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#i like to think I've grown in my writing since it and maybe i can fix it easier than i thought
edelorion · 16 days
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#edel vents#disclaimer: really personal issues in the tags. also wishes of death upon others. this is PROBABLY too much information tbh...#so if you're not up for it scroll down fast!!!! the deluge is coming!!!#today was... eventful. bad. also very bad. grandma's birthday celebration was today#and while she... definitely has Old People Issues (racist) shes also very lonely since the death of my grandfather so i can't really not go#i'm the only one who really visits her regularly to begin with#aside from the... very serious racism issue... she's “alright”. i guess. but that's besides the point. there's family there#and among those... my parents. which i don't like to talk to#discovered they threw more of my old stuff away. typical. wanted to strangle them. as usual.#had to “talk” with my mother (read: spend approximately ten seconds reciting exactly why i *don't* talk to her anymore)#so that whole ordeal completely soured my mood.#went home tired. can't really do anything right now.#at least the food was good i guess. but i also really want to cry... which i can't. which sucks.#...i really like to think i've improved as a person. i used to be really hateful of everything and everyone#worst of all myself. still kinda do but i'm... getting better..?#i like to think i've grown past most of it but every time i see my parents i feel this gripping at my heart. as if i haven't really changed#as if instead i'm still the hateful person i “always was” deep down... bc there's this visceral joy that i feel whenever i'm mad at them.#when i looked at my mother and told her how much i despise her i felt a shiver of happiness. righteousness.#to be clear: i do NOT care for her. at all. she's the worst person on this earth#and the only person whom my philosophy of “nobody deserves to die” does NOT apply to. i'm not scared of hating her.#she genuinely deserves this. but...every time i see my parents - and thus her... i feel as if i'm slipping back into that mindset of hatred#i don't want that. not anymore. it consumed me whole. i was a horrible person back then and i've caused so much grief for so many#i can't let go of this hatred. i can't forgive them. they don't deserve my forgiveness anyway. but i'm tired of hating.#i'm tired of letting that hatred define me. i'm tired of letting that hatred direct me. i'm tired of letting it bring me to ruin.#i'm tired of being who i was. i'm no longer “that”. i'm edel now and i'm happy for people now. if i don't like something i just walk out.#i can just leave. “if it sucks hit the bricks” right?.. but i didn't. i had to say it. i had to tell them. her. and i liked it.#and... i'm scared of that. because it tells me i haven't improved.#i'm not sure what i'm expecting out of posting this i guess. maybe help. maybe i wanna be told that this is normal or something.#maybe i just want to get my thoughts in order. i don't know. i'm gonna stop writing now.#sorry for making you read all this. thanks for doing it anyway. tags were cut off on this one btw so it may look like a mess. but. yeah.
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reiderwriter · 8 months
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The One Thing You Can't Have
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Pairing: Spencer Reid × Female Reader (DBF! Spencer × Hotchner! Reader)
Summary: After five years away, you move back to your hometown. Reconnecting with many of your father's friends and coworkers, you start to get suspicious when you lose multiple pairs of panties. Or; Spencer risks it all by stealing Hotch's adult daughter's underwear. And maybe her heart, too.
Warnings: Day 15 of Kinktober - panties, mentions canon character death, age difference (ten years), panties, underwear kink, underwear stealing, masturbation, sexual fantasies discussed, PinV Sex, clitoral stimulation, partial creampie, mentions of emergency contraception
A/N: It is done! I shit you not the writing time on this is longer than most of the fics I've ever written, it took me so long that I don't have any other fics prewritten for Kinktober now and have to spend the day hastily writing them... But it was worth it. As always, you can find all my work in my masterlist and all my kinktober fics here. My requests are open until the end of the month, so if there's a specific fic you want, don't hesitate to let me know!
With your family the way it was, you'd dealt with a lot over the years. Aaron Hotchner loved his wife and kids, but that hadn't been enough to protect you from George Foyet. When your mom and kid brother had gone into protective custody, you'd been away at college, and apart from a protective detail, they'd not seen fit to move you anywhere special at all. Foyet was so caught up on your mom that he'd forgotten you existed.
When you got the call from your dad that Foyet was resurfacing, you'd known in your gut that you had to go back. You'd ditched your handlers and driven through the night but when you arrived at the house you'd grown up in, all you could see was police lights and caution tape.
You'd run as fast as you could into the house, but a pair of strong arms grabbed you and lifted you away as you screamed and sobbed. Derek Morgan held you firm as he tried to calm you, but you barely registered his words.
"My mom is in there, my dad too, and Jack, let me fucking go, Derek." You'd only stopped raging when they'd bought out the first body bag. And then the second.
The anguish that filled your lungs stole your breath and you didn't know it was you screaming until your throat was red and completely sore. Another set of hands led you away and into an ambulance, skillfully anticipating your needs.
"Y/N, look at me. Look at my eyes, we're going to breathe together, okay?" Staring up into his dark eyes you suddenly remembered that you needed the air to breathe, his calm voice bringing you back to life.
He was wearing an FBI vest but you'd never seen him before. Not a surprise since you'd avoided everything to do with your father's job for the last five years. You only really knew Derek from when he'd been sent to deliver the news to you about Foyet's initial targeting of you.
The Man in front of you was young, but still older than you. He was tall, but he'd shrunk himself down into the space, leaning over you so that he was the only thing you could see. He looked tired, but he was the only thing for miles around keeping you grounded and you clung to him in desperation.
"My Name is Doctor Spencer Reid, I work with your dad. You're Y/N, right?" His voice was soft and even, like he was taming a temperamental animal. Even though you knew what he was doing, trying to calm you so he could deliver a devastating blow, you let him do it, drinking in each word as total calm swept over you. You nodded at him and waited for him to continue.
"Your brother is fine, he's at your aunt's house, he didn't touch him. Your dad is in the hospital and they think he's going to pull through, but he was stabbed a few times so he's going to be weak for a while." You searched his eyes for the words he wasn't saying as panic rose in your body.
"My mom, where is my mom? Haley Hotchner, she's… She should have been with Jack, where is she?" The look in his eyes was enough to tell you what in your heart you already knew. Your mom was in that bag and your family was broken, again.
You don't know what happened next, but you knew you were bundled up in Spencer Reid's arms and clinging to him for dear life. You knew he'd somehow got you to your aunt's house, and you knew he'd stayed until you were ready to let him go. Even years later you don't know how long he'd held you. Maybe only minutes, maybe hours. He had let you sit and grieve, finding small comfort in the contours of his body.
After that, college wasn't a priority for you. Your brother was only a baby, and he needed you around, so even the three-hour drive upstate seemed too far to be away from him. You stuck around, taking your courses as remotely as they'd let you for the semester and struggling for it.
Your dad felt guilty, of course. For your mom, for the derailing of your life, and for the way he had to keep leaving because that was the job. In all honesty, you didn't mind being home more at that time.
There was Jack, who was great, and your Aunt was so much like your mom that sometimes it was like she was still with you, even a little bit. And there was Spencer, too.
After it had become evident that you were going to fail the only required course you were taking that semester (algebra was your enemy), your dad had sought out the only person he knew with a good grasp of mathematics and no weekend plans and roped them into tutoring you. Which meant that your weekends were suddenly fully booked by him.
He seemed a little different from the first time you’d met him, but that was a given considering the circumstances. He held himself a little taller, and more relaxed as he talked about the kinds of equations you were supposed to use and formulas you were supposed to memorize. He was attentive but not too close, and he’d shown up with shorter hair and now that you could see more of his face, more of his neck, you found yourself getting distracted by the oddest things. The stubborn but small stubble on his neck, the way sweat trailed down his face, the movement of his Adam’s Apple as he swallowed, the way the breeze from your open window tousled his hair.
It took you a distractingly long time to realize that you were physically attracted to him, but when you did realize, it was suddenly all you could think about. You spent most of your days working on math so you’d have some excuse to call or text him. The mornings before your lessons together you’d taken to hogging the bathroom long enough to shave, wash and dry your hair and apply a natural but still skilled amount of make-up. You were surprised that neither of the big bad profilers had caught onto the stench of your puppy love, because you were dripping with desperation.
He never budged of course, too oblivious or too noble to lay a hand on an eighteen-year-old. Or just smart enough to know not to lay a hand on his boss's daughter.
You certainly weren’t making it easy for him though.
“Spencer, what do you think of my outfit today? I’m going out with some friends from high school tonight for a meal, do I look okay?” You’d twirled for him innocently, knowing full well the speed of your spin would throw your already short skirt up past your panties for a split second.
“I don’t think I’m the best person to ask about clothes, Y/N. Maybe ask your dad.” His flush was evident enough that you knew it had worked but his hands were rigid by his sides and he carefully guided you back to the topic at hand.
It turned out that after a semester of tutoring, you’d become such a whizz at mathematics that you’d passed with flying colors. You’d been so excited to tell Spencer that you drove straight to Quantico, using the family pass your father had given you for emergencies to gain access. Spencer didn’t know what hit him when you launched yourself into his arms and wrapped your legs around him, but he’d somehow stayed upright as you buried your face once again in his neck.
“Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, Spencer! I got an A, the Professor was so shocked by my improvement that he asked me if I’d cheated. When I dropped your name, he freaked.” Spencer’s eyes were wide and blinking frantically as his hands struggled to find a place to hold you. You’d worn another scandalously low skirt and it seemed the only way to pry you off of him was to put a hand on or dangerously close to your ass.
You enjoyed watching his internal struggle, and so did quite the number of FBI agents, until your father spoiled the fun by walking out of his office to check the commotion.
“Y/N Hotchner, get down from there, now.” Your father rarely raised his voice at you, choosing a softer approach to parenting than many would expect. That meant that on the rare occasion that he did feel the need to speak up, you shut your mouth and listened. Detangling yourself from Spencer’s arms with an awkward smile, you tried your best to nonchalantly bounce over to your father and explain why you were there.
He motioned for you to follow him to his office, and you complied, letting one ear stay clear to focus on the sound of Reid being teased by all of his coworkers about the scene you’d just caused.
Your dad didn’t exactly scold you for the incident, so much as he tried to insinuate that you should head back home, and then head back to college, too. With months between you and the Foyet incident, he’d been hinting at letting you get back to your life for a while, but your stunt with Reid had him suddenly addressing it more overtly.
To say that your family dinner that night was a pain in the ass was an understatement.
“Y/N, Daddy said you went to his work today!” Jack had started the conversation, and you knew the tactical warfare was beginning.
“That’s right, buddy! I had to thank Spencer for helping me with my schoolwork.” You smiled at your brother before turning a suspicious glance toward your dad, who sat peacefully eating his dinner. The fact that you were even all eating together should’ve alerted you to something going on behind the scenes.
“Uncle Spencer is the best!” It wasn’t Jack’s fault he’d just given your father the best ammunition he could’ve asked for.
“Do you agree, Y/N? Do you think your Uncle Spencer is the best?” He was using his calm interrogation voice and you hated it.
“Dad, please, he’s not that much older than me, it’s weird for me to call him Uncle.”
“He’s ten years your senior, Y/N. You know that right?” You didn’t move as your eyes locked together with his, as he seemingly asked a more serious question in the subtext. You weren’t ready to answer it though, and so you buckled under the pressure, looking away first and eating the rest of your meal in silence.
Without saying much of a goodbye to any member of your father’s teammates, you decided that it was about time you continued with your life, not letting the actions of George Foyet hold you in a standstill any longer. You went back to college full-time, got your degree, and got a job in a city near your college town. You came back home regularly, but in the five years since your mother's death, you hadn’t talked to or heard from Spencer Reid.
Job opportunities were better in D.C. though, so after growing up and having some time away, you came right back to your childhood home, ready to start over. It was only temporary, of course, and you had a job lined up, but apartments were so hard to come by, especially ones that were actually livable, that you needed to do a lot of searching to find one that felt right.
So your dad’s home it was. With Jack a bit older and constantly away at school or clubs or friend’s houses, and your dad’s schedule the way it was, you’d practically got the house to yourself. And after living alone and with female roommates for half a decade, you’d almost grown too comfortable in your own skin. The summer between your move and the start of your new job was hot and sticky, and you found yourself taking more and more cold showers after your morning workouts.
Normally at 11 a.m., you had the house to yourself, and you’d happily stroll around in a small towel and dry yourself off. If your father or brother were home, you’d cover yourself up a bit more, sure, or just head to your room quicker, obviously.
So emerging from your shower, the last thing you expected was coming face to face with Doctor Spencer Reid sitting on your couch, the one that was directly on your path between the bathroom you’d just emerged from and the room you needed to be in. You cursed your father and his practically-sized apartment as you floundered your way through a greeting of the man you hadn’t seen in five years.
“Spencer, hi. What... What are you doing on my dad’s couch?” You clutched the towel close to your body, trying not to shiver as he trailed his eyes over your body, eyes just as big and wide as the last time you’d seen him.
“We were on our way to a local crime scene, he went to grab something from…” His voice trailed off as he pointed towards the master suite where you could now faintly hear the sound of your dad on the phone to someone.
“Right. Great. I should probably…” You gestured to the room and quickly started making your way toward it, trying not to visibly cringe at the most awkward post-shower interaction you’d ever had.
“What are you doing here?” His voice shot out quickly, and you whipped around so fast, that you almost panicked and dropped the towel completely.
“Oh, I… Did my dad not mention? I got a job at a company nearby, so I moved back. I’m staying here with Dad and Jack until I can find a decent apartment.”
“Oh, wow. Well, it’s nice to have you back. It’s been like five years since you left, right?” His tone was bright and he was nodding his head, but the words set fire to your nerve endings as you remembered that you’d practically run away from him. Even after half a decade, he was having a physical impact on you.
“Yeah, that sounds about right. You have a good memory.”
“You know, I get that a lot.” His grin ignited something in your chest, and you gathered the laundry you’d left on the sofa and quickly excused yourself before you could prove yourself more of a idiot than you could already make a case for.
Spencer watched you go, wondering just when Hotchner was going to emerge from his hiding place to attack him for so openly ogling his half-naked daughter. He stood on the spot staring at your door for a moment too long before dragging his eyes away. Unluckily for him, what he found on the floor had him panicking all over again.
“Y/N, your forgot…” He grabbed the lacy material in his fingers and went to open the door before stopping, realizing that you were probably completely bare behind that door now. The thought sent him into a tailspin, and he once again stood clueless for a beat too long with a pair of your freshly laundered panties in his hands.
He considered dropping them back on the floor, but he didn’t want them to get dirty again after you’d washed them so nicely. He should’ve just left them on the sofa for you to find later, but when Hotch’s voice grew louder and clearer behind him, fear took over and he shoved them into the closest hiding space he could find. His pocket.
“Callahan found something for us at the ME’s office, she’s meeting us at the precinct, let’s go.”
And just like that he was out the door, and he had officially signed his own death warrant.
You never noticed that the first pair went missing. When it became a pattern though, you did become suspicious. Three pairs of underwear in thirty days seemed a bit much, and unless your building's laundry machines were eating them, you had no clue where they could've been.
It's not that Spencer even meant to do it any of the times he did. But when he'd returned home that first day, overwhelmed with the caseload he'd been handed and found the offending item still right there in his coat pocket, the blood had rushed straight to his head.
He'd spent a half hour in agony staring at them, trying to smooth them out so they wouldn't get crumpled, his dick twitching at every slight movement he made. It had been quite a few months since he'd had sex, never really one for casual hook-ups. But if the result of several months of celibacy was stealing underwear then he thought maybe it would be best to have sex sooner rather than later.
He couldn't resist the temptation. Popping the button of his pants, he'd taken his cock in his hand and worked his way up and down his shaft imagining you dropping that towel. He imagined you wearing the panties and nothing else as you replaced his hand with your mouth, desperate to please. Taking the panties in his hand, he began directly masturbating into them, wishing so needily that you were still inside them.
When he shot his load, he soaked them through, and the shame that overcame him was intense and swift.
You never realized that he'd somewhat avoided you after that, doing his best to stay away for fear he'd let his perversions rule his actions. You had somehow made yourself unavoidable though.
The first time he saw you again it was at one of Rossi's family get-togethers. It had been years since you'd seen some of the members of the team, so you were really looking forward to it. Plus, Rossi had boasted of a recently installed pool and jacuzzi within his invitation, and you were excited to check them out with the fine summer weather actually staying fine.
You'd brought your bikini with you and changed in one of the ground-floor bathrooms, wrapping another towel around yourself before you finally made your way to the pool. But once again, wrapped in a towel, you'd come face to face with Spencer Reid.
"Y/N, I didn't know you were coming." He looked like a deer caught in the headlights, and this time worked especially hard to not let his gaze travel all over your skin. He regretted his entire existence as he realized he'd have to hide his micro-expressions around countless profilers, some of whom were present and accounted for when you'd last been seen together.
Derek was going to give him hell.
"Yeah, Uncle David invited me! I'm so excited for the jacuzzi, I haven't been in one since college."
"You call Rossi 'Uncle David?'" The thought had tickled him, humor sparkling in his eyes as he finally smiled at you.
"Why yes I do, and if you're not careful, my dad is going to make me start calling you Uncle Spencer again." You skipped off merrily after that, leaving your spare clothes and your discarded ones in the bathroom Reid had obviously been waiting for.
His smile soured as he realized the impact of your words. Uncle Spencer. Huh. Some fucking "Uncle" he was. He washed his hands thoroughly, having spilled some kind of drink down himself before greeting you, as his eyes fell to the pile of clothes you'd left neatly in the corner.
He tried to tell himself he couldn't do it again, but curiosity and arousal lit up his entire body and carried him forward. Jeans, a t-shirt, socks, and shoes were left tidily discarded, but he couldn't obviously see any underwear. There was a second pile of neat clothes and he looked at that one thoroughly as well, but after a minute it was evident that you'd hidden your unmentionables from clear sight.
He heard the happy cheers and smiles from outside, and painstakingly attempted to pull away, but he couldn't. Rooting through your things, he found them. He found two of them, really. The used underwear you'd likely just taken off, and the fresh pair you were going to change into. Spoiled for choice he sat in a stasis, mentally cursing himself for being so stupidly horny.
It would be wrong to take another pair. And certainly wrong of him to take the clean pair which you'd instantly noticed were missing when you tried to put them on to wear them.
The used pair though. He held them delicately in both hands, the slip of material not as fancy as the ones he'd used before, but somehow more enticing.
Letting his cock rule his thoughts he brought them up to his face and inhaled deeply, and it was like a bomb going off in the back of his head. He had to have them.
Organizing the bathroom into the exact layout as he'd found it, making sure not even a hair was out of place. The panties were safely in his pocket, and he took a minute to get his body physically and mentally under control before exiting the bathroom and rejoining his friends.
The next time he'd taken some, they'd really been handed to him like a gift. One month back at home, and you felt slightly stifled by the overbearing presence of your father. You needed a nice, messy night out, and you sure got it.
The friends you'd reconnected with had taken you out to a slew of clubs, and by the end of the night, you were tripping and stumbling into anything and anyone in your path. It was as if you were magnetically drawn to every object in your way, unfortunately, one just happened to be tall and lean and caught you before you could tumble off again.
"Y/N?" He looked down at you, confused as he took in your intoxicated state.
"Uncle Spencie!" You relaunched yourself into his arms, reminiscent of that day in the bullpen. "Uncle Spencie I can't believe you're here!" You giggled into his neck as you buried yourself there, pressing a kiss to the nape of his neck as you pulled away to grin at him again.
"Y/N, how drunk are you?"
"How you are drunk, huh? Why don't we ever ask that question?" You sent yourself into a fit of giggles as your friends watched the scene play out behind you.
"Girls, this is Doctor Spencer Reid. My daddy is his boss. Isn't he cute?" Your arms still wrapped territorially around Spencer, you introduced your friends who cackled approvingly at your drunk shenanigans.
"Y/N, you need to let me go, the others…"
"Others? Is daddy here? AARON!! AAAAROOOOOO-" He clamped a hand over your mouth and moved you to the side of the road to hail a taxi as fast as possible. Apologizing to your friends, he quickly stuffed you into the cab and gave the driver your address.
"Uncle Spencer, I just wanted to see my daddy and his other friends. Why are you being so mean?" The exaggerated pout on your face had him dragging a hand down over his face as he struggled to pull a seatbelt over you.
"If your dad had seen you wrapped around me like that, he'd have killed one of us."
"Both of us," you nodded and giggled. Your short dress was riding up your thighs, the leather seats of the car feeling unbearably hot and sticky under your skin. You shifted uncomfortably a few times, your underwear eating into your skin in an uncomfortable manner.
"Y/N, what are you doing?" He sternly whispered the words into your ears as he grabbed your wrists. It was too late though, you'd already worked your underwear down your thighs enough that they'd reached your knees and then fallen around your ankles.
"It felt bad, I didn't like it." You leaned your head back and let your legs hang open slightly, just enough that Spencer could see the taxi driver angling for a look.
He snapped a hand between your legs, closing off the view before snatching up the underwear from the floor and pocketing it. You didn't know nor care though, the motion of the car rocking you off into a deep sleep. He'd ended up having to carry you up to your apartment, getting you ready for bed, and leaving just fast enough for Hotch to not catch him hanging over his unconscious daughter.
And he had a third pair of your underwear.
He spent his days wondering just what the fuck was wrong with him, and his nights jerking off to your scent, wondering just how willing he'd be to climb into bed with you and if he'd have the strength to say no.
He was normal enough in your interactions with one another. You'd seen each other at various case celebrations, at parties hosted by the team members, which that summer were high in total. You couldn't resist the temptation to flirt with him, but it was only when the two of you were well out of earshot of anyone who might frown upon it. You didn't think he even noticed that's what you were doing anyway.
Spencer did notice. And he kept noticing and was disgusted by how much he wanted you. You were Hotch’s daughter. He’d seen pictures of you as a child, he’d held you while you cried over your mom and the stress of having to be a responsible adult after everything happened with Foyet, he’d known how much you hated having to grow up quickly when you had Hotch for a dad, and he felt gross that despite all of that he wanted to fuck you so badly that he’d resorted to petty thievery and letting you flirt with him under your father's nose.
It was towards the end of your summer at home when you finally noticed the missing pieces. You'd even almost mentioned it to your dad before thinking it through a bit more. If it wasn't some laundry mix-up, he was going to go full FBI on every man who came close to you, and that was a risk you weren't willing to take.
In the end, you were thankful you said nothing.
The BAU team had been out on a case for ten days, the largest amount of time they'd been away since you'd moved home, and you'd decided to greet them as soon as they returned, congratulate them on a job well done.
You knew they were already heading to their regular bar after they finished their paperwork, but you had some morale to boost in the meantime, so a donut delivery plus enough coffee to stay awake for hours was in order.
They'd practically thrown themselves off the jet and into the box of donuts, each of them thanking you for the happy greeting after what had to have been a hard time away.
"Y/N, you didn't have to do this, but thank you. The team really appreciates it." Your dad had looked at you with a proud look before showing you up to his office, letting you wait on his couch until everyone was finished.
You got bored quickly and asked if you could help with anything, which is how you became your dad's errand-runner. He sent you to the printer to pick up papers, you'd run to get him more coffee from the pot twice and he sent you to ask the others about their progress. Which was totally fine had they not looked like paperwork-writing zombies on the verge of collapse.
"Y/N, head down to Spencer's desk, he should have a file on the geographical profile I need." He hadn't even glanced up to ask you that, but he did shout a thank you out the door, so you suppose he could be forgiven for now.
Bouncing down the stairs you noticed Spencer was deep in the middle of reading some files, doing that speed reading thing you'd heard him talk about but never witnessed.
"Spencer." He didn't look up, too focused on the words in front of him. "Spencer, my dad needs a file."
"Go-bag. Reading, give me a minute." He still hadn't even glanced at you so you pulled yourself around his desk to search for his go-bag yourself. It was on the floor, and you pulled it towards you, settling down on the floor to open it up and look for the files you needed.
You probably should have had more reservations about rooting through Spencer's things because just as you pulled the zip fully open, it seemed like his eyes shot wide and he threw his head in your direction, finally distracted from his work.
"Wait, don't look in-" He whisper-screamed the words at you frantically, but it was too late. The first thing your hand had closed around in the bag was small and delicate and somewhat rumpled, and your hand had a mind of its own pulling it out into your lap so the two of you could see it.
Your panties. One of your missing pairs of panties was in Spencer Reid's go-bag.
Both of you sat there for a few moments, neither of you moving, the eye contact not breaking one second as you both stared at each other in fear and surprise.
He cleared his throat quietly and whispered down at you, "I can explain…" but he didn't get a chance as you swiftly grabbed the file you'd come for - helpfully pulled into plain view by your rustling about - hid your panties back in your own pocket, zipped his bag up and swiftly ran all the way back to your dad's office.
You sat on the couch for the rest of the afternoon, no longer eager to do chores. Spencer had your underwear. He'd stolen it. He'd taken it across the country with him. He'd…You didn't know what he was doing with it, really, but you knew that every image of him with them had the most dirty, exciting, disgusting thoughts running through your head.
