#i am also very attached to sky for no reason i think she is the cutest. i like imagining her and viktor as gay besties
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Because I am a lying liar who lies here is a traditional The Fallen Star AU doodle
Ignore the shit lighting and quality but here’s the designs for my Asha and Star… who I’ve decided to name Cielo. Reasons will be revealed in the rewrite. If I ever get around to it.
Details under the cut!
Asha’s design comes from @mythartist21 almost entirely. The only things I added were the Rosas symbol belt and earrings, and crown. I modeled it after Amaya’s… also will probably design Maggie a crown too, bc I don’t think he has one in the canon movie.
She’s so fun to draw! Though her facial proportions are a bit hard, I’ll figure it out. I LOVE her facial proportions. Also women muscles. Because I am a disaster bi.
CIELO’s design is also very very very heavily inspired by @mythartist21! They did such an amazing job! I only changed up Cielo’s hair bc I like men with longer hair… so this Star is Hispanic, and Cielo’s literally means sky or heaven… plus an ai bot of Jaime Reyes called me that so now I’m attached to the name WHO SAID THAT
Anyways, poofy sleeves too, because… they’re fun to draw, mainly. Cielo’ cape fades into sparkles bc IT LOOKS FRIKIN AWESOME and uhhh I think that’s it
I should really study
#the fallen star au#asha#asha x star#disney wish#human star#princess asha#star x asha#starsha#wish asha#wish fanart#wish 2023#wish#wish movie#wish reimagined#saph doodles
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The Avatar State
Season 2!
I KNEW Aang wouldn't be ok with getting possessed by the megafish. Called it!
As well as the most comfortable looking hammocks I've ever seen, this boat has decorative turtleshells.
Having learned the very hard way that bending is not infallible, the northern water tribe finally takes some safety precautions and installs non-bending means of locomotion on their ships.
So glowy is called "the Avatar State." I was kind of attached to calling it glowy.
Pakku continues his consistent and unwavering pursuit of being a poophead. You almost have to admire his unwavering jerkiness.
We're going to see Bumi! I like Bumi.
I don't know about constructing a building complex that near a waterfall. The cherry blossoms are nice though.
So they weren't eaten by vultures after all. Not so subtle exposition from Iroh. And then Zuko is as subtle as a kimodo rhino with his backstory rehash. That being said, there was probably a few months between seasons, so a refresher was needed.
Yes that did come out wrong. Rare misstep from Iroh.
This is Zuko's crazy talented sister right? The one he was angsting about in the snow cave? She seems to be just as much of a dumbass as her brother, although she makes her stupidity seem threatening instead of embarrassing. I don't care how much political power you have, you can't win against tides. Literally the last episode was all about how the ocean always wins.
I am begging you guys to see the pattern here. First time the Gaang got a hero's welcome, Suki's village burnt down. Second time, the whole season finale happened. At this point it's probably safer if the Gaang sticks to going where they're not especially welcome.
Aang saying "I try not to think about it too much" is kinda ouchy given his nightmares at the beginning of the episode.
WAIT A MINUTE
Gotta look something up
That's Bato's map! The animators had no reason to have such crazy good continuity.
I don't think Aang is too happy being described as "the ultimate weapon."
Thank you Katara for calling the general on his pushy steamrolling. They've committed to nothing.
I think the guy in front has a burn on his cheek. I have been surprised by how few burns I've seen after a whole season's worth of episodes. We've seen Zuko's, and Bato's. But the Fire Nation is supposed to be this all-dominating unstoppable war machine, so why isn't every random earth kingdom background character covered in burn scars?
It's amazing how many people can't see the 12 year old for the avatar. Guilting him into cooperating by showing him wounded vets? Harsh.
Also, the last time Aang tried to leapfrog his destiny he burned Katara. Yes, the war needs ending, but maybe don't skip learning the basics before you try?
Heh. Basics. I sound like Iroh.
Pretty sky. I was hoping for a continuation of the 'so pretty it hurts' background trend. I wouldn't have equated fire with electricity, but apparently Zuko jr. can make lightning? And yes, this is very obviously Zuko's sibling: unreasonable and completely out of touch with reality, although rather in the opposite direction than Zuko. The lightning you're throwing around will still kill your target whether or not your hair is pretty while you throw it.
Aang this seems like a bad idea. Even you think it's a bad idea.
The earth kingdom seems to use green lighting. It's weird.
Katara is unreasonably angry about this. The hard work being thrown away isn't really her's, it's Aang's.
Please do not give the hyperactive airbender caffeine.
They gave the hyperactive airbender caffeine. Starting to think this general's not so bright.
Shout out to Aang' voice actor for such an accurate rendition of getting sucker punched.
That's pretty good. Momo really understood the assignment.
The sacred Bellows! This just gets stupider and stupider.
Pretty.
Well in MY country, politeness is only owed to people who don't pour the power of 1000 mean girls into a single line read. I'd be quick to get to the point too if it would get her out of my house.
The ego on this girl. She drops a life-changing bombshell on Zuko, who has spent the last three weeks as vulture food, and explodes when the conversation doesn't immediately pivot to showering thanks on her for the extreme hardship of going somewhere on a royal ship? She's surpassed Zhao's whole season of assholery in barely half an episode.
Now we get the real reason Katara was so angry about "wasting their hard work" or whatever it was she said. She's frightened. I get that. Glowy floaty Aang is frightening.
Another rock and a hard place situation. People are dying everyday, Aang is 100 years late, but the Avatar state is scary, and turning a pacifist into a weapon is a bad idea. Once again the world needs a fully realised Avatar and all they have is a half trained 12 year old.
Iroh's right. It IS unbelievable. Mostly because Zuko jr. is nowhere near as subtle as she thinks she is.
Doubling down and lashing out when the truth is uncomfortable: classic Zuko. Iroh really puts up with a lot.
This is how you know it's a dream: real Zuko runs towards mysterious glowiness.
I'm not a dreamologist, so I have no clue why Aang would dream about hurting Zuko while glowy after being told that the avatar state is hard for his loved ones to watch. Seriously, why is Zuko in this dream?
"Uncle! You've changed your mind!"
"Well someone's gotta save your dumb ass."
Not to imply that this general isn't INCREDIBLY stupid, but he's certainly done something right to so solidly secure the loyalty of his soldiers. That's the avatar, and also a 12 year old kid, and they don't hesitate.
It's all wibbly
Double nutshot. Boy's got heels of steel.
Apparently the horse bird things can do parkour.
Things you can get away with in cartoons but not live action: this eye colour. The only place I've seen this colour in the real world is goats.
I like how the voice acting for the helmeted fire nation soldiers sounds like it's coming from inside a metal helmet. Such a tiny detail but they put the effort in.
Nifty transition between screaming Zuko and screaming Aang.
This! Why doesn't every earthbender just to this to their enemies? Turn them into sitting ducks. You don't even need benders to finish them off, just a guy with a bat. How has the Fire nation gotten this far when their enemies can do this?
That's going to cause some trauma.
Iroh is a beast. He's taking out the whole royal guard. I also love that they're lining up to be taken out. So polite. They could teach Zuko Jr. a thing or two.
I feel like Zuko usually does better than this in fights. And really, I know little sisters are extremely talented at goading, but Zuko's really too easy to goad. His sister's not even trying that hard.
This episode's most satisfying shot. Hoping the tides take revenge for that earlier comment.
That's the lowest quality animation I've seen in this show. It bobs unmoving across the screen.
What the hell is the green lady throwing? Elaborately carved thingies?
So it's actually very dangerous to Aang to go glowy. And to the world in general. Neat. I guess an unmatchable power like that needs some sort of limiting factor.
"You're out of your mind." THANK YOU.
No, THIS is the episode's most satisfying shot. About time someone did that to him.
Katara's "I think we're all set" Is a delightfully polite 'get fucked'.
Wow she got those printed up quick.
"There will be no place left to hide" except a short run upstream.
That ends a bit suddenly.
We did not go to see Bumi. Bummer.
Final Thoughts
Quite the explosive start to the season. They really hit the ground running. Also this is very much not a show where you can skip seasons.
Katara was right about it being a bad idea to try and run before Aang can walk. You can't blame the general for wanting a quick way to end the war with few casualties (on his side at least). You can blame him for being really bad at listening. Does earthbending cause stupidity? Because I definitely remember that all non-Bumi earthbenders we've seen so far are not too bright.
We've met what I'm assuming is going to be the antagonist of the season. I don't like her. I'm aware that I'm not supposed to, what with her being the bad guy and all, but would it be too much to ask for a fun villain? This girl's just mean. When Zhao was first introduced, the episode turned into a win for Zuko. This girl's introduction just makes him even more pathetic than usual. I guess starving on a raft for weeks has negative side effects, because this CANNOT be the same Zuko who one-shotted Katara in the spirit oasis.
This does answer my question of what they're going to do with Zuko and Iroh this season. They're going to ground. Zuko's scar is pretty distinctive though. I bet that's going to cause problems.
Sokka has never suffered fools, and seeing him knock out the general is just so satisfying. Both water tribe siblings were supportive of Aang in their own ways this episode: Katara by standing up to the general and giving Aang on honest opinion on what's going on; Sokka by backing up Aang's decisions for and against the proceedings. And also literally standing up for Aang against the general's soldiers. We already knew they were ride or die, but it's good to open the season with a refresher.
Before this devolves into a discussion of the differences in required narrative elements in season openers during the bingeing/streaming era compared to old fashioned network television, let me say one more thing: poor Appa hasn't been sidelined this hard since The King of Omashu.
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SFW
You meet up with Law, boyfriend Law, Punk Hazard Arc
Context: You have the Calm-Calm fruit and eventually meet up with Law only to join his crew from the Strawhats crew. Some parts Zoro wants to be with you.
Some minor plot holes minor mistakes.
This is a long ass post, took me forever episode by episode <3
50 likes for a Part 2 Dressrosa Arc
Currently working on Part 2
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Ever since you could remember your devil fruit was lame.
-☆-
You were living out in the North blue when the Strawhats recruited you. You had so many adventures with them from going underwater to the sky.
Forward to right before being teleported from Sabaody.
" Let's all meet back here in two years! Were not strong enough yet!" you heard Luffy yell right before Kuma palms you out of existence.
-☆-
Feeling like your coming back to life, your eyes flicker open only to see medical equipment.
"Am I dead?" you quietly ponder to yourself. Trying desperately to sit up you snag something on yourself loose and you hear a long low tone beep. You all ready knew what it was a heart monitor. 'So I'm safe?' you thought to yourself.
Suddenly you hear "Shambles" low and behold to your surprise.
"So your awake Strawhat. Thought you may not make it. You had multiple broken bones and internal bleeding." Law states looking at you from left to right. Then giving you a check up.
" First off my names (n) I have a name. And secondly I'm assuming you helped me so thank you very much. But how did I get here? My memory is fuzzy." You blurt out then mentally slap yourself for being rude to him.
He looks at you for a second before answering.
"You fell on my sub. Do you not remember anything before it happened?" Law asks quizzically.
You cock your head to the side thinking while he unplugs all the cords attached to you. Then it hits you!
"We were in Sabaody then Kuma showed up and teleported us to different locations I'm just guessing here but I think he meant for us all to go to different locations but I'm unsure. Why would he teleport me to you?" You ask intuitively.
Law stays silent for a solid minute then says.
"I'm not sure why but considering that you were in a coma for 3 weeks I'd guess that's why. Otherwise you would have died from exposure." Law states bluntly.
"I was what for 3 weeks?!!" You yell panicking. You thank him again for his service and he nods at you as a your welcome.
"Well Kuma must have done this for a reason. I know! would it be okay to join up with you until I have to go back? I can help with many things I helped Chopper with paperwork all the time." You exclaim. Taken aback from your loudness Law thinks for a minute.
" I suppose I could use the help and your all ready here" He states defeated but not showing it, knowing hes backed up on his paperwork.
"Yay! you wont regret this I promise" you beam at him with such a cute face causing him to gain a light pink over his face then it fades as soon as it appeared.
-☆-
And that's how you joined up with Trafalgar Law.
-☆-
One year and a half later. You and law have grown quite close well close to you considering you are distant with everyone. But you've made friends with Bepo, Penguin and Shachi also with most of the crew. Close like being able to talk about your feelings close at least with Law.
-☆-
"Let's gather supplies everyone (n) that includes you too" You hear Law say. You reluctantly obey.
After awhile of collecting herbs and plants off the island you sit down on a log deep in the clearing snap your fingers and say " silence" as you start to sing knowing you've done a good job of collecting so you can relax for a little while. Soon however you forget the time.
-☆-
Laws POV
' Where is (n)? She should be back by now. I better go look for her' you think quietly to yourself as you walk off the Polar Tang in search of a (color) haired woman.
After some time and the suns starting to set you make your way through the trees only to come to a clearing. (n) is sitting on a log singing but you dont hear anything. You just see her lips moving eyes closed. As you make your way to her you enter her barrier with a tinge of purple in a sphere shape. Then it hits you. Hard. You couldn't help the tears welling up. All this time you thought she didnt have a devil fruit but ... she did. Her melody singing away. You couldn't help your self.. It just was too much.You started to sob and (n) snapped up to see you.
"Captain... Law are you okay?" She asks with deep concern in her voice. You just make your way to her and embrace her gently. You couldn't even speak you were still in shock. Bearing your face in her shoulder you cried and she held you rubbing your back until you could cry no longer.
"Is that better" she asks sweetly.
"It's you (n)..." you mumbled off.
"What's me?" she asks shyly.
"I thought I'd never see his fruit again but it was with me the entire time." you say gaining your voice back.
"Whose devil fruit was this Law?" Quietly asking.
"Corazons ... he.. my dear friend.. he gave his life for me" you say quietly.
-☆-
(N) POV
Trafalgar and you sit on the log as you listen to his stories of Cora and him. This goes on until theres no more light in the sky. Feeling even closer to him you couldn't decide to let your feelings be known to him or if you had the wrong idea about him. He couldn't possibly like you back. You knew it may be best to wait and see.
"Thank you for listening (n)" Trafalgar says quietly.
"Of course Law I'm always here for you. You can always come to me." you say boldly.
-☆-
Four months later
-☆-
Using your sword you take out 5 guys all around you then some more who jumped over the others bodies. After the battle you went over to Law who was collecting their hearts. You both have had deep conversations in the past about his goals of becoming a warlord or avenging Corazon and even other things.
"All right pack it up let's go" Law yells to the crew. Your techniquly apart of the crew but you dont have to wear that boiler suit. Everyone heads in except you and Law.
"So do you have enough or still need more?" You ask quizzically. He pat's your head gently and says "patience young one"
"young?! Trafalgar Law we are the same age!" I exclaimed and his signature smirk made it's way to his face. You puff up your cheeks. He pokes them letting all the air out of your mouth. "heyy stop teasing me all ready" you whine. He chuckles.
"Your such a good girl" Law states.
'Wait what? What does he mean by that?' You think to yourself. Feeling bold you confront him.
"Sooo what do you mean I'm a good girl?" looking at him with puppy dog eyes. That blush creeps up to his face as he loves to see you like this so cute.
"I mean your a hard worker, strong, reliable, and ...cute" Law says pulling his hat down a little to hide his blush but you all ready know theres one there. Now was your chance your only chance.
"Well Trafalgar Law I think your cute too." you say as you lean up and give him a kiss on his cheek. His shock shown on him and his blush deepened.
"Let-" As you were about to say something he pulls you close and kisses you on the mouth embracing you as you embrace him after a second. He deepens the kiss using his tounge to gently flick yours. After releasing you both breathless he speaks "I cant handle it anymore (n) will you be mine?" Law asks blushing a wine red. You blush deeply and reply. "Of course Trafalgar I've actually liked you for awhile now" He hugs you close "I've liked you for awhile as well" he states.
-☆-
Heading to your now shared room you come around the corner to see Law at his desk doing paperwork.
"Let me help, have we gotten the pile down any?" you say sweetly.
"Actually were now ahead of schedule thanks to you" Law states leans over and kisses your cheek.
"Law .... you know I only have two months left before I meet up with my crew." I say softly and he doesnt speak, you assume hes waiting for you to speak more.
"But I'm thinking about leaving the Strawhats..." you finish. He looks at you with a bit of shock. Then you explain.
"Well since were boyfriend and girlfriend now, I just cant bring myself to leave you... I really really like you" you explain. He thinks apparently pondering something before speaking.
"Well you can still see them. I was planning on making a temporary alliance with the Strawhats." You look at him in shock.
"Um you know my captain?" I ask.
"I patched him up on Amazon Lily he seems strong" Law states simply.
"Ohh that's right his brother died..." you say melancholy.
"How is Luffy doing?" you ask Law.
"From when I last saw him he was stable and moving around" Law states.
"That's great news so hes fine yay! Though I do wonder how everyone else is doing I mean it's almost been 2 whole years" saying softly.
"Wow your right" Law looks you in the eyes.
"The days have gone by so quickly I almost didnt notice" Law says quietly.
You take his hand and lead him to the bed.
"Enough of work, it's time to sleep Trafalgar" you simply put it as you lead him to bed and you both laid down.
"Why do you like using my first name?" Law asks quizzically.
"Um because it means your mine silly!" you say as you lay on him hugging him close burying your face in his neck.
-☆-
2 months later
-☆-
You stretch your arms up as you walk off of the deck of the Polar Tang with your boyfriend Law. It's time to see your crew again.
"Thank you for coming all the way here for me Trafalgar" you give him a quick squeeze then let go and the crew goes awe. You know it makes him uncomfortable to do pda in front of the crew or in public in general that's why you were quick about it.
" Let's go!!" you exclaim as you and Law leave the Polar Tang and head to the meeting spot.
"Let's see if I see anyone" you spot Zoro who had just cut a ship in half.
"Zoro! Hey!" you yell as he turns around waving at you then clutching his swords when his eyes met Trafalgar. You both walked over to Zoro.
" Hey Zoro how have you been its obvious you've gotten stronger" you say happy for your comrade. You then notice the tension between the two of them so you decided to say something the cool off the situation.
"So let me introduce you to Trafalgar D Water Law my boyfriend, and Trafalgar this is Zoro Roronoa my crew mate" You state quickly and Zoro dropped his hands. He didnt seem too happy about it.
"Law the warlord?" Zoro asks.
"The very same" Law answers.
"I cant believe you (n) while we all have been getting stronger, you've been off with your .. boyfriend. I cant sit by like this." Zoro complains gripping his swords again.Confused you were about to say something but Law forced you behind him.
"Room!" Law says while Zoro prepares his swords.
"Theres no way I will let (n) go" Law states coldly. There fight begins but as soon as it starts it ends .. with Law holding Zoros heart. Law gives it a squeeze, and Zoro clutches his chest.
" Attack me or (n) and your heart will be stabbed" Law states cold as ice.
"How did you?!" Zoro looks so confused.
" Please stop" you stand in between them with both your arms up to them both.
"Zoro why havent you ever told me before?" you ask.
"There wasnt a good time for it" he states.
"That's a lie theres always a good time sometime. Anyway you must accept defeat please let's all just go." You plead.
"Would it have even made a difference?" Zoro questions you.
"I'm sorry Zoro but I didnt and dont feel the same" you say looking down. Zoro and Law look at you and put away there weapons. Law walks up to Zoro and extends his hand with the heart as the blue sphere dissapears. Zoro takes it and places it back in him.
"Luffy knows I went with Law Zoro, he just doesnt know I'm together with him" you state. Zoro raises an eyebrow.
"And just how do you think he will take this? Obviously if your together you may not stay with the crew" He says harshly.
" Well that's why were all meeting up to talk" I state blankly.
" Were just wasting time let's go" I say grabbing Laws hand which surprised him but then you caught his famous smirk. He must have liked putting Zoro the pirate hunter in his place.
-☆-
At The Meeting Room
-☆-
You decide to have a couple drinks while waiting for everyone to show up. Law just leans against the wall occasionally glancing at you. After everyone shows up and talks about everything you decided to bring up the subject.
"Hey everyone theres something I need to talk about" you say for everyone to hear. They all turn to you waiting.
"Gosh well after these two years me and Law have become close hes my boyfriend now basically so I was wondering if I could join his crew permanently but if you need me you can use my viver card?" You blurt out but not loudly.
Everyone besides Law and Zoro looks shocked.
"Yea (n) that's fine you have to live your life! It sucks your leaving though but I know you'll be back one day" Luffy says.
"Please dont leave us with himm" Nami points at Sanji
"I'm sorry Nami and everyone but as I said if you need me you can use my viver card the captain has spoken" I state firmly which was very hard to do.
" I'm sure well go on more adventures together guys! You just wait I can feel it!"
-☆-
Punk Hazard Arc
-☆-
Law wanted you to stay on the Polar Tang when you and the crew went to Punk Hazard, he didnt trust anyone especially Caesar and Monet but he could change his mind.
You did his documents for him then made a game out of paper cards like cards against humanity for the crew. You all were enjoying the game.
" I cant believe you made this (n) it's so fun" Bepo said heartedly.
"Awee thank you so much Bepo I do hope everyone else enjoys it too" you state and most of the players nod in approvment.
"I miss Lawww" you exclaim.
"Itll be okay (n) hell be back soon" Penguin says.
" Yea itll be okay just hang out with us" Sachi says happily.
"You know what you guys are right your all awesome!" You beam. They smile. You all play games well into the night. You then go into yours and Laws bedroom after getting ready for bed. You feel a presence behind you as you turn around in a karate formation.
"Hiya!" you yell and do a chopping motion, right onto Laws head making his hat fall off. After the shock that hes really here wears off you squeel.
"Trafalgar!!" you yell hopping onto him.
" hey (n) it's been a minute" he states tiredly as he wraps his arms around you. You hop off still hugging him burying your face in his chest.
" You've had no idea how much I've missed you Trafalgar" You say almost whining.
"I've missed you as well." he says letting you go to undress his coat and put Kikoku to rest.
" I've done the paperwork all ready. Are you hungry. Thirsty? Tired?" you ask everything possible. He looks at you with tired eyes.
"All of the above (n)" Law states matter o factly.
"Okay be right back handsome" you say then swiftly head to the mess hall and prepare Law some tea and onigiri then head back to your shared room.You see Law at his desk and set the cup and plate on it then sat on his lap like you always do.
" Please eat and drink dear" you say sweetly.
"Why thank you um dear" he managed to say something endearing as he started eating and drinking. After he was finished he swooped you up and layed you on the bed then layed beside you with the only source of light coming from the night stand.
" I'll be right back I need a shower" Law states and you nod. You hear water flowing as you get snuggled under the blankets so happy that hes back. After some time you hear a click and the water stop. Law comes out just in pants and your loving staring at his abs and tattoos. You blush and he notices.
"What are we blushing about? See something you like?" Law smirks.
"Yes I do hehe now gimme!" you say motioning him over. He goes over and lays down next to you turning off the light.
"Law what happened to your heart" you say somewhat upset as you trace your fingers over the rectangular shape of where his heart was supposed to be.
"Its a long story, but dont worry about it" he says quitely.
" Now you have me all to yourself" he says with a small smirk. You both start cuddling with his arms wrapped around your waist pulling you closer once you snapped your fingers and said
"silence"
"(n) I need to tell you something" Law speaks.
"What is it dear?" you question nuzzling the crook of his neck.
"(n)... I love you.." he whispers in your ear. You blush deep red as you look up to meet his eyes.
"Trafalgar I love you too..." you whisper back. He pulls you into a kiss and you deepen it playing with his tounge until you both break for air.
"Glad I told you" Law stated.
"Me too sweetheart" you say kissing his face.
-☆-
The Next Morning
-☆-
"Oh by the way your coming with me today" you hear Law state at his desk.
"I have a surprise for you,but... you'll have to be my secretary" Law states with somewhat remorse. You just look at him confused but willing.
"All right sir" you say cutely making him blush slightly. Since your devil fruit wasnt the best especially for fighting, you understood why you had to pretend to be his secretary. You nodded and got ready with a long sleeve shirt and pants. You've only been outside on the island once when you first got here. You knew about the snow and fire since Law told you.
