
(centuries ago)
(y/n): xiao, can you promise not to leave me by myself?
xiao: that's a hard promise to keep.
(y/n): but you'll try?
xiao: ...yes.
xiao has never been the type to express much of what he was feeling—if he felt anything at all. unlike you, he has never bothered to fully understand mortals.
you thrive around the people of liyue harbor, and xiao will always find you casually strolling around or stopping to pet a cat you found on the sidewalk.
when xiao rests at wangshu inn, you find yourself accompanying him, staying with him on the highest balcony. this is the only time you accompany him though, as he has his duties to eliminate evil.
(y/n): need any help?
xiao: you always ask, and i always say no.
(y/n): well, you might need me one day.
xiao: we've been together for centuries. you know i'm capable enough.
(y/n): i know. you always have been.
xiao: rest easy, (y/n). i'll be here.
(y/n): good night, xiao.
food has never really been a problem for either of you, but if you want to treat yourself to a mortal meal, xiao will come along with you. with enough convincing, of course.
you eat at wangshu inn, and chef yanxiao prepares your meals. eating with xiao is quiet, but if you were to start a conversation, he will always reply.
he's never told you that he loves you, at least not directly. his actions will speak for him—one of them being always ridding the path you're taking of monsters.
whenever xiao has to leave you at the inn, he will never fail to tell you to "rest easy" before he leaves. he has sworn to himself to protect you, and eliminate all evil that might affect you.
his duty is to protect liyue, but it wouldn't hurt to make you his duty as well, right?
thanks for reading (˶ᵔ ᵕ ᵔ˶)
#genshin x reader#alhaitham x reader#scaramouche x reader#kazuha x reader#diluc x reader#kaeya x reader#childe x reader#xiao x reader
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Carlos Carlos carlos!
But hear me out, Leon and Carlos sandwich with reader in the middle I think I would PASS OUT.
Bonus points if it’s like…. At a gym or a pool and they’re all sweaty or wet (I will see my perverted ass out)
Hot and Heated
Carlos Oliveira x Fem!reader x Leon Kennedy
A/N: No because I will always take a Carlos x Reader x Leon!!! This is like my biggest fantasy!! Hope you enjoy! I am a little rusty so I hope I did okay! Also I am not a big fan of anal but for Carlos... ANYTHING
Warnings!: Pure self-indulgent smut, porn without a plot, unprotected sex, anal, fingering, dirty talk, threesome
Words: 2704
You had known Leon and Carlos for as long as you could remember. So it wasn’t an odd thing to find you at the gym with them occasionally. If you weren’t at the gym, you definitely were at your house with them, in your pool.
Today just happened to be a super hot day, so both boys decided crashing your house was the way to go. You were sitting out in a pool chair, eyes closed as the two boys lounged in the pool. You were sweating heavily, even in your bikini.
“Come on in, Y/n. You know we don’t bite.” Carlos calls you over, causing you to lift your head and look at the two men.
They were both wet, possibly from a mix of sweat and pool water. Your tongue swipes over your lips as you drink them both in with your eyes. Yeah, you found your two friends quite attractive. Who wouldn’t? And to have both of them in swimsuits in your pool was any person's dream come true.
Carlos runs a hand through his hair, pushing it back from his face. Due to it being wet, it held from his face. You sigh with a small smirk to yourself as you get up from the chair.
“I guess.” You playfully act annoyed.
“Are we not good enough for you?” Leon chuckles as you sit at the edge of the pool, slipping your legs into the cool water. It did feel nice with how hot it is outside.
“She’s just a stubborn one, Leon. She just needs a little…” Carlos’s hand wraps around your ankle, a smirk spreading across his face. “Push.” Before you could react, Carlos yanks you into the water. You had enough time to hold your breath as you went under and then come back up, wiping your face as you gasp.
“Carlos!” You smack him in the chest as you come back from his sudden surprise.
“What? I was cooling you off.” Carlos chuckles as he watches you with a proud smirk. You give him a small glare as you back up in the water.