You grabbed your things and quickly headed out after that. Penelope caught you by the elevator as you made to leave.
"No, sweetie, where are you going? I thought you were coming to celebrate with us after this, I was so looking forward to having the fun Hotchner around, not the grumpy, serious one."
"I'm just going home to freshen up. I smell like coffee and Quantico, which when you're not nose blind to it isn't the most optimal scent." You promised her you'd see her there, and with a quick glance back at the office, where Spencer was sat tense, looking like he wanted to either run after you or shout something across the room, you left.
By the time you'd arrived home, there were ten missed calls on your cell, and you didn't have to even speculate about who they might be from because there were texts too.
Spencer: I'm sorry, I'm really sorry, call me when you get this.
Spencer: I know it's weird and I'll understand if you hate me, but please talk to me.
Spencer: Please don't tell your dad.
You'd scoffed at that last one as if you'd ever have been that stupid. But you didn't reply or call him, letting him suffer in silence.
This entire time, you'd been operating on the basis that Spencer Reid didn't see you the way you saw him. That he didn't think of you as an adult but as your father's daughter. And now you were confronted with the truth that he was just as fucking lustful and horny as you'd been since you met him at 18? You weren't letting this opportunity pass you by.
Taking the panties out, you stared at them again, trying to figure out just what he'd been doing with them. You recognized them as the pair you'd lost on your night out, bright red and lacy, eye-catching, and definitely yours. He hadn't even tried to lie to you about that, but how willing would you have been to accept the fact that Spencer had stolen someone else's panties? Or been gifted them? Probably not very.
You'd assumed you'd left this pair in the taxi, not entirely sure how you'd ended up in the car in the first place or why you would decide they were uncomfortable right there. Now you had sudden recollections of Spencer also being there, and suddenly your actions made sense.
He'd not only taken your panties, he'd taken your used panties, and it looked as though he'd used them even more. You decided not to think too closely about how he had used them.
But he'd also got you home safe, making sure your things were stored neatly and tucked you into bed nice and tight. And then he'd stolen your panties.
Thinking about it was frustrating but there was nothing else in your mind at that moment. Spencer taking them out secretly to look at. Spencer smelling them. Spencer wrapping them around his big cock and stroking himself to the thought of you.
You wanted to know precisely what he'd done, and you intended to find out.
Penelope called you as soon as they'd left work, and sent you the location, too, and you decided it was time to get ready to mess with Spencer.
The dress you'd worn on the night he'd stolen your panties was freshly laundered. Usually, you wouldn't wear anything so risky in front of your father, but he'd likely only be there for an hour or two before leaving you be. You pulled out a fresh pair of red panties as well, hoping to jog Spencer's memory a little bit to entice him to talk.
With a quick make-up retouch, you climbed into your car, and within twenty minutes you were walking into O'Keefe's.
Miserably, Spencer couldn't come up with an excuse to stay home quick enough and was tumbled into the car by Derek and Penelope. He had a feeling, too, that he wouldn't be able to leave early, either, which was only confirmed when you walked in wearing that dress.
His hopes to sit and nurse his non-alcoholic cocktail peacefully at the edge of the booth are shattered as he watches you saunter over. It clings tight to your skin, twisting around every peak on your body, revealing every part that he'd spent the last few weeks dreaming about.
He was screwed.
"Hi, Dad! Hi everyone!" You smiled innocently enough, but your sickly sweet smile turned on Spencer was an omen, and he suddenly wanted to be down on his knees begging for forgiveness. Or something else.
Instead of sticking by your dad's side, you make your way to Spencer and force him to shuffle further into the booth so you can sit next to him. It's cramped and you're on the edge still, so you let your hand rest on his thigh for a beat too long as you join the conversation.
"What did I miss?"
"Just talking about the craziest things that have happened to us on cases."
"Reid was propositioned by a prostitute once," Derek chuckled.
"Please, Reid has been propositioned by multiple prostitutes, multiple times." Penelope and Derek continued to joke and giggle about the younger man's apparent cluelessness to flirting.
"I guess they just assumed you were a pervert, Spence. I wonder why they'd think that?" His eyes shot wide as you snuck your hand into his pocket under the table, watching to see if anyone else had noticed the bold actions.
But you looked away from him quickly and didn't let your hand spend too long there, sliding it out slowly, feeling up his leg as you went. He took another sip of his drink before shifting uncomfortably in his seat. His cock had been rudely awoken, and he didn't want it to stay awake, so he attempted to let it fall into a less obvious position.
But as he shifted he felt something else in his pants, and curiously he put his own hand into his pocket. You'd returned your stolen underwear to the thief.
He took in a shaky breath and held them inside his pants while he willed himself to calm down. Partly because you were in public and partly because your dad was present. He almost had himself under control when you decided it was time for your next move.
"I need to go get a drink, I'll be back soon." You stood and pushed away from the table, bouncing away swiftly. He watched you go from the corner of his eye and then had to do a double take as you pushed yourself up against the bar ordering your drink.
You stuck your ass out, not enough to make it look intentional to anybody but him, but just enough so he could see the red underwear you had on underneath your dress.
He downed his drink and made his excuses before making his way right to the bar where you stood.
"What are you doing?" He demanded, so close behind you that you felt his breath in you before you heard his voice.
"Buying a drink, what does it look like I'm doing?" You scooted your ass back until it was pressed up against his crotch and he groaned, hard and loud in your ear.
"Y/N, you can't do that, your dad is right fucking there."
"I sure hope my dad isn't fucking over there, that'd really be a sight I didn't want to see." He shut his eyes for a second, taking a deep breath before he put his hands on you. Grabbing your hips, he walked you closer to the bar so that your ass was no longer on display, nor touching him in any way, then he moved to your side and left only one hand firmly touching your back so you knew not to immediately try something else again.
"This is your last warning. Now, you're going to order that drink and then you're going to walk back to that table like a good fucking girl, or so help me god, I will show your dad just how much of a slut you're being." His voice was a dark growl and you felt your panties growing more wet with each syllable, nodding instantly as the bartender came over.
For a minute, he'd genuinely thought that had worked. You'd ordered your drink without another word and then turned back to the table and walked nicely, having pulled your skirt back down a little bit. He'd thought he'd won until the second he'd sat down when Aaron Hotchner had grabbed his coat and stood up.
"Spencer, you're not drinking? Can you drive Y/N home tonight? I’m leaving now, and I’m sure she doesn’t want to leave so early.” You watched as his jaw twitched, taking only a second to compose himself before he agreed.
“Great, have a fun night sweetheart,” he said, kissing your head, before turning out and leaving with Rossi.
“Now, Spencer, what was that you were saying about good behavior at the bar? It was really so very interesting to me and I’d love to hear more.”
You spent the next half hour draining your drink and his self-control, stroking a hand down his chest as the others comfortably ignored your purring at him. He answered all your questions coldly, but every time your hand trailed a little bit too low he stopped it with a heavy hand and a warning look, letting you know that you were still getting to him.
Once you’d finished the first drink, you got up and moved to the bar once again, making sure that his eyes were on you completely as you swayed your hips on the way over. You pulled exactly the same move as you had earlier and made sure he knew you were going to be hard to handle the entire night.
When you returned, he was the only one left at the table, the others having scattered to the dance floor, the bathroom, and the bar. Taking the chance you climb directly into his lap.
“What’s wrong, Spence, you’re looking so lonely over here?” You rest your hands on his shoulders and let your ass fall to his lap, grinding down gently to feel him underneath you.
“How could I be lonely when you’re out here throwing yourself at me like a cheap whore?”
“Oh, we’ve already established how much cheap whores love you today, Spencer. Why would you be so surprised that I’m having the same reaction?”
The others slowly started returning so you pushed away from him for a second, straightening your clothes before they noticed anything amiss.
“Y/N, I need some youthful arm candy, come to the dancefloor with us!” Penelope pulled you from your seat and you laughed as you followed her, sending a wink back over your shoulder to Spencer.
He sat grinding his teeth as you continue your games on the dancefloor, swaying your hips suggestively, not sparing him a single glance as you practically exposed yourself on a dancefloor. He decided he’d let you have your fun and then march you out quickly. He moved his timeline up exponentially the minute he saw a man saunter up behind you, whispering in your ear before walking you over to the bar.
Downing his drink, he made his way to your side, pulling you away from the man quickly.
“We’re leaving now.” He said, leaning down to your ear as he grabbed your coat and pulled it around you.
“Man, what do you think you’re doing?” The man who had pulled you away was visually drunk, looking rough and dangerous as he leered down at you.
“She’s not interested and she’s too young for you anyway.” He said, very close to flashing his badge to get him to back off.
“What, you her dad or something?” He scoffed, but you turned on him with a wide smile as you leaned your head back against Spencer’s chest.
“He’s my daddy, actually.” With a wink, you left the bar, letting Spencer chase after you as you walked directly over to your car. Throwing him the keys, you jumped into the passenger seat.
“I’m taking you home now, you’re being reckless, you’ve had too much to drink.”
“Reckless how? It’s not like I’m the one who has been stealing my boss' daughter's panties for the last month.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“You jacked off into my panties and now you’re pissed I caught you…wow.”
“Can you just shut up? I’m sure your dad wouldn’t like me to tell him how you put them back in my pocket tonight, right?”
“Was that a threat, Spencer?”
“If I was going to threaten you, Y/N, you’d know.”
“You’ve changed, you know. Since I was a teenager. You’re different now.”
“No, I’m not. I’m very much the same.”
“You’re hotter now. I don’t know how that is possible because fuck did I want you back then, but now…” You let your eyes trail down his face as he continues to drive, jaw tense. His side profile had always been pretty, but with the bags under his eyes now more pronounced, you thought about what it’d be like to trail your mouth down his neck, what you would give to sit prettily on those lips of his.
Your tongue darts out to wet your own lips, as the fantasies grow to fill the car. Suddenly it’s his hands between your legs, making you moan like the whore he’d accused you of being earlier, it’s his tongue down your throat as he fucks his fingers into you, completely ruining you.
When you pull over, you’re certain that he’d heard your thoughts, because you didn’t recognize where you were at all.
“Spencer, this isn’t my dad’s house.”
“No, it’s mine. Get out of the car.” Suddenly obedient, you do exactly as he tells you, jumping out of the car as swiftly as you can and letting him march you up the stairs, right through his door and all the way to his bedroom. He pushes you forward gently but with a firm enough hand that you know he wants you on the bed. He doesn’t touch you any further as you prop yourself up on your elbows, but moves to another part of the room, grabbing something from a drawer before throwing it at you. Throwing them at you, you supposed, because when you looked down, you found your other pairs of missing underwear on your lap.
“I’m sorry for being so fucking dirty and disgusting, but you need to stop saying those things to me before I do something we both regret.”
You don’t reply, sitting and breathing heavily for a second before pushing your body further up the bed and reaching down. His eyes drink you in as he watches you hook two fingers underneath the underwear you’re wearing and drag them down your legs, not caring that he can see everything. You let go of them as soon as they’re hanging off your leg, holding them out to him.
“Peace offering?”
He’s on you in an instant, crawling on top of you so he can shut you up with his mouth, his hands, his whole being. You welcome him greedily, letting him take control as he pins your hips down underneath his.
“Little slut, you want me to fuck you so bad?” He says, a hand at your chest, pinching your nipple hard through your dress as you moan and writh underneath him. “Throwing yourself at your father’s friend like this, huh? Must be a little whore.”
He doesn’t let you respond, shoving two fingers into your mouth as you obediently wrap your lips around them and start sucking. Pushing your dress up, he groans at how wet you already are for him, swiping a finger over your clit carefully as you moan around his fingers, the vibrations shooting straight to his cock.
Lifting his hips, he unzips his pants in a second, not stopping to contemplate the consequences of his actions. His cock is pressed against you, gripped in his hand, but it’s hot and it’s heavy and fuck do you need it inside of you. He teases you with it as you whine around his fingers, trying to top from the bottom and grinding your hips up into him. He removes his fingers from your mouth reluctantly so he can hold your hips down.
“Spencer, don’t fucking tease me. Please just fuck me now.”
“Are all of you Hotchner’s this fucking bossy?” You roll your eyes, ignoring his question as you move to grab ahold of his cock, lining it up with your cunt and pushing it in slowly. A hand over yours stops you before it can get any deeper.
“Wait, I haven’t put a condom on yet.”
“Then you better make sure you pull out before I have to tell my dad exactly who it is that made him a grandaddy.” His hips snap up into yours then and with a few shallow pumps he’s fully sheathed inside of you as you scream at the feeling. You’d spent years thinking about this moment, but you’d never imagined he’d fill you so perfectly, stretching you out in all the best places.
His fingers return to your clit, working you up into a frenzy as you arch up into him, wrapping your legs around him to allow him better access. He growls into your ear with each thrust, before grabbing fistfuls of your ass and dragging you to the edge of the bed.
He pulls out quickly, repositioning you and holding your legs open wide as he stands between your legs, lining his cock up and pushing into you once again, immediately regaining his pace. He lifts one knee onto the bed, again pushing your legs down into the bed and opening you up further to him. The new angle hits deeper inside of you than you were sure anyone had ever been, momentarily leaving you breathless and soundless, listening only to the noises coming from your cunt.
Wet slaps of skin against skin, the arousal trickling down your leg to stain his sheets.
You regain your breath just as he knocks it out of you again, pushing you over the edge as you cum, hard, on his cock. Your head goes dizzy as you struggle to come down from the bliss he’d pulled you up into, legs twitching as he continues pounding into him.
You’re vaguely aware of some loud moans and screams, and it takes you an entire minute to realize the sinful noises are coming straight from your mouth.
“Fuck, Spencer, so fucking good for me, you made me feel so good, thank you.” His hips stutter inside you then, and you feel a heat flood you.
“Shit,” he pulls out quickly and sprays the rest of his load over your pretty black dress, falling down on top of you and reclaiming your lips passionately. You stay locked together in that embrace for god knows how long, rolling around back and forth in his bed until he finally detaches himself, pulling your clothes off and throwing a large old t-shirt over your head before grabbing you like an oversized stuffed toy and leading you into the depths of oblivion.
When you wake up in the morning, the pounding in your head is exaggerated considering you hadn’t really drank that much the night before. It takes you a shocking amount of time to realize that the pounding wasn’t in your head though, but instead a loud banging against Spencer’s door, ordering him to open up
You’re so comfortable though, you try to ignore it. Until your father’s voice is pouring through the paper-thin walls.
“Spencer, open the door, right now, or I’m kicking it down. You have five seconds.” The Spencer in question shoots out of bed immediately from beside you, scrambling to pull on pants and make his hair look like you hadn’t been tangled in it all night before running to the door.
You similarly panic around the room for a second, searching for a hiding place and grabbing your phone before settling on the absolutely genius position of under the bed.
You hear the confrontation like it’s happening right over you.
“Aaron, I really think you’re going to regret this.” David Rossi’s voice is calm, trying to talk some sense into your father, but he isn’t having any of it.
“Where is she? I told you to drop her off at home when she was finished drinking, but she wasn’t there when I woke up.”
“I can explain…” Spencer trailed off, and you cursed the man for being such a bad liar. That line hadn’t worked on you, either, so you doubted it’d work on your dad. Opening your phone, you check the time. 11:47. You quietly cursed yourself as you opened the multiple messages from your father.
You decide to help Spencer out by replying to one of them now.
“Hey, Dad. I ran into an old friend last night, and Spencer made sure we both got back to her’s safely. I’m still at her apartment, but I guess I forgot to text last night because I was so tired, sorry for worrying you!”
You heard his phone ping with the message, heard the tense silence as he read the message slowly, and heard the incredibly loud ping of your own phone, screaming from inside Spencer’s room as he replied.
Unfortunately, your dad hears it, too.
Pushing past Spencer, who in his defense is doing a great job of taking a stand by slowing down your father momentarily, Aaron Hotchner bursts into the room just as you poke your head up from the side of the bed.
“Morning, Daddy.” You try, hoping to sweet talk your way out of this whole situation.
“Living room, now.” He says, hesitating for only a moment. “You’re dressed, right?” You almost laugh at his pathetic tone before considering the situation, just nodding and walking out behind him as you try to make Spencer’s shirt cover more of your body than it originally did.
There’s a gleam in Rossi’s eye as you walk past him, head hung in embarrassment. You sit guiltily on the couch, and Spencer finds his way next to you, and you suddenly feel like two children about to get the scolding of a lifetime.
“What were you thinking?” He demands, and you grow suddenly angry at the indignant tone of his voice.
“Dad, I am 23 years old, I do not need a lecture for spending the night out.”
“I wasn’t talking to you, sit down. Spencer? Anything to say.” You slump back into your seat and wait for the answer just the same as your dad is, but it doesn’t come.
Instead, you feel a blanket being thrown over your legs, and it isn’t until then that you notice how cold you’ve been. He takes the time to wrap the material around your body, making sure you’re comfortable before he even thinks about looking up at your dad.
“Hotch, what is it that you want to know?” He levels his stare with your father, and it seems to dampen his anger a little bit. They’re having a silent war right now, in some kind of expressive language that you’ve never been able to decode, and somehow, it seems that Spencer is winning.
“Did you use protection?” Your sharp intake of breath is about all the answers your father needs, and you realize how majorly you’d fucked up by letting the conversation get this far.
“Dad!” you shout indignantly. “That is frankly none of your business.” He doesn’t look at you though, not even sparing you a glance as his eyes stay focused on Spencer, trying to figure out something you’re not even sure of yourself.
“For god’s sake, Dad, I’ve been in love with him for five years.” All the eyes in the room snap to you then, and if you hadn’t been feeling shy before, you certainly were now.
“Y/N, you’re barely an adult.”
“I’m sorry that’s entirely rich coming from the guy who had a child straight out of high school. I’m an adult, which is why I’m allowed to make my own mistakes and decisions, and I’d really prefer your support instead of your judgment.” Your father tries to speak again, to protest some part of what you just said, but unlistening, you groan in frustration and just climb directly into Spencer’s lap.
“I’m not going anywhere.” Spencer panics below you for a second, before resting comfortably on your legs, far enough down that he is spared your father’s dirty looks.
“Aaron, I think you’d better hear the girl out. She reminds me a lot of someone I know, so hard-headed these youths of today are.” You are intensely thankful for Rossi’s presence then and you send a thankful smile his way, just as your dad grumbles.
“Uncle David is right, you should listen to Uncle David.”
“Until a few days ago, you were calling Spencer “Uncle Spencer” so I’d be quiet if I were you, Y/N.”
“Heard.” He pauses for a second to think, the years finally etching into his skin as he breathes out a sigh of relief. You suddenly feel bad for not being home when he woke up, and you can only imagine how it must’ve felt to not know where you were, or if you were safe after everything that he’d already been through.
“I’m not against this, I suppose. But I swear to god if you ever go missing on me again, I will have an entire agency out for you.”
“You know where I’ll be, Dad.” He nods then turns to Spencer.
“You’re going to take her to a pharmacy in the next three hours to get emergency contraception, and then the both of you are going to come - fully clothed - to my house. It’s been a while since we had a family dinner.” You smile brightly up at him, and within another minute, it is just you and Spencer in the apartment alone.
You looked back up at him shyly and tried to awkwardly climb out of his lap, but he pulled you right back into him.
“For the record, I think I’ve only been in love with you for 37 days. Is that okay with you?” All of the confidence drains from your body as you struggle to find the words.
“In my defense, it’s not that I didn’t love you back then, it’s just that you were so young, I think I never considered it. And when I realized that you had those feelings, I felt so guilty about it, I never stopped to let myself think about what else I was feeling. And then you were gone and I didn’t have to think about it again, and then you came back, and I’ve been doing a lot more thinking now, and I think that-”
“I think that you should shut up and kiss me, Spencer Reid.” You said.
“Heard.” You giggled as he pressed his lips up into your own, pulling you further down into him as he held you tight. You didn’t come up for air for a long while, drinking as much of him in as you could as he gave you his heart.
“You know what this means?” You said, finally pulling away with a gasp.
“What?”
“You don’t have to steal my panties anymore. I can just give them to you now.” He lit up red underneath you and groaned as you laughed at his pained expression.
“As long as you never mention that to your father, I think we’ll escape this job and lives intact.” He said, a faraway look telling you he was likely running probability on those ideas right at that second.
“Just remember, my dad has two weapons and the ability to move you halfway across the country should he choose to.” You pressed your forehead against his, chuckling once again at his pained expression. “But also remember, that I’d happily follow you anywhere, Reid.”
“I’ll keep that in mind, Hotchner. Oh, no, that was weird. We’re going to have to get you a new name sooner rather than later.” You gasped as he lifted you in his arms, standing and carrying you back to the bedroom.
“Spencer! What are you doing?”
“We need to go brainstorm some new names, too weird to call you Hotchner. And I do all of my best thinking in bed.”
“Really? I do mine in the shower,” you teased, holding tight to his shoulders as he continued forward.
“We can definitely try that next.” He said, carrying you through the door, and closing it shut behind him, hoarding your attentions for the rest of the morning.
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harunovella · 3 months
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*:・゚✧*:・゚✧ love language (verse iv); s.g.
synopsis: you and gojo go on your first double date... or is it really? content: canon divergence (teen!gojo era), fem!reader, hopeless romantic gojo, best bros satoru and suguru bickering as always, gojo may have had a 'help I've fallen on your boobs and I can't get up' moment, bestie shoko, not beta read (sorry for any errors!) note: another addition to my gojo anthology series! this one was sm fun to write, I love writing gojo and geto being nothing but idiots tbh... wanna be tagged? lmk in the replies!
"A dinner? A fancy dinner?" Shoko asked as you nodded. "What's a bunch of sixteen year olds gonna do at a fancy dinner?" She raised a brow in confusion. Ever since being paired by Yaga with Shoko, the two of you have grown quite close. You were more than thankful, as much as you loved your own little trio (including Nanami and Haibara), it was nice to have a friend that wasn't... well, a male. 
Not that there was something wrong with that, you saw Nanami like a sort of twin—though you were a bit more on the social side—he got along with you the most. Then there was Haibara, who was an absolute sweetheart and a gem, the energy both you and your blond twin needed. However, seeing as Ieiri was your senior, there was quite a lot to learn from her—outside from the jujutsu world. 
There was also Geto and Gojo... Geto was an interesting person to be around. He had dark humor but also was nothing but kind to you. Gojo, on the other hand...
"A double date?!" Satoru exclaimed as he was alone with Suguru after you invited the two young men to the dinner you told Shoko about. 
Arching an eyebrow, Suguru crossed his arms. "Who said this is a double date? In your delusional world, you're dating our little junior when she only sees you as a friend—"
"That's a lie!" Gojo snapped, earning a snicker from his best friend. "I'll have you know we get along very well, we hangout a lot! And— and we have a lot of fun conversations!"
"Sounds fun," Geto said sarcastically. "We all know you're madly in love with her. However, we have no idea how she feels about you."
"Then explain the double date, huh?" Gojo was now the one to cross his arms, tapping his foot. "You and Shoko, me and my mochi?"
Sighing, Suguru pinched the bridge of his nose. "Again, not a double date. It's four friends going to a nice restaurant to support one of our friend's family members. Nothing more, nothing less," he explained, only for everything to go into one ear and out the other for the white haired boy before him. 
Satoru was in his own world, delusional as always, eyes sparkling at the thought of you in a cute dress. Heels or no heels, makeup or not, he just couldn't help but fantasize about how beautiful you were going to look tonight!
"Earth to Satoru?" Geto waved his hand in front of his best friend, only to laugh. "Thinking about how cute she'll look tonight, huh?"
"Yeah..." Gojo nodded, a face of pure ecstasy, as if he were about to drool. 
"Maybe I'll swap dates, you can have Shoko, I'll have our beautiful—"
"No!" Satoru shouted, instantly jumping Suguru. "She's my date for the night!"
"Good luck with that, if you look like an idiot right now thinking about her, just imagine you tonight!" Suguru laughed as he shoved Satoru off of him. "You're gonna look like a complete idiot!"
"You're not discreet..." Geto mumbled towards Gojo as the young man sat beside you, cheek pressed in the palm of his hand as he ever so casually gazed at you. You were in the middle of a conversation with Shoko, something about a movie you both recently had seen together. Too lost in your discussion, laughing and enjoying the evening as Suguru watched his best friend look like he was in a trance. "You are literally staring..." Furrowing his eyebrows as a look of slight disgust took over his face, Suguru kicked Satoru. 
"Shh," Gojo brushed off, kicking him back. 
"You're lucky she's in her own world with Shoko to even hear us," Geto kicked again, feeling his best friend constantly kick back. Gojo was too focused on you to even pay him any mind.
The restaurant, although fancy, was quite lively and practically filled to the brim. The reservations were endless and everyone that came and went looked like they came from money. Satoru and Suguru wore similar suits, solely because they bought them last minute and ended up with the same look (Satoru was NOT happy, but Suguru found it very funny). Shoko, after seeing them, called them tweedledee and tweedledum... You, on the other, found it cute. 