"All ready let's go get your heart back" you exclaim making a peace sign.
-☆-
You find you, Law, Teshigi, Smoker, Luffy, Franky, and Robin trapped in a metal cage.
With Laws help you are all freed, while Luffy jumps out and Franky goes to the Sunny. All of Laws plans have fallen apart but theres still hope.
-☆-
Flashback
-☆-
"So who is this Law?" Ceaser asks quite annoyed while Monet pushes her glasses down her nose.
"Her she's my secretary" Law states coldly but you dont mind your just unsure if Ceaser and Monet will believe him. You pulled out a notepad and pencil.
"Is there anything you require sir" you ask politely pencil and paper ready.
"Not for now" Law says. While your fantastic at acting it is a bit awkward for you to be so close to the enemy. Dont get me wrong you definitely can defend yourself and can use Haki but your calm calm fruit powers are pretty much completely useless. You could definitely tell that they weren't buying this secretary stunt.
"Law I granted only you permission of the island not some secretary too" Ceaser has a fit.
-☆-
Back to the cage. You all escape and managed to get inside before the poison gas gets you all. You follow Trafalgar as everyone else does there own thing. Sword at your hip ready to go.
-☆-
You and Law make it to the SAD factory door, as it opens you both walk in. After a couple of minutes. In walks Vergo and they exchange a few words before Vergo disappears then reappears only to slash Law with his bamboo stick about 4 times in the face before saying
"This is it Law, its a shame your a traitor" Vergo says coldly. He turns his attention to you and you quickly use armorant hardening everywhere, before he attacks and sends you flying into the wall. You spit up a little blood as you knew you weren't that strong but you still had tricks up your sleeve. Law glances at you but knows if he goes near you Vergo will get the idea hes protecting you.
"Let me guess your pissed off because your scheme came crashing down all around you, this thing is really important to you guys. It's a hunk of junk." Law states to Vergo.
"I would watch my mouth if I were you" Vergo says with little irritation. Just then you hear Law groan in pain as you look up to see Vergo squeezing Laws heart.
"Dammit room! Now my heart come back to me" Law grovels. Just as soon as Law says those words does Vergo teleport to Law and beat him again catching Laws heart. You knew you would only get in the way so you stand and stare. You were no match for Vergo your specialties are for stealth. Vergo teleports again to law who was trying to get up Vergo uses armorant haki and punches him three times to where Laws hat falls off into the darkness. Law looks up arms up to Vergo.
"Heres a counter shock" Trafalgar says as he defibrillates Vergo causing Vergo to spit out some blood. After a second Vergo speaks.
"I have a message from joker, he says that it is a shame"
"I knew exactly how to get my heart back from Ceaser I didnt except you here too Vergo" Law says.
"Mr. Vergo" Vergo says while squeezing Laws heart making Trafalgar fall to the ground.
"I'm kinda in the middle of something does it have to be now... Vice Admiral Smoker, whatever, been meaning to kill you might as well get it over with" Vergo states.
"Go ahead and try I can only look at trash for so long before I have to take it out. Especially filthy pirates like you" Vice Admiral Smoker says.
"What are those they look mighty ominous" Smoker says looking to the green liquid tanks.
"They are but that's none of your concern" Vergo says
"Vergo I dont want them to know about you, these men look up to you like a father" Smoker states
"Well too late now they know now I saw them moments ago"
"What did you do to them!?" smoker yells.
"Looks like I hit a nerve dont tell me you look up to those subordinates" Vergo says.
"Its a shame it had to end this way but now that you know my secret I must kill you" Vergo coldy states. Smoker takes the first move as they engage in action. Smoker gains the upper hand and punches Vergo into the railing.
"I'm warning you dont ever lay a hand on my men!" Smoker yells. Smoker slashes at Vergo but he blocks it. Smoker and Vergo use armorant haki and exchange blows. Smoker attacks with a fury of blows but none land.
"Watch it Smoker" you hear Law mumble from over to your left. Smoker attacks but it's not effective.
"Too slow" Vergo says to Smoker.
"White glove!" Smoker yells as Vergo grabs Smokers smoke arm and punches him with armorant haki causing him to crash into the railing and cough up some blood. Vergo uses moonwalk to match Smokers smoke form once Smoker gets up. Vergo punches Smoker with armorant haki yet again and Smoker crashes into the railing.
"What do you want?" Vergo asks law who managed to stand up now.
"I just want to get my heart back from you, once I have it I can kick your ass easily Vergo"
"Its Mr. Vergo" as Vergo squeezes Laws heart. You see smoker look at you as you quietly say "silence" engulfing Smoker in your silence.
Smoker attacks engulfing Vergo with smoke in a circle.
"Demon bamboo" as vergo slams his bamboo against Smoker straight into a wall cracking it.
"You wanted to kill me so bad for the navy and your people but recklessness wont save your people or make them proud of you"
"Its over now" Vergo states blankly.
"Well done Smoker thanks for keeping your end of the deal I can take it from here" you look over to Law who has his heart as he places it back into his chest. You lean against the wall knowing it's over now and so happy Smoker kept his side of the secret deal.
"This makes us even Law, will you finish him all ready" you hear Smoker sputter.
"You really cant stand owing a pirate can you?"you hear Law state blankly.
"Its unbecoming I'm only glad my people arnt here to see this" Smoker sputters.
"And yet I'm only alive because of what you did"
"Now it's time to end this Mr. Vergo" Law states.
"Its about time you remembered your place in the world" Vergo states.
"Tell your self whatever lies you want to hear, ya I know your listening hello Joker!"
"Your about to loose your right hand man meanwhile Strawhat is gonna take out Ceaser and that means you can kiss your SAD goodbye, so you wont be laughing for very much longer" Law states to the snail Joker.
"Hahahaha you do a pretty decent job of acting tough runt, take a good look at Vergo pissing him off isnt a good idea. With his haki your no match for Vergo and never will be" Joker laughs maniacally. Vergo is in full body armorant haki.
"Let's do this" Vergo states as he is in full armorant charges at Law. In a flash Law cuts Vergo clean in half as you gasp in happiness its over. You see Trafalgar swing Kikoku and the whole facility is cut clean off in half. You walk up to him entering his sphere.
"You always told me a new era was coming the age of the daring ones and here we are Joker I opened the gate the gears are broken there is no turning back .. for anyone" Law states coldly. You knew something huge was coming but Law didnt let you in on the whole plan just yet, most likely to try and protect you. The blue sphere dissapears as you watch Trafalgar cut up Vergo into tiny pieces like he does for his crew punishments and put each piece on a different part of the railing. The snail goes click and you breath out hard enough for Law to look at you.
"Are you all right (n)?" Law asks concerned. He saw how hard you were throw against the wall.
"I'm just glad it's over I'm good tip top shape, I used armorant hardening so I should be good" you say really wanting to hug him because he almost died. Though with Vergo still alive you didnt want to take any chances so you pretend your just a Strawhat. Vergo goes on a rant about how Law will regret this then Trafalgar slices Vergos face down the middle.
"Dont waste your breath worrying about me you've got your own problems to worry about"
"This rooms gonna explode soon, so long Vergo the pirate" Law says calmly. You follow Law out of the room and find a huge half tank that could fit many people inside.
"Well use this to transport the kids, marines and Strawhats" Law states and grabs a rope on the right while Smoker grabs the one on the left. They start walking with it and eventually you all make your way to door R-66.
"Hey (n) ,Traffy and Smoker!" you hear Luffy yell to you guys.
"Theres no time for introductions again let's go" Law states pulling the gaint cart. Everyone makes there way through door R-66.
"Hey Strawhat where did Ceaser go?" Law asks Luffy.
"I blew him through that door see he sucks let's just leave him behind" Luffy says.
"I should have known not to trust you with anything. The point of having a plan is to follow through with it. We need to capture him now" Law yells.
"Hey Luffy you think there okay?" Nami asks worriedly.
"I know they are" He says.
"The hell you Strawhats standing around for?!" Law yells.
"I'm waiting on my crew" Luffy says as you nod. You see Brook and Chopper running for their lives and barely made it through the door.
"The gangs all here now!" Luffy yells.
"Where you trying to make us worry?" Nami asks.
"This is no time for a reunion let's go!" Law yells. You jump onto the cart along with both your crews.
"Allright let's go!" Luffy yells as he pushes the lever making the cart go super fast. You hold onto Laws arm for balance not wanting to fall down.
"I dont see any light ahead how far did Strawhat punch Ceaser exactly" You hear Trafalgar state.
"Hey Law when you and I get off this island you and I will go our separate ways, but theres something I gotta ask" Smoker states bluntly.
"And that is?" Law questions.
"I was under the impression that my heart was in Ceasers possession how did you get your hands on it?"
"Simple I gave Ceaser my heart and in return he let me hold onto his secretaries heart, he got mixed up on the details. So our little encounter put me in possession of two hearts" Law states.
"Ceaser just made the assumption but I gave him back Monets heart out of kindness"
"When you do kind things well, that good karmas bound to come right back to you" Law says.
"Dammit the passage is blocked!" a marine yells.
"Dont slow down" you hear Zoro say. Everyone cheers as Zoro cuts through the blockage.
"Dont get comfortable just yet" Zoro states. Everyone looks behind them to see the poison gas running after everyone. Once turning back around your and Zoros eyes lock for a second then disconnect.
"If the fallen rubble doesnt kill us the gas surely will" you hear Robin say.
"Stop being morbid" You hear Usop say.
"Theres sure to be a gas cloud when we get out, can anyone conjure up some wind?" Law asks.
"Sure I can do that" Nami says raising a hand.
"Move faster!" You hear Luffy yell. As soon as the gas gets closer everyone besides you Law and Smoker start freaking out.
You let go of Laws arm.
"I see a light up ahead" Luffy yells. The cart bursts out of the tunnel with everyone cheering. The cart halts with a thud.
"Baby Five, Buffalo what are you doing here?!" You hear Law yell.
"Law turned traitor Joker saved a seat for you and you go and betray him!" You see Bafflo say.
"They took Ceaser and made a run for it" Usop says.
"Those batards" Law says
"Hang on Law, Usop says he has it" Luffy says.
"First class sniper even if he has a gaint snoz" Zoro says
"Your crazy what if he misses this could ruin our whole plan" Law states.
"Yea any day now" Zoro says
"Go high weather egg! Time to hatch weather bolt!" Nami yells
"Oh no not so fast thunder breed tempo!" Nami says.
"Special attack meteor storm assault! Fire!" Usop yells.
"That last part, Sea prism handcuffs!" Usop yells as the shackles wrap around Ceaser dragging him down. After that ordeal you see Sanji and brook building a fire pit. Franky is helping the marines fix the ship. You see Nami and Tishigi on the ship talking while you walk over to the fire pit you realize Law is gone.
"(n)- Swannn! Hello again!" Sanji fawns over you making you blush slightly then it dissapears.
"Hello Sanji nice to see you and everyone again" you say.
Suddenly Chopper comes running out of the ship.
"Luffy! You gotta stop him immediately! Hes committing murder!" Chopper screams
"Dont worry Chopper hes just treating the children!" you yell up at Chopper.
"Ahhh I also committed murder!" Brook screamed.
"You killed him again?!" Sanji and Luffy yell.
"What if we glue him back together?" Luffy yells
"Momonosuke!" Kinemon yells as he breaks out of his shelling.
"Father your alive!" Momo yells as he puffs into human form again.
"Father I thought you were dead!"
"Momonosuke!" Kinemon yells.
Suddenly Momo collapses.
"So they finally been reunited" Brook says.
"Hu hes not normally this naked though" Kinemon places a rock on Momos head and poof he is wearing a kimono.
"Hmm smells good I wonder what Sanjis cooking up for us?" you hear usop say.
"A cold exhausted body needs a healthy meal so I made sea pig pork soup. I know you've been running on an empty stomach for days now so start with the soup" Sanji says to Momo.
"I do not want your strange food" Momo yells.
"I humbly accept this feast, delicious! I'll try this next. There food is fine to eat son. accept their kindness. My life was saved by them" Kinemon says.
"There food is safe to eat?" Momo says with tears in his eyes.
"All this time you havent had a single bite to eat what a strong boy" Kinemon says.
"We need to talk Strawhat their gonna be right on our tail so we need to ship out now" You hear Law say to Luffy.
"Allright listen up guys we got trouble headed our way so hurry up party fast and dig in" Luffy says. Seeing Trafalgars face says it all hes in shock and you giggle. As everyone parties and eats you take two bowls as well go over, and hand one to Law. He takes it silently and starts to eat. Once finished Smoker says
"Law although I made you a promise you cant expect me to keep it. Your a pirate but if you wanted to silence me you had many possibilities. Just what are you using Strawhat?"
"Using him? What makes you think hes not using me?" Law states simply. You just sip your soup while listening to them.
"Not that I wanted you alive, that's just how it worked out. Dont read into it. After this I'm planning on heading to Greenbix who knows, Strawhats might be useful or who knows maybe I'm useful to them" Law states then walks off to Baby five and Buffalo chopping off their heads. The marines start talking but you drown out there words deep in your own thoughts.
'All this walking and running has me tired' you think quietly to yourself and rub your back.
You snap back to reality You see the kids crying.
"Stop it this instant shame on you all" Tishigi yells to the marines.
"You dont get it Tishigi we might do the unthinkable and start liking these guys" the marines shout. Eventually the ship sets sail with everyone saying their goodbyes.
"Hey why is this one tagging along?" Zoro questions about Law.
"Luffy made an alliance not sure what hes gotten us into again" Usop says. As your all walking to the Sunny you board with Ceaser still knocked out laying on the ship. You stand next to Law.
"Let's set sail!" Luffy yells. On the snail phone.
"Well color me surprised it's the boss didnt expect you to show up in person." You hear Law say.
"Hello Law it's been far too long, it's a shame you didnt show your face" Doflamingo says.
"I figured you want to know where Ceasar is hes safely in our hands" Law states.
"Question where are my cohorts bodies?" Mengo asks.
"I couldn't say neither does it particularly intrest me" Law says.
"Come on Law quit acting like an adult and let's cut to the chase tell me where you are. Answer quick or I'll get mad" Doflamingo says.
Law says
"Oh you'll get mad, whose your business partner oh that's right Kaido, I wonder how hell react when he finds out you cant produce smile" Law states.
"Okay you've carried the joke long enough now let's discuss the terms like adults" Mengo says.
"Resign from the warlords, come now I'm only asking you to abandon a decade of work. If I look tomorrow at the paper and see you've resigned then the deal is on. But if I dont then the deal is as good as gone" Law states coolly as he clicks stop on the transponder snail.
"Silence" you snap your fingers.
"So I'm guessing were headed to Dressrosa next?" You ask quizzically.
"Yes we are, the sub is following us as well, we will be going up against Doflamingo so I'm unsure if you should stay in the sub or come with me. It would be nice to show him that Cora lives on through you but it will be extremely dangerous." Law says to you and you nod. Moving closer to him you wrap an arm around his. This makes him blush slightly but not enough for anyone to notice you thought. You look around and lock eyes with Zoro who huffs then turns around.
"I'm worried about you Trafalgar please come back to me alive" you whisper to him. He nods and says
"Dont worry (n) I will" as he put Kikoku down and rests his hand on your arm. This is the closest you'll get to him before the fight so you soak up his warmth. After awhile you both break apart. You snap your fingers.
"Silence" and the sphere dissapears.
"What's our next stop Nami" Luffy yells.
"Oh well let me-" she was cut off by Law
"There are no stops straight to Dressrosa" he states boldly walking up to most of the crew. Luffy nods
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Ze conner chaos onc agin its aa uhh part 3?????? whyayayayytryeysyayyeeee
Okay, what happened last blog? Well.....
I raised both Zaidan's and Julien's child except I found out that Julien is a very shit father, Haylee grows up happy and Jase grows up unhappy. Sky fishes for some Angelfish whilst Zaidan reaches Level 10 in Gourmet Cooking and whilst Sky gets a new job as an Astronaut and goes into the Interstellar Smuggler branch, we get some Ambrosia, revive Lucas who was previously fucking died. Julien keeps pissing on my fucking living room floor, Haylee got aged up into a teen, Jase is now a child (I aged him up after last chaos blog). Haylee almost died, Lucas almost died again.
Okay, caught up? Good. Now, in this blog is going to be TWICE the chaos, because the previous chaos blog I couldn't post for a week, but I had already done it and couldn't be bothered to update it, so instead, all of its gonna go here!!!!!!
Now be prepared, because I don't know if next week's chaos blog will top this one off....
First week...
After one too many times of Vito possessing Dumbass's gay hearts, I move him back into the household and whip him up a plate of Ambrosia, half as punishment, half because it felt a bit lonely.
Vito lasted.... Surprisingly well, but, well. this sentence is in past tence for a reason....
I also now age up Jase unto a teenager somewhere in this time, I think? i uh idontreemmber
Sky gets to the top of his career and is now constantly on the run from the Space Police
And, on the Saturday after I posted last blog, I had acquired MC Command Center, meaning LARGER HOUSEHOLD WOOOOOOO!!!!-
Well, I had made it larger as a joke, but someone saw it as a grand opportunity to... well.....
:Anne Maria starts playing:
So zaidan, in record time. Gets abducted, impregnated and gives birth. All in the matter of one real-life hour after raising the household cap.
(Also, the way I found out zaidan ws pregnant was so fucking hilarious, I was recording him and possessed Sky having the most fucking terrifying dinner date(?) I've never seen a possessed sim eating a bowl of chili whilst looking totally in love with someone, meanwhile the other sim is so completely fucking confused. And then he did the pregnant animation and i freaked the fuck out)
Possesssed sky says hi ✨️
Meanwhile Sky had his own child, well, Creation. Sky finally build a motherfucking servoooooo woooooo- whom upon entering my household, was assigned traits that practically made Sky the creator of a sociopathic robot I am not joking its the traits I have in my mods pls do-
but don't get too attached because,
One quick change later and Zaidan giving birth, I found out the hard way that I cannot edit my sims normally in a 9 sim household and have to go into the MC Menu and go into CAS from there, because Sky's servo swiftly evaporates from the gace of the earth, never to be seen again.
Zaidan's 5th chikd, Kurtz, grows up to be happy a conspiracy theorist and a pain in the fucking ass, just like his step-father, Dumbass
(Furute me here realising I forgot to mention the 4th, Luz, she's got a mohawk, she's an overachiver, she's a badass lesbian, okay moving on)
Speaking of pain in the asses, Vito gets stuck in a wall, in which case I use this comment to capture some of the most unflattering picture of a sim out there
And speaking of pain in the asses aga- yeah zaidan got pregnant again.... This is his 6th..... This one I named Rez, now this time Dumbass and Zaidan was raising Rez (Which Luz was not happy about as a child)
Thats all of week 1.... Now its on to the real chaos.... the we
Week 2
Week 2, I panic, realising I can't age up my werewolves, Haylee and Lucas up. Why? Because some stupid fucking idiot made them both immortal (me)
So after swiftly resetting and redoing all my werewolves perks (Thank MCCC that MC Command Center has that otherwise I'd of been fucked), I finally age up Haylee and Lucas, who both do not have a job still as I'm writing this.
Meanwhile, Sky has finally finished the Nerd Brain aspiration, meaning he can now Insta-Repair which honestly does fuck all AND INSTA-UPGRADE WOOOOO!!!!- So Sky's been upgrading everything, the stove, the fridge that keeps breaking, the toilets...
And that's when it all went wrong.
As per usual, Zaidan getting abducted, dumbass getting abducted,
Lucas are you sat in your sister's bedroom naked..?
Julien stop pissing on my living room flo-
Al the sudden, one of the toilets in the basement set fire to one of Zaidan's daughters, Luz. I'm panicking, thinking it was that bastard ghost who, idfk fucking planted a grenade in the fucking toilet bowl. I quickly get that sorted out, but I didn't know the true reason.
By now I've finally aged Kurtz into a child, yes it took this long....
But then, Zaidan bursts into flames, where? In the bathroom, it's now the first floor toilet, I'm panicking again, dumbass is there fucking celebrating meanwhile I'm screaming watching the firefighters tumble down through
Meanwhile, Zaidan:
A, Dosnt give 2 flying fucks.
B, stands there and does absolutely nothing
And C, Goes so feral that his eyes go red because he's tense and makes me giggle tf out.
oh and also D, grants me one of the best pictures I've had in ages
I also now have a video of dumbass casually wafting the air like it smells like shit as Lucas is screaming bloody murder beside him pointing at the fire right in front of them.
Ten seconds after that
NOW the UPSTAIRS toilet is on fire, and then another... and then another... and anothe- and zaidans getting fucking abducted again... and another
And then, the first death in a long while. Jase Conner, whom died not only by the toilet's murderous flames, but also by Lucas, who proceeded to only extinguish the fire after he had collapsed on the floor and died.
Considering Jase and Lucas were enemies before, I think Lucas had some intentions...
After which Dumbass and DEATH HIMSELF become BEST FRIENDS FOREVER????
anyway, these pictures later
Possessed sky looking at a burnt toilet
And... this...
Cough
And then, we have our second death, which came a little while after Jase's. Rez, who was still only a child, also died to toilet fire, because when I got him to extinguish himself in the shower, he glitched and stayed on fire, yet everyone else couldn't extinguish him because the game registered him as not on fire. And so, Rez dies to a glitch in the system....
AND THEN, FUCKING JULIEN AND LUCAS GET FUCKING ABDUCTED?
can you, can you guess what happened? I bet you can't, you will never guess, literally never guess, it is impossible to guess, can you guess it? Can you? Can you? Can you guess?
They both come back Fucking PRENGANT
I got some silly pictures of them, this one's just like: - "Julien, I don't fuckin' understand what's going on"
and he's just like - "I've seen this shit before"
I decided to keep only Lucas', who's named Kamila, because I don't trust julien anymore and I do not have the strength to take care of 2 toddlers.
I also, most recently, moved Rez's ghost back into the household.
And I leave off here. The household being Sky, Zaidan, Julien, Haylee, Lucas, Luz, Jurtz, Jase, Rez's Ghost and Kamila, a 10 sim household on it really ever dying, unless there's a really bad toilet fire that happens
Or Jase sets my Fucking STOVE ON FIRE
Some final images that didn't make the cut yk how it be
These two deserve their own segment
– " Zaidan how the fuq you end up like this!?"
– " Maybe the fact you made all the toilets... Flammable..??"
– " ...That was me??"
ok sorry sorry bye bye
Future Future me realising I didn't mention the fact that Vito evaporated mid-way through week 1 (he died from laughter)
#simblr#sims 4#the sims 4#ts4#ts4 simblr#sims 4 screenshots#sims 4 gameplay#oc: dumbass#ts4 screenshots#ts4 gameplay#ts4 pictures#my sims#thesims4#the sims community#sims4#the sims#sims4 gameplay#sigh#this is just chaos#Idk what to do about this
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aita for not wanting my coworker to find her fiancé?