“And this is why Leon is my favorite.” You hook your arm with Leon’s as you stop next to him.
“I am?” A soft blush reaches Leon’s cheeks as he looks down at you.
“Come on, Darling. I didn’t mean anything by it. Don’t be like that.” Carlos chuckles as his eyes scan up and down your body. You roll your eyes at the dark haired man and then look at Leon, standing on your toes in the water and kissing his cheek. Yeah, maybe you were trying to get a rise out of Carlos. You loved it though. Leon gasps as his face becomes a deeper shade of red. It made you giggle as you landed back on your feet under the water. Carlos smirks and dives under the water. You watch as his figure gets closer underneath you. You squeal as he jumps up and out of the water, right behind you, his hands then resting on your hips. You were now in between the two of them, your face now red.
“Aw, are you gonna get shy now?” Carlos stares down at you as his thumbs rub circles on your hips, causing your heart to beat so loud you couldn’t even hear yourself think.
“No.” You scoff as you roll your eyes, looking at Leon, who now faces you. You bite down on your bottom lip, feeling the nerves get to you. Stuck between two, hot, half naked, wet men. Yeah, you had to be dreaming. But the tightening of Carlos’s grip made it feel just as real as it is.
“She’s pretty like this, huh, Leon?” Carlos chuckles.
“She is.” Leon’s thumb strokes over your cheek as you meet his eye. You can feel as Carlos leans closer to your ear, his hot breath brushing your skin.
“You have goosebumps.” He whispers against your ear, his nose skimming over your skin.
“What?” You gasp as you pull your eyes from Leon and look back at Carlos.
“You have goosebumps.” His hand rises out of the water and trails over your arm, where the hair stood up. “And I know there is no way you are cold.”
“How do you know that?”
“Because you are stuck between two warm bodies and it is already pretty hot out.” Carlos chuckles in your ear, sending more shivers along your body. It is like electricity as you feel Leon’s hands caress over your sides. You take a deep inhale as you close your eyes, taking in all the feelings.
“Give us the word, and we will do it.” Carlos whispers. It. You knew exactly what he meant. It was something you had wanted to do for quite a while.
“Please.” You beg, your voice just above the whisper. With that one word, Carlos was attacking your neck with kisses, which made your heart pound even louder from the action. As Carlos was working on one side of your neck, Leon leans forward and leaves kisses along the other side. It made you let out a gasp of pure enjoyment as both men step closer to you, Carlos tightly against your back and Leon’s chest against yours.
You had experienced pleasure before but this… this was something you couldn’t put into words. Words couldn’t describe how you felt in this moment. It was raw and beautiful and it didn’t matter about anything besides that it felt amazing. Carlos’s hand slips across your front and into your bottoms. His fingers just grace over your clit causing a jolt of pleasure and a loud gasp to release from the back of your throat.
He lets out a dark chuckle against your neck and moves his fingers back over your clit, placing pressure on it. He rubs slow, torturous circles as you let out lewd noises that filled the air. You grip onto Leon’s arms, looking for stability anywhere. You had no doubt your neighbors would know what was going on in your backyard, even if it was fenced in.
“You make such pretty noises.” Leon whispers against your neck as his hands move up your sides to cup your breasts. You were breathing heavily as you rested your head back on Carlos’s shoulder.
“She does, doesn’t she?” Carlos had a wide smirk plastered on his face as he was still rubbing circles on your clit.
“Fuck…” You let out a heavy gasp, your chest heaving up and down into Leon’s hands.
“Well, that's not such a pretty word coming from those pretty lips.” Carlos’s voice was extremely cocky.
“Shut up.” Your hips buck against his hand as he slows his rubbing even more.
“Ah, ah, ah. Do you want to be rewarded with our touch? Because if so, you need to be nicer.” You open your eyes and look up at him with a glare as you continue to moan and gasp softly, your breath hitting his face. “I mean…” Carlos begins to remove his hand from your bikini bottoms. You grip his wrist quickly with one of your hands.