Cute... Gojo kept hearing your words echo in his head. You thought he, himself, was cute?! Forget Suguru, you said he was cute! He couldn't help but indulge in it as he gazed at you practically the whole dinner. For a split second, he did acknowledge the fact that you looked beyond gorgeous. In a white, fitted dress, hugging your curves with a sweetheart neckline... It was safe to say his mind was split in two. In particular, the two brain cells he had. Half of his mind was floating in the clouds of your compliment while the other half was focused on the top of your breasts (practically where his eyes kept falling to). He was... somewhat of a gentleman, he just couldn't help that dirty side of him. You were beautiful! He wanted you!
In his defense, he was used to seeing you in your uniform jacket, skirt, and tights... the times you weren't, you were always dressed cute and comfortable. Never had he seen you like this, curves and all. 
Reaching over the table and yanking on Gojo's hair, Geto stifled a laugh as his best friend snapped his head and growled. "Rude, I was busy!" He hissed, reaching over and tugging on the bangs that hung over the dark haired young man's forehead. 
Caught up with your conversation with Shoko (and not entirely hearing the commotion beside you with all the various voices around you in the restaurant) a sudden gasp left the brunette as she watched it all happen before her in slow motion. Gojo and Geto shoved one another, completely forgetting where they were as others nearby watched in confusion. 
From one second to the next, you were knocked off your chair, head thudding with the ground as a body collapsed against you. Various gasps and whispers were heard as you winced. Blinking a few times and trying to sit up, you felt a pressure against your chest. Both Shoko and Suguru (who was pulled to his feet by Shoko), stared at the disaster before them. Satoru, with his face planted against your chest, as you stared at him, wide eyed. 
"Satoru!" Shoko exclaimed, smacking his head as he lifted it, staring at you with a shared blush, before both of his friends yanked him up. 
"I— I am so sorry!" He exclaimed, reaching for your hand to help you up as you looked stunned. 
"God, you two are so immature. Before we get kicked out, take her home and I'll handle this," Shoko tsked as you blinked, only to snap out of your daze. 
"It's— It's okay! I'll handle this! I invited you all—"
"No, you hit your head hard, let me handle this. Dummie over here will take you," Shoko kicked Satoru's calf. "Go. Now."
Without second thinking his actions, Gojo took your hand and lead you out. Both of you ignored the displeased stares and gossip that spread over the four kids who "shouldn't have been allowed into a restaurant like this in the first place." 
Walking out, Satoru stopped in his tracks before turning to face you. "I'm so sorry about... my face being in your... Anyway, are you okay?" He asked, using his free hand to gently touch the back of your head. "There's no bump, but, are you alright?"
"I— It's okay, I'm not hurt," you swore as you nodded your head, looking up at him with your doe eyes. Gojo swore his heart grew two times its size. "I promise," you softly smiled. 
Nodding, a small smile grew on the young man's lips. He couldn't help but gaze at you, softness in his eyes as he kept his hand on the back of your head. Silence weaved its way between the two of you. Nothing uncomfortable. You stood there for what felt like hours, looking at one another and nearly forgetting what you were doing or where you were. 
The sound of honking snapped the two of you out of it as you realized you were out in the open, with people walking by and cars driving along. 
Clearing his throat, Satoru lowered his hand from your head and kept his other in yours. "Let's get you home, yeah?"
tag list: @bakananya @strangehuman101 @thirtykiwis @sillygoosegoose (some of u I sadly couldn't tag!)
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reverieblondie · 4 months
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Seeking Advice
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Pairing: Rolan x Fem!Tav Reader
Warnings: 18+, NSFW, Fluff and Smut with Plot, Oral (fem receiving), Cum eating, Horn pulling?.
Summary: Asking out your crush can be difficult, Maybe you should seek advice from your friends on how to ask out your favorite wizard?
A/N: Look...I've been playing a lot of Baldur's Gate 3. Then this guy yelled at me and I fell. I have a thing for grumpy guys what can I say. Now do not worry! I still am writing for ATSV, TASM!Peter and my love Miguel, just I think I can squeeze the bg3 fandom on my blog. Trust I have plans for for all my fictional men. Plus I am working on request! Just had to get this story out, it was rotting my brain. Hope you enjoy it! Its kinda cheesy but its what I like, sorry.
Word Count: 6,957
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The energy to the tavern is a welcomed one, All the noise you might have found irritating at a time is now a pleasant chime to your ears. How things can so easily change with time. Since becoming the city's hero many things have changed for you and your friends. The city is back to its wondrous glory. Finally, your life is starting to calm down, well for the most part… 
There is no longer a squirming in your head and the threats to the world's damnation are at the time eased, things should be perfect, and you should be happy riding an inexplicable high. You are happy for the most part, however there is just one thing that is causing you trouble now. It's the ache that swirls within you that only grows when you see him, the now master of Ramazith’s Tower, Rolan. 
The first time you felt it, it was simply a spark, harmless. It didn’t turn into this thrumming storm until the grove celebration after you defeated the goblin camp, and where he taught you his light spell. That night your fate was sealed, now as your friendship has grown you feel those glittering sparks storming through you more often. 
With a sigh, you rest your hazy head in your palm as you watch him with his siblings. The amber lights of Elfsong make his crimson skin appear as if it's glowing, he looks good in any lighting with his striking features but at this moment he looks damn near ethereal. You're acutely aware that you are staring at the trio, but in your buzzed haze from four wine goblets, you can not bring yourself to care. People are properly catching you staring like a lovesick fool; you will move your eyes eventually, you just want to watch for a bit longer. 
Rolan's journey to the city was different than yours but it was not without its hurdles, then when he got here he had to be met with the cruelty of Lorroakan. You won’t lie, you felt immense pleasure watching his spine get cracked in two for what he had done. Now with that horror over, the scars have faded and you see that Rolan is better, happier. He smiles just a bit wider and his eyes shine just a tad bit brighter. It only makes sense that the Tower and Sundries have become more successful with his influence, though you know he’s just happy that his family is now together and safe. 
Blindly you bring the metal goblet to your lips and taste the tang of the red wine nursing you through your pinning. The drink was meant to boost your confidence to go over there and shoot your shot for a date, but it only makes your head cloud into hopeless romantics. Why can’t you just ask him out? You can take on a horde of knols but you can’t bring yourself to confess to the guy you like? Doesn't get more pathetic than that…
Your eyes stay fixed on Rolan as he smirks and rolls his eyes at what Cal is saying, his clawed hand grabs his goblet and you watch as he brings the drink to his lips. Feeling looser from drinking you see as the red wine slightly escapes the side of his lips as he chugs the drink down. The deep red rolls down his jaw and you have to bite your lip from the thoughts that erupt in your mind. 
“Darling, you have got to stop staring.” 
With a sigh, you turn your head to your pale companion with a devilish smile on his face. With a roll to your eyes, you take another drink of your wine trying your best to play unbothered by Astarion as you can. 
“I wasn’t staring” 
“Tav, let's not be coy, you haven’t moved your eyes from a particular wizard since he strolled in. Sighing and squeezing your thighs together like that's going to help your ache.” 
The mentioning of the actions you thought were unnoticed makes your face blush from embarrassment. Asterion can only laugh at your fluster features as you look around the crowded tavern to see hints if others have noticed. 
“I- wasn’t, you don’t-” 
“Don’t be embarrassed, you could pick far worse. He’s a bit pompous for my taste, but the innocent little freckles on his face are pretty intriguing.” 
Astarion gives you a smirk as you whip your head to face him giving him a look of ‘back off’, though he is hardly intimated by you. 
“Relax, I am not going to take a bite out of your favorite wizard. I will leave that pleasure for you, however some advice, you won’t get him from just staring.” 
You hate to admit it but Astarion might have a point, you have been wanting to confess your feelings you just don’t know how. Looking at Rolan you rake your mind with your past chances to open yourself up but always seem to back out at the last moment, his rejecting you would be painful but being in this limbo is excruciating. You have to get your feelings off your chest for some inner peace. 
“Okay, Astarion…what's your advice?”  
Astarion's smile spreads to his lips and he sits next to you quickly, “My suggestion is you make it your mission to get that Rolan in your sheets, my dear. You obviously have had trouble getting your…” Astarion grimaces “Feelings for him out, so why not go the seductive approach?” 
You let out a laugh but Astarion just keeps his face neutral, “You think, I should seduce him? How am I supposed to do that?” 
“Simple, give him an offer he can’t refuse.”
“Yeah like what?” 
Astarion looks over at Rolan, seeming to think before his face lights up, he quickly wraps his arm around your shoulder moving your chin to face Rolan. Then he whispers in your ear, “You're going to go over to him, very calmly…place your hand on his shoulder and whisper in his ear very sweetly that you want to lick every ridge on his body.” 
Your mouth goes dry and eyes go wide at the thought…running your tongue…down…his… You blush feeling your face grow hot, so hot you think it could be radiating off you. 
“A-Astarion…I-I can’t do that…” 
“Oh, but picture it, once you're done he will be so spent he will be the one confessing to you.” 
An image of a panting Rolan looking down at you with a fist full of your hair sparks in your mind. Hells, maybe Astarion has a point…he has had plenty of experience seducing people, but you? The thought only makes it so you can’t even move. Astartion picks up on your dazed state and with a nudge he pops you from it. 
“Lucky for you there's a creature in here I have had my eyes on, so just watch and learn,” 
“Wait, you like someone?” You say it a bit shocked,
Astarion gives you a look, “Focus on your own love life, huh?” 
With that, you say quite as you watch Astarion's ruby eyes land on a particularly pretty patron. With a smirk, he grabs your goblet keeping his eyes fixed on them like a predator studying its prey. Quickly downing your drink he releases a cool and steady breath then makes his approach. He practically glides across the room to them, very carefully he starts the conversation with a smile and you can already tell the person is interested. Do they know each other?
In What seems like a quick second he is placing his hand on their shoulder and leaning down to their ear. You can only imagine what he must be saying to have their faces fluster so quickly. Nobody quite had a way with words like him. Astarion leans back up to meet their eyes where they are feverishly nodding. 
With that, he starts guiding them to the exit while turning back towards you to smirk. Well, looks like it's your turn…
Picking up your goblet you see he did finish it, okay next step. Standing you feel all the alcohol you consumed immediately go to your head, deep breath, then go. Making your way over you try to not stumble into people as you push to your destination. Keeping your eyes on Rolan you rehearse the lines in your head over and over, as you get closer. 
Rolan almost like he can sense it then flicks his eyes to you, watching as you approach. Swallowing to ease your dry throat as you continue to make your way over still keeping your nerves despite your stomach being in knots. Then his lips curl into a slight smile and you freeze…shit…looking down at your hands reality hits you suddenly, you're drunk and about to proposition him, you can’t do this…he is just going to dismiss you… the thought makes your chest ache and the feeling of your drink coming back up. 
Looking back at him he tilts his head looking at you concerned smile fading and that's when the fear of rejection rushes you. Opening your mouth you go to say anything, maybe smile at him something to mask your panic but it fails. Your lips tremble and before you know it you're rushing to the exit. 
Finding the exit you look back to Rolan, he’s up from his table and seems to be trying to make his way toward you, he looks completely confused and maybe…hurt. You can’t do this…not when you're drunk and on the verge of puking. 
With that, you're pushing out of the tavern and running off into the cool night of the city. As you're running past one of the city's allies you catch in your peripherals Astarion with that person pinned against the wall as he kisses against their neck leaving them moaning into his hand. You must have caught his attention from your running, he looks at your fleeing figure and calls out to you. 
“I guess it didn’t go well?” 
You don’t bother to give him a response, his advice might have worked for him but you're going to have to try a different tactic. 
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Note to self, do not try to drunkenly ask out your crushes, it only ends in you making an ass out of yourself and puking up all your stomach contents. Thinking back on it you can only think back on the look on Rolan's face…the confusion…the disappointment…Maybe you should go talk to him? You don’t want him to think that you're trying to ignore him. You were drunk and didn’t want to spill your guts all over him. Feeling freshly invigorated you decide that you should apologize for running off. Who knows maybe the conversion could lead to something.   
Arriving at Sorcerous Sundries you're not even fully sure if he would even be there, the tower might have been the better bet. However, your guess is shown to be a good one when you see Rolan placing some tomes on the shelves. Gods, you could watch him work for hours…his dexterous hands placing everything so carefully. As you watch you think you almost see his tail wag before he’s fixing it down. The smile it causes to your face can’t be helped, though he is always so composed he still slips at times. 
As you watch Rolan work you have the oddest sensation come over you that you too are being watched. Turning your head you jerk back slightly in surprise seeing that Lae’zel’s yellow eyes are piercing into you with her trademark intensity. It’s quite odd that she is in here, she's not one for spells but as you're looking past her you see that Shadowheart is with her thumbing through a tome. That makes more sense, you're happy those two have become better friends. Especially since they did try and kill each other. 
Smiling you give Lae’zel a smile with a wave, she only narrows her eyes more at you as you move to go talk to Rolan. Approaching his tall figure you're taking in every inch of him. 
He's beautiful, from face to physique, you watch as the muscles from underneath his robes flex from his movements. It’s funny wizards are not known for their strong builds but Rolan's arms and back are a dead giveaway to his hidden strength. Looking up you trace down the length of his horns to where they disappear into his soft chestnut hair, twisted in that half-up style. You wonder if you two get closer in the way you hope he will let you play with his hair, it appears so tantalizing and soft…everything about him is tantalizing… 
In your approach your mind is running through a quick daydream of running your fingers along his horns and through his hair; it causes you not to pay attention to where you are stepping. With the perfect explanation for the night at Elfsong in your mind, you're ready to smooth things over with him. Just as you're reaching out you suddenly see Rolan's shoulders shoot up teasing like something just hit him. Confused you lean forward more but that's when you feel it, something is wiggling under your foot.  
Looking down you see that your boot is crushing his poor tail underneath your weight. Mortified, you quickly step off of it. Karlach had told you how sensitive her tail was when she yelped when someone sat on it, so having it crushed underneath a boot sure is not a great feeling. Rolan's back stays teased as he turns slowly, his tail swiftly moving away from you to go to his hands. His eyes look as if he could thunder wave you out of the building. 
“I-I am so sorry Rolan, I- I didn’t see your tail.” you ramble out as quickly as possible
“How do you not see the appendage handed down from my-!” Rolan stops his yelling and takes a breath, his hands tightening on his tail. There is now a mark from where you stepped and you feel even worse. 
“Here let me-” Reaching out for his tail you are quickly stopped by Rolan holding up his hand and shaking his head. Rolan tail in hands starts walking away mumbling a language you don’t know. 
“I’m sorry!” You call out to his fleeing figure as he ascends the stairs. 
Running your hands down your face, your intentions of apologizing to him for Elfsong completely disappear as you make yourself look like a complete ass again to him. Looking through your fingers you see that not only is Lae’zel still staring at you but now Shadowheart has joined her in watching your screw-up. You make your way over to them with your head down silently standing with them as Shadowheart keeps at her browsing. 
After a couple of moments, you see Rolan coming back down to the shop, his eyes meet yours. A part of you thinks you should go back over to him and apologize but you don’t want to annoy him further so you give him an apologetic wave. Rolan just huffs slightly with a nod before turning his back to you to get back to work. Leaning against the shelved wall you let out a long sigh.
“What am I going to do…”
“You mean about your crush on the new master of the tower?” 
You turn your head to stare at Shadowheart for her comment but she doesn’t even bother lifting her eyes away from the spines of the tomes. 
“How…what…” 
Lae’zel cuts in “Your lusting is obvious, sighing with your head in the sky with your pathetic pinning,” -wow ouch…   
A stray giggle leaves Shadowheart and you're quick to narrow your eyes at her as she bites her lip to silence herself. Crossing your arms you look back at Lae’zel 
“I am probably going to regret this, but Lae’zel what is your advice? How should I go about asking Rolan out then?”
The question is intriguing enough to make Shadowheart put her tome down and look at Lae’zel as well. Lae’zel rolls her eyes for a second before folding her arms and moving her fierce gaze to where Rolan is now helping out a customer. Lae’zel eyes narrow at him, sizing him up as she studies him before she turns back to you with a huff.
“I would not ask, I would grab that teeth-ling by the horns and command him to do as I say.”  The direct advice makes Shadowheart burst into laughter drawing attention from people near you, though you can’t seem to meet their eyes because you're too busy giving Lae’zel a confused look. 
“I don’t think that would work with him…” 
“Tis’k, you do not know this unless you try. Now go grab him by the tail and mount him forming a flesh bond with your desired.”  
You're staring at Lae’zel gobsmacked while Shadowheart practically rolls on the floor with laughter. 
“Lae’zel! I can’t just mount him!” you whisper yell at her. 
“I don’t know, she might have something to the direct approach” Shadowheart soothes
You glare at her “Oh you're done laughing on the floor?” She smirks with a shrug, absolutely no help. 
“Fine, I will gather him for you.” -what?
Lae’zel starts going towards Rolan but you are quick to grab her and drag her out. As the puzzled patrons watch you carry out the githyanki fighter cussing you in her native tongue with Shadowheart trailing behind you, smirk on her face. You try to rush out as quickly as you can mortified that Rolan might be seeing the display. 
Once outside you put her down with an apology, Shadowheart quickly places a hand on Lae’zel’s shoulder to prevent her from cutting off your head. “Why not try talking to the guys for advice? Maybe they can give you the male perspective on things.” Shadowheart offers. 
Thinking for a moment you find that she might have a point, it might help to ask the guys for some advice.
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Piercing your lips you study the smiling wizard in front of you waiting for your question. 
“Actually Gale I don’t know if I should ask you for advice on this.” 
Gale's face changes from a smile into hurt then moves to irritation, “Wh- and why not?” he practically huffs. 
“Because the last time you tried to get a person to like you you ended up with a bomb in your chest.” 
“Magic orb…” he mutters while Wyll laughs, nearly choking on his wine. 
“Okay, Tav what advice are you needing? We can try our best to help aid you.” Wyll smooths out the tension of the room. 
“Well…the thing is I need some advice on asking someone out. I figured our most intelligent and most charismatic party members would have some great advice.” 
Wyll and Gale look at each other like they can detect each other's thoughts before they turn back to you “You're talking about asking out Rolan aren't you?” 
You purse your lips and narrow your eyes at the duo, “Who told you I was coming?” 
“Astarion and Shadowheart, they sang like canaries. Told us about your ...Mishaps” Gale says somewhat sing-songy. 
Sure he might have gotten a bomb in his chest but at least he got some for the goddess… And Wyll Mr. Prince Charming, half the girls in the city who were in love with him and his fancy footwork. Hopefully, they will have some good advice. You watch as the two men start pacing along rubbing their chins deep in thought. You appreciate they are taking this so seriously for your sake. 
“So have you at least tried? Asking him out? I know you two are pals but have you ever eluded to it.” 
You give Wyll an unamused look “Yeah I tried, but then something horrid goes wrong, I’m either stepping on his tail or about to puke.” 
Wyll nods trying to understand, “Maybe you could try to do an action, like an impromptu dance at the tavern between friends? The music is plentiful, and as you two sway along the music you can tell him with your eyes.” 
You watch as Wyll mimics the swaying of a dance keeping intense eye contact with you, but Gale comes behind him and places a hand on his shoulder stopping him. “Don’t think that will work with Rolan, he's….kinda dense…” 
Gale then lights up with the idea, “Why not ask him for some magic lessons? He can show you the ways of the weave and as you two flow through it, you can send him your thoughts.” 
You think for a moment, you have had him teach you magic before but…that was at the grove…and things were different. You hold that memory when he taught you his trick dear and you're about to agree to it. But you stop…if Rolan rejects you during that…it would ruin that spell for you forever…
“Yeah…he's a strict teacher…can we think of something else…Something that can explain how I feel but I don’t have to choke over the words too.” 
Gale and Wyll sit and think for a minute, then Wyll is snapping his fingers with an idea, “Why don’t you write him a letter!” 
You look at Wyll a bit skeptical, “A letter?” 
“Now that's the way to a wizard's heart, through the written word. Grand idea Wyll! Plus that helps with your shyness you can just hand him the letter! No conversion required!” Gale praises. 
You think for a moment, writing isn’t exactly your thing but it might be your only option left. Plus you're sure Gale and Wyll will help you through it! With a nod, you give them the okay and Gale is already conjuring up some paper and quill. They sit themselves on both sides of you and help you get through your thoughts. You thought it would be best to keep some more private feelings to yourself. They both seemed to be rather…really into letter writing, Gale helped fill the letter with praise of Rolan's grandeur with magic. While Wyll helps you spruce it up with flourishes about how your heart dances for him. It turned out a bit cheesy but Wyll and Gale seemed to have a good time. Maybe they should start a poetry club? 
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Letter in hand you pace outside the shop, the letter was a great idea when Gale and Wyll were helping you write it but now… Now that you're here to give it to Rolan you're finding that familiar nervousness is eating away at you again. Peeking through the door you see that Rolan isn’t in the shop. It just seems to be his hologram today…Perfect! Now all you have to do is place it on the front desk for him to find later. That way if he isn’t into it you won’t have to meet his rejection immediately. The thought of Rolan looking at the letter and frowning pops into your mind, but you shake it off. Just place it down…easy…
“Tav! Hey!” 
Pausing you Turn around and see Karlach running towards you waving with a huge smile on her face. This is not good… It's not that you don’t want to see Karlach, she is amazing and you two have become incredibly close. The reason that this isn’t good is that Karlach isn’t exactly…subtle… Karlach is a complete badass but when it comes to love and romance she is a complete softie gushing about it to everyone. Wyll had told her about a crush of his one time and she had gushed about the story to anyone who would listen. It’s truly sweet that she loves love so much and gushes about her friends' conquest, but you're trying to be subtle here, placing the letter then leaving quickly, if Karlach finds out about it she's going to give you being here away.  
“Hello soldier, what are you doing loitering around Sundries? Waiting for someone?”
“Oh, no no…I just have this letter to give Rolan.” 
“Oh! What's it about?”  
“Just some questions about…spells…and curses…if he can detect the traces of the magical…What are you doing?” you quickly change the subject not being able to think of a good lie. 
“I was just at the Forge of the Nine catching up with Dammon, I had found some good iron ingots and wanted to give them to him, he could use them more than me anyways…” -oh Karlach you cutie
Karlach looks into sundries and appears to be looking around a bit, her smile slowly dies away before she turns back to you, “Well, I think you're out of luck soldier, Rolan doesn't seem to be around.”
You shrug trying to seem as unfazed as possible, “That's fine, I will just leave it on the front desk.”
“Or you could give it to-”
“No! No the desk will work, I mean…it’s important but he will find it.” you quickly interject. 
Karlach looks at you somewhat confused before she shrugs with a smile and follows you in. Finally, through the doorway, you quickly make your way to the desk and you feel…good! Finally one of your plans is going to work and you have Gales and Wyll's advice to thank! Maybe if this all goes well you will treat them to a drink at Elfsong. You will finally get your feelings off your chest, sure…it��s not exactly how you envisioned, but all the other attempts failed, this is easy and mess-free. 
Right as you reach the desk, something tells you to look up. Looking up you see Rolan descending the stairs wrapped up in whatever tome he is reading. He hasn’t seemed to notice you however so maybe you can just drop the letter and run-
“Hey Rolan! What udder luck, Tav has a letter for you!” -shit
Rolan looks away from his tome, eyes seeming to widen when he sees you and Karlach. You feel all the blood rush to your face as his eyes meet yours, you can’t quite tell if he is pleased to see you or not, kinda of appears to be…annoyed…or surprised? Damn that handsome studious face! 
Your hands tighten on the letter, you go to quickly place it on the desk and rush out but in the blink of an eye, the letter is out of your hand. Instead of it being in your hand or on the desk it's in Karlach’s hand as she is going towards the stairs…to Rolan…going to hand it to him! Oh, hells!
Rushing over to her you quickly snatch the letter from her hand. Karlach seems taken aback by your action, “Hey? What the fuck?” 
Karlach tries to take the letter back after you rudely snatched it. “Tav isn’t this for him?” 
“Uh…Yeah, but I changed my mind…”
“Changed your mind? But you said it was important?” 
Karlach goes to take the letter from you again but this time it is not so easy to take from your hand. Now in the middle of Sundries, you and Karlach are having a tug of war over a letter while Rolan looks at you two trying to piece together what is going on. With some quick moves on your part, you're able to shoulder check Karlach, not knocking her over by any means but just enough to cause her to loosen her hold slightly. 
Feeling successful you smile to yourself that you were able to get it back, but when you look back at Karlach your smile fades. Her eyes are narrowed and you see the hints of flames starting to spark around her, she looks pissed and you are about to get it. Looking up you see Rolan at the bottom of the stairs approaching you with a very irritated look, it makes sense you did have a fight in the middle of his shop. 
Shoving the letter down your pocket you do the thing that you only seem to know how to do nowadays, run. 
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“Ohhhh…..so you wrote him a love letter….” 