(oc stuff)
i know the title sounds bad but please please hear me out. i (22M) have worked with this woman (28?F) for maybe a year or two but i also got stuck in some hellish half-timeloop half-eternal doomsday thing 5ish years ago. its a long and largely unrelated story but the bottom line is that it made me terrified of losing anyone i cared about while also making me too easily attached to people that stay in my life for more than a week or two. my coworker's fiancé went missing maybe 4 or 5 years back? but weve been saying missing as a front for where were pretty sure hes stuck so as not to alarm anyone: the rift. its like a giant crack in the sky that opens up every once in a while if shit goes super wrong in our adjacent dimension (we work in the void and my coworkers live there)
the issue is that if left unchecked a rift can very easily shatter the entire void and very likely the local dimensions. on top of that entering a rift means you run the risk of also shattering and being doomed to wander the rift for the rest of eternity. theres supposedly a way to fix shattering but to my memory only my coworker and my boss know how to do it
my coworker wants to go into the rift to try and find her fiancé even if she leaves with the knowledge that hes too far gone to save. i have openly expressed that its a horrible idea even though ive also said to her that i cant imagine having to go through that and i would probably do the same. my reasoning is i would do the same -> but its extremely dangerous -> and i dont want to lose the people i care about again -> so she shouldnt go. her reasoning seems to be you would do the same -> and yes its dangerous -> but i truly love him and want to do anything to get him back -> so i should go. weve had this back and forth many times before. neither of us want to explore the possibility of him just being dead in there and im never going to try and bring that up solely because its possible he isnt
my boss is also on board with her idea despite all of us knowing that its a massive risk to everyones safety which is even worse because i think im in love with him??? but thats not really important i guess. hes also got someone he cares about in that rift (an old friend of his) and ive also told him he shouldnt go but hes so dead set on it that hes left me in charge of our committee job thing whatever if he doesnt come back. i do not like that possibility
am i the asshole?
also i know my coworker uses tumblr and i dont think she follows this blog but just in case she does: i know you miss him but please please PLEASE dont go if a rift opens. its like ultra not-safe. and if you refuse to change your mind at least tell me how to fix shattering in case you all end up the same way
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Break Open the Sky, a Tales of Symphonia ‘fic (Chapter 12)
Current Word Count: 97,018
Summary: What kind of “Hero” of Regeneration would she be to leave an infant to fend for itself? Someone had to have left it here for a reason. The question was, of course, why? But as she lifted the little thing carefully into her arms, the motion reminding her of nights so far in the past, now, the why seemed almost tragically clear: this baby was of mixed blood.
Chapter Summary: Raine makes the difficult decision regarding what to do with baby Rose.
Pairing/Characters: Raine, Original Characters, will also feature Genis, Regal, and Sheena. Endgame is Regal/Raine.
Extra Info: This is technically an Accidental Baby Acquisition story, but I liken it more to “Doorstep Baby” literature because it sure ain’t cute.
Rating: Mature, for themes.
Genre: Eventual romance, gen, family, character study.
The title is the link to Ao3 for Chapter 12! (This is the next to last chapter!)
Notes are under the cut!
I thought this chapter was totally fine until I went to read it again yesterday and I hated so, so much of it. It felt awkward and stilted in places, and I swear characters were logic leaping to kingdom come in the dialogue.
Anyway, after rewriting half of the damn thing yesterday and today, I hope it passes inspection.
--
Sara as the secretary: I pulled this name from the RP that I did with an old friend but I'm not sure if she made that up or if it's in the game. Either way, it's in this story now because my bestie is Sara and I think it's funny.
--
I hope someone noticed Raine's little bouts of jealousy lmao.
--
There's a tiny bit more about Sybak here, though all the big juicy stuff is slated for the sequel, which I still haven't finished outlining. (I did get pretty close though.)
--
Finally, Raine's decision. I don't recommend reading this section if you haven't read the chapter yet, but if you want to read it anyway, who am I to stop you?
WARNING: This got really long and meanders a bit. SORRY.
Throughout this story, I've tried to make a serious effort to show the ways in which Raine cares for Rose, but also the ways in which she just...doesn't. There is resentment there. There is unhappiness. If Rose was her biological child, you'd think she had Post-Partum Depression. She takes care of the baby, but it's rarely written in a tender or sweet way. At one point in the story I even had Regal note that she seemed to do things automatically, almost without thinking about the fact that she was doing them. She has moments with Rose that are sweet but these were meant to feel like outliers and there aren't enough of them to balance the times in which she just kind of mindlessly takes care of her.
I don't count the sailing experiences against Raine, by the way; she did her best on the ship to Altamira, and on Regal's sailboat she was dealing with a lot (and he was there to help).
I do feel with time, she probably would grow much more attached to Rose, and love her more fully, but none of that would come without a cost, and...we've seen a glimpse of what that cost is.
Keep in mind that when I was outlining this story, Lila and Marcie didn't exist, so...the only company Raine had during the day for those months in Altamira was Rose! In this outline, Raine was torn between very badly wanting her life back, and also finding it difficult to go back to the way things used to be. It's also important to note that Regal really did not want to influence her either way in the original outline. This is mostly because he had grown rather attached to Rose but knew his opinion SHOULD not matter.
The romance between Raine and Regal was a lot more important in the original outline too. I doubt anyone would have guessed that because it's such a centerpiece in the finished product, but the original outline had gems like this in it:
-she's trying very hard not to love him (there are just SO many reasons why she's not good enough, but she's also very afraid of getting hurt). Like she knows he's a good man and any hurt feelings will just be of her own creation. still, watching the way he spends time with rose stirs something in her.
-(she loves him already, feels like the incident at the party was her doing/fault because she couldn't keep a tight enough lock on her feelings when inebriated and regrets it, but still to this day can't quite harden her heart against him)
(In the original most of her attachment to Rose was formed through Regal, too, like watching him rock her to sleep when she just couldn't do it herself.)
With Lila and Marcie around, I didn't have to go into full on Yearning Mode and things were able to quietly and naturally develop between them with most of the yearning coming from Regal. Yay.
I s t r u g g l e d (AND I DO MEAN STRUGGLED) to decide which choice Raine would make in the end, even in the outline.
Just like in the finished story, Regal guides her toward a choice, though in the original outline he asks her more questions about Rose: if she wants to raise Rose to adulthood, if she wants to oversee her education, if she wants to raise her like a daughter and not a sister. His final question is, "Do you think you can love her?"
To which Raine says she already does.
This gave me two paths:
Raine keeps Rose because she loves her already and points Sheena toward the Crestfield Orphanage and the children there that kind of haunt her (in the original this was a group of 4 or 5 children instead of the brother & sister that ended up in the final draft).
Raine knows that Sheena will provide a better life for Rose than she can and gives her up even though it's difficult for her because she loves Rose.
I knew I wanted someone to adopt, but both Sheena and Raine were good fits for it, and it ended up being more about the kind of story I wanted to tell with Raine and with Sheena and "Found Family" and all of that.
There is a very real kind of love and trust in Raine handing over a baby she cares about to Sheena, someone she has had to learn to trust.
This is ultimately why I chose Sheena.
The original outline played a lot more, too with Raine's identity as a "parent" (particularly against her own will). Regal was originally going to tell her that while she did a good job raising Genis she does have an identity outside of that and if she wants to revisit it she can do that literally whenever; she can have her own biological kids or adopt and she can plan for it.
This also gets to the heart of some of Raine's larger fears in the original outline, which were eventual resentment toward Rose, and knowledge that the origin of Rose in her life could be negative in the future.
Anyway, especially in the version of the story I ended up writing, which included Marcie and Lila, I can't see Rose working out with Raine in a healthy or fun way. Like I said earlier, we got a glimpse of what the cost would be of keeping Rose, and let's just say that it wouldn't be pretty.
Raine thinks briefly in this chapter about her likely future doing physical labor trying to feed an adult, two growing children, and a baby, and you can chew on that for a while if you want to, but I didn't want to explore it. (She's suffered enough.)
--
My biggest annoyance with this chapter was getting Raine to actually make a decision. She's not a very impulsive person, so of course she'd want to think about it, but she's got a lot of issues to work through and no therapist to work through them with.
Regal's as good as it gets for her and he's not objective by any means. If you couldn't tell, he feels he knows what's best for everyone is giving Rose to Mizuho. He doesn't come out and say it immediately because he doesn't want to be That Guy.
But things sorta end up that way anyway, because Raine spends so much of the chapter stuck in a loop: struggling with feeling like she's following in her mother's footsteps by giving Rose away and fighting it almost desperately in her own mind. And to her own detriment!
Like, she's always been an incredibly responsible person; the fact that she raised Genis starting at age 11 makes that clear. I do think, however, that sometimes she takes it a bit too far and overreaches. Rose is perhaps an example of that. (She was definitely in over her head. But she was given responsibility?? What else could she do? Something something older sister Surface Pressure vibes.)
Obviously her capacity to care about others and do the right thing come into play here, right along with "saving the people right in front of us" but sometimes the right thing to do, the right way to save someone, isn't to take personal responsibility for them.
Raine was traumatized by her experience. Not only was she abandoned, but she was given responsibility of a literal infant at the same time. At 11 years old. She has a very hard time separating these two things and Rose feeds right into it in the worst ways. (It also wasn't the only time Raine has felt abandoned by someone in her life, so you can see why she'd feel so terrible about doing that to someone else, even a baby who won't remember it later.)
Raine knew all along what the objectively better choice was, but she couldn't choose it as long as she had other stuff in her head telling her she was being irresponsible/selfish/lazy/just as bad as her mother.
She needed someone else to tell her that giving Rose away isn't the same as her mother giving her up. She needed to hear someone else's voice in her head—not her own and not her mother's.
This was intended to sort of mimic Regal's line to her in the OVA where he says that surely her mother hadn't abandoned her, but rather...sent her through the Gate hoping Sylvarant would be a better life for her.
I hope Raine's cyclical struggle in her own mind came across believably enough in this chapter. (But if it didn't, feel free to criticize that, especially if you have ideas of ways I could have done it better.)
--
Now that Raine's decision has been made, there will be some emotional fallout. You can't learn to let go without some pain, after all.
So stay tuned for the final chapter to see that! :)
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I’ve been up to some fun stuff in game these past few days, but I told myself I had to write a retrospective for this year’s ffxivwrite before I did anything else because apparently love to assign myself homework and wanted to put all of my thoughts together so I can come back to them later. Self-validation and all that.
Here I am Advertising my FFxivwrite2022 Masterpost Because I Can
-I drew on reserves of energy and ideas I didn’t know I had and I’m proud of myself for that. I love this challenge so much and am eternally grateful to @sea-wolf-coast-to-coast for running it. I am an old dog and you are teaching me new tricks every year just with a single word a day. Actually I should DM her and say that directly. Note to self.
- I ended up writing quite a few stories where there was a theme of coming full circle with something and didn‘t realize it until I wrote this.
-That one I did for the last free day… Wow. It really was a long time coming. The idea of Fal having had his first sexual experience be with someone his mother hired had been in my head for a long time. Its just so… messed up, and it seemed like a good reason for him to be, well, like he is. To make him think that sex is only a fun thing adults do (which it can be, don’t get me wrong) and to not realize the importance of enthusiastic consent, or the great significance of having an emotional connection with one’s partner as well as a physical one. Fal is actually very good at sex and at emotional connections, but he still needs to learn about how best to combine the two. Hence why he overstepped his boundaries with Alain that one time. That one time I have alluded to only a handful of times and even then, thoroughly neutered with vague language and metaphors. I’m a pansy like that.
-I’m really happy with Fal’s Unsundered self, Philotes. I‘m also happy with the idea that Philotes created the creature that would later become Ruby. The Sundering separated them, but they were reunited when Ruby gave her life to make Fal live. Creation saves creator. I wonder if they’ll ever know.
-The Tiamat story was my most popular - that makes me happy because I really wasn’t sure if I could write another Tiamat story after she was freed, since her and Fal’s relationship sort of hinged on the concepts of penitence and emotional self-flagellation. But like any good friendship, I guess this one needed to grow a bit, and I’m glad it did. Also I have this sappy mental image of Tiamat taking Fal for a ride in the sky above Meracydia while she reminisces about Bahamut - but this time its with fondness instead of regret.
-For the past couple of years, I’ve had a “big reveal” in mind for each FFXIVwrite. I can’t remember what year was what, but they were things like “Fal‘s dad seems like a dick but is actually somewhat sympathetic because he’s lonely, neurodivergent and bad at being a people,” and “Ruby was once a sentient creature that used to belong to Fal’s dad but expended most of her consciousness to glue Fal together at birth.” This year it was “Alain confesses to being asexual and it makes Fal realize that sex is important but emotional connection is importanter and also he finds out that his mom was a slut too.”
-This year’s batch of dirty limericks was the least popular I’ve ever had… But I was actually really depressed and having a super hard time organizing my thoughts when I wrote them, and I don’t consider them on par with the others from previous years.
-I didn’t do a folktale this year… Bummer.
-Lotta sexual references this year… yeah. Not what I intended, it just sort of happened.
-I kind of want to write more about Ianthe Dus Covetrus - and not just as an attachment to Fal. But I already have 3 alts whose stories didn’t stick so good luck with that.
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Cards
Hello friends I am currently on a major Yu-Gi-Oh! 5D's high and therefore want to duel people, but here's the catch...
I also want to RP as my character, Sylvia, and I want to use The Weather Painters. But I also strongly dislike Link Monsters. So for the sake of some fics I've posted to Wattpad (because I am attached to them, but not proud of them), I've made some fake cards and am trying to make them balanced. (Also please don'tbe mad at me for this. They're my comfort fics and I like to think I could make some decent cards... If you don't want to do any practice duels/RP with my character because she's a self-insert or because of these cards, I completely understand. I've simply gone in too deep and would like someone to indulge with...)
Here are some examples of my cards. Please keep in mind, since I made these with 5D's (and their respective World Championships series video games) in mind, I also would like to use the rules of the TCG according to the anime/games at the time. (No Xyz or later Extra Deck Monsters, Dark Synchro and Tuners are okay, players draw a card even on the first turn, no extra zones, etc.) This is not canon to my character, nor should it have to be canon to yours if you don't want it to be. I just need someone to gush to ;-;
(Also by the way, I switched out the Google search artworks I had for the art on these characters to just generic stock photos or blank/patterned color just in case, because I don't want to claim what the artists made as my own. I'm working on my own rendition of the artworks I want to see. It won't be in the same style because I don't know how to replicate it, but when I'm done, I might post them up here.)
The only The Weather Tuner Monster: The Weather Painter Wind, who is a stand-in for the color red (or Crimson, because the overlap is too good to ignore). As such, she has no attack or defense points and is only one star, making her perfect for the dragon of my character, who is an artificial Signer (no, I'm not making this up, it was actually in the video games. It's not canon, which means it's fair game to play with >:D )
Upon re-reading her effect, I think I'll edit it, actually. Just remove the entire second part of her effect.
"This card cannot be used for the Synchro Summon of a Monster besides a Synchro "The Weather" Monster, and can only be used for Synchro Summoning. Once per turn, during the Standby Phase of the turn after this card was banished from the field to activate a "The Weather" card's effect: You can Special Summon this card."
From now on, that's the new effect of Wind.
The reason Wind has no ATK or DEF is to balance out this card, which I thought would be interesting to treat like a canvas of its own. Despite being a Dragon-type Monster, it's still a part of "The Weather" archetype, as it represents the sky--a canvas for the Weather Painters--as a whole. I like to imagine that as the guardian of the fairies, it has six wings, one of each canon Weather Painter's colors, and one or two of them will light up based on which ones were used to create its total ATK and DEF. For example, if Rain and Cloud were combined with Wind to create Sky Dragon, its ATK would be 1200 + 1500 = 2700 and DEF would be 1400 + 1000 = 2400. Or Snow and Thunder could make 1700 ATK and 2200 DEF. And so on. You could also just use Aurora if you wished, making its ATK and DEF 2200 and 2000 respectively. It's a 7-star monster because all of the Weather Painters except Aurora are LV 3, Aurora being LV 6. With just one star on Wind, that makes Sky Dragon fit into the pattern as a Signer Dragon.
(Another big plot point of my character is the power to make new cards, by the way, but it only works for her archetype and it's very, very difficult to do because if I make her make too many, I would skew the balance of the archetype too much)
Also the dragon's ability does not prevent people from destroying the Weather Painters in battle, which is decently easy to do because they're not super powerful anyway.
I also have...
I just put her usual Link Summoning conditions as Fusion conditions instead, and since she no longer has Link markers and now has Defense Points, I tried to balance her out by making it so her effect works on the two spaces on either side of her. Since this is essentially a replica card, I figured it was okay to use the official Rainbow art as the artwork here, since I'm pretending the Link version doesn't exist. I also have a Synchro version of Moonbow, which I've tried to do something similar with.
The text didn't fully appear on the card. Sorry about that.
I admit this one may be a bit overpowered... If you think I should change it, please let me know. (I made this with several Fusion monsters in mind, because fused weather conditions as well as blended colors are such a cool thing to play with and I really think the Weather Painters deserve to have an amazing palette of colors; that's why it says 2 or more, despite Rainbow actually having 3 as a summoning condition.)
(I also made a custom version of The Weather Forecast, but only so that it mentions Extra Deck "The Weather" Monsters instead of just Link ones.)
These are all the cards I'm most comfortable sharing. I have maybe two more I'd be willing to share, too, but they're support cards and may also make the deck overpowered (since I made them a long time ago) so I decided against revealing them.
If you're okay with these, please let me know. I've been craving someone to share these with for a long, long time.
#yugioh#yugioh 5ds self insert#self insert#sylvia speaks#pls duel me#also pls let me know if i can edit any of the cards above to make them better#or if you'd just prefer i didn't use any of my supporting cards at all#that's fine too#LOOOONG post
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Ina-my best friend in the past 20 years.
Ina-Kristin, a beautiful woman, I think one of the few developed people I have ever met, I am still experiencing so many sensations just thinking about her. its been over 6 months that we broke, after a relationship that lasted about 2 years. its been very hard on me since I had not only lost a partner but also a friend. I want myself to belief a lot of things about this relationship and I notice that I carry some envy when ever I scroll trough her facebook page, I am happy to see that she is finally having a genuine smile again, at the same time I wished I was there with her, I wished I could experience the things with her. the pain it gives me surrounding my gut is a bit more tolerable then it was a couple weeks ago, it still hurts but finally I can accept that these separations just hurt. I had attached myself where i thought I would never attached to someone like that anymore. I still want to kiss her, hold her and tell her everything will be fine, I want to be there for her like I could not do, in the relationship at the time. not having any relationship with her at all tears me apart, I know that what I have done was not ideal and even though I thought I was doing the best I could, it was not enough, not for me. I wanted to be there but my way of thinking at the time prevented this from happening. I wanted to be consumed by her to be real, but my ego would not let serve at al times, I can see my own brokenness and where I thought I knew hers, i desperately failed to find her brokenness and failed her in being her support, I wanted her to flourish, to bloom, to reach the night sky and go beyond the horizon. now it seems like she is there but because the way I have acted in our relationship I do not get to be a part of it, shamefully I feel about this. I wish I had her to express myself to, since she always knew a way to explain to me that there are different ways to look at it. for this I carry some self hatred, for some reason I don't like the part of me that is still attached to her. it almost feels like that is the abandoned child part of me that I keep kicking in the face. I thought I knew myself in the past years, al I am doing now is processing the wounds I have, the retrospective pains that took me so a long time to understand, sometimes failing to understand letting it go while unprocessed. I want to badly how I don't want to care who I am, I want to care where I am and what I am doing, what I like and who I fuck, when I am getting children, and fuck you Ina, I will love you for ever, I hate that we are not together.
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completed 10/20/2022 @ 1:48 AM Mountain Standard Time UT/AZ border while listening to fucking Big Sky - Sleepy Clouds
I didn't tell her everything. She wouldn't let me. She didn't want to know. She's NOT fascinated with POWER She's fascinated with FLIRTING with power. I need her to know the reason for the soul tie.
Sarah. You know how you keep mistaking me for an infant. Because of my little girl voice and my innocence? Wake up baby. Because you are 12 year old me right now.
And I hate to tell you the ending of this story, but a beautiful innocent woman does indeed die. It very easily COULD HAVE been me, your not so humble narrator, during ROUND 1. At 12. But it wasn't. It was a random woman. A lesbian. A mother. An immigrant. Living in a garage. I never saw her face. I never knew her name. But I was right there at her door. Fucking around all over the attached home.
Lovely fucking metaphor there Michelle... Except it's not a metaphor.
You think I'm so goddamn boring, because I held onto my innocence all of this time? You're afraid that the truth about you is going to fuck me up? It doesn't. It won't.
You really should call me up.
so I could take you to all of those deep DARK places that you pretend that you want to go to. We could do it the talking way or the sexy way
But I have every answer you could possibly need.
And all of the answers I never asked to carry.
That's right babe.
You fell in love with the kid's other mom again. And now you're sleepwalking your way to someone's death.
iF YOU WANT TO KNOW THE ROPES. LET ME SHOW YOU THE ROPES.
LET ME TELL YOU WHAT BRANDS OF HEAVEN AND HELL LIE AT THE END OF THE PATH.
yep. more veil. it feels so good to get rid of.
None of the players know any better. Everything is an accident of ignorance rather than malice. Everyone is just ignorant of what kind of ignorance caused the malice. Purity. Purity is the ignorance that causes the malice.
And it drives everyone:
MAD
We're all born knowing nothing. We're all thrust into a world full of rules and laws that we don't know anything about. We all stumble around. Just like you are right now. Real mature of you Lady. It's the running that causes harm. Because all you run into is a bunch of other runners. Running away from their shit instead of feeling their feelings and letting it go.
I remember crying on the bare twin mattress aloft the wood bed frame my father had built (for my sister, _no real ice cream_ for me right?). listening to Ben Folds Five. and deciding to run away.
I did run away. And I ran into another runner.. who ran into my Father (who was also running) and then he, the runner I ran into, ran an innocent's life (not me, but an actual non-problematic human) into their literal grave through torturous means just so he could be ran behind bars. A lot of runners hide behind bars. We hide in our bedrooms being cute as fuck.
You are the purest among the pure honey. And you think you are some kind of problem. Some crazy libertine. But you have never seen anything of the real world. Because you're so GOOD, and CAREFUL, and CONTROLLED.
And that's what gets people murdered.
iGNORANCE. mY Ignorance. nOW yOUR iGNORANCE.
You didn't really want a degree in how to sell _fake ice cream_
You just wanted REAL _MOTHERFUCKING_ ICE CREAM
You are the innocent. The pure one.
Not me. Not by a fucking long shot.
I gave you permission to be yourself and live your life. But I had no fucking right to do that. I did it from a place of love and wisdom and acceptance, but I had and have no idea what I was and am fucking with. Your innocence. Your purity. I don't know what the right thing is anymore than you do.
Do your homework. Walk. See if you can't learn some of those kids' secrets. PLAY NICE. Don't run into any other runners if you can help it.
AS ALWAYS, make sure you watch your back PuNk
&
Please Just Be a Better Mom than *I AM* While You're Out There With The Kids At The Park
*
*soul smiles*
couldn't love you more
you've got a beautiful taste
*
Just want to capture this feeling of waking up happy and pain free.
it may be 7 in the morning, all of the lights are on full white,
completely dark outside
and yeah, that's a depressing thought, scary even
my spiritual daughters are all down at the bus stop in the dark; alone for the next few months
but she's not really alone
i hope she knows that
i hope she feels that
what a terrible thing not to have
*
so much magic in pattern interruption
me thinks she's a believer
like seriously, the odds of her and I both conjuring up "as gay as possible" in our own ways, at the same time, without knowing exactly what the other was up to?
I won't forget that's for damn sure.
🅰︎ life -r
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the action is a sudden invasion of her space. the streets of archades proper had no outstanding sense of danger for anyone, rare it was for even soldiers to be found beyond the point of airship travel and palace entry. there was simply no need. but now, she might have found some solace in their presence, at least until it becomes clear who had become so bold.
gabranth had been well out of sight under guise of magick, therein broken now by his manner of attack. he's pulled her from the street and into a side alley, standing well enough in the way with menacing irritation leaking into his tone.
"you are aggravating," he starts off, voice rattling beneath his helm. "do not think to play me a fool, melissa. i find it to be a conspicuous coincidence that the marquis sends us a token of cooperation in the same month that bhujerba's mines come to stand still. no less, an act self contained with treachery. why are you here."
for a man that seemed entirely unmoved by most things, his weakness was apparently well attached to his heartstrings.
unscripted asks . always accepting
The only reason Melissa did not scream was because Gabranth had placed one of his hands over her mouth - a precaution that turned out to be evidently necessary given the way her eyes widened with terror and how her body trembled in his grip until a familiar voice denounced his identity, despite the distortions caused by the helm covering his face.
As the hold on her lessened after his spoken threats, the Bhujerban found her wits returning to her - Judge Magister or not, the fright she had experienced a while ago when believing herself targeted by some common thief washed away in the matter of seconds, even if most people in the capital would probably prefer the reversed scenario. To be under the scrutiny of a magistrate was far from an enjoyable experience - and Gabranth was clearly displeased and annoyed at her.