“No… please don’t stop.” You whimper as you feel the pleasure receding. Leon glances up at Carlos, your breasts still in his hands, but not moving.
“But you were being mean. That doesn’t deserve a reward.” Carlos raises an eyebrow.
“No… I didn’t mean it… Carlos.” You whimper as you reach your hand up to his face and cup it in your desperate need to get him and Leon to please you again.
“I don’t know, darling. I don’t think you deserve it.” His eyes lock with yours.
“Please.” You beg, leaning up a bit and pressing your lips softly to his for a few moments. He smiles softly in the kiss just before you pull away.
“Good girl.” He chuckles as his fingers find your clit again sending a jolt of electric pleasure through your body, causing you to tremble a bit under his touch. Leon takes to now slip his hands under your bikini top and massaging your breasts under his hands, his palms swiping your nipples as he does so.
Your hand that was on Carlos’s face slides up to his hair, gripping at the thick locks. Your other hand claws into Leon’s arm. This was just some touching. You were completely at their mercy. Leon leaves gentle kisses along your chest and shoulders. You arch your back, your chest pressing further into Leon’s hands.
Each touch just sent another wave of pleasure coursing through your veins. Each gasp becomes a little louder. And just as you felt yourself beginning to reach the finish, Carlos slips a finger into your hole, his thumb still working on your clit.
“Oh shit!” You whimper at the unexpected, but welcomed, feeling. Carlos’s other hand takes your face by the chin.
“Language, darling.” He smirks, enjoyment coming from messing with you. Your eyelids flutter closed as your eyes roll back, his middle finger moving in and out of your cunt. In the midst of it all, Leon pulls down the cup of your top and leans down, taking your nipple into his mouth, his tongue working wonders.
“Carlos… Leon…” Both their names came out as broken cries of pleasure. Your legs were trembling under the water as your nails drag along Leon’s bicep. With a light tug at Carlos’s hair, and a grunt earned from it, you are whimpering wildly as your walls clench on Carlos’s finger with your release. As Carlos slows his pace and pulls his hand from your bottoms, Leon lifts his head from your nipple. Both of them had eyes on you, soaking in your post orgasm state.
Your breathing was heavy as you looked up through hooded eyelids, meeting Leon’s eyes. “You’re such a mess already.” He had a small smirk on his face.
“And we aren’t even finished with ya’.” Carlos chuckles as his nose brushes against your neck, the smell of your arousal and sweat, turning him on further. You could already feel it. Him and Leon were both erect and their swim trunks were tight.
“I need you both to take me.” You beg as you glance between the two of them.
“At the same time?” Leon looked at you in a small state of shock.
“I have multiple holes for a reason.” You seductively bit down on your bottom lip as you meet his eye.
“I like how your dirty little mind works, Y/n.” Carlos lets out a low, dark chuckle that came from his chest.
Within an instant the two of them had you completely undressed in between them before discarding their own trunks. All your clothing was tossed onto the ground at the side of the pool. You could now feel each of their erect cocks, rubbing against your skin. Leon’s against your stomach, and Carlos’s against your back and ass.
You gasp as you feel Carlos lift you up, hands on your inner thighs so your legs are spread open. You lean back against his chest for stability, Leon’s hands holding you by the hips. Carlos leans against the wall of the pool as the two of them hold you up. It was obvious they didn’t need assistance from each other to hold you up but it made it all hotter.
“You go in her first.” Carlos grunts as he looks at Leon. Leon nods and you feel his tip rub against your entrance. He meets your eye and a small nod was all he needed to push his whole cock into you at once. You let out a cry of pleasure, and a small amount of pain. It had been a while since you had sex so it was a bit uncomfortable at first. But within a few thrusts your walls wrapped around his length perfectly.
“You ready, darling?” Carlos whispers in your ear, his accent strong with each word. It had you melting in his arms.
