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#i did this last year and it was a lot more similar to the actually lofi girl thing
breedtheseed · 2 days
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Adam is charlie mom, oh that would be a good angst idea
For example, maybe before heaven found out, adam had a baby. For the first couple of days, adam would spend every waking meal with charlie. Like singing her to sleep
Years later at the hotel at
Adam humming a song on the outside balcony
Charlie: Hey adam
Adam: charlie what are you doing up?
Charlie: couldn't sleep
Adam: oh okay
1 hour later they both still awake
Adam thinks I haven't done this in a while, but I remember correctly . She fell asleep in minutes: Hey Charlie, you want me to do a tick for you to go to bed
Charlie: sure
Adam started to hum and sing a bit in minutes, charlie fell asleep
Adam: still works like a charm
This AU hurts my soul and I was writing it with someone in a server so some of these parts are theirs and some are mine. Also I just copied and pasted the texts so it’s gonna have some grammar mistakes on my end. (Their Twitter)
Discord idea
(Adam is Charlie’s real mother)
So running on the idea that Lucifer and Adam used to hook up a lot at the beginning of Adam joining heaven eventually they had a hard falling out when Adam found out Lilith and Lucifer were getting married and chose Lilith over him once again.
But Adam found out he was pregnant he hid the pregnancy with eating more and hiding his body.
When he had the baby he was completely alone and if Heaven found out it was Lucifer’s who knows what they’d do, especially because the baby looked just like Lucifer.
He swallowed his pride and gave his baby girl one last kiss before leaving her at Lucifer’s castle to which Lucifer adopted Charlie immediately, especially since Lilith liked the idea of kids but not the idea of having them, part of the reason her and Adam didn’t work out.
So with this AU Adam still falls in a similar way but instead he falls because of Lilith back stabbing him and stuff
And Charlie hates Adam because Adam lead the exterminations
And Adam is just in pain because his kid hates him and he can’t even talk without her looking at him like he’s a monster
When he first saw Charlie the air caught in his throat because his baby girl was all grown up, she looked just like Lucifer. Poor Adam having to deal with the idea that Charlie grew up without him and doesn’t see him as anything more than just Adam the Man in charge of the exterminations
Wondering if Lucifer knows. He couldn't NOT know, Charlie looks EXACTLY like him, and who else would be the mother? Unless Lucifer was fucking around with others too, which only depresses Adam worse.
(Me)
Poor Adam knowing deep down no one wants him but little did he know Adam realized Charlie was Adam’s but it was only after Lilith had pointed out how similar Lucifer and Charlie were despite “not being related”
Just...he had no way of bringing it up without it being awkward
And especially because Adam never acknowledged it too
Adam may have gone to that last Extermination drink off his ass just to get through it. Getting lost in the role he had to play. He wasn't actually going to kill Charlie, but he had to pretend. He's always had to pretend.
He especially had to pretend to Heaven
And when Lucifer showed up...instead of just ending it, Lucifer mocked him all over again. Fine. *FINE*. Adam wouldn't even ENTERTAIN the notion of talking it out. Just go scorched earth on this bitch, he was DONE
Just having so much pent up anger that he lets everything happen because he couldn’t man up and say something sooner
And then he was stabbed. Like 26 times, Great. Now he's dying. And no one will know the truth.
Sobbing not cuz he’s dying but because he died lying to everyone, *Sigh* 😔 I know it makes sense to kill him but imagine Lucifer saves him
Now he's alive. But practically a prisoner. Fuck, he might as well have kicked it
Being numb to everything and just accepting his fate as a loser
Even when Lucifer shows him the door opens. It's unlocked. He can come out.
He doesn’t even try just stays where he is holding his arm feeling like shit and Lucifer has to coax Adam. Only then does Adam follow Lucifer but still keeps his distance behind the king
Adam keeping his distance. Last time he got near, Lucifer beat the shit out of him and would have finished him off if not for Charlie
Imagine Lucifer was angry because Adam had the audacity to abandon Charlie and then almost kill her, not knowing Adam was drunk and at the time Charlie reminded him of Lucifer. The one who knocked him up and got away
Adam definitely not welcome at the Hotel so he's stuck at Lucifer's palace. His bedroom might be open but he's locked in when Lucifer is gone. Which gives him ample time to raid Lucifer's bar and get drunk enough to forget how every time he hits rock bottom, life keeps handing him a pickaxe
The first time Lucifer had come home to a very drunk Adam asleep on his bed he was annoyed especially because Adam smelled like too much alcohol.
however one day he had come home the usual, Adam drunk and laying on his bed. Lucifer sighed and walked to his closet only to hear Adam start sobbing and mumbling something that sounded like an apology.
It left an uneasy feeling on Lucifer not knowing if it was the alcohol talking or Adam was actually apologizing, he found out when he saw the man dead asleep with streams running down his face.
In his sleep, Adam had his arms curled like he's holding something
Whimpering and a cry woke him up, Adam’s eyes snapped towards the sound but the room was empty there was no one in his room and no traces of the cry actually being there.
The sound was unforgettable, he heard it in his nightmares or in his dreams. It was Charlie’s, he engraved it in his mind when she was born and he had to shield them in his wings as he held her close and cleaned her off. He remembers how small she was in his arms, how the girls pipes were the same as his other children.
Adam winced at the migraine he had, his skull was throbbing. He must have gotten back into Lucifer’s stash again. Though Lucifer never really seemed mad when Adam would go on his drinking sessions when he was away
Which was good. He wasn't going to stop. He just avoided Lucifer when he could, didn't mess anything up, and resigned himself to being the ghost that haunts the place halls. Because that's what he was. A ghost. Avoiding the north wing because that's where the big fuckoff portrait of Lilith and Lucifer were. He could spend hours glaring at it, remembering how Lucifer said he was marrying Lilith after all this time, and then just days later finding out he was pregnant.
Sometimes he’d debate fucking the picture up or he’d end up curled under it crying, it was best to just avoid it as much as possible.
At some point Adam found Lucifer’s Alcohol storage empty, and he panicked because without it he felt he couldn’t function. He couldn’t even be near Lucifer or even in the castle being sober. There was too much too much Charlie and too much Lucifer. How could he avoid it or even confront it without breaking down.
“Adam that’s enough,” Adam froze as he was throwing things around trying to look for something anything that could take his thoughts away from Lucifer. “Adam this is just sad, you can’t keep running away from me,” Lucifer stepped close too close and Adam found himself trying to get away from Lucifer despite being in a corner. “Adam I told Charlie about your behavior and she’d like to help you in your recovery,” Lucifer’s words weren’t registering in Adam’s head, he was only hearing bits and pieces.
He shakes his head, covering his ears with his hands. His head was pounding and he needed a hair of the dog before the migraine really kicked in. He couldn't process Lucifer, he DEFINITELY couldn't process Charlie.
Despite Adam’s protests he was dragged to see Charlie, and he was fucking sober. He hated it.
Charlie wasn’t too pleased about it either but from what her dad was telling her, maybe Adam wasn’t as bad as she originally thought. Especially after seeing him in person, he looked horrible and Charlie was sure that her dad was the one who dressed him because he did not look capable of doing so. Adam looked his age despite also looking young, he had lost weight in his face making him look like death. The guys hair looked like it hadn’t been washed in weeks maybe even months, Charlie actually felt sorry for the guy.
Adam on the other hand was out of it, his mind choosing to disassociate and go on autopilot which didn’t last long because Lucifer kept bringing him back.
Husk immediately recognized the issue, making up a bloody mary despite Charlie's protests and giving it to Adam. "Look, I've seen the different levels of alcoholism, and if this fucker wasn't an angel, he'd be dead already. He needs to come down gradually, not cold turkey!"
Husk gives Lucifer a look of disappointment before giving Adam the drink, though Adam looks to the other two before drinking. Waiting for their approval before drinking it.
“Look Adam you can join me instead, but I ain’t going to talk about my feelings with you got it,” Husk made clear as they made their way to the bar. Charlie feeling guilty for telling her father to get rid of all the alcohol
Husk being careful to give Adam mixers, preferably with real fruit muddles or puree
As the sessions continue Adam started to associate a little more managing to make conversation with husk and angel, them both managing to find common ground despite not knowing what’s actually going on in his head.
They were both like small anchors that kept Adam from drifting off into his thoughts, eventually Angel managed to convince Adam to join a session of Charlie’s friendship exercises. It was a simple one or at least Charlie thought it was, it was to have everyone say one good thing about everyone.
Adam was doing good, even managing to compliment Alastors cooking. However when he got to Charlie suddenly Adam started to back track, he tried to skip her but her and Lucifer were the only two.
The panic sets in. He had SO many good things to say about Charlie, but every one of them sounded like poison coming from his mouth.
He wanted to tell her how proud he was how she grew into a wonderful person, but he couldn’t, he didn’t deserve to. He abandoned her his baby she deserved to hate him he didn’t deserve this.
Charlie started to panic now, this wasn’t supposed to happen like this. If it wasn’t for angel dust getting Adam to focus on him and to give him another compliment she was sure Adam would have had a full blown panic attack.
The fact that Adam would panic when it came to her or her dad made her think it had something to do with the exterminations but she scratched that when she say Adam and Vaggie talking about music together. There was something going on.
Lucifer too thought the same as Charlie, neither of them knowing the first man as well as they thought
Adam just leaves the room after that. He can't do this. He gets another drink and just sits in the corner waiting to go home
Angel dust followed behind him, husk had given angel a couple of bottles of booze. He hoped it would help.
Adam had become accustomed to going to Angels room for some comfort it helped that fat nugget was a sweetie. And despite Adam it felt nice to hold the little pig and just imagine he was back in heaven, with Charlie before he had to give her up.
“So do you wanna talk about it?” Angel asked softly as Adam sat on the floor so fat nugget could crawl into his lap.
“If I do it’s cuz I’m not sober,” Adam sighed out and Angel waved a bottle in front of him
“That can be arranged”
Lucifer and Charlie had a pit growing in their stomachs Adam had been in hell for about a year and still wasn’t on talking terms with them aside from small talk every so often.
A part of Lucifer wanted to get closer to Adam, it had started after he heard Adam apologizing in his sleep. It had reminded him of when he fell with Lilith and how for years he would mumble apologizing to her whether he was asleep or awake. It took a long time for him to get out of that mindset and if he was being honest, the visits he and Adam made really helped. Though Lucifer knew better, he knew those moments between him and the first man were only driven by lust and nothing more. Or at least he thought that, it wasn’t until he was actually married to Lilith did it all come together, him and her they were perfect. Their relationship was amazing up until Charlie arrived on their doorstep, it was like a switch for Lilith. The woman had begun taking care of the girl though it wasn’t as motherly as Lucifer hoped. Maybe because Charlie wasn’t hers, or maybe because she just like Lucifer realized who’s baby the girl really was.
Lucifer knew Charlie was Adam’s, he hadn’t slept with anyone other than Adam and Lilith. It wasn’t like Eve to just leave a baby so it had to have been Adam’s, at first Lucifer was angry with the idea. However those thoughts were starting to shift now that he was living with Adam
Angel was at a lose for words as Adam was in a drunken fit, the man was going through all the emotions
“It was the first time since I entered heaven that I actually felt happy,” Adam gave a shaky smile as he looked at the bottle of alcohol “it fucking broke me to leave her here,” Adam sobbed again, “looking at her now all I want to do is tell her how proud I am,” he bit his lip “but in reality I should be fucking dead, I am horrible I don’t even deserve to live with Lucifer,”
Angel pulled Adam into a hug and just let Adam sob for a good while until Lucifer came to get him. However angel wasn’t about to just let Adam go with the king in fact Angel felt the need to say something or at least give the dumbass a hint. Since whatever Adam was doing was definitely not working for anyone
That’s what we had and honestly idk what to add lol 😂 sorry for the sudden dump
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medicinemane · 21 days
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And maybe you'll be like "but if you don't trust businesses, how can you trust welfare?"
I fucking don't. My mom trying to get on food stamps fucked me up because a lady I never met without my permission got my SSN from my mom and started editing my files. My heart still races to this very second whenever I think about it, it kinda messed me up bad and I'll never ever ever see any kind of recourse
And I'm terrified that I'm gonna lose my medicaid just cause I inherited some money from my grandpa
And I've never even applied for disability cause it kinda doesn't matter finding out if I'd qualify or not cause of my depression, when the rules are so restrictive I don't know if I've even be allowed to keep my house
I do not fucking trust these things on a personal level. I feel like out of a lot of people I have the most to fear from them cause I'm on the edge of having things work, and that gets you punished
...but I need medicaid in order to have insurance (and when you strip out the finance side of medicaid, I love medicaid... they're honestly incredible insurance... I just... I just... dental is like 90% of why medicaid is so important to me, ever since I found out this state pays for it I've actually been able to do cleanings which is important to me cause I can't always get myself to brush)
And I think things like disability and food stamps are pretty damn important on a personal level, and honestly are also good for the economy cause they get people spending... it's practically a free cash infusion into the economy, cause these are people who need to buy stuff
There's just so much important stuff welfare does that it's worth dealing with government
No, what I want is more accountability so if someone gets my SSN from a 3rd party like my mom they're held to HIPPA styles standards where that's not ok to access my files without my permission (She changed my fucking address and tried to get medicaid to investigate me for fraud! Never even met me)
Like have some accountability there and in every situation
Secondly I want less punitive focused rules. I'd frankly prefer bezos get on disability than smack down some poor sod cause they got $2000 in the bank or cause their friend lets them live with them for free
If there's gonna be a cut off on these programs, it needs to be a solid step above the poverty line, cause... by definition I assume poverty line denotes kinda the minimum expected income people can reasonably live off of, and if you take away benefits people are gonna lose a chunk of money to covering that stuff themself, so you need a buffer before you kick people off
I don't fucking trust the government for a second, I've actively been fucked by them and on a personal level I avoid everything but medicaid and only that cause everything but the money is pleasant to deal with and I kinda need it (honestly if I was rich I'm not even kidding that I'd rather give medicaid like $400 a month than some insurance company, I sincerely like them as insurance)
But I'd trust them a lot more if they were less punitive, less out to hunt me down and gut me cause someone handed me a fiver or cause I started to get on my feet, and if government employees had concrete rules they had to follow that were actually transparent and enforced
Like 90% of my problems with welfare go away if they're held accountable and there's less "catch the welfare cheats" mentality going around
I don't trust the government in the slightest, but sadly there some jobs it kinda has to do, so I'd just rather force it to be an open book where the public can keep an eye on it and if they step out of line there's consequences (sort of like I don't trust most mega corps but happen to sometimes need stuff from them... did you know literally every cell service provider has been illegally selling shit like your location data to random people like bounty hunters, and the FCC just slapped them with a fine that's 0.02% of their yearly incomes and debated even doing that? I even can offer a source on that)
...I don't trust much of any authority cause they constantly fail me and kinda screw me. Don't trust doctors either, but I still gotta go to them, you know? ...they're just... they're real bad at listening... so many systems need systemic change
(You know who I really don't trust is the cops. I could point to so many examples. My uncle doesn't trust cops either, and he's an ex Fire and SWAT paramedic, he worked with them and we still got into a long conversation where he basically tore into them far better than I can)
(I don't trust authority that's not accountable)
#anyway; if I'm a lousy cheat or whatever least they can do is give me a gun so I can solve that problem#shit makes me wish I was canadian so I could take advantage of their sick implementation of assisted suicide#what should be a system that gives people a choice about the quality of their life; and I don't think should be relegated to terminal illne#...there was... think he was dutch; had been burned by his girlfriend all over his body; was in constant pain#and he ended up using assisted suicide in the end cause he was just in constant agony... think that's his choice to make#but of course the canadian system concretely pushes people; mostly the poor and disabled; to kill themselves#not theoretically; as in literally says word for word to them 'you should really kill yourself; just sign here'#it's sick; it truly is#but for any americans that want to dunk on it; I'm telling you we're no better#we have the exact same miserable desperation and people (again; mostly poor and disabled) into despair#only difference is we don't offer assisted suicide#the underlying issues in the US and canada are so damn similar; so much of what's happening ends up being the same#you can't act smug just cause you only make people want to die instead of also offering to help#that's like saying that you're the good guy cause while you did everything you could to drive someone to the brink#get them fired; slash their tires; just cartoon level villain stuff to personally harass this person... at least you won't hand them rope#we have such similar systemic issues to canada; and I am explicitly telling you that like the people in canada that have said#'I can't take it anymore; disability doesn't cover my expenses and I can't get any help... I'm at my wits end so I'm gonna go die'#I'm telling you that I feel that same way; just without any eugenics agency I can call up#I'm really working to get things stable; but it feels like I'm teetering on the edge of falling into permanent failure#and... and I'll actually tell you the amount even though I don't like to mention money... makes me feel guilty#my gramps left me $27k; which sounds like a lot; but I got 20 windows that need redoing (house has a lot of windows)#...if they ended up being 1k each; that's most of the money gone; if they end up being more...#and I got a whole lotta other stuff I've been putting off like plumbing around here; need to replace that faucet#it's an amount of money that helps; but it's an amount of money that isn't gonna last#...that's like a year of bills; and my mom already needs me to pay like $400 to the propane bill since she got behind#I want to use it to... to try and really get my feet on the ground; but it might loose me my insurance... it makes me want to die#and not to be a selfish bastard; but if I could I'd like to try and take and invest a bit to maybe build some passive income#given that... that a job never seems to work out for me cause I fucking suck and cause like... my insomnia has me up at 5:30 am right now#mm tag so i can find things later
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astrxealis · 1 year
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my ocs..... i love you
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marveladewithice-blog · 11 months
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happy day four and fourth of july for my fellow americans
today i have become a lofi girl, watching spiderman whilst fireworks go off into the late, late night on this lovely American holiday yes yes
but yes do have a lovely day whatever it is you plan to do, I shall see you on the next yes okay byeeeee <3
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helenanell · 26 days
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A Breath of Life || Challengers
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Part Two
Pairing(s) : Reader x Patrick – Reader x Art – Reader x Tashi (sort of.) 
CW: MDNI - 18+ : smut, rough / manhandling. Infidelity. Angst. A lot of yearning. (They all want each other, badly.) Manipulative behaviour. Minor spoilers for the film.
Notes: Female Reader (AFAB Reader) - Absolutely no use of y/n, (because I despise it, sorry)
Wordcount: 9.7K
Summary: You met Tashi in your final year of high school and were more than happy to have lost a tennis match against her. Afterwards, the two of you become inseparable and you find yourself feeling for her in a way that you don’t quite understand.And then things get even more complicated when Patrick and Art burst into your lives. As the years pass, desire, love and hatred all get tangled together...and so do the four of you.
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The idea of meeting Tashi Duncan had been much more intimidating than the actual event itself. It was an odd thing, to idolise someone who was the exact same age as you—a girl not yet out of high school and still so chronically unsure of herself and the world—but it was impossible not to. 
You had watched every single match of hers that you could, staring for so long at the way she moved, that you were left with the afterimage of her burned into your eyes: She was in your thoughts constantly and always waiting behind your eyes when you closed them hoping for sleep. 
You were brilliant at tennis, you knew that you were. But Tashi played like it was the only way she could take oxygen into her lungs; each serve and shot an inhalation and exhalation. You understood, because you felt something similar.
For a long time, you had been ignored or dismissed in every aspect of your life, by everyone. But then you had found tennis, and you were really fucking great at it. 
 Tennis saved your life by making you undeniably tangible. Your existence could not be disputed when someone had to react to your movements, to receive something you had offered. 
It was no wonder then, that for as long a match lasted you were unhealthily obsessed with whoever it was that you were playing against. They made you real. 
But then you played Tashi. You had lost, of course, but it had been a close match, neither of you dominating for long before the other gained the upper hand once more. The gasps from the crowd had been the swelling of some great tide, breaking against your flesh and reinvigorating you like freezing water. 
Once it was over, you felt bereft of something vital. You felt as though you had slipped back into non-existence, only this time it was worse than ever, because your connection to Tashi Duncan was gone. 
But your body remembered. It ached and throbbed, rebelling at all you had put it through- no. All Tashi had put it through. You were desperate to feel it again. 
And your prayer was answered. 
She appeared before you like an angel.
Tashi jogged over to you as you gathered your things after the match, flushed and with beads of sweat glistening on her skin like crystals. And her eyes…they had been wide and dark and enrapturing. And then she had said the words that would change the trajectory of your life: 
“So, when can I play you again?”
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Ruah is the Hebrew word that means God’s spirit, but it is also breath or air and is widely understood to be God’s presence in the world. 
You couldn’t remember when you had learnt the word, but you knew that in the Bible, God had created Adam by breathing life into him. Which was why, when anyone joked about Tashi Duncan being some kind of deity, you could not dispute it, because that is what she had done to you. 
Tashi had breathed life into you.
 Her presence in your life has allowed you to come alive even off the court: you finally felt like a real person. Thanks to her, you knew that when you put your racket down, you did not simply disappear. 
Tashi saw you, on and off the court, and you loved her for it.
But, by the time you were both accepted into Stanford, over a year after you’d first met, you still wouldn’t let yourself delve into that love, and work out the ways in which you felt it. Not only because, you’d only ever been drawn to guys in any romantic or sexual way, but also because you felt undeserving of her.
 How pathetic would it be for you, who crawled at your best friend’s feet, to look up and whimper out words of desire to her?
 You were blessed to have her in your life, let alone to be as close with her as you were. Love was so many disparate things; you could love her as a friend, and hold that carnal aspect deep down. Just having her in your life was more than enough. She was enough.
Or so you thought. 
At the party celebrating Tashi, the two of you had not yet left each other’s side. You were dancing together, close enough that you could feel the ecstasy of victory buzzing beneath her skin as she held your hands and pulled you close. Her hair was silken and flowing down her back and as you were tangled up with her, it tickled against your own exposed skin. 
“They’re still staring.” You whisper into her ear, laughing as she answers by twirling you around and then pulling you back in. 
You practically fall into one another, having to steady yourself by placing your hands on her hips, the beaded fabric of her dark blue dress digging into the palms of your hands. 
“Good.” Tashi answers, wrapping her arms around your shoulders.
She turns you enough that with your chin resting on her shoulder, you are looking right at the two boys who had been gawking all night. One dark haired with confidence coming off him in waves, the other more reserved, a different kind of potency bubbling beneath the surface.
The blonde’s eyes meet yours and he tilts his head, offering a delicate but untethering smile. 
“You’re going to have to talk to them.” You offer, still held in Tashi’s arms. “Otherwise they’re going to follow you around like lost puppies all night.”
You gasp and squirm away as your friend playfully pinches your side.
 “Do you really think they’re just looking at me?” Tashi questions incredulously.
You laugh at her shock. “Of course they are.” You say, gesturing up and down her form as she continues to sway to the music. 
“Oh my God!” Tashi exclaims, grabbing your hand and pulling you close again. “You’re such a fucking idiot! They’re looking at you, too!” 
You roll your eyes, but can’t help feeling a little buoyed at the prospect of being desired. “Yeah, right.”
Tashi shakes her head. “It’s a good thing you’re so oblivious, I like having you all to myself!”
Heat floods every part of you, acutely aware of the sweat trickling down the back of your neck, your skin uncomfortably warm. 
Only when the two of you have stopped dancing do they come over. 
Art Donaldson and Patrick Zweig saunter needfully into your life and had you known then all that would ensue, you still would have welcomed their approach. 
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The four of you had wandered down to the beach. 
Art and Patrick were sitting on deck chairs that sat side by side, their legs stretched out and their gazes lustful, both of them looking at Tashi who was perched on a rock opposite them. In that moment, the moon seemed made only for her, the silver light lining her form. 
You sit on the sand near her, your legs pulled up to your chest. The waves softly hit the beach behind you, lulling you into an even more incorporeal mindset. All that exists to you, is Tashi and the two boys who so clearly want her. 
Despite how desperately you want to engage in their conversation, you’re exhausted and distracted by the knowledge that your parents will already be looking for you. 
You’ve rested your chin on your knees, your eyes drooping shut, when a voice calls out to you. 
“Hey, are you okay?”
 Art is crouching beside you, his hand on your back, his knees sinking into the sand, shifting the surface beneath you. You jolt at the contact, scrambling to your feet as Tashi chuckles.
 Patrick’s gaze flits between you and Art and then over to your best friend, his cheeks dimpled with a smirk. 
“I’m fine.” You reassure with a shaky smile, brushing sand off the back of your dress. “I should go though, my parents will be waiting.” 
“You can’t leave!” Patrick protests playfully, placing a hand to his chest. “You’ll break my heart.”
You grin, spurred on by his own smile and shrug. “And why should I care about that?”
Patrick’s mouth drops open in feigned hurt as Art chuckles, shoving his hands into his pockets and stepping away from you. 
You turn to Tashi, meaning to say goodbye, but she’s already up and hugging you. She often kisses your cheek as a form of goodbye, but this time she gets so close that her lips tease the corner of your mouth as hers make contact. You are electrified by it.
You know that she isn’t doing it for you, which is confirmed when she pulls away with her eyes flitting giddily between Art and Patrick who have both gone utterly still as they watched the display. 
 Despite the jealous ache that blooms, you play into it, because another part of you is excited at the thought of working the two boys up. You pull Tashi back into a hug, your hands resting dangerously low on her back as you squeeze her. She giggles into your ear. 
“You already have them wrapped around your little finger.” You say it quietly, but loud enough that you know the boys will hear. 
Over Tashi’s shoulder, you see Patrick smirk again and Art runs his thumb over his his bottom lip with a small smile on his face.
When you do finally pull away, Tashi smacks you on the ass. 
“It was great to meet to you!” Art shouts after you. 
“I miss you already!” Is Patrick’s shouted offering.
You just shake your head and continue on your path away from the beach.
Unbeknownst to you, three sets of eyes follow you until you’ve disappeared from view.
When you get home, you still feel the touch of Tashi all over you. But when your hand dips under the covers, something has changed. Because when you close your eyes, it’s not just Tashi you see. Instead, multiple people are fighting for dominance in your midnight fantasy:
You see Patrick’s licentious smirk.
You see Art’s coy smile. 
They’ve both invaded your mind, corrupted your thoughts that for a year had been so gloriously void of anything but Tashi.
And from that moment, you know part of you will always hate them. For so long, even knowing you can’t have her, all you’ve needed to sate yourself are thoughts of Tashi. But they’ve changed that.
You hate Patrick Zweig and Art Donaldson because they’ve made you want more. You want….one of them. You don't know why and you also don’t know which one of them it is. 
But what is clear to you, is that a new itch has arisen within you, and it comes with panic, because unlike with Tashi, you’re certain there’s a possibility that one of them might actually want to scratch the itch for you.
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Had he known how furious you were going to be with him when you arrived, you doubted Art would have been so eager to invite you to have lunch with him in the cafeteria. 
Even when you slam your tray down and drop into the seat opposite him, he still looks happy to see you. He always did. It was infuriating.