As if he had showed any other emotions but those to her since they had reunited.
“And you are insufferable - are you so desperate to find someone to place the blame for everything that does not readily benefit Archadia?” she countered, face tilting upwards and staring right into his helmet - Gabranth’s facial expressions could elude her given the protective head piece between them, but the Bhujerban’s visage was painfully clear to him - and she was enraged, not unlike their first meeting many years ago.
Melissa remained quick to ire and prone to contest authority to that very same day, apparently.
“The palings are hardly perfect - I’ve told you this before, the wider they are, the more likely they tend to fail, particularly over the mines with all that magicite. They are made to be temporary measures, not permanent ones - Bhujerba is lucky that they endure as long as they customarily do, otherwise the mining would be even slower,” she scoffed, and in truth, Melissa did not know whether or not the recent incident had been caused by Ondore. Similarly to Gabranth, she did not discount that possibility - but it was also possibly natural; the Marquis had protective palings in the mines, but also around Bhujerba as a whole - mainly to prevent accidents and falls, but the sheer size of the Sky City made it impossible to sustain for long - they were faulty and unreliable (but better than nothing).
“As for myself - and I cannot believe I am saying this again - I am an artist, Gabranth. I dance, I entertain, I act as a spokesperson for my nation, I create goodwill for Bhujerba. Why is this so hard to believe? A beautiful wrapping does not change the gift contained in the box - I am not a threat,” her tone got angrier, terse; Melissa was tired of being accused time over time for the same things - particularly when her agenda had been aborted on the first night. She was really just a dancer for the time being - nothing more.
Taking a step back and throwing her hair over a shoulder, she gave the judge one last look. “Come to all my performances, search my hotel room, have your men follow me to the grocery shops and the tailor - I have nothing to hide from your piercing eyes,” her face softened just for a moment, the throwback evoking old feelings in her chest, and for a moment she truly wished he was not donning that terribly inconvenient armor, “...Assuming they are still there under all this metal.”
#5judgements#v: FFXII#replied#this went... better than the last one!#no weapons were drawn!#progress?
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compilation of these images which i physically cannot stop making
#arcane#jayce talis#viktor arcane#too cool for a surname huh. i see how it is#sky young#mel medarda#artwork#term finished last week and since then i have been doing uh. Almost Nothing Else except drawing these#i have absolutely destroyed my wrists even more than they were already destroyed. lord preserve me#i just kept thinking of new ones........i had to Manifest them........i wanted to See It#i am sure other people have done many of these already but i havent seen them so here they are again. a gift from me to you :-)#there are a lot of jayces here considering viktor is my most specialest boy but he is just very fun to bully. i like making fun of him#(/affectionate. mostly)#i am also very attached to sky for no reason i think she is the cutest. i like imagining her and viktor as gay besties#[furiously ignores canon]#i need to rewatch arcane ive only seen it once so far and that was quite a while ago but it has been very prominent in my mind since then#i enjoyed it very much indeed if you could not tell. my brain seems to have interpreted it as a comedy though judging by these images#also unrelated but i know i have a million things to answer and i will do that very soon!!!!! i am so sorry to keep you all waiting my ask#box has so much in it please forgive me#now that term is over i have much more free time so i will be around more hopefully :-D i love and miss you all very much#ok leaving now before i do my usual million tags. places these pictures at your feet and leaves at top speed
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Angels Roll Their Eyes (2/2)
(gif: @toesure) (PART ONE)
Summary: Hurricane Agatha approaches Kildare Island during the aftermath of the eventful Fourth of July party. JJ and Y/N are determined to continue avoiding each other after what happened at the party, but John B has other plans for them.
Warnings: Smut, strong language, angst, implied physical abuse, depictions of anxiety/panic attacks, and sickeningly sweet fluff.
Word Count: 24k
A/N: Here we goooo! To celebrate the trailer dropping today, here’s part two to Devils Roll The Dice. If you haven’t read the first part, I suggest you read it and come back so this makes sense. This one has all the drama and spice, so buckle up! Thank you for the love and support on the first part. Let me know if you enjoyed this and have fun, cause I had a blast writing it.
Hurricane Agatha.
It was the first thing she heard about as soon as she woke up yesterday to the sound of her phone blaring with an obnoxious tone that reminds her of waking up too early in the morning for work or school.
Her sleepy eyes couldn't make out who was calling, so she pressed the button to answer and lifted the phone to hear her mom's voice squawking through the speaker at her about the hurricane projected to hit the island in the middle of the night tonight.
The problem is, her parents are out of town this week, leaving her all alone to prep the house and endure the storm alone. And for someone who flinches whenever she thinks she hears the sound of thunder in the sky, that is the worst it can get.
It's a fear her friends are conscious of. One time when they were out on the HMS Pogue, a quick summer storm started to drift overhead and it took all of her self control to not fall into a blind panic when thunder began to rumble above. John B was already steering them back in the direction of the Chateau but she knew it would do nothing to calm her nerves until she was back inside of the house.
The anxiety was starting to become too overwhelming when JJ sat down beside her and threw his arm over her shoulder. It was their first month of knowing one another, so the casual friendly gesture made her jump at first and turn her head to look at him, but he acted like everything was normal.
The next person to notice was John B. With JJ currently out of commission, the only person she thought to call to help her prep the house for the incoming storm was him. Since they never got hurricanes up where she used to live her whole life, she needed someone who's been through a couple to help her while her parents weren't home.
That's how she ended up here. Sweating bullets in the front yard of her house as she unloads the contents of the van with John B was not how she envisioned her Saturday night to go, but she's glad she has someone who's willing to help.
In the past five months of being with the Pogues, she's learned that it's lovely to have friends. She never used to have any before she moved, so in situations like this or when she got so drunk at the party, she never would've had anyone to be there for her. It's quiet moments of kindness and companionship like this that make her realize how much better life has been on the other side of uprooting everything to move here—self-inflicted boy drama and all.
The sandbag on her shoulder sends a growing ache through her back muscles with every step she takes to follow him up the length of unpaved dirt path up to her front door. As usual, he makes it look way easier than it is, and it almost makes her want to laugh at how different they are.
Most of her new friends are effortless, naturally picking up anything they decide to try at while she is inept by comparison. It's part of what attracted her to JJ in the first place. He may have his insecurities the same way every other individual does, but in her eyes, he has nothing to be insecure of. Even when he wipes out on a wave and appears out of the water with sand clumped in his salt-kissed strands of blonde hair, he manages to make it look cool.
"What are you smiling about?"
John B's laughter makes her look up from where she concentrated on the dirt path to see him looking back at her. He stands at the entrance to her house with the rest of the sandbags they carried up placed meticulously in front of the door to prevent water from entering the house. They did the same thing with the back door an hour ago.
Is she smiling? She hadn't even realized her expression changed from one of exhaustion and fear at the dark clouds closing in above to a grin, so her face instantly drops in guilt. After running out on JJ for the second time two days ago to go to work, any mention of him from their friends has left her drowning in shame.
She can't recall the bulk of her memories from the night of the Fourth of July party, but she fills in the gaps between those flashes of memory with what their friends told her about it.
Thanks to her overindulgence, there are holes poked in the fabric of her memory.
It jumps from her last fully sober moment of seeing JJ across the room with the kook girl to dancing clumsily with Kie to the floral scent of her makeup wipes that she can't attach a specific visual image to.
Then, she can remember waking up with a start in the middle of the night to throw up in a pot beside the bed while he held back her hair. Before John B explained it, she was quite confused after waking up about how she somehow got from being jealous over JJ flirting with another girl to waking up in the same bed as him.
She grunts as she plops the last sandbag down into place and decides to take a seat on the steps leading up to the door.
"It wasn't anything special," Y/N says and watches him come down to sit next to her, "I was just thinking about taking something so I can pass out and avoid having a panic attack over this stupid storm."
Unlike JJ, she isn't that skilled of a liar. It's obvious to anyone who knows her well when she does it based on the way her eye contact begins to drift away and her voice raises in pitch when she speaks. She's too honest with her friends to handle keeping secrets from them, which is why it's been so difficult for her with everything that has happened recently. Not only does she lie to the Pogues, she also avoids them by association in the process of trying to avoid JJ.
Regardless of how obvious her bluffing is, John B doesn't call her out on it. Instead, he focuses on a different part of what she said.
"Are you sure you're gonna be okay alone? I know your parents are out of town till next week..." he trails off into concerned silence.
The tip of her sneaker hangs off of the edge of the bottom step and absentmindedly digs a line into the dirt as she takes in his question.
Being alone when she's prone to panicking is a recipe for disaster. Anxiety and loneliness have a relationship similar to that of a weapon and ammunition. It takes very little for her to fall down the rabbit hole of obsessive thinking and break down into a hyperventilating, fearful mess, especially when no one else is there to tug her out of those dark thoughts.
Most of the time, the people who help her with that are her parents. If they're home during one of these episodes, she'll come stumbling downstairs to them from her room for help, and they'll do everything they can to bring her down from hysterics. Her friends, on the other hand, have yet to witness her have one of those moments.
"Having people with me helps, you know? But it is what it is, I'll just try to cope the best I can and hope for the best."
He nods, and though he's a portrait of understanding, she wonders if he finds it as juvenile and stupid as she does.
Logically, she knows that this anxiety is something many people experience. She understands that it's something that is mostly out of her control but can't help but tear herself apart over it.
She thinks to herself, What kind of weirdo can't sit inside during a thunderstorm or hurricane without losing their shit? Why am I not the one in control of my own mind when this happens?
Do her friends think similar things? Do they think it's as pathetic as she does, or is she just paranoid that they pick her flaws apart as much as she does? And, of course, she wonders what JJ would think if he saw her panic like that. He may have seen her start to become anxious on the HMS Pogue, but he hasn't seen her panic panic before, not in the way that her parents have, and she wonders if he'd think less of her for it.
Right when she's about to change the topic and steer him away from a chance to think of how ridiculous she's being about the approaching hurricane, he says something that makes her look back over at him.
"Then come spend the night at the Chateau. I can distract you. We can play board games and shit."
"Really?" she asks.
The idea of anyone wanting to waste an entire night playing board games and possibly signing themselves up for having to talk her down from a panic attack makes her heart melt.
"Yeah, why not? You need a friend tonight. You know any of us would do anything for you. You're like my little sister, dude, we'd all probably hack off a limb if we thought it'd help you. Especially JJ."
John B's last second name-drop is designed specifically for where he wants this conversation to go. Underneath the need to get his friends back to normal, he does feel a little guilty for having to do this. She thinks he's only offering to let her stay with him to help her—and he is, even if there weren't a rift between her and JJ, he'd still offer—but he has a different reason.
"Right," she says softly. "Speaking of which...is he gonna be there tonight?"
With how often he escapes his house to spend a night or two in temporary safety at the Chateau, it's not an unfounded assumption. He and John B spend more time together than any of them because of this, and when she goes over to hang out, she knows that he and JJ often come as a package deal.
He tries to play it cool and not give up anything that could make her suspicious of him, looking off at the van parked in the driveway as he takes a second to collect his thoughts. It's never easy for him to deceive people he cares about, even if it's for their own good. It wasn't easy when he invited JJ to spend the night a few hours ago with the knowledge that he'd soon invite Y/N too either, but he managed.
As always, Pope is the brains behind this operation. He was the one to suggest inviting them both over to wait out Agatha together when the three of them put their heads together to come up with a solution to their oblivious friends' drama. After JJ stormed out of the house the morning after the party, they knew they had to do something about it. This was what it came to.
"Nah. I offered but he said he's staying at home until this whole thing blows over."
He isn't sure why she buys into it.
She knows JJ well enough to know that he would literally rather eat glass than be trapped in a confined space with his dad for an entire day. Perhaps it's only because it's what she wants to believe. She wants to believe that she won't have to see him again tonight after everything that happened. How can she handle having to tell him why got so drunk that night and made an ass of herself? She can't bear to tell him all of that unnecessary drama started because she was jealous.
What right does she have to feel that way? He isn't hers. They aren't together, and she thinks it's quite obvious that he doesn't want a relationship out of whatever it is they have together. It was one night. She has no right to be mad at him for flirting with other girls because of it.
"Then I'll definitely be taking you up on that offer. Thank you," she says.
The old wooden stairs make a squealing sound when she stands to make her way inside to gather her things for the night, but the feeling of a warm hand gripping her forearm stops her mid-step. Her eyes follow down the length of her arm back to where he sits, glancing at her with this knowing look in his eyes that makes her want to turn and hide.
"When are you gonna talk things out with him, Y/N?" he asks. "He misses you."
Since the party, no one has had the courage to burst her bubble of pretending not to care until now, but now that someone has, all of her bottled up emotions stir inside of her at a simple concept she hadn't considered yet.
JJ misses her.
For the first time since they began this stupid game of cat and mouse, she is confronted with how desperately she misses him back. So consumed with the task of concealing everything that happened and trying to avoid him, she hadn't acknowledged that all she ever really wants is to be with him lately.
She misses his jokes and the way he looks at her when she giggles at them. She misses his smile when they play fight on the HMS Pogue. She even misses when he dangles her over the edge of the boat as a means to end the wrestling match, making her squirm in his strong hold as he threatens to toss her overboard.
But what she misses most of all is how he never lets her fall in. It's something about the way he looks at her as he pulls her back onboard, how time itself seems to stop in the moment between when he's still holding her and when she feels her feet touch the deck again.
Then, they'll suddenly want nothing to do with each other for the next half hour.
JJ will make himself busy forgetting the way her hands felt holding onto his shoulders for dear life, burning the memory of her palm prints into his skin for the next few hours. And she'll try her hardest to forget that charming smile and the feeling of his arms around her. But it won't work, not really, and when they're both laying down to sleep at night, they'll have one thing keeping them awake.
She takes a second to internalize what he said and avoid exposing the effect it has on her to hear it before asking, "Did he tell you that?"
The sky overhead grows darker and darker by the second, but she has yet to notice it due to the topic of their conversation. With JJ involved, her attention shrinks to a tunnel leading only to him. There's no room for anything else but the audacious idea planted in the back of her mind that he might miss her as much as she misses him.
"No, he didn't," John B admits, and right when she's about to say more in response, he cuts her off, "but hear me out. I've known him since we were kids, so I can tell when things aren't right with him, and ever since your relationship with him got complicated, I picked up on some weird vibes."
Y/N doesn't give anything away with how she reacts. He can't tell if she's about to bolt like JJ did or stay to talk and open up to him. All she does is cross her arms over her chest and lean back against the railing.
"Weird in what way?"
"Weird in a way that makes me think you two have to talk it out before you ruin your friendship. I've never seen him act this way over a girl."
That doesn't surprise her. He has a reputation for chasing after any girl available to him, something the Pogues have gently teased him about, and it factors into why she doesn't want to have this dreaded conversation with him. She doesn't want to sit there and listen to him tell her that she was just another one of those girls to him.
Going for broke and being honest about what he thinks of their situation is a better strategy for trying to get her to talk to JJ than the other way around. John B can look back on what happened the morning after the party and see where they went wrong in their approach of trying to get him to talk, but she's less unpredictable and turbulent than he is. The fact that she's hearing him out is enough proof of their differences.
She sighs.
"I know we need to talk sooner or later, but it's hard, you know? I'm so embarrassed of how everything went down at the party, even though I was too fucked up to remember most of it, and I just—" There's a brief second that lapses between when she stops and when she starts again where he can almost see her working through it in her head. "I don't wanna get hurt."
John B's face falls at the mention of the party and her feelings surrounding it.
"You have nothing to be embarrassed of. You drank too much but who cares? The only person who should be embarrassed about that night is the guy that tried to take advantage of you."
That part is the most fuzzy in her mind.
She can remember what led up to it and the moment she saw JJ pull him away from her, but she can't remember anything about the interaction itself. It wasn't as if he did anything to her—not yet—but the thought of it alone makes her skin crawl because she's seen that before. She's been the JJ in that situation, pulling a wasted Touron away from someone who thought nobody would be looking out for other people at the party, and she knows how quickly those situations can escalate past "harmless" flirting.
The sound of JJ shouting at Tyler echoes in her mind as she reaches for any remaining memories left from the party. He said it right after he punched him, when he was starting to rush forward to follow him onto the ground and pin him there.
"If I see you near my girl again, you're fucking dead! You got that?"
She doesn't remember realizing that he called her that at the moment. She was confused and upset and all she wanted to do was stop him from getting himself in trouble, so she pulled him away from hitting Tyler again without realizing what he said. And even now, she tries to avoid acknowledging it. She reasons with herself, telling herself that he was pissed off and didn't mean it, because if he did, why hasn't he told her how he feels yet?
Y/N looks up and sees how dark the converging clouds have gotten in the time since they began working on prepping the house for the hurricane, so her next words are shakier than usual.
"I guess you're right." She pushes off of her spot against the railing. "But can we not talk about JJ tonight? I kind of wanna hang out and forget about the rest of the stuff I've got going on right now."
This makes him feel a pang of guilt inside of him for the ulterior motive he's kept hidden from her for the duration of the conversation, but he knows it's for the best. Even if her and JJ's inevitable conversation goes in the wrong direction and they don't end up mending fences, it's better that they let it out sooner than later. If they wait any longer, it'll make it worse, and he knows that they're stubborn enough to keep this childish game going for another week or so.
So, he keeps her in the dark for now and offers a kind, "Sure, that's cool with me," despite knowing how messy the night will soon become.
A smile pokes at the edges of her mouth, making the sides of her eyes crinkle, and she extends a hand to help him up from where he sits.
"Now," she says as they make their way inside the house for her to pack a bag, "are you ready to get absolutely crushed in Monopoly?"
It started to rain before they left her house, and by the time they pull into the driveway of the Chateau, it's pouring down on them with violent winds whipping droplets at their faces hard enough to hurt.
The rapid pace of her pulse beats with such an intensity, she can feel it in her head. They shouldn't have taken so much time at her place before heading over here. While she was packing, they talked and dilly-dallied the whole time, and now they pay the price for it.
If she knew that it would start this soon into the night, she probably would've hurried things along sooner, but it's too late. She's already starting to feel that tightness in her chest and each breath of air feels less satisfying with every inhale. It's not so bad that she loses complete control of herself, but it's getting there, and she can't express how badly she doesn't want to lose her shit in front of John B.
The passenger side door is slammed shut by the force of the wind behind her, the noise becoming swallowed up in the rest of the budding storm, and she stifles a sound of surprise that escapes her in reaction to it. They're lucky they made it here in the first place. Any later in the night and they probably would've had to take refuge at her place until it blew over.
She decides to focus on how the edges of her white sneakers are swallowed up by the muddy earth on her way through the front yard to distract herself. It stains them a deep brown color and simultaneously washes them clean from the rain coming down from above, which she'd probably be annoyed about if she weren't such a nervous wreck. But, because she's too busy keeping her backpack raised over her head to shield herself from the rain on her way up to the front door, it's not high up on her list of priorities.
Since both the screen door and the door behind it are unlocked, she doesn't hesitate to come bursting into the house as she usually does.
Y/N lets out a deep breath, feeling that telltale tension in her chest and shoulders, and laughs at the sight of John B running in as she kicks off her shoes. His t-shirt is speckled with rainwater, and his hair is saturated enough with it to stick to the sides of his face after he crosses the threshold into the Chateau.
The sound of her laughter makes JJ's heart stop from where he stands in the kitchen.
"There was an umbrella right on the dashboard, why didn't you take—"
Her heart might as well have stopped just as abruptly as the sentence she was in the middle of saying when she turned and saw him standing there.
Maybe they're both a tad too dramatic, but it takes a full few seconds for them to stop staring at each other in surprise. He looks like a deer in the headlights, eyes wide with surprise like he was caught doing something he shouldn't even though all he was doing was grabbing a beer from the fridge.
It's been two days since they last saw each other. For him, the last glimpse he got of her was when he peeked through the blinds to see her pedaling away on her bike to go to work, but hers was somewhat different.
The last time she saw him, he was asleep. Their legs were tangled together underneath the sheets and his face was smushed against her chest, allowing her to feel the soft puffs of his exhales on her skin every few seconds. It's a wonder that she managed to slip away unnoticed once she remembered she had work that morning. He was holding her closely, so closely that she found it hard to discern where she ended and he began in the dazed, hungover headspace she woke up in.
It's when the conversation she had with John B on the front steps of her house comes back to the forefront of her mind that she puts together what's happening right now. Now that they're here, it's far too late to leave. With how aggressively the wind and rain batter the area surrounding the house, it's obvious that they're not going anywhere.
It seems to click with them at the same time, because JJ turns to look at him only a half second after she does.
Y/N says, completely serious, "If you did what I think you did, I'm gonna kill you."
Before either of them can think of doing anything, John B shoots out from the doorway and runs past her in the direction of the hallway where his bedroom is.
"Gotta catch me first!"
They both chase him, JJ hopping over the back of the couch to run after him, but they end up coming to a screeching halt at the shut door right when they hear the lock turn and click.
Neither of them knows what they were planning to do when they caught him, cause it isn't like they'd hurt him, but they bang on the door nonetheless. The sound is drowned out by the sound of the wind and rain pounding the outside walls of the house, picking up speed, and for a second she wants to kick the door open.
She shouts, "John B! Open this door!"
The last thing she wanted tonight was to be trapped in a house with the one person she didn't want to see. Doesn't John B realize how embarrassing it is for her to be around him when she knows that he's gonna reject her? He may have said something about JJ never acting so weird over a girl before, but he's wrong. There's no way JJ actually wants her...right?
"I can't hear you, this storm's kinda loud!" he yells back at them through the locked door. "Maybe try again later!"
Neither of them wants to acknowledge the other. In fact, they don't even want to look at each other right now, so all they can do to stop themselves from acknowledging the elephant in the room is continue trying to get answers out of John B. What does he think that locking them together in the Chateau for the night will accomplish other than make them ignore their own drama and team up to plot their revenge on him?
Though he's significantly less angry than she is, JJ pulls the doorknob enough to make the door whine on its hinges and pleads with their friend, "This isn't funny, John B. Open the door."
"Not until you guys stop being immature and talk to each other."
She furrows her brows at him even though he can't see her, saying, "It's none of your business. You can't just trap us here cause you think you know what's best for us."
The sound of thunder rumbling above the house makes her flinch, hand shooting out to latch onto JJ's arm on an instinct she couldn't consciously resist. Feeling the warmth of his skin beneath her palm and the fingers clutched around his wrist sends shocks of familiar electricity up her body. Touching him always makes her feel hyperaware of herself, leaving her to wonder if he can sense her pulse picking up or notice how her breathing pattern turns uneven.
With that being said, it's safe to say that the night they spent together took that sensation of electricity and hyperawareness to a height it hadn't reached before.
That time, it wasn't a brush of their hands or an arm over her shoulder, it was the epitome of physical closeness. She couldn't handle it. He was so sickeningly sweet with her, yet, at the same time, he knew all of the right times to be commanding and in control too. There were awkward moments at first, sure, but once they became comfortable with each other, it was game over.
And whenever they've touched since, she hasn't been able to get those memories off of her mind. It's less prevalent now, since she's only holding onto him out of fear, but it's still there underneath it all—the unfiltered desperation of the lust in his eyes, the low noises that escaped his parted lips, and the strong pair of hands that pinned her hips down on the mattress to give him the leverage to really give it to her at the intensity she begged for.
It's pathetically easy for her to be sucked right back into the vortex of emotions, memories, and fears that haunt her whenever they touch, but he brings her back out of it just as easily when he speaks.
"You okay?"
John B was as good as forgotten by him as soon as he felt her jolt next to him and grab onto his wrist like she was hanging from a ravine and he was the only thing preventing her from falling. It makes him feel like a fool, but even when they're ignoring each other, the urge to comfort and protect her from anything that displeases her never disappears. He'd literally fistfight Zeus if it meant there'd be less thunder to scare her.