“Yeah…I wanted to just leave it on his desk but…that didn’t work out….” 
You and Karlach sit on the stone wall looking out into the city watching the sunset. Of course, when you ran off she chased you down and demanded an explanation. You gave your explanation and that's how you are here now pouring your heart out to her. 
“Tav, I think you're going about this all wrong.”
“Oh? How do you figure?” 
“Well sure everyone giving their advice is nice but…I think you should just do what feels right to you. Instead of worrying about what he will say just…just stop being so scared and talk to him. Be honest. All these games, and trying to be sneaky isn’t how to do it. ” 
You take in her words for a moment before you speak, “So…you're telling me Lae’zel had the best advice? Being direct?” 
Karlach laughs “What I am saying is stop being so in your head Tav. Instead of talking to everyone else about this, just go talk to him. I promise it will be best that way.” 
“When should I do it?” 
Karlach hums then shrugs “Fuck if I know. Maybe it will just hit you.”
A smile spreads to your lips and you nod your head “Thanks Karlach, that...that's some really good advice…” 
Karlach smacks your back, basically knocking the air out of you. “Don’t worry I am here for all your relationship advice needs!” 
“So, how's Dammon?” you say coyly
“Oh don’t even start.” 
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Laying in bed you think about all the advice your friends gave you and how all the advice had turned out. Why does this have to be so hard….
Looking outside you see how late it is, people all around are either asleep or going home to rest but as you lay you listen to the stillness of the city. Then your thoughts go back to Rolan. How you ache to be held in his arms…to get to look into those golden eyes on a dark still night like this. To talk to him about everything and nothing as his fingers gently caress your skin. You know you would so easily melt under his touch. How it would comfort you, how you want to comfort him. 
Rising from your warm bed you go to look out into the night of the city. With a click, you open the window and are met with the shivering cold of the night. A chill runs through you as you lean out and admire the star-dusted sky. For some reason, your thoughts go back to the night of the grove celebration. Rolan was being teased by his siblings as he focused on his fireworks show. They didn’t seem to be impressed but you clapped for him, before he gave some response about adoring fans there was a moment in his dark eyes where those golden fires shined just for you. That's when the glittering flickers within you started to storm. At the time you thought it was maybe residue from the magic, but now you know better. 
Holding your hands out into the still night you mimic the moves that Rolan taught you after a few goblets of wine after he got more comfortable around you or maybe just got tired of your begging. As you gesture you feel the fluttering of magic down your arms to your hands, motioning your arms up you release the spell. You used to call it just simple fireworks. Though after that night it now has a new name for both of you; Rolan’s Fire
“What are you calling it?” 
“Rolan’s Fire. You have to admit it has a nice ring to it.” 
The bursting lights grow in a flash then dim in a beautiful marriott of colors and white light. The elegance of the spell always fit him and it never failed to fill you with warmth, but now you still feel the bite of the cold despite how many memories of him you conger or how many times you spill the lights from your hands. 
“Just talk to him…” Karlach's words echo in your mind. Of course, it’s that simple, but would it be enough? Could you even be able to articulate how he sends sparks through you? Would he want you to? Or would he want something different…Clenching your fist hard, your mind running rampant with thoughts, with advice, with what you should do. Then finally you come to your decision. 
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The cold air stings your face as you run down the dark streets. With every step, your mind screams how this is crazy but your heart urges your tired feet forward. Running as fast as your legs can take you, the city and the few late-night pedestrians blur beside you as your eyes keep forward to one goal. Ramazith’s Tower. 
Running up to the tower you don’t even give yourself a minute to catch your breath before banging on the doors with all your might. You know you won’t be able to rest until you finally settle this with him. Rolan needs to know, you need to know so you can function again. The pinning of your heart has thoroughly consumed you, it’s time. If only this damn door would open! 
The frustration you feel gets released as you beat against the door, 
“Stop beating against that damn door!” 
The voice sounds rough with sleep but still has that formal tone you have grown to listen for, to adore…
The door swinging open you immediately feel those sparks. His hair, usually tied back so precisely is knotted back in a messy rush, he looks surprised to see you. His handsome face contorted to scrunch in confusion at your slummed body still trying to catch your breath. Staring at him in this state is not helping you catch your breath in the slightest. 
Rolan's chest, usually concealed underneath his robes, is now exposed showing off his toned chest covered in those defining ridges that decorate his red skin. Unable to help yourself, your eyes follow the trail of his ridges to his abs then the simple trousers that are keeping the rest of him from you. 
“Tav?” his voice is laced with concern before it's going back to his usual irritated one. “What are you doing here? Going to act like a lunatic then run off again?” Rolan steps closer “What's been going on with you? I thought we were friends and you keep avoiding me! So what is it now that is so damned impor-”
“Rolan, how do I ask you out?” you interrupt while still trying to catch your breath. 
“Wh-What?” Rolan's dark eyes are wide, any trace of sleep has been knocked out of him by your question. 
Pushing past him you walk into the tower. The tower has usually been lit up when you have seen it before, but now it's dark and intimidating. Turning to look at Rolan he still has that shocked look on his face. You know your question is sudden, but you couldn’t think of anything else. Nervously you begin rambling. 
“Look, I know it’s a sudden question but I don’t know what else to do. I have asked everyone for advice, and I just can’t seem to do any of it right. So might as well just ask the source right? Because all the stuff I have tried I choke, or Im making a complete ass out of myself. So please, just tell me…so I can do it and get this…nonning ache out! I know the reject-” 
During your pacing rant, you feel hands cupping your face gently, slowly they raise your head to have you meet his golden eyes. All the words die off in your throat, Rolan’s is staring at you so intensely. With him so close you take in the details of his horns, the freckles peppering his red skin. The feeling of his hands warming your skin, you want to stay like this forever but you just wish you knew what he was thinking. 
“Rolan I-” 
“Quiet.” 
Rolan’s command instantly silences you. The sparks you have been feeling are erupting into a storm of excitement that rushes through you. His thumbs carefully brush against your skin only making you lean in closer. Rolons eyes glow in the darkness, you want to tell him how they set you on fire but right as you're parting your lips Rolan dips down and presses his mouth to yours. His soft lips make all your thoughts melt away. The thundering sparks are bursting into a warmth throughout your body. Rolan’s Fire…
Slowly as he keeps guiding your lips with a growing intensity, then carefully you feel your body being guided back. Once you feel your back meet the wall you break the kiss with a gasp, but it's only a quick second before his lips are pressing to yours once more. Rolan's hands slide down from your jaw to your hips bringing them closer to press against himself. A soft moan leaves your chest when you feel the hardness of his arousal straining against you. 
Rolan slips his tongue between your lips to taste you, the deepening of the kiss causes you to tighten your thighs feeling yourself getting wetter with each pass of his tongue. Your hands find a place on the hard ridges on his warm chest, as you trace over them slowly you feel him groan into the kiss. Then Rolan breaks the and his warm breath fans over your ear as he speaks.
“Ask me now.”
The words barely register in your foggy mind as you feel Rolan slipping his hands underneath your shirt. 
“What?” You can hardly manage the word, your shaky breath makes Rolan lean into your neck with a smile and a kiss, slowly he drags his soft lips against your skin sending shivers of excitement through you. Then his voice is back in your ear purring his words to you. 
“Ask me out again…tell me what you want…please…I need to hear it.” 
The hands underneath your shirt find your breasts and crease them as you stumble a moan trying to find your words. 
“Rolan…” 
“Yes?”, he whispers as he strips your shirt from you. His eyes roam over all your curves before he leans into your exposed chest, palming and lightly teasing at your sensitive skin. 
“I want you in every way possible…I..want you,” you practically cry as you feel him move from your chest to sink lower, sliding his lips against your stomach. Once reaching the hem of your pants he tugs down your pants, rolling your pants and underwear down carefully exposing your wet sex.  
Kneeling now you feel his lips press against your hips causing you to arch them forward. Shaky hands slide up the back of your thighs, suddenly you feel one of your legs being lifted to hook over his shoulder. Heart beating out of your chest you look down to see his eyes are already on you as he waits patiently on one knee. His eyes are completely blown with desire and you can feel the anticipation in his shaking touch as he rubs his hand on the outside of your thigh. 
“Go out with me?” you ask desperately. 
“Gods yes,” he groans before pressing his face into your folds, his hot tongue quickly finds your clit nudging and licking against the bundle making you throw your head back in a sharp gasp. 
Rolan being a quick learner latches onto your swollen bundle, sucking and twirling his tongue against it. The sudden stimulation has a moan escaping you then quickly your hand comes down to grasp one of his horns, holding on desperately as you watch him ravishingly pleasure you. 
Rolan's eyes widen then roll back as your grip gets tighter on his horn. The groan he releases from the sensation vibrates through you, tightening the coil in your stomach. The slick from your quivering slit is rolling down his chin. Moving slightly he laps his tongue to taste more, Adjusting so his perfect nose is rubbing against your clit. His tongue breaching your insides makes you grab both horns as you pull him in closer. You moan his name like a prayer as you ride against his face. 
The more you tug on his horns the more he groans, he can't help but grasp hard on your behind making you whine more as his nails dig into you. Your stomach starts to suddenly tighten more as his velvet tongue finds the sweet stop within you. 
“There! Fuck there! D-Don't, Ah!” you push your hips off the wall but he's quickly pushing them back against it to keep you still.  
Keeping his eyes on you, he watches as the hot wave of pleasure rushes through you. Clasping your hand over your mouth you moan and shake as your orgasm hits. Rolan eagerly licks and sucks up your release as you ride out your high. 
Finally coming down from it Rolan starts to move away from your spent cunt, though before he's moved away completely he gives a quick nip to your clit making you let out a sharp whine. 
Body feeling feverish you lean and brace yourself against the wall, trembling and breathing heavily. Rolan rises from his kneel and you watch in awe as a mix of your arousal and his spit glistens against his perfect face. He brings his hand to wipe his face, his eyes flicking down at you as he smiles then licks up the residue from his fingers. 
“Meet me at Elfsong tomorrow night?” 
Stars in your eyes you nod absentmindedly at him, “Yes…” 
Gods you can’t wait for tomorrow…
841 notes · View notes
tremendum · 11 months
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i've got headaches and bad luck but they couldn't touch you
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[not my gif. title from song Of All the Gin Joints in All the World] pairing: joel miller x fem!reader (afab, use of she/her, use of the word girl)    
rating: explicit. (18+. mdni.)      
word count:��4.6k  requested: Could you write something (literally anything really) like mean Joel x feisty Reader but based on the ancient Fall Out Boys song "Of All the Gin Joints in All the World" pretty please? 🥺🥹 I was just listening and I thought the lyrics were perfect for your writing ❤️But as always no pressure and no problem at all if you don't like the idea or anything else. Lots of love! P.S. smut is very welcome btw hihihi summary: “Joel's not one for feelings anymore, but you seem to pull them out of him like it's your goddamn job." warnings: established previous hookups, use of girl/babygirl, established age gap (unspecified but addressed openly), brief mention of oral m!receiving, brief mention of reader and joel’s canon-typical scars. choking, mean!Joel & brat tamer!Joel, brat!reader lol, dirty talk (its joel), degradation, use of the word slut, slight dumbification, spitting, rough sex, unprotected PiV, cum eating, nipple play, slapping (tits, ass). think that's it!
notes: okay finally another mean!Joel for the soul!!! this is super unedited also. tysm for the request, obv inspired by the song Of All The Gin Joints in All the World by FOB. :) this was fun and i hope yall love it! dont b afraid to request anything yall wanna read at all and as always pls comment or reblog :) love u xoxo  
[other Joel fics: mr. miller series fever landmines  ]
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★  
Joel Miller isn't sure exactly when all this bullshit started. 
one day, he was introduced to you fleetingly in the cafeteria while you and Maria had an intense conversation - he’s not sure if you spoke for more than ten seconds; but months later and Joel happens to know exactly what your sweaty skin tastes like on the sharpness of his tongue and could probably list his favorite pairs of underwear you own. 
it's nothing, really. 
you patrol together often, and Joel guesses that out of all the insufferable people he's had to deal with, you're definitely not the worst. perhaps your handiness with a trigger - not nearly as inept as his own but definitely a close second - helps; or maybe it's the way your mouth feels wrapped around his cock. 
and he's not stupid; he knows exactly what Tommy was doing when he signed Joel with you for patrol - the same shit he'd been pulling since they were thirty years younger and Joel was fresh out of the relationship with Sarah's mom. but it's different now, because life is not the same - nothing is the same. 
Joel's not one for feelings anymore, but you seem to pull them out of him like it's your goddamn job. 
you are one talkative motherfucker; usually, that'd drive Joel up a wall, but after repeated and incessant exposure to Ellie for such an extended period, his patience has surprisingly grown.
and unlike others, you never acted nervous or scared by him. irritated, maybe, but it's not like he cares much if you get irritated by his attitude; you're worse than he can be.
at first, he thought you were just fucking him because you just didn't know who he really was yet. but months into whatever this shit is, and you're still - for whatever fucking reason - hanging around him, even after everything. he likes it, though, that you fight fire with fire.
and maybe that's why Tommy stuck you two together, because in some ways it was inevitable - maybe it was a good thing, Joel thinks. 
but this morning, as Joel's mind slams against his body, jolting him awake, his aching head makes him double-guess that.
it's weird how different it all is now - before you, Joel was tortured through nights plagued with sweats and memories. blood, pain, loss. he used to dream restlessly of life and all of its unforgiving horrors; but now, to his shock, he finds himself plagued with dreams of you. 
he gasps awake - he's not sure he'll ever stop that. 
but this time, you're next to him in the bed. his skin feels warm as the light filters through the blinds that stay constantly pulled down this time of year to retain the cool air and Joel lets out a shuttered sigh, his head aching.
it's only the second time you've stayed the night. he's never stayed at yours, god forbid - but a small part of him aches this morning when you slide out of his heavy, sleep-addled muscles. in the absence of your heat there is still bliss for a moment, until he's roused fully by your voice. 
"these sheets are dirty." the sound carries into his ears, melodic and fiery. he cracks one eye open, hand raising to rub over his face - a deep, tired sigh. 
"g'mornin' to you too." he snarks, sighing as he pulls himself on aching muscles to blink his eyes open; you stand over the bed, on the side that usually remains cold an empty while Joel thrashes in fits of restless sleep. there's not a single scrap of clothing on your body.  
he feels himself stir at the sight of you, naked, neck painted in a splattering of beautiful marks that'd been pulled forth in moments of ecstasy the night before.
you send him a half smirk, shrugging as you tug on a shirt - his, fuck, his stomach swirls at the sight of you wrapped in him. something primal crawls in his chest as you smile at him, legs almost glowing in their bareness as they knock against the side of the mattress. your fingers brush the fabric to the left of his head. 
"there's stains on the pillows." you shake your head, your face alluring in its tease. he feels himself roll his eyes as he grunts, "you're actin' like it ain't your makeup stainin' it?" 
he stares at the marks on the pillowcase; black, from that shit you sometimes put on your eyes which just makes them all the more beautiful, wide, and alluring. the makeup that's surely expired after all this time but still is something you like to do to, as you'd mentioned once, 'reclaim your humanity.' whatever.
Joel would never admit it to you, but he hadn't even really tried to wash out those stains; something about them gives him a warmth in his chest every morning that he wakes up in this cold bed. 
but when his eyes fall back to you in your silence, you smirk and it hits him: you're fucking teasing him.
he glares at you as your lips curl in a huff of a laugh, shaking your head. "if you keep complainin' about every damn thing, might as well just fuck you on the floor." he mutters, mostly to himself-  but also to see the way your thighs shift, eyes widening slightly as color washes your cheeks. you're squirming at his words, just like that - oh, he's got you pinned.
you'd like that, you dirty little thing.
but you regain your composure quicker than lightning, ready to snap back; yet another tally to add on the list of things he admires about you.
"you're such a gentleman, Miller." you snide, fanning yourself sardonically with one hand as you roll your eyes, searching for your underwear. 
he remembers the first time you'd said that to him -
"why so shy?" you'd purred. the memory of your voice curls around his ears as he huffs, watching you bend over and give him a complete view of your ass as you fetch your panties from the floor.  "c'mon, Joel, you don't need to be such a gentleman. 's nothing you haven't seen before." you'd stripped yourself of your shirt, your pert nipples pebbling in the cold breeze as he'd sat, cleaning his rifle. "the hell's the matter with you?" he'd grumbled; but it didn't stop either of you. you'd been pressed between him and the splitting backseat of the broken down crashed car within seconds, anyways. 
his eyes meet yours as you stand again. 
he snarks, "well you’re givin' me a headache, an' I've only been up for two minutes." he glares at you, swinging to pull his boxers over his hips, standing up to find his shirt. he pointedly ignores the glare you send him at his grumpiness. 
"you're the one acting dumb," you mutter, "acting like I'm the one who gives you headaches." you retort, a teasing glint in your eye; he knows that look. Joel knows you'd never get a headache from him - as much as he pisses you off, he knows you're too fiery, too lucky to get caught up in whatever miserable puddle he's drowning in. 
because Joel's bad luck curls around his fists wherever he goes; the talons reaching out, crawling through every hallway and seeping through every door. you, on the other hand, are like a goddamn firecracker. Joel hates the idea, but you're... somehow gifted in that way.
he's convinced his bad luck couldn't touch you if it tried. 
no matter the dumb shit you pull - forgetting a flashlight, not flipping off your safety that one moment when the clicker had stumbled out of the brush; all of that, and you escape unscathed, nothing but a giggle and a half-shrug from you before you move on to the next stupid thing. 
if you weren't such a goddamn brat, it'd be charming. 
his eyes snap to yours as your words fall from your lips; a burning in his chest at your tone. he watches your legs carry you into his bathroom, and he can't help it when his follow yours.
you haven't even flipped on the lights before he shuts the door behind him - you're already wearing that snarky fucking smile on your face, and he's straining already against his boxers.
he stares down at you, crowding you slowly into the wall. "what the fuck did you just say to me?" he hisses, mouth close to yours. as you turn your chin up towards his face, he can tell that you try your hardest to control your smirk, playing into the tense energy that's emanating from his chest. 
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"I said you're acting dumb."
you repeat, tilting your head slightly as you drink in the darkness in his eyes. lord, you'd let that darkness swallow you in a fucking heartbeat. 
speaking of; your own heartbeat thunders in your chest, anticipating. you know what's coming, you can nearly taste it on your tongue. 
"oh, 's that right?" Joel asks, tilting his head to stare down at you. you swallow as you stare back into those deep irises, the small bit of golden light that shines through the small bathroom window illuminating in an ominously heavenly ray.
his hand settles on the crook of your shoulder and neck, sliding gently upwards as you nod your head defiantly, pushing as far as you can to see when he'll snap. his eyes glisten in temptation; daring you to act up more. 
raising your brows, you try to play like it's obvious, "waking up and complaining about your headaches, old man?" you tut gently, shaking your head innocently. "I don't think it's my fault that you fucked me twice, immediately passed out and now your head hurts when you've woken up the next morning. you know better than to push yourself in your old age, Joel. that's stupid." you add coyly, knowing it'll push him over the edge - he loves it when you act like a brat, no matter how much he denies it. 
his response is immediate and exactly what you'd hoped for. 
he's on you in a split second - hand sliding from your shoulder to grip your throat, pushing you back onto the wall of the bathroom. the towel bar digs into your middle-back slightly and you gasp in arousal at the force of his body on yours. you can feel his cock, hard and straining in his boxers, as it presses into your lower stomach. 
"y'wanna play like that, baby?" he growls, "why you fuckin' around with an old man like me, then?" he asks.
your face heats up, arousal flooding your core, your cunt slowly wetting itself at the purr of his voice - the meaner the words, the larger the flame. 
"hm?" he gently pushes, raising his brows as his hand squeezes gently on your throat, nudging you against the wall further; your gasp is slightly rasped under the pressure, your whole body screaming with desire. this is what you love - mean, angry, hungry Joel Miller. "'s it because nobody fucks you like I do, is that it?"
his knee slides between yours, wedging himself high up, rubbing suddenly against your aching pussy, the material of your cotton already soaked with a damp spot that rubs against his thick thigh. 
"Joel, fuck-" you groan, already willing to just do what you can to get him to touch you. his hand on your throat tightens at your word, thigh rutting up to slide against your needy clit, your hips bucking at the feeling. "-'s because nobody else is so easy." your fiery mouth betrays your body; the snarky comment snaps his eyes to yours, a dark breath leaving his lips. 
"that's ironic," he snaps, "comin' from someone who begged me to fuck them for hours." 
your face burns at the memory of the first time you and Joel'd hooked up; your desperate voice hoarse from pleading him to fuck you - out in the middle of the woods, a sleeping bag that, by the end, had rips on it from rocks and twigs and the force of his thrusts; the shyness gone from either of you as your touches made up for all the silence between you.
he hums lowly, watching you as you swallow at the memory, his thigh rutting up again and pulling a yelp of pleasure from your lips. "y'don't feel so high 'n mighty when I fuck you stupid, right baby?" he asks, voice dripping with condescendence as he nods gently, encouraging you to answer him. your core throbs at his words, your mouth going dry. 
his hand leaves your throat; you swallow a gulp of air, staring with wide eyes as he grasps your jaw roughly. "answer me." 
"n-no, I don't." you mutter, voice sounding small; the arousal that pulses through your veins begs your mouth to be smart, do what Joel says so he'll give in to what you want. 
he smirks, hands roughly grabbing the thick of your hips and flipping you around to press you against the counter, your hips bending as he shoves himself just behind you. your eyes meet yourself and his own hawkish gaze in the mirror in front of you; your heated breath fogs up the mirror in the faint morning light. 
his fingers thread through your hair, tugging you back again as he tilts your head back. his upside down face, smirking down at you, has your thighs clenching - "open." he orders, voice stern. 
your tongue sticks out and he wastes no time spitting roughly onto your tongue, moving your head back to stare into the mirror; his eyes meet yours as his spit slides over your tongue and his furrowed brows twitch with a slight smirk. "look at you, doin' what I tell you. now swallow it and say thank you." 
your core flutters at his words deliciously as you do as you're told; swallowing, you take a breath and mutter, "thank you," - though it's more breathless than you expected, Joel seems to approve. he hums, "there are those manners," he mutters into your ear, cock pressing against the swell of your ass. "almost seemed like you'd forgotten you had them." 
"didn't forget." you mutter, face heating up as your pussy aches, fluttering around nothing and desiring for his fingers, his cock - anything. 
one rough palm slides his shirt up your torso, exposing your bare tits to both of you through the mirror. with his face stooped down near your neck, a short inhale of your hair before his hand reaches it's destination - your throat. 
"then why're you actin' up?" he rasps, teeth grazing your shoulder. he squeezes his hand again and your eyes roll back in pleasure, arousal soon slicking your thighs as you think you may die from all the teasing. "you don't wanna cum?" 
your eyes widen, breath halting as you shake your head, "wh- no- no!" you hiss, "I do want to cum, please." 
his other hand raises, slapping your breast harsh and quick; your gasp of shock tapers off into a whine of pleasure, your nipples hard in arousal as his palm comes to soothe over the sting. 
"then why're you acting like this?" he asks again, shaking his head. another slap, this time to your other breast. his eyes follow the skin of your chest; the way you gasp, your whines at the slight stinging and the pleasure that follows. fingers pinch your nipples, teasing in circles before another sharp slap echoes through the room. "just a little brat, y'can't help yourself." he decides, biting on your neck lightly. 
you can feel him rut against you hard, grinding his hips as he lets out a short groan. you let out a low moan, whining slightly when he smacks your tits again, skin glowing with the impact. his eyes meet yours in the mirror. "quit the whinin'," he grunts, rutting his hard cock against your ass, "you'll be stuffed full of me soon enough." he grunts, "then we'll see who's dumb." 
your shaky moan sounds more like a groan, elbows falling to steady yourself as Joel releases your throat, tossing you forward to grab your hips instead. he pulls you back, grinding into you as his head tilts back in how own small groan of pleasure. "this ass." Joel grunts to himself as he palms the curve of your ass in both large hands, one falling to smack harsh onto the left. 
you're dripping down the inside of your thighs as he ruts against you twice more; thick fingers soon slide to thumb at the slick wet of your panties. his fingers tease the wet material that's glued to your pussy with need, tracing over your lips lightly over the fabric. "pretty pussy, just for me." he mutters; you nod, looking up at him through the mirror, "all for you, Joel." you affirm, voice shaking with anticipation. 
"you gonna be good when I fill you up, baby?" he lifts his brow, stern look as he palms himself. fuck, he's so sexy behind you like this, his thumb slowly dragging the material of your panties to the side and exposing your weeping cunt; you nod, "yes, I'll do anything-" 
you're cut off by a sharp gasp as the stretch of his cock's head cuts off your brain. he eases in gently at first which you're more than grateful for - no matter how many times Joel fucks you, his size is always something you have to adjust to; especially after your rounds last night left you barely able to walk straight. 
he lets out a breath, "there y'go, baby, take me." he says it surprisingly gently, easing in inch by inch as you breathe deeply, your soaked pussy easing his cock through your channels. his cock is heavy and aching as he slides into you, sheathing you fully within another few seconds - Joel's hands grip so hard on your ass, splaying you open for him, that you think his fingers will remain there for days. 
he's still only for a moment, letting you accommodate to his size before he's leaning forward to press his chest to your back, "gonna fuck you stupid, baby." 