“What are you playing at, Art?” You struggle to keep your volume down. You hadn’t wanted to yell at someone in a long time, but he had managed it.
Concern flashes in his eyes, but his lips press together in a way that tells you he knows exactly what you’re referring to. And yet he still asks:
“What are you talking about?”
“You’re fucking with Tashi’s head.”
“I would never do that.”
You scoff, stabbing the flimsy plastic fork into your salad. “Except you are, and I know that you’re doing it on purpose.”
Art pushes his own tray to the side and settles his elbow onto the table, resting his chin on his hand. “Yeah, how’d you figure?”
“Why else would you tell her that Patrick doesn’t love her?”
“Because I don’t think he does. Do you?”
You ignore his question, instead opting to pick up your apple and throw it at his head, hard. He catches it, that damnable little smile still on his face. 
“For fuck sake, Art!” You erupt. “She needs to keep her head on straight. Don’t upset her just because you want her for yourself!”
He tilts his head, blue eyes sparkling as he takes a large bite out of the apple. He chews for a bit before holding it back out to you, speaking through a mouthful:
 “You should have the rest of this, you haven’t been eating enough.”
“Fuck you!” You snatch it from his hand and shift in your seat, easily throwing it and landing it right in a nearby trashcan.
“Well that was a waste of perfectly good fruit.” Art licks some residue off his thumb and then leans across the table. 
You fail to snatch your wrist away before he grabs it. He’s gentle but firm, and as his thumb rubs along your pulse point, you feel the residual moisture from his own mouth he’d left behind, transferring to your skin.
“You don’t have to fight this hard to protect her,” Art presses. “She’s a grown woman.”
“She’s my best friend and I don’t want you to hurt her.” 
Art’s thumb stills, but he tugs your wrist a little closer. “Do you really think I could?” 
You scowl, pulling free of his hold. “You know, the way you and Patrick worship her isn’t the compliment that you both seem to think it is. You’re putting her up on a pedestal, practically deifying her, but she’s not invulnerable. She feels more strongly than anyone I’ve ever known and tennis is her life. If you get in her head and fuck up her game, It will break her and then I will break your fucking hands.”
This time when he’s smiles, it’s rife with fondness for you and it makes you want to punch him for the fluttering it causes in your stomach.
“You didn’t answer my question.” He says simply.
“What?”
“Do you think Patrick loves her?” Art repeats patiently. 
“Do you love her, Art?” 
“Can you please just answer my question?”
“I don’t know!” You throw your hands up in exasperation. “I’m not even sure I would know love if I saw it. All I do know, is that you both lust after her and definitely for each other too, even if you’ll never admit it. You’re all totally fucked.”
Art’s jaw clenches, the muscles ticking, but instead of irritation or anger at your outburst, his gaze softens. When he speaks, it is soft and achingly tender:
“You do know love. Because you love Tashi.” 
You let out an embittered laugh. “Of course I do. I tell her all the time.”
“But she doesn’t love you, not in the same way.”
You really didn’t know if he intended for that to sting, especially not with how gently he’d said it, but if he had, he’d failed. You came to accept that fact a long while ago, and while you would always want Tashi in some respect, it was not the all consuming desire it had been. The lust was gone. She was important to you. She was your best friend and you wanted to protect her. 
Unfortunately, the two men you wanted to protect her from, were the ones who had usurped her as objects of desire in your mind.
“Are you trying to find yourself a catchphrase before you go pro?” You sneer at Art. “I’m not sure how great that would look on a billboard for Adidas.”
“You deserve to be loved.” 
You had picked up your cup to take a drink of water, but upon hearing his words, you slam it down again and rise to your feet. He tracks your every move, as calm as ever.
 “I can’t talk to you right now, Art. You’re being cruel.”
You storm away from the table, only making it a few steps before you hear the scrape of his chair against the floor as he rushes to follow you.
 You’ve only just pushed open the door when he crowds up behind you. 
Art’s hand lands on your back as he guides you outside, his other hand rests on your arm and even after he turns you to face him, his touch remains.
 His hand is wrapped lightly around your arm, the other keeping you close- his palm pressed against your lower back. Anyone watching would think he was drawing you into an embrace. You almost shudder at the contact.
 Patrick has always been handsy, touching and caressing you under the guise of teasing, but Art has always moved around you as though you’ll disintegrate at the lightest touch. The way he’d held your wrist back in the dining hall and how he cradles you now, is the most he’s ever touched you.
 Your chest heaves as your flesh tingles.
Art’s head drops, his eyes on his own hand on your arm, as if he can’t understand why he’s holding you. His voice is strained:
“Patrick isn’t good for her.”
And just like that, you’re slammed mercilessly back down to earth. 
Art wasn’t touching you with tenderness or affection, you were just someone he was holding in place so that you had to hear him out. So you had to hear how much he wanted Tashi. 
“Oh, but I deserve to be thrown at him as a distraction so that you can have her?” You snap at him, more hurt than you’ll ever admit.
“You deserve whatever it is that you actually want.” 
Art sounds frustrated now, not at you…but perhaps at what he knows you won’t say. You do want Patrick. But you also want him. You had just never considered that he knew that.
But that’s not what you say. Instead you say–
“Go fuck yourself.”
“Do you want to know why he isn’t good for her?” Art presses, entirely unaffected by your fury.
“No, but I’m sure you’re about to tell me.”
The hand on your back pulls you a little closer, one errant blonde curl falls down from his forehead and brushes your temple. His breath is hot against your cheek. 
“Patrick’s not good for her-“ Art begins, his tone becoming embittered. “Because he wants you. He always has.” 
You rip free from Art’s grip with such force that the friction of it burns, his fingerprints leaving red marks on your arm. “You are unbelievable!” 
“I’m not lying. You know I wouldn’t, not to you.”
“You will say anything to have her won’t you?” You laugh nastily. “What’s the plan, Art? Do you think that I’ll try and seduce Patrick away from her now, leaving a space open for you to swoop in?” 
“Ask me how I know.”
“No.” You spit back at him. 
But you don’t move. 
Your body waits for words that your mind doesn’t think it can handle hearing. Something feels so close to breaking and you can’t help but feel like it’s to do with whatever force binds the four of you together. 
Art steps forward, closing the distance again, he raises his hands and rests them on either side of your neck, his thumbs pressing onto where your pulse is ratcheting beneath your fragile skin. 
“I know he wants you, because the night after he won our match- when he won Tashi’s number- he told me that I should fuck you.”
“Art.” You warn, frustrated tears bringing horrible pressure behind your eyes.
A small group comes out of the dining hall and have to split down the middle, because neither of you move a muscle. Art’s hold tightens, like he’s trying to leave a permanent imprint behind without it hurting you. 
He whispers now. “Patrick told me to fuck you. And I know him. He said that because when he couldn't have you, it excited him to think that I would. That I'd tell him about sleeping with you.”
“That was such a long time ago.” You say shakily, coming completely unmoored.
But Art won’t let it go.
“He still looks at you the same way, and that’s not fair to Tashi. You want to protect her, right? Well what will it do her when she finally notices the way her boyfriend is constantly eye-fucking her best friend?”
You hit out against his chest with a closed fist. The shock more than the force makes him stagger back. 
“You are so fucked in the head! You and Patrick are both pathetic little leeches who want the same girl, but can’t cope with the way it’s made them realise that they also want each other. You know what? I actually think so much would be solved, if you and Patrick just fucked each other!”
You start to back away and Art darts forward, trying to grab you again, but you smack his hand away and turn your back.
“Leave me alone, Art! And leave me out of your shit!”
He calls out your name with ragged desperation, but he does not follow. And even though he’s truly made your skin crawl, something about that makes you even more furious. 
Why won’t he follow you? 
Why do you still want him to?
━━━━∙⋆⋅⋆∙━━━━
You hadn’t spoken to any of them since your argument with Art. 
You couldn’t cope with the realisation that if any of them ever did feel any desire for you, it was only because they saw you as some sort of vessel through which they could access parts of the person that they truly wanted.  
You couldn’t even be said to exist in Tashi’s shadow anymore, you had simply been subsumed by it. Those two men, who you both despised and wanted desperately, would never see you, not really. To them, you were just part of her. But you would not let them ruin your friendship with Tashi. You just wouldn’t.
You knew when you arrived to watch her match that something wasn’t right. She was upset. You could see it in all the minutiae of her: in the way she took off her hoodie, in the way she picked up her racket. Something was really wrong. 
You walk through the stands until you come across Art. 
There are two free spaces to the right of him, so you sit down on the one furthest away, leaving a gap in the middle for Patrick to take up when he arrives. But then time passes and the match approaches and he still hasn’t materialised. 
You feel Art staring long before he makes his move. The air shifts as he shuffles over into the seat directly beside you.
“That seat is taken.” You intone harshly. Your eyes are fixed on Tashi as she prepares. 
“If it was, I wouldn’t have been able to sit in it.” 
“Sorry, I should have been clearer. I don’t want you anywhere near me, so I want Patrick to sit there instead of you.”
Your name is a tentative as he speaks it. “Will you please look at me? I can’t handle you not looking at me.”
Your gaze remains set on Tashi, she looks up and finds you in the crowd. The furious divot between her brow eases for a moment before her eyes snag on the way that Art is leaning into you. She turns her back on the entire crowd, but you know the gesture is meant for you alone. 
Fuck. What the hell had happened overnight? If it was Art’s meddling, you’d kill him. 
“The match is about to start.” You say coldly. 
 Art’s hand lands on your knee, but when you flinch, he immediately pulls it away. 
“I know I hurt you and I’m sorry. I- I need you to forgive me.”
You grit your teeth at his audacity. “Why do you need me to, Art?”
“Because I can’t stand the thought of you not being in my li-“
The match begins and Art never gets to finish his sentence. 
In fact, you don’t speak to him properly for almost a decade after that. Because Tashi gets hurt. Her sporting career ends in the blink of an eye and takes your friendship with it.
━━━━∙⋆⋅⋆∙━━━━
Both you and Art had sprinted down onto the court, your heart breaking in your chest as you fell to your knees beside your best friend, tears gathering in her eyes as she whimpered in pain. 
What had hurt the most though, was the way Tashi had shoved your hand away when you had tried to comfort her.
“Don’t touch me!” She had barked on a ragged breath. “Get away from me. Get away!” 
The hatred had dripped from her words and landed on you like a corrosive liquid. And as it had burned down to the bone, you had looked at Art and the apologetic agony with which he’d regarded you—even as he’d cradled Tashi’s head in his hands—told you what he’d done.  
He’d not only told you about Patrick’s supposed lust for you, but he’d also told Tashi. He had told her that even after her now boyfriend had won her number, he’d apparently been thinking about fucking you. Art had also definitely shared his little insight that Patrick didn’t love her either, which you quickly worked out had contributed to his absence.
So Art got what he wanted: he finally had his hands on Tashi and he’d done it by carving you and Patrick away. 
Art Donaldson was an attentive, gentle, even needy man, but you had been so stupid to think that meant he couldn’t also be calculated and cruel. Because of course he was. What else could win the heart of Tashi Duncan but brutal passion? It was part of what she loved about tennis: the unforgiving force of hits that once you met them, somehow felt like affection.
When Patrick had tracked an injured Tashi down, still waiting to be taken to hospital, he had been ordered away by both her and Art.
You knew that because he’d just told you. It was the first thing he’d said to you when you’d let him into your room fifteen minutes earlier.
Now, you were both sitting on the scratchy carpet of your dorm, passing a bottle of vodka between the two of you. 
You felt bereft. Your body wracked with sympathetic pain for the grief in your mind. You’d lost Tashi today, you knew that. And the man that had caused it, was a man you’d spent years yearning for. 
Art hadn’t only taken Tashi from you, but he’d violently ripped himself away too.
“Art wasn’t lying.” Patrick grumbles after taking another hearty gulp of vodka. 
“Please, don’t.” You beg wearily, taking the vodka from his outstretched hand and pressing it to your lips. Not even the burn of the spirit going down your throat registers.
“I wanted- want, both of you. You and Tashi.” 
He isn’t drunk, only tipsy, but he’s getting there, and his words are sluggish, laced with fury. 
“Shut up, Patrick.”
You fall down onto your back, resting the vodka bottle on your stomach, holding it by the neck as you stare up at the ceiling. 
Patrick has been sitting opposite you, but he moves languidly forward, crawling up over your body. He braces one knee beside your hip as the other slots between your legs. 
You blink up at him as one of his hands rests beside your head and the other falls over your own where it still holds the vodka bottle. You let him take it from you, placing it beside your body before the hand then moves to rest on the other side of your head. 
You’re now trapped beneath him, his lithe body hovering just above yours.
When he leans in, his alcoholic breath almost sears your skin as his lips brushed the shell of your ear. 
“Sometimes, when we were fucking I would imagine that you were with us.” Patrick’s teeth nip at your ear. “I asked her once, you know, and she slapped me. Called me a pig. I think she was just mad because she liked having you to herself. You were such a devoted acolyte, kissing the ground she walked on—“
Fury bursts within you like a solar flare, red-hot and ruinous. He was talking about her in the past tense, as if she was dead to both of you already.
Art groans in pain when you knee him in the balls. You use the chance to shove him off you and he falls to the side, knocking the bottle of vodka over. 
As you stand up, you feel the alcohol seeping into the carpet at your feet. 
“You are a pig.” You hiss down at him.
 It’s your room, but you find yourself storming towards the door. 
You don’t get far before Patrick recovers, clambering to his feet and easily closing the distance with his long legs. 
You groan in frustration as he presses you into the door, one hand above your head and the other wrapping around your torso, his fingers dangerously close to brushing your breasts over your tank top. 
“If I’m a pig, why did you let me in?” He pressed his face into your neck and breathes you in.
 Some of the vodka has evidently soaked into his shirt, because the scent seizes you with the same violence with which he had. It’s a secondary intoxication. 
You words come out weakly, and you hate that it’s because you’re using so much energy fighting the urge to press back into him:
“I felt sorry for you.”
Patrick laughs. 
The smug bastard actually laughs right into your skin, the vibrations travelling all the way down to where your body has begun to ache the most. 
“Oh, sure.” He coos patronisingly. “It definitely wasn’t because you’ve wanted to fuck me for years.”
You should fight him, but you don’t want to. 
You should protest when the hand that he has pressed to the door moves to pull down one of the straps of your tank top. But you simply don’t want to.  You want him. 
Art had been right about both of you.
No sooner has the thin strip of fabric been removed from your shoulder, than Patrick is clamping his teeth down on the exposed flesh. You yelp in surprise, the pain a burst of sordid pleasure. 
Patrick laughs again, the hand he has pressed to your stomach pulling you flush against him. You can feel his need for you pressing into your backside, but in case you had somehow missed it, he bucks his hips up into you. 
You gasp and he laughs again, his tongue now running over the aggravated skin where his teeth have left a dent.
“We both know what this is.” He goads.
“And what is it?” You ask teasingly, your head now thrown back and resting against his chest. He groans into your neck as you grind yourself back onto him. 
“Inevitable.”
“Are you just doing this to get back at them?” You ask, not daring to speak their names. 
An angry grumble you can’t quite make sense of tears out of Patrick’s throat just before he is forcefully spinning you around. 
You get barely a glimpse of his feral smirk before he is easily picking you up again and throwing you over his shoulder. The slap he delivers to your ass is punishing and stings furiously as he practically throws you down onto the carpet.
The bed is right next to you, but the asshole apparently wants you on the scratchy carpet and with a wet patch where the vodka has soaked in.
“I’m doing this, because I have wanted to fuck you, from the moment I saw you dancing at that party.”
 You’ve barely got your breath back after being thrown about, when he is grabbing your calf and yanking you down so that you’re laying completely flat beneath him. 
“But you only ever pursued Tash-“ 
He cuts you off from saying her name by leaning down and pressing his mouth to your still clothed breast. His tongue swirls over the fabric, your nipple growing pert. 
When his knee presses up between your legs, parting them forcefully, your head falls back, strands of your hair wetted by the spilt alcohol. 
When Patrick bites down on your chest far too hard, your hand instinctively comes up to slap the side of his head.
 You’re so shocked by your own burst of violence that you go still at exactly the same time as Patrick, both of you breathing furiously. When he does peer up at you, his dark curls slick against his increasingly sweaty forehead, menace dances in his eyes. 
“Do that again.” 
You wish you could have feigned confusion or indignation for even a moment, but your blood is pumping to all the right places to urge you to make terrible, delightful decisions.
 Your second slap connects cleanly with his cheek, your palm tingling with the force as his head spins to the side. 
Your handprint is already a pink mark on his skin when he wraps his arms around your torso, lifting you up just enough so that he can pull your tank top off and throw it to the side. Your chest is left bare to him and he wastes no time before peppering kisses to your sternum, to your breasts and your neck, his arms still wrapped around you, his nails digging into your back. 
The throbbing ache between your legs becomes far too much to bear, so you curl your fingers into his hair and forcefully tug him away from your chest- a bead of saliva stretching between your flushed skin to his swollen lips. 
You lean your head forward, taking his bottom lip between your teeth and biting, pulling at it until he groans pathetically. You let him go, beyond pleased when you don’t have to tell him what you want next. 
You don’t want to wait any longer. You haven’t slept with anyone since you met him and Art. 
Art.
 Is it wrong that as Patrick pushes your back into the carpet and pulls down your sweatpants and underwear in one clean tug, that you close your eyes and briefly imagine that it’s Art instead?
You might have found an answer if you had more time, but when you open your eyes, Patrick is over you, his shorts and boxers already discarded alongside your clothes. His shirt is still on, but neither of you have the patience for the second or so it would take to get it off him. 
Patrick smirks down at you before pressing two of his fingers into your mouth, you open gladly, your eyes locked onto each other as he swirls them around. When he’s satisfied, he pulls his fingers out, and then licks his own hand, mixing himself with you. 
He swipes his wet hand over your already slick core a few times before he’s pressing himself inside of you. Your arms curl around his neck as you wrap your legs around his waist. 
“Fuck.” He groans, his tongue licking up the side of your neck as his hips begin to move. 
“Patrick.” You plead, your fingers digging into the nape of his neck. 
He knows what you want, nipping at your neck before he is driving into you with bruising force. 
In that moment, as you’re joined in the way you’ve wanted since the moment you’ve set eyes on him, you realise thar Tashi isn’t the only person that can make you feel real. 
As Patrick drives into you–his lips and teeth leaving marks on your flesh that will be wine-dark by morning, and the horrible fabric beneath you leaving carpet burn on your back– you finally know more than tennis can make you feel alive. 
The sex is forceful and punishing, but fuelled by a genuine passion. Nothing but your intermingled breaths and the sound of your joined bodies fills the room. 
If the two of you hadn’t been so lost to your pleasure, you might have heard Art knocking on your door. But you didn’t. 
He did however hear the two of you, so he walked away. 
You wouldn’t speak to him or Tashi again for over ten years.
━━━━∙⋆⋅⋆∙━━━━
You weren’t in New Rochelle to compete. You didn’t need to. You were on the top of your game, ranked the third best female player in the world. 
No, you were in New York because despite your better judgement-- and the many years that had passed since you’d last seen him--when Patrick Zweig had called you, you’d answered. 
You hadn’t heard his voice since you had told him that for your own sanity, you couldn’t see him anymore.
For the two years you had been together after Tashi had banished you both from her life, you had let Patrick consume you. And you had never played tennis so poorly in your life. 
You hated what that said about you, that you had willingly discarded someone you had genuinely cared for to improve your ability to hit a ball. But hitting that ball was what kept you alive, not him. 
Not only that, it hadn’t taken you long to realise that you didn’t love Patrick enough to let him affect your career.
And yet when he had called, you’d answered. And when he’d told you that Art Donaldson had entered the Challenger as a wildcard, you both knew that you would come. 
From the moment you had booked the flight, to the first step you’d taken into the hotel, you had lied to yourself that you were only coming for the closure that you hadn’t received as a twenty year old. 
But when you stepped into the hotel lobby and saw Tashi disappearing into the nearby elevator, your self-deception shattered. 
You were here because still, after all the time that had passed, you ached for the way that you had felt when she had been in your life. You missed her. And you had missed Art. 
It was a sickening truth of your life, that while no one had fucked with your head or upset you as much as Art had ended up doing, no one else had ever been so attentive to you either. 
Art had watched you—watched out for you—even when you weren’t playing tennis. In fact, in moments of utter stillness, when you had been doing nothing even remotely remarkable, was when you had always caught him staring. He never shied away, or broke his gaze when he was caught, he’d just smiled as if he wanted you to know he would never feel shame for being found looking at you. 
And that had not changed.
You have been sitting at the hotel bar for ten minutes, feeling sorry for yourself and nursing the same glass of gin and tonic, when you feel someone looking at you. 
You turn your head cautiously, your shoulders sagging as your eyes meet Art’s. He’s sitting on one of the small leather couches tucked into the far corner of the darkened room. 
It had been an inevitability, but things would have been so much easier if you never came across him. 
You know you shouldn’t move- part of you had come for closure and you could get that just by watching him compete tomorrow, so you don’t need to talk to him. 
But then Art tilts his head and smiles at you like no time has passed and pats his hand on the unoccupied space beside him on the couch. 
You get down off the barstool.
 As you approach, he watches unflinchingly.
The last time you had heard Art’s voice, was when Tashi had suffered her injury and he’d been permitted to stay by her side when she had ordered you away.
And yet even after so much time, when he greets you with a quiet ‘hello’, the pathetic girl who had pined after him returns.
You don’t respond as you come to a stop right in front of him, the tips of your heels right against the toes of his shoes, but you make no move to sit down. 
It’s of course not the first time you’ve seen him since college, or been at the same event, or even in the same room- you’re both highly successful tennis players, you couldn’t help but overlap sometimes. But neither of you have ever allowed yourselves to get close, or to even speak. 
It has been over ten years of your eyes connecting through crowds and across rooms that felt much larger than they were, simply because there was distance between the two of you within them. 
Art sits forward, his forearms resting on his knees. He’s fiddling with his wedding ring and you can’t bear to look at the familiar way his fingers carry out the gesture. 
When he looks up at you, it's so open and wanting that you almost turn right back around. But then you hear his voice again.
“Can I ask you to sit with me?” 
“I don’t know Art, can you?” 
He smiles, sighing softly as he runs his hand through his hair. It’s short- much shorter than the curls he’d had at college. You like it. It suits him. 
You shift on your feet, crossing your arms across your chest to cover up your nerves. Perhaps you can protect yourself if you look like you’re closed off from him and from…whatever this interaction is about to be. 
Art doesn’t say anything else, but he surprises you by rising to his feet. You stagger back, but his hand reaches out and lands on your side to steady.
His touch lingers for a moment too long, but he does eventually pull it away.
 But he’s still close, too close.
Your hands have fallen to your sides, so it is too easy for Art to reach out and brush his fingers against yours. He doesn’t intertwine them, but he’s doing enough to let you know that it’s what he wants to do. 
He whispers your name. “Will you please sit with me?”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea, Art.” 
“When have you ever known me to have one of those?” 
You smile ruefully, but take a step back. His hand chases you, his fingers brushing against yours again as he tries to take your hand. 
“It’s been a long time since I’ve known anything about you.” You say, hating how sad it sounds. 
You should be angry at least. His meddling and his desire for Tashi is what ripped you all apart. And he has her now. They have a daughter together.
He doesn't get to ask you for anything, not even if it’s just to sit with him. 
You can’t trust yourself to sit next to him. 
“You do know me. Time can’t change that.” He insists, quietly but firmly. 
You scoff nastily. “I knew Art Donaldson when he was in college. The world famous tennis player who does AD campaigns for sports cars with his wife, is a stranger to me.” 
“Yeah.” Art laughs darkly. “He’s a stranger to me too.” 
You frown at him, growing angry. He seems exhausted and down-trodden. He’s clearly hurting and you hate that you know that—you hate that you‘d been able to tell that even from across the bar—because it means that he’s right: you do still know him. 
“It’s late, Art. You should get some rest. Big day tomorrow.”
You turn away from him and while he doesn’t reach for you this time, he does call out. You keep you back to him as he asks his question. 
“Who do you want to win, me or Patrick?” 
“Tennis can’t decide a victor between the two of you, Art. It’s never been able to.”
When you walk to the elevator, you feel a physical strain as you stop yourself from looking back at him.
━━━━∙⋆⋅⋆∙━━━━
You were right, tennis couldn’t decide on a winner: it was as fickle and incomprehensible as the human heart. Which was fitting, seeing as Tashi had always described tennis as a relationship. 
You had sat only two places away from her during Patrick and Art’s match, and you know she had seen you. But there had been no reaction, her face had been impassive and set on the court, her eyes hidden behind a large pair of sunglasses. 
Now, the match was long over and a result had been given. And yet there hadn’t been a victory for anyone. Just like you knew there wouldn’t be.
Something had happened on that court between the two men, some silent, inexplicable exchange that had altered the very fabric of them.
This time, when Art knocks on your door, not only do you hear it, but you answer. 
You feel almost shocked when you pull open the door to reveal him, dressed in a grey t-shirt and flannel pyjama trousers. You’re surprised at the sight as if you hadn’t known he was coming- as if you hadn’t readily offered up your room number when he had messaged and asked for it.
You’re also somehow certain that Patrick had given him your number, but you didn’t want to dwell on what sort of exchange had led to him handing it over.
Without a word, you step away from the door, self-consciously tightening the cord that holds the silk robe around your body. You stop and face the windows.
The curtains are drawn, by you stare forward as though the whole skyline is on display to you. 
The door to your room clicks shut.
You hear Art take off his shoes before his feet are padding towards you. 
When his arms wrap around your waist, you close your eyes and savour the sensation. He nuzzles his face into the crook of your neck, so you lift a hand and rest it on the side of his head. 
“I want to retire at the end of this year.” He says and you can feel his exhaustion in the slow breaths that coast over your neck. 
“So retire.” You answer softly, your eyes still on the curtains. “You’re tired.”
You know you don’t need to clarify. Thanks to the grateful press of his lips against your neck, you know he understands what you mean. 
Art is weary of all that he has to be when he’s playing tennis; he’s tired of the effort it takes to play the sport for not just him, but for Tashi too. His wife has been living vicariously through him. He’s been living for two people, taking the strain of two professional athletes combined. 
You know there had never been any point in competing with Art or Patrick, because Tashi would always love tennis the most. 
A shiver wracks your body as Art’s hand reaches for the bow that’s keeping your otherwise bare body concealed from him.
 “Can I?” His request is whined into your hair as he presses his face into the back of your head. 
Instead of answering verbally, you nudge his hand away and untie the robe yourself. Then, you take hold of both of his wrists and guide his hands onto your skin. You let out a sigh of relief when Art finally touches you the way you want him to. 
Your hands are still on him as his fingers move to cup your breasts, but he is the one guiding his movements now. He squeezes, his thumbs brushing over your nipples. 
“Art.” You rasp, pressing back into him wantonly. 
“Can I have you?” He asks, pressing open mouthed, hot kisses to your neck as he palms your breasts. “Please, let me have you.” 