If he weren't hiding behind a locked door to avoid their wrath, JB would probably be calling him a simp right about now.
The concern on his face is so pure and unaffected by any of the chaos that surrounds them, both physical and emotional, that it makes her stomach turn with a sick feeling. God, he really does care about her. Why does that scare her? Why doesn't she want to believe that he cares? Why is she so set on believing that he wanted nothing more than a quick fuck from her?
Her eyes turn down to see their connected hands, realizing all in one moment what she did and pulling her hand away as if she were burned.
"I—Yeah," she stops, looking up at him, then back to the closed bedroom door, "I'm fine. You know how it is, it's just the storm."
They're both left with no choice but to face the music after days of avoidance that had no good reason behind it other than the respective doubts and fears they have. Yet even now that they're standing here, unsure of what comes next, they're hesitant to say or do anything that might disrupt the illusion they've created in the week and a half since they first ruined their friendship for good.
It feels as though the tension that has been boiling between them is coming close to turning explosive and all it will take is one tremor of their self-control for it to spill over.
Every feeling they have feels so contradictory. They want to but they also don't. They almost do it, then hesitate and decide to ignore each other for days. At the party, this tug of war game was at its peak for JJ when she was telling him about her jealousy and cuddling up to him, but he couldn't do it then, not when she was drunk. And by the time he had a whole night to think it over and see her biking away, he didn't want to risk it.
She looks away from him, hoping that "out of sight, out of mind" may ring true for once, and says to John B through the door, "Whatever, have fun. I won't hold JJ back when you finally come out of there though."
He won't actually do anything to him, maybe just a non-serious fight that'll end with her walking in on them rolling around on the floor trying to wrestle each other, but she likes to fuck with him anyway. For the dick move he just pulled, she thinks he can withstand a little teasing.
Without anything else to say, Y/N turns and walks off to make herself useful elsewhere—anything to distract from the buzzing, anxious energy that surrounds her from both the hurricane and being forced to confront JJ. She tries to play it cool though she is anything but at the moment, allowing herself to grimace once her back is turned to the blonde boy still standing against the wall in the hallway.
Maybe if she keeps pushing this false sense of normalcy, it'll work. It worked when they both started pretending things never happened between them initially after they had sex, so who's to say it can't work now?
All they have to do is get through the next 12-24 hours without talking and all will be well. Right?
They tried.
They truly tried to get through the night without inciting chaos within the Chateau, but, for these two idiots, not inciting chaos is a task easier said than done. Not only was John B much more stubborn with staying in his room than either of them bargained for, he didn't even attempt to speak to them for the first five hours and they were left with nothing to do but find new ways to avoid talking to each other.
It was simple in the beginning.
She went off on her own and sat with her headphones in to drown out the sounds of the storm.
With her eyes fluttered shut to block out anything but the sound of The Cure blasting into her ears, there was no reason for her to have to worry about anything once her nerves began to settle. Since the songs drowned out any sound and all she could see was darkness behind her closed eyelids, she was able to drift away with the distraction of the music.
The thing is, after a while, she started to see pieces of him in every song she skipped to. She made it a full minute into Just Like Heaven before a supercut of her most treasured memories of him began appearing in her head. Fade Into You? Skipped as soon as the first dreamy lyric flooded in through the tangled cords of the headphones. Cloud 9? Forty seconds in. By the time Dirty Little Secret came on, she decided that her playlist was mocking her.
The headphones were out of her ears, hastily wrapped up, and stowed away in the small pocket of her overnight bag before the chorus of the song could hit. Thankfully for her, JJ wasn't looking when she ripped the headphones out and put them away in a huff, so by the time he turned to see her again, she was laying down on the couch to "nap"—meaning she laid awake for another hour and cursed John B for making her endure this.
While she was daydreaming of a John B voodoo doll, JJ was worried about her.
Yes, the topic of their relationship/friendship/situationship/whatever-the-fuck-it-is was bombarding him against his will every five seconds, but not without him coming back to his concern for her. A small sound of thunder on an otherwise perfect day was enough to make her zone out and start getting antsy that day on the boat, so he didn't want to know how bad it could get during a time like this.
He tried to play it cool, and, in all honesty, his remaining scraps of sanity lasted a lot longer than hers. Four and a half hours passed, then, as the storm began to do its worst on their town, the power flickered out and left them in complete darkness. At that point, John B was passed out in his bedroom, so he didn't care nor notice when they had to find a few candles and stumble through the dark.
Somewhere along the way, having to search through the dark house for candles to light and place around the living room led them here...he isn't quite sure how.
JJ can hardly open his eyes enough to see through the rain that pounds against him the second he runs after her through the back door. The wind is so aggressive and unrelenting, it almost sends him stumbling a few steps when he follows her blurry figure a few paces behind where she tries to flee the house in a panic.
"Get back inside!" he shouts as he picks up his speed to catch up, "Y/N!"
The part of him that isn't focused on the pure physicality of trying to see and move through the stormy weather is utterly overwhelmed with fear. Not for himself but for her. She's deathly afraid of mild storms, let alone hurricanes, and yet she ran through the back door when he tried comforting her through an anxiety attack. One would think that she wouldn't want to go directly into the thing she fears the most, but what sent her running for the hills wasn't the panic itself, it was him.
It's hard for her to think rationally in this state, but all she knows is that he was there, he was saying all the right things and holding her, and she couldn't do it. The fear began to blend to one centered around both him and the storm. The hours of useless distractions and ruminating in her thoughts built up to this point of contention, then it snapped.
Between the thunder, his voice, and the voice in the back of her head that was urging her to confess her feelings and do as John B advised them to, it became too much. Maybe it was the most idiotic split-second decision she made without any regard for logic or reason or her safety, but she bailed. For the third time, she couldn't handle the pressure and ran from him.
The only difference is that he couldn't let her leave this time.
He gasps for air against the streams of water flowing down his face, soaking his hair and making it hang in his eyes to obstruct his view more than the weather already has. It happened so fast, neither of them are wearing shoes. His feet sink into the muddy yard with every stride he takes in his frantic pursuit of her and it frustrates him no end because of how it slows him down.
There's endless dangerous possibilities with her being out here. She could be knocked over into the marsh by the wind, or stuck and hurt by a piece of debris—merely thinking about it makes him call out her name louder in the hopes that it'll wake her from her panicked trance.
After trudging through the mud all the way to the edge of the yard, he finally manages to get to her.
"What are you doing?" JJ shouts, turning her around and grabbing onto both of her arms as if one gust of wind would sweep her away if he didn't, "You're gonna get hurt!"
Stumbling backwards in the direction of the screened-in porch that surrounds the back door, he uses their difference in strength to tug her away in the direction she came out in. The rain makes it difficult to keep a firm grasp on her, and she almost slips away a couple of times when the wind picks up enough to make him too unsteady to hold on.
His arms slip around her waist for a better grasp on her the closer they come to reaching the house. The last thing he wants is to almost get her back inside and lose her at the last second. She isn't thinking rationally right now with the panic she feels taking full control of her responses. He knows firsthand how it feels to be thrown headfirst into a panic attack, he's been in her shoes before and knows better than anyone the lengths your irrational mind will go to if it means survival. And for whatever reason, her response is flight, not fight.
The door to the screen porch takes all of his effort to open against the power of the wind blowing it back against the house.
He grits his teeth as he forces it open, one arm secured around her midsection, and helps her in before he slips inside too. The second he lets go of the door, it's sent slamming back into place and rattling in the frame behind them, but he doesn't spend anymore time on it other than the few seconds it takes to lock it. As soon as it clicks with him that they're safe—most importantly, that she's safe—he whips around to face her with a cold rage flowing through his veins.
"What the fuck?"
She stands in front of him with water pouring off of her in rapid drops onto the rug, and there are no thoughts in her head outside of the ones telling her to leave. Her tears blend in with the droplets of rain so seamlessly that he wouldn't know she's crying if not for the sound of it.
In between her rapid breaths and sobs, she yells back at him, "I was scared, okay?"
"Why'd you run out into the storm if you—"
"I wasn't afraid of the storm, I was afraid of you!"
The silence that follows is louder than anything they've experienced. Nothing can rival it, not the thunder, the rain, or anything can drown it out while he stares at her in shock. His eyes are wide, lips slightly parted as he reaches for something, anything, he can say in response to that, but there's nothing. For once, he is absolutely speechless.
Things got awkward between them in the initial aftermath of last week, but not like this. There was never an instance where he felt like there was nothing left for him to say to her to fill the uncomfortable silence that always brought forth memories of them together until now. Until she said the last thing he wanted or expected to hear.
His anger subsides as he picks over what he did in his head for anything that could've made her feel unsafe.
Before it evolved into him chasing after her through the hurricane, he noticed how terrible it had gotten for her when he lit the first candle. Her cheeks were streaked with tears and her chest began to rise and fall faster with each second that passed. He could see it on her face that things were getting worse, but, now that he thinks of it, it got worse once he reached out to put his hand on her shoulder.
It felt like a dream sequence in his head, so hazy and faraway now that it's over, and he was so stunned by what she was doing, he didn't run after her until a few seconds later. There was a delay in which he stood there in surprise and tried to process what the hell just happened to no avail. Though it wasn't very long, he remembers it feeling like eternity tucked into the cramped space of four seconds.
JJ's voice is softer than she's ever heard it, asking into the void of the near-darkness that encloses them, "What'd I do?" And it breaks her heart in half to hear him sound so concerned, so terrified of the idea that he did something to hurt her when all he did was try to help. "I never meant to scare you, I swear. I know how bad it can get sometimes, and I know we haven't been talking but I'd never try to hurt you if that's what you thought..."
His thoughts run rampant with the possibilities of what she was thinking at the time, and he realizes that he can't stand the idea of her thinking anything badly of him. He never cares about what people think, but, fuck, he loathes the idea of her having any ill feelings toward him.
Y/N immediately starts shaking her head, her face scrunching with the emotion and incessant tears.
"I know you'd never hurt me. I was scared because..." she stops herself mid sentence, catching it right when she was about to admit the one thing she promised herself she wouldn't.
But the need to say it doesn't go away this time. Usually, once she catches herself she comes to her senses and realizes how foolish it would've been to confess, but this time is different. This time, the urge to speak her mind and tell him everything sticks around. The words left unsaid creep up her throat, thrashing and begging to let out after months of being pushed aside.
The look in her eyes is strangely reminiscent of the way she looked at him the night they hooked up, almost yearning in its nature, and he couldn't be more confused. She's scared of him, but she's looking at him like she did when she was two seconds away from jumping his bones. And if he didn't do anything wrong, why was she afraid enough to face her worst fear in order to avoid him?
"Because what?" he asks.
That frustration from when they first stepped into the porch hasn't vanished, it only took a backseat once she said she was afraid of him, not the storm, and he can feel it stirring up again. He's tired of not having answers. He's tired of mixed signals and loneliness and unrequited love. Most of all, he's tired of her running away all the time. At this point, he questions whether or not it's worth it to expose his feelings to her and suffer the consequences.
John B was right. This isn't healthy for them, nor is it healthy for them to put their friends through this along with them, and it might be better to not be friends than to stay this way forever. At least that way they wouldn't be wishing for answers that would never come for the rest of their time together.
She decides at this moment that this has to be said before it gets worse, before she runs away again like a scared, immature child and ruins everything.
"Because," she has to shout over the lightning that cracks down on the earth down the street, something she would be trembling in fear over if she weren't so focused on him, "I've been in love with you for a couple months and it scares me more than anything, even this stupid fucking storm! And I've tried so hard to ignore it because I know you don't feel the same way, but you touched me and I just"—a soft cry escapes her—"I couldn't do it anymore."
There it is.
After months of ruminating over it and hiding everything, he knows, and her immediate feeling after she says it isn't what she thought it would be. She expected trepidation and regret, but what she finds on the other side isn't either of those, it's relief. Her dad often tells her when she's nervous about something that the anticipation is worse than the thing itself, and that has never been as true her as it is now.
However, some of the nerves return with the time that passes after she spoke in complete silence. Much like the delayed reaction he had to her running out of the house, it isn't as long as it feels to her. It's a short span of time that it takes for her words to process with him, but it feels like an eternity that he stands there with his head facing the floor in quiet contemplation.
Her heart sinks.
This means he doesn't feel the same way, doesn't it? If he were the one telling her he loved her, she likely would've leaped into his arms and said it back, but he stays where he is.
Then, after what feels like forever, she thinks she sees him start to smile and feels like she's losing her mind. It's quite dark out here, so there's only a limited amount of light to allow her to see his features, but there's no doubting it when a flash of lightning floods the porch with a split-second of harsh light.
Oh God, why is he smiling? What does it mean?
Much to her frustration, the first thing he says after her confession isn't much help in making her understand his feelings either.
"Why didn't you just talk to me?"
Why? The voice in the back of her mind asks incredulously. Is he seriously asking why? He ignored me too. He didn't want to talk about it either, so what else was I supposed to do?
Maybe she was undeniably worse when it came to the avoidance and lack of communication, but he could've reached out to her too. They both could've. Instead, they spent day after day waiting for the other to make the move and pushed the tension further and further until it finally broke. Now she's waiting for him to hurry up and reject her so she can move on with her life.
She shivers from the wind blowing at her wet skin through the screens separating them from the outside world, crossing her arms over her body to hug herself. His eyes follow her movements down to the breaths that are slowly evening out without her realizing it. It turns out that confessing your love for the guy you've been crushing on since the day you met him is a hell of a distraction.
"I thought you wouldn't wanna hear me being all emotional and shit over a one time thing. You've literally never had an actual relationship before. And that's fine," she rambles, "I'll be okay eventually, but that's not who you are and there isn't a problem with that. I just caught feelings when I shouldn't have."
In her defense, she isn't making baseless assumptions about him, he hasn't had a relationship before. His love life hasn't ever really revolved around love itself, it was mostly comprised of random chicks he'd meet at parties or at the beach during the summertime when tourists come to visit the island. Out of all of them, he's the last one the Pogues would expect to fall in love with someone and commit to a relationship, but then...
He looks over at her with a swell of emotion within him that he's never felt before. It wasn't like he hadn't known before now. He did. He even said it out loud to himself that morning after the party, but this is when it feels the most real. Now that she's said it to him, he doesn't feel so stupid for toying with the four letter word in the back of his mind for the entirety of the past week.
In all honesty, he was the last person he would've expected to fall in love with someone this quickly too. He thought he knew himself better than this. He thought he could keep himself hidden away and not let anyone close enough to see him—the real him, faults and feelings and vulnerability included—but she proved him wrong. In walked Y/N with her pretty smile, teeny bikini bottoms, and oddly strong opinions on Ratatouille, and he stood no chance.
This sudden crescendo of emotion only continues to grow when he watches her shiver, soaked to the skin, across from him and decides that he never wants to deny himself of her again. Those feelings of inadequacy that forced him to question his relationship with her may not have gone away, not by a long shot, but they can't stop him anymore. Nothing can.
Like a light flickering to life in this swirling, stormy darkness, she hears JJ's voice asking her, "What if it is who I am?"
It was said so softly, she nearly lost it beneath the rain and wind. But it was not said with a lack of certainty, which is why she questions if she heard him correctly. He sounded so sure of himself that it feels too good to be true. After his reaction, or lack thereof, to her telling him she loved him, she accepted what was coming and this was not it.
"What?"
He doesn't miss a beat.
"You heard me." There's a pause. "Maybe I needed to meet the right girl."
There is no way he's saying what she thinks he's saying because if he is...if he is then that means the tears and frustration have all been for nothing because he loves her back. But if he loves her, then what was with the kook girl? Was it to make her jealous, or is she misinterpreting him right now and he was flirting with that girl because he doesn't have real feelings for her?
"JJ..." she trails off, looking down and thinking to herself how thankful she is that it's too dark for him to fully see how nervous he made her, "don't do that."
Partly, he should feel offended that she'd think he'd toy with her feelings like that, but he isn't. He's too busy wondering what on earth made this poor girl so insecure to think that someone has to be joking to confess their love to her. It makes him wonder if anyone wronged her before she moved here, and he feels that switch of impulsive anger inside of him flip at the thought.
But that anger has nowhere to go, so it shifts into something different—a need to spend every waking moment of the rest of their time together proving to her that she doesn't have to be so afraid. Does it make him a hypocrite? Probably. It wasn't too long ago that he was telling the Pogues how much he didn't deserve to be with her, but he doesn't see himself the same way he sees her. In his head, he has reasons to believe he doesn't deserve her love, but how could she ever think that herself?
He steps closer to her, the movement something so natural and unconscious to him that he doesn't recognize he does it until he hears her breath hitch in the back of her throat. They were already close enough to reach out and touch each other if they wanted to, yet now it's the kind of closeness that wipes the slate of her mind clean with nothing else but the thought of him there to stay.
He starts to say, "I'm not fucking with you, dude, I'm being serious—"
"Then prove it."
Oh.
The sound of his unfinished sentence lingers on the tip of his tongue as he blinks away his surprise at what she said, though it was less of a statement and more of a challenge. What the challenge is, he isn't too sure, but he thinks there could be a couple of meanings there.
The fire in her eyes when she looked up at him is one he recognizes very well, it stars in one too many of his daydreams that center around their secret night together. She rose to the occasion without fail and matched his chaos every time, and that steely-eyed stare is reminiscent of it.
Yet, the sexual undertone isn't the only part of it to be discovered. There's a clear meaning there for him to actually prove it, to put his money where his mouth is, grow a pair, and tell her how he feels with no room for confusion. No more miscommunication, running away, or insecurity getting between them, just a clear cut confession like hers.
His hand runs through his hair to sweep it out of his eyes and keep the wet strands from dripping down his face. It helps him see her a little better too, grounding him to the moment and calming him at the dimmed sight of her expectant, wide eyed gaze.
There were a million versions of this whenever he let himself imagine admitting it. He only let himself picture it on the worst days, days like the one two days ago when he went home to his dad, ending the night by cleaning his own cuts and inspecting his own bruises in his locked bedroom. He did it to distract himself from wanting to storm out of the room and finally kill the son of a bitch after years of suffering in silence.
JJ closed his eyes, shaking with anger, and dreamed of how he'd tell her. There were versions with long speeches that were far too sappy to exist outside of the realm of his imagination. There were versions with him burying the words between friendly jokes to play down the extent of his feelings too, but he thought it worked best in its simplest form.
So he puts it as simply as it gets, lips fighting a soft smile as he crosses the space between them and rushes in to kiss her. It's charged with an accumulation of the pent up love, anger, and sexual desire that has been repressed until now, resulting in something utterly explosive.
He stops for a second to whisper, "I love you too," into her parted lips, and she finally lets herself go at the sound of those words.
Forget that they've only known each other for five months, when you know you know. This is the real deal. This is the kind of feeling that possesses every accessible inch of her heart and she'd never be open enough to admit that to anyone but him at the moment, but neither of them minds that. It's such a new, rapidly developing feeling that they want to protect it and keep it close to them for the time being.
His arms twine around her waist, tugging her the last bit forward and leaving no space between their bodies this time. The sudden movement draws a sharp gasp from the back of her throat and sends her hands out to brace themselves on his shoulders. The sound of the gasp that disappears into their connected mouths only fuels him on more. It makes him more eager with how he touches her with his hands drifting down the plane of her back, one of which playfully slipping beneath the hem of her soaked shirt in a way that makes her smile into the kiss.
He knows exactly what he does to her. He can sense it in the small reactions that would often go overlooked if it were someone less familiar with her.
It's easy to tell by the way she completely surrenders herself to him, letting out these soft little noises she doesn't even realize she's making when he takes control of the interaction and kisses her like he's starved for it. In a way, he is starving for affection and attention from her. He never knew it was something he needed so badly until he got it, and now he never wants to go without having her again.
That's why it doesn't surprise him when she starts getting antsy after a moment or two, especially after keeping away from him for days.
Her hands run down the length of his chest over the soaked t-shirt, taking a quiet victory in how his stomach flinches inward in response to her exploring touch, and she could swear his next exhale trembles as she continues lower. Never once does she break the kiss, which, by the way, has gone past the point of being passionate and straight to downright needy, but her concentration does falter. The perfectly paced rhythm of her mouth moving with his is interrupted when she touches him over the fabric of his shorts.
Those plushy soft lips go on an exploration of their own too. Leaving him with the first opportunity to catch his breath in minutes, she dips her head beneath the sharp edge of jaw in pursuit of the sweet spot she remembers reducing him to a grabby, moaning mess the last time they did this. It doesn't take her long, not if the tightening of his arms around her and the satisfied hum of a moan she feels vibrate beneath her mouth has anything to say for it.
He loses himself in it for a second or two...okay, fine, maybe ten.
The separate sensations combined spark a flame inside of him that burns so hopelessly for whatever she'll give him. His mind sends him images of them together, both real memories from their first time together and imagined fantasies he only let himself visit in his dreams, and he realizes how thinly spread his self control has become lately.
First, it's the thought of her from last week, thoughts of her gasping, writhing, and begging beneath him that makes his cock throb under the teasing contact of her hand through his shorts. But then he's brought elsewhere. Then, though he hasn't thought of it since the day after the party, he thinks of the mix of jealousy and anger he felt when he saw Tyler with her.
He remembers being sane one moment and charging across the room like a madman the next. He remembers how it felt to watch another person's hands slip under her dress, how it felt to see someone else try to kiss her the way he had, and this raw wound of a memory is all it takes to spur him into action.
It happens so quickly, she doesn't even notice what's happening until he has her scooped up in his arms with her legs around his waist. She doesn't even have the chance to voice her surprise or crack a joke at the expense of his neediness before he reconnects their paused kiss with enough force to make her teeth ache in the collision.
JJ's rings are colder than ice, digging into the flesh of her thighs as he holds them with a tight grip and blindly takes the few steps necessary to reach the back entrance of the house. His wet handprint smudges on one of the cracked-open glass doors and sends droplets of water dribbling down the surface. The teardrop of rain zig-zags at the swinging motion of the door on their way in, only changing course again when he nudges it shut behind him a little too loudly.
"Wh"—her question is cut off by him laying her down on the rug-covered floor in between the couch and coffee table—"What if John B wakes up?"
His first thought was to bring her into the spare bedroom, but then he realized that it shares a wall with John B. Then, he considered the pull out couch but realized that would be louder than the room adjacent to their friend's. His only conclusion was this.
It isn't nearly as romantic as either of them would've pictured, but they're not exactly picky either. They're so desperate for it, they'd likely do it on the porch in the middle of a hurricane if there weren't another option. And in their own weird way, they make it romantic.
There's no one else she'd rather risk rug burn for, and that is the peak of romance.
"John B sleeps like a fuckin' rock," JJ says, "and it's own his fault for trapping us here anyway."
He follows her down onto the floor without a second thought, not even looking up to see if they woke their friend with the sound of the door shutting behind them.
Hovered above her, he looks particularly captivating in the flickering candlelight. The fire burning in one of the three-wick candles they scoured the bathroom cabinets for brings out the warm hues in his blonde hair and highlights every edge of the angular face that looks down at her. The porch was far too dark for her to see him in all of his near-perfection, but this is enough for her to notice a multitude of things.
His slicked back, wet hair allows her to see his features better and the way he looks at her...it's enough to make anyone feel red in the face. How hadn't she see it before? She knows it was denial, but, somehow, she used to overlook the small hints along the way like how he looks at her like she's the only thing that makes sense to him. For the first time in a while, she allows herself to embrace the idea of being loved without looking for something to justify her fears surrounding it.
The sound of her voice brings him out of the mesmerized trance he fell under at the sight of her.
"I've missed you," she says softly, "like a lot."
The sweet admission slows him down for a second, making him stop to ignore the distracting desire that she sparked to life a moment ago and take the time to cherish this moment of rare serenity with her.
It's a wonder that she hasn't even acknowledged the storm raging on outside since they've come back in. It's all thanks to him, of course, since she's been too focused on everything happening between them, but it surprises him. It makes a sense of pride flare up in him on her behalf for being capable of forgetting something she fears so much.