“Yes…” You let out a breathy moan as Leon places his hand on one of your thighs for Carlos. Carlos takes a hold of his cock and lines up with your ass. His tip grazes your tight hold and it causes you to tense a bit. You never took someone back there before.
“You need to let yourself relax.” Carlos rubs circles into your thigh he was still holding as Leon slows to a stop to let your body calm. You let out a deep breath, closing your eyes and letting my body relax, waiting for him. You feel Carlos reach to your pussy and smear some of your wetness to your back end and his cock, to lube you up. You were soaked that even the water wasn’t completely washing it away. Carlos lines up with your hole and very cautiously sinks in with a groan. You let out a whimper of pain, the walls of your ass clenching tightly on him.
“Fuck… It- it's so tight…” Carlos stutters with a grunt. You were shaking as he bottoms out and places his hand back on your thigh. He places his forehead against your shoulder as he gasps. As he holds his place to let your body adjust, Leon begins his pace again in an attempt to allow pleasure to take over the pain.
“Shit… She's clenching so much.” Leon whimpers as his fingertips dig into your hips. Each movement sent the water around you three splashing a bit. Your eyes roll back as the feeling of it all quickly becomes a lot. You felt full. Your body is in a mix of pain and pleasure, already overstimulated from earlier. With slow, long thrusts, Carlos begins to move.
It started off painful but each move was a step closer to your body giving into the pleasure the two men were bringing you. Within a few minutes both men were thrusting into your holes at fast paces that had your jaw hanging open, your moans piercing the air. All that could be heard was grunts, groans and cries of pleasure, mixed with the splashing of the water.
It didn’t take long for your body to begin to tremble against theirs. “You like that?” Leon mutters against the skin of your chest, kissing it.
“Yeah, she does. She loves being this full with the cocks of her two best friends.” Carlos grunts out as he drinks in the mess they were making you. It was a beautiful sight. Mouth open, body practically limp and to their mercy now, eyes rolled back, cheeks flushed, and body damp from a mix of sweat and water.
The two mens rhythms lined up perfectly, slamming deeply into your holes, which clenched hard on them. Neither of them thought they could last long, but it was clear you couldn’t either.
“Where do you want us to cum, sweetheart?” Carlos gasps into your ear.
“Inside. Inside me, please. Fill me up.” You whine through the pleasure, each stroke pushing me to the edge. The louder they got was more of a signal to their pending release. Your whole body was shaking from head to toe. Even the guys were trembling. You had your back roughly pressed against Carlos’s chest, nails digging into the flesh of Leon’s shoulders.
“I can’t hold on…” Leon gasps as he buries his face in your neck. One last thrust and he was finished, coating your walls with his seed. It took a few more thrusts out of Carlos to then release his hot cum inside your ass. This all sent you over the edge as they both filled you up. Your body shivered with its release as you arch your back, letting out loud whines.
Each of you came down from your highs with heavy breathing as both men stilled inside you. Your body, now completely limp in their arms, could barely move aside from trembling.
“How about we clean you up and take you inside?” Carlos’s lips skim over the temple of your head.
“We can lay with you in between us.” Leon cups your cheek with a gentle hand.
You give a breathless nod with a small smile, having a strong feeling this wasn’t over.
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#fandom#fanfics#x reader#video games#fan fiction#fanfiction#fanfic#leon kennedy#leon s kennedy#carlos oliveira#carlos oliveria smut#carlos oliveria x reader#leon kennedy x reader#fan fic smut#shameless smut#I was foaming at the mouth writing this
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BY THE FIREPLACE (PT. 4) // t. nott
RATING: R / 2.3K WORDS
Theodore Nott x Fem Reader
+ SUMMARY - *Requested* In an attempt to forget about the events of the last few days, you try to relax yourself as best you can. You pull a book and some tea down to the common room but are shocked to see that Theo had the same idea.