“Stop fucking asking me and just do it.” 
You feel him grin against your neck just before he backs away, pulling back your robe and tugging it from your body.
The fabric has barely had time to pool at your feet when he’s grabbing you by the hips, his fingers digging in as he turns you. 
When Art’s lips finally claim yours, you moan unashamedly. His kiss is gentle but assured, you struggle for breath as he refuses to release you. Then, his hands are cupping your ass and he’s lifting you up. 
With his lips still moving hungrily against yours, Art settles you onto the edge of the bed. When he draws back, your lips chase after him and he smiles, grasping your face in his hands and giving you one more brief but searing kiss before he’s dropping to the ground.
 His hands press into your knees, forcing them apart as he begins to kiss and lick up your inner thighs. 
You prop yourself up on your elbows, watching where his mouth ravenously meets your flesh, tracing his path as he works his way closer to where you want him most.
When he reaches the top of your thigh, Art peers up at you through his long eyelashes, already looking drunk on you as he presses another kiss to your burning skin. 
“Lay back.” He instructs gently. 
But you’re too transfixed to listen- too desperate to see the moment his lips land on your core to look away.
He smiles at the realisation, delighting in your shudder as his tongue darts out and licks a line up your centre. 
“Oh my- fuck!” Your head falls back, already lost in the feeling of his mouth's devoted ministrations. 
As Art pleasures you, one of his hands skates up your stomach and gently presses down, asking rather than forcing you to lay back. This time you oblige, your eyes closed as your hands fist in the sheets. 
“You deserve so much more than I can give you.” 
You smile to yourself. Only Art could grovel as he gives so much pleasure.
Tightness begins to coil in your lower belly, but the moment he adds a teasing finger to his tongue’s movements, you realise you can’t wait. 
“Art- stop.” You gasp out, sitting up and resting your hands on his head. 
He halts immediately but doesn’t remove himself from between your legs. 
“Are you alright?” He asks, his hands rubbing soothingly along your thighs. 
“It’s not enough.” You say, tugging on his hair, trying to get him to come to you. “I need you.” 
Art doesn’t have to be asked twice, but he also doesn’t rush. He presses one last kiss to your now very sensitive folds before he’s climbing over you. 
You shuffle back, settling yourself onto the middle of the bed and even as Art takes off his clothes, he watches you. It’s as if he’s afraid that you’ll disappear if he so much as blinks. 
Now completely naked, he lays himself over you, his arms braced beside your head. He positions himself so carefully thar it’s almost as though he’s trying to fit himself to the shape of you- every divot and curve perfectly aligned sp that you’ll be fused together forever. 
As Art sweeps hair out from your face, his blue eyes bore down into you with an adoring intensity. 
You smile up at him and he rewards you by cradling your face in his hands, he lowers his head, his nose brushing yours as he gently takes your lower lip between his teeth.
Only when you understand what he wants and you open your mouth, does he kiss you again, his tongue delving in deeply.
As he seeks to consume you, your hands run down his back, squeezing his sides with your thighs. 
Art’s still kissing you as one of your hands reaches the curve of his arse, you dig your nails in and he jolts, his mouth moving away from yours and travelling down your neck. 
Tentatively, you move one hand around and down between his legs and when your hand wraps around him, he falters, his kisses stopping. 
“Is this alright?” 
Art moves again, licking the sweat slick expanse of skin between your breasts.
“Anything you do will be alright.” He assures, his lips brushing a nipple and making your back arch. 
“Do you want to have sex, Art?” You ask, barely restraining yourself.
His breaths are hot against your sensitive breasts when he answers. “Please.”
It is a joint effort as he slides inside of you. You gasp, arms wrapping around his neck as he presses kisses into yours.
Art groans as he begins to move achingly slowly, his hips rolling over yours with precision. 
You're happy like that for a few minutes, both of you revelling in your closeness after years subjected to absent desire for one another. But eventually, you want more.
You yearn for more force and luckily as you buck up into him, Art gets the message.
 As one of his hands moves behind your head, cradling it so that he can keep kissing you, the other wraps around your thigh, and pulls your leg higher over his hip, allowing himself to get even deeper. 
“You’re so beautiful.” He says in-between sloppy kisses, moving rapidly as you moan and whine. “You’ve always been so beautiful.”
Even with him inside you, making you feel more desired than anyone ever has, your mind drifts to that first night you had met him. The first night you had met Patrick. 
“You stared at Tashi.” You say.
You aren’t accusatory or upset, if anything the acknowledgement if it turns you on more. All four of you have always had a desire for the other, and it feels powerful to finally acknowledge it.
“-That night on the beach, you couldn't take your eyes off her. Neither of you could.” 
“I wanted you.” Art asserts with a particularly powerful thrust. “I- I wanted you so badly, but you went home.”
You nod, pulling him in for another kiss as you meet his thrusts. 
You understand his thinking. You’d often wondered how things might have changed had you not gone home early that night. If you’d stayed on the beach and then gone to their hotel room along with Tashi. 
Entirely content with just moving as one, you both fall silent and somehow Art curls over you even more tightly, like he wants his whole body to hide yours from the world. 
After you’ve both found your release he takes you into the shower and cleans himself off of your sensitive skin, each swipe of the washcloth accompanied by a kiss.
It ends up being time wasted though, because when you return to the bed, he takes you twice more.
━━━━∙⋆⋅⋆∙━━━━
You wake up with Art’s head resting on your bare chest. He’s laying on his side, one arm stretched out on the pillow above your head and his other hand resting on your hip. 
You’re sore in the most pleasant of ways as you sit up. You try to move slowly but Art stirs anyway, his head turning to press open mouthed kisses to your sternum. 
You rest your hand on his cheek, meaning to guide him away, but he moves so that he can kiss the palm of your hand instead. 
It’s only when you sigh into his touch, his eyes still closed as his other hand delves between your legs, that you realise why you had woken up int he first place. 
Someone was knocking on your door. 
And then you hear her voice. 
Tashi is calling out your name, sounding almost panicked.
 “Please, open the door, I know you’re in there.”
This time when you push Patrick away, he obliges, but far less quickly than you would have liked.
 In the time it takes for you to throw on your silk robe and gather up all of his clothes from the floor, he has barely got himself to stand up. He’s naked and blinking sleepily at you. 
When you shove the bundle of his clothes into his arms, he rushes to press a passionate kiss to your lips, holding the back of your head with his free hand.
You aren’t sure you want to know whether he’s truly still half asleep and genuinely hasn’t realised what is happening, or if he just doesn’t care that his wife is outside the door.
Flushed but furious at his casual demeanour, you push Art into the bathroom and close the door, just as Tashi knocks again.
 The repeated request for you to come to the door tumbles from her lips like a prayer.
You brace your hand against the door as you draw in a fortifying breath and smooth out your hair. You swear you can feel her through the door. 
The moment you open the door, Tashi is bursting in and closing it behind her. You step back, waiting for her to make the first move, for her to shout of attack or go charging into the bathroom. But she does none of those things. 
Instead, Tashi pulls you into a crushing hug. You go still, shocked but healed by it at the same time.
She pulls back, taking your face in her hands.
 “You’re a phenomenal tennis player.” Tashi says it rapturously. 
If you weren’t burning up at the feel of her hands on you, you might have laughed at how ridiculously perfect it was that those were her first words to you after over a decade. 
Tashi communicated and connected through tennis. She loved through tennis.
All you can muster is a very sincere: “Thank you.”
Tashi brushes your hair out of your face, tucking a stray piece behind your ear. You find your hands lifting, resting atop hers where they hold your cheeks.
“You need to let me coach you.” Tashi demands almost possessively.
“I have a coach.”
“They’re not me.”
“No, they’re not.”
And just like that, you were snared again. 
You had gone years without any of them, and with one word, you had allowed all three of them back into your life.
 Only this time, you know it might actually kill you if any of them leave. And perhaps it would kill them too. 
Only time would tell.
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wcters · 2 months
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𝗦𝗣𝗘𝗖𝗜𝗔𝗟 𝗚𝗨𝗘𝗦𝗧
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pairing: matt sturniolo x fem!reader
word count: 2.6k
summary: y/n joins the triplets on the cut the camera podcast to talk about having a boyfriend who’s a triplet, social media, and hobby’s
warnings: dirty/sexual jokes, established relationship, swearing, sexual innuendos, not a warning but thank you @whoetoshaw for some inspiration. please check her out! i will probably make another one 🤍
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“Good morning campers, welcome back to the cut the camera podcast. It’s your hosts Nick Sturniolo,” Nick introduced, “Matt Sturniolo,” Matt told the camera, “and Chris Sturniolo.” The boys finished. “And we have a special guest if you couldn’t hear her laughing at us, Matt’s girlfriend, Y/n!” Nick told the camera as it showed you in your seat, smile on your face as you waved. “Happy to be here.” You spoke to the camera. It then panned to Matt sitting his his seat with his cheeks turning pink. “We had to beg her for so long to feature in one of these.” Chris laughed, shifting his hat as he spoke into the mic. “We had to buy her a box of Diet Coke.” He deadpanned. You smiled in response.
“Okay, to be fair, I’m not a social media person. I think the only social media I have and use a lot is Instagram and Facebook.” The three boys laughed as you mentioned Facebook. “It’s for family members! My grandparents have a hard time figuring out social media apps. But either way, have Tiktok but don’t even remember the last time I posted on there.” You tried to think but nothing was popping up. “That brings me into the first question,” Chris interrupts you, “what’s it like dating an “influencer” as some would call us while you just ━━ quite recently actually ━━ made your accounts public?”
“━━ before you speak,” Nick interrupted as Chris gave him an annoyed look and Matt groaned. “Here he goes.” Matt whispered into the mic. “I was just going to say she should introduce herself!” He yelled in defense as he put his hands up. “Oh shit, true.” Chris gestured to you. “Hello everyone, I am Y/n and I am a friend of the triplets and Matt’s girlfriend.” You started to introduce. “I like how she said a friend of the triplets and not just Matt’s girlfriend.” Nick laughed. “You know it babe.” You replied, laughing in your seat. “Anyway, I am nineteen. I am from Canada, and moved to LA around two ━━ three years ago? Yeah. Sorry, what was the question before?” “See, Chris? She has manners. You need to learn some.” Nick teased. “Shut the fuck up. The question was what’s it like to date an influencer?” Chris asked. Matt turned his head toward you.
“I’m not really sure what it’s like to not date an influencer since Matt was like . . . my first “real boyfriend” you could say, but I would assume it’s similar to a relationship with a non-influencer. You do the same things: dates, sleepovers, movies, etc. But he’s away sometimes,” you shrug, “when you guys went on tour, Matt was away a lot and we had to do long distance for a bit. I think it was hard for both of us ━━”
“━━ more for me.”
“━━ but it’s what happens when you date someone as famous as you guys are. I know what I was getting into, same with the social media part. I knew I would be on camera sometimes, especially because you guys vlog and other things. You guys respected my want to be off camera and I remember, Matt was so worried when we got together because we really liked each other but social media was his job, but I was fine with that! Of course I would be.”
“I was so worried,” Matt breathed out, “like I had mentioned before that I did what I do and she had mentioned that she didn’t want to be online, but when it got serious I didn’t want for this whole thing to be ruined because of what I do, you know?” “Of course,” Nick butted in, “and especially hate that she could’ve gotten ━━ no offense Y/n.” You nodded, “none at all. Completely agree.” “You would’ve felt a little scared, no?” Matt and you nodded. “I didn’t, and don’t, want her to be effected negatively from it. I mean, it’s inevitable really, but still. I couldn’t help it, still can’t, I’m her boyfriend.” “I knew what I was getting into,” you spoke, “it’s what happens in most male celebrity, youtuber fan bases. You guys get hate too sometimes.”
Chris nodded. “I think me and Nick were a bit unsure too. We had known you for awhile and we liked you. We talked to Matt about it too. Just saying like “watch out for hate,” and “support her,” and shit like that. You didn’t need any help at all.” “Like I said, I knew what I was getting into. I have friends that are dating some popular content creators and we have talked about it before. That’s how I know what to experience and how to deal with it. Thank you ━━“ there was a bleep as you said her name “━━ love you to bits.”
“What is it like to be on the podcast?” The youngest boy asked, looking at his phone and then to you. “To be honest? It feels great. I have seen this set from when it was just an idea to it actually happing and it is truly amazing to see what these boys can do.” You we’re honest, these boys had such great ideas and it felt unreal to see them come true. “Matt, you have such a nice girlfriend.” A laugh that sounded more like a giggle came out of Matt’s mouth. “Thanks. She is.” He replied, moving the mic. There was laughing around the table.
“This would’ve been super awkward if you were like “no, I hate her!”” You joked. Nick put his hand over his mouth. “I don’t know what I would do if that actually happened.” “Well good thing I’m not going to say that.” Matt spoke, looking at his girlfriend. “Thanks. What a man everyone,” you clapped your hands, “get yourself someone like this guy over here.” You pointed to him.
“Yes!” Nick yelled, clapping too. “And, there’s two other brothers . . . but one is gay. He is still available? Boys? Hit that line. And Chris’s too,” you pointed to the long-haired brother, “it’s too often he tries to get into the bed with me and Matt because he hates sleeping alone.” You whispered into the mic. The camera moved to Matt nodding and then to Chris as he started to protest. “No! You’re just over too often. Stop hogging my brother. I slept with him first ━━ wait!” He puts his hands up. You moved your hand over you mouth in shock as Matt leaned his head against the table and Nick copied your movement. “Not like that! I meant we,” pointing to Matt, him, and Nick, “had sleepovers before you did.” “Bitch, don’t bring me into this.” Nick chimed in. “Real.” You agreed.
“Let’s just move on!” Your boyfriend suggested as he lifted his arms up. “What is like dating a triplet?” He asked. “It’s not that much from dating a regular guy, apart from the fact that either one of these kids is following him everywhere ━━ mostly Chris ━━“ which earned a “what?” from the guy “━━ and sometimes I’ll like . . . steal a sweater or some sweats or something from Matt and then I’ll just be on the couch and one of the boys will come in and be like “I’ve been looking for that” and it gets confusing.” You laughed. “But besides some of those confusions, it’s like dating a guy and having two best friends that come with him.” “A package deal.” Nick agrees. You snapped your fingers at him, “yes. Exactly like that. And it’s so fun. It can get annoying, but what’s any kind of relationship if you don’t get annoyed?” “Yeah guys. I may be annoying, but you still like me.” Chris jumped in. “Yeah, sometimes I doubt that.” “Me too.” The other brothers agreed. “That was so inspiring.” Nick said. “Thank you.” You did a fake bow in your seat.
“You also help keep the house clean since you practically live over at our house.” Matt added. “I do, I do. I literally have clothes and my skincare shit at you house. And a toothbrush ━━”
“━━ And a toothbrush.” Matt said at the same time. “It’s convient for sleepovers!” Nick explained. “And also because you do just live here. There have been so many times where I’ve knocked on Matt’s door and then opened it and Matt’s just playing games while you’re chilling in his bed.” You nodded, shrugging. It was true. “Dude ━━ I have gone to wake up Matt for the day and I won’t even notice she’s there until I hear her move or some shit cause she’s all up under the blankets. Surprised you’re even under the blankets with Mr. Blanket stealer over here.” Chris points to Matt as Nick nodded his head and you laughed.
“I just tug em’ back. Or he just grabs me. This kid . . . I swear it’s like I’m never close enough.” “I just run hot you’re always cold.” Matt retaliated. “You run hot because you steal all the blankets!” Nick yelled. “I feel sorry for Chris every time you guys have to share a bed.” “Do you really though?” The boy in question asked. “. . . Not really, no. I like my blankets. Maybe you can teach him to share Y/n.” “I will certainly try.”
“And she can teach you fuckers to clean,” Matt retorted, “every time I go into your room it’s like I am walking through a morgue.” After he finished there was a “hey!” from Chris and a “that’s not true!” from Nick. “Keep me out of this.” You held your hands up in defense. “I will clean what I need to.” “She’s like a second mom.” Chris compared. “Don’t say that. That’s weird.” Matt muttered into the mic. “Yeah, this is like the same argument as the use of mommy and daddy.” Nick agreed. “Now, you just made it weird,” Chris pointed at Nick. “How about we move on so we can stop this from getting even weirder.” Matt clapped his hands.
“Yes. Next question. You watch our videos I would assume?” Nick asked. “Of course, who would I be if I didn’t?” You replied. “Period.” Chris replied. Nick gave him a side eye, “anyway . . . How do you feel that people are writing fan fiction about your boyfriend?” You covered your mouth with your hand. “What?” Matt asked, looking scared. “You guys are going to hate me for this.” You spoke. “You didn’t make one about Matt did you?” Chris joked. “No! I wasn’t that weird. But a canon event in every girls childhood ━━ and I mean every single one - was writing or at least reading fan fiction. Brittany Broski is so real for talking about it. Me? It was the guy who played in Doctor Who. The 2000s one.” “David Tennant?” “Yes. I was an avid Wattpad user. You could catch me on there every fucking day dude. I think I still have my account.”
A scream filled the room as everyone looked at Nick. “We have to find it and go through it. But . . . I still can’t believe you used Wattpad.” “Dude, ask any mentally unstable female girl and I promise you, she will tell you she did. I don’t use it anymore, but I was obsessed.” “Are the videos awkward to you because you used to write shit or no?” Chris jumped in. “A little bit. I mean, it must feel weird getting fan fiction written about anyone. But I think because I’ve been in that spot and writing it that I understand a bit more,” you admitted, “the videos are great ━━ like every video of yours is - and it’s so funny to see your reaction.” “We need to bring you sometime if you’re up for it.” Matt suggested. “Maybe?” You shrugged, dragging the word out. “It would be super funny.” Nick commented. “Oh for sure, but I don’t know if I’m ready to go back to that phase in my life.” You grimaced.
“Hashtag trauma.” Chris responded. “Please never say that again,” Nick murmured. Matt agreed with a “that was so cringey.” “Really though,” you laughed, “you get it.” Chris got up from his seat and high-fived you. “Have you guys ever read fan fiction outside of filming?” “Oh, switcharoo question. I mean, I have to check and find stories and make sure we don’t get demonetized. I don’t know about these two.” Nick answered first. “I haven’t, but I find it weird that Matt has wattpad downloaded . . . And that he asked people to send some to him.” Chris spoke. “It’s not like that!” Matt yelled, putting his face in his shirt. “Matt, honey. It’s fine.” You joked. “Oh my god.” His voice was muffled from the sweatshirt.
“Is that how you got into reading like . . . Actual books?” Nick asked you. “Not really. I’ve been a reader since I learned to read, but it probably had some effect on my reading.” You responded. “I read a lot now, too. Like if you guys are filming I’ll just hangout im Matt’s room or something and read.” “She’s always reading.” Matt said into the mic. “No actually. We could be getting picked up by Matt and this kid is in the passenger seat with a book in her hand. How can you even read in the car?” Chris blurted. “I actually don’t get car sick. I think I’ve been car sick once. I sleep in the car too. And I have the best naps in the car. It’s just something puts me to sleep. I’m not sure what.” You explain. “But yeah, I do read a good amount. I’ve got Matt to read a little too. Chris would you ever read?” “Probably not,” he answered,” just have too much going on. And no offence, but if I have time off I’m not going to sit down and read. There’s so many other things I could do.” You nodded your head, “to each their own.” “I’ll like nap or something. I feel like we’re all avid nappers.” Chris asked.
“No, totally. I love napping.” Matt answered. “Me too.” Nick agreed. “I’ll only get up if I have to.” “I’ll only get up if Y/n gets up or if Chris wakes me up. There’s not a lot that will get me up. Except if I need to pee or we have something that day.” Matt added on. “It’s true,” you nodded, “he will not let me go. And if I get up, he will get up and pull me to the couch if I’m not already on it and just lay there.” Your boyfriend nodded. “Hey, at least you have a personal pillow.” Chris added on. You nodded again. “You should by lucky? You know how many girls would want Chris to do that?” The blonde boy continued. Chris made a weird face. “Hey guys, make a fan fiction about it.” Matt looked at the camera. “No!” Chris yelled, slapping Matt’s finger that was pointing to the camera. “I’m just kidding, I don’t really care as long as they’re not super weird and gross.” “Cheers to that.” Nick agreed.
“On this note, I think we should wrap it up.” Nick announced. “That was today’s episode, it was amazing. Everyone thank Y/n for coming on the podcast.” Chris faced you, speaking into the mic. “It was an absolute pleasure. I would love to come back if you would have me.” You thanked them. “Of course. We won’t let you leave.” The blonde boy joked. “Just kidding, but still, thank you for coming on and we will see you guys next time. Bye!” Everyone waved to the different cameras before it showed you in your seat with Matt sitting next to you. “He’s secretly clingy.” You said before the camera shut off.
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screeching-bunny · 6 months
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Need more of our yan slasher,he's so pookie,i wanna bite his cheeks (in a affectionate way) and cuddle with him until the end of times,he's such a cutie 😭💗
Yandere! Slasher Pt.2
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Warnings: Obsessive Behavior, Yandere Thoughts, Bad Writing, Stalking, Possessive Behavior, Reader is Referred as ‘You’
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Pt. 1
After reading the message sent by Yandere! Slasher, everyone subconsciously looked at you. Never in your life did you want to go home more badly than you did right now. Why did you even decide to go to a party in the first place? You don’t even like people in general! You were definitely never going out to socialize with others after this. If only there were more booze around here you really didn’t want to handle this situation semi sober.
You: “... What are you all looking at me for, they gave out a very vague description of someone. This could literally be anyone in this room with similar features to me.”
The next minute the phone screen immediately lights up with a message.
Yandere! Slasher: “I’m talking about you.”
You: “...”
After a few more seconds of silence, you finally managed to suppress the fear and uneasiness in your heart. You took the phone from the person beside you and carefully looked back at the messages that were sent by Yandere! Slasher. Finally looking down at the text box you begin to slowly type a message.
You: “Sorry, I don’t like guys with dark hair.”
Yandere! Slasher: “I can always dye it.”
You: “I don’t like your face.”
Yandere! Slasher: “There’s always plastic surgery”
You: “How do I know that you're rich? What if you’re lying and actually not broke.”
Yandere! Slasher: “I’ll buy you whatever you want right now. I can even send you my credit card information if you decide to be with me.
Damn you were broke but not broke enough to allow yourself to be with some killer. If it weren’t for your morals you would have probably folded by now.
Yandere! Slasher: “Well it’s not like you have a choice anyways. I plan on making you my spouse either way. You can either come with me willingly or I could take you by force…. Well looks like you’re taking too long. I'll decide for you.”
With that text message sent, you immediately began to feel queasy. You were struggling to keep your eyes wide open and your body was beginning to become very sluggish. Slowly but surely your senses were starting to stop and the last thing that you were able to hear were the sound of your peers screaming for help. With one last attempt to get out of your situation, you try to slowly crawl away. Only for your attempts to be interrupted when someone gently picks you up. “You’re not going anywhere cutie.” and with that you were now fully unconscious.
The next morning you woke up with the world’s worst hangover in the world. Never in your life did you feel this fucked up and and groggy all at once. You begin to raise up your body but soon realize that your body was tightly restricted by some rope and you were wrapped in the arms of some guy. The immediate thought in your head was that this was, last night was either the kinkiest night of your life or some random weirdo had ended up kidnapping you. Due to your movements the man next to you begins to wake up and looks over to you with a smile on his face.
“Cutie! I’m so glad you’re awake. We have so many things that we need to discuss right now! I’ve been thinking about the names of our future kids. Do you have any preferences? I don’t really mind what we name them but I want a lot of kids! Wait! I’m being so inconsiderate right now. I never even asked you if you wanted kids. If you don’t like them we can adopt as many pets as we physically can and we–”
As he was rambling it finally hit you. He was the fucking weirdo from the night before. You wanted to fucking die. Never in a million years did you think that you’d have to deal with a serial killer and an extrovert at that. Maybe if you pretended to be deaf he would stop talking to you. You begin to look at him and begin to make gestures with your head and facial expressions to signify that you were deaf. Yandere! Slasher looks at you for a few minutes before laughing.
“Sweetie, that's not going to work. I’ve been stalking you for the last couple of years. I know that you’re not deaf. Besides I’ve looked at your medical, you're perfectly healthy right now. Which reminds me, my precious little darling must be starving right now. It’s my job as your future husband to take care of you. Now wait right here for me.”
With that he leaves you entrapped alone in the room. Although your eyes were still a little blurry you were still able to make out the contents of the room. Scanning the room, your eyes fell upon a glint of metal under a desk —a discarded tool left by neglect or chance. Adrenaline surged as you inched closer, your heart racing in synchrony with your movements. With trembling fingers, you grasped the tool, the cold touch sending a shiver down your spine.
Summoning every ounce of determination, you started sawing at the ropes, each movement a blend of agony and hope. The metallic smell of blood filled your nose as the sharp edges of the tool cut into your skin. With each passing second, the knots loosened, freedom within tantalizing reach. With one last rough movement you were able to be free of your binds. As you made your way towards the window. A creak soon shatters the silence and the door swings open. Revealing your kidnapper's looming silhouette.
“Look at you all covered in blood because I left the room. Did you really think I would leave the room without any monitors watching you? I was hoping that you wouldn't try to escape but I guess I’ll have to be training you from now on cutie. Guess I’ll have to punish you right now. Do me a favor and lay down won’t you?”
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klemen-tine · 3 months
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Blowing Raspberries
Batfam x Male!Reader Platonic
@jaythes1mp Sorry this took so long and is not all in one part! But here is the first half.
Part 2
TW: Break in, Child Abuse (not the Batfam), and neglect
Publicly, Richard ‘Dick’ Grayson is the oldest Wayne sibling. Taken in by Bruce Wayne at 8-years-old, he is the first child and the oldest. In the eyes of the law and adoption papers. In the eyes of the Wayne family however, the oldest sibling title belongs to Y/N L/N. Similar to the Drakes, the L/N’s live on the other side of the Waynes, and similar to Tim, Y/N had been left home alone… a lot. 
Which meant he was over, a lot. So much so, he had his own room, Alfred made him a plate for every meal, and he was aware of their little nightly activities. Y/N L/N was a needed normalcy within the Manor, reminding them that there is more to life outside of crime fighting. 
“Did you see that new cafe?” Y/N asked, looking into Dick’s exhausted eyes while resting his chest against Jason’s head. Dick shook his head, “No. Why?” Y/N pouted, “Because you guys literally broke their windows last night.” Jason winced, remembering the shattering of glass and wide-eyed stares as he handled some thugs. 
“Please tell me that isn’t the cafe you wanted to go to today.” Dick buried his head in his hands and begged every deity that it was not that cafe. Y/N has been talking about it for weeks and finally found a time where all their schedules aligned so they could do it. 
“It was.” Jason and Dick groaned while Y/N stared at them with an annoyed expression. His arms that were wrapped around Jason tightened in a mocking chokehold, knowing that if Jason wanted to he could easily get out and have Y/N pinned. Dick groaned again, “Is… is there somewhere else you want to try?” 