"please, Joel," you groan, cunt fluttering, begging him to move. "do it." 
it's all that he needs before he's setting a pace that has you whining under him, your breath choking as you brace yourself agains the counter of the sink. 
it's bliss. his hips are sharp, the reach of his cock pressing against the spongy spot inside you, dragging against your pulsing walls. "fuck, so deep-" you hiss, eyes closing in pleasure as he presses himself against you, hips surely going to bruise against the thrusts that shove you into the countertop. 
one hand sneaks over your front, grasping at your tits as his cock reaches up into you deeply. he lets out a grunt, "fuckin'- christ, you're s-so tight," he grunts, "even after fuckin' you all night." 
you moan, the quick bout of his praise causing you to squeeze around him, trapping him in your aching desire. the both of you moan at the feeling and suddenly one hand presses on your spine until you're low to the counter. his hands grab your shoulders, fingers curling around the base of your throat as he changes his pace to hard and rough, the sound of your ass against his hips nearly hitting your ears over your cries of pleasure. 
the noises of your arousal swallowing his cock echo around the room in a familiar, comforting chorus as you both let out shuttering moans; his strong arms pull you back until you're once again pressed against his broad chest. his breath fans over your neck and you whine slightly when his thrusts press you up onto your tip-toes. his lips find your ear, "how's that feel?" your hole flutters from the deepness in his voice - he groans at the feeling. 
your response is a whine of ecstasy as you claw at his forearms, head tilting back until you can almost feel his erratic heartbeat. his chest rumbles with a light chuckle, "look, barely took ya any time to get fucked out on my cock," he praises, hand petting your wild hair, "knew you'd be good for me. always take what I give you, right?" 
you nod, desperate to reach the climax that's easily built within you from the stretch of him deep in you and his voice in your ear. your clit aches from being ignored and your hand snakes down to rub light circles on it; your hips jolt as you gasp raggedly, eyes fluttering shut in pleasure. 
"no." he growls, hand grabbing your jaw sternly as he pounds into you, "when I'm fuckin' you, you keep your eyes on me." he snaps, squeezing your cheeks. "'s that clear?"
you nod in the mirror, whines getting louder as his name falls nearly incoherently from your lips- you see his lips ghost over your neck, the smirk that spreads over his pink lips as you finally get out a strangled, "Joelpleaseplease- s'close-" 
he knows what you need; you and Joel are each other's best escape. he pistons into you hard, chasing your high as he feels it spasming close around him. "easy, huh?" he snarls, hips just as harsh as his words, eyes sharp on yours. "who's easy, baby - me, or the one beggin' like a slut to cum on my cock?" 
for someone so quiet and closed off, Joel Miller has never shied away from using his goddamn words when he's fucking you, that's for sure. his words, his accent - they push you towards the edge and it almost distracts you from his question. his eyebrows raise in the silence as you gasp for words, moans choked  as his fingers slide down from your jaw to squeeze your throat. 
"look at'cha, can't even speak for me," he groans, his hand suddenly snaking down to smack your away from your clit; two larger, calloused fingers replace your shaky ones and you wail at the stimulation, almost too much.
you blink up at him through the mirror, unable to speak, unable to think as you feel the crest of something incredibly blissful growing; you let out a whine of ecstasy. "I'm- I'm easy," you concede, finally able to spit your words out, your voice higher than normal in your pleasure. 
Joel nods, kissing your sweaty hairline, "'s goddamn right you are, babygirl," he hisses, "easy for me. this pretty little pussy is mine, isn't it?" 
you scream, "yours, Joel-" before he barely finishes the sentence.
with your words, he smiles against your neck - the feeling of it sends goosebumps over your whole torso. "you're a lucky girl," he growls in your ear, teeth brushing the shell before licking it gently, "you can cum." 
you barely realize you've hit your orgasm until you’re writhing - a white-hot, searing arousal streaking your vision as your eyes roll back. he fucks you steadily through your orgasm, your thighs closing slightly around his large palm, but his fingers don't stop their motions on your clit. 
you shake and stutter for gasps as he pounds into you, chasing his own high that's been spurred - by your own words or the clenching of your orgasm around him, you're unsure. 
"love how you feel-" he groans, voice weakening as he nears his own orgasm, hips sloppy as he pushes your face down, against the cool tile of the bathroom sink. "fuck, baby, made to take this cock." 
his sentences are choppy, his gasps and grunts of pleasure mixing with the slap of your ass against him as he thrusts, your legs tired as he fills you full and then suddenly pulls out. you gasp at the suddenness of his absence, turning to look at him as if betrayed - but he looks completely gone, eyes dark with need. "gonna cum on your tits, sweetheart." 
your stomach flips at the word - one he's never used before - and you relax into his harsh grip, moving down to the ground on your knees as he grunts, "take this shit off now." 
his shirt is on the ground in half a second, your breasts bare to him as he fists his cock, eyes on you and lidded with pleasure. your hands fall onto his strong thighs, looking up at him in awe as he fists his cock, slick with your sticky spend, tip flushed and veins stretching over the shaft. "please, cum on me, want it so bad, Joel," you whine - his hand caresses your jaw and slips over your lips, sticking his thumb into your mouth. you suck eagerly and he moans your name deep, head tilting back in ecstasy. 
"fuck," he grunts, slipping his thumb out of your mouth before you can even swirl your tongue around it, and then he's hitting his orgasm.
ropes of his cum land on your tits, a small bit gathering on your chin as he slows his hand, letting out a few sharp breaths. he's barely caught his breath before your fingers are gathering a swipe of his thick cum, bringing it to your mouth. his dark eyes follow you through his labored breaths as you slowly suck his spend off of your fingers, "fuckin'- pretty," he mumbles into his hand as he runs a palm over his face, shaking his head. 
you smile, cheeks heating up. the sun is rising and the room is fully golden, bouncing off the mirror and illuminating his tan skin, the scars on his body and yours. he's pretty, you realize. 
you tell him so, quietly - in the silence of the bathroom. his scowl softens and you swear you see a blush forming as he rolls his eyes down at you from where you perch on the linoleum. 
Joel always says you only tell him sweet things to get him to fuck you - but in the afterglow of your actions, you catch sight of your makeup-stained pillowcase back in Joel's bedroom and it makes you grin. you know he doesn't wash it for a reason, the same reason you keep coming back to him. 
and you also know that the way he smooths his thumb over your hairline, the way your own hands in turn soothe over his thighs - those actions, they make up for everything else that's unspoken.
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taglist: @satansgoatt @elissaaa @queerponcho @bbyanarchist @lapricot @umavvitch @asreadbyaj @dinsbaby @cottoncandytomu @onmytallesttiptoess @switchbladedreamz @missannwinchester @abs-2020 @afandomidiot @cosm1c-babe @rogersbarnesxx @carleenphillips-blog @bonnibuckets @nightlovechild @jazzyspasms @girlboybug @cannolighost @pastelnap @userpedros @feministfanboi @frogers @grhowls @daddy-din @gothoppered @totallynotastanacc @robbatlover @casssiopeia @wannab-urs @redhotkitchen @joelapologist2001 @silkiers
message me if i forgot to tag u. i was pretty lazy with this one sorry. requests are open.
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imaginespazzi · 16 days
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Part 6: Leaps of Faith
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Masterlist - Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3 - Part 4 - Part 5 - Part 7
I hope that you catch me, cause I'm already falling (you put your arms around me and I'm home)
(In which a writer who can see the end approaching starts building towards that ending)
Pairing: Paige Bueckers X Azzi Fudd
Themes: Angst and Fluff
Words: 8.0K
TW: Swearing, Alludes to Sexual Content
A/N: Good evening my lovelies <3. Happy Sunday and Happy Mothers day! First of all, I wanna thank y'all for being ever so patient with me. I know I've been pretty bad about updating lately and y'all have been so sweet with your asks and I really appreciate it. This fic is very close to its end. I probably could have ended it with this chapter but there's a very specific ending I want to write so this one is more of a self-indulgent filler but I think y'all will like this one. There will be one more chapter and then an epilogue of sorts. Once again, there are most likely logistical inaccuracies. I'm not even gonna lie, the editing on this one is shoddy so there are definitely grammar errors/typos. For now, ignore them and I'll go fix them later. As always, even if we're near the end, feel free let me know what you liked, what you didn't and anything you'd like to see before we get to the end. Have a wonderful week my angels <3
April 2024 
“It’s a little early for ice cream hon,” Azzi jumps at the sound of her mother’s voice, startled eyes following the direction of the noise to find Katie leaning against the kitchen door, with a raised eyebrow. 
“It’s a little early to scare the living bejesus out of me mom,” she says with a hand to her chest. 
If possible, Katie’s eyes roll even further at her daughter’s sarcastic tone as she makes her way over to the kitchen counter. She’s gotten herself a spoon and everything, ready to steal some ice cream for herself, when she notices the flavour. Next to her, Azzi stiffens. 
“You hate mint chocolate chip Az,” Katie says quietly. 
“I couldn’t find the strawberry ice cream,” Azzi defends stubbornly, her face taking on a guarded expression. 
Katie walks over to the freezer, opening it and pointing at the strawberry ice cream, Azzi’s favourite, that’s sitting in plain sight, “it’s right there.”
“Well,” Azzi splutters, “I’m trying something new,”. 
“You hate trying new things.”
“I’ve grown up I guess.”
“Azzi.”
“Mom.”
“Azzi, why are you eating ice cream you hate at 4 in the morning?” Katie finally asks in her best mom voice, sighing when she gets a mumbled response from her daughter, “in words Az, please.”
“Paige likes it,” Azzi admits slowly, and before Katie can say anything, before Azzi can dwell on what she’s said, she launches into a rant, “god knows why. Actually I know why because she’s stupid and weird and likes the dumbest shit. Who the fuck likes mint? Who the fuck likes mint and chocolate together? Gross. This shit is disgusting. It tastes all wrong. Paige is just-,” Azzi throws her hands up in the air, “she just doesn’t understand that some things don’t belong together. They can’t. They’re too different and it just- there’s a fucking balance to things you know? And she just- she doesn’t get that. It’s just- it’s not meant to be.”
“That doesn’t explain why you’re eating it right now,” Katie says carefully. 
“Because I miss her,” the truth bursts out of Azzi like an erupting volcano, burning itself into every crevice of her skin, “because for some fucking reason I don’t hate the taste of mint chocolate chip. Because maybe they do go together and maybe I’ve been the stupid one this whole time.”
Since she’d stepped out of the hotel in Cleveland, all Azzi could think about was going back, saying fuck it to all the useless logic she’d come up with and going back to the only thing in her life that had ever made sense her Paige. But as it often did in that clichéd battle between head and heart, her head had won out. And she’s never questioned why her head wins so much, why she’s always chosen to listen to the practical side of her brain, until now. Until now when the urge to turn back time, to make herself stay in that hotel room, is all that’s consumed her for the last week. 
“Azzi,” Katie wraps her arms around the younger girl, “what happened with you and Paige?”
Azzi hesitates for a second and then everything’s spilling out of her lips, the good, the bad, the inbetween, all of it tumbles out like an uncontrollable waterfall. There’s something freeing about being able to say it all out loud, something freeing about the tears Azzi finally lets roll down her cheeks. She grips the edge of the counter to keep herself from keeling over, starting to feel herself crumble under the heaviness of all these stupid feelings. 
“It shouldn’t be this hard,” Azzi whispers, “we used to be so easy.”
“Oh Az,” Katie rubs a thumb against her daughter’s cheek, “you used to be kids. You’re all grown up now. It’s always harder when you’re older.”
“Well, I don’t like it. I just want to be the way we were again.”
“So why don’t you?” Katie asks like it’s the most simple solution in the world and Azzi shoots her mother an exasperated look. 
“What do you mean? How do we even do that? We can’t be just friends again. We tried. Were you not listening at all?”
“Azzi, sweetheart, you’ve never been just friends.”
“That’s not true,” it’s a futile attempt at arguing against what’s become more of a fact than an opinion in Azzi’s life. It’s a truth she’d let herself acknowledge once and then buried deep within her, scared that once unleashed, it would ruin everything. Except, it turns out, even without it, things had still turned to dust.  
“Do you remember when you came home from Minnesota that first summer with Paige? You were either moping around or you were on call with her. There was no in between. It got better eventually, the moping stopped but the calls? I think you fell asleep on facetime with her almost every night. And you were tired every morning after, you barely had time to eat before school but every time I suggested that maybe you cut back, that was never an option,” Katie smiles fondly, “it’s when I knew.”
Azzi does remember, remembers talking about everything and nothing, remembers laughing and crying, remembers when Paige’s breathing was the only lullaby that could relax her into sleeping. And she remembers battling with that voice in her head, the one convinced there’s something more, silencing it with I’d do this with anyone. But that wasn’t true then and it’s not true now because Paige has never been just anyone, never been just a friend. Because even if Azzi’s never been brave enough to say it out loud, Paige is and has always been everything.
Despite knowing the answer and maybe dreading it just a little bit, Azzi asks it to her mom anyway, “what did you know?”
“That she was your person. You were too young, I couldn’t call it love just yet but I knew Paige was different then, she was yours in a way none of your other friends were. You were different around her,” Katie nudges her daughter, “Azzi you’ve always been just a little bit in love with her and she’s always been just a little bit in love with you too. The two of you have just been a matter of time.”
Azzi closes her eyes, and unlike other people, she doesn’t see darkness or little spots of light, she just sees Paige. Her mother’s words wash over her, like acid in her self-inflicted fight the feelings wounds and yet, the idea of she’s loved me too feels like a band-aid being delicately placed on the scars of her heart. 
“And place,” she whispers, eyes still closed, “we never seem to get time and place right.”
“Why do you need to?”
Another exasperated look is sent Katie’s way at that question, “we live on different sides of the country mom, what do you mean why do we need to?”
“I mean the two of you have barely ever been in the same place. But you made it work, when you had even less, when you felt even less. But you’re adults now. You have other resources now. And I know timing is difficult but- it’s you and Paige. What are you so scared of Azzi?”
Azzi sucks in a deep breath, “what if Paige runs away again?”
“What if you run away again?”
“Excuse me?” 
“Who was the last person to walk away, Azzi?,” Katie sighs when Azzi is adamantly silent, “I know she hurt you by leaving. I know she hurt you by pushing you away. But you did the same thing. You chose UCLA,” Katie holds up a hand when a frustrated Azzi tries to interrupt, “and it was the right decision for you Azzi and she should have supported it. But that doesn’t meant you didn’t hurt her and then you chose Zoe-”
“I didn’t choose Zoe-”
“Yes you did Azzi. Sweetheart you’re my daughter and I will always tell you the complete truth even if it’s not what you wanna hear. And the truth Azzi is that Paige might have hurt you in 101 different ways but that doesn’t mean you didn’t hurt her back in 99 different ways too.”
“You think I don’t know that?” Azzi whispers, “that’s the problem mom. It hurts when she hurts me but it hurts even more when I hurt her. I don’t want that for us but I just- I just don’t know how to stop it without stopping us.”
“You haven’t even tried, baby. Paige held out a hand and you ran away.”
“She left first. How am I supposed to trust that she won’t just do that again," all that’s missing from Azzi’s stubborn whine is a foot stomp.
“Because she came back. It took her a little bit, I know, but she came back and she’s ready to fight, the question is, are you?”
“Why are you defending her?” Azzi splutters, “who’s side are you even on?”
“There are no sides to this sweetheart. The two of you are on the same side. So maybe instead of fighting against her, take that hand, fight with her.”
***
The WNBA draft is a momentous occasion this year. With a hyped draft class like no other, and the promise of even greater ones in the future, there’s a sense of celebratory hope dangling in the air. When the invite had first come in, Azzi had known the same one would be sent to a certain blonde in Connecticut as well. And a part of her had wanted to hide herself away from that possible collision, but every other part of her wanted nothing more than to get just a glimpse of the blonde.
One moment Azzi is surrounded by flashing cameras and the echo of her name on everyone’s lips, the next everything around her is fading away her eyes meet Paige’s on the other end of the WNBA draft orange carpet. It’s nothing new really. Since she’s met her, the blonde has commandeered all of Azzi’s attention whenever she’s nearby. Sometimes it feels like all of her other five senses fade away to give birth to a secret sixth one, one that’s solely dedicated to Paige, one that’s terrifyingly all-consuming. And yet, despite the heaviness of we’ve said too many goodbyes, for the first time in what feels like eternity, Azzi feels like she can finally breathe. 
And then Paige looks away. 
And Azzi’s back to struggling for air. 
It’s selfish of her, she knows, to expect something, not when she’d been the one to leave them stranded on different islands. But Azzi doesn’t seem to think logically when it comes to Paige and even as she tries to turn her focus back to posing for the camera, every inch of her body is dangerously aware of the blonde’s every move, just a mere few feet away from her. Her conversation with her mother is echoing in her head, giving rise to dangerous desires of what if i grabbed your hand and we ran away together. 
Paige is a natural on the orange carpet, all dazzling smiles and twinkling eyes. She glides through it, inching closer and closer to Azzi, but never giving away any sense of discomfort. And if it was anybody else, maybe they’d never catch onto the nerves hidden beneath Paige’s facade of calm, cool and collected. But once upon a time Paige used to be Azzi’s favourite puzzle and she has every part of the blonde committed to memory. It’s in the way Paige’s teeth gnaw at her lips for the briefest of seconds, in the way her right index finger is begging to tap a beat against where her hands rests on hips, in the way she’s blinking just one too many times. 
And then with one more heavy footed step from Paige, the distance between them is barely a couple inches and they let out identical breaths of air, both of them keeping their focus on the cameras in front of them. It’s loud, too loud, and still all Azzi can focus on is the sound of Paige breathing. The air around them is thick with tension. It feels a bit like they’re silhouetted against a sky made of words they’ve left unsaid and clouds of all the bitter mistakes they’ve made are hanging over their heads. And when their pinkies brush together, and a jolt of electricity sends shivers of I miss you more every day again her skin, Azzi questions if she’s ever made the right decision when it comes to Paige. 
“Wait wait wait,” Ari cuts in, as she squeezes herself in between the two of them, “I wanna get in between the two of you.”
A harsh cry of no sits heavily on the top of Azzi’s tongue as the older woman forces a break in whatever little bit of contact she’d had with Paige. She feels a little pathetic, the way every little inch of her skin is craving for that touch back. It had been nothing, a barely there moment and still Azzi thinks, when she goes to bed tonight, if that was all she’d get of Paige, then it’ll be the only thing that’ll feature in her dreams. 
“Alright one with just Paige and Azzi,” Ari directs the media, stepping out of the way and pushing the two younger girls together. And it’s laughable that a little brush of their pinkies had Azzi feeling any type of way because when they’re suddenly pressed together, every inch of Paige’s side fitting into Azzi’s like it belongs, the way the world suddenly bursts with light and colours makes Azzi wonder if every moment without Paige has simply been monochrome. 
It comes to them naturally how to pose together, arms winding around each other’s waist, heads involuntarily leaning against the other’s. And the smiles might be for the cameras but Azzi knows hers is the most real it’s been all night. It might be temporary, she might lose Paige in the chaos, but for now Paige is here and Azzi has learned how to be content with whatever little she can get. 
As the media moves to capture other people, the logical thing to do would be to separate, to let go of each other. But instead they stand there, still completely wrapped around each other, heart rates in sync as they breathe in each other’s presence. And then Paige’s hand falls from the small of Azzi’s back to tangle their fingers together and they let out identical sighs of relief, something so cathartic in the purposefulness of that touch. Everyone is too busy to notice that the two of them have fallen into a whole other world, one where there’s only two of them and every emotion that they’ve only reserved for the other. There’s no words exchanged as Paige guides the two of them out of the spotlight, somehow keeping their hands clasped together in secret, despite the ever growing crowd. And Azzi doesn’t know this building at all, doesn’t have the faintest clue where she’s being led to, but as long as it’s Paige pulling her along, she doesn’t care where, she thinks she’d go anywhere. 
Paige stops abruptly in a secluded corridor, turning to fully face Azzi. And the sincerity in the blonde’s crystalline blue eyes, as they roam every inch of Azzi’s body before coming to fixate on her face, steals the air away from Azzi’s lungs. Paige has gotten better over the years at building walls, but with every new lock she places on her emotions, there’s a key to open them that seems to always find its way to Azzi. In the delicate golden hue, Paige shines brighter than any star ever could and in the dim light Azzi can make out every bit of hurt and love and please can we just have this moment that Paige can’t put into words. 
“Hi,” Azzi whispers softly, hands itching to reach out and caress Paige’s skin. 
“Hi,” Paige says back, even quieter. She stares at Azzi as if she’s memorising every little detail and then her face crumbles. Azzi feels her heart drop at the single tear that trickles down Paige’s cheek as she lets out a broken whimper. And this, this unspoken power they seem to have over each other, the uncanny ability to just hurt each other without any bit of effort, is what scares Azzi the most. It’s too much. They shouldn’t be able to do this. 
“Paige,” Azzi’s fingers twitch but she hesitates, not knowing if it’s the right thing, “fuck- P what’s wrong?”
Paige doesn’t reply, eyes wandering down to where Azzi’s trying to keep her hands still against her sides and when she looks back up, her eyes are bloodshot, “what’s wrong? What’s not wrong Azzi? You won’t even fucking touch me.”
“I didn’t-” Azzi struggles to speak, “I didn’t think you’d want me to.”
“Can you just- fuck- can you just stop overthinking things for once in your life. Of course I want you to touch- you know what nevermind. This was a bad idea. You made yourself clear and I’m just- fuck- I should- I should just go.”
She sounds adamant enough but all it takes, when Paige moves to leave, is the strangled cry that leaves Azzi’s lips. The sound is enough to pull Paige right back in. She takes one look at the tears brimming in Azzi’s eyes. And then she’s pushing Azzi against a wall, hands on either side caging the younger girl between her body and the hard surface behind. She presses their foreheads together and Azzi feels like every part of her might just be a part of Paige too. 
“I miss you. I miss you so fucking much. It’s barely been two weeks and I- fuck- Azzi- I’ve missed you every single second and now you’re here and I still miss you. And it really fucking hurts.”
“I’m sorry,” Azzi whispers, finally letting her hands cup Paige’s cheeks, and it’s worth it for the way Paige seems to completely melt into her touch, “I’m sorry I keep hurting you. I keep thinking I’m doing the right thing but- I don’t know- I feel like I’m always doing the wrong thing when it comes to you. I don’t- I don’t know what to do.”
“Just let me be with you,” Paige’s voice is wrecked with desperation as she presses herself as close to Azzi as possible, “I’ll be your whatever- whatever you give me- whatever you want- I just- I just want you Az- whatever little bit you’re willing to give me- I’ll take it- and if you want me to wait- fuck Azzi- I’d wait forever- you know that right? However long it takes, baby. Just want you- just want us.”
Leaps of faith are scary. Azzi’s never been great at taking them, too cautious, too much of a worrier. She’s more of a step back from the cliff kind of person. If she doesn’t jump, she can’t fall. But here’s the thing, when she was fourteen, Azzi jumped off of her first hypothetical cliff. It had been on a plane, when after avoiding one too many deep questions, Azzi had admitted to a girl she barely knew,that maybe she could like girls. It was the first time she’d ever let herself acknowledge that truth about herself and the girl next to her was a stranger but there was something about her, something that screamed i’ll hold your hand and if you jump it’ll never be alone. And ever since then, that girl, Paige, has always been there. Hands outstretched, ready to jump off any ledge. Because if there’s hard ground underneath, then they’ll learn how to fly together and if there’s water, they’ll figure out how to swim. With Paige there has always been the promise that, whatever it is, they’ll figure it out together. And it’s with that promise in mind, that Azzi takes the leap of faith. 
“Me too,” Azzi whispers, heart beating erratically. 
“What?” Paige searches Azzi’s face, as if waiting for her to take it back. 
“Us. You. You and me. I want that too,” a ghost of a smile begins to creep onto Azzi’s face, and for the first time in god knows how long, she feels feather light, a little bit like she’s floating on a rainbow. 
“You mean it?” Paige asks earnestly, hands moving from the wall to clutch at Azzi’s waist, “don’t play-Azzi- okay- you mean it for real?”
“I do. I want this- I want this so much and I’m still- I’m still really scared and maybe it’ll be a disaster but I- I want to try. With you.”