+ WARNINGS - Language, sensuality (described in mind), nothing else really
+ MUSIC (listened to while writing) -
affection - BETWEEN FRIENDS
*sorry for the short chapter
- - -
You awoke early the next morning. Much earlier than normal. The small clock sat on the desk beside your bed barely had its big hand brushing the four. There was little to no light outside. You pulled your hand to your face to rub some of the sleep out of your eyes.
The only sounds around you were the occasional soft snores from your roommates and a deep rumbling in your stomach. Shit. You must have fallen asleep last night without eating anything. You raised your arms above your head and coaxed a few cracks out of your spine before slipping out of bed. The green, fur-lined slippers lay right beside the head of your bed, waiting patiently for you to sleep your feet in.
You were no longer tired and didn’t feel like laying in bed until classes started, trying to urge yourself back to sleep. You figured you could catch up on some personal reading and have a mug of tea.
Beneath your bed, was a small wicker basket your mother had made for you on your eleventh birthday. It was intricately woven with two pastel ribbons secured on either handle. You loved it dearly and it had held many things as you grew up. At the moment, it held a large assortment of teas and a small kettle that you could hang over the fire in the common room. You knelt down and retrieved the items, deciding on a nice rose and lavender blend.
You gathered the things together, slipped the book you were currently reading into your arms, and made for the common room. At 4 o’clock in the morning, where the sun was not even up, you were expecting few students, if any, to be occupying the room. You were hoping for none.
The common room was always pleasantly splashed in moonlight around this time of the morning. Its cool rays showed through the water just outside the windows and bathed everything in the whiteness. Everything except for the warm fire in the middle of the room. You waltzed over to one of the plush couches, not seeing anyone else around—thank Merlin.
Wandlessly, you conjured some water, watching as it filled your small kettle. You hang it on the fireplace hanger and collapse into the couch, propping your book open. It had been over a day since you’d last read—some fiction about a knight’s journey dealing with the PTSD of his position—and you wondered if you even remembered what had happened the last few chapters. Your eyes found the small words on the page and let yourself fall into the story.
After a few minutes, the kettle began to whistle. You marked your place in the book and tossed it to the cushion beside you. You wanted to get the kettle off the flame before it started screaming and waking up the whole Slytherin house.
You wrapped your hands in your night robe and slipped the kettle away from the fire. With a whispered incantation, your favorite mug from under your bed appeared on the side table. You poured the steaming water into it and watched as the steam poured over the lip of the cup, its billowing moisture brushing against your bare legs.
Once you’d allowed the tea to steep and it had cooled, you became comfortable once again, leaning against the edge of the couch’s arm, sipping your tea every once in a while. It really was a good book. You’d almost found yourself forgetting about the ridiculous events of yesterday.
Until….you sigh. Out of the corner of your eye, a pair of legs appear coming down the stairs to the male dormitory, then a chest, then a face. A particularly difficult pair of eyes met yours. You all but groaned and rolled your eyes. You could not believe it.
“Hey,” he said, a small chuckle coming out of his mouth. It was awkward and the silence that followed it was somehow worse.
“Uh, hey?” You knew he was just talking to you now because he felt just as weird as you did—at least, that’s what you assumed. Before, he never went out of his way to acknowledge you, now…
No one spoke for at least a minute, the both of you just stared at one another, briefly found the other’s eyes, then quickly glanced away again.
“Well don’t let me interrupt you, I was just passing through,” he says, shoving his hands in the pockets of the plaid pajama pants he was wearing. Your eyes followed him as he began to walk towards one of the bookcases in the corner. He wore a black tank top that showed off his muscular arms beautifully. Your line of vision traced the thick vein that wrapped around his arm, curled down his wrist, and disappeared with his hands in his pants pocket. The pajama pants sat low on his waist and framed the sharp edge of his hip bones. You watched closely as he contemplated the options on the shelves before him.
His eyes caught something interesting. He raised up on his tip toes and lifted his arm to grab it. The tank top slid up his stomach, revealing the strong line of muscle that traveled from below his ribs and down to what lay beneath his waistband. The band of his undergarments traveled briefly over his hips. Fuck. He looked absolutely edible.