“Not really.” ‘Fuck!’ Jason and Dick stared at one another, trying to figure out a way to still have this day with Y/N. If they don’t hurry, the vultures will swoop in and suggest something that will catch Y/N’s attention and– 
“Y/N, how about we got to the petting zoo.” 
“Dami!” 
“Buzz off short stack!” Y/N thumped Jason’s head with his chin, “Don’t talk to Dami like that.” The youngest Wayne smiled victoriously while his two older brothers glared at him. Dick looked offended and Jason was actually ready to strangle him. Y/N shook his head, “Dami, aren’t we going on Friday? I’m picking you up from school to go.” Damian scrunched his nose, “We can go twice.” 
Y/N couldn’t help but to chuckle, “Hmmm, those rabbits are cute.” Jason’s grip tightened, “The new bookstore in downtown! There’s a new bookstore that is supposed to have a cafe attached to it.” Damian scowled at Dick perked up, “Yeah, I forgot about that.” Y/N hummed, staring at Jason in concern, “Jay, you hate downtown.” It’s full of rich snobs and people who have nothing better to do than walk the streets in designer clothing. 
Jason made a face, “It’s our day with you, I’m fine with it as long as you’re there.” Dick gagged and Damian looked ready to chuck a knife at him. Y/N blinked at the younger man in shock before laughing, “That’s cute, okay. Let’s go there then.” He released Jason from his hold, unwrapping his arms from Jason’s neck and standing tall. Dick smiled at Y/N, who was talking to a pouting Damian and ruffling slicked back hair. 
“Alright, Y/N, I'm assuming you’re ready.” Unlike the Wayne brothers who had a father that did not care why they landed on the NEWS or magazine as long as they didn’t kill anyone, Y/N’s father was different. For someone who was always gone, he had a firm hold and opinions on Y/N’s life. 
Bruce may not care that his kids go out looking like they haven’t showered in three days, but Y/N’s dad has ordered the maids to get rid of all the ripped jeans Y/N had because the paparazzi made an opinion on them when Y/N wore them. Jason remembers listening in on that call, and numerous other calls from Mr. L/N, as he hollered at his child he did not care about. 
“You are a L/N! If you still want that last name then you will dress like a L/N!”
Unlike Dick and Jason who are dressed in jeans, Y/N is dressed in slacks and a nice polo shirt. His hair was clean and styled and the shoes he wore still shined. The aesthetic is called ‘old money’ and boy did Y/N have that. He and the Wayne siblings have become the newest trend setters in Gotham. 
Whenever the paparazzi caught them together it was always Old Gotham vs New Gotham. Slacks vs Jeans. Hair combed vs natural. Clean vs Rugged. L/N vs Wayne. 
They were the topic whenever they were out together, which was a lot. The only reason Mr. L/N hasn’t said anything is probably because Bruce is keeping his mouth shut about the child-neglect and abandonment. Point is, seeing the Wayne kids and L/N son together wasn’t odd, in fact there were jokes of Bruce Wayne adopting him, but they still always turned heads. 
“Y/N, I am telling you that is a horrible choice and you’re not gonna like it.” Said young man raised an eyebrow at Jason and tutted disappointedly, “Jay, you haven’t even read it.” The guy motioned at the cover, “Look at it! Dick! Come ‘ere and look at it!” The other made only a side glance at it and sighed, “Y/N… this is only going to lead to problems.” 
“It is literally a book about romance.” Jason screwed up his face, like someone had shoved a lemon down his throat, “But like… young adult romance. Read the classics.” 
“I have read the classics. You have read me the classics. I read them in class and if I have to read how Ms. Elizabeth Barnett falls in love with Mr. Darcy one more time I’m actually going to throw myself in traffic.” Dick agreed with Y/N on that, remembering all the time he had to read the damn book. 
“It's Elizabeth Bennett.” 
“Jay, I swear to God.” 
“Are you sure you read them because there’s no way someone who’s read them would get that name wrong.” 
“Little wing–” 
“–Dickie, maybe. But not anybody else.” 
“–Excuse you.” Y/N snorted at the now bickering brothers, watching in amusement as Dick pulled Jason’s ear and Jason to Dick’s hair. Sighing, Y/N stepped between the two. Y/N L/N is possibly the only person, other than Alfred, who would dare do such a thing. Fear was absent on his face as he calmly walked into the dog fight, and helped release their bites with gentle tugs and stern words. 
“Enough. The line is picking up at the cafe, so let's checkout and head over.” Y/N is the person who quells the fights and mends the bonds. The only person in the Manor that knew how to communicate their feelings and help others realize and communicate theirs. 
He is the kind, patient, and understanding older brother of the Batfam. Always paying attention to other’s needs and always willing to listen to someone vent their frustrations and offer sound advice. Y/N is –
“–And what about the company?! How come the sales are low this month?” 
“Father, they are riding average, it’s just the last month was a boom because–” 
“I don’t care about last month! Why are the sales low this month?!” 
– not Bruce Wayne’s ward, and therefore there isn’t much he can say in this scenario. Bruce listened and watched  Y/N slouch as Mr. L/N continued to scream and berate him from across the world. He watched the exhaustion take over Y/N’s features and the way his forehead creased, Bruce knows that a headache is now present. 
“If you still want the company then you better act like it! Enough of prancing around like the money you spend is yours!” Y/N is grateful his father hung up after that, because Y/N had a clapback to that and he’s sure his father would fly back from wherever he is just to smack him around for saying it. 
Setting his phone down on the coffee table, the weight of the conversation making his shoulders sag and melt into the armchair with a huff. Bruce chuckled at the pout, “For what it is worth, fluctuating prices are normal in businesses. As long as it doesn’t go too low, you are fine.” Y/N smiled at the man, fixing his posture and picking up the mug of coffee. 
“You heard all of that?” The man can still remember when he first met Y/N. The property alarm was triggered, and when Bruce and Alfred went out to investigate, an 8-year-old Y/N was there, his hands holding the wild raspberries and his cheeks stuffed like a chipmunk. 
He huffed at the memory, making Y/N give him a weird look. Bruce had been grateful to Y/N’s impromptu trespassing, because when Dick came into his care, a now 10-year-old Y/N had welcomed the traumatized and blubbering 8-year-old. Something Bruce had little to no idea how to handle. 
Then Jason came and that was a wild ride, followed by Steph, then Tim, and now Damian. That's just the Robins. It doesn’t include the others that have become family but never took the Robin mantle. Y/N had been there through it all, and welcomed each one with a smile and open arms. At the same time giving Bruce a raised eyebrow and icy glare that screamed, ‘Really? Another child?’ 
Y/N never faulted Bruce for his lack of communication, but he did let the man know repeatedly that while words may start fires, they can also put them out. Y/N had laid it on him one time, after a particular nasty fight with Dick and Jason. 
“For a man who loves using his vocabulary to start arguments you sure don’t have the vocabulary to fix them. What are you, a toddler?” 
Mending things with Y/N is always easy, because Y/N does not hold grudges. Not to mention having the emotional intelligence of a therapist, Y/N was always in-tuned to his emotions and whether he was projecting or not. Or if anyone else was. Living in a manor filled with people who have traumatic backstories and skeletons in the closets, Y/N has become the voice of reason and unbiased opinions. Similar to Alfred, just without the sass. 
“Do you still like raspberries?” Bruce asked, and Y/N nodded, “You ask this every time a celebration of some sort comes up and the answer is always the same. Yes, I still love raspberries.” Y/N had once confided to Bruce, over a glass of wine, how he had asked his father if he could paint the bookshelves in his room. Little did Mr. L/N know that the color would be burgundy, the closest color to a raspberry he could get without poking someone’s eye out, and when his father found out he had the bookshelves removed and set ablaze. 
Y/N got his ass handed to him when Mr. L/N came back from his trip, and was then prohibited from decorating his room without prior approval of design and permission. 
Bruce had the bookshelves in Y/N’s room in the manor painted burgundy, and when Y/N saw them, it was like watching a child be told that they were not the bad child. The relief and the path to healing across his face as he took in the bookshelves.
The man watched Y/N sip his cup of coffee, watching how exhaustion seemed to seep off of him like cologne and fill the air with his tired and somewhat annoyed state. Phone calls from Mr. L/N we’re never received well by anybody, and Jason and Tim have more than once thought about sending the hateful man a few messages. Damian offered to ambush him when he came home. 
Y/N quickly shot those down.
Tim came from nowhere, his face screwed tight and body tense. Y/N gave him a once over, before making space for the college student on the couch. He gave him a worried look-over, “Is everything alright?” Tim melted into Y/N’s side, huffing and grumbling about something. 
Bruce’s phone vibrated, and it was a message from Tim sent before he got down here. 
‘It’s in Cabo.’ Bruce huffed, already knowing that if Tim was listening then so was everyone else. Referring to Mr. L/N as an ‘it’ seemed to be everyone’s favorite pastime. Everyone but Y/N’s, but as long as it wasn’t said around him then it was fine. 
“You’re going to the Gala, right?” Tim asked and Y/N nodded, “Of course, when have I ever missed one?” Tim continued to grumble a bit, but relaxed into Y/N’s side as he ran his fingers through Tim’s messy hair. God he loves it when Y/N does this. There was barely anything better than Y/N’s head massages, easily lulling him to a calm state as everyone mentally prepared for the Gala tonight. 
When Y/N had turned 13, that is when he started showing up to the Galas representing L/N Industries, and he would be in Bruce’s care while there. Whoever Bruce met, Y/N was expected to make a great impression. Bruce never missed the way Y/N would sometimes stare at the Wayne kids in jealousy as they got to do whatever they want, while he is forced to be an adult and try to win other adults over. 
Then forced to be yelled at afterwards by his father on the phone afterwards for something miniscule. Either someone commented on a piece of clothing, or how he wasn’t smiling, anything that was negative Y/N got yelled at for. It was like Mr. L/N didn’t know how to do anything else other than yell at his child. 
Tim took no offense when the fingers in his hair stopped moving, and Y/N’s body became limp. The other was knocked out on the couch, napping away the stress and enjoying the weekend. Unlike Tim who had Bruce’s help when managing Wayne Enterprises, Y/N is all on his own. Learning from his dad’s assistant, and also Bruce’s, Y/N was basically alone when his father had forced him to take the mantle. In face only, because as far as Mr. L/N was concerned, the company’s profit was still his profit. None of it going to Y/N, except as a monthly allowance. 
Jason had once said he should just stop managing the company, and if his father loved it enough, then he’ll take over. Y/N chuckled-the bags under his eyes were deep and he had just gotten over a stress cold- and he said that although his father may care a lot about the profit, it was his late mother’s company and he wouldn’t want to embarrass her soul by purposefully failing. 
However, now all that company did was cause him stress and make him sick more frequently. Bruce had said it was probably stress from his father, and not so much the company, but that didn’t stop them all from wishing the company would just go away. 
Tim looked up Y/N through his eyelashes, taking in the similar dark circles they both shared and how Y/N looks paler than usual, and he knows that Y/N’s health would only get worse if they targeted the company. His oldest brother would do everything in his power to keep the company afloat, and it would be devastating on both sides. Y/N would run himself ragged trying to keep it alive and that would mean less time with them. 
“Let him rest, Tim. He needs it.” Everyone has asked Bruce if he plans to do something. However, there isn’t much Bruce can do now that Y/N is an adult. He’s offered a room in a manor for Y/N to stay at forever, but Y/N has always been a bit hesitant about leaving the L/N’s home. Bruce can understand why. 
Aged blue eyes observed the steady rise and fall of Y/N’s chest, and he wondered if there was anything that could convince Y/N to stay here. 
++++
“Mr. L/N, what a surprise.” A surprise it is too, because instead of Y/N being here, it is his father. The one who was in Cabo earlier today. The man smiled, looking nothing like Y/N’s, and he held out a hand, “It has been a while. I figured it was time to show my face and give my son a rest.” Dick stared at Mr. L/N in shock and weariness, not liking how he said ‘his son.’ If it was a jab at Bruce, it didn’t land. Brucie Wayne, the social bug he was, laughed and clapped his hand on Mr. L/N’s shoulder. 
“Is Y/N not showing up?” The man’s eyebrow twitched, “No, unfortunately he felt under the weather so he’s taking a break.” Dick’s eyes narrowed, and Bruce’s smile faltered, “Is that so? How unfortunate, he’s fun to talk to.” Mr. L/N’s smile tightened, “Indeed.” 
The Gala was tense, at least it was for the Wayne family, because Y/N never misses a Gala. Never. Dick saved a slice of raspberry cheesecake, for when Y/N comes over tomorrow. He’s going to be upset that he missed a fresh slice, but knowing Y/N, he’ll worry about missing the Gala. The cheesecake will act as reassurance that no one is mad. They just had to wait until tomorrow, when Y/N will show up. 
Only he didn’t. Dick can’t remember the last time he hasn’t seen Y/N in a 24-hour period, but he does know that he didn’t like it. Almost like there was a force keeping his shoulders tight and chest heavy. Looking around, he could already see the effects it was having on others. 
He didn’t answer his phone, and when they called the L/N Manor, it was one of the maids picking up and stating that Y/N was either out, sleeping, or feeling under the weather. Which doesn’t make sense because when Y/N is sick, he is always over at the Wayne manor. No one makes a better chicken noodle soup than Alfred. 
They let it go. Maybe Y/N wants to be home because his dad is home? 
Then the next day, there was still no Y/N. Not a text message, not a phone call, complete radio silence. Following radio silence while on patrol, radio silence from Y/N had to be one of the more terrifying forms of silence. 
There was nothing. His father left late last night, and usually that would mean Y/N would be over. He would be over complaining about his dad and how he needs to work harder. He’d get a stress cold that would last for two days before he would be back to normal.
Every phone call, every text message going unanswered. 
‘Y/N, I swear I’m about to break into your house. Please answer.’ The threat was real and Dick meant every word. He’s talked Jason, Damian, and surprisingly Tim from doing it but now four days of radio silence was enough to make even Bruce stir-crazy. Batman has become a little more violent throughout the week, and Bruce Wayne a little more stressed looking. 
‘Hey! Sorry for the silence, I’m just not feeling too well. I’ll see you in another few days.’ Everyone read the text message, and everyone’s mind filled with the same idea. 
“Honestly, with how often he’s with us you’d think he knows better than to lie.” Damian’s nose scrunched, eyeing the message as if it spit in his face. Tim shrugged, “It just means he’s hiding something.” 
Bruce said nothing, falling into the role of silent protector. 
“You are not actually going over in your Bat costume are you?” 
In the L/N Manor 
Y/N walked  the dark hallways back to his room. Under his arm was a book and in his other hand was a cup of coffee, still steaming and warming his fingers. The lightning that occasionally flashed filled the area with white light, casting long shadows and creating an eerie atmosphere. 
When Y/N was younger, he used to sprint back to his room. He hated how dark and silent the hallways are, reminding him that he is alone in a place that does not want him. When he whispered to Dick that he was scared of the lightning, Dick had told Bruce and sure enough Y/N would be spending nights at the Wayne manor whenever it was forecasted to thunderstorm. 
Y/N had gotten over the fear, but he still occasionally slept over when the forecast predicted rain. Just because he no longer feared it, didn’t mean he liked it. 
Pausing to look out the window like some gothic prince trapped in a tower, Y/N recalled the argument he had with his dad. The older L/N making a surprise visit and berating his child when he first saw him and when he left. Y/N wondered if with the allowance he was given, if he could just move out. Apartments in the upper end of Gotham were expensive, and he’d never hear the end of it if he moved to East Gotham. 
Not to mention, if he did leave to move out on his own, he’d be further from the Wayne family. Sure, Jason and Dick live on their own, and it wasn’t like Tim or Damian needed him around all the time, but it was home for him. 
Maybe, he’s the one that needs them.
Lightning flashed and there was another reflection in the window. 
“Ahhh!” Y/N threw his cup of coffee at the stranger behind him, and only paused in throwing the book when he saw the familiar cowl. 
“Bruce! What the hell?! Oh my God, oh my God, I think I just lost like 10 years of my life.” Y/N clasped a hand over his heart, trying to calm the organ. Taking deep breaths, he finally managed to steady his heart beat and scrunched his nose at the older man. To which, Bruce Wayne glared back, “What happened to your face?” 
‘Oh shit.’ Y/N sighed, “Nothing Bruce. I just fell, but what are you doing in my house? Did…did you break in?” Y/N tried to get around the taller and bigger man, but Bruce grabbed his arm. He spun Y/N around and thanks to the flash of lightning, Bruce’s jaw clenched at the fading bruises on Y/N’s face. 
“Did F/N do this?” 
“Bruce, I told you I just fell.” The lenses on the cowl narrowed, and Y/N saw the frown grow on the man’s face. Sighing, Y/N scrunched nose and winced when a bruise scrunched with it, “Honestly though Bruce, how did you even get in here? No, how did you even guess this hallway?” 
“You’re rooms this way.”
“Ahhhhh!” Y/N screamed and ran into Bruce’s side for protection against the voice. 
“Dick! Ho-wha- why are you here?!” 
“We were worried.” This time Y/N only flinched, and whirled around to see Damian in the Robin costume. He gaped at the pre-teen, “Oh my God, you all are just spawning out of nowhere.” Damian grabbed his hand, and Y/N couldn’t help but to hold the youngest’s hand. Muscle memory. 
“Y/N, you’re face,” Dick whispered, gently tracing the swollen and discolored skin, “We thought you were sick.” Y/N smiled, leaning into the palm of Dick’s hand, “I was. I’m just getting over it, as for the bruises… Like I was telling Bruce, I just fell.” 
Damian’s grip on Y/N’s hand tightened and the oldest sibling smiled down at him, “What’s wrong Dami?” The youngest gave a small glare through the lenses of the Robin mask, “I find your lies insulting and belittling, Y/N. The truth would be appreciated before things get more drastic.” 
“...Excuse me?” Y/N tried to remove his hand from Damian’s grip, and panicked when Robin refused to let go. 
“Y/N, please be honest. What happened?” Dick, in his Nightwing costume, rested his hands on Y/N's shoulders and tried to coax the truth out of the person he sees as his oldest brother. It only made the other tense, and tried to get out of Damian’s grip. 
“Guys, you’re scaring me.” 
“Y/N, what happened?” Bruce’s voice did nothing to ease the fear that Y/N was experiencing, and for the first time ever in the time he’s known the Wayne family, Y/N didn’t want to be around them. He struggled some more to get away from them, but with Robin’s grip on his hand, Nightwing’s hands on his shoulders, and Batman’s gaze keeping him in place, Y/N found it harder to move. 
Batman sighed, and with a nod that Y/N would have missed if he wasn’t focused on the man, Nightwing’s hand moved closer to Y/N’s neck. The other’s eyes widened, his one free hand moving to stop Nightwing. 
“Wa-”
“Good night, Y/N.” His vision went dark and the only thing he registered was a pair of arms catching him before his body hit the floor. 
++++
Y/N woke with a start, in a very familiar room, with raspberry painted bookshelves and dark sheets. His arms shot up to his face, and bandages rested on his cheeks. Looking at his arm and seeing the sleeves of his pajama pants, Y/N closed his eyes in misery and knew that if he were to lift the sleeves, there would be bandages. 
Sitting up, Y/N grunted and rested his forehead in his hand. 
“Oh good, you’re awake.” 
“Jay…” Y/N watched the other carefully, watching the taller and bigger man silently move across the room to sit next to him. His nose scrunched, “Your brothers and father have some explaining to do. Where are they?” Jason shrugged, “Out. Don’t worry about that, but Y/N, why did you hide this from us?” Y/N stared at Jason for a bit, processing the question and sighing irritably. 
“Cause it's not a big deal. This was the only time and–” 
“One time is still too many times!” Jason yelled, startling Y/N. Wide E/C eyes stared into Jason’s furious blue eyes, the slightest hint of green starting to slowly take over. Y/N gulped, “Jason, it’s fine. I am here now, right?” He reached out and grasped Jason’s larger hand, watching the other calm down with deep breaths. Those blue eyes of his seem to fall on every bandage across Y/N’s face, before looking back down at their clasped hands. 
“Everyone was a mess, you know that right?” Y/N chuckled at him, chalking it up to Jason being overdramatic, “You guys are too funny. I know me going radio silent wasn’t appreciated, but you don’t need to guilt trip me further.” 
“I’m not joking around, Y/N. Everyone was a mess.” There was something in Jason’s tone that had Y/N pausing. His E/C eyes landed on Jason and watched how those eyes continued to glow green. The larger man took a deep breath and seemed to calm whatever raging thoughts he was having, “But it's fine now, because you are here.” Y/N furrowed his brow, but smiled nevertheless, “Yeah.” 
Silence overtook the room and Y/N is still unsure how to proceed. It wasn’t rare for the Batfamily to be a bit… dramatic. For fucks sake Bruce dresses as a giant furry and terrorizes criminals. However, there was something in Jason’s tone that had Y/N stilling. Contemplating his next words and wondering if they were the correct ones to say. 
“You’re awake.” Y/N’s head snapped to the door and standing there was Damian. He gave a smile to the youngest Wayne, “Damian, you're not one to usually enter without knocking.” The youngest strolled over and eyes Jason’s and Y/N’s hands, “I heard you two talking and figured it would be okay if I entered.” Y/N pursed his lips, “Well, true but Dami you should still–” 
“Father wants to talk to you, after dinner.” Green eyes met E/C and there it was again. A glint of something sinister lurking underneath the green. Y/N gulped and outstretched an arm. His palms up like he was approaching a dog, asking to pet it. Damian took the invitation and fell into Y/N’s embrace. Crawling onto Y/N’s bed and into the space underneath Y/N’s arm and against his chest, Damian nuzzled into the space with a content smile. 
Y/N felt his heart rate spike, something alerting him that he is surrounding himself with something dangerous. Which is preposterous. Yeah, Damian was a little psychotic and so was Jason, but they wouldn’t harm Y/N. They wouldn’t hurt anyone that didn’t deserve it. 
Yet, Y/N couldn’t shake the feeling of something being wrong. 
“When is dinner, Dami?” The younger boy hummed, “At 5:30.” Y/N glanced at the clock reading 5:25. Sighing, gently nudged the two away, “C’mon we have five minutes. Alfred will be upset with us for being late.” Damian grumbled while Jason outwardly expressed his discontent. When Y/N fully stood up, he noted that his clothes were different. 
“Who… who changed me?” Jason shrugged and Damian continued walking. Y/N looked back down at the sweatpants he was now wearing and the oversized shirt. None of which are his. 
“I-I should change first–” 
“C’mon Y/N, no one cares.” 
“Indeed, Drake has shown up before looking horrid. You look wonderful, like always.” Y/N said nothing to address those comments, but the time clicking on the clock had Y/N forgoing dressing and instead grabbing his house slippers. Damian was quick to grab his hand and Jason walked behind like he was protecting Y/N from something. 
The walk was silent, and there were some bruises on Y/N’s body that had him wincing sometimes. Nevertheless, when the sound of chatter began to echo through the halls, Y/N controlled his expressions and braced for the question and answers he wanted. 
“Well, look who finally woke up,” Dick joked and Y/N rolled his eyes, “I don’t want to hear that from the people who broke into my house.” He said it as a jest, but some part of Y/N wanted to mean every word he said. The three culprits didn’t even pretend to look guilty. 
Y/N gave Bruce a pointed look, he busied himself by pouring himself, Y/N, Dick, and Jason wine. Damian released Y/N’s hand to go sit at his respective seat, between Tim and Bruce, while Y/N took his between Bruce’s and Dick’s. Dick smiled at him, “Happy to have you at dinner. They have been quiet for the past few days.”
“If that is your way of saying I talk too much Dick, may I remind you who is the reason we had to enact a five minute quiet period during meals before.” The man laughed, unbothered by that little fact being thrown into the air. 
Dinner continued with the usual chatter, arguments, snide remarks, and dirty looks. Y/N’s absence was barely brought up, and instead he got filled in about what he missed while he was radio-silent. No one questioned the bruises on his face, or the now open secret that Y/N had tried to keep quiet about. 
“Y/N, please see me in my studies.” Bruce gently squeezed Y/N’s shoulder and Y/N followed, thanking Alfred as he did so and waving to all the brothers. The walk was tense, and something kept stirring in Y/N’s stomach that he was walking into something dangerous. Not a trap, because a trap means Y/N didn’t see it or feel it coming. However, he can feel this one. He can feel this one coming, something that would have his life changing, and yet he still kept walking forward. It’s the Waynes. His family. 
They wouldn’t do anything he didn’t like. 
Bruce’s study was as dark and aesthetic as Y/N remembers. A dark oak wood desk, bookshelves, the laptop and monitors, and papers. Y/N rarely set foot in here, mainly because there was never a need to, but he remembers being young and playing hide-n-seek in here with Dick. 
Bruce turned and gently cupped Y/N’s bruised face, turning it slightly to take in each discolored patch of skin and open wounds. Y/N smiled, “Bruce, it’s fine. I’m fine. You and everyone else are just being overdramatic.” 
“Is that what all of this is? Us overreacting?” Y/N gave a nervous chuckle at Bruce’s tone, one he’s heard when the man was Batman. 
“I mean, considering you broke into my house, that seems excessive.” Bruce released Y/N’s face and walked behind his desk, and motioned to a stack of papers. 
“Y/N, if entering your home is considered excessive, then I don’t know how you are going to handle this.” 
“Break in, Bruce. It was a break in, and what are you talking about?” Y/N picked up the paper, and quickly scanned the document. Bruce watched the color drain from Y/N’s face and horror take over those bright E/C eyes. They flickered from the top of the page back to the bottom, and then to Bruce and back to the paper. 
Y/N’s mouth opened and closed, trying to form words he was desperate to say. 
Wayne Enterprise Acquires L/N Industries
Bought. Bruce bought L/N Industries. Bruce bought the company from Y/N’s father, because Y/N isn’t the owner, and there is no way in hell that Y/N would have ever signed off on that. His mother’s company, now just a part of the Wayne monopoly. 
“Wha-what is- Why- Bruce! Bruce, what the hell is this?” Eyes filled with betrayal and anger as Y/N glared at Bruce. The man sighed, “It is as it says. L/N Industries in now under Wayne Enterprise-” 
“But why?! You’ve never shown any interest in the company.” Bruce wasn’t interested in L/N Industries. Wayne Enterprise was not a monopoly, and they didn’t buy companies unless that company was already going bankrupt. Bruce was interested in Y/N’s health, and vengeance. 
“Don’t take it personally, because it's not at you.” Y/N rolled his eyes, “It sure feels like it. Bruce, you know what this company means to me, you can’t just–” 
“Well I did.” Bruce met Y/N’s gaze head on, “The company is not in your name, you do not reap the profits, this acquisition was not a jab at you.” Y/N knows who it's a jab at, and he understands why Bruce is angry. However, it does not excuse the fact that this was a jab at the L/N family. 