Azzi used to think she knew all of Paige’s smiles. Her small, not quite fake, but only for cameras and people she didn’t quite know, smiles. Her just for my friends smile that was filled with mirth and childlike joy. Her basketball smile that transformed into a smirk when she got too cocky. Her only for Drew smile, soft and filled with so much adoration and pride. Her Azzi smile, the one only the brown-skinned girl gets to experience, a smile that made Azzi’s her heart swell with love. But the smile that stretches across Paige’s face now, is one Azzi’s never seen before. This one throws Azzi’s entire world of balance, so bright, so big, so full of emotions. If she could, she’d tattoo that smile onto her skin forever. 
“We’re really doing this?” Paige asks, still a little stunned. It wasn’t what Azzi had planned for tonight. She hadn’t really had any plans for what would really happen. But then Paige had walked in and all Azzi could see was forever she was tired of fighting against. 
“We should take it slow okay-” Azzi wraps her arms around the older girl’s neck, keeping their foreheads still against each other’s, “I don’t- I don’t wanna rush into things and fuck it up. I can’t- fuck- I can’t lose y-”
“You won’t,” Paige swears, squeezing at Azzi’s wait, “I won’t let you. We can take it slow. We can take it however you want- I just- we’re doing this?”
“Yeah,” Azzi can’t help the grin that fills up her entire face, “yeah we’re doing this.”
And as they surge forward to claim each other’s lips, and as they meld every inch of themselves into each other, and as they smile and cry into the kiss simultaneously, and as they etch promises into each other skin, and as they let themselves finally fall into each other, for each other, it feels a lot like coming home. 
***
July 2024 
The early morning sunlight casts a dark shadow across Paige’s face, causing the still asleep blonde to scrunch up her face in irritation. Azzi, who’s been awake for nearly half an hour now, can’t help the fond smile that creeps onto her own lips. She shifts herself to block the sun and Paige lets out a content sigh, burrowing herself further into her pillows. And the thing is every moment with Paige is special but there’s something about waking up to her in the morning. Azzi’s always awake first and it gives her ample time to just admire the girl in her arms, blond hair tousled all over her pillow, lips parted slightly open, and one arm always, always, splayed across Azzi’s torso, holding her close. Over the course of time, Azzi’s found out that the second she moves, Paige seems to feel her leave, waking up instantly. 
There had been an adjustment period if Azzi's honest. It had taken her a while to shake that fear of Paige not being there in the morning. The first morning, she’d been scared to open her eyes, even if she could feel Paige’s presence right next to her. That had been one of the few mornings that Paige was fully awake first, hovering above Azzi to wake her up. And when she finally did get the courage to open her eyes, the first thing Azzi had seen was Paige, blue eyes sparkling with unfiltered adoration, a smile filled with promises of every morning just like this. And that had been enough. 
Azzi reaches out to brush a hand through Paige’s soft blond hair, mesmerised by how pretty Paige looks in the morning glow. A lot of Paige belongs to the world now and Azzi’s not opposed to sharing really, because someone so fucking perfect, deserves to be celebrated like that. But there are some parts of Paige that belong to Azzi and Azzi only, some parts Azzi cherishes as being only hers. This is one of them and Azzi takes a snapshot of it, knowing she’ll need it to function in a few months, when she won’t get the real thing. 
“Are you watching Paige sleep?” Azzi almost jumps at the sound of Drew’s voice at the doorway, having been too immersed in Paige to have even heard the door open, “that’s kinda creepy Azzi.”
“Jesus Drew, whatever happened to knocking?”
“I forgot?” Drew grins, before he plops on the bed, the force of it making the whole frame shake a little bit. 
“Drew!” Azzi chides, “you’re gonna wake her up.”
Drew cocks his eyebrows, sparing his sister, who seems unphased by the sudden little bit of chaos around her, still fast asleep, an unimpressive look, “please she can sleep through anything. Besides, it’s already 9. I thought we were gonna do things. I been up for aaaages.”
“She’ll be awake soon,” Azzi smiles, ruffling the younger boy's hair. Drew rolls his eyes and it’s remarkable how much he resembles Paige, not just by face, but the mannerisms too. 
He huffs for a second before his eyes sparkle with an idea, “what if we pour water on her!”
“Drew!” Azzi chastises again, trying not to giggle. 
“Boo,” Drew crosses his arms across his chest, “you used to be so cool Azzi.”
Azzi laughs as she’s reminded of a younger version of herself, scheming with Drew on how to wake Paige up. And it’s not that she’s beyond that really, tucking the water idea for a rainy day, but Paige looks too peaceful this morning and she wants to preserve that look of serenity on the older girl’s face for just a little bit longer. 
“Hey Azzi,” Drew says after a while and Azzi hums in response, “when you and Paige get married, I can still be a groomsman right? Even if there’s no grooms?”
“Wha- where did that come from?” the brunette’s eyes widened at the question, sitting up a little straighter. 
Drew peers up at her with all the innocence of a pre-teen, “you are gonna get married right?”
“I don’t-”
“It’s too early for your yapping Drew,” Azzi’s saved from answering by Paige’s tired voice entering the conversation. She looks over to find Paige’s eyes already on her, a soft smile playing on her lips as she looks up at Azzi. If Drew wasn’t sitting right there, Azzi would lean over and kiss her and let Paige deepen it until they were both satisfied. 
“Oh thank god,” Drew cheers dramatically, “I thought you were gonna sleep forever.”
Paige scoffs, the arm that’s still wrapped around Azzi’s torso tightening its hold, “I wish.”
“Well you’re awake now so get up,” Drew whines, moving from his spot on the end of the bed, to flop on top of Paige’s body instead, “get up, get up, GET UP.”
“Get off,” Paige groans but there’s no real force behind it. Azzi watches with a fond smile, as Paige flips Drew over so that she can tickle him, eliciting rounds of laughter from the younger boy. Something in her heart flutters, her mind going back to Drew’s question. She’s never really been one to think too hard about marriage and children and that domestic suburban life, leaving it up to fate, but now- well, maybe. 
“Okay aight aight enough. Go get ready for breakfast and we’ll be down in a second,” Paige says, ushering Drew off of the bed. 
“You can just tell me you want me to leave so you can kiss Azzi you know?” Drew scrunches up his nose, “you two are gross.”
Paige sends him a stern look and gets a dramatic eye roll in return but as he always does, Drew does as he’s told, mock saluting the two of them and skipping out of the room. 
“He’s right by the way,” Paige says softly, turning back to where Azzi’s leaning against the backboard, “I do want to kiss you.”
Azzi smirks lopsidedly, “what’s stopping you?”
She squeals in surprise when Paige pulls her, the force of it causing both of them to tumble onto the front-end of the bed. Azzi ends up on top of Paige, hands resting around her neck, the blonde’s hands holding her waist in place. 
“Good morning,” Paige grins, clearly proud of herself as she chases Azzi’s lips to pull her into a searing kiss.
“Good morning,” Azzi whispers back, thumb caressing Paige’s left cheek.  
“Just so you know,” Paige pulls away, a determined glint in her eyes, “we’re so getting married one day.”
***
October 2024
Azzi’s mood has been rancid for the last couple of weeks. It’s terrible she knows; it makes her irritating to play with and a nightmare to live with. But even if this had been expected, that she would be on one end of the country and her heart would be on the other side, it doesn’t stop her from constantly being in a state of missing Paige. And it’s different from before, now that there’s a certain surety of of course i’ll see you soon but soon never really feels soon enough. 
“Azzi can you please get the door,” Kiki calls from her room when the doorbell rings. 
“I’m busy,” Azzi grunts back, snuggling further into her pillow with a book she isn’t actually reading, “you go get it.”
“Azzi please, I’m literally in the middle of getting dressed,” Kiki yells exasperatedly. 
If it wasn’t for the fact that she’s pretty sure her teammates are about this close to plotting her murder, and deservedly so, Azzi would sink back onto her bed and let the incessant doorbell noise continue. But she does love her teammates, thinks Kiki probably deserves to change in peace, and it forces her out of bed, grumbling away about annoying visitors. Until she actually gets a look at the visitor. Paige stands on the doorstep, confident as ever, a bouquet of roses and peonies and lilies in her hand. 
“You’re here,” Azzi breathes out, staring in awe. 
“And thank fucking god she is,” Kiki quips from behind her, “maybe we can finally get our old happy Azzi back and not this bitch.”
Paige laughs, “watch how you talk about my girl Rice.”
“You’re here. You’re really here,” Azzi whispers again. 
“I heard you missed me baby,” Paige says, her cocky smirk betrayed by the softness in her voice. And then Azzi is flying into her arms, throwing Paige off balance. 
“So fucking much,” Azzi admits into Paige’s neck, eliciting a giggle from the blonde, “Kiki’s right. I have been a bitch.”
“Just a little bit,” Kiki calls out again but there’s a new fondness in her voice. It’s funny how her team, even the haters, have slowly become Paige fans. They’d been hesitant at first, just like the UConn girls, but now well, it seems the basketball world’s Montagues and Capulets have learned to accept their star players’ relationship. 
“Missed you too Az,” Paige’s tone is vulnerable as they break away, “alright, go get changed, I wanna take you somewhere.”
“Or…,” Azzi presses her lips to Paige’s neck, leaving a trail of open-mouthed kisses, “we could stay here and do something else.”
Paige shivers under her touch, stepping away to keep some semblance of control “n-no I have plans,” but she can’t help but kiss Azzi’s pout away, “it’ll be worth it, I promise. Besides,” she bites at Azzi’s ear, “there’s always later.”
***
“Your big plans are to bring me to the supermarket,” Azzi cocks an eyebrow as they walk down one of the many aisles, “you turned down sex for this? Should I be offended?”
Paige doesn’t say anything, concentratedly looking at signs, trying to figure out a specific section, before an aha! moment dances over her face, and she pulls Azzi with her, the younger girl going willingly, despite the eye roll. She stops triumphantly in front of the sushi section and Azzi looks at her quizzically. 
“I’m getting you supermarket sushi,” Paige says pointedly, “and then you can get me mac and cheese.”
And if you brought me sushi I’d have brought you your favourite mac and cheese. Oh. The realisation of what Paige is doing trickles around Azzi a little bit like rain after a long summer drought. She thinks back to the bouquet, everything suddenly making sense.
“You’re such a dork Paige Bueckers,” Azzi says softly, tapping the older girl’s nose. 
“Your dork,” Paige grins cheesily, “now hurry up and pick one. I don’t wanna miss the sunset.”
***
Once she catches on it, it doesn’t surprise Azzi to find that Paige has everything planned out perfectly, down to the exact spot in the park- the one by Paige’s recovery airBnB, the one they’d taken countless walks in trying to repair their friendship- where the two of them can be away from everybody else, in their own little bubble. And she has a picnic blanket, that’s a little small but they don’t really want space from each other anyways. They lean against a tree, food set up in front of them, Paige’s laptop, carefully piled on top of a couple of books to be the perfect height, set a little bit further away. 
“So what NBA game are we watching?” Azzi asks with a smile and Paige groans, “what? Was that not part of the plan?”
“Dude come on. It’s the beginning of October. Please tell me you know the NBA season isn’t happening yet,” Paige rubs her temple, only a little endeared by the comment, “are you sure you’re a basketball player?” 
“There are games in October. I swear I’ve seen them before,” Azzi says sceptically. 
“Yeah at the very end of the month, not right now.”
“Well then close enough,” Azzi says indignantly, “I don’t need to know the exact day.”
“Whatever you say baby,” Paige acquiesces with a smirk and it earns her an elbow to the stomach, “what the fuck? That shit’s domestic violence you know?”
“Big words Bueckers, didn’t think you knew them,” Azzi teases, placing a kiss against Paige’s offended expression, before settling herself against the blonde’s side, sighing contentedly when she gets a kiss on her temple in return. They’re cliché enough to put on Love and Basketball, but Azzi doesn’t really end up watching much at all. In between slow kisses, she almost falls asleep a couple of times, the comfort of Paige’s arms like a blanket wrapping her in the warmth of this is my fairytale. 
“THE POLAROID,” Paige’s shout breaks Azzi out of her haze as she feels her body being shaken off, the blonde rummaging through her bag for the camera, “we have to take the polaroid. My wall needs it.”
“Oh yeah a tiny polaroid picture of us inbetween all your Lebron posters, a perfect fit,” Azzi drawls only to be met with a scathing look from Paige. 
“It’s for important things and Lebron is the most important of them all,” Paige explains with complete seriousness, as she finally finds the polaroid camera and shimmies back to Azzi with it in hand. 
The sunset is beautiful. Pink, purple, orange and blue, all blending together to create the perfect picture. But Azzi thinks it’s not nearly as beautiful as the girl in front of her, not nearly as beautiful as the date Paige had planned, not nearly as beautiful as the future she can so clearly see now. Her mind drifts back to the night of the phone call, and she can almost hear Paige’s sobs again, can still hear her own voice breaking. Back then, they had seemed impossible, a butterfly like dream that danced out of their grasp. 
“Hey,” Paige captures her chin with two fingers, “where’d you go?”
Azzi shakes her head, “nowhere. I’m right here. With you. Where I should be.”
“Sappy goof,” Paige snorts but she kisses Azzi like she’ll take those words and hide them in the labyrinth of her mind, protect them there forever. 
Taking the picture is a task, both of them bickering about angles and lights. It’s unnecessary arguing, in true Paige and Azzi fashion really but there’s something so mundanely domestic about it that Azzi finds herself wanting to memorise this moment too. They finally get the frame just right, somewhere in between what they both wanted. Azzi smiles at the camera, her Paige smile, as the blonde in question presses her lips against her cheeks. 
Click. 
And Azzi hopes, that however many years later, when they have a home of their own, amidst all the photos that they’ll take over the next years, this one will be hung somewhere on their wall, a testament to finally realising every dream they’d dared to dream together. 
***
December 2024 
There are pebbles being thrown at her window and Azzi has to stop herself from laughing when she peers down to see Paige, freezing cold in the Virginia December air, staring up at her with a goofy smile. She shakes her head when her phone rings, knowing it’s Paige and answers it with her own foolish grin. 
“What exactly are you doing?” Azzi asks, “come back to bed.”
“You said I was unromantic. I’m trying to be romantic,” Paige’s teeth chatter in the cold, as she balances her phone in one hand, still throwing rocks with the other. 
“I didn’t say that and throwing rocks at my window is supposed to be romantic? You’re going to wake the whole house up.”
“That’s what they do in all the good rom coms. And you said and I quote ‘we’re kind of boring’. You might be boring Azzi Fudd but I most definitely am not.”
It had been a throwaway comment Azzi had made at dinner with some friends from high school. One of her friends had been going on and on about some adventurous trip that she and her boyfriend were going on, and then asked Paige and Azzi if they had any of that planned. To which Azzi had replied that they were a little too busy, considering they were college basketball players still in season, and besides they were “kind of boring” people. She hadn’t meant it in any type of way. Personally, Azzi likes boring. Paige however, seemed to have taken the comment to heart and Azzi had woken up at 2 a.m. to an empty bed and the sound of something being thrown at her window. 
“Okay I’m sorry. I’m sorry. You're really interesting baby and the most romantic person in the world. Now will you please come back to bed,” Azzi concedes, already missing the feeling of being cuddled up in her blankets with Paige’s body heat keeping her nice and toasty. 
“No,” Paige says indignantly, “come down here.”
“Paige, it's freezing. It’s gonna start snowing any minute.”
“Exactly. That’s exciting.”
“Sleep is exciting,” Azzi whines, but she’s already padding around her room looking for a warm sweater, grumbling under her breath about the warm California sun she’s missing. She tiptoes down the staircase, wincing at the one step that creaks just a little too much, before pushing herself out the door. And it’s freezing cold, there’s sleep in her eyes, but it’s all worth it Azzi thinks, it’ll always be worth it, just to experience Paige’s smile. 
“Knew you’d come,” Paige grins cockily, mittened hands pulling Azzi into her.
“Yeah yeah. What are we even doing?”
“Azzi Fudd,” Paige bellows dramatically, “may I have this dance.”
Azzi stares at Paige’s outstretched hand wondering if this is some sort of cry for help, but one look at Paige’s face tells her that the girl in front of her is being absolutely serious. 
“This is your idea of exciting? Dancing in the street while it’s freezing with no music?” Azzi raises an eyebrow, but she takes Paige’s hand. 
“It’s spontaneous,” Paige says the last word with a flourish, as she spins Azzi, “why not dance in the street when it’s freezing with no music?”
And well, that’s a fair point. If anyone were to look out their window that night, they’d probably think the two girls were somewhat crazy. Laughing and giggling and tripping over each other as Paige hums a melody and Azzi occasionally joins in. It’s ridiculous and corny and cliché and perfect. And then the first little bit of snow falls, white drops circling around the two dancing girls, snowflakes catching on their eyelashes. The dim glow of the streetlight is enough to catch identical smiles on the two girl’s faces as they revel in each other. 
“You know some people say if you make a wish during the first snowfall, it’ll come true,” Paige whispers, still waltzing the two of them around, cheek pressed to Azzi’s, “you wanna try?”
And the thing is Azzi doesn’t really believe in all of that, in magic but something about Paige, something about this moment feels magical. It makes a believer out of Azzi. 
“Yeah,” Azzi smiles, “let’s make a wish.”
They stand still, holding hands, eyes closed, both a little breathless, as they make their wishes. And when they open them, if it feels a little bit like maybe their wishes have already been granted, well they’ll share it in a secret smile but never out loud. After all, wishes don’t come true if you speak of them. 
***
April 2025
7 seconds to go in the National Championship and Azzi’s UCLA Bruins are down by two points. It’s her last chance, having already declared for the 2025 WNBA draft, to win a national championship, to bring home their first basketball national championship since the 1978 team that had won the AIAW championship, to win their first NCAA championship ever. It had taken some sheer luck to get to this point if Azzi’s honest. As a two-seed in the Spokane region, they’d benefitted from their one-seed having been eliminated early and then getting to face a Cinderella six-seed in the final four. On the other side of the bracket, UConn, the favourites coming for a repeat, had been stunned by another team, the team that UCLA was now facing. That had caused a bit of a second-hand sting and Azzi’s not really trying to take revenge for Paige, but it'd be a lie to say the get back at them for me babe from earlier this morning isn’t ringing in her head. 
The play is simple, set screens for Azzi, get her open, get her the ball. A two would get them to a tie and three would win it outright. Either will do. It’s a little too reminiscent of last year when Azzi had failed at tying the final 4 game and she can still feel that loss on the tips of her fingers. They break out from their last timeout, breathlessly running to their spots on the floor. The whistle blows, Kiki inbounds the ball and everything is a blur. All Azzi knows is the shot clock is winding down. She runs off of what feels like a million screens. And then she’s open on the wing, for a millisecond. A perfect pass from Kiki makes sure the ball lands straight in Azzi’s hand. And she doesn’t think, doesn’t breathe, doesn’t even notice the defender put up a hand, she shoots the ball. There’s two people on the court that know for sure that ball is going in the minute it leaves Azzi’s fingers, the shooter herself and her biggest fan in the stands, who’s been just a little bit in love with that shooting stroke, since before anything else had even begun. 
With a delicate swish, the ball falls through the net, the buzzer sounds around the arena, the crowd explodes in blue and gold, as the UCLA Bruins win the 2025 national championship. 
Everything stills in Azzi’s brain for a second, her thoughts taking a second to catch up to reality. She’s never really been one to emotion on the court, keeping herself steely guarded through most games, even at the very end. But now, triumph and pride and just utter happiness at finally achieving one of her biggest dreams, comes roaring to the surface, manifesting itself throughout her entire body, as she lets out a scream of joy. Her teammates engulf her and she gets lost in a sea of hugs and tears and bright, decadent smiles. 
As thing start to calm down, there’s really only one thing on Azzi’s mind and Paige’s words echo in her ears, because if I’m gonna end up fucking crying, then I want it to be on your shoulder. And if I’m gonna end up celebrating, I want it to be in your arms. And Azzi thinks maybe Paige had discovered one of the biggest truths of their life with that, the truth that at the end of day, in any moment, big or small, happy or sad, the one person Azzi wants next to her, is her Paige. It’s been that way since she was fourteen, and too young to really understand the meaning of wanting someone forever, and she thinks if she has her way, it’ll be like that for the rest of her life, the rest of their life. 
Paige is beaming in the crowd, standing next to Jon and José, a #35 jersey proudly adorning her torso. She waves when she catches Azzi’s eyes, always her biggest cheerleader. And Azzi throws caution to the wind, fuck it, not caring that there’s still a large crowd or that cameras are likely to follow her every move. She pushes her way into the stands, stopping right in front of the blonde. 
“On a scale of one to ten, how bad would kissing you right now be?” Azzi asks, still a little breathless. 
A myriad of emotions flicker through Paige’s face before settling on a mischievous smirk, “probably pretty bad but you should do it anyways.”
Azzi grins before merging their lips together and everything else fades to the background, until she’s consumed by nothing but Paige. They break apart far quicker than either of them would like and Azzi expects to feel just a little bit of fear at what she’s just done, likely given the media a spectacle they could run a million and one stories about but instead, with her forehead still pressed against Paige’s, she feels nothing but calm. 
“I’m so in love with you,” Azzi whispers and Paige’s eyes widen. They’ve known it for a while now but it’s the first time either of them have said it. 
“Say it again,” Paige demands. 
“I’m so in love with you,” Azzi says again, grinning so hard, she thinks it might become her permanent expression, “like really fucking in love with you.”
“I’m so in love with you,” Paige whispers, pulling Azzi into a bone-crushing hug. 
And this might not be the moment where everything finally comes together. There’s still so much life left to live, so much that they still need to work through, so much they’ve yet to deal with. But for now, Azzi has a national championship and she has the love of her life, the rest will work itself out, or so she hopes.
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theragethatisdesire · 2 months
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quick bright things - eren jaeger x afab!reader, 18+!!
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okay hi. after my many-months writing hiatus, i am offering up this humble creation. welcome to the world of quick bright things, caught somewhere between a fairytale and a shakespeare play and a priceless piece of jewelry. this was inspired by....a lot of things, from midsummer night's dream to saltburn to the secret history to romeo & juliet like, you name it and i've probably crammed it in here. eren is a lot different than i normally write him (or read him, for that matter), i hope you all find him as lovely as i do! this will be 2 parts (for now...), i'm not sure what else to say except i'm happy to be back and i hope you all love part 1 ₊˚⊹♡
pairing: eren jaeger x reader
wc: 10.4k
DISCLAIMER: this post contains MATURE CONTENT that is intended only for those over 18. if you are a minor, please do not read below the cut.
cws: alcohol, swearing, smut, fingering, reader has female anatomy, wet dreams, allusions to cannibalism (idk that's a stretch it's more of a metaphor), exhibitionism, cum-eating, creepy stepsiblings, rich assholes, throat-closing amounts of sexual tension, i honestly don't even know what to put here
without further ado...
-
"Last year I abstained / this year I devour / without guilt / which is also an art."
“Now don’t forget: university is for discovery, for adventure.” Your mother tucks the front of your shirt into your skirt, tugs at your collar until it’s sitting prettily against the cliff of your collarbones. It’s not a good fabric, this shirt; it’s cheap and scratches uncomfortably at the summer sunburn still lingering on your chest. “It’s for finding your passions, your life path, yourself…”
“Darling, you’ve been philosophizing since breakfast. You’re going to give the poor girl a conniption.” Your father chuckles lightly, swinging the hammer at the wall of your dormitory and finishing the hanging of one of your many posters over your creaky, lofted bed. The posters are bright and colorful, almost garish in the pristine, ancient light pouring in from the windows. With a slow blink, you realize you’re going to take them down later, that they feel incongruous with the dust particles and the oak furniture.
“It’s alright, really.” You manage a smile of compromise, lips clamped tight to hold the flutter of nerves in your throat at bay. “I think I’ve got it from here.”
There’s an expectedly teary goodbye, a small monologue from your father about how much you’ve grown, and a few reminders from your mother to separate the darks and the lights when you do laundry, to focus on your studies. Just before she slips out behind her husband, she grabs you by the shoulders and presses her lips to the side of your head, kisses a blood-red print into the shell of your ear.
“Don’t forget. Find something.”
᠃ ⚘᠂ ⚘ ˚ ⚘ ᠂ ⚘ ᠃
Whether it started with that conversation or with the buildup that accompanied the thirty-six months of monotonous paper-writing and numb boredom of your first three years at Oxford, you can’t be sure. In truth, maybe your first three years weren’t all that boring, and they only seem so by comparison of everything that came after, but you can’t be entirely sure of that either.
What you can be sure of is that something down the line—between meeting Sasha in that class on Milton and squeezing her hand as the plane landed and the dozens of bottles of champagne you’ve consumed over the last weeks—something led you to this moment, standing in this kitchen somewhere outside Verona with your bare feet against the hot clay tiles, staring at the sharp angle of an unfamiliar, tanned collarbone. 
He’s coated in linen: a half-unbuttoned, burnt-orange drape of a shirt is rolled carefully up around strong forearms, and one large, boyish foot peeks out from his baggy jeans, propped up on its throne upon the opposite knee. A golden cross winks at you from his chest, nestled in the sparsest dusting of chest hair and dripping with the same peach juice that’s sliding down his Adam’s apple, from his strong chin, from the crooked smirk that’s pointed at you like a knife.