But, on the other hand, it reminds him of how distraught she was right before their conversation/argument on the porch shifted from her panic to the topic of their relationship, and he can't help but hesitate a little.
"I missed you too." The hand he isn't using to support himself above her cups her face, his thumb tracing the line of her cheekbone. "Are you okay though? You were just crying and I don't wanna make you—"
"Yes."
It was so said so quickly, there was zero hesitation. It's not that it doesn't surprise him that she's as eager as he is after what started to happen out on the porch, but it does make his eyes widen a little. His mouth curls with a slight grin. It's the kind that never fails to make her stomach fluttering and light with butterflies.
"You don't have to worry about me. I'm okay, and I promise I'll let you know if I'm not," Y/N clarifies.
"Okay."
There's a short moment where all they do is look at each other with a complete loss for words to convey what they feel right now. It isn't as awkward as it would've been prior to tonight. Before they confessed their feelings, they wouldn't have been able to look at one another for any longer than a few seconds without needing to walk away to break the tension. Now, things have changed. They don't feel the need to conceal how much they care anymore.
They're still the same bickering duo they've always been with the added fun of being head over heels. She never used to understand how some people could let their feelings for another person drive them crazy, but it's done more than make her crazy this past week. It made her jealous, obsessive, and somehow happy too, and no one has ever made her feel so many varying emotions in her life.
Her fingertips graze the stretch of skin between where his cargo shorts sit on his hips and his shirt rides up the side of his torso, and he swallows thickly at the feeling.
"Do I make you nervous?" she asks.
Her lilting, smooth voice is enough to soothe any nerves he could possibly have. It's as if hearing her ask that paired with the hand teasing the waistband of his shorts pulled him back to the place he'd been before when she was teasing him over his clothes.
He answers honestly, his head going fuzzy with the crushing desire that courses through him, "Not as nervous as I make you," and closes the space between them again.
The cheeky comment doesn't go unnoticed by her, not one bit. It makes her face heat up in embarrassment that is purely instinct after having to hide her feelings from her for so long. Maybe after they've been together for longer, it won't make her blush every time he acknowledges the effect he has on her out loud, but that day isn't today. Today, she goes hot in the face from a sole second of his attention, let alone this.
JJ lets his hand climb up the length of her torso as they kiss as if they have all the time in the world, as if their best friend isn't sleeping less than twenty feet away from them, until it flattens at the base of her neck. It doesn't curl around her neck and squeeze, nor does it do anything but remind her how much she loves the feeling of him touching her, the large palm of his hand simply stays draped over her throat to flaunt his ability to sway her nerves.
She's pretty sure if it were anyone else, it wouldn't work, but he's JJ for fuck's sake, and the quiet display of dominance sends an exhilarating little thrill rumbling through her. It isn't anything over the top or exaggerated like some people would do in an attempt to stake a claim over the person they love, just a simple gesture that they both know the meaning of.
She's his. After five months of friendship, two months of silent pining, and a week of sexually confused hell, she's his, and he'll never let her forget it.
The wind rattles the windows over the couch with its force and she notices that his hips grind into hers at the sudden sound. Even in the midst of such a heated moment, it's downright cute how he still makes an effort to distract her from what she fears. And, boy, does it work.
Their panting breaths in the brief seconds they allow themselves to break away from each other are the only sounds audible in the small living room. The storm drowns it all out for now, including the noises that start to leave them from the steadily building pleasure of their bodies moving together.
She can feel how hard he is through the layers that separate them with every absentminded thrust that brushes the fabric of her panties up against her clit each time. It leaves her breathless and wondering, despite already knowing, what it'll feel like when he finally slips inside of her again.
They both fantasized about it in the time they spent apart. Neither of them would dare deny it, least of all JJ. It actually became frustrating after a while because she started to become the only scenario he could conjure to get himself off when he had a rare moment of privacy. His fantasies, all stemming from the night that was so perfect, he began to question the reality of it, linger in his head.
The best part of his fantasies were the parts of them based in truth, and if he knows anything about her when she's in this state, it's that she's needy. Her tongue swipes along his bottom lip in a silent urging to let her deepen the kiss, and he complies without a second to spare, willing to entertain her every whim so long as she keeps being so good for him.
He revels in her muffled squeak of a moan when he presses down on the sides of her throat at the precise moment his hips grind down to meet hers. She can't keep herself still for any longer than a half-second, always meeting his movements halfway and unknowingly doing another thing that will be the death of him.
She leads his shirt up his body without having to second guess herself, knowing that he's always on the same wavelength as her no matter what. This was how it was the last time too. Anything she did, he was already one step ahead, and tonight isn't much different. By the time her hands ball up the dripping cotton fabric, JJ is lifting the hand off of her neck to reach for the neckline of the shirt and help tug it off.
There's a sense of urgency in everything they do. Charged up with frustration and jealousy that brewed within the days they spent apart, there's nothing to stop them from reducing themselves to a pair of panting, impatient lovers too consumed in each other to care about the outside world.
The sopping wet fabric is thrown beyond her line of sight and lands on the hardwood floor with a 'thwack' that accompanies their cacophony of moans and gasps, and she whimpers at the sight of him. It may have to do with the fact that he's guiding their bodies together at a cadence and pressure perfect enough to make her legs tremble, but seeing him like this does nothing but aid the sensation.
Golden skin glistening under the candlelight, tendrils of half-dry blonde hair falling into his face with the lazy effort of his movements, and a stray raindrop that squeezed from the wet shirt dripping down his chest...she's not gonna make it out of tonight alive, is she? In her memory, she knew he was a sight to see in the midst of a heated moment, but, fuck, memories do not hold up beside the real experience of it.
Y/N is so caught up in his seemingly endless beauty, she doesn't notice him peeling her damp denim shorts off of her hips until they're halfway down her legs, and the only reason she does notice is because he must shift his position to do it. Suddenly, the budding feeling that stirred from their needy antics is plucked away and left to ache for more in the absence of him between her thighs.
Her middle and index fingers hook around the front of his necklace to pull him back down to her, but he doesn't budge at first. He's too busy trying to rid her of her shirt to care.
It was too much of a distraction while they kissed for him to resist slipping it off of her when he got the chance to. Much to his frustration when he first realized they were trapped with each other, she's braless underneath, and it's only worse now that the t-shirt is soaked to her skin and clinging to every delicate curve.
Once the clothing gives way to the canvas of her bare skin, he submits to her urgency and follows her down by the fingers hooked around his necklace without any qualms.
As soon as they resume, it's as if they never stopped to begin with, and they start to realize how seamlessly they fit together as the seconds elapse. Neither of them are actively thinking about it while he dips his hand into the front of her panties, but it is in their subconscious.
It's a revelation of sorts, an ah-ha moment where it hits them both in a sweeping realization that it was obvious from the day they met. They should've known sooner, they should've dropped their pride and admitted it as soon as the first inklings of desire began to pop up, but they didn't. Instead, it washes over them now and they let the current take them away together.
Her mouth falls open against his cheek at the feeling of his fingers swiping through the arousal that pools in her underwear for him, dragging the wetness over his fingertips and spreading it up to brush fleetingly against her clit. It's a split-second of a touch that it makes her hips lift up off the floor on their own accord to seek out more. It makes her dig her nails into the skin stretching over his taut shoulder muscles in a wordless plea for more that he doesn't indulge her in at first.
He makes her earn it from him without having to say a single word. He touches her, but he doesn't touch where she wants or ease his fingers into her to satisfy the need she feels yet. It's a blessing and a curse that he manages to turn her on to such an extent. He does it for her like nothing else can, so much so that she's noticed a distinct difference in how it feels when she's alone versus when they're together. When she's alone, it can tend to feel like active effort, but when she's with him, it's as natural as the urge to breathe.
His smirk is felt against her skin the entire time she begs for it through the revealing actions of her body—her hips jerking up toward him, her chest pressing tightly to his, and the sound of her murmuring, "Please," in a breathy tone that could stop his heart.
"Tell me what you want," JJ says, every word constrained and tight in a way that tells her he's a lot less composed than he lets on, and "accidentally" swipes his thumb over her clit again. "Talk to me, baby."
She almost forgot in their time apart how much of an effect he has on her, but this is the best reminder of that she could possibly imagine. If she could, she would find a way to bottle the feeling he gives her and keep it with her forever so that, no matter what happens between them, she'll never have the misfortune of forgetting him.
What he said simultaneously melts her heart and frustrates her to no end because he knows! He knows damn well what she wants from him and won't give it to her unless she asks for it, and she hates herself for loving it. She hates herself for enjoying the flushed-face embarrassment it brings to her cheeks to be so open with him about what she needs.
She swallows the lump in her throat and tries to focus through the clouded landscape of her head to speak to him. It's hard to concentrate when he's above her like this, touching her, calling her pet names, and looking at her like that.
With his lips worshiping the sensitive skin along her neck, she finds it hard to choke out the words, "I want you," into the humid air that has infiltrated the house.
It's not a lie. Anything regarding her wanting him or any related feeling is no longer something she can hide anymore, but they both know it isn't exactly what he wanted. No matter how it took his breath away to hear her say it, he was seeking something more specific. He was aiming to make her ask, maybe even beg, for it. They're both too impatient to wait and based on how wet his fingertips are from barely dipping into her, he can tell she's as eager as he is.
It's been thirteen days too long since the last time they allowed themselves to meet this way, and neither of them wants to let it happen again.
She was nearly trembling with the urge to go to him whenever they were together in the company of their friends, unable to think about anything except for how badly she wanted him. All the while, he appeared so unbothered, especially on the night of the party when he flirted with someone else, that she didn't even believe he felt the same way back. Thankfully for her, she couldn't have been more wrong.
He clicks his tongue and says, still teasing her with light touches that never linger in one place for too long, "That wasn't very specific."
Part of her should know that he's about to do something based on how he withdraws his head from its cherished place in the crook of her neck, but she's too caught up in the anticipation and seeing his face for the first time in a minute to think about it. How dare he look so good? She could cry in frustration, although she might actually already be tearing up a little with the rush of neediness hitting her in its full force.
Never has she felt so turned on by so little physical contact before. It usually takes longer for her to get to this point, whether it be alone or in the past with previous partners, yet all it took was being kissed, touched, and being given his undivided attention and now...She realizes she's in trouble. He has her in an emotional and sexual chokehold at this point, and she fears that no one can compare.
"I want—" her voice is snuffed out in an instant when he eases two fingers into her, "Oh!"
So that's why he pulled away from her neck to look at her.
It was worth abandoning the mark forming on her neck just to see the expression on her face shift. She gets this cute look when anything overwhelming starts to happen where her brows scrunch a little to create a soft wrinkle between them as her mouth drops open in a moan. And after ten steady minutes of doing nothing but some over the clothes action and painstaking teasing, this is as overwhelming as it gets without it crossing the line to being too much.
It never occurred to her how much larger his fingers are compared to hers until now. This type of pleasure is like an itch only someone else can scratch to her, she feels virtually nothing when she does it to herself, but when he does it, it's like an explosive being set off inside of her. Especially with the thumb that sneaks up to circle her clit without stopping to tease her again, she is putty in his hands at this point.
Every smooth stroke of his fingers into her reaches a spot she can never quite find on her own, and she can feel the cold bite of rings when they're buried into her to the knuckle.
It's a surprise every time, even when she knows to expect it. Like a delightful chill running up through her body and down her spine exactly how it's intended to. It strikes an idea in her head for when he eventually pulls them out of her, conjuring the image of her sucking them clean for him just for the sake of imagining what it'll do to him.
With that idea tucked away in the back of her mind, he's the center of her world right now. All she breathes, thinks, and feels is him. Whether it be the sight of him, or the feelings he's giving her, or even the taste of his kiss that still lingers on her tongue, it connects to one common thread.
"What were you saying?" JJ asks, and she wants to wipe that smirk right off his face.
It's virtually impossible for her to piece together a coherent thought, let alone a sentence detailing every filthy idea she has for him, but she tries. It takes another moment or two of her succumbing to the rapid incline of pleasure that he gives her, watching her in wonder through any greedy buck of her hips or gasping inhale that makes her head loll back onto the floor.
At first, what she wanted to say was that she wanted him to touch her, to do anything more than the fleeting touches he gave before. Now, she wants more than that. Now that she's drawn in closer to the eventual high that's to come, she doesn't want it to happen like this. She wants to feel closer to him than this, wants to feel him throb inside of her and fuck her with all of the urgency and desperation that has accumulated in their time apart.
That's why her hands start to grab at the belt loops of his shorts to tug him closer by them, meeting his gaze through the hazy bliss of his fingers pumping into her. It's not enough.
"Please"—she keeps pulling him closer to her, so close that there's hardly any space left to cross, and he revels in her desperation—"just fuck me already..."
Internally, JJ is losing his shit.
Though this was what he wanted, what he coaxed out of her with the teasing and the pretend sense of a nonchalant attitude on his part, it hits him harder than he expected it to to hear her say it. It's not necessarily the act of begging itself either, it's the fact that she's the one doing it. She may have been jealous of the girl at the party, but she had nothing to worry about. Not in the slightest.
Before her, he never thought he'd fall for someone this way. It's not like he had a hatred for love or anything, he understood the appeal, it simply wasn't his thing.
He was perfectly content with his only form of companionship being his friends. Then, she came along and changed it. So to hear her say something like that isn't just breathtaking, it's the kind of thing that makes his heart ache for her. It hits him precisely where she wanted it to, and he has never felt as consumed with love the way he does now.
JJ can do nothing to stop himself from pouncing on her at this point, like some animalistic form of himself has worn down the restraint he used to keep himself at bay.
The loss she feels when his fingers slip away from her is an emptiness she mourns at first before she realizes what's happening. He pulls away slightly to reach down between them for the front of his shorts, and their hands clash as they both frantically try to undo them together. The rings adorning his fingers glisten when they catch the light and remind her of the thought that popped into her head when she first felt their coldness against her skin.
That idea paired with the promise of what they're trying to accomplish in their uncoordinated attempt to get the rest of their clothes off makes her want to press her thighs together. Her hands abandon the task of undoing his shorts for the sake of ridding herself of the last layer that separates her from him.
Her most embarrassing old pair of brightly colored panties, courtesy of past Y/N's questionable decision to trust her mom to buy some on her behalf, are hardly a sight to behold. They're the kind that come in a value pack from Walmart, vibrant blue with the word, "Tuesday," printed on the front of them, and she could hide her face into the rug in shame if she weren't so determined to get them off. Of all the days to wear the day of the week undies her mom accidentally got her, of course she chose today.
By the time she reaches for the waistband, he has pushed his shorts and underwear down his thighs and comes back to her with just as much excitement as he left with, but when he helps her tug her panties down her legs, he laughs. Apparently, he had also been too eager to touch her to notice what was written on them before.
"Cute," he breathes out through a laugh, then adds as the cotton fabric slips over her knees, "Pretty sure it's not Tuesday though."
"If you tell anyone, I swear I'll—"
He cuts her off, "Whatever you wanna threaten me with won't work, chances are I'm gonna be into it."
Her eyes are alight with a certain fire he's had yet to fully lure out of her. Even her voice is slightly more airy and seductive as a result of it.
"Promise?"
JJ grins down at her as he finally tosses her panties aside with the rest of their clothes, "Cross my heart, pretty girl."
His hands grip her thighs and tug her down the rug to him with a quick jolt that snaps them out of the playful nature of their back and forth teasing. No matter how lighthearted of an interruption it was, the mini-conversation might as well have never existed for how easily they fall back into it again.
She watches with her forehead pressed against his as he strokes himself a few times, then drags his tip, messy with precome, through her wet heat. And though she watches it happen, her body still arches into his when he lines up with her and sinks his hips forward.
She anticipated it, but she still gasps and digs her nails into his biceps at the sensation of him pushing into her. Neither of them bothers to worry about the obvious lack of a condom—it was discussed the first time around when he offered and she told him it was okay. He's often the one to silence the alarm on her phone warning her in its title to, "Take your birth control or else, bitch," while she searches her bag for it anyway, so he trusts her.
Both of them prefer it this way enough to risk the minuscule failure rate of the pill anyway. It's more intimate, closer, and they can both feel the warmth of each other in a way that would've been somewhat muted with an added layer between them. It makes the feeling of him entering her all the more gratifying as she tenses up around him in reaction, drawing a groan from where his parted lips brush against hers.
She lifts her head off of the floor as much as she can to capture his mouth with her own and stifle the sonorous sound despite the storm doing a better job of it.
It seems that every blast of wind and roll of thunder is in their favor tonight, so much so that he isn't even worried about getting walked in on. It's not a thought in his head at this point, the only thought he's capable of having is this. Forgive him for being shortsighted, but he doesn't give a shit if John B notices or hears what's happening when he's buried inside of her so deeply.
His hips are flush with the backs of her thighs in a matter of seconds, and right when he pauses to give her a breather, he feels her shake her head ever so slightly against where their faces are pressed together.
The touch of her hands on his hips is not timid by any means, it's commanding. Her palm prints singe an indelible claim into the surface of his skin as she guides him to start moving without a second spared to dwindle the discomfort of him filling her up. It's less like a pain and more of a pressure blooming from the insistent presence of him, not so overwhelming that it's painful, but it's an effort to breathe evenly and the only thing that'll ease this transitional moment is to continue.
At first, their bodies start to rock together lazily as though on autopilot. They'd hardly be conscious of the fact that they're doing anything if not for the initial sensations of heady ecstasy that flash like the sparks of a lighter in response to their movements. As soon as he felt her hands coax him into action, he sighed happily and surrendered himself to the instinct of wanting to move.
The merging of their bodies is less of the aggressive rutting motions they'll surely succumb to once their current pace is no longer satisfying, but that doesn't make it any less intense. She's partly sure that this is one of the most vulnerable moments either of them has ever had when it comes to sex, and it wouldn't work if it weren't them together. No other person could consume her the way he does, taking up every unoccupied space of her soul until there's nothing left but the silent begging of her heart for him.
Their kiss is messy when it breaks to allow them the chance to suck down a couple breaths of air, saliva shining on his lips in between the seconds it takes them to come crashing back together.
It's loving enough to rot her teeth with its sweetness, a slow but impossibly deep grinding of their hips together that continually presses the tip of him into that sweet spot inside of her, but it takes a turn.
Not only do her hands shift from his hips up to the sides of his waist to get a firmer hold on him, the kiss starts to become vigorous, almost hungry, in search of something more. The dreamlike sequence of the first moment or so they spent slowly fucking under the warm hues of candlelight starts to unravel to reveal the baser instincts that guide them forward.
"Fuck, you feel so good," he whispers the praise into her mouth.
As soon as the words are said, he can feel the effect it has on her. The hands braced on his waist pull his body closer to her at the same moment that she involuntarily squeezes down around him, making the smooth drag of his cock against the velvet-soft heat of her walls even tighter than he thought possible.
The sudden feeling of it makes his first returning thrust much harder than the last. He jerks forward into her with none of the restraint he's retained for the past few moments, and her reaction is nothing short of perfection, at least from his perspective. He watches her throw her head back in a moan, hips bucking to him in pursuit of more, and feels the tips of her fingernails digging crescent-shaped marks into the unmarred skin along his waist.
"JJ!" she gasps in surprise, and if her initial reaction weren't enough to spur him on in a frenzied state of desire, this is.
He almost forgot how intense it had been the first time. Their confessions of love preceding this made them both somewhat softer and sweeter in their approach when they started, but he knows how she likes it.
Nobody would expect it from her. He's another story entirely, especially considering how much John B and Pope know about him, but her? He didn't have any in depth conversations about it with either of them, so none of their friends know how dirty she is.
But when you start to tease it out of her, she's got a side to her that makes his blood run hot. Considering how polite she is, he sure as hell didn't see it coming. For fuck's sake, she's the kind of person who'll apologize to a chair if she bumps into it. With that in mind he never thought she'd be the type to demand such things of him.
Just like that, with one moan of his name, it's like she flipped a switch in him that they forgot was there in the first place. It'll never stop surprising him how little it takes to get him going when he's with her, and he doesn't see that changing no matter how long they spend together in the future. Just a touch from her is all it takes, so it's needless to say that the sound of her calling out his name was more than enough.
Those slow, deep movements he made to sink into her again and again have turned rapid and rough, but still controlled enough to have a semblance of precision to them, hitting in all the right places.
"I bet," JJ speaks lowly, "that you want John B to walk out and see us right now."
She doesn't want to admit how much of an instantaneous effect those words have on her, but the feeling of her clenching around him as she bites back a moan completely betrays her. Partly, she worries that he'll take that the wrong way and think it has something to do with John B when it has nothing to do with him at all, but he doesn't. For the spare second of thought she's allowed to have before her mind goes hazy again, she notes how much more eager he is on the upstroke of the next thrust.
Noticing how right he was in his assumption about her liking the risk of getting caught jumpstarts his heart and makes everything he does rougher. She can sense that he's starting to lose control over himself and is acting on instinct alone.
It makes her much more sensitive to everything he does, and all she can do is cling to him and enjoy it as she takes in everything he says and does. It's hard to pick one thing to focus on between the switch up in pace and what he said.
"You want John B to know you like getting fucked like a slut, don't you?"
She could get off on the sound of his voice alone. Hearing him say stuff like that kills her, it makes the swirling bliss that builds in the pit of her abdomen with every thrust he gives her triple in its extremity.
Her legs are tightly wound around his hips to keep him as near to her as possible, her hands sliding up around his waist to keep a steady grasp on him while he pounds into her. The rug scratches at her back enough to make it sting alongside the immense pleasure building in her, but she doesn't care. When blended with the good sensations, the pain underscores the addictive feeling of him inside of her, fucking her exactly how she asked him too.
Looking up at him when he's like this is simply unreal. There's no other way of describing it in her eyes except for that. He's so stunning, she's inclined to believe that he isn't even real as a means of explaining it. This shouldn't be real. It should be one of her daydreams while she steals covert stares at him as they hang out with the Pogues, but it isn't. She can't wrap her head around it.
Those strands of hair that were damp from the rain are mostly dry as they fall into his eyes with the force of his movements. The sight of him alone, set aside from the rest of it, is enough to make her writhe beneath him and claw at his back in tandem with another thrust that sends her jolting against the rug.
He takes one of his hands up from where they both held her hips for leverage to weave his fingers into the roots of her hair.
He demands between the panting breaths and moans that flood the limited space between them, tugging on her hair, "Answer me."
She instantly blurts out the words, "I want him to see us." The feeling of him tilting her head back by the fistful of hair he has wrapped up in his hand is her persistent reminder to concentrate enough to continue, and she bites down on her lip to contain a moan before speaking again, "I want him to know..."
Her cheeks burn with the mere thought of it, let alone saying it out loud. He's the only person she'd ever let in on this intimate side of her, the side that makes her crazy when she hears him say stuff like this. The reason she feels so comfortable doing this with him is that she knows he understands her. It's as if he can read her mind without even having to try, knowing exactly what to say and when to say it.
It wouldn't matter if the topic of their exhibitionism were any other Pogue or a stranger, it isn't about who it is, it's about the thrill attached to the concept of almost getting seen during such a heated moment. In all actuality, John B is probably snoring face down into his pillow right now with no care for what's happening out here, but he knows what it does to her when they push the boundaries of decency this way. It's the same rush he gets from stealing random, useless things every so often, it's the thrill of getting away with something.
The hand tangled up in the roots of her hair sneaks down between their colliding bodies to rub her clit, and her mouth drops open to take in a shaky breath.
The sight of her beneath him is undoing in and of itself. Head tilted enough to expose her neck to him, chest rising and falling rapidly with her breaths, and breasts bouncing gently with the momentum of their actions—seeing her this way makes his thrusts ramp up into more of a frenzied, uncontainable pace rather than one with the same control and cadence as before. But it's mostly the eye contact that kills him. She doesn't dare to shut her eyes the entire time, as if she can sense that he'll tell her to look at him again the second she does.
"You want him to know what?" he asks, and she knows he won't let her get away with not saying it.
She whines, utterly helpless to the climax starting to build inside of her, "Please."