You shake that thought off and turn your head back to your book, forcing yourself to focus on the words before you. Surely, this was a normal feeling. It was just natural hormones forcing you to look for a mate. This was simply Mother Nature taking its course. Completely ordinary.
But Merlin, the way he had looked at you when he’d come down the stairs. His eyes, so dark and wanting, glancing over you in your too-big night robe and your ratty shorts. You felt like the most desirable thing in the world with the way he looked at you. Maybe you were just imagining it, but he looked as though he wanted to devour every inch of you.
Your fingers scraped over the book’s pages, letting the light scratch of the parchment control your thoughts. Intrusive ones that you indulged for just a moment before realizing what a weakness it was. Ones that gripped your hips and bit your chest and traced your thighs.
“Do you mind if I sit here?” His voice appeared behind you suddenly. You jumped at his abruptness.
“Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to—”
“It’s fine, Nott, take a seat wherever you’d like,” you sighed, trying once again to refocus yourself. But as he traveled over to the love seat at the far end of the rug probably no more than ten feet from you, you couldn’t help but glance up over the pages every so often.
You watched as he made himself comfortable, legs spread wide open with one ankle resting on the other knee, one hand against the arm of the chair propping his head up, the book balanced against his raised leg, and a strong arm coming up every once and a while to flip the page. As he launched himself further into the story, he began to fidget a bit. His thumb and forefinger pinching his bottom lip, the knot in his throat sliding up and down as he swallowed, his hips readjusting themselves, sliding them slowly against the cushion and—
You slammed your book shut. You couldn’t live like this. You were just going to force yourself back to bed. At the sudden sound, Theo’s eyes shot up in a worried glance.
“You okay?” he asked. You began to gather your things, tucking your now-cooled kettle under your arm. When he realized what you were doing, his book dropped to the cushion beside him and he stood abruptly. You stopped and the two of you watched each other, waiting for the other to speak. His eyes were slightly widened and he was breathing a bit heavier than usual. You watched as his chest rose and fell quickly. Neither one of you moved.
“You know I’m—” “I’m sorry if—”
You both began talking and stopped at the same time. Theo dropped his head and you glanced away, finding the stained glass windows particularly interesting.
“You go first,” he says. You sigh.
“I was just going to say that I’m going to go back to bed,” you explained, avoiding eye contact.
“Oh,” he says, sounding particularly dejected. Or maybe he didn’t. You couldn’t tell what you were and weren’t imagining the last few hours.
“What were you going to say?” you ask.
His eyes glanced around the room. His fists opened and closed, flexing the tendons that ran gracefully along his forearm.
“I was going to say I’m sorry if I made you uncomfortable with the whole…,”
“Yeah, it’s fine,” you brush it off, “let’s not make it more than it is, okay?”
“No, yeah, I didn’t mean to,” he quickly says. “I just wanted to make sure you were okay.”
His eyes find yours and for a second you feel your heart liquefying, melting and rushing down your ribs, sliding across your stomach and legs. Your eyes hold and it feels as though neither of you can look away. You can hear your heart pounding in your ears and echoing against your back.
His lips open and close multiple times and the heavy breathing is back. His chest rising and falling, rising and falling. His honeyed lips pulsing with each breath. His eyes slipping down the length of your body but your vision is too shaky to even notice it. And when did you guys get closer to each other? His hand now rested delicately on the back of the couch you stood in front of. There was but an arm’s length between the two of you. You could just reach out and touch him…
“Yeah, uh…,” you interrupted, your eyes falling away from his. You broke the moment. “I’m fine. Thanks for checking in, Nott.” He chuckles.
“Do you even know my first name?” His eyes find yours once more. No, thank you. You finish gathering your things and begin to walk around the side of the couch.
“Um, I do but…you know, if we aren’t making this weird, I figure we just go back to the way we were. You not knowing I exist and me not caring that you do.” Yikes. Fucking harsh. You shake your head and start walking past him to the staircase.