Y/N clenched his jaw, “There’s no way he just signed it over like that.” Bruce handed him another piece of paper and sure enough, there was his father’s signature. Y/N stared at the inked lines, wondering just how had Bruce gotten that signature so quickly. 
“Blackmail really makes people move faster than the Flash.” 
“Wha… what blackmail?” Bruce raised an eyebrow and Y/N closed his eyes in misery, “Bruce, I get it. I do. He’s not a good father, but you didn’t have to buy the company. He’s literally going to ret-”
“You and I both know he would never retire. You would be working to the bone for him while he reaps all the profit.” Y/N rolls his eyes, and opens his mouth to say something but Bruce cuts him off, “Do NOT roll your eyes at me! Y/N this is serious.” 
Momentarily taken aback by the tone of voice, Y/N stared at a fuming Bruce. He processed the reaction and felt the heat in his stomach return, “Excuse you! You literally bought my family’s company, kind of if not really kidnapped me, and broke into my home! I have every right to be upset, let alone roll my eyes at you.” 
“That place wasn’t your home and you know it.” 
“Doesn’t change anything! That's like saying a break-in at a hotel room doesn’t count because the person doesn’t live in the hotel room.” Y/N could feel his heart rate pick up, and the reality of it all began setting in. 
“Holy shit. Fucking hell Bruce.” 
“Language.” 
“Do not ‘language’ me! Bruce, what the actual hell! All of this is way out of proportion for what happened.” Bruce slammed his hands on his desk, making some papers fly and the cup holding his pens fell. Blue eyes filled with rage glared at Y/N, “You can’t even say what happened! He hit you, Y/N. He beat you like a dog, and animal abusers still go to jail. He’s getting off with only losing the company. 
“And I know that those bruises are the only ones we do see!”  Y/N glared at Bruce, fighting back tears and biting his lips. Bruce sighed, his shoulders deflating and a pained expression on his face. He walked around the desk and hugged Y/N, bringing his son close, “Y/N, I’m sorry. I am. You’ll still be running the company, and will have a final say in things. It's just… God, Y/N. Not hearing from you and then seeing you like that...” Bruce took a deep breath, trying to control his emotions, "It was terrifying, Y/N. How could I let you stay there when all of that was done to you?"
Y/N wrapped his arms around Bruce, ignoring the feeling of dread of doing so. He ignored how Bruce’s arms tightened around him, “Oh Y/N, please. Please stay here where you are safe.” 
He didn’t want to admit that it sounded more of an order than a request. This was Bruce! His father in everything but blood and paper. 
“Just… just please don’t do that again.” 
“It won’t happen again. I promise.” 
______________________________________________________________
Not a whole lot of Yandere, but thats why there will be two parts! Not just one.
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enwoso · 21 days
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FORGOTTEN — alessia russo
*this has been sitting in my drafts forever, it’s a bit of a longer one, some angst but happy ending, also pls imagine arsenal were in the champions league knock stages for the sake of the plot🙏🏻*
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as her front door opened the first thing you did was practically through yourself at her, arms around her neck as your mouth presses soft to hers and you being eager after not seeing the blonde for over a month which only came to haunt you hours later.
alessia had kissed you back with just as much enthusiasm, of course she did, it was knee jerk reactions but once you finally pulled away and met her gaze as she was stood frozen still with a blank look on her face - a picture of total confusion.
"what are you doing here? why didn't you tell me you were coming? i'd have picked you up from the train station." you thought she was joking when she first said it, waiting for a teasing smile to curl at the corner of her lips as she tapped her fingers under your chin and kisses your cheek, while mumbling a 'i'm kidding - i missed you'
but she didn't - her head instead cocked to the side a little.
her gaze catching a glimpse of the roses you were holding as her brow crinkled even more, "what are the flowers for?" she asked. you blinked at her slow and unsure.
still trying to figure out if she was teasing you or not but her face gave you the answer, her face was blank as her eyes took in your form.
you looked down at the roses before looking back at the blonde almost as if you had forgotten about the flowers you had bought mere minutes before knocking on her door.
a feeling of something similar to dread beginning to boil low in your stomach as a heat crept up your neck, a one that felt a lot like humiliation as you wondered if the joke had been lost on alessia and she actually wasn't interested in the stupid bunch of roses.
"you." pressing them into her chest as you watched closely as her fingers wrapped carefully around the stems.
"i mean,, i obviously didn't just get you flowers, your other gifts are in my suitcase but i was at the train station and as i was waiting for a taxi there was a little florist and i remembered you always teasing me about how your always the one to send me flowers and i never send them back to.. you" the last word coming almost out as a whisper from you as it happened so quickly.
a wave of realisation hit alessias face as your words registered to her as the pit that fell deep in your chest when you understood her expression. pulling your head back and letting your hand drop from where it was settled on her waist and swallowed through the lump that had settled in your throat
"you've forgotten haven't you." plain and simple.
alessia had forgotten about your two year anniversary, she had clearly forgotten your plans to spend the weekend together that you had planned months in advance which she ensured you she had made sure nothing was in her schedule that would disrupt said plans.
but here you were standing like an idiot in her doorway with a bunch of roses and gifts you had spent months perfecting.
tension was building in her hallway as alessia's blues eyes were soft with guilt and regret. her mouth tipped with your worried lines and the only motion you seemed to be able to find was shaking your head as well as a disbelieving huff of laughter breaking the thick silence like a knife.
"you forgot didn't you? that it was our anniversary? that i was coming?" you could feel the pressure which was building behind your eyes, the hot flush and the sting of fear as you dig your nails into your palms to keep them at bay, willing yourself not to cry.
it was silly really but you had spent the entire train ride from manchester to london as well as the short car ride from the station thinking about finally seeing her, finally being in the comfort of her arms again and she has t even been bothered to remember the date.
you hadn't thought to remind her, hell you didn't think you would need to. she had assured you so many times that the date was marked in her calendar and that she would make sure she didn't have anything booked for that day. but maybe you should have sent her a heads up text.
"i didn't, no-not on purpose" alessia swallowed, setting the roses down on the small table beside her front door and taking a step towards you. her hands over her face as she rubbed her jaw. "i knew when it was, fuck i know when our anniversary is!"
"oh really?"
"i had the plans, i was gonna book the restaurant that you like to go to when you come down and take you to the new museum that opened up in town cause i made sure i didn't go with the arsenal girls cause i wanted to take you there first as you and i bought your gifts-"
"and what after all that planning, it still just suddenly slipped your mind?" you say bluntly taking alessia by surprise by your sudden coldness towards her.
"no! it's not like-"
"how do you forget something like that?"
"i've been busy with-"
"you're not the only one who has a busy schedule alessia! i have a life too, for fuck sake i do the same job as you and i still managed to remember our anniversary!" there was a hitch in your voice as well as a tremble to match the wobble of your bottom lip and this time it was alessia shaking her head she reached out trying to cup your cheek. only wincing when you jerked away from her touch.
"i've just been so distracted with training and the barcelona match, we play on wednesday and my head just been a mess. we've been working non stop, ive not nearly had enough time to do anything - it's all ive been thinking about. there's so much pressure on the me and the team and it's just taken over my whole life this past week!"
her hand fell tucking it away inside of her jogger bottoms which were plastered with an arsenal logo and the number 23, a way to stop herself from reaching for you again.
you could see the clear tension in her shoulders, a clear apology and pain in the way she was looking at you but you weren't sure how to actually accept it, you didn't know how to stop the ache that was ever so present inside of your chest. "i'm sorry"
"i know how important this match is to you, and i know how much work and effort you out in and i'm so incredibly proud of you, you have no idea but.."
"but what?"
"i thought i was important to you"
"no, don't do that" alessia began shaking her head as a evident frown appeared as she watched you quickly swipe your fingers beneath your eyes. "don't make out that i don't care about you or that i care less about you then football - you know that's not true."
"you forgot our anniversary because of a match, alessia! that's says a lot."
"and i’ve said im sorry! i lost track of the days not of you! i got too in my head and didn't realise. this isn't- this has nothing to do with how i feel about you. i love you and that you're the most important thing in my life, you know that but i just-" her voice began to crack and she made a face, taking a step back from you when she realised you were on the other side of the door.
your suitcase knocked over from your earlier eagerness to wrap yourself around the blonde. "i made a mistake" the blonde admitted, it coming out as a whisper as she fiddled with the rings on her fingers.
"it's a pretty big mistake." your cheeks were now wet but you weren't sure when you'd actually began to cry or when your stomach began to feel funny, that feeling of being in a free fall with the sleeve of your hoodie. you wiped over you face as you let your gaze fall to point over alessia's shoulder.
"people don't just forget things as big as this because of their job. relationships aren't supposed to feel second best."
"i've said i was sorry, i can make it up to you. i'll make the dinner reservations now and we can go to the museum tomorrow - you know i didn't mean to forget, i wouldn't have forgotten something like this if everything going on wasn't so chaotic!" the blonde sighed, pulling out her phone, probably to make the reservation for the restaurant but you began to talk again stopping her in her tracks as she looked at you dead in the eyes.
"maybe that isn't enough" you needed her to stop looking at you - needing some space to cry so you could get rid of the hurt, anger and embarrassment that had crawled onto your skin.
wanting also nothing more than to push the roses into the bin in her kitchen because looking at them were making the tears build even quicker.
"c'mon love, please i'm sorry. you have to let me try-"
"i don't have to let you do anything."
you probably sounded childish and maybe your reaction was, she had apologised and explained and maybe deep down you did understand but in the moment all you felt was anger. she had hurt you, making you feel as though you and your relationship was easily forgettable.
there was a breakdown building inside of you and as stupid as it may sound - the last place you wanted it to happen was in front of her.
"y/n" she spoke softly, as you sniffed and turned a blank expression at her. "i don't want to talk about it anymore. you forgot, you're sorry, no biggy right?"
"that's not what i said and you know it, let me fix it.. please."
"it's whatever" you mumbled moving your way towards your suitcase, tugging it into the house as you awkwardly pushed the door closed and moved you way around alessia's body. the blonde reaching out for you arm but you tugged it away - throwing a look toward the flowers. "you can just throw them in the bin, t'was a stupid idea anyway."
"y/n, baby."
"don't-" the sigh that escaped your lips was watery, the tears starting to fall again now that you were no longer facing your girlfriend. "can you just leave me alone?"
you hadn't spoken since then, both of you annoyed. you were embarrassed and hurt and alessia was riddled with stomach sinking guilt which she was unsure of how to get rid of.
she was avoiding the bedroom and likewise you were avoiding the living room which was a hard task considering she needed to use the bathroom and you need to use the kitchen. but with each passing it was met with a awkward silence - neither of you clearly ready to talk.
it was unlike the two of you. you rarely every fought and even if you did it would be over something silly like who had missed the other the most and would be resolved within an hour being brushed away with many breathy i love yous and mumbling apologies.
but this was different and not something that was small or stupid and couldn't simply be forgotten about because alessia had made you laugh.
she had forgotten your two year anniversary, forgetting that you had been due to visit her after being apart for a little over a month - this being the only time you both had off since you were still playing at manchester united and she had left to join arsenal.
the hurt that had unfolded in your chest as the image of her blank look reappeared in your head was nauseating.
embarrassment taking over you as the moment replays over and over in your head. you felt ridiculous standing there on her front step, roses in your hand that you had bought for her as it had always been a very long going joke between the two of you that you never returned the favour, hanging limp at her side.
it now being a little after four am and you were yet to find any sleep, the soft hum of traffic on the streets of london as a small breeze hit your hands creating small goose bumps on your hands.
your gaze glued to the street lights and cars which drove slowly down the street - each one having their own story. only blinking when the coldness of the air hit your eyes making them water.
her bed felt uncomfortable and cold - hence why you were sat outside on the small balcony at four in the morning. the lack of the blondes warmth was very noticeable as you had spent the entire night tossing and turning - huffing in annoyance and readjusting your pillow at least 25 times.
you wondered if she was still awake, still mulling over the afternoons fight - if she was feeling as bad as you did going to sleep on an argument after spending the whole day not talking. 
it was now almost morning and you were missing not being pressed up against her, missing the way her head would be resting against your chest as she kept your hand intertwined with hers. there was no point trying to go to sleep so with a huff you pulled yourself from the floor of the balcony and pulled a discarded hoodie from the floor over your head.
for a few seconds you simply pressed your nose against the fabric of the collar, her scent of strawberry shower gel and perfume still lingering. tickling your senses and making your tummy dip once again.
it was stupid how you could miss someone so much when you were only a few apart.
you were still mad, annoyed and hurt that something so important has slipped her mind but you did understand the pressure she was under while still trying to prove herself at arsenal. you wanting to forget that yesterday had happened and spent the weekend the way you'd originally planned.
but you were too stubborn and even more so when you were hurt and so instead of finding your blonde lover in the living room and cuddling yourself against her. you instead made your way to the kitchen, your sock covered feet barely making a sound.
the living room was dark beside the tv where the low hum of a film was making it difficult for you to hear if alessia was sleeping or not. but taking her lack of movement as a sign that she was, you carefully made your way past her. flicking the switch to turn the kitchen light in with a slight wince.
the first thing your eyes were drew to once they adjusted to the bright light was the roses, placed neatly in a vase on the kitchen counter - the protective wrapping gone and your throat suddenly went tight alongside a fresh set of tears prickling your eyes.
the flowers had been an impulse were an impulse buy, an inside joke which turned bitter when you realised it had gone over alessia's head but still she had set them out for everyone to see.
the second thing was that she had left your favourite mug beside the coffee machine, everything prepped and ready for you to use, a clear indication that despite your lack of communication the night before, she had clearly been thinking about you.
both were small gestures, meaningless really on a bigger scale but they had your heart squeezing tight with a small smile tipping at the corner of your lips - the first once since you had arrived.
while you were waiting for the coffee machine to heat up you rearranged the roses, an unnecessary task but was really just to keep your mind from wanting to alessia.
if you thought about her you'd probably begin to cry again, your emotions still getting the better of you but as if she knew you were subconsciously thinking of her she appeared in the doorway of the kitchen.
her pink silk pyjama bottoms were slung low on her hips, a black hoodie covering her top half - the strings different lengths and was something that drove you crazy and taking everything inside you not to go and fix the strings with careful fingers, to press your lips to her chin.
her blue eyes were rimmed with dark circles, tired and dull and no doubt a mirror image of your own appearance and an obvious indication she hadn't slept either.
her blue eyes darting between you and the rose petal you were rubbing between your fingers. "they weren't a stupid idea"
the coffee machine began to splutter behind you, hissing a little with age and without replying you spun to make your drink. alessia's gaze sticking to your back and you could feel it as you added a coffee pod to the machine and slotted your cup beneath the spout.
without realising you reached for alessia's own mug, it being a habit of muscle memory alone and took out a vanilla late pod from the box on the side.
"look i know it doesn't matter how many times i say sorry, i know it doesn't make it any better but i am forgetting was a shitty move and football isn't an excuse but you have to know that it wasn't because of you. i think about you constantly when your not down in london, everything i look at here reminds me of you but this has been the week from hell and I've let everything get on top of me, and i'm so incredibly sorry."
her voice was thick with emotion, a harsh scratch to her usually honey sweet voice that made your insides ache. you knew she was sorry and you knew she's try anything in her power to make up for it and you also knew that your silence was slowly eating her alive as the hours went on but you weren't exactly sure what to say.
you weren't sure if you could say anything without getting upset again. instead you settled for grabbing a spoon, keeping your gaze locked in your coffee.
"tesoro." alessia was only a few feet behind you. "you can't ignore me forever"
"i can try."
"yeah?" she settled against the counter at your side back pressed into the cupboard and regarded you with lowered lashes.
you didn't meet her gaze, only swapping the old coffee pod for her new one and slipped her mug where you'd had previously been, an action which didn't go unnoticed by alessia.
"what about when you need something off the top shelf?" she said trying her best to crack your silence, but the only noise being made was the tinkling of the spoon you were using against the sides of your mug.
alessia sighed, "hey, look at me." her fingers hesitantly found your face, unsure if you were just going to move out of her reach but you didn't. her soft touch against your jaw as she tilted your head up until your gaze finally found hers. her brows crinkling in concern.
"i'm sorry, okay? and i'll continue to say it as many times as i need to until you forgive me. i know this isn't something small and i know i’ve hurt you and i hate that, you know you always come first and above anything and anyone else and i'm sorry if i made you feel like that wasn't my intention"
her thumb brushed over the skin beneath your eye and it was impossible not to turn your cheek into her palm, seeking comfort in her touch. "it's not an excuse, but i've nearly had anything to do but train and it just slipped my mind what this weekend was - but that doesn't mean you or our relationship are ever second best. i love you so much, just-just please let me make it up to you"
the coffee machine beeped when alessia's coffee was finished but not one of you made a move to grab it, gazes locked in a heated stare, one that was unfurling a hundred different emotions inside of you.
she looked unsure, worried that you may turn away from her, that this weekend was going to be spent in silence and that you were going to leave on bad terms. the longer you stared at her the more her face seemed to relax.
"let me fix it please"
"it was a shitty thing to do and it hurts"
"i know and im-"
"but i don't want to fight, i’m no in way saying it's okay or that it doesn't feel any less like shit but i know the amount of pressure you put yourself under and i know that this match is important to you." you fianlly allowed your hand to rise to her shoulder and pull at the strings of her hoodie making them the same length, fingers grazing the warm skin of her neck.
knowing this relationship is important too.
"you're important to me me." alessia brought your fingers to her mouth, pressing a series of soft kisses over your knuckles. "i know it doesn't make up for it but i really did have everything planned"
"it's okay."
"it's not and you know it's not" she tipped your hand, palm up and skimmed her mouth over the centre her eyes locked on yours. "but i want to fix it, if you'll let me. i have the day fee - i can book the restaurant and we can go to the museum and do whatever you want, i know it won't be the same but.. please"
there was a note of desperation in her tone and it was only then that you realised how close she'd drawn you to her, your bodies almost pressed flush together. you knew the full ache in your chest wasn't going to disappear immediately but you also knew alesssia was sincere in her apologies and in her determination to things right and it was obvious that despite yesterdays anger you wanted to spend today with her.
"i'm still mad at you."
"i know, i deserve it."
"but i've missed you."
alessia gave you a little nod, slipping her hand around the back of your neck her thumb brushed back and forth over the skin beneath your hoodie.
"i've missed you too, i promise today will make up for it!" her breath fanned warm over your lips and you hadn't even realised you'd filled your mouth towards her. the hurt that had been wedged in your chest was beginning to lift and being replaced with a burning need to have her arms around you.
it had only been hours but you felt her absence like a lost limb, a need blooming deep inside your bones to be pressed flush against her.
"i think you can start by kissing me."
"that i can do!"
alessia smirked slightly, bending her head and using her hand that was already in your neck to pull you in and close her mouth over yours. the kiss was soft and slow, a gentle drag of her lips over yours. the sweet and languid stoke of her tongue when you opened your mouth and angled in closer.
the tips of her fingers grazed your jaw and then she was cupping your cheeks and pressing your back into the counter, tugging lightly at your bottom lip before returning to kissing you.
heat trickled thick like honey down your spine, your hands fisting the material of her black hoodie tugging her impossibly closer before you wound your arms around her waist.
you didn't want to stop kissing her. you wanted to stay in this moment forever wanted to keep swallowing the sound she was making low in her throat until you were dizzy off them but alessia had other ideas. pressing a few single kisses to you mouth, her blue orbs opening and licking to yours - a gaze a lot lighter then when she first walked into the kitchen.
"i bought you a gift. for yesterday, it's been in my drawer for months and i spent the whole night staring at it thinking i wasn't going to have the chance to give you it"
she kissed the corner of your mouth and then your forehead before letting her hands drop from your face, once of them reaching into the pocket of her hoodie.
"i got it made at this jewellers when we were in australia, i thought it would maybe be a small piece of me that you could have with you even if we are not together" she blinked, sending you a sheepish smile as she pulled a little box, holding it between you and the palm of her hand.
"it probably silly but i remember you saying while we were in australia that you wanted a new necklace, one that you could wear all the time so-"
"lessi." you cut through her rambling with a soft laugh, letting your gaze dart down towards the box.
"huh? oh- sorry, here open it" doing as she said, you took the small box from her. lifting the top and revealing a thin gold chain and a tiny dainty gold charm - the number 23 sat pretty in the box, no bigger than the size of your pinky nail. a rush of emotions shifting through you, a small smile breaking out across your face as you fingers grazed over it.
"thought it might be nicer than my initial"
"it's beautiful"
"i love you, and yesterday- yesterday was stupid and i loyalty fucked up but it wasn't because of my feelings for you" alessia swallowed thickly, the worried crinkle had returned back between her brows but you were quick in lifting your head and pressing a reassuring kiss to her mouth.
"i know - and not because of the necklace but because of everything else you do for me, yesterday was a mistake and i know you love me and i love you, so much. what happened wasn't going to change that" you smiled softly and with your free hand grazed your fingers across her jaw before settling your hand against the back of her neck, pulling her softly into another kiss.
you let the kiss speak for its self and say everything you hadn't already, putting all your love and adoration into it. making sure that alessia knew how you felt and that you weren't going to let yesterday become a roadblock on your relationship.
feeling her hands on your waist beneath your hoodie, her finger tips warm as she gripped you, pulling you closer. the necklace was still in the palm of your hand, alessia realising this when she felt the edge of the box jab her in her stomach. the blonde pulling back, settling her forehead against yours.
"i love you, la mia bella ragazza"
"i love you, lessi."
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liked by ellatoone and 894,107 others
alessia one year down, forever left to go❤️ i love you tesoro
comments -
yourusername forever? i have to put up with your clumsiness forever!
49m 125 likes     reply
-> alessia i’m not that bad!
ellatoone i see how it is, cutting me out of the first photo!
1h 140 likes     reply
-> alessia that wasn’t me!
-> ellatoone yeah yeah🙄
millieturner my favourites🥹
1h 98 likes     reply
-> yourusername we love you🩷
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steddieas-shegoes · 3 months
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Steve and Eddie go through the whole adoption process in 1996, despite how difficult it was to find somewhere willing to help them at all and despite their conflicted feelings on adoption.
The way they saw it though, providing a loving home for a child who needed one was better than the alternative. Eddie had enough experience with temporary foster homes to know stability was better than constant moving and questionable foster parents.
They get a foster placement almost immediately, a six year old girl named Amelia. She’s quiet, but not in a way that worries them. She’s very focused, and enjoys going to school more than any regular children’s hobbies. Neither of them know what to do with that other than keep encouraging it.
She stays for months, months turn into a year, and the agency finally gives them the go ahead to complete the adoption process.
But they don’t do anything without talking to Amelia.
She’s happy there, her therapist signs off on it immediately and explains that Amelia has shown more personality development and less signs of trauma with them than she had even living at home. Not to mention they actually brought her to appointments, unlike her previous guardians.
To celebrate, they throw a party with all their friends and family and tell Amelia she can invite anyone from school she wants. She invites everyone.
Turns out their daughter is a social butterfly and is friends with everyone.
At the party, Eddie pulls out his guitar, plays a bunch of popular kid-friendly songs after a very scathing look from Steve as a reminder to behave.
Amelia walks over to him after a few songs, on a sugar high like he’d never seen on her before, and asks to play the guitar.
He’s hesitant, but not because he’s still protective of his guitars, more because he doesn’t want her to embarrass herself in front of her friends. Kids are cruel, even and especially at seven, and the last thing he wants is this to be the thing that kids talk about for the next ten years.
She sits on the couch and holds it, arranging her fingers…correctly. Eddie watches.
Steve is watching from across the room.
She starts strumming, very quietly at first, not as confident as she’d been a moment ago. And then she starts really playing.
It’s one of the songs Eddie wrote. He played it for the last four months nonstop as he perfected it, and she’d apparently been watching.
Eddie’s jaw is on the floor and he quickly looks over to Steve, who has a similar look of surprise on his face.
He doesn’t interrupt her. She makes it through the entire song.
She looks up.
“When did you learn to play guitar?” Eddie asks.
“When I was watching you.”
“But have you played before tonight?”
Amelia shook her head, looking down. “Didn’t wanna touch it without asking.”
Eddie pulls the guitar from her hands and sets it aside, then pulls her into his lap and hugs her. Steve sits down on the couch next to them, hand on her back.
“You can always ask, sweetie. And if you’re this interested and this natural, we can buy you your own guitar if you want. I didn’t think you were interested in playing.”
“I wanna be like you,” Amelia admitted against his shoulder.
Eddie was done for. He looked at Steve, half-panicked, trying not to cry in front of these people, but Steve wasn’t faring any better.
“Then we can go get you a guitar tomorrow. You can get your own picks, too. They might even have purple ones.”
“Can I have red? Like yours?”
“Of course, sweetie.”
It only took them two days after that to realize she could play by ear, just like Eddie.
And then it only took another day after that to realize she had taught herself to read music too.
They spent hours and hours every week playing together while Steve cooked dinner or checked her homework or just watched them.
When Eddie’s band decided to record another album and go on tour when Amelia was 12, Eddie insisted that she get to be on it.
She ended up helping write one of their songs, played on the track on the album, and with a lot of work, convinced Steve to let them homeschool her for the entire 8 months they’d be on tour so she could perform on stage with her dad.
“Can’t believe she’s not even genetically yours. Are you sure you didn’t have an affair?” Steve asked the night before they were leaving for Europe.
“When would I have had an affair? I came back to the tour bus or hotel with you every single night,” Eddie kissed him softly. “She’s amazing, huh?”
“She is. What happens when she wants to be a full blown rockstar like her dad too?”
“Then we make sure she’s protected and has good people around her like I have. She could be a rockstar easily. She’s got the talent and the presence,” Eddie smiled. “And she’s got me to make sure no one takes advantage of her. But she’s only 12. We’ve got time to worry about that later.”
“You’re bringing her onstage every single night all over the world for the next eight months, baby. I think later is now.”
Eddie sighed. “She’s gonna blow them all away. I’m proud of her. Let’s focus on that for now.”
And she did blow everyone away. The fans and the media had nothing but good things to say, and Steve didn’t have to go into overprotective mom mode at all until she was 15 and signing a record deal of her own.
But between Eddie and him, the entire industry knew better than to fuck with her or them.
They made rules, of course. School still came first, she still had required family events to be at, she still had regular friends at home. She wasn’t allowed at any parties, not even the events for award ceremonies.
But she didn’t really need those rules. She had no interest in parties or abandoning her friends or family, and she was a straight A student who still had hopes of getting into Brown for Journalism like her Aunt Nancy. She had a passion for music and wanted to share it, but not at the cost of the rest of her life.
And Eddie and Steve did everything they could to make sure she got to have everything. That’s what they’d promised her from day one.