What she's pleading for, she isn't quite sure, but he can tell by how she's acting that she's starting to get closer, and he wants nothing more than to tease her with the impending chance of her orgasm.
"If you wanna come, you're gonna have to do a lot better than that."
Just like that, he withdraws his hand from between them and leaves her desperate, blindly grasping for the peak she was so close to reaching, she could almost feel it already.
With JJ rocking into her at a relaxed, slower rhythm, the pleasure hasn't disappeared completely. It's there, but she can sense the feeling of her orgasm receding as quickly as it had creeped up on her as soon as he slips his hand out from between them.
It's instantly clear to him how desperate she is as all of her previous shyness surrounding having to admit this to him out loud withers away in seconds. She isn't beneath begging again at this point. He could tell her to crawl across the floor to him and she'd happily do it for the chance of touching him. It's pathetic but true. As much as she has him wrapped around her finger, he has done the same to her and she isn't afraid to admit it anymore.
Her hips jerk toward him in search of the familiar frenzy they were in before that sent her to the brink of climax, but he is impressively stubborn. Despite the fact that it physically pains him to dial it back again, he tries to keep the signs of his own frustration at bay. She knew what she had to say to get what she wants, so he'll only cave when she does.
This time around, she doesn't give a fuck about how badly she blushes or the voice in the back of her mind telling her she should keep this side of her to herself. This time, the one thing she needs to do to prompt her to open her mouth and speak the dirty words he asked her less than a moment ago is look at him. One second of staring up at him and here she is, driven mad enough to say or do anything to get him to pick up where they left off.
She says between the soft noises and breaths coming from them both, clinging to him through every slow but deep thrust that sends sparks ricocheting through her body, "I want John B to know I like getting fucked like slut." Her voice is breathless, and he hangs off of each word as she pauses, looking up at him with a challenging attitude swirling in those pretty eyes. "So stop being a tease and fuck me like one."
His jaw clenches at the bratty statement, one he's too far gone to resist at this point, and right when he's about to respond to her, she speaks again.
"Either that," she says, and a deceptively sweet smile crosses her kiss-swollen lips, "or I can go ask him to—"
She doesn't even get the chance to voice the rest of that thought before he's set into motion.
The hands on her hips flip her over with such casual strength, all she can do is yelp in surprise at the sudden movement that blurs the living room in her peripheral version until she lands with her hands and knees pressing into the rug. He was so swift in pulling out of her and tossing her onto her front like she was nothing more than a rag doll, she hardly had the time to take a breath before she ended up here.
There's hardly any time between when he pulled out to flip her over and when he returns to her again, but it feels like an eternity for them. The few second transition might as well be a few years as she feels his hands guiding her body where he wants it, pushing down on her back until it arches just so, and falls down onto her arms. But as soon as she gets situated, she feels a pair of hands yanking her arms away from where they were braced against the floor and put them behind her back.
It's only then, when he has an unflinching grasp on where he keeps her wrists behind her back with one of his hands, that she is met with the relief of him sinking into her again.
Y/N's jaw goes slack, and she cries out into the rug that her cheek is pressed into as he gives her no chance to adjust or catch her breath before resuming the brutal pace they kept a moment ago. Mentioning anyone else but him doing this to her was the quickest way to get him to snap, so it's safe to say that she's getting what she wanted. After all, she did what he asked, it's fair that she gets rewarded for it.
Amidst the sounds of the storm waging war on the landscape outside of the house, the one thing she can hear over the buzzing pleasure that drowns out her senses is the sinful blend of sounds they create together. It's the sound of their bodies merging, his name falling from her lips, and the curses he makes under his breath that never fail to drive her a little wild.
The hand that isn't holding her arms behind her slides down the length of her curved back until it wraps around her throat to pin her down, and her reaction is everything he could ask for. Seeing her rock back against him to meet him halfway makes his grip on her wrists tighten enough to turn his knuckles white.
Her hair is spread in endless directions in a fan around her head, and he can only see one side of her face from where he kneels behind her, but that glimpse is more than enough. Brows scrunched in pleasure, mouth dropped open in a gape as soft 'uh's and 'ah's escape her on the upstroke of each thrust—she's a mess right now. A beautiful, perfect mess.
"Oh God, JJ," she moans between her rapid breaths and the strong hand constricting her neck, "I'm so close. Please, just let me come."
It took virtually nothing for her to be pushed right back to the edge of the peak she was at less than a minute ago. It took a mere half-minute of this and she's once again reduced to incoherent pleas for more and shaking with no control over herself. Her legs tremble with the effort to keep herself up in this position, and she isn't even the one doing most of the work. In all fairness, this change in position has made the intensity triple. It's deeper this way, and with how harshly he slams into her, it's as though she can feel it in the base of her abdomen.
It's the enjoyable type of pain, however, not the bad type. It'll surely end up with her being sore tomorrow, but she can't hide how much she loves the painful pleasure of how rough it's getting. Being denied an orgasm when she was so, so close to it was initially disappointing too, but it was worth it. If the build up to what would've been her climax before was a spark, this is a flourishing fire spreading through her with no chance of smothering the flames.
He lets go of her throat and taps the side of her jaw in a silent request that she picks up immediately, letting her lips fall open to suck his fingers into her mouth without a second of hesitation.
The taste of her arousal on them is faint, but still there, and it occurs to her that she thought about this earlier before things evolved into chaos. Her tongue swirls around the tips of his fingers as he starts to pull them away in what feels like the blink of an eye to her, leaving him to remember what it felt like when her lips were once wrapped around a more sensitive part of him a week and a half ago.
The one other time he let himself remember it was when they were on the boat with the Pogues, yet that wasn't really of his own volition. It was hot out, so Kiara bought ice pops for them and his mind wandered far from where it should've stayed.
Shining with her saliva, his fingers are pulled from her lips with a soft 'pop' in pursuit of that sensitive collection of nerves at the apex of her thighs. She just needs is a little push to go over the edge, and when he slips his hand down her body to rub tight circles onto her clit, she loses whatever remnants of control over herself she had left.
The steady rhythm of her hips moving back against him falters as she is overwhelmed with the separate sensations culminating into one and giving her the push she needs to come. Her entire body tenses up in anticipation, and since she's pinned to the floor with her hands behind her back, she can only lay there and savor the feeling as it hits her.
After what felt like ages of having it build and build within her, then having it taken away to start the process over again, finally being given a release is a relief beyond any she's felt before.
It's so consuming, it takes away her ability to think of anything outside of how it feels to dissolve into the shockwaves of euphoria rushing through her. Every pulsing wave is prolonged by him, not even through the peak of it does he let up on his precise touches and unforgiving thrusts into her that turn a typical orgasm into the most intense thing she's ever felt.
She's melting in his arms through it all, and as if the change in position didn't make it worse, her involuntary spasms leave him hanging on by a thread.
JJ collapses onto her, barely having the chance to keep himself propped up on his arms as he lets go of her wrists and falls forward onto her sweat-slick back.
The heat of his panting exhales raises goosebumps in its wake where his face is buried into the curve of her neck, and he whines at the impossibly tight feeling of her squeezing around his cock through the end of her climax. Those sounds he doesn't realize he's making have her writhing through the aftershocks, answering with a sound of her own that almost makes him come instantly.
For that reason, he makes the decision to pull out and flip her onto her back.
At this point, she's so dazed and fucked out that she doesn't register any of it until she notices the hollow absence of him inside of her, but it doesn't matter when his face appears through the partial darkness above her.
Despite how sensitive she is right now, the sight of him makes her hands reach out blindly to pull him closer again. They're frantic in their need to get back to one another, grasping and clawing until he finds his way back to her in less than a second, hiking her legs up around his waist with a touch that is somehow demanding and tender at the same time.
It's only when he's inside of her again that it occurs to her why he rolled her onto her back again, and it makes her want to kiss him until her lips turn numb. It may be undeniably hotter to pin someone down and fuck them hoarse, but, no, that wasn't what he wanted. He wanted to be able to look at her, to see her face, and the thought of that has her biting back a sudden confession of love. She isn't sure why she doesn't say it right away, since it isn't like they haven't already done it, but she keeps it to herself for a second first.
It's different now. It's not less passionate or frenetic. It isn't as if he isn't being as rough with her as he was before, but they can both sense a shift in the energy between them as soon as he reenters her. It's less about the pursuit of pleasure and more about the feelings they've kept hidden away for so long. It's a simultaneous realization that hits them a little late after they initially confessed their feelings for each other: this is reality. It's real, and when she touches him this time, he isn't going to disappear if she opens her eyes.
The realization of what happened tonight had yet to hit them until right this second, but now that it has, they move forward with a sense of sentimentality that remained partly dormant before.
If there's anything JJ dislikes, it's being vulnerable. The idea of letting someone in to see every part of him, including the parts he doesn't want to see of himself, has always terrified him after years of being made to believe he's undeserving, yet he isn't uncomfortable right now. Somehow, he feels safe with her. Sex has never been something so emotional for him until now, until her, and he doesn't want it differently.
Their bodies are drawn in close, her arms thrown around his neck, and he's so close, he can feel the muscles leading down past his lower abdomen contract with the inevitable approach of his orgasm. She can sense it too in how he acts.
When he gets close, he becomes clingier and lets his feelings get the better of him. His hands squeeze at her hips, sliding up her sides and back down to hike one of her legs up high around his waist to press deeper into her. He can't bear to allow his touch to stay in one place for too long before exploring another part of her, wanting to memorize the delicate intricacies of her body in its entirety.
It's as if she can read his mind too, cause even when she's sensitive enough to gasp when he pushes her thigh to her chest and throws his remaining energy into fucking her at a satisfying pace, she understands what he needs. She knows to reach up and run her fingers through his hair, to tug on it gently until the light strands are taut from his scalp. She knows to lift her head off of the floor enough to trail tender kisses along his face, his jaw, his neck—anywhere she can access.
"Come for me," she says into a kiss placed on the edge of his cheekbone, reeling in overstimulation as she jolts with his quickening thrusts, "I want to watch you..."
Hearing those words, paired with the kisses and fingers pulling on his hair, does it for him. It doesn't take more for his hips to falter and jerk forward into her a final few times before he comes.
Their foreheads press together as they cling to one another for stability, though it's mostly JJ clinging to her while she watches in adoration, and she has to bite her lip to contain a moan at how it feels. The aftershocks of her orgasm have yet to fade as the feeling of pulsing warmth inside of her makes them stronger, reigniting the fire she felt a moment ago if only for a second.
There's a closeness to this situation that they hadn't felt the last time, and they know it has everything to do with what was said before this happened. The sex itself feels like a dream sequence in her mind now that she's coming down from it with him, moving together slowly and gently beneath the candlelight until they ride out the ends of their highs. It was like they were put under a trance by each other, and now that it's over, the first thoughts that come to mind are of what comes next.
It's not the sole topic on their minds though. They're more focused on catching their breath from where they lay, tangled up together, on the living room floor. As soon as the very last of his orgasm faded from him, he fell onto her without a single ounce of energy left to spare. He's careful not to crush her, but, for the most part, he relaxes on top of her and lets his head rest on her heaving chest.
Strong arms slip down to loop around her waist, and she sure that she couldn't get him to release her if she wanted to, which she doesn't.
But they can't stay like this, not for any longer than a few moments anyway, since they don't know how if John B might wake up and come out of the safety of his bedroom after hours of leaving them to their own devices. JJ was right. He's out cold, but for as much as it turned them on in the heat of the moment, neither of them finds getting caught by him as hot with the clarity of their rational minds coming back to them.
He's the one to break the silence.
"As much as I wanna stay like this, we should probably move in case John B wakes up."
The sound of his voice settles in her with the effects of a sedative. It calms her more than anything else could, especially with the added comfort of him cuddling her so closely. One of her hands strokes through his hair and pushes the damp tendrils of sunshine away from his face as he cranes his neck to look up at her. And, for fuck's sake, what else is she to do except admire him?
His cheeks are dusted pink in a way they often are when he spends too much time outside without one of his hats shielding his face, and she thinks he's never looked better.
Ever since they became friends, she's had this theory about him. In the unrealistic landscape of her overactive imagination, JJ didn't come to this world the way the rest of them did. To her, it seems impossible that someone so good, even in his worst moments, could've come from someone like his dad.
So, in idle moments where she would watch him on a day out with the Pogues or daydream about him, she decided that he's the sun.
She imagines he was created in those breathtaking but brief moments where the sun meets the horizon atop the ocean and washes the sky with a vast array of colors. She likes to think he's the incarnation of it. Golden, warm, and bright for everyone but himself, he keeps the world light for her and their friends without intending to.
Some days are warmer than others too. Some days, the light is dimmed by another bruise beneath his clothes or a bad run-in with some kooks, but today is not like that. This moment is eighty-five and sunny with a balmy breeze. Looking at him right now feels like basking in the sun, and she'd burn here forever if he let her.
Without realizing she zoned out, she jolts when he pinches her arm to rouse her from her ridiculous thoughts. He has this dopey half-smile on his face that nearly draws her back into them again.
"You know what they say," he says, "if you take a picture..."
Her soft laughter invades the room, filling his heart with this light, fluttery feeling that always finds him when she's near. His smile grows as she playfully shoves him and reaches above their heads for her wet shirt to cover up with just in case. Odds are, their friend isn't waking up at the exact moment before they seclude themselves to the spare room and get dressed, but she doesn't wanna take that chance.
"I wasn't staring."
She was totally staring. But who could blame her? When someone looks at a person the way he looks at her, how could they ever stay away?
"Whatever you say."
JJ keeps smiling to himself while he pulls his underwear and shorts up his legs and waits for her to be decent enough to sneak past John B's bedroom to the bathroom at the end of the hallway.
The clothes are soaked through with rainwater, so they feel quite uncomfortable to slip back on, but they merely redress enough to be covered. She stole his shirt to avoid putting her shorts back on, the hem of the grey tee hanging right at the tops of her thighs when she walks. As soon as she slips her panties back on and picks up the rest of their cold, wet clothes, that's the cue he needs to scoop her up and take her away.
Y/N curses under her breath in surprise at feeling her feet being plucked off the ground, but she relaxes again once she's settled in his arms, realizing that it was just him who snuck up behind her and lifted her into his arms.
She doesn't say anything on the way to the bathroom. Instead, she lays her head on his shoulder in exhaustion and finds herself staring at the mark she left behind on his neck.
It's a deep, purplish red against the backdrop of his tan skin...the Pogues will surely notice the next time they see him. And while it will make her blush, it won't make her scared as it once would've. There may be a lingering sense of doubt and insecurity within her, but she wants this with him. Even if it means being teased by their friends or dealing with the jealousy of watching kook girls and tourons at parties hit on him, she wants this.
By the time the shower is spraying the rainwater from her hair and washing her clean of sweat sticking to her skin, she realizes that he isn't saying anything either, but she doesn't think it's out of any awkwardness or miscommunication. There's truly nothing to say, at least for now.
Though they didn't have the chance to talk in depth about everything yet, neither of them thinks of that right now. All they know is that they're together, whether it be officially or not, and it feels good. For once, something in his life feels right, and he lets himself enjoy it in silence.
The shower is a cramped space when shared between them and the wet clothes they have draped over the back edge of the tub, but they make it work. It's not like they mind anyway.
They bump into one another whenever they do so much as breathe, and the white walls echo the sounds of her giggling when he tries to tickle her. She leans her head back against his chest and lets out a laugh with shampoo dripping down the front of her face, and he'll be damned if he ever heard a sound as intoxicating as that.
It's a little weird. He's never been as soft and loving with a person before, and he has already felt overwhelmed in the lulls of quiet between them when he's given the chance to think about it.
When she washes his hair for him, insisting that she must return the favor after he so kindly washed hers, he was struck with the same mixture of wanting to simultaneously lean into and pull away from her that he felt the night of the party.
The warmth of the water loosens his sore muscles, washing suds of the green apple scented shampoo over his shoulders and down, down, down until it circles the drain beside his feet. All the while, her fingertips are delicately tracing over a healing bruise on his torso. Those pretty lips of hers are painted in a suppressed frown that she can't hide from him.
"Are you okay?" Y/N asks.
His instant reaction is to fake a smile, to brush it off and distract her as he usually does, yet he doesn't. He forces himself to remain neutral and not push her away.
"Happens all the time," he murmurs, shrugging and averting his eyes to reach for the soap off on the ledge.
The hands holding either side of his waist tighten as he tries to turn, pulling him back to her with more strength than he knew to anticipate from her. Their chests gently collide back together beneath the stream of water, and she can feel his breathing catch for a second or so in response.
The fact that their relationship has changed doesn't change how she handles this aspect of his life. Their new confessions don't have an impact on the part of his life he never wants to let anyone see, so she isn't going to force him to talk about it because they're trying out this whole relationship thing now. He has hard boundaries that she knows not to push sometimes. That's the way it is, and it might change as they grow closer but she knows to accept it for the moment.
As soon as he hears what she has to say next, he could crumble in relief at the realization that their new dynamic doesn't change anything.
"I didn't necessarily mean...that...I meant generally, you know? It's just that—" she sighs, "you shrink away a little when I hold you, and I wondered if I was making you uncomfortable."
Before she could finish the sentence, JJ was already thinking of what to say to prove her wrong, because that's not it. That's not what it is, and if she thinks she's done anything wrong, he'll do anything to convince her otherwise because it isn't her. It's him.
It's his dad lingering in the darker trenches of his mind, commanding his fear and attention so that even when he isn't physically present, he's still here. Part of why he denied wanting her was because he knew these types of things would arise in the beginning, that there would be difficult adjustments to make and conversations to be had, and he didn't want her to leave him as soon as she was faced with one of these things.
He shakes his head.
"You didn't do anything."
The feeing of her chest rising and falling with his begins to steady him after a moment of allowing the initial hesitation to dissolve. His internal reaction to her touch is the mental incarnation of a flinch. It's him waiting for the other shoe to drop and expecting her to do something, to hurt him, before his mind catches up with his heart. But once he realizes everything's okay, he loves it.
"It's kinda embarrassing, but I guess when you touch me, I'm expecting something else," he says softly, scared that if he speaks too loudly, everyone in the world will know how weak he feels.
She should've figured, but hearing him say it is different than wondering what the reasoning behind it is. Hearing him admit it after months of strict avoidance on the topic is a sucker punch to the gut.
Both times they had sex, he was too distracted and thoughtless to get caught up in that part of himself, but it's when the bliss of the afterglow disappears that it creeps back in. That's why he could always handle touch when it came in that context. It was his way of obtaining what he wanted without having to face this side of it—a temporary fix to a greater web of issues.
But there's nothing temporary about her. He doesn't want her to leave him, not without him resisting the urge to beg her on his knees to stay and at least remain his friend, so there's no choice but to face these momentary challenges head on.
She pauses for a second, thinking, then says, "You don't have to be embarrassed about it, I get it. We'll just have to take it day by day then. We can take it slow, and you'll let me know if it gets to be too much, okay?"
It's hard not to be shocked by how well she's taking it. A lot of people probably wouldn't feel too great after someone they love tells them they expect to be hit whenever they touch them, yet she's taking it in stride.
Things are back to normal as soon as she sees the grin on his face.
"So, you're saying you're gonna be trying not to throw yourself at me all the time?" JJ asks, then clicks his tongue as though in thought. "I give you a week. Tops."
Her eyes go wide as she looks at him. She holds her hand over her heart as she pretends to be scandalized by such an accusation, but they know it's true. They both can't keep their hands off of one another, which is why it confuses him. How can he want to reject and enjoy her touch at the same time? Sure, the discomfort disappears after the first split-second, but the fact that it happens in the first place annoys him to no end.
She rolls her eyes and tries to hide the fact that she's giggling as she reaches for the soap.
"You're a little shit, you know that?"
He doesn't miss a beat, saying back, "Yeah but I'm your little shit, so I feel like that says more about you than it does me."
While he's too busy rinsing the rest of the shampoo out of his hair, she smiles to herself at what he said.
Hers.
Nobody has ever been hers before, or proclaimed themselves as belonging to her as proudly and casually as he just did, and her heart melts over the sweet sentiment he didn't think twice about.
Less than a day ago, she was agonizing over her relationship with him and trying to ignore how powerful those feelings for him were, and now they're here. She no longer has to steal glances when he looks away or hide how jealous she feels when other girls flirt with him. To finally let the tension disappear is an immense weight off of her shoulders.
The rest of the shower is as quiet as the start of it was, and that comfortable silence continues through from when they're drying off and redressing to when they hit the mattress in the spare bedroom with tired sighs.
After the day they had, the mere suggestion of sleep is enough to make them start yawning, so being able to slip beneath the sheets and rest their heads almost sings her to sleep instantly.
Their bodies are laying in the exact outlines of where they laid the night of the party, the only difference this time being their mindsets. This time around, they aren't holding themselves back from anything, and it's most evident in the little things. Like how she doesn't turn around to shield her face from him, instead laying with her head propped on the other end of his favorite pillow.
They're so close, their noses brush if they make any slight movements, and this would be enough for him to submit to the urge to drift into sleep if not for the fact that he feels her jolt when thunder rumbles loudly outside of the window.
Much like his own fears being pushed to the side amidst their desire for each other, her anxiety about the storm wasn't on her mind until they laid down to sleep.
She was so wrapped up in him and everything that happened between them that she didn't have the time to think again until now, until she hears the violent patter of rain against the roof and feels her stomach drop at the sound of the thunder. Suddenly, she's not the one reassuring him about his fearful reactions, it's the other way around.
His warm hand takes hers, snatching it up as though he's worried it'll disappear if he doesn't take it quickly enough, and she lets him. Her eyes flutter shut with the release of a slow, deep breath, and she lets the presence of his hand in hers bring her back to earth.
JJ asks into the darkness, "Can I take you out on a real date?" After a beat of silence, the comforting sound of his voice returns to her. "Not that this isn't fun, but I think you deserve a little more effort than John B's living room floor."
A short-lived chuckle escapes her—a win as far as he's concerned. It's difficult to lure her head from the clouds when she gets this way, and it isn't like he has much experience with calming her during these moments either, but that sounded good to him. It sounded like she wasn't thinking about the increased pace of her heart or the howling wind outside.
He was planning on asking anyway. However fitting of a first night together this was, he wants to take her out for real sometime soon. He doesn't have much money for it, like at all, but they can come up with something special together, even if it's similar to the same shit they usually do together. As long as it's time alone together, they don't necessarily care if it's a perfectly traditional first date.
The tip of his thumb rubs comforting circles onto the back of her hand in the brief time it takes her to respond, stroking the soft skin as if to tell her that everything's okay. It seems to say, I'm right here. Nothing can hurt you. And it might make her crazy, but she believes him. JJ could take her back out into the eye of the hurricane at this very moment and she'd still believe his unspoken promise of not letting her into harm's way.
"Of course," she says, then pauses, and the sound of her sleepy voice hardly reaches his ears when she speaks again, "...I'm sorry I avoided you for the past few days. I was scared to tell you how I felt but I shouldn't have left that morning."
The memory of waking up in his arms is fresh in the forefront of her mind, so much so that she can remember the way his breath felt where it exhaled in warm puffs onto her skin.
In the first few moments of consciousness, it was peaceful.
She laid awake for a minute or two to count his breaths and soak in the comfort of being cuddled up next to him, wishing she could stay there for hours. It wasn't until another moment passed that it clicked with her where she was and what was going on between them recently, and that was what prompted her to slip away from the bed to get ready for her day at work.
It was the second time in a row that she left him in that bed with nothing to wake up to but the cold absence of her body between the sheets he slept under, and he can't deny that it's part of why he holds onto her hand so tightly tonight. Even though she's promised him otherwise, he can't help but think she'll be gone by the time he wakes up. At this point, he's struggling to stay conscious. She can see those pretty eyes drooping more and more by the second, yet the hand holding hers doesn't loosen its grip.
He takes a deep breath and scoots closer to her, keeping his one hand in hers while the other arm drapes itself over her waist, and he can feel her relax into the touch.
"It's okay," he says.