You recognize him before he speaks– this must be Eren. Sasha’s mentioned him enough times: the shock of rich, dark hair, the lakewater eyes, the way he leans back in his chair like a king and cocks his head like a trickster. This is Eren, and you tell him so.
“Guilty.” The sun compliments everything about him but his smile, a little too sharp with too much danger behind it. It’s a smile made for moonlight. “And you are?”
A memory surfaces in your mind, a cautionary childhood tale. “You can never let a fairy know your name,” Emma tells you, graver than death, crouched in the bushes beside you, “or they steal you away, and you can never be human again.”
“Well?” Eren says expectantly, head leaning even further to the left. He’s studying you, the baggy linen pants pooling around your toes and ruby-studded ears poking out of a fray of frazzled bedhead. You feel naked, feel a wild urge come over you and wonder how his eyes would glow at you if you were. You shiver, goosebumps raising in the stuffy summer air. When his lips twitch, you realize Eren’s noticed; you feel feverish.
You mumble your name at him, as if it’s something given unwillingly. Waking the espresso machine seems like the right thing to do with your hands, and you’re grateful for the noisy mechanical sounds it provides to shatter the still morning. You bring an absentminded hand to rub over the tip of your ear, feel if it’s grown to a point yet.
“We haven’t met, have we? I feel like if we had, I’d remember.”
God, you wish he’d stop talking.
“Well, do you go to Oxford?”
“Sometimes.” You roll your eyes, and he laughs, little bells and glass shattering. “I’ve been abroad for the last semester. I flew in from Egypt a couple of weeks ago.”
“Hm,” you hum to yourself, choosing a small red cup for your morning coffee. You aren’t sure what to say; the most exotic place you’ve ever visited was a seaside town three hours from your house.
You can hear his newspaper crinkling; the sound of him putting it down betrays his arrival behind you, but you still don’t expect the puff of warm breath over your shoulder. He comes into your space like he belongs there, like there’s never been a door that wasn’t held open for him to stride through. “Are you still asleep?”
Before you can answer, you hear a shriek from down the hallway, and you breathe a little sigh of relief, thanking whatever ancient gods that belong to the hills you’re in for the interruption. Venus springs to mind, and you swat her and her entourage of Graces away from you with a huff.
“You absolute asshole!” Historia comes barreling into the kitchen, dramatic, fluffy dressing robe spilling out into the unrelenting summer heat behind her. You realize that in the three weeks you’ve spent with her, you haven’t once seen her in the actual kitchen, watching the way the breakfast chef’s eyes widen at the sight of her as he hurries by with an armful of eggs.
“Stori!” Eren elegantly catches her best attempt at a tackle with the good grace you assume he does everything with, breaking out into a warm peal of laughter. “Since when do you not love a surprise?”
“Since always.” Historia’s face is scrunched up where she’s buried it into the crook of his neck, forehead red with the effort of squeezing Eren as hard as she can. “You could have at least called, I mean– ugh, I didn’t even get the chance to get your favorite–”
“Relax.” Eren urges her, rubbing soothing circles into the small of her back. He carries them both over to his seat, plopping down and curling her up in his lap like a child. Eren holds his cup of coffee to her lips temptingly, and Historia shoves it away with another scowl. You hide your giggle at her antics behind your espresso, not wanting to remind them of your presence, but enjoying the show all the same. “Brat.”
“Ow,” Historia hisses when he pinches her thigh, expression lightening when she catches sight of something on the wall. “I always forget how pretty the kitchen is here.”
“Where’s your brother?”
“Still getting dressed.” Historia’s blue eyes turn to the frescoed ceiling with an irritated huff. “You know he can’t stand to be seen in his pajamas.”
“That’s because he doesn’t wear any,” Eren remarks with an eye roll of his own. “You could have called to let me know we’d adopted such a pretty houseguest for the summer.”
Your face burns with acknowledgement, and you can feel your toes curling into the clay bricks of the floor hard enough to scrape the tip of your pinky. Eren seems satisfied at your bewilderment, letting his eyes drag over your hardly-covered chest lazy as a wandering mouth.
“Why would anyone wear pajamas under those heavy duvets? It’s almost thirty-two degrees out.” Armin breezes in in a feigned display of nonchalance, but you can see the way his eyes skim over Eren like a ship narrowly avoiding an iceberg. The Titanic was inevitable, and so is the gravity of Eren sitting golden on the other side of the room.
“You look good, Min.” Eren squints his eyes at Armin’s shirt, nearly identical to his own. “Where’d you get that?”
“You left it last summer,” Historia hums, tucking her head under Eren’s chin and nuzzling into his chest more completely. Armin makes a soft snort of irritation, grabbing for a fig in the bowl of fruit on the counter and beginning to rummage through the cabinet drawers.
“Do you want half a fig?” Armin’s cool gaze slides to you, and you shake your head, feeling a little underwater as two lifelong relationships unfurl in front of you, your mind still fuzzy from last night’s wine. “Historia?”
Historia says no as Eren says yes, and Armin makes his sound of annoyance again before continuing his rummaging, muttering about the inconvenience of finding a knife.
“Do my eyes deceive me?” Sasha, still disheveled with sleep and grinning bright as Christmas morning, pops her head around the doorway. “Shouldn’t you be overseeing the construction of your pyramid?”
“I’m not dead, Sasha,” Eren laughs—it really is distracting when he does that—pulling Sasha onto his other knee, ignoring Historia’s grumbles of discontent. The NYU Men’s Lacrosse t-shirt that Sasha cropped too short rides up, exposing the swell of her breast, but no one acknowledges it. Eren’s hand tucks in snugly around the curve of her hip, easy and natural, and you wonder if his fingers have ever itched to travel up under the hem of her tiny sleep shorts.
“Not dead yet.” Historia glares up at him venomously, reluctantly making room for Sasha to pile onto Eren and smother his face with kisses. Sasha pulls away from him suddenly and frowns.
“Peaches?”
“Where are the knives in this fucking kitchen?” Armin’s growl of frustration is loud enough to make you jump, and Sasha giggles at you.
“Jesus, Armin, you’re going to kill her, and it’s not even noon.” Sasha slips off of Eren’s knee, practically bouncing over to where Armin’s viciously jiggling a locked drawer. She slides open the drawer next to him and draws a long, wide knife from it, passing it to him with the blade extended and her eyes on you. “Did you meet Eren?”
“Careful of his hand!” Historia squeals, shooting an arm out towards Armin as if she can deflect the tip of the blade from across the room.
“It’s fine, Stor.” Armin’s voice floats across his nearly-bare shoulder, mild and careless as it grazes the collar of the too-big button down sliding off of his slim frame.
“That knife’s a little big for a fig, Sasha.” Eren stands, placing Historia on the table and pinching her cheek when she scowls at him.
“There’s no such thing as a too-big knife– listen to me. Did you meet Eren?” Sasha’s fingers are gripping into the flesh of your arm– hard. Your eyes widen in surprise at the urgency in her eyes, like if you haven’t been introduced to Eren, there’s grave danger afoot.
“We met.” It happens quickly and easily, the slide of his heavy arm around your shoulders. You can feel your body tense under the lazy weight of him, big hand wrapped around you like it belongs there. “I don’t think she’s particularly fond of me.”
Eren shoots you a wink that you’re sure is intended to mean something, a reference to an inside joke that you have yet to establish, maybe.
“I didn’t say that,” you say in your own defense, wanting to yank Sasha to the side and demand to know why she hadn’t warned you that Cupid himself was going to greet you in the kitchen this morning. Armin slices the fig neatly in half, a strangely practiced motion performed by small, soft hands. He offers it to you again insistently, and frowns when you shake your head.
“I said I wanted it, ‘Min,” Eren says with a hint of red to his words, snatching the halved fig from Armin’s hand and biting into it voraciously, little pieces of the flesh spattered around the corner of his mouth.
“You’re such a brute,” Armin scoffs, picking the meat of his half out gingerly with an oyster fork that you don’t remember him grabbing from the drawer.
“Why don’t you like Eren?” Sasha pouts at you, grabbing the hand that’s squashed between yours and Eren’s hips. Your palm feels hot against her fingers.
“I said I didn’t say that.”
“You didn’t say much of anything, to be fair.” Eren’s got the fig pressed to his mouth, digging his teeth and tongue around in the husk of it obscenely enough to make your cheeks warm. Being so close to him is filthy, that cross around his neck is looking you straight in the eye to make sure you feel it. 
“Eren’s always a pest,” Historia provides from her perch on the kitchen table, picking at her perfectly manicured toenails, “why would she like him?”
“You like him plenty,” Armin says, not looking at her. It’s not the first time that’s been brought up, if Historia’s answering sneer is anything to go by.
“You’ll love him if you give him a chance.” Sasha smiles hopefully at you, nodding.
“Yeah,” Eren grins down at you, teeth colored with fig, “give me a chance.”
“Eren, you’re going to scare her off,” Armin says with a roll of his eyes, peering around Eren’s broad shoulders to look you up and down. The way his eyes drag over you makes you feel like there might be a stab wound somewhere on your person that you don’t know about yet, the adrenaline of the moment keeping you numb.
“Back off her, Eren,” Historia echoes, “she’s fun, I don’t want you to make her leave.”
“She’s not going to leave.” Eren looks directly at you as he says it, something in his smile growing imperceptibly darker. A dare. How much will you let me get away with?
You stare and stare at him, ignoring the continued bickering of Armin and Historia in the background. He’s golden and blood-red, oil smeared on his forehead and a crown of thorns nestled in his dark thatch of hair if you look close enough. If you’re not imagining it, his hand might be tightening around your shoulder, maybe he’ll leave a purple bruise on it.
“Of course not,” Sasha interrupts your thoughts, thumbing at your cheek affectionately, “she belongs here. With us.”
“She’s our little fairy,” Historia giggles dreamily, referencing the long-winded fairy tales you drunkenly make up every night, casting each other as heroines and knights and dragons.
“Right,” Eren agrees, not breaking your gaze, “our little fairy.”
The only thing that comes to mind is your childhood friend, Emma, looking on at you sadly with her muddy toes, watching the wings sprout from your back.
᠃ ⚘᠂ ⚘ ˚ ⚘ ᠂ ⚘ ᠃
Days lug themselves by, barefooted and dragging their heels, and most of the time, even the monotonous rise and fall of the sun doesn’t help to differentiate one calendar block from the next. Like a bat, or maybe a slinky, silvery fish in an underwater cave, you rely on your other senses to track the passage of time.
For example, today, you know it’s a Wednesday because Maria, one of the three house chefs, brings fresh peaches up from the co-op down the hill every Wednesday. Sasha’s spent the last thirty minutes hand feeding you peach flesh as you lounge by the pool, insisting that you suck her fingers clean of juice and feeding you little sips of champagne each time you sober up enough to tell her that that’s lewd. Historia swats at you and giggles at the smacking and slurping sounds you make around Sasha’s fingers, oiled-up palm landing on oiled-up hip with a wet slap; Armin admonishes her quietly from his seat beside her, insisting the girlish noises emanating from the three of you are tearing him from his book. You can feel Eren watching, too– that’s all, though. Always just watching.
You wonder how opaque the lenses of Armin’s sunglasses are, perched haphazardly on your nose, wonder if they’re doing a good job of masking the slow lick of your gaze over Eren’s skin, wonder if you care. Maybe the champagne is finally getting to your head.
“We should go in soon,” Historia sighs, a hand tossed across her forehead. She’s a little movie star, built for the golden age. “It’s so hot.”
“It’s always this hot,” Sasha argues, and you can practically hear the furrow in her brow, not willing to take your eyes off of the trickle of sweat running down Eren’s chest to see it for yourself. You’re really getting the hang of it, this opposite-sense thing. Everything’s upside down here in the heat.
“She’s getting hungry,” Armin supplies, wiping the sweat off his palms to reach up and turn the page of his novel. Brideshead Revisited. A little on the nose, isn’t it?
“I am not!” Historia hates when people point out her appetite, but not really. She kicks up a fuss because it’s “ladylike”, and she’s advised you to do the same.
“You are,” you sigh, really feeling the heat sink into you even with the heavy, lazy movement of lolling your head to face her, “you always get hungry around this time.”
“What time is it, then?”
You don’t reply– you don’t know the answer.
“I think we’re all hungry,” Eren, ever the peacemaker when he can find the time to be so, sits up, letting the shirt that’s been shading his face fall into his lap. Your eyes track its descent– even that seems slow. He says something to you, managing a crooked grin while he squints in the heat of the sun, but you don’t hear it.
“Huh?”
“Everyone except you, anyway,” he repeats himself, reaching over Sasha and smearing his thumb through the peach juice collected on your chin. Eren’s thumb disappears between his pink lips, and when he sucks on it with a satisfied hum, your jaw clenches hard enough to hurt.
“I guess it’s getting close to dinner,” Sasha says regretfully, picking her wristwatch, a priceless Braus family heirloom, up from a puddle of orange juice and tanning oil. “We should probably clean off.”
“I might even shower twice,” Armin rubs a hand over his belly with a grimace, “this tanning oil makes my skin greasy.”
“I feel disgusting,” Historia agrees, sliding red toes into her sandals and standing with a dramatic stretch.
“Filthy,” Eren murmurs in agreement. He’s still staring at you.
“I’ll be in soon. I’m so close to the color I wanted for today– I just need, like, ten more minutes.” You peel down the strip of bathing suit stretched over your hip, showing off the distinct mark of yesterday’s color and today’s tan.
“You’re crazy,” Sasha scoffs, throwing some designer sarong her mother lent her over her shoulder, “I’m melting.”
Armin and Historia pause their bickering over who gets to wear Armin’s Cucinelli belt to dinner—Armin wants it for his trousers, Historia for her maxi dress—just long enough to offer a momentary goodbye, breezing along into the house with Sasha. You settle back into your chair and take a deep breath, letting the sun sink into you just long enough to forget that you’re not alone.
“Open up.”
You’ve been enjoying this game of trading one sense for another, and you keep your eyes shut firmly, letting your jaw fall open and your tongue hang out. A piece of peach, fleshy and dripping with juice, finds its way onto your tongue, pinched too roughly between strong fingers. When you close your lips around the fruit, the fingers stay with it, frozen in their pinched position and forcing you to suck the peach from them, to swallow around them, to run your tongue along them and get as much of the meat as you can. When the fingers withdraw from your lips, you open your eyes and gasp quietly.
Eren’s leaning over you, a solar eclipse that smells like tan skin and sounds like Campari, and in the silhouette of the sunlight, you think he’s smiling.
“You’re still hungry,” he says, a question that’s left its punctuation mark behind. You think of Historia, of the improper shame of revealing your appetite. You dodge.
“I’m never hungry.”
“Never?” Eren crawls over you to kneel between your legs, propping one of your ankles up on his shoulder. The game you started is ripped out of your hands, chess pieces flying into the pool, scattering across the table, knocking over bottles and matchbooks. It’s so silent out here in the sun it hurts, and you almost miss the constant buzzing horseflies of early summer.
“Never.”
“If you’ve never been hungry,” Eren muses, tilting his head so that his cheekbone fits into the sensitive arch of your foot, reaching a hand down to splay it wide on your belly, “you’ve never been full.”
“How do you figure?” Your words come out throaty, waterlogged.
“Can’t have one without the other.” Eren shrugs, turning his head to the side. His lips brush against your heel, your Achilles’, the swirly seashell dangling from your anklet. You dig your teeth into your bottom lip, toes twitching behind his ear. “I don’t believe you, anyway.”
“No?” You try to tilt your head coyly, like your heart’s not clawing and scratching against your throat to get to him. Hungry, indeed.
“You wouldn’t stare like that if you didn’t want to.”
You’re taken aback, but not enough to fall out of the moment– Eren’s lips closing around the knob of your ankle slowly, like the pit of a fruit, make sure of that.
“Didn’t want to what?”
Eren’s hands meet the cushion on either side of your head hard enough to rattle the chair, his long, tanned body stretching over yours. He’s close enough to brush his nose against yours, but you can still see the hazy green of his eyes flicking here and there on your face: from your eyes to your lips to the beauty mark on your cheek. Your poolside lounge feels more like a butcher’s block under your taut spine.
Sasha’s told you about the wolves in these hills, that they howl murder at night, but they’re sleepy and indulgent in the heat of the sun. One of Eren’s canines catches the light and glints at you as he grins.
“Eat yourself sick.” He practically spits it into your mouth, one thigh pressed into where you’re sticky and sinful, and he chuckles under his breath when you shudder under him, feverish in the late-afternoon heat.
Before you can even think of biting back, Eren’s off of you, picking your sandals off of the ground and sliding them gently onto your feet, stopping to run his palm from your ankle to your kneecap with an appraising hum. 
“We should head inside,” he says evenly, offering a hand to pull you to your feet, “I’d hate for us to miss dinner.”
You don’t have anything to say back to him, letting him lace his fingers through yours like lines in a play, interspersing seamlessly with the summer scenery. Eren leads you through the kitchen, waits patiently for you to take your sandals off, and waves you on your way up the stairs, saying he needs a cigarette. As the distance between you grows, your mind grows clearer, and you turn on your heel, calling down to him from the top of the stairs.
“Eren? Eren? Where are you, Eren?”
“Call me something else,” Eren pokes his head around the corner, smoke pouring from the grin on his face, “whatever you want, really. Make your own name for me.”
“You stare at me, too,” you say, tearing through his impishness. Eren cocks his head, unperturbed, smile growing wide as he nods.
“I do.”
“So you’re…” You can’t bring yourself to say it, not where it might echo in the cavernous hallway, where it might take the form of a confession. You scamper down the stairs, nearly sliding on bare feet, almost crashing into Eren when he appears at the foot of the staircase, catching you with two broad palms on either side of your ribcage. You pluck the cigarette from his mouth, stick it between your own teeth, narrow your eyes accusingly, and whisper: “You’re hungry too.”
“For every man hath business and desire, Such it is.” Eren takes the cigarette back, pulling on it and making a clear show of trying to hide a smirk.
“Hamlet?”
“A woman with teeth and a brain,” Eren tilts his head at you, “aren’t you something?”
“Do you always quote Shakespeare when you want to fuck somebody?”
“Only when I want to fuck you.” Eren stubs the cigarette out on the ancient oak of the staircase railing, grins up at you brilliantly, smiles brighter when he notices how obviously flustered you are.
“I need to go take a shower,” you say hurriedly, choking on the remnants of your shame and your confidence as they burn out in your throat, making an attempt to back up the stairs away from him. Eren laughs at your attempted escape, catching you by the wrist and pulling you close to him, close enough to dizzy you on the tendrils of smoke still sticking to him. Your breath stills, your heart slows as Eren wraps an arm around your waist, pulling you together, skin on tacky skin.
“Oh, wilt thou leave me so unsatisfied?” Eren coos to you, mouth moving against your cheekbone. “C’mon, just one bite.”
“He that is proud eats up himself,” you hiss a quote back at him in response, ripping yourself from his grip and scrambling up the stairs, heart pounding and cheeks burning. You can hear a lovesick sigh follow you up to your room, and hope that the slam of the door behind you is enough to keep it from touching you.
᠃ ⚘᠂ ⚘ ˚ ⚘ ᠂ ⚘ ᠃
The murky waters of your vision ripple out into clarity, and you’ve found yourself in a forest. You’ve been here before, you recognize the tall, thick trunks and the bed of fallen leaves under your feet. You’ve been coming here since you were a little girl, been wiggling your toes in the greenery since before you could remember. You never come alone.
It appears just as you remembered: a blinding glimmer of light, a flame for a head, and ribbonlike wisps of energy that beckon you like arms, like love. One step towards it, and it disappears, vanishing into nothing with an echo that might be laughter. You think it’s happy to see you.
When it reappears a few feet away, you take your first steps, sighing at the feeling of the wild enveloping you, of the prickling of your skin, kissed by the chill winding through the trees. You wish you could explore this place, so familiar and so strange all at once, but you know you have to keep moving, keep following the lights as they lead you deeper and deeper into the forest. They won’t hurt you; you aren’t sure why that’s true, aren’t sure why you keep moving. You just know better than to stop.
They lead you over a familiar path, winding past a creek, over a bed of flat stones with an ice-cold creek running over them. You never tire here, legs pumping and arms working to push yourself faster. You’ve never caught the lights, and you aren’t sure if you ever will, but again, you know better than to doubt. It feels like hours, feels like minutes, feels like purpose, chasing these lights through the forest, but suddenly, something’s new.
There’s a little chirping sound, almost conversational and too high-pitched for you to understand; you’re not even sure if you recognize the language. It ricochets around the bones in your body, touches something ancient in their marrow. You almost jerk your head to the right to find the source, but you resist, pushing ahead on your path as the lights lead you deeper. You get the feeling that you’ve gone off-script somewhere, that this is a part of the forest you haven’t seen before, but the warmth in your bones shoos your doubts away. You’ve never been this far, but it feels like home.
A growl curls around the shell of your ear, plants fear right in the center of your chest. Your eyes widen at the light before you before it disappears; you frown at the next one, not daring to speak but demanding an answer anyhow. The lights will save you, won’t they?
Shrieks from overhead, guttural, animalistic calls, howls and chatters of excitement; you never presumed to be alone in this forest, but you never presumed to be in danger, either. The lights urge you on, vanishing and regenerating at an alarming rate, your feet drumming against the forest floor faster and faster. A sliver of moonlight begins to glow from the trees a ways off, an indication that there’s a clearing ahead, and you shove the bile in your throat down, swing your arms faster, ignore the frantic fluttering of your pulse in time with the bestial chorus ringing clearer and louder from the trees with each passing second.
You do, against all odds, manage to launch yourself into the clearing, and the moment you feel the soft cushion of moss under your feet, as opposed to the branch-littered, crunchy path of the forest, you nearly stumble to your knees as your eyes adjust to the sudden brightness of the clearing. The grumblings of the woodland entities have quieted, an almost awestruck silence settling in the open space around you.
“There you are.”
Your head snaps up comically fast– “You?”
“Me,” Eren says, that razor-sharp, moonlight smile lighting up his face. He looks…right here, as if the forest is extending a sense of belonging, as if he’s been here longer than the ancient trees themselves. Even the little crown nestled atop his head is fitting: a tangle of brambles and thorns and leaves tucked into his dark locks. Is that a throne under him, that mass of branches and leaves and some silvery metal you can’t place?
His eyes glow in the starlight, illuminated with a certain hunger that you can feel reverberating through your bones. It should be frightening, but it’s enticing. You feel welcome.
“What are you doing here?” Your tongue is slower on the uptake than your mind, and you can feel the suspicious expression folding your facial features, hiding the thrum of anticipation the sight of him brings.
Eren cocks his head pityingly, smiling at you in a way that would seem predatory if it wasn’t so entirely disarming, so entirely inviting. Your feet are bringing you closer before he even speaks— you know why you’re here before he says it.
“I’ve been waiting so long,” Eren beckons you onto his lap, firmly grabbing your shoulder and silently demanding you straddle him when you try to turn away from him, “you’re beautiful, so…alive here.”
He takes a bit of your hair between your fingers and rubs it, satisfaction flickering over his face. It’s then that you realize how little fabric covers you; really, it’s only a thin, wispy excuse of a dress, hanging in tatters around your body and leaving your skin free for the taking. Taking notice of your dress leads you to take notice of another pressing matter: Eren’s naked beneath you.
“Where are we?”
“Does it matter?” Eren reaches up to toy with your hair again, smiling gently. He tilts his head up, asking you for something you can’t identify, but that you already know you’re willing to give. Your soul, maybe.
Your lips meet his in a tentative brush, a motion that feels shy, but practiced. It’s a reflex, an instinct, to kiss him this way. Eren groans gutturally against your mouth, pressing into you deeper, digging his fingertips into your bare skin. The chorus of inhuman chatter erupts around you both again, and you jump, almost pushing away from him before he stops you with a firm hand against the small of your back.
“Sh,” he whispers, nipping at your chin, “don’t pay them any mind. You’re with me, remember?”
It’s difficult at first with the ever-growing hum of life around you, but it grows increasingly easier to melt into him, to lose yourself in the rhythm of him. He’s thick and hard underneath you, pressed right where you’re already slick and ready for him, and he’s got a tight grip on your hips, working you against him to make sure you feel it and oh– do you feel it.
A debauched gasp pours from your mouth to his; Eren sinks sharp teeth into your bottom lip with a grunt of approval, pulls you up to situate you over his twitching cock. You can feel the lecherous eyes of the woodland creatures, spirits, monsters, whatever they may be around you, looking in on the sticky, tangible arousal building between your bodies. The steady glow of Eren’s eyes, the prick of the thorns in his hair under your fingertips, the insistent weight of him pressing against the wet heat of you: all of it keeps you grounded, keeps your hips rolling into Eren like your life depends on it, like it’s what you were born to do.
“Are you ready?” Eren murmurs, quiet as the grave, stilling your hips and lifting you.