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jockbroski34 · 3 months
Text
How Things Used To Be
I wonder how long it took me to notice that there was something wrong with Nathan.  We had been best friends for years, ever since the 5th grade, and we always hung out together both in and out of school.  I was hoping things could’ve stayed like that this summer, but it seemed like fate had other plans.  Between family vacations and college prep, it seemed like he didn’t have time for me anymore.  And to make it worse, whenever he wasn’t doing that, he was hanging out with some other guys who I had never met, and he never even bothered to ask me if I wanted to come with.  I know people grow and change, but I didn’t want to see it happen to my own best friend.  On the bright side, we’re going to the same college, so I hope I can see him around.
And I did see him.  It was the third week of courses, once I was starting to get acquainted with campus life.  For once, I was actually being more social, trying to fill the gap that Nathan left.  I used this opportunity to start talking to people in my classes and I found that we had some similar interests.  I wish I could say the same for my roommate, but he mostly keeps to himself and we don’t have much in common.
Okay, back to Nathan.  I was walking back to the dorms after my last class, texting one of my classmates about the homework.  I was interrupted when I walked headfirst into another student.  I should’ve been paying more attention to my surroundings.  I looked up at the giant in front of me, probably 6’3”, before apologizing.
“James, is that you?”  the giant asked.  The voice sounded very familiar, yet at the same time, different.  I took a closer look at him.  “Long time no see, huh?”  I was surprised when I realized who it was.
“Nate?  Woah, what happened to you?”  I couldn’t believe that this person in front of me was my best friend.  This was not the same Nathan from three months ago during graduation.  He was always a bit taller than me, but he had to have grown at least 3 inches.  He used to wear glasses, but it seemed like he switched over to contacts.
In the warm August heat, he was wearing a tank top which revealed his newfound biceps for the whole world to see.  The tank top clung closely to his chest and I could see his newly-formed six-pack through the fabric.  He was wearing basketball shorts that were short enough that I could catch a glimpse of his thighs, which were just as big as his arms.  I never knew Nathan went to the gym, and if he did, he never told me.  But still, I couldn’t comprehend how he became so huge in just three months, which made me more curious about what he had been up to.  A backwards hat fit tightly atop his head with Greek letters on them.  Sigma Lambda Chi…  Had Nathan really joined a frat?  To be completely honest, he looked like he was cosplaying as a frat bro, a far cry from how I knew him.
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“Like what you see, bro?”  James chuckled, as he flexed one of his arms.  He definitely never came across as a cocky showoff, but I was too distracted by his flexed bicep to notice.  I caught myself staring for a second too long, before feeling my face turn red hot.  Me and Nathan knew everything about each other, but there was one thing I never told him.  I was gay.  To tell you the truth, I had a crush on him, but I knew I could never tell him to preserve our friendship.  But now he looks even better, and he hasn’t made time for me at all.  Now he really felt out of my league.
“I’ve been working out a lot lately.  I’m glad you noticed.”  He still had his signature smile, but it looked out of place on his new body.  His face especially looked a lot more angular and masculine.  A visible tan glazed over his body like a fresh coat of paint.
“Daaamn!  You look great, dude!”  To be honest, I wasn’t sure how to feel talking to him again.  On one hand, I was happy to see him again, and, admittedly, a little surprised to see him like this.  On the other hand, he ditched me this whole summer to hang out with some other guys.  It felt so bittersweet.
“If there weren’t other people around, I’d let you…I mean uh, how have you been bro?  I know I’ve been busy a lot lately.  Sorry about that, dude.”  We told each other what we did over the summer, and wow, was his summer more interesting.
As we caught up, I learned more about what he has been up to.  Apparently, he joined a frat and he was hanging out with the guys there more and more.  He promised that he’d bring me to a party sometime, but I was hesitant because I’m not much of a party animal.  That lifestyle just isn’t for me.  He also said he was thinking about joining our school’s football team at the request of his roommate, which I found even more surprising because Nathan never played sports in high school.  I did track, but I was never that big into sports myself.  Our conversation was interrupted as another guy entered the scene.
“Yo, Nate!  Finally found you.  You seriously need to get better at texting me back, dude.  And who’s this dude?”  The guy was wearing the same hat as Nate, so I figured he was one of his frat bros.
“My bad, bro.  Brett, this is James.  We go way back.  James, this is Brett.  He’s my roommate.  We met over the summer and we’ve been hanging out since.”
“Alright, cool, bro,”  Brett responded, clearly impatient and indifferent towards me.  He dismissed me entirely, almost like I wasn’t worth his time.  “You still going to the gym with me or what?”
“Sorry, bro.  I just ran into him and we were catching up.”  Nathan responded.  “Hey, I gotta get going.  We should get food sometime.  Peace!”  I watched as Nathan and Brett walked away in the opposite direction of me towards the gym.  As they moved further away, I could hear Brett chastise him about something.  This is the guy that Nathan ditched me for?  I hope I’m wrong, but he seemed like kind of a dick.  I know I was jealous of him for taking up my best friend’s time, but I didn’t trust him.  As for me, I returned to the dorm to work on the assignment with my roommate.
The next time I saw Nate was that weekend, when I held up his promise to get something to eat.  I tried to ask him about it earlier in the week, but he was doing stuff at the frat all that time.  I was at least grateful that he took time out of his schedule for me for once.  He mentioned that he normally doesn’t hang out with anyone who wasn’t in the frat, almost like they were some exclusive bro clique that I was excluded from.  For once, it was good to hang out with him one-on-one without any of his frat bros getting in the way.  I expected things to be like how they were before, but I couldn’t be any more wrong.
It’s not that I disliked the new Nathan, but I felt like we didn’t have much common ground anymore.  It was like he was a completely different person.  He didn’t seem to care that much about our old interests anymore.  He didn’t have time for video games and he just wasn’t that interested in watching movies or photography anymore.  All he seemed to care about was working out all day and partying all night.  All he would talk about was some stupid stuff he or one of his bros did.
Plus, he told me he switched his major from mechanical engineering to be a personal trainer.  It seemed like he just became a total gym bro overnight.  The studious and witty Nathan that I loved kinda just seemed to be a stereotypical meathead now.  The worst part was that I knew that this was the same Nathan deep down, and he still treated me the same even if he was a lot busier.  I felt like maybe I was the problem since he was clearly still having a good time, and I wasn’t.  Why do I feel this way?
I felt my mood change as we talked.  Eventually, I figured it was time to cut off the conversation and return to the dorm, but Nathan definitely knew something was off.  He texted me later that evening, asking me if everything was alright.  To be honest, I wanted to make some lame excuse that I was feeling sick, but we’ve always been honest with each other, so I told him how I really felt.
Me: Nate, to be honest, I think I need some time away from you.  I don’t hate you or anything, but it feels like we’ve been growing apart and I feel like you’ve become a different person.  I feel like when I look at you, I don’t see the Nathan I’ve known for years, but someone else entirely.
I wanted to say more about how I felt about his new changes, but I didn’t want to escalate things.
Nathan: James, I’m sorry you feel that way about me.  I felt like we had a good time today.  I’ve grown and changed a lot recently, and I’ve realized a lot about myself, but I’m happy with who I am right now.  I know I’m spending a lot of time at the gym or with Brett or my other bros, but I still care about you deeply, bro.  You might be right though.  Hanging out with you isn’t the same as hanging with the guys at the frat.
Me: Do you honestly see yourself as just a frat boy?  You’re more than that.  You’re my best friend.  But now, you have more in common with the jocks from high school than the Nathan I knew.  It’s hard talking to you now since all you care about anymore are your gains and partying.  You’re nothing more than a meathead now.
Nathan: So that’s how you see me, bro?  The reason I had been avoiding you is because I knew that you wouldn’t like seeing me like this.  I guess I was right, bro.  But trust me, I’m happy like this.  I’m a lot more social than when I was when I was with you, and I’ve even become more in shape too.  I care about our friendship more than you can possibly imagine, but I guess this is for the best.  To be honest, I think it would be a lot of fun if you were here in the frat with me, but I know you wouldn’t say yes.
I didn’t bother responding.  I could never picture myself joining a frat.  I would never get along with his frat bro friends, especially Brett, who seemed to be the one he was closest with.  I still couldn’t believe Nate would choose him over me.  I wasn’t sure whether to feel angry, or sad, or disappointed towards him.  I felt like he was wasting his life partying when he should be studying.  To think this was the person I cared about more than anyone.  It was at this point that I figured I probably wouldn’t have my old friend back.  Or so I thought.
A couple weeks passed and I tried to move on from Nathan.  I always saw him on his story drinking and partying late into the night at the frat house or posting selfies at the gym.  He looked like he was fully embracing his new frat boy persona now.  If he didn’t still care about me, it would’ve felt like he was doing it out of spite.  As for me, I started to hang out with my classmates more and more, and there was even a guy I went on a date with.  It was a nice date and I did like the guy, but for some reason, the thought of Nathan lingered in my mind.  Even though I hated what he had become, I couldn’t stop myself from thinking about him.  I couldn’t deny how much he turned me on.  Why was I still thirsting after a stupid fucking frat bro?  One afternoon, after I returned to my dorm, I received a text on my phone.  To my surprise, it was Nathan.
“Hey bro, can we talk?  There are some things I need to get off my chest.”
I didn’t know what he could possibly want with me now.  I suppose I can hear him out just so I can see what he wants.  I went over to his room further down the hall, and thankfully Brett was not here to ruin the moment.  Nate said that he was doing some preparations for some stuff at the frat.  When I asked, he didn’t specify what though.  It always feels like stuff at the frat is kept under wraps.
“Did you want a drink?”
“Sure.”
“Even if it’s beer?”  A mischievous grin appeared on his face.  Was he seriously offering me beer?  I knew that alcohol wasn’t allowed in the dorms, but clearly that rule didn’t faze him.  Obviously he knew how to get his hands on some drinks.  To be honest, I had never drank alcohol before, but I figured this would be the easiest way to try it before I turned 21.  Plus, it might alleviate the tension between us.  Either that or make us fight like two drunkards in a bar.
“Sure, why not.”  Nate went to get two bottles for us.  I took my first sip and was disgusted by the bitter taste of the beer.
“You don’t like it?  Neither did I at first,” Nate chuckled.  “After a while, you get used to it.”  Nate turned the TV on as we chatted.  I apologized about what I said about him last time we talked, but he said it was no big deal.  I felt like I was a little too harsh on him.  It could just be the alcohol, but I found that I got along with him better than I did weeks ago.  As we chatted, my body started to tingle.  Was this how it felt like to be drunk?
“Hey, Nate.  I feel kinda weird, but not like drunk weird.  Is this normal, bro?”  I asked.  By this point, we both had two drinks each.  I didn’t mind the taste of the beer the second time.
“Nah, you’re fine bro.”  Nate responded, with a smile on his face.  Compared to me, he appeared to be much more sober.  “It happens sometimes, especially when you’re not used to it.”  I figured he knew best, since he was the one drinking and partying all the time, so I ignored this foreign feeling rushing through my body.  I felt as if my body was overheating as I felt my arms and legs throb and pulsate.  Sweat was leaking off my armpits and down my forehead.  There was part of me that knew that something was off, but it was drowned out by the alcohol.  As I took another sip, I felt my arm spasm as I accidentally spilled some beer onto my shirt.  Shit, I wasn’t expecting to do laundry later.
“Damn bro, you made a mess.  You alright?  Do you wanna change your shirt?”  Nate asked.  I nodded and he quickly went to his room to pick out something for me.  It wasn’t the first time I had to wear his clothes.  “Sorry about that, bro.  First thing I found.  Hope it fits you.”  It was a stringer tank with Sigma Lambda Chi on it.  I bet Nate looked like a walking symbol of the frat wearing that stuff.  For some reason, the idea was kinda amusing to me because it seemed so over the top.  I wondered how I would look dressed up like that.  I’d probably look really stupid.
I stripped out of my wet shirt and changed right in front of him.  I caught a whiff from my armpits, and I thought I smelled like a sweaty gym bro.  The tank appeared to be a size up and it hung loosely on me.  Still, it was better than nothing I guess.  Despite that, it had a nice familiar smell to it though.  It smelled like Nathan, but at the same time, it had a different flavor to it.  He smelled a lot more manly than I remembered.  I bet he wore it to the gym often.
Eventually, after my third drink, I went to go to the bathroom.  My body was starting to ache, like I had just done a workout with Nate earlier.  Workout…Was that what happened earlier?  …I think so?  Did we work out after class and come back to his place for some brewskis?  For some reason, the events of today felt incredibly fuzzy to me.  I was starting to forget the reason I was here in the first place.
I clumsily stumbled over my feet which looked bigger than usual.  After I took a piss, I looked at myself in the mirror.  Something was off, but I couldn’t put my finger on it.  I didn’t always look that big, right?  From a first glance, it looked like I was looking through one of those distorted mirrors they have at amusement parks.  I had to have been really drunk at this point.  I chuckled at the figure in front of me.  At this point, I almost looked like one of those frat bros!  I decided to flex my arms like they would, oblivious to the fact that they already grew just a little bit, before joining Nate on the couch.
“There you are, big man!”  he said as he squeezed my muscles.  I have been working out recently, I think.  “I thought you passed out in there.  Most guys don’t last that long for their first time, but you look good enough for another brewski.”
After downing our fourth drinks, the conversation took a different turn.
“Yo, James.  I knew you said you weren’t too big on the idea of joining our frat last time we chatted, but how do you feel now, having thought things over?”
I remembered our last conversation.  Honestly, I was so drunk that I didn’t remember why I turned him down in the first place.  The idea that seemed unappealing to me at the time seemed like it was perfect for me at this moment.  I didn’t even understand why I would be so reluctant to join.  I needed to join more than anything else.  I would do anything to join, even if I had to completely humiliate myself in front of my fellow bros.  At this point, nothing was too extreme for me.  The fact that Nate was in it was enough reason to join, so we could hang out more like we used to.  Plus, I could get to hang out with all my other bros and drink and party whenever we want.
“I’ve given it some thought, and yeah bro, I’ll join,”  my voice slurred as my mouth moved before my mind could.  I had committed at this point.  No backing out now.  I’m a member of Sigma Lambda Chi for life.
“Sweet, bro!”  He grabbed me on my far shoulder and pulled me close.  “I’m glad you said yes, because I have a surprise for you.  Close your eyes, bro.”
I closed my eyes as Nate went into his room to grab something.  Did I actually agree to join his frat?  I’m not sure what’s going on with me today.  When he came back, I felt Nate press on my head as his “surprise” fit tight around it.  “You can open them now.”
I realized I was wearing the same hat that Nate always wore, with his frat’s letters printed on it.  “We’re gonna be matching now, bro.  Isn’t that awesome?  I know you’re gonna want to wear it whenever and wherever.  But you’re wearing it wrong.  Let me fix it for you, dude.”  He turned the brim around so it faced my back.  As my hat turned backwards, I felt my mind fog up and any tension or brain activity screech to a halt.  I was unable to realize what I signed myself up for, unable to protest.  My conscious mind was drowned out by the alcohol and this hat was like a lock, sealing it away.  Not that I was against this, as a wave of pleasure surged through me.  I felt my mind slow down, almost as if it was stuck in molasses, as my thoughts began to simplify. It felt good though...
I would follow the example of my fellow brothers.  Look like them, think like them, act like them.  Almost like a hivemind of bros, you know, bro?  By this point, the changes were irreversible.  Nate had turned me into another frat bro just like him.
“Everything worked out as planned, bro.  You see, when you, my own best bro, told me you didn’t want to join the frat with me, I was actually really hurt.  So I talked to Brett, and had him “work his magic”, to help me do to you what he did to me.  I don’t like to lie to you, but it’s a frat secret, so now you get to know bro.  Like I said, it’s a secret, so don’t talk about this with anyone.”
“Don’t worry about it bro.  It’s all…uh…
Fuck dude, what’s the word…water under the bridge?  Huhuhu…”  I really had to think about that one.  I found it harder to articulate and use complex words, as I mainly just spoke in bro-speak.  To be honest, I wasn’t really that upset that he lied to me.  He did what he had to as a member of the frat.  I never stayed mad at one of my bros for very long.
“Now we get to be brothers for life,” he said as he gave me a big bro hug.  We clung to each other like two giant masses of muscle.  My huge biceps wrapped around his firm back as his did for me.  Afterwards, he handed me my fifth drink and we cheered to me joining Sigma Lambda Chi.  He laid down all of the rules, what everything was like, telling me about the coolest guys there, and so on.  He said he’d bring me to the frat house and introduce me to everyone tomorrow.  “They’re gonna love you for sure, bro.  I’ve got an eye for cool bros like you.”
As it got later, and we moved on to drink numero 6, I felt myself get very tired as we both passed out on his couch.  I woke up a couple hours later, and I looked out the window to see a pitch black sky.  Shit, it was almost 10 PM and I had to turn in my assignment at midnight.  But for some reason, I didn’t really care right now.  I didn’t mind turning in assignments late as long as the teacher still gave me credit.  I felt no different from the way I was a couple hours ago, just another Sigma Lambda Chi frat bro, but I liked it.  It felt right to me.  It was where I, no, where we belonged.
I looked down.  Nate’s tank hung tightly to me now.  It took me a second to notice my arms…Holy shit, they were fucking huge!  I looked awesome, bro.  As I admired my new body, Nate was still asleep, his hand on my meaty thigh.  Just above that, my dick throbbed through my pants.  Fuck, I was so horny for some reason.  Eventually, Nate slowly regained consciousness.
“I usually don’t drink this much on a school day,” Nate said, still a little hungover as he rubbed his eyes.  We sat in silence for about a minute before he spoke again.  “By the way, there was another reason I invited you over.  There’s something that’s been on my chest for a while.”
“Go ahead, bro.  I can take it,”  I responded confidently.  My voice sounded deeper and more bro-like than usual, just like him.
“Here goes, dude.  I think I like you, bro.  Not like you, but I think I like like you.  I know it’s hella gay, but I couldn’t stand to see you be so cold to me.  That’s why I had to make you a bro like me.  I’m sure you’ll love it here, bro.  And hey, if you’re not gay, that’s cool.  We can forget this shit ever happened and go back to being bros for life.”
At first, I honestly thought I was still dreaming.  First, he turned me into a frat boy, and now, he was confessing his feelings to me?  How crazier could this night get?  For all my life, I thought he was straight.  I remembered being glad when he broke up with his girlfriend two years back.  I couldn’t stand her.  When he joined Sigma Lambda Chi, I assumed he was 100% straight and that he was banging some sorority chicks every night.  To think he felt the same way I did all this time.
“Bro, I like you too.  When you stopped talking to me, I started to get kinda jealous.  I didn’t want to accept you for who you are.  But being your bro just isn’t enough for me, bro.”  I leaned in for a kiss, my inhibitions still nowhere to be found.  It was my first kiss and it was with the person I cherished most.  I felt like I was in heaven.  I didn’t really care that I was a dumb frat bro like him anymore.  I never did.  That shit was stupid anyways.  But now, Nate fixed our friendship and made us closer than ever.  I loved the taste of his lips against mine and I didn’t want it to end but eventually Nate parted our lips.
“Wanna fuck me, bro?”  he whispered in my ear.  A flirtatious smirk was plastered on his face, and one of his hands was still wrapped around my neck.  This was real.  I nodded as he took me to his bed.  I had never done this before, but I’ve seen plenty of porn, so I knew what to expect.  He laid down on his back and stripped naked.  I never felt this aroused before.  My dick even looked bigger than it used to be.  I was so pent up that I felt like I was holding this load in for months.  I guess frat bros really are as horny as they say.  I lubed up my larger cock before sticking it into Nate’s hole.
My serpent stretched out his tight hole as he had clearly not seen much action down there until now.  I pounded his ass as my dick went in and out of him.  In and out, in and out, in and out…It was a steady rhythm, my dick was like a metronome.  My hands clung to him as I held him in place, pinning him to his bed.  My hands ran all over his shoulders, broad and muscular, built like a football player’s.  We both felt absolutely euphoric as our deep, masculine moans filled the room.  The moans were loud enough that the students on the other side of the wall could easily hear them, but I didn’t care about any noise complaints as I fucked him harder and harder.  After half an hour of fucking, he both hit our orgasm at almost exactly the same time.  I ejaculated inside his tight hole, my hot, sticky seed flooding his insides as Nate came all over his abs.  At this point I was exhausted and still hungover and I basically fell on top of him on his bed.  We were both panting and out of breath.
“I knew you were a good fucker, bro.”  he whispered seductively as he kissed me.  We stayed in that position for several minutes until we heard the door open.
“Yo, Nate!  Did you do it?  How did it go?”  a voice asked, shouting loudly from the other room.  I recognized the voice as Brett’s.  He peeked into the room, witnessing the two of us cuddling together naked.  To be honest, I thought he would’ve been grossed out.  Guess I had the wrong idea about him.
“Better than expected, dude,” Nate responded.  He didn’t seem to care that we were both naked in front of his roommate and that we just got back from our trip to Pound Town.
“He looks way better this way, don’t you agree, bro?  But man, dude, now I know why you wanted him to be a pledge so bad.  I was wondering why you wouldn’t fuck any of those sexy sorority babes.  More for me, I guess.”
A week passed and by then, I joined the frat officially.  Me and Nate started dating shortly after, but none of our bros minded.  It didn’t matter if we were gay, we were still brothers.  I also learned how Nate met Brett.  He was taking a tour of the campus over the summer and he ran into Brett who was recruiting people for the frat.  Brett took a liking to him and kinda took him under his wing like some sort of mentor and they started hanging out since he only lived a town away from us.  Brett was our age, but he had more seniority and authority because his older brother Brad was very popular within the frat.  Turns out Brett and some of the upperclassmen knew how to turn guys into the ideal bros for their frat.  They wanted to bolster their numbers to make Sigma Lambda Chi the biggest and coolest frat in the state, with the biggest bros and the biggest parties, and naturally both me and Nate were chosen.  Not that either of us minded.  Nate joined the football team with Brett and some other guys in the frat, and the rest of us would go watch them play every game.  Our section of the stadium was always the loudest and rowdiest, especially when one of our bros scored a touchdown.
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Apparently I grew a ton during the night that I was with Nate, but I was too drunk to notice just how massive I had become.  It must’ve been something in the beer, huhu.  I started working out with Nate and Brett, and sometimes some other bros too.  I even ended up changing my major.  I chose business because my bros said that it was the easiest shit ever and I wasn’t feeling psychology anymore.  I didn’t really feel like thinking much anymore and I found that focusing on education so much was a chore and that I was wasting my college experience.  I’d rather be partying and drinking or hanging out with the bros at the frat house, watching sports, playing video games, or playing ball outside.  I got to see why Nate grew to enjoy this lifestyle so much, and I was mad at myself for not seeing his point of view sooner.
Three years later, me and Nate are still dating and we’re set to graduate this semester.  We’re thinking about getting a place in the city not too far from campus, probably with Brett and another friend of ours to save money on rent.  We’ll probably still throw parties every weekend like we used to.  College was such a memorable experience and I wish I could live it again.  I only have Nate, Brett, and all my other bros to thank for making college awesome for me.
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phantomrose96 · 6 days
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okay so i know that you probably get a lot of asks about sham sacrifice but like, how does vlad age? he's clearly not a 19 year old any more, and he's not rotting, otherwise it wouldn't result in facial hair and the muscle growth in his chest. the reason i ask is that his explanation of "the ghost stacks cells where they should be and keeps the heart beating despite not needing to in order to imitate it" doesn't quite mesh because by the logic employed his body should kinda just be rebuilding 19-yo vladdie.
plus, ya know, he changes color. seems to imply a physiological change
(Sham Sacrifice: Chapter 1 | Chapter 2)
So I talk about it here!!
It's not stated (yet) (in fic) (oops part 3), but Sham Sacrifice employs one of my long-time beloved headcanons which is that a ghost's appearance is psychosomatic. It's an ectoplasmic projection built on their sense-of-self. It's my headcanon that Vlad's original ghost form looked much like his human form (similar to Phantom/Fenton) but as Vlad keyed in on this aspect of ghost physicality, he used it to design his Plasmius self (boy you do NOT have vampire fangs naturally).
But also it's not a free-for-all character designer screen. It takes a genuine belief in your sense of self. It takes strong confidence and conviction to coax it to change from its steady state. Most ghosts can't employ this on a whim. It's buried in a sense of self they can't easily or readily change. Vlad is uniquely strong-willed.
Sham Sacrifice takes this headcanon a step further because, if halfas are full ghosts that never split from their physical dead bodies which the ghost is in control of building, shaping, and maintaining, then it is both ghost form AND human form which are sculpted out of this sense of self.
This has been fine for Danny "I'm not actually dead I'm just half ghost" Fenton, whose human form has passively maintained its form from when he was alive. It's his belief and sense of self. It reconstructs itself accordingly.
Vlad, on the other hand, in the same effort he put into sculpting his ghost form, ALSO put that effort into sculpting his human form. NOT a sickly, ailing 19-year-old at death's front door. He recreated and maintains himself as alive, healthy, strong.
And actively, intentionally aging.
Which is not something Danny has been doing.
And maybe Danny's passively done some aging of his human form, because his sense of self is still "I'm an alive 14-year-old and I'm getting older." But is this as much as he should have actively been changing and aging? Maybe. But probably not. (And now, that he knows he's dead...?)
Vlad was intentional every step of the way with what he did, and what's happened to him. His physical aging and maturing has been a self-driven process.
...And it leaves open some challenging questions. Is Vlad a dead 19-year-old who's been just manually changing his physical appearance for the last 2 decades? Is that dismissive of the life he's lived to act like he's just 19 because that happens to be the age he died? What does it mean to grow up if you're a ghost who's been ripped away from your natural biological processes?
And "at least" Vlad was an adult. Young. 19 is still young. But an adult. How much harder is this all when you're only 14...?
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gr1mstar · 4 months
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Timeless lover
notes: i don’t know why but tumblr is just annoying. when i try to edit things they disappear and just… the algorithm is shit. i thought i’m shadowbanned but i don’t think so anymore. whatever, i hope things get better.
content: sukuna ryoman x f!reader, reincarnation, past lovers, curse words (not a lot of them), sfw, human sukuna (from that time when he was actually human), flashbacks, lovers to strangers, mentions of death, sick reader (in the past), sorcerer reader (present time), sukuna has sentiments?, sukuna is soft for reader, past sukuna looks kinda like itadori yuji, not the same tho, but very similar, mention of pills, slightly an au because sukuna will never be this nice, reader is older than yuji but sukuna is older? that makes sense? mentions of blood.
word count: 1.9k
i also have an official masterlist, so check it out here
also now we have a part 2 - here
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all your life you felt a very strong sensation of deja vu that you could not explain. you tried meditation, yoga, different activities you thought you were never able to do - but the feeling was still there. so you had to live with it, even though it bugged you every day.
“remember me, because i will never stop searching for you.”
after you discovered you were a jujutsu sorcerer a few years back, you thought that all the things finally were in their place, but you were wrong. after you discovered the world of curses, you started having dreams.