His hand suddenly wraps around your arm, your skin stinging like he had electrocuted you. You jump and he pulls away quickly. He mumbles a quick apology. You brush it off swiftly. God, this was painful. You imagined your friends watching this play out and cringing so hard they passed out. Because you were on the verge of doing the same.
“Is that seriously what you think of me?” he asks, his eyebrows furrowed and eyes filled with concern. You sigh again.
“I’m sorry, that was rude, I shouldn’t have said that,” you apologize. “But before…this whole situation, we didn’t talk to each other. We went about our days, blissfully ignorant to one other.”
His eyes hit the ground. He knew it was true. The both of you knew that if this hadn’t happened, nothing would have changed between your relationship—or lack thereof.
“If you want to…you know, be friendly,” you start. His eyes raise to yours. “Come to the library with me or have lunch with me.” You felt pretty sure he wouldn’t. He had a reputation to uphold.
He and all of his friends were ‘well-known’ around Hogwarts. They were all handsome, smart, and hailing from very old, wealthy Wizarding families. Everybody liked them or wanted to be them and you knew that well. All cliches aside, you were a Half-Blood and probably none of their concern if not the subject of their bigotry.
“Okay.”
“Okay, what?”
“Okay, I will do those things with you,” he shrugs. “Give me a time and place.”
You were flabbergasted. And you were sure your face was showing it painfully well. You didn’t know what to say without sounding like a fool.
You wanted to say yes. God, how you wanted to say yes…Should you? Is it even worth all of the trouble? You know if anyone sees the two of you chatting it up at lunch, rumors will fly and you’re not so sure you’re comfortable being at the center of those. Yeah, no. You’re definitely not. Say no.
“Um…alright,” you breathe, smiling nervously. “I usually eat lunch by the Black Lake and read. I’ll be there today.” Merlin, help.
“Okay,” he says, smiling. “Well, don’t be reading while we’re eating lunch together.” You laugh.
“I won’t, as long as your conversation can keep my interest.”
“Oh, I’m pretty sure it can.” He sends a wink your way. Embarrassingly, a bit of heat blossoms in your stomach. This was ridiculous. You weren’t thirteen. You needed to get it together.
“We’ll see.” The two of you smile and begin to slowly separate. You didn’t really understand what was going on and you half-wondered if this was even worth it simply due to the amount of teasing you were going to get from your friends. But he seemed…nice. You wanted to see what lunch was all about today. It couldn’t hurt to have a new friend.
Part 5!
#fanfiction#creative writing#fanfic#writing#harry potter#harry potter fanfiction#reader insert#oneshot#slytherin#harry potter smut#multi chapter#chapter 4#theodore nott x reader#theodore nott#theo nott#eventual smut#gender neutral reader
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Hello, I really enjoy your writing and I hope you have a nice day! Could I request housewardens + Floyd reacting to knowing Yuu/MC who they know as chaotic, problem seeking, lazy, and just overall a terrible student (with a nice heart tho) used to be at the top of their school, and was the teacher's pet? They had a lot of pressure to never have fun because it could ruin their future, but now they don't have a future, or a reputation, and they won't be great at any subjects anyway (since it's not their world and they are magicless) so they just decided to be a force of chaos, they can't be #1? Then why even try?
Sorry if it's long:( if you decide to do it, thank you very much ( ◜‿◝ )♡
A/N: was this a call out post? Yes. Yes it was. 😂
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Before he finds out about your past, he's just annoyed. So lazy! You need to at least pretend you care about school! You're no better than ADeuce! Be a better example, prefect.
After he finds out…oh God…that's him isn't it! He's always been top of his class! He's always had outside pressure to be the best! He's got a lifetime of repressed emotions whirling inside of him!
He's having a complete mental breakdown, spiraling a little bit, and, unfortunately, you're going to have to calm him down. Hopefully, you're stable darling! Cause one of you has to be!
That's one way to go through life. He chooses to nap his life away, but if you wanna be a chaos gremlin, power to ya!