“I’m not sure, I–”
“I’ve been waiting so long,” Eren interrupts, “so long for you– you’re ready for me, I know you are.”
And with that, he’s sliding you down onto his cock, splitting you open, dropping your jaw. The cacophony from the forest grows deafening, but the glowing eyes in the brush streak and blur as your eyes flutter closed, a stuttered moan falling from your lips.
“Oh–”
“Knew you were ready,” Eren sinks his teeth into your collarbone, lets you wiggle and roll your hips until he’s situated comfortably inside of you. “You were born for this. For me.”
You can’t even bring yourself to disagree, to refute, to question. It’s godly, the way he fills you, the twinge of pain in the pit of your belly that doesn’t waver, no matter which way you squirm. The longer you sit, perched upon him– you feel something akin to divinity, akin to prophecy ringing through your bones. You were born for this.
“Eren…” It’s more of a sigh than anything, a confession and an admittance of guilt, a repentance. He likes the way it tastes, you can tell by the way his hands grip you harder, roll you along his cock faster with an urgency that betrays his calm, adoring gaze. He’s sinking his claws into you, bit by bit, and you’re better for it. You belong here, with the night on your skin and Eren nestled inside of you.
“Don’t ever leave,” Eren smiles gently, as if it’s a choice, “stay with me forever.”
The pleasure’s beginning to peak in your stomach, the howls swirling in the air around you start to feel more like a blanket, the moonlight like a crown. His hands are so hot they almost burn, his tongue licking up your neck feels like a baptism. Your back is arching, your blood is rushing, the stars are speaking to you– what are they saying?
Your fingernails have left angry indents in your throat where you’ve clutched into the skin in a desperate attempt to regain your breath, shooting up out of your slumber with a vicious jolt. Your head spins with the sudden movement, the antique furnishings of the room bleeding into candlelit blurs as you heave for breath.
“Sleeping?”
You nearly jump out of your skin at the gravel of Eren’s voice, having believed yourself to be alone. Some instinctual part of your mind almost remembers falling asleep on the loveseat in the glass-enclosed sunroom earlier, one too many martinis to thank for that, but you can worry about that later– Eren’s your priority now, shirtless and leaned against the doorframe with one eyebrow raised and a very telling flush rising to his cheeks. The chilly wetness between your legs brings your dream to the forefront of your mind. Had he heard, somehow?
“What are you doing down here?” You do your best to narrow your eyes into something convincing enough to pass for annoyance, unsure if you’ve managed to pull it off with the rapid rise and fall of your chest.
“Water,” Eren says simply, raising a glass you hadn’t noticed he was holding, “but it seems like you might need it more than I do.”
“I don’t–” He ignores you, crossing the room to hand you the ornate glass. Your throat is dry, and so you drink, eyeing him suspiciously as you sip.
“Dreaming?” The corner of his mouth twitches almost imperceptibly.
“Nightmare.” You push yourself up to sit, crossing your arms defensively over your chest. “How’d you know?”
A long pause, Eren’s eyes dragging over you slowly, your skin burning. “You were squirming.”
“It was disturbing,” you say truthfully, looking over your shoulder and half-expecting to see some horrible monster leering at you from the doorway, salivating over you and Eren, “but I’ve had this same dream since I was a kid. Part of it, anyway.”
“Need company?”
“No,” you say quickly, shaken by the dream and how low Eren’s pajama pants hang on his hips, “I just need to get to my real bed. I’m sure sleeping outside had something to do with it.”
“That’s not true.” Eren’s scooping you up into his arms before you can open your mouth to argue, as if you even would. This isn’t unusual for him; you’ve grown used to his tendency to touch you, to hold you close to his chest as though you belong there. It echoes in your head, you were born for this. A shudder wracks through your body. “Cold?”
“Mhm,” you hum, not trusting your own voice. Eren nuzzles your head deeper into his shoulder, lets you get a noseful of the scent of him. Dewdrops, mankind, a rotting forest floor. It gives you a disconcerting sense of deja vu.
“Sleeping outside is good for you,” Eren goes on, scaling the stairs with impossible ease, “my mom used to tell me that.”
“Is that so?” It brings a sleepy little smile to your face, despite yourself: the image of a messy-haired, fussy baby Eren, curled up in his mother’s lap and looking up at the night sky.
“Sure.” You can hear the nostalgia in his voice. “The stars can talk to you that way, through your dreams. They show you where you’re supposed to go.”
Your blood runs cold at that– does he know? How could he? He’s a man, not a mind-reader, not a mystic. Right? You let him carry you to your door in silence, the only noise being the padding of his bare feet down the Turkish carpet runner in the hall. When he gets to your door, Eren finally starts to move to let you down, and your mouth moves without your permission, voice small and echoing in the still nighttime air.
“Eren?”
He freezes, muscles locking you in place against his chest. “Yeah?”
“Was I talking in my sleep?”
Eren settles you on your feet before answering, leaving one lingering hand on your hip and bringing the other up to brush at your cheek. Your eye must have been watering– his thumb catches a stray tear. His smile is a little too sharp when he answers.
“No, why?”
“Just wondering.” Relief courses through your body, but your muscles stay taut under his touch.
“Okay,” Eren looks you up and down one more time, as if he’s making sure you’re all there, “goodnight, then. I hope your dreams get better.”
When he turns to go, the broad silhouette of him growing darker as he retreats, you remember something fragile underneath the floorboards.
“Wait, Eren! You forgot your water.”
“My what?” When he turns to face you, he’s still grinning– baring his teeth, more like. You think you’re imagining the glow in his eyes, too fresh from that dream.
“Your water. I think I have a cup in my room if you need it.”
“Oh.” Eren waves a hand nonchalantly through the air, catching a stray stream of moonlight. You can see the dust particles dancing around his hand, enchanted by his movement. “Wasn’t thirsty."
᠃ ⚘᠂ ⚘ ˚ ⚘ ᠂ ⚘ ᠃
It’s a slinky, dazzling dress; Elie Saab, Spring 2005, maybe? 2006? Sasha had lent it to you, insisted upon you taking it, really. It’s got to be worth at least your years’ rent payment, dripping with Swarovski and cut low and square across your chest, and easily the most decadent thing you’ve ever worn but– it’s family dinner night. No expense is spared.
Historia sits across from you, reaching one dainty hand out for Armin’s negroni, nearly dipping the massive drop-pearl charm on her bracelet into the first course: a cold, cucumber soup. Armin nudges her meaningfully, scowling and handing his glass to her, glancing apologetically at the stiff-backed butler across the room, who wasn’t looking anyway. Sasha’s at the head of the table, working on Historia’s serving of the cucumber soup, dunking focaccia bread into it in a voracious manner that you’re sure wasn’t outlined in the etiquette courses she’d endured as a child. And he’s next to you, naturally.
His dinner jacket looks out of place on him, oddly enough: angular and overly formal, as well-fitting as it is. You wish it was a little greener, a little more playful, something to match the Eren you’ve gotten to know under all the glitz and glamour. It’s too human for him, really, but that thought makes you shudder faster than you can shove it to the side.
“Wasn’t that the girl from Luxembourg?” Sasha asks through a giggle, finally leaning back to allow the butler to collect the remnants of her first course. Historia frowns at her, gulps back nearly half of Armin’s cocktail.
“No, the girl from Luxembourg was a slut. He wouldn’t have touched her.”
Armin and Eren exchange a look that implies that, whoever the slut from Luxembourg might have been, she didn’t escape their clutches unscathed. Historia notices the guilty smile dimpling Eren’s cheek and smacks Armin in retaliation.
“Ouch, Stori!” Armin scowls right back at her; if you didn’t know about Armin’s father’s remarriage to Historia’s mother, you’d think they were actually related.
“She was a slut,” Historia sniffs, finishing the rest of Armin’s cocktail in a second swig.
“It was Eren’s idea– you’re always punishing me for what he does.” When the staff place the second course, some sort of ceviche, in front of him, Armin crosses his arms over his chest and looks away like a huffy child. Sasha laughs and swats at his shoulder.
“Don’t pretend you don’t have your own hand in things. You can’t blame everything on Eren.”
“Maybe he can,” you shrug, the champagne going to your head. You’re feeling impish, feeling like one of them. Wildly, you reach a hand up to pinch at Eren’s cheek, smiling to yourself when you feel it turn warm under your fingers. “I mean, just look at him. He’s a devil.”
“Am not,” Eren scoffs, slapping a hand on your leg and shaking it playfully, “you weren’t there anyway. Min’s very convincing when he wants to be.”
“I am.” Armin smiles at you, head tilting intrepidly. “I can get Eren to share anything I want, I bet.”
It feels loaded, like a challenge, and Eren’s fingers tighten where he’s gripping your leg. When you chance a glance to the side at him, his jaw is tense, gaze focused on Armin like a threat, like a predator.
“Not anything,” Eren says, voice low and dangerous, more somber than you’ve ever heard him. Armin’s face falls for a millisecond, scrunching his nose at the murderous glint in Eren’s eyes, before he clenches his jaw and glances between the two of you with a haughty smirk.
“Est-ce vrai? En êtes-vous sûr? Tu l'as dit toi-même - je suis convaincant quand je veux quelque chose.”
“Ne commencez pas avec moi, pas pour ça.” It’s hardly louder than a murmur, but the threat carries all the same. You look to Sasha with widened eyes, hoping for a translation, but she’s chewing slowly on a bite of her ceviche, looking at Armin, Eren, then Armin again with a strange expression you’ve never seen before.
A heavy silence settles over the table, Eren’s fingertips leaving sore spots through your dress where they’re digging into your thigh, and Armin’s eyes dancing over Eren’s face, that same smirk pulling at the corner of his mouth. Daring.
“You two are so in love,” Historia gripes with a roll of her eyes, smashing the carefully-cubed ceviche on her plate into a mush. You eye the smear of meat on her fork disdainfully and set down the bite you had been about to pop in your mouth, opting for your glass of bubbles instead.
The jokingly grumpy lilt of Historia’s comment seems to cut the thread of tension that had grown taut between the two men, as Armin allows Sasha to pull him away from Eren and back into his corner of the table with her and Historia. Their conversation drones on, the ethics of Eren and Armin’s tendency to tag-team women fading into the background as you wait for Eren’s hand to slip from your thigh. It doesn’t.
His thumb rubs idly over the slit of your dress, brushing it back and forth over your bare skin for just long enough to get you used to the pressure of his palm beaming heat through the thin fabric, get your guard down. And then his fingers slip underneath, grabbing into the hot flesh of your thigh.
You jump ever so slightly, flighty as a fawn, and Eren chuckles under his breath beside you when you choke a bit on your champagne. He’s cool—stoic, even—as he bashfully bats away the scandalous insinuations of Sasha and Historia’s storytelling, the lewd raise of Armin’s eyebrows at the mention of a certain leggy redhead in Prague. His hand stays steady, possessive and permanent on your leg. When Armin and Historia start arguing over yet another of Armin’s alleged missteps with one of her college friends, Eren takes the opening to lean into you, murmuring into your ear.
“What’s got you so jumpy?” His breath puffs out hot and sensual against the shell of your ear, and you can feel your earring lifting with the movement of his lips. He’s so close.
“Not jumpy,” you answer under your breath, trying to keep your composure.
“Hm,” Eren hums, leaning back just enough to study your profile, “wasn’t sure if you’d dozed off, started dreaming again.”
Your head whips towards him in what is surely an uncouth accusation of insinuation, borne of shock, but luckily, Armin’s too busy being hand-fed ceviche by Sasha and scolded by Historia to notice. Other than his eyes, Eren’s stiller than death, watching over the antics with the littlest smirk pulling at the corner of his lips. His eyes, though, flick down to you, glinting like a dare.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means something?” It’s a challenge, and you realize too late that the rope around your ankle has cinched, and you’re caught in his trap.
“No,” you say, hoping for more conviction in your voice, but it comes out as a breathy whisper. The corner of Eren’s mouth twitches, and it pulls an irritated huff from you.
“Tell me about your dream. The one that woke you up the other night.”
“Tell you– w-what? Here?”
“Yes, here,” Eren repeats you, quiet and calm, keeping one eye on your bickering friends to ensure you’re kept all to himself, “unless it’s something you can’t share.”
The blanching of your face tells him everything he needs to know, and that sickening admission almost overshadows the fact that he knows. He undeniably knows, now; maybe not the specifics, but enough to know that you had woken up sticky and gasping after a sinful dream. Maybe he even knows it was about him. 
You’ve given up on trying to understand the otherworldly elements of Eren; the way he seems to appear at inopportune moments and know what you’re thinking at every turn, but this is too much. You quickly realize that while you’re not sober, you’re certainly not drunk enough to deal with him, and you finish your glass of champagne in a single gulp.
“You’re one to talk about sharing,” you hiss at him, trying to will away the goosebumps prickling your arms as his fingers inch higher, skating along soft skin. Eren’s demeanor falters, if only for a moment– he looks frustrated.
“Didn’t you hear me?” Eren leans into you, brows furrowing. “I don’t share just anything, and especially not just because ‘Min wants a taste.”
“Am I yours to share?” That heavy swig of champagne has gone straight to your head it seems, as you turn your face up to him defiantly, finally saying the quiet part out loud. The weight falls off your shoulders like a head, and you can almost feel the itch of the guillotine at your neck as the words leave your mouth. Eren, ever the gentle executioner, only lets the calm fascination return to his face, brings his fingers further up your thigh.
“Tell me about your dream, hm? They’re not listening, it’s just you and me.”
He’s only inches away from where you’re already beginning to grow hot and wet– he hasn’t even done anything, and you want to chastise yourself over the undeniable need beginning to bubble inside you. Eren’s smiling so sweetly, as if he’s lulling you into a sense of complacency, and your tongue hangs heavy in your mouth, eager to spill your secrets.
“I…I’m scared.”
Eren’s eyebrows raise and his smile grows a bit toothier, disbelief written plain on his face. “Of me?”
“Sometimes,” you say, small and honest as the grave, “it’s like you aren’t real.”
“I’m very real,” Eren insists, two fingers pressing against the damp silk of your panties, his eyes lighting up when you stifle a gasp, “doesn’t that feel real?”
“Wait–”
“The dream,” Eren says again, increasing the pressure of his fingers, “were you scared of me there, too?”
“Yes,” you whisper, ashamed and painfully cognizant of the feel of him between your legs, “I was in a forest, running after the little lights, they– I’ve seen them for a long time.”
“Since you were a child,” Eren repeats your confession from the other night. He’s reading you, you realize, not like a book, but like a poem. You couldn’t put the difference into words if you had to, but there’s a certain melody to the flickering of his gaze over your hot face.
“They’ve never led me anywhere before,” your words hitch in your throat, stopped dead when Eren’s fingers start rubbing circles over your swollen clit. The silk is thin and soaked, and his fingers slide over you in a way that feels god-given. Your jaw hangs ever-so-slightly, the butlers coming to change the course. You wait for Eren to slip his hand out from under your dress, fearful of the staff watching as he toys with you, but he only nods encouragingly.
“Keep going.”
“Um,” you stammer, swallowing thickly and glancing at the plate of bleeding, rare filet in front of you, “they took me to a clearing in the forest. There were creatures, ones I’ve never seen before.”
“Did they hurt you? Any of them?” A furrow appears between his eyebrows, deep and concerned. Some small part of your brain, muted since Eren’s hand slid beneath your dress, worries itself with why Eren seems so disquieted with your dream– it’s not like you actually could have been hurt, it was only a dream. Wasn’t it?
“No, they stayed away. They just made a lot of noise, but they all got quiet when…”
A knowing smirk. “When?”
“When I saw you.”
Eren pats your thighs gently, urging them apart; he looks relieved, exhilarated, unreal. If you didn’t know better, you’d think his eyes were glowing in the candlelight. Armin, Historia, and Sasha’s clamor across the table grows louder with each passing second, but as soon as you begin to wonder if you should be doing a better job of hiding what’s very clearly happening under the slit of your dress, Eren’s fingers have wiggled their way beneath the fabric of your silk thong. Your teeth dig into your bottom lip, eyes widening.
“I was glad to see you,” Eren says quietly, “in the dream, I mean.”
“You said you’d been waiting for me,” you whisper, keeping your voice low to hide the whine scratching at the back of your throat, “that you’d been waiting a long time.”
“I bet I was,” Eren hums thoughtfully, grinning viciously when he sinks a finger into you, clearly relishing the way your fingernails tighten into his wrist. “I never lie.”
“Even in a dream?” You feel fuzzy and warm, blinking moony, worried eyes up at him. Eren shakes his head in confirmation, curling his finger and making your thighs clench. “You put me in your lap, and–and, you had a crown. It was nighttime, I think, and the moon was really bright. You were inside me.”
Eren slides another finger in to match the first, and you’re hardly able to stifle a moan when it comes fluttering through your teeth, a breeze of a sound compared to what you’re struggling to keep captive in your chest. Eren’s other hand reaches forward to grab a small piece of the carved steak, brings the meat up to your mouth and brushes it over your lips.
“Eat,” Eren instructs, smiling placidly as you mindlessly obey, biting into the red meat, “but keep telling me.”
He waits patiently for you to chew around the bite of steak he’s offered you, eyes searching you for something– what it is, you can’t be sure. Your mind is wobbling around the flashes of memory of your dream, distracted every few steps by an overwhelming rush of pleasure from between your legs, Eren’s fingers curling incessantly against your walls. You swallow, never taking your eyes off of him.
“You fucked me.” The confession is breathless when it leaves you, and even through the haze of what you pray isn’t a rapidly-approaching orgasm, you don’t miss the way Eren’s shoulders stiffen, the way his eyes flash. 
“Did I fuck you, or did you fuck me?” Eren murmurs back to you, mischief in his eyes and a tense gravel to his voice. “You said you were in my lap, after all.”
“I—oh, god—I don’t know,” you’re barely able to keep your voice low, a little whimper interrupting you, “Eren–”
“Keep going, it’s okay,” Eren’s fingers don’t slow– in fact, they begin to move more harshly, “you’re safe with me, you know that. I showed you in the forest, didn’t I?”
“Mhm.” You can’t stop your forehead from falling onto his shoulder, teeth digging into your lip so hard you aren’t sure if that coppery taste is from the steak, or your own blood. The conversation in the room, despite being made by only three people, feels like a deafening rush in your ears. 
The realization hits home that Eren’s going to make you cum all over his fingers in front of your friends, the staff, and your dinner, and he’s going to wrench it out of you in a matter of seconds, if the tightening of your gut is anything to go by.
“What else?” Eren practically growls in your ear, low and hoarse. “Is there anything else?”
“You asked me– fuck, you asked me something.” Your hips are canting forward into his palm, your face tacky and warm thinking about the couture fabric under you, now drenched in your cum and sweat. “Eren, you have to slow down, please–”
He’s merciless, pumping his fingers into you ceaselessly, rendering you a lost cause. “What did I ask you?”
“You asked—oh, my god—asked if I, if I would stay with you forever.”
“What was your answer?”
You can’t respond, not with the way you’ve stopped breathing to swallow down the debauched moan bubbling in your chest. Your entire body tenses, strung tight as a bow around Eren’s fingers as the knot in your stomach unravels, cool, inevitable release finally crashing over you. Eren works you through it, murmuring little hushes into your hairline, and placing a comforting hand over your fingers that are digging into his wrist, smiling against your forehead as you slide your hips back and forth over his hand.
You manage to pull the whole thing off impressively subdued, no more than a tinny whimper leaving your lips, only to be absorbed by the sleeve of Eren’s dinner jacket. When you dare to sit up, to meet Eren’s eyes, he’s still looking at you expectantly, as if that wasn’t enough.
“I can’t believe you just did that,” you whisper, waiting for Historia to chastise you, or Armin to make a lewd comment. The three of them are still arguing, Sasha stealing bites from Armin’s plate each time he turns to snap at Historia, who’s now sitting amongst a crowd of empty crystal glasses.
“What was your answer?” Eren says again, pulling his fingers from you and smirking at the glisten that stretches down into his palm.
“I woke up,” you say with shaky conviction, trying to glare at him.
“Are you still scared of me?” Eren asks innocently, picking up a piece of his steak with his hand and feeding it to you again. Your cum mixes in with the flavor of the steak, gives it a certain tang and salinity that makes your heart beat faster, even though you’ve just floated back down to consciousness.
“I– I don’t think so, but…” you trail off, looking down at the plate. Eren brings another piece to your lips, letting you bite half and giving the rest to himself, not missing the opportunity to suck on the tips of his fingers. Your thighs press together when his eyes flutter shut, knowing what he’s tasting and watching him revel in it.
“But what?”
“I don’t think I understand you,” you confess breathlessly, “I think that’s what scares me. I spend all day looking at you, and I never feel closer to understanding you, to really touching you. It’s like you’re not…” you trail off in search of the right word.
“Real?” Eren cocks an eyebrow at you.
“Human,” you say without entirely meaning to, widening your eyes at him in apology. “I’m sorry, not in a bad way necessarily, but– you feel…like you’re above me. In a sense.”
“Above you?” Eren frowns, forgetting his dinner entirely and looking straight at you with rejection written all over his face, wrinkles you want to smoothe over with your thumb.
“I just…” you sigh, finding it harder to meet his gaze by the second, “I don’t understand what you want with me.”
“Still?” Eren tilts his head. “Even after that?”
“The dream?” You nearly chuckle in exasperation. “It was just a dream, that’s all.”
Eren frowns a little, reaches for your glass of champagne– oh, god, when had that been refilled?– and hands it to you. He watches you take one sip, and then another, that concentrated pull of his eyebrows never ceasing until you reach a shaky hand out for your fork, beginning to feed yourself small bites of steak. His perplexed expression ripples out into one of contentedness, smiling gently as he watches you take care of yourself.
“All days are nights to see till I see thee, and nights bright days when dreams do show me thee,” Eren finally says, looking at you very much like you’re supposed to be parsing something out from his quote.
“On to the sonnets now, are we?” You cock a playful eyebrow at him, despite your tired, slouching posture and your repeated attempts to keep your guard up. Eren grins mischievously, leaning in as if he means to press the tip of his nose to yours.
“I know no ways to mince it in love, but directly to say–”
“If it be love indeed, tell me how much?” You’re quicker than him on this one, a vicious little smirk cutting across your face when you manage to cut him off. Eren’s eyebrows raise, impressed, but you don’t keep him down for long.
“There’s beggary in love that can be reckoned,” Eren finally says, twirling the ring on your pinky absentmindedly. You don’t even remember when he laid his hand atop yours, but it feels heavy and comforting, and so you let it lie there, just for the time being.
Your post-orgasm exhaustion hits you like a train, the temptation to slump against Eren’s shoulder winning out over your propriety. You’ll sit back up by the fourth course, you tell yourself, nibbling on a large piece of parsley that had come as a garnish on your plate. Eren doesn’t seem to mind the weight of your fuzzy head nodded into the cotton of his shoulder; in fact, he seems to adjust himself so you can nuzzle closer, eyes blinking owlishly as you reach for your glass of bubbles. You’re teetering dangerously close to the edge of unconsciousness, and you almost wouldn’t care, until something catches your eye.
Over the rim of your glass, Historia is staring at you. It’s not a look of admonishment, but more…caution? Concern? Pity? All you can discern for certain is that Historia must have seen everything Eren did to you, everything he’s still doing to you, taking a caviar bump off the back of his hand and laughing at Armin, shoulder shaking under your cheek. Historia’s brows furrow at you, her bottom lip wavering slightly.
You sit up suddenly, ignoring the way the room spins with the speed of your action. Eren turns his head to you, surprised, only to follow your gaze across the table to Historia. You’re trying to keep from looking at him, but you can’t help yourself, watching his expression crumple into something stern and disparaging.
Historia withers for only a moment, before narrowing her eyes at him threateningly. Eren squeezes his hand around yours. Sasha shoves Historia admonishingly for not listening to her joke. Armin’s eyes focus in on where your fingers grip your champagne flute hard enough to turn white.
You think you see a few pairs of familiar, glowing eyes in the bushes outside, peering in on the scene at the table. You think you need to go to bed.
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mercuriians · 5 months
Note
hello!!! I saw that your requests were open, can I request some drabbles with Welt and Jing Yuan with an overly cautious s/o, discovering them wearing something of theirs as comfort? (ex. They catch reader out and about calmer then usual, and the after a bit realize reader is wearing an article of their clothing? (Maybe for Welt, one of his old scarves, wrapped around their neck, covering half of their face. For Jing Yuan an old long sleeve turtlekneck, that's so loose on reader that it looks like a dress)
Thank youu
✒️
breathe me in
content info — gn! reader, fluffy drabbles w/ the lovely mr. yang & jing yuan (separate!!), reader is mentioned to be a cloud knight in jing yuan's part, & a morsel of hurt/comfort if you squint.
word count — 0.9k words.
author's note — mm i liked writing this a lot! welt's been one of my favs since the start and i've grown fond of jing yuan too. i love them. thank you for being my first requester, anon!! <3
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WELT YANG.
seeing as your boyfriend is, hands down, one of the