"nightmares" you would tell other people when they asked, but for you, they were never nightmares. a nightmare was supposed to describe an ugly monster, someone evil with blood thirst, so why were you dreaming about a charming man with a beautiful smile and enchanting red eyes?
at first, these dreams were strange, short, and out of context, but then they started to take shape, lasting longer, and having a coherent narrative thread. but you still haven't managed to figure out who that man was. it was strange really, dreaming about someone you hadn’t even met before. you felt a connection with him, your heart telling you that you have to be close to him, but your mind was telling you to run.
you thought you were going crazy at some point. you remembered every single detail from every single dream, but deep down you enjoyed your little “nightmares”, because unconsciously you were waiting for your man with red eyes. you were waiting for him to come back to you, even though you never met him. 
they were different every time, the dreams. but one thing was the same in all of them. 
him.
the eyes that looked at you lovingly, his soft voice when he was speaking with you, a hand over your waist just to keep you close. you never knew his real name, always calling him nicknames and him calling you ‘princess’.
“kuna, come here!” you shouted, making a hand gesture at the man. he smiled when looking at you, making his way over. 
he took a seat beside you, under the cherry blossom tree. the spring season just started and the scenery looked breathtaking. blue clear sky, pink petals, and red, beautiful eyes.
“why are you here so early, princess? you were supposed to rest,” he stated, his hand making his way to your hand, playing with your delicate fingers. you could see he was concerned.
but why? you did not remember. that was the moment you woke up and that was all you recalled. but now, every time you saw a cherry blossom tree you thought about the sweet dream you had.
“kuna, you think we will be together forever?” you recalled telling him one day when the two of you were cuddling under the well-known tree. he was reading a book with one hand, the other playing with your hair.
“i’m sure, princess, that we will. i’ll make sure of that” was his reply, smiling sweetly at you.
“they don’t give me that much time, though.”
you were slowly dying, or better said, your dream version was. the few dreams you had about this were very sad and painful, a strong feeling of recognition being present in your gut. 
“when i’m no more, please take good care of yourself.” 
the dreams started being more unsettling, more dark, and very apathetic. you started taking pills just to be able to sleep a few hours a day, but after some time you stopped taking them, not working anymore.
and so when gojo satoru asked for your help regarding a cursed object, you agreed.
‘maybe working hard on this boring thing will make me sleepy enough.’ you thought on your way to tokyo, ready to help the handsome sorcerer who proposed the mission. it was not your cup of tea, but knowing him, he would never shut up about that and in the end, you would still help him.
“you remember the first time we met?” he asked, taking a small piece of your hair in his hands, and proceeding to kiss it a moment after. 
“you mean the time when you almost killed me?”
“fuck, you know i regret that princess.” he hissed, leaning forward to brush a flower petal that was stuck in your hair clip. “just pretend that was not the first time we met.” he continued, looking away.
you giggled softly, taking his big hands into your cold ones. it was summer now, but you were getting colder as the days went by. you lover was concerned, but he had enough hope that a miracle would happen and make you healthy again.
you never believed in hope.
“how can i do that, my love? that was the time i fell in love with you.” was your response, now your turn to kiss his knuckles. 
“i still find myself asking how such a wonderful person as you fell in love with a crazy and broken person like me.” the red-eyed stranger muttered, letting his head rest on yours.
“maybe because i’m too, crazy and broken.”
as you walked your way to jujutsu high, a school that took you under their wing to teach you how to control your power, memories started flowing inside of your head. unfortunately, you had to move right after graduating and never had the time to stay in touch with your childhood friends: shoko, satoru, and… suguru.
you felt bad for what happened because you weren’t there for them and chose to leave them behind when they needed someone to cry to. you would never forgive yourself for that.
“yo, [name]. long time no see.” a white hair shouted in your direction.
“indeed, gojo. i would say i missed your crackhead ass, but i would be lying,” you responded to your long friend, making your way to him to hug him. letting his infinity down, he took you into his arms, spinning you a few times,
“relentless as usual, it's good to know that you haven't changed at all” he added, putting your weight down back on the drown. “still having problems with sleep?”
“yeah. stopped taking the pills too, made the dreams worse.”
“tell shoko that, she started having the same problem.” was his response, but he continued, never letting you adventuring further into the conversation. “let’s go to yaga, i’m sure he is waiting for us. also, you need to meet megumi, he heard a lot about you.”
“i hope good things-” you asked, but seeing gojo’s face making a grin you let out an annoyed sigh, “satoru!”
“good things, very good things. the only thing i told him was that you were in love with sakura flowers.” he laughed.
“you look so funny, ‘kuna” you giggled, eyeing the handsome man in front of you.
“you and your damn flowers, my love. when did you have time for this?” ‘kuna asked, taking his flower crown from his head and putting it on his lap.
“last night. i thought about your pretty pinkish hair and how the sakura flowers would look through it.” was your answer, making your way to steal a kiss from him.
”i wish i could look at this every day and night.” you continued, looking at his frame with admiration and affection.
“be my wife” 
“what?”
“be my wife. fuck it, no. be my queen,” he repeated himself, placing the flower crown that stood on his lap onto your hair. he made you speechless. his what?
the high school was packed with kids, remembering you about your childhood before becoming a full-time sorcerer. you and megumi had the task to identify where the cursed object was and bring it back to the principal. simple as that, right?
“fucking hell, where the fuck is this thing?”
it was not simple. not at all. you spent almost all day looking for what? a finger? you regretted coming back to tokyo now. 
“cheer up. we will find it.” megumi comforted you, giving you a soft look. he was right, you just needed to look a bit more.
“i don’t want to die” you confessed, looking down at your bloody hands.
deadly. you had a deadly sickness. 
the cough you've had all your life suddenly got worse one day, and now, standing in your childhood bed full of blood you coughed up a few minutes ago, you could tell that it was not a pleasant sight at all.
you wanted your last moments to be at the cherry blossom tree, with your lover, watching over the moon at peace, not in your blood-covered bed surrounded by doctors and crying women.
‘please, god. give me strength to remain alive just enough to see my lover again. the beautiful man i fell in love with.” you prayed, closing your eyes and letting a tear glide down on your cold cheek. 
the situation was very fucked up, the curses were everywhere and you and megumi had no idea where the cursed object was anymore. 
earlier, you two met yuji itadori, a high school kid able to see curses, but now you did not know where he was either. you and megumi were separated and even though you searched for him you could find him anywhere. 
‘maybe the roof?” 
and so you got there, and oh man, you did not like the view. a gigantic, ugly-looking curse and yuji, in between his fingers. that was a moment your heart stopped for a minute, looking for megumi a few seconds later.
“megumi. where is the finger?”
“yuji. he has it” and at that moment, you saw something that you were never imagining to witness. 
yuji ate the fucking cursed finger.
“sukuna” your voice was low, almost like a whisper.
“princess. what in the world happened? how? i-”
“no. ‘kuna, let me say goodbye-” you wanted to tell him, but the red-eye man in front of you interrupted you harshly, taking your cold hand in his warm one, giving it a lovely squeeze.
“no. i’m not going to accept that. what goodbye, my princess? you would not die.” he started lying to himself, almost too afraid to accept the situation.
“it’s not something new, sukuna. i knew this would happen eventually… so i’m not surprised. but i wish, for one thing, my love. please, let me wish for just one thing.”
there was a silence. now, in the peace of the night with your lover, you were obligated to give your last breath, and so you wanted no regrets.
“i love you. i will always love you and i will be born again. i know it’s selfish for me to ask this, god please forgive me, but i wish to be selfish one time in my life.”
the moon was shining bright on the black sky, and the stars were screening for another sister, ready to give her a peaceful death.
��“sukuna… let me be your queen in my next life.”
looking now at the man in front of you, you could see a familiarity that yuji didn’t have before. yuji was yuji, but the yuji in front of you, even though he looked like himself, was not the high school boy you met earlier in the day.
red eyes. 
the red eyes looked at yours with a familiar feeling, as if he already knew your eyes and had already looked into them a million times by now. the same eyes ‘he’ looked at you on your deathbed.
“sukuna”
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the pictures were taken from pinterest
© 2024 gr1mstar — all rights reserved. please do not copy, modify, repost, translate, or claim my content as yours.
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astrxealis · 1 year
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arctic monkeys in the philippines raghh raghhhhhh raghhhhhhhhhh
#⋯ ꒰ა starry thoughts ໒꒱ *·˚#i am not going unfortunately but i am going to the 1975 in a. month? or so? two months? SO RAGHHHHHHHHHHH#u see my mom actually asked! heyy are u into them... like late last year and i was like kinda but mostly lune#I DID NOT KNOW THEY WERE GOING HERE UNTIL LAST MONTH !! <- stupid#tbf i only got more into their songs lately too. so yeah#idm not going but i hope everyone going has fun <3 wish i could go too but like i said it's alright!#i wna go to an mcr concert so badly tbh. hope they come here and i convince parents#uhh hozier bet will never go here ... he has never. and i doubt ever will SOBS#so enjoy !! <3#i am just. really excited for may oh my god i die every time i see love it if we made it live online#i will die then ... happily#also i think its cute how i often say 'our' instead of 'my'#uh. out of context doesnt make sense! but basically since i have a twin and we're super close yeah we include each other in almost anything#everything* + funnily sometimes we think scarily similar and really do things uh. yeah#would love to ramble about that another time bcs i'm sure it's uncommon lol not everyone has a twin#some people act normal meeting us some people are so shocked some people tell me they want a twin too and it's all weird and fascinating#how it's the most normal thing in the world for me but what about when people meet one of us and the other later?#and being friends with twins... i wonder how it feels. + we're closer than a lot of twins bcs we're insanely close but fight a TON. so. ya#anyways yeah my classmate once mentioned to me how she thinks its cute how i refer as 'us' and 'ours' even if shes not present then hehe#okay i will play games now... and continue homework later#stress ngl. cramming so badly! but i'll do my best aaa i know i got this
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saetoru · 5 months
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this blog is now archived !! find my MASTERLIST here !!
hi guys, and here’s a long overdue post that i wanted to take the time to make after collecting as many screenshots as i can for a lot of rumors that i think need to be addressed. before i do that, i wanted to apologize to all of my mutuals who ended up wrongfully harassed in their inboxes for simply knowing me—the irony of this issue being about bullying all the while people on this app have been simultaneously being genuinely awful to other writers who have zero involvement has been ridiculous.
i would’ve made this post sooner, but december was very busy—as you all know, i’ve been working with two separate companies for my capstone projects, and i had final presentations with boards to worry about. and then a cruise which was fun, but i was offline. now that i’ve finally had time to enjoy my break and collect my thoughts, i’d like to voice my own side to the discourse i’m sure you’ve all seen posted by @/garoujo, who is now @/gojoath.
first and foremost, i’ve been on tumblr for almost 4 years now, and while i may not have the brightest moments on here (no one will be spot-free in that amount of time), i’d like to think that if i actually went out of my way to vicious or bully people, this would’ve come to people’s attention a lot sooner. i’ve had a relatively large following across all 6 of my blogs in my time here, and while i don’t like to get into the metrics of my blogs, the reason i point this out is because i have willingly started my blog over 6 times. 3 of these were sfw blogs under my nickname tee, another 2 of which were my previous nsfw blogs under a different alias, and saetoru which is the current one, where i finally decided to combine my sfw and nsfw writing into one space. i just wanted to bring that up because i had quite a habit of leaving and restarting blogs before this one, and had i been obsessed with outperforming other writers in terms of follower counts, i would not have left the previous ones as often as i did. 
that being said, i’ll also go through a timeline of events and how they’ve snowballed into an issue that is not as one-sided as most of you might think. i’ve been mutuals with emmie since my first blog, and i’d been mutuals with her through most of her blogs as well. we’ve never really had issues until her last blog @/garoujo, which she’d started after deactivating @/atsymu due to discourse regarding racism accusations. the reason why we had a falling out was because i felt that there were a series of odd coincidences that felt slightly purposeful, but i was still questioning whether or not i was looking too deeply into it to actually point any of it out.
admittedly, when i saw her first set of banners, i felt our layouts were a slight bit similar, but i really didn’t mind too much because i had been planning to change my banners anyway because i was bored of them. so i took that as an opportunity to do so. it just so happened that within a day or two of every time i changed my banners, hers would be changed too—i never said i owned the color gray, and i even fully acknowledge that the last two sets of banners, at first glance, wouldn’t be a red flag. because, like i said, i was more uncomfortable with the pattern of coincidences than the actual layouts. then i switched to my instagram theme, and not long after, i noticed her add instagram story visuals to her navi. again, no one ever said instagram was my original idea, and that no one else could use it, but it was an unsettling feeling having the same moot continuously make changes around the same time as you, and changes that are different enough that you can’t exactly point out an issue, but slightly similar enough that you can’t exactly ignore the slight oddness.
coincidentally, the same day, another blog (who i will not name bc they’re not very active anymore and are also not very relevant to this story) made the same theme as me and i was a bit peeved because this same blog is someone who has copied a few other things from me and a handful of other moots, so i made a subpost on my moots-only personal blog at the time. keep in mind, i made this post fully aware that emmie was on this blog because i didn’t intend for that post to seem like it was about her. but she reached out to me, and i explained to her the situation, and i even provided the relevant screenshots to show my points. i still considered her a decently good friend at the time, and even with the slightly off feelings, i was still adamant about brushing them off and considering them coincidences that perhaps i was being a bit too critical of.
it wasn’t until i woke up a few hours later after changing my theme and going to bed that i noticed she’d then fully switched to the insta theme. again, instagram is an app used by millions and, at one point, was a very popular theme used amongst most people on this app. i’m not entitled enough to believe i was the first person to do it, but like i said. there are just off vibes most of us will not help but feel when a series of coincidences continue to happen back to back to back by the same person.
there were, amongst these things, a number of other small touches that made me feel off. most of them i don’t remember by now or have screenshots of, so i won’t bother to go into all of them, but for reference, one example i’d also like to point out that i’d had the phrase “you’ve reached the hanmas” in my inbox when she was still on @/atsymu, and sometime after, her sfw blog @/loveatsu had the phrase “you’ve reached the miyas.” small things like this are not things i make an issue over and am more than capable of brushing aside, but like i have said and will continue to push firmly is that i felt there were multiple instances of emmie, in particular, making small tweaks to her blog shortly after me that made me feel were not all coincidentally similar. the issue was never themes or thinking i am the first or only person to do something a certain way, the issue has always been me countless times feeling that one particular individual is exhibiting a behavior that is persistent and uncomfortable no matter how minuscule the instances may be. maybe they were really just unfortunate coincidences that happened with poor timing, or maybe they weren’t. but i stand by the fact that anyone in my shoes would be valid to question the timing of each of these events over and over again.
i would also like to bring up kinktober (though this happened a while after the rest of what i will get into) because this was the first public discourse that emmie and i got into due to an anon’s claims of similarities between our posts. i had received an anon who told me “i think someone copied your kinktober masterlist” which i answered to ask if they could let me know who. they had come back to say it was garoujo, and i did not reply to the ask, instead, i made a post to vaguely tell the anon that i appreciate them letting me know, but i will just leave it be and continue on with my kinktober regardless of emmie’s mlist. i do think there were some vague similarities, but honestly not enough to really question it, so i figured a confrontation or issue was not necessary. a while later, several moots had messaged me to let me know they had received anonymous asks saying to “block @/garoujo she copied @/sakusins and she’ll copy you too” (or something along those lines, i don’t remember exactly.) i myself was very confused (and upset) by the situation because i did not, and still would not, want to be publicly name-dropped in other people’s inboxes over issues that do not involve them. unfortunately, it led to some not-very-kind asks to both of us, and while i am sorry she had to deal with that, it is not an apology from a sense of culpability. that situation was, and still is, entirely out of my control. i would not have seen the masterlist unless the anon had mentioned it, and i did not take part in having people send asks about her to other writers. especially not in a manner that was pretty much social suicide for me as well. 
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(this is a poorly made collage i know lol but i hit the picture limit bear with me here.)
i would also like to point out that i am not the only individual who has had issues with emmie and feels she had copied them. although i cannot disclose urls (they have been blocked out for privacy reasons) here are a few conversations i have had with my own mutuals, and i would wager there are more people whom i haven’t talked to who also feel this way. they might be small enough instances that sparking issues over them was not worth it to all of these people, therefore she has never heard from people herself about this issue, but the point does still stand that this claim about emmie is not one i alone make, and is one that i have heard countless times before. her never being approached by these individuals for the sake of peace doesn’t erase that they have been, and are, upset by these events, and it’s a habit that she seems to continually partake in. i would also like to link this post where she has been called out by another writer while she was still atsymu, which was posted while we were still friends. i’ve actually had a discussion with emmie about that post, and at the time, i had quickly skimmed the post and felt it was perhaps a reach, but after my own experiences, i went back to reread the post and considered perhaps there was validity to it, and that this might not be a one time occurrence. plagiarism in manners such as this will always have conflicting opinions, and it is hard to sometimes tell if something is a coincidence, a popular and overused idea, or something that has actually been copied. my point is that a number of people have all felt that perhaps there is a good chance this was not an accident, and please consider that so many instances of people feeling this way might suggest that there is a certain degree of validity to the claim.
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at the beginning of all of this, when the masterlist banners had first started bothering me, i was upset, and i chose to vent to an ex-moot of mine who most of you would recognize as munsonsins. abby has deactivated a long while ago, but she’s relevant to this because i had chosen to vent to her at the time, and this is more or less what later caused this situation to escalate. at the time of venting to her, i knew she wasn’t mutuals with emmie because, as you can see, she’d told me as such. 
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one thing i would like to point out is that there were a handful of people i had vented to about my frustrations with emmie, but one thing i had always been mindful of was ensuring these were a) individuals who i considered close friends and not just random individuals, and b) were not friends or moots with emmie in the event that i accidentally made people who she cared about think lesser of her. had abby been mutuals with emmie, i would not have shared my feelings, and once again, i was not loose-lipped enough to just tell anyone because they’d listen. i told abby in particular because i had felt we were sufficiently close individuals who talked one-on-one and were able to vent to each other. a bit after i vented to her, though, she befriended emmie, which i had no such issues with because abby was/is her own person and is an adult who can interact freely and befriend whoever she wanted/wants to. 
not long after that, on the night before eid (this detail is relevant in the future) an ex moot of mine @/kazuwhora reached out to me. if you guys remember, there was a discourse last year that was all over dash about how writers on this app should be open to criticism. a lot of people (including me and kc) were upset by that sentiment—which is still valid. please don’t give constructive criticism to writers without their explicit permission !! but regardless, kc sent me a screenshot of a mutual of mine who had posted their opinion on this discourse, and their point was clearly that while constructive criticism is important in some aspects, writers do not have to be subject to receiving it should they not want to. unfortunately, i felt as if kc misunderstood what this individual was trying to say, and i was trying to explain it to her, but we got into a small argument over how we interpreted the post. i felt some of the things she was saying about this individual were inappropriate, and i had made it clear that i was very fond of this person, and it made me uncomfortable to be having this discussion. regardless of whether she saw my interpretation of the post or not, i wanted to drop the discussion, especially because it was the night before eid. eid is the one holiday i celebrate, and there are traditions i quite enjoy the night before, and i didn’t want them to be spoiled with a poor mood over a silly argument. unfortunately, she wasn’t very willing to drop the topic, and it ended up making me upset. so i posted this screenshot to my moots only personal from the conversation that consisted of my messages only and said, “tonight i had to explain what a debate is.” it was petty, perhaps, but very harmless, seeing as there was no context given and no names/pfps to indicate who the person was.
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truthfully, i had vented separately to cat, eris, and abby about this argument because i was friends with the three of them at the time, but needless to say, venting to your friends about arguments is a universal action, and i believe it is something all of us have partaken in. 
eventually, i decided to softblock emmie because i felt it would be more comfortable for me on my blog to do so. after a bit, i was informed of a subpost that seemed like it couldn’t be about anyone other than me—to make things clear, emmie subposting me was not my concern. i did not hold it against her because she is more than entitled to have her own feelings and vents on her own blog, but the thing that did concern me was that it seemed slightly evident that she was aware of my feelings when i had never explicitly had a conversation with her. it made me question who would tell her, and as you may have guessed, the only person with whom i had shared my concerns who could also be in contact with emmie was abby. 
at the time, eris had also voiced concerns that they had trusted abby with the ending of the plot for the diluc series they were planning, and coincidentally, one of abby’s friends had posted a fic idea eerily similar to their concept, to which abby had been commenting and reblogging more brainstormed ideas under. all of these ideas were very close to the plans eris had for their series plot, and understandably, they felt that it was not a mere coincidence that their entire plot was being brainstormed on dash by a person who was fully aware of their outline. i’d voiced my concerns with believing that abby may have also been sharing things i trusted her with, and as a result we both had made a few vague subposts that we liked from each other—a petty behavior, i will admit, but not something that i think is very out of the norm for a lot of people on this app. sometimes, we all just want to vent out our frustrations, and because we all more or less use tumblr as an outlet, these can sometimes be vaguely taken to dash. it’s not something that is ideally recommended (i’ve learned the hard way) but it’s also ?? not exactly something that only i’m guilty of, or is even a rare behavior. i think to shoot down one person for this behavior is quite frankly hypocritical. again, subposting isn’t a habit i would like to push as mature but it’s something i’d like to point out is very normal in this community, and is not something only i take part in. beyond that, i take to ensuring that whenever i do, i’m not explicitly exposing who i’m talking about in order to keep them out of unnecessary issues. 
after this conversation with eris, it kind of solidified in my mind that i did not want to trust abby with any more personal vents, or information, and i had ultimately decided to soft block her too. i had also decided to take the opportunity to softblock kc as well because i figured i might as well just remove individuals who i felt made me uncomfortable. this is, again, my right to do so to curate my own space. not long after, cat, eris, and i had been softblocked/hardblocked by a number of moots, and we were a bit confused, until cat ended up having a conversation with kc. many accusations were made about all three of us, more specifically, about me to kc by abby because the two of them had been discussing that they’d both been softblocked by me recently.
the list of accusations we were told of is as follows:
me, cat, and eris have a “burn book” where we “blacklist people.” it’s important to note that every time this discourse resurfaces (this is now the fourth time), the “burn book” has fundamentally changed in its composition—it has changed from a discord server “burn book”, to a google doc “burn book”, to the current rumor that it was an entire blog that was used as a “burn book.” it is consistently changed to fit whatever narrative is trying to be pushed, and regardless, the rumor itself is entirely untrue and has been addressed multiple times. cat has had a tumblr theme, a collab theme, and a server theme all dedicated to the film mean girls. she simply had a channel that was to share the urls of minors to block for interacting with nsfw works, or people who were anti-dark content—this is something that i have seen in all servers i’ve been in during my time on tumblr, and is not a new concept for many of you either. it’s simply a precaution a lot of servers take to warn writers about potential minors to block, and potential anti-dark content harassers. the name of this channel happened to be “the burn book” because it was a mean girls themed server, so the name just fit. nowhere in this channel were other writers in the community “blacklisted” or spoken negatively of, and here are the screenshots of the channel. this was simply something abby had twisted in order to paint us negatively. here is the link to cat’s post addressing it for proof and explanation (i run out of pictures or i would include them myself.)
abby also claimed that i was using this channel to talk poorly about kc and a handful of other moots. this is also false bc this server had several strangers (as it was cat’s server and i didn’t know all her moots), but it also had several of kc’s mutuals/friends in this server as well. i’m not so dense as to talk poorly about other writers publicly in a server, let alone a server i know has people who are friends with kc
now, this next part, emmie has conveniently painted out to be about me, as i apparently harassed and blacklisted people for liking itto from genshin impact, but i have been playing genshin for over a year on this app, and quite a large number of you are my own followers who see my rambles and my writing and i don’t have to explain that i have never written for itto, nor explicitly expressed an interest in him apart from perhaps one or two posts from back when i did his story quest. i never had, and still to this day, have no interest in the character itto. i’ve skipped his banner, i plan to skip his upcoming banners should they come, and i have never written for him, nor do i plan to write for him. this issue with itto is between eris and another individual, and i do not have the details to this, as i was new friends with eris at the time, and i’m no longer friends with eris as of current time. quite frankly, even if i knew the details, i wouldn’t go out of my way to share them because it has nothing to do with me. plain and simple.
as you can see, there were a number of rumors spread here to kc by abby, and as you can see, all of which led me to seem quite vicious in character. i’ve provided, to the best of my ability, screenshots and receipts of why each of these is quite drastically out of context and far from true to what abby has claimed. 
i did in fact, after these events confront abby because i was genuinely appalled by the way she knowingly and purposely twisted things conveniently to villainize me. she expressed that she was upset and paranoid by the subposts that she figured were about her once i’d soft blocked her, so i apologized for the posts. she had conversations with both me and cat about the rumors she’d started, and she also apologized for them to both me and cat.
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the rumors that emmie has claimed about me in her post, which she conveniently provided no evidence of, are all rumors that are more or less a result of my differences with abby and kc. unfortunately, despite cat trying her best to explain to kc the falseness of most of these rumors, she didn’t really believe them—which is her business. to each their own. i’m sure if i had been in kc’s shoes and in one night, someone i had considered a friend had been painted to do a series of nasty things behind my back, i also would not know what’s true and untrue, and she is entitled to piecing together what she believes is her truth. what’s not fair, however, is for emmie to have no involvement/understanding of these events apart from a twisted narrative she heard from one person and dog pile them into her claims of my behavior to further paint me as a villain. emmie is more than entitled to have her beliefs on my character based on her own experiences, which she has provided her own evidence of, but simply slapping an “and i heard she also….” does not necessarily make claims true, and is very manipulatively thrown into the post to add a list of things that make my character questionable to further validate her point. 
not only this, but she has made a point to openly admit that she and her friends have collectively mocked me for my relationship with my ex-boyfriend, who they have apparently labeled as my “fake” boyfriend that i used to get attention on this app. quite plainly, i get enough attention on my blog that i don’t need a fake boyfriend to amp that up. but furthermore, i am a south asian, muslim individual. my parents are immigrants with very strict religious and cultural beliefs that i feel are very restricting at times, and though i love my family, i struggle with my identity quite a bit as i live in a very western culture that clashes quite a bit with my cultural norms. i do not get to freely explore my sexuality or even romantic life in general, unlike some of you. my parents have been kept in the dark about my relationship because them knowing about it is something that could quite literally create a rift between us, and i find it very insulting and almost suspicious that a white girl is making a mockery of my cultural struggles and my personal life. many of you are either desi or muslim or simply children of strict immigrant parents with quite stubborn traditional views. i’m sure plenty of you understand where i’m coming from when i say that i have to keep my relationship hidden from the majority of the people around me. tumblr is the one place i can anonymously share bits and pieces of my life without worrying about if it will literally cost me my relationship with my parents, so sometimes i may have overshared silly or pointless things, but that is because it’s my own way of being able to express myself and my relationship the way i have always wanted to. apart from that, dragging and making a joke out of someone’s personal life is quite unnecessary in this case. the issue is about tumblr discourse, and i find it very hypocritical that i am being labeled a bully when people, more specifically a white and privileged individual, is plain and simple mocking and poking fun at my personal life and situation that i have no control of. that is my piece on that. whether some of you believe i had a partner or not is not my business, nor do i have to go out of my way to show you evidence of my personal life. what i will say, however, is that there are a handful of close friends i have on this app who are involved in my personal life and have seen evidence of my love life through pictures and private stories on social media. quite frankly, these are the only individuals who i have to justify the validity of my personal life to, and it’s honestly quite violating for someone to stoop to dragging someone’s outside life into issues about tumblr. i extend a very genuine fuck you to every single one of you that have ridiculed my personal relationship and just know that you are extremely bold to consider yourselves above bullying when this is the type of behavior you admit to engaging in. individuals with complex familial relationships, and identity struggles between cultural norms, their ethnicities, and the western world are not your playground to make a joke out of. some of us have very real struggles, such as not being able to pursue careers in favor of arranged marriages, not being able to pursue actual relationships that mean something to us due to a lack of familial approval, being forced to bear children at young ages due to familial pressure, and so on. they are not laughing matters, and are a part of my reality. and before some of you get started—yes, it really is that serious. i have struggled my entire life with having white girls poke fun and tease at my cultural norms, and i refuse to allow another white and privileged individual who already has a record of racially related discourse walk away with once more poking fun at my personal struggles and not be called out for it. i hope you had a good, long, satisfying laugh emmie.
onto my next points based on claims @/anantaru has made about me. the main thing i’d like to really point out here is that anantaru and i have never, not even once, interacted to the extent of my knowledge. they claim that cat and i cannot stand it when people cross us in numbers and that we go through people’s likes in order to find minors and blank blogs to explain all the notes. a) i am very bad at checking for minors and blanks in my own notes, so this is not even a logical approach on my end, but b) this claim is made because cat made this post under the tags of a post going around last year that asked to hear unpopular ficblr opinions.