He says that, but he wants you to be less of a chaos gremlin, and more of a body pillow. Chaos gremlin ex gifted children, and depression ex gifted children get on like oil and water. *Sighs* you really make him work, don't you?
That said…he'll recruit Svanannaclaw lackies to your cause. And he'll find your lifestyle. You can cause as much chaos, and be as lazy as you want. All he wants in return is for you to return to his arms when you are done.
And hey, maybe he can be your new purpose- No! He didn't say anything! Sevens, your herbivore ears are so faulty, what is he gonna do with you?
He thinks you're another Floyd at first. The high levels of energy, followed by the drops, he's used to dealing with it.
But once he gets your origin story, he's going to make you an offer. Help him with his restaurants. He'll feed, clothe, and house you. All you have to do is say yes.
You can still be chaotic. You can still have your drops. But at least now you'll have a place to focus your energy. It's not much, but, in his opinion, it's a deal you can't walk away from. Please don't walk away from it. You'll hurt his feelings 😢
You're so cool!!!!! You let him party whenever he wants!!!! And you have so many great ideas, like baking 97 cupcakes at three in the morning!
Maybe Jamil brought it up because he cared, maybe it's because he's tired of having to keep up with two gremlins it's definitely the latter but eventually he brings up that, hey, you seem a bit nihilistic. Explains what that is to Kelim, and now Kalim makes sure to spend double the time with you! Usually doing chaos stuff much to Jamil's chagrin
He won't bring it up with you, but his theory is that if he can become a reason for continuing on, of he can be part of your purpose, maybe things will be okay!
Ah Vil. A high achiever, who, like Riddle, is very distressed that you are clearly wasting your capabilities.
But let's say you have a breakdown. And during that breakdown you spill the tale of your life. He's gonna place his hands on your shoulders. Then aggressively shake you.
Pull yourself together! Do you want him to give you the pressure you had from before? Because he will if he has to! But he knows you don't want that, so snap yourself out of it and act like the Queen he knows you are! You have him, and a whole life ahead of you! He can help you find a purpose for your life! Now stop crying and drink your smoothie!
It might take a while for Idia to notice. Cause, well, he's sort of in the same boat as you. And noticing means he has to notice his own lifestyle choices...and...well...he doesn't want to do that.
So you both will live in innocent bliss as you game together, and nap together, and raid the pantry together at two in the morning, and skip classes together.
Once Ortho bursts the bubble, both of you will probably be placed in therapy. Good luck!
You amuse him to no end. And you speak to him like a normal person. You pull him along on adventures. Honestly? He has no desire to dig into your reasons for it. In fact, deep down he knows you're probably going through something, but he'd rather not know.
Which is why when Lilia tells him to dig into it, he pouts like a kid who was told to clean his room. Might even kick a rock around about it. He really looks like a pouting child.
But once he gets your life story, he'll perk up a bit. You want a purpose? He can give you one! Himself…I mean have you considered working in the libraries of the valley of thorns? It would give you uninhibited access to information about this world. Plus, you would still have the time to be lazy and fuck around if you wanted since he's really the only one who visits the library… oh, which library? His private one. Why do you ask?
Floyd won't help you. He will only enable you. He loves chaotic Shrimpy! He also loves that Shrimpy sometimes just wants to nap! You're perfect! His soulmate!
Nope, nope, nope, shrimpy is just like that, no need to ask questions!
Stop, stop, stop! That's how Shrimpy is! Don't ask about their past! Don't question their motives! Don't "help" them! They're fine!
#3k followers#twisted wonderland#twisted wonderland x reader#riddle rosehearts x reader#riddle rosehearts#leona kingscholar x reader#leona kingscholar#azul ashengrotto x reader#azul ashengrotto#kalim al asim x reader#kalim al asim#vil schoenheit x reader#vil schoenheit#idia shroud x reader#idia shroud#malleus draconia x reader#malleus draconia#floyd leech x reader#floyd leech
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