It's easier for him to adjust to so much physical contact when he's the one initiating. He knows that's why she only reached out to hold his hand. If she had it her way, she would've already been cuddling with him as soon as they laid down, but he likes that she gives him the space to initiate it. In the ways it counts the most, she cares about him more than anyone else has.
The touch in itself is his way of accepting her apology. However, truth be told, he already forgave her for it before knowing his love was reciprocated could be a possibility.
Right when she's about to fall asleep, the screen door slamming open and shut with the wind on the back porch makes her whip her head around to look over her shoulder in the direction of the sound. It seems like every time he successfully distracts her from it, the storm finds new ways of reminding her of what's happening outside of the safety of the Chateau.
There's the sound of a barely audible, sharp inhale, then her whispering into the dark room as she looks at the closed door, "I can't believe I went out into that. What the fuck was I thinking?"
It's beginning to close in on her again; the sounds of the storm, the sense of being trapped no matter how safe they truly are, and the rising tidal wave of anxiety that picks up speed the more she tries to will it to stop. This is the part where she tries to relieve it in some way, usually by smoking weed to sleep or going to one of her parents so they can help her through it, but she can't help herself right now.
Debris was being picked and tossed around in the wind like it weighed nothing when she was out there, she could've been knocked into the marsh or struck by a piece of debris.
How could she be so stupid?
Not only could she have hurt herself, she could've hurt JJ knowing that he'd likely follow her out into the storm to bring her back inside, and the thought of him being hurt makes the tension in her chest heavier. Her breathing picks up speed, the anxiety starting to snowball out of control when—
"Hey, look at me," JJ says, reaching up to turn her head to face him, and she damn near crumbles in relief at feeling his hand cup her cheek. It doesn't make it all disappear, but it provides a momentary comfort that she doesn't take for granted. "You're safe here. You know damn well I'll do anything to protect you. I mean, shit, dude, if I have to go out there and tell that rain to fuck off, I will."
This draws out a laugh from her, chest stuttering with the happy sound through the tears glistening in her eyes, and he never wants to stop hearing it. His thumb swipes away the first teardrop that falls before it can slip over the apples of her cheeks.
I'm
Her quiet cries and shaky breaths continue for a while after the laughter disappears. For a second or two, he watches with his thumb still wiping her tears away and hopes that it'll be enough to comfort her, but it can't do it completely.
He pulls away from her to get up from the bed with an idea popping into his mind, but upon hearing her whine at the loss of contact with him, he pauses to say, "I'll be back quick, don't worry."
The remaining humorous side of her left wonders if he's actually gonna go tell the rain to fuck off, but he's just opening the bedroom door to trot out into the living room.
A candle burning on the coffee table illuminates the space for him, guiding him straight to the forgotten backpack she left slumped against the arm of the couch hours before their relationship was changed for the better. It takes him an instant to get there and back with the bag in hand, and he's digging through it for a second before climbing back into bed with her.
If anyone else rifled through her bag, sifted through her personal belongings, and dug her phone out of it, she'd probably be annoyed, but she never is with him. She's inherently protective of her things, but JJ can do whatever he wants and it has always been that way. It should've been the first warning of what was to come.
He pulls the sheet back over his body and scoots up close to her, trying to resist the urge to retreat at first when he maneuvers her to lay with her head on his shoulder. It should trigger the flight or fight response that often alarms in his head, but he's able to push it away.
She's so vulnerable right now, so gentle and in need of the warmth of another person that he isn't as intimidated. It's not that she couldn't hurt him if she wanted to right now, she could, but he knows her. He knows that the last thing she'd ever want to do is hurt him, so he has to remind himself of that and give himself the permission to enjoy the physical intimacy of her touch. The part of him that questions if he even deserves it can't reach him now, not when he's so focused on her.
"Thumb?" he asks with the phone held out expectantly.
The screen is less than two inches from her face, so she has to push it back slightly, but she flattens her thumb to the button without further hesitation.
When he unwraps the pair of headphones from around the palm of his hand and plugs them into the charging port, she realizes why he left in the first place.
When she was facing away from him, eyes shut and headphones in to distract herself with music earlier, he was stealing glances at her every so often. He tried to keep away from her for the most part. It was difficult though, especially knowing what she said about being jealous the night of the party and knowing how scared she was of the hurricane. He couldn't help but keep an eye on her, for both his own selfish needs and his worry for her.
He keeps an arm tucked around her, pressing her body into his while he pops one of the headphones into her ear and the other into his. The thing is, her eyes aren't trained on the screen like his are once he starts looking through her vast collection of not-so-legally acquired music for a song that suits both of their tastes, they're trained on him.
Their taste in music tends to diverge in certain ways and overlap in others, so there's always a fifty/fifty shot of him liking what she plays when she's the one picking the music. That is why he smiles to himself and halts the endless scrolling in its tracks to hover his thumb over one song.
He obviously heard it before she played it that one time, but it's different for him now. They were riding together in the backseat of the Twinkie on the way to the beach with John B, Kie, and Pope when they let her take her turn to play a song.
That's how it is with them, the driver goes first, then it goes to the front seat passenger, and so on and so on until they make their way back to the beginning of the rotation. It was her turn when she picked this song, and it could've been the song, or the sunset shining through the window, but he felt as though his heart exploded when he looked at her in the middle of it.
He remembers feeling confused, confused as to why he couldn't catch his breath and why he suddenly adored the song he only heard casually a couple of times.
It was her. It was everything about her. The soft hum of her voice murmuring the lyrics, too shy to actually sing them in the presence of anyone else, was too delicate for the others to appreciate over the sounds of the van. He heard it though. He clung to it and admired her, so unashamed in his staring that he didn't realize he was doing it. It wasn't until she noticed that he stopped.
"Do I still have ice cream on my face or something?"
Her fingers came up to wipe at the corner over her mouth, and the action sent him turning his attention away quicker than he knew he could move, pulling the lighter out of his pocket to fiddle with as he mumbled, "Yeah, but you got it off now."
The cheery melody of Just Like Heaven bursts out of each headphone into their ears.
How did he know? How is he constantly reading her mind without realizing it?
This was her first song on the couch that she couldn't stand to sit through without thinking, naturally, of him when confronted with the topic of love. Somehow, it's like he knew that, and instead of feeling exposed and scared he'll know her feelings like before, she feels loved.
She is never skipping this song again.
"Go to sleep," he murmurs, clicking the screen off and resting it on his stomach.
It takes him a short thirty seconds to fall into an easy, calm pattern of breathing that tells her he isn't asleep, but soon will be. But she's fighting her sleepiness to continue looking at him. His eyes are fluttered shut, hair messy on the pillow, and she'd want to reach up to kiss him if he weren't trying to fall asleep.
Instead, she settles for matching her quickened breaths to the slow rise and fall of his chest beneath her hand and shuts her eyes along with him.
By the time the song reaches its end, she thinks he's asleep, but she still whispers, "Thank you," and feels his arm squeeze around her body in response.
The next songs fade into white noise at this point for her, drowning out the storm to the point where she begins to forget it's happening out there.
Maybe they can be each other's safe place when things get rough. After all, he handled this wonderfully considering his lack of experience with her anxiety and she never pushes him on his plethora of unsorted issues, even when she wants so badly to be the one to initiate the touch.
She never makes him think she pities him, or wants to "fix" him like so many partners with savior complexes who will never try to understand how it feels often do in these situations. With each other, maybe it doesn't have to be so complicated anymore, even when they have those inevitable arguments here or there.
The last thing he does before allowing himself to be dragged under is brush his lips on her forehead in a tender kiss. And when he eventually wakes to the rising sun shining through the windows in the aftermath of the violent hurricane, she's still there.
Tag List: @jjjmaybank, @its-simply-fanfiction, @naughtydild0swaggins.
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Crashed Dates (Day 2: Scarecrow)
Marinette grins at her boyfriend, swinging their intertwined hands back and forth as they walk around the pumpkin farm. It was so nice, finally being able to go on cute dates like this. They’d first started dating while he was in Paris on business, around a year ago. Sure, he’d made trips to Paris and she’d made a few to Metropolis, but it was different now that she had moved to Gotham. Now they were able to go on random, unplanned dates, instead of dates that had been planned for weeks. He was definitely worried when she first told him she was moving to Gotham, but she had reassured him that it would be fine. (Not that she had a choice in the matter, Tikki had informed her on her last trip to Metropolis that Gotham was sick, that it was calling out for help and that as the Guardian, it was her job to help it). Gotham was….interesting, but she’d settled in just fine in the two weeks she’d been there.
And so, when he had called her out of the blue to tell her he found a place he thought she’d love, she made sure she had enough layers and jumped at the chance for a day with him. So far, the day had been absolutely perfect. They’d drank hot apple cider, ate warm donuts, taken a trip around the farm on the hayride- everything was great. But for some reason, her amazingly stubborn boyfriend didn’t want to go into the corn maze.
“Please! You’ll be my favorite person in the whole world.” She begs again, her grin quickly switching into a pout. She keeps pouting, leaning against his arm, until he sighs.
“Fine, we can do the maze.” He says and she cheers, standing on her toes and tugging him down slightly to give him a quick kiss.
“You are the best!” She says, over enunciating every word. He just grins, giving her another soft kiss.
“If we get lost, I’m calling the Demon Spawn to come get us out. Pretty sure he has a tracker on my phone.” Jason says, letting her tug him along towards the maze. She just rolls her eyes, grinning.
“You know you’re secretly touched that he cares enough to track you.” She teases as they near the entrance of the maze.
“Yeah, yeah.” He grumbles, glaring at the scarecrow situated at the entrance of the maze. Marinette raises an eyebrow.
“You have a problem with men made of straw?” She asks, legitimately confused by his reaction.
“Geeze M, I knew you were new to Gotham but I forget how new.” He says, pulling her closer. She melts into him, still confused by his reaction, but happy to be close. As they walk through the maze, frustratingly running into deadends, Jason explains Scarecrow. Marinette decides that he’s number two on the list of villains she never wants to meet. Joker is number one. (Joker is also number one on the list of villains she wants to meet, but that’s because she’s always wondered what it would look like to cataclysm a psychotic clown). She’s just about to suggest they call Damian and utilize the tracker that was, undoubtedly on Jason’s phone, when the screaming begins.
“There isn’t a haunted house here, is there.” Marinette says, her face pale. She wasn’t ready to be a hero again. She’d only defeated Hawkmoth a year ago. Just before meeting Jason. She didn’t want that part of her life again, not now.
“No, no there’s not.” Jason says, eyes glancing around wildly. Marinette’s heart breaks at the panic on his face. She knew that, despite his tough guy appearance, he struggled. A lot. He had nightmares, constantly, mostly of the time Joker had kidnapped him (hence the whole, cataclysm Joker thing). Pushing down her own fear and doubt, she tightens her grip on his hand and squares her shoulders.
“Come on.” She instructs, tugging him behind her as she darts through the maze, determined to get out. She stumbles over a rock and lets go of Jason’s hand in time for her to fall into a larger clearing. She curses as she falls, her palms stinging.
“What have we here?” A voice says. Marinette sits up, staring up at a man in a scarecrow costume and suddenly, Jason’s fear, or rather, dislike, of scarecrows makes more sense. So much more sense. She glances around and lets out a sigh of relief. She’d let go of Jason quick enough. He wasn’t caught up in this. Hopefully, he could call his father. She wasn’t sure if the rumors about Bruce Wayne and Batman dating were true, but Batman was always quick to interfere if it was a Wayne or Wayne adjacent involved.
“A girl who’s a little pissed that you crashed her date.” She retorts, standing up and brushing her stinging palms off on her jeans. She’d have to get the blood out later, which would be a pain. Better than having the blood on her palms mix with the dirt that also now covered her hands.
“You’re either very brave or very stupid, little girl. Let’s see how you deal with my newest strain of fear toxin.” He says, and she lunges towards the man, not willing to go down without a fight. Almost immediately, a sharp pinch on her neck has her stumbling back away from the man as she tries to take in her new surroundings.
She was back in Paris, but it wasn’t the Paris she had left. The city that was healing. Instead this Paris was underwater. Buildings were toppled over, and the moon was in pieces in the sky. She was back there. A place she hadn’t seen in person since she was fourteen, a place that had haunted her nightmares for ten years. She inhales sharply when she sees him. Chat Blanc. But instead of fear, she’s just angry. This isn’t real. It can’t be. Adrien Agreste was Chat Noir. And Adrien was….turning, she realizes that she can almost see him. Out of the corner of her eye, she can almost see Scarecrow, watching her. Waiting for her to react. Anger coursing through her, she charges the man, tackling him all the way to the ground. She pulls back her fist and punches him, repeatedly.
“How dare you! How dare you use his face like that! You son of a bitch!” She screams as she hits, the roaring in her ears blocking out all other sounds. She keeps her focus on feeling the man she’s hitting, because the second she lets her focus wander, she gets sucked into her surroundings again. The way the sky just looks wrong. The odd haze over everything. And now, the corpses floating in the water closest to her. Adrien. Maman. Papa. She’s not scared, she’s pissed. Sure, those were her biggest fears and that’s definitely why she was seeing them all like that, but she’d already seen it. She’s lived it. They were gone, not coming back. And she sure as hell wasn’t going to fall down and break about it. Not when some asshole with fear toxin was running around randomly injecting people. Suddenly, something is wrapped around her and she’s pulled up. She kicks frantically, trying to get out of the steel grip she’s trapped in. She had to- what did she have to do? Another sharp pinch in her neck makes her eyes droop sleepily. She struggles again, barely able to hear the voice calling her name as she succumbs to the darkness.
---
Jason Todd feels like a major prick. He watched his girlfriend trip and instead of helping her up, he uses it as a distraction to try and call B. How the fuck was he supposed to know she tripped right into the Scarecrow? He’s cursing himself mentally as he rushes towards the ambulance. Replacement had texted him.
Marinette was injected. At ambulances near front of farm
And Jason felt like shit. She’d never forgive him, not that he deserved it. He’d left her with one of Gotham’s biggest villains. His heart sinks when he sees the blood on her, and the oxygen mask attached to her face. Fuck. He’s almost to her, when one of the asshole cops stops him.
“Excuse me, sir, you can’t go over there.” He says and Jason scowls.
“Like hell I can’t. She’s my girlfriend, let me through.” He says, and the man shakes his head.
“Family only.” He states. Jason’s about to argue, when a hand lands on his shoulder.
“I still need to get a statement from Mr. Todd, if you’ll excuse us.” Replacement says, leading him away from the cop.
“I left her.” He says, the second they’re far enough away. Tim frowns.
“What do you-”
“I mean, I left her. She tripped and instead of checking on her, I was a complete and total asshole and left her so I could call B to get his ass over here and solve the goddamn problem.” Jason says, feeling like even more of an asshole now that he’s said it out loud.
“Did you see Scarecrow?” Replacement asks. Jason scoffs.
“Of course not! You really think I would’ve left if I had?” He asks with a glare.
“No, I don’t. So stop blaming yourself. I literally peeled her off of Scarecrow, she was beating the crap out of him. She’s gonna be tired and scared and confused when she wakes up. Just be there-”
“Jason!” Her terrified voice echoes out and Jason turns, sprinting for the cot he’d seen her on a minute ago. She had ripped the oxygen mask off her face and was looking around while arguing with the paramedic.
“Ma’am please-”
“Marinette!” Jason calls, and her face relaxes as she leaps off the cot and launches herself into his arms. He holds her as she shakes, sobs wracking her body.
“I saw them.” She mumbles once she calms down a little. He frowns.
“Saw who?” He asks.
“My parents. Adrien. Their bodies.” She says, and suddenly, Jason has another name to add to his kill list. Being a complete asshole to all of Gotham, sure. Making his girlfriend see the bodies of those she’d lost? Nope. Now the bastard better hope he didn’t meet Red Hood in an alley.
“God, Mari, I am so sorry. I’m so sorry I left.” He apologizes, his heart aching when she pushes him away. She frowns up at him and he winces, certain she’s about to break up with him.
“Left?” She asks and he nods.
“When you tripped, I swear, I didn’t know Scarecrow was there.” He says.
“But you got Batman here.” She says and he jerks back. How the hell had she figured it out? When did she- “I know Bruce said he isn’t dating Batman, but honestly, I think he’s just in denial.” She adds.
“I- what?”
“Batman always comes when anyone in the Wayne family is in danger. Like, so quickly. And I know that Bruce says it’s just a bunch of rumors, like the whole ‘the butts match’ thing? But I also think that Batman is head over heels for Bruce, and your dad is just kinda clueless.” She rambles. Jason just laughs before pulling her into a deep kiss. She was okay. They were okay. He pulls back and grins at her, until he notices the blood again.
“Shit, that’s a lot of blood.” He says, taking her hand in his to try and find the source. He glances at her face and raises an eyebrow at the blush that had taken over her face.
“Oh, um, it’s not mine.” She mumbles.
“Then who-”
“Apparently I beat the hell out of Scarecrow. In my defense, that fear toxin sucked. And I was kinda pissed.” She says, frowning down at the blood on her hands. Jason takes one of his hands and gently tilts her chin up so that she’s looking at him again. He grins at her, giving her a short, soft kiss before pulling back.
“I love you.” He says, and if the kiss she gave him in return meant anything, she felt the same way.
Next
Permanent tag list (open): @maribat-october-rarepairs @stainedglassm @kittenmywaythrulife @laydeekrayzee @doll246 @queenz-z @deathssilentapproach-blog @literaryhiraeth
#maribat#maribat fanfiction#maribathalloween21#maribat jason todd#jasonette#maribat marinette dupain cheng#marinette ships bruce and batman#i dont make the rules#major character death#mentioned character death#maribat oneshot
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Wouldn’t Change A Thing
Pairing: Riven x reader
Requests: The reader is sarcastic and fiesty and they have constantly arguments but are really into each other. Anonymous
And
The reader is the only one of her kind so she's automatically an outcast and on top of that she's a dark fairy, like she can control anything to do with shadows and darkness so like the complete opposite of Stella's powers and then Riven like becomes friends with her and it becomes something more than friends. Anonymous
Tagging: @bitchwhytho @music-of-melody @grey-girl @intoanothermind
A/N I wasn’t sure if you meant dark fairy as like evil magic or dark fairy as just her powers being focused on the dark but I did a little mix, so I hope you like it!
Look down. It’s the first thing you learn at Alfea to avoid the pointing fingers and mean looks. You tried talking back to them but when you’re one against a hundred the odds aren’t really in your favour no matter how badly you want to throw punches. Being a dark fairy meant being considered evil and bad but you just thought of the dark magic as a different kind of magic. You weren’t going around killing people or actively making life miserable for others, you just allowed your magic to be fuelled by something other than positive feelings and in turn you could control darkness. You could play with shadows and darkness creating illusions and conceal the light. Farah had let you attend Alfea in the hopes of turning your magic around but you were born with this magic. Everywhere you looked someone wanted you to be different. The only reason you attended Alfea was to learn control of your powers and be able to harness it better. The same laws of magic applied to yours even if the lessons focused on positive feelings.
“Hey.” You look up against your better judgement to spot Riven watching you. The one specialist not bound by honour and a crucial need to do the right thing. He was the one person in this entire school who didn’t seem afraid of you despite having seen your powers in full scale. He’d volunteered to be your partner for the training program and ever since that day you’d practically been attached by the hip. You’d be lying if you said that you didn’t fancy him but he literally drove you crazy most of the time. He always had some snarky comment ready to piss you off and in truth, you knew he enjoyed it. He liked seeing you all riled up. It’s the very same reason you do it to him. He’s so easy to toy with and get upset, it’s almost too easy.
“Didn’t think I’d see you today. Aren’t the specialists doing some sort of mission on the forest?” You put air quotes around mission knowing it’ll tick him off just slightly.
“All I’ve said was hey and you’re already being an absolute asswipe.”
“Don’t call me an asswipe, you dickhead.” He scoffs ready for a comeback when you start laughing. How have you been together for two minutes and you’re already at each other’s throat. And this isn’t even as bad as it can get for the two of you.
“I brought you food,” he says clearly still in a mood. You grab the sandwich from him with a smile.
“You know you can be sweet,” you say hoping it’ll distract him from acting like a sourpuss for the rest of the afternoon. He narrows his eyes looking your way but decides to drop it. Instead he signals for you to follow him out on the field. It’s weird seeing it completely empty but all the fairies are in the hall eating and the specialists are out in the forest which allows a little bit of privacy for the two of you.
“So, why aren’t you with the others?” You take a bite watching for any indication that he’s not ready to talk about it. You don’t want to push him or make him feel worse. You know he worries about these things even if he’ll never admit to it.
“I got caught smoking in the forest. Silva told me to stay behind and think about my actions.” You know he’s an avid user of euphoric drugs and alcohol but it’s gotten worse lately and it worries you.
“Have you then? Thought about your actions.” There it is. The twitch in his brow telling you that he’s reaching his breaking point of being calm to getting angry. Just a slight puff of air could push him over the edge.
“I’ve passed all my exams so far. What does it matter if I like to smoke a little joint once in a while?” he shrugs trying to sound carefree but you know him better than that. He doesn’t want Silva or Sky to be disappointed in him but lately, it seems like that’s all they’ve been. You get it. The fear of disappointing someone you look up to and deciding to fuck things up yourself so that it’s on your terms.
“It doesn’t. Except it isn’t just once a while anymore. It’s every day.”
“And what’s it to you, huh? Since when do you decide what I can and can’t do?”
“That’s not what I’m trying to do, Riven,” you say getting annoyed by his poor attitude. You can’t help how they feel. All you can do is offer insight and try to make him see where they’re coming from. They want what’s best for him and perhaps they go about it in a misguided way but it’s only because they care.
“You’re not my girlfriend. You can stop acting like it.” He’s trying to hurt you and it’s working. You’re very aware of the fact that you’re not his girlfriend and right now you don’t want to be. When you get up to leave, he grabs hold of your wrist.
“Where are you going?”
“To my room. I’m sure the four walls are better company than you are right now.” You try to shake free but he’s got a strong grip. You don’t want to use your powers to make him let go but you also just really want him to let go.
“I’m sorry. I’m taking it out on you and that’s not fair.” Some of the anger evaporates but the comment about not being his girlfriend still stings.
“I don’t want you to change. I just wanted to offer their perspective. You’re wasting away a lot your youth on that stuff.” You return to your seat next to him well aware that you weren’t actually going to leave but the threat seemed to clear his mind.
“I’m sorry for what I said about you not being my girlfriend.”
“You’re right, I’m not.” You shrug trying to act unfazed but Riven doesn’t buy it.
“I really am sorry.” He puts his arm around you letting you lean your head on his shoulder. It’s almost peaceful to sit here watching the sun go down.
“What if I wanted to be your girlfriend?” You say it so casually you’re even shocked yourself. It sounded like you just told him that you wanted to get cereal for breakfast. Why you even said it baffles you but it’s out now. You’re tired of pretending he’s not the one you want. You don’t see yourself with anyone else and you’d rather have him screaming at you for being his annoying girlfriend than his annoying friend.
“What?”
“You heard me.” He visibly swallows and it’s clear that he didn’t expect you to say it.
“Okay.” This time you’re the one turning into a stuttering mess. Did he just say yes?
“What?”
“You heard him,” he smirks repeating you from previously. Did you just become his girlfriend? In a sense it’s perfect. You’re not into all the drama and romantic gestures. This moment right here is the perfect moment for you and Riven.
“Well, girlfriend. I have a proposition for you then,” he smiles and right now you’d agree to pretty much anything he says. You’re still not over how casually you and Riven just became a thing and at the same time being very happy about it.
“What proposition?” you ask feeling slightly suspicious considering that this is Riven we’re talking about.
“How about for every time I want a blunt, I’ll come find you and kiss you instead?” His words make you blush and you’re horrified by how much of a silly, little teenager those words turn you into.
“I’d like that.”
“I have to warn you though. It might happen quite often.” He leans in to kiss you.
#winx riven#riven blurb#riven gif#riven imagine#riven x reader#riven#fate the winx saga#fate the winx club#fate winx club#winx saga#winx club#fate winx#fate
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