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what cat means to articulate here is that sometimes, when she is scrolling on dash and interacting with moots and their shit/talk-posts, she peeks at profiles she sees in the notes and has happened to catch minors lurking. cat, firstly, has never followed anantaru, so they are not a “victim” to cat glancing at their likes, but secondly, this is not nearly as psychotic as it’s painted out to be. cat is not, and was not, jealous of other blog's notes. quite plainly, she’s not exactly a tiny blog either, and she’s only stumbled upon minors in the talks-posts of moots, including me. shit-posts/talks-posts are easy to notice minors lurking on, and while most people recognize that it’s quite impossible to catch every minor and ageless blog in writing posts with numerous notes, a simple shit-post on dash is more simple, and her unpopular opinion was simply that blogs that grow rapidly need to be better about catching those minors because they are susceptible to having more of them lurking. it’s a really harmless sentiment, and she’s gently reminded me as well on more than one occasion to be more responsible about my habit of being lazy when scouting for minors in my interactions. 
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this is not out of jealousy, nor is it some sick and twisted habit she has to “explain” why people get more notes than she might get. it’s also out of a place of concern for her own content ?? i myself and plenty of other large blogs reblog from mutuals, and they are well within their right to be concerned that perhaps minors are lurking on our pages and interacting with works we reblog from our mutuals. cat has voiced this concern to me before, also out of goodwill and simple concern for my content, her content, and minors in general. there is simply no need to twist it into her viciously looking down upon large blogs and their notes counts and claiming they’re “only because they don’t block minors.” admittedly, though, i do need to be better about catching minors, and i have always appreciated her trying to keep me in the habit of being responsible about it. more importantly, it was a small passing comment under a post of unpopular opinions, a lot of them were hot takes, and this is hardly a serious one to get so heated over. 
i’d also like to point out that anantaru has claimed we blocked them for being a gatekeeper and because we’re jealous of their notes. 💀. a) i am very grateful and very happy with the level of interaction i get on my writing, as more people than i imagine leave me countless comments and reblogs. i have never had an issue with comparing my interaction with that of other writers because i have always been abundantly content with the interaction i get. i have no other comment on this other than cat and i blocked anantaru at the same time because we happened to see a post of theirs reblogged onto our dash that made a joke that we felt was a bit insensitive to/alluded to SA—i’m sure it wasn’t meant to be taken that way, but it made us uncomfortable regardless. while we are both dark content supporters, and i myself have read more than one fic that includes noncon in particular, it doesn’t mean we have to like/enjoy everything related to it and we simply decided to block them. i’m not going to bring this post up bc it’s simply not important. they are an adult who is more than entitled to make jokes on their blog and cat and i do not have to like them !! we simply did what we were well within our rights to do, and that’s blocking them.
there’s more they go on to say about receiving hate asks and that apparently it’s because of our “group of friends.” cat and i don’t have a group of friends. i don’t have any group chats with her besides the one with her boyfriend because i get along with him sometimes as well, and we used to play genshin together a lot when i was in low ar. not that i have to explain my friendships here, but i quite literally do not have a group of people to “send after” anantaru because people are well aware of my close friends, who i text with my personal phone number. i’ve posted silly screenshots of convos on my blog multiple times, and none of these friends overlap because i do not have a “group” of friends, just individual friends who i talk to one on one. cat is not friends with my other friends, and my other friends are not friends with her. there are no inner circles that conspire together to send anyone hate because i “tell them to.” and if there are screenshots of me explicitly encouraging someone to send hate on anon, i would love to see it. if i had sent my anons after anantaru, it would have to be a public post, and i’m sure if there were a post of such nature, it would have been brought to light by now. they have also claimed they were given multiple urls of mine to block. i only have ONE writing blog, @/saetoru, and the only other two that are still up are archived blogs @/hanmine and @/katsuphilia, which are side blogs attached to saetoru and have been inactive for several months. there are however, multiple individuals on this app who also go by the name “tee,” and perhaps we have unfortunately been mixed up as the same person, but the only blog i have is saetoru, so there is no other active blog they have blocked me from that belonged to me and was able to harass them.
not only that, but anantaru has claimed that one person off anon sent them hate with a kaeya url which they insinuate to be me. once again, you are all more than aware of my history of urls, and many of you have all been here to see them. i’ve never once had a kaeya url, nor have i ever been particularly interested in kaeya outside of a small number of posts on a rare occasion. my genshin favorites have always been characters from sumeru and, at one point diluc, and once again i don’t have to ?? explain my selfships to you all ?? but literally, i have nothing to do with a kaeya blog or kaeya account, and im unsure why it’s being thrown into my name. quite frankly, i’m not sure  what their moot has told them we have said about them, but the only conversations cat and i have ever had about anantaru was that one about the noncon joke, and that’s it. outside of that, there is literally no evidence of us speaking about this person because it simply doesn’t exist. 
i implore you all to, instead of starting public discourse over things you hear, confirm them first. had anantaru reached out to me or cat and expressed that they are upset that we are supposedly spreading false rumors about them gatekeeping, then whatever misunderstanding it might have been could have been cleared. i would like to also point out that it is not above bullying when you simply dump numerous accusations that you have heard through half whispers from moots and provide 0 evidence for them. i am perfectly aware of why emmie may consider herself to have issues with me, but i have never had an encounter with anantaru, and truthfully, i’ve never actually even read their writing before. my main (and pretty much only) experience with them is seeing the joke i saw reblogged onto my dash, and as i stated earlier, the only thing i did for that was block and move one.
and lastly, the other point i’d like to make is that numerous blogs who i have been objectively very kind to have come out to take the opportunity to stomp on my character and reputation. for example, tumblr user @/osaemu, who used to follow me and interact with me quite often. i have always been excited to interact with her because she was really supportive of my gojo writing, and at one point, i had a small area of concern with her using the same exact title as me for a gojo fic. below are screenshots of our conversation regarding the titles.
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i am quite confident that this is a very polite interaction, and i was very clear that i didn’t think that her writing elements, including gojo’s parent dynamics and his dynamics with the reader, were copied or even something that i felt she needed to change. i pointed them out as a way of indicating that between these parallels and between the fact that i know she reads my rb! gojo series, i find it difficult to believe that our fic titles being exactly the same is a coincidence, and it made me uncomfortable—my concern was not how she wrote gojo’s parents or his dynamic with reader. i never accused her of stealing ideas that were mine alone to use, all i simply wanted to do was shed light on the fact that based on these parallels, i figured the names being the same was a touch difficult for me to brush aside as a chance similarity. i was very clear to outline that i know these dynamics and themes in writing are generic, and that people can pull inspo from them because i have done the same thing. my only concern was the title, which i politely asked her to change, and she agreed. case closed. i have been, again objectively, quite kind to osaemu, and i had no intentions of blocking her like a moot had suggested because i felt it was a very silly issue to block over since she was very lovely to me. 
i did, however, block her because she posted one-paragraph posts with multiple characters tagged. that’s not a crime on her end, and i’m certainly not here to police her posts in the tags, but as me and plenty of other people on this app have voiced multiple times, it is a bit irritating and feels like spam to see posts of these kinds in the tags so i blocked her. this is a very popular opinion and i refuse to be considered problematic for it. i am not here to police what constitutes an appropriate post to tag x reader tags on, and while i have made posts simply sharing my opinion on what i feel should and should not be tagged, osaemu is more than welcome to post whatever she feels she would like to into the tags. i do, however, block anyone who i come across who makes those kinds of posts because i simply don’t like them, and i don’t like seeing them. i don’t owe an explanation for why i block anyone, but seeing as i have been painted as some bitch for doing so, here is my reasoning. quite a lot of people agree on this sentiment, and to each their own, but i don’t enjoy seeing those posts. i did also unblock her at one point, as she mentioned. this is simply because a mutual of mine had voiced that they felt someone had copied the concept of their drabble, and i was helping them word a message to send, so i went back to this exact conversation to look back on what i said because it was a similar situation. as you know, blocking someone hides their dms from your dm list, so i had intended to temporarily unblock her just to see how i worded my message to help formulate a message for a mutual. there were no screenshots sent, i simply wanted to jog my memory of my points, that’s all. i did forget to block her again for a bit but eventually did, and that’s the extent of our interactions. i don’t recall posts telling people that i condone sending anons with death threats like she has claimed, and if she could point out the particular posts i have made where i encourage people to send anon death threats on my behalf, i would be more than happy to clear them up, or address them. 
i have admittedly, on a few occasions said in my responses to anon hate itself, the phrase “kys” out of frustration, and there are i’m sure conflicting opinions on that, but i do not regularly use this phrase in my vocabulary. i have been on the receiving end of graphic sexual and violent asks in my inbox regarding me, my teenage sister, and my mother, during my time on here, and sometimes out of frustration i have said less than dignified things, but this is not a constant behavior, and frankly, i think once people make graphic, violent, and inappropriate comments about my 16 year old sister, saying “kys” in response is not the greater of the two evils. it is a tad bit hypocritical to expect benevolence from me to an anonymous hate ask just because there is “another person” at the end of the screen when they have not extended the same sentiment to me.  
all of that being said, jumping on the trend to trample on someone while you have the opportunity to because you’re bitter they blocked you is also no better than bullying. apart from blocking osaemu, I have taken careful steps to always be respectful to her due to the very kind comments she’s left on my writing. leaving nice comments on my writing is deeply appreciated and welcome, but that doesn’t mean i have to subject myself to seeing posts i do not want to see on my dash on my phone. i pay for the phone bill, so i will cater my phone to show me what i want to see, and if that includes blocking a few people, i am allowed to do that !! i should not have to apologize for or be crucified for blocking someone and their feelings being hurt over it. 
not only this, but several of you have somehow started a rumor that i am 26 or even pushing 30. that’s nowhere close to the truth. i’m 21, soon to be 22, and i have stated multiple times i am an undergraduate college student. of course, there is no timeline to college, and people of all ages complete their undergrad degrees, but i have made it a point to vent about my concerns numerous times that i am very stressed about taking extra classes every semester to compensate for changing my major late because i want to graduate on time. my graduation year is 2024 (as would make sense seeing as i will be 22 years old), and if you don’t believe me, i have celebrated my bday on april 12th of every year this blog has been active. you’re more than welcome to check my archive to see if that’s true, and for further reference, here is a picture i have sent to mods of servers i am in to be accepted. (note that my url used to be hanmas before saetoru.)
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although there is no shame in being 26 or pushing 30, the reason why i wanted to address this is that i wanted to point out that yet another rumor has been fiercely pushed on my name and has been believed to be the truth. no one has to walk away from reading this post assuming that i’m a saint and i have never done anything wrong or that i have been faultless in differences i’ve had with other people. but a lot, if not all, of these claims are exaggerated with 0 evidence, and people have just run with claiming them as true. i physically cannot deny a large majority of these rumors with evidence or screenshots because half of them are made by people i have never interacted with or talked to, and i cannot produce evidence for interactions that never happened. i have seen blank, burner blogs post stories of their experiences with me, one in particular that claims i dm’d them to tell them their hanma fic was breathtaking before i harassed them about their theme, boyfriend, and parents. a) i do not dm anyone to compliment their fics because i am simply too shy to do that. i would have only reblogged the fic with comments if i enjoyed it. b) again, there is no evidence on their part, and i cannot dispel this story with evidence of my own because evidence of conversations that never took place does not exist. and c) i would like to think i do not come across as dense enough to attack someone in their dm’s viciously about their boyfriend and parents openly with my account, where they could easily spread the proof around if it had actually happened. i am not responsible for people’s internet literacy, and if people believe every story that is shared with not even a small piece of proof that it took place, i cannot do anything besides simply urge you all to formulate your opinions based on what you see, not based on what you hear. 
i would also like to end things off with an apology to all of you—mainly because there was no reason for so many of you to be dragged into something that did not involve you and also because there are very disturbing and important issues going on right now in real-time in the world that are affecting a lot of people. i never want to be involved in something that takes attention off of important discussions such as genocide, and while many of you like to claim i am deflecting, i think it is quite telling that some people have posted nothing about something this important but have made multiple posts regarding discourse. i did not feel it was appropriate at that time to focus on discourse, and i still do not think so, but i wanted to leave off with my own statement.
i would also like to apologize if i have ever come across as unkind during an experience with me; it is never my intention to be that way purposely. i have a habit of being petty sometimes and can be a bit short-tempered, and it’s something i work on. with as large of a following as i have, sometimes it’s better not to say anything at all than say it—however vaguely it might be. i hope some of you who also have larger followings keep that in mind so that you can avoid discourse erupting into something grand scale. please vent to people you trust and be wary of having a habit to subpost. but mainly, please remember that people trusting you with their feelings and troubles is not something you should take pride in spreading. there is nothing to be proud of about sharing people's private socials, urls, and conversations. while i am not always able to keep my temper under wraps, and while i have had my fair share of petty moments, i, to the best of my ability, have always made sure that i don’t come across as intentionally cruel or mean, nor have i purposely broken someone’s trust. sometimes i have retaliated back a bit fiercely, but i stand by the fact that i never purposely chased or drove anyone off, mocked or belittled them, or sent people over to dislike/hate them. i have at times vented to those who i believe are people i can trust, sure—but this is something we as people are all guilty of. there’s no way any of us can hold one person more accountable than others for partaking in closeted conversations that are never meant to get back to people and hurt them. 
i genuinely loved, and still love, writing very much, and i have always appreciated every ask, every reblog, and every comment. writing is a hobby i am greatly passionate about, and it’s always a hobby i was very excited to share with people on here because i don’t get to share it with people irl. i don’t willingly tell people irl that i enjoy making elaborate plots about anime characters, and i have always been very excited to share that hobby with you all, whether you are a reader or writer. i’ve read fanfiction for a very long time before i ever decided to try my hand at writing it, and i would never want to knock other people down simply because they “surpassed” me. i enjoy finding writers to read from, especially those who write better than me, because they are where i draw the most inspiration and motivation from. the moots i look up to most are moots who are in my opinion, far stronger writers than me, and moots who i always firmly believe deserve much more reach than i do on their stories because they’re far more fleshed out and in-depth than anything i can produce. and i am proud of them !! and even those of you who feel you are stuck not getting as much reach as you would hope, i am proud also of all of you for picking up a google doc or pen and writing and trying, whether you choose to share it or not. i will always strongly encourage you all to try your hand at writing if you have ever considered it because i have genuinely built such a better sense of self-esteem when being able to incorporate pieces of myself in my stories and express parts of who i am—i think some of you might really enjoy the catharsis that writing brings, and if you ever debate on trying it out, please do !! you might become really passionate about it. 
anyway, this post is abysmally long. none of it is to clear my name in hopes that i will be “un-canceled” (LOL) because i have decided saetoru is long overdue to be put to rest. i hope you can all, at the very least, allow other writers some peace and stop harassing them in their inboxes for knowing me (because that is also bullying and very ironic of you), and i hope you all got some sort of understanding of where i am coming from. if you think poorly of me, that’s okay. i have an opinion of myself, and the close people who surround me, that i am confident in, and while i may not have always handled things in the brightest of manners, i am well aware of what my intentions have always been. 
i’m deeply grateful to all 41k of you, and thank you for reading my works and allowing me to write for you !! thank you for all the very, very kind asks that i never got a chance to fully answer each one of, and thank you especially for all the supportive comments and love on the writing i’ve posted. they might be silly fics you read once and moved on from, but they’re all pieces of me, my life, and things that are important to me, and as cringe and cheesy as it sounds, it means quite literally everything to me when people read them and take away something from them. 
also, as a parting gift, i will be posting the nerd gojo, ex-convict geto, and a marriage rb! gojo fic to my ao3 (also saetoru) for those of you who have been patiently awaiting those wips to enjoy. please (a little more patiently) keep your eyes peeled for those <3 i will no longer be posting or active on saetoru, and in the event that i keep writing, it will be posted on my ao3, so you all will know where to find me !!
so for the last time, i love you my little runts !! wishing you all the best, and goodbye to my lil saetoru bestees. 
mwah !!
— tee <3
ps. i also have turned off reblogs for this post and limited replies to people i follow only. a lot of you will jump to say that it’s simply because i am “hiding,” but it is solely because i have said my piece and i intend to move on. thank you and have a lovely day shawtee ✌🏽
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ineffable-suffering · 8 months
Text
Why Aziraphale is an unreliable narrator
Part 1: The Story of Job
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I'm absolutely not the first one to talk about this on here and I probably shan't be the last either. Alas, here's my take on why all of the minisodes in Season 2 should be enjoyed with great care – and taken with a grain of angelic salt.
I'm gonna split this into 3 parts, aka the three minisodes we are shown, since I tend to get a bit waffley in my posts and want to still be able to include all the little details. Once I've written them, I'll link Part 2 & Part 3 here as well!
Alright, let's get into it under the cut of doom.
Episode 2 opens with the Story of Job. Right off the bat, I noticed that it sort of looks like an old film playing. At first I didn't read that much into it, but once we see the cut-away to Aziraphale at the bookshop, currently reading that part of the Bible (presumably), I immediately thought: "Oh! It's because it's his memory. He's remembering how it went down and therefore it plays like a figurative film in his head."
This, I then came to realize, is a very crucial difference to all the flashbacks of S1, which were exclusively told and narrated by God. May her intensions be as ineffable as they are: She did tell us all of these stories from an objective outsider's point of view. Now, however, it's Aziraphale who's re-telling those stories to us from memory.
And if there's one thing that's for certain, it's that a memory is something entirely different to an objective narration of a story. Just think about how you yourself remember things. Especially things that happened years, maybe even decades (or, in an angel's case, millenia) ago. What is it, that you really remember? Can you know for sure, that a conversation was held with those exact words? Are you 100% certain that the clothes someone wore weren't different? Had it really been snowing or would that make very little sense given what you're remembering happened in May? And did it even happen in May? Or does that just happen to be your favourite month, the current weather, your preferred style of clothing and what it was that you would imagine someone would have said to you?
What I'm trying to say is: The further away it is that something happened, the more your brain has to fill in the gaps. This is why, for example, your parents will remember the family summer holiday entirely different when you ask them about it 20 years later.
"No, it was Sarah who puked on the car ride home!" "Nonsense, Sarah never puked as a child. Bobby had that gone-off pizza, he's the one that was sick the whole ride long!"
We've all been there. Bobby made it out alive. Don't buy gas station pizza.
Alright, back to the plot: Naturally, Aziraphale is not actually human, so it is a pure assumption on my part that the way his memory works is similar to ours. However, the whole topic of "memory" is actually quite a recurring one on Good Omens.
Crowley seems to have lost his in the Fall, yet somehow managed to get most of it back. Not all of it, though, he clearly has some major gaps ("You used to jump on me back, little monkey in the waistcoat!"). Beelzebub helps Gabriel store all his memories in their little fly container before they get wiped entirely too, by the Metatron and/or Saraqael. Crowley and Aziraphale (and possibly Jimbriel) perform a miracle together that makes everyone in Heaven and Hell forget who Garbiel is or what he looks like. And we know that the Book of Life apparently has the ability to completely erase someone from existence – ergo also erasing them from everyone's memory and making it is as though the person had never been in them at all.
So, clearly, angels and demons being able to remember, forget, reconstruct and, if you're the Metadork, wipe memories, is very much canon. Apart from that very last one, it does make them quite human-like in a way. We too can forget or (wrongfully and incompletely) reconstruct memories, due to things like trauma, illness or simply a lot of time having passed.
So, just like Crowley remembers going into battle but doesn't remember Furfur being there, or just like Jimbriel has entierly forgotten who he is but still remembers the tune and lyrics to Buddy Holly's song Everyday, and just like archangel Michael was miraculously made to forget Gabriel and yet says "Don't I know you?" when seeing him again – just like that, Aziraphale's memories of the story of Job, the story of wee Morag and the story of the magic show in 1941, might not actually be the whole truth.
So, time to look at where the furniture isn't.
Now, it could very well be that the costume designers of S2 thought: "Fuck it, let's go crazy" – but given that this show has a track record of meticulously making sure to stick to accurate and cohesive character design, doesn't it strike you as odd that Crowley would go from this look at the Flood in Mesopotamia, 3004 BC:
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... to the (very iconic, don't get me wrong) Bildad the Shuhuite drip in 2500 BC:
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... back to this at the crucifixion of Jesus Christ in 33 AD:
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I mean ... I mean– come on, that seems like a bit of a far stretch, even for someone as enthusiastically experimental with fashion as Crowley.
And it's not just that: Where did the sunglasses come from, all of a sudden? And why do they look like some sort of obscure, ancient optometrist's device? It's a known historical fact that the Romans were the ones to have invented sunglasses, somewhere around 50-ish AD. Which actually matches perfectly with when Crowley and Aziraphale meet again in Rome 8 years after the crucifixion (51 AD).
So, where do the weird spectacles come from, over 2000 years too early? Maybe from Aziraphale's brain filling in some gaps? Hasn't Crowley always worn those ridiculous sunglasses? Was it Rome? Or Golgotha? Wessex? Oh, blimey, what does it matter!
And it's not just Crowley: Aziraphale's own clothes, as well as the other angels', seem to be very different from the rather plain linen we see him wear before and after the story of Job.
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They're laced with golden embroidery along the neckline and sleeves. The remind almost of the clothes angels are depicted wearing in biblical and historical drawings. Ornate and decadent. Not at all like we see Aziraphale in the other flashbacks of S1.
Even Bildad the Shuhite's hair within the minisode keeps changing, going from all pouffy and voluminous to rather deflated and straight-looking:
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The costume department either had to fix up two seperate wigs or manually straighten out the volume of the one again to give it a more sleek look. I'm not a professional in this field, but if there's anything I've learned from watching hours of behind-the-scenes material of movies and shows, it's that very little about costume, character, prop and set design is purely coincidental.
You know what it could be, though? An accurate representation of how memories aren't linear, historically correct and objective representations of a certain event, but rather an ever-changing, jumbled mess of impressions, emotions and exaggerations.
More specifically: Aziraphale's impression, emotions and exaggerations.
Like "remembering" Crowley with sunglasses because he's been wearing them for so long.
Like "remembering" himself wearing more luxurious, angelic clothes because that's how he thinks of the difference between Heaven and Hell.
Like "remembering" the permit as a ridiculously long scroll that folded out over an entire valley.
Like "remembering" Job's children to be weirdly sassy in an almost Aziraphale-esque way (Enon: "Don't be silly!") for the fact that Job would have probably taught them to be more humble and obedient in the presence of a literal angel.
Like "remembering" eating an entire fucking Ox after having just one bite of it while Crowley watched him lustfully, sipping on his wine.
Like "remembering" Crowley calling him 'angel', despite them having barely known each other back then.
There's a reason why the flashbacks in S2 seem so much more alive, quirky and, at many points, confusing and all over the place. Because they're not objective stories being told by a third party. They're Aziraphale's. So much of his own thoughts and feelings at the time get projected onto them because that's simply how memory works!
It's subjective. It's unrealiable.
It's not that I'm calling Aziraphale a liar. He's no more a liar than your parents are, mixing up Sarah and Bobby. Or you, remembering snow instead of sunshine. Memories aren't lies. They can simply be faulty, focus on things that you thought were more important and leaving out or changing things that weren't, to you.
The real challenge in all of this, is trying to filter through Aziraphale's stories to see what it actually is they're telling us. Where it is that the furniture isn't. And I think in this case, that's 6 main things (eff you, God, I know you like sevens, but I don't care):
God and Satan (still) talk to each other We see that Aziraphale is quite surprised when Muriel mentions that the whole Job thing is God's bet with Satan. But clearly, despite having made him and the rest fall, God still converses with Her number one traitor about whether or not the humans simply love Her because she gives them nice things or because they truly believe in Her.
God and Satan (and Heaven and Hell) can and do collaborate with each other when they feel like it So much for choosing sides, huh? Truthfully, this is not the first time this is shown to us, but still. It's another piece of evidence on the growing pile.
Aziraphale understands the World and humans way better than any of the other angels "Well, you see ... Citis is 58 ..."
Aziraphale, despite having troubles voicing it, absolutely disagrees and even condemns God's plan of destroying Job's children (and goats and camels and––)
Aziraphale is willing to lie and thwart the will of God Also not the first time we're being shown this but again, piiiile of evidence.
Angels don't automatically Fall simply by doing the above To me, this is one of the most important take aways. It's already hinted in S1 as well that 'Falling' seems to have been a one time even back when the first war broke out in Heaven. And I actually believe that ever since then, no other angels have Fallen again. Aziraphale is the best example for this. He has gone against God's plan numerous times and even lied to her very face (voice?) about it. And yet, nothing ever happened to him. Why exactly that is the case remains a topic for another meta (that I might or might not be working on already, teehee).
Alright, that concludes this first look at the Job minisode! If there's anything I missed, feel free to share it with me. I'll try and add Part 2 (the story of wee Morag) and Part 3 (the magic show of 1941) soon.
Update: Part 2 and Part 3 have officially been written, you can find it them right here:
Part 2: The Story of wee Morag
Part 3: The Story of the Magic Show in 1941
Hugs and kisses, (God)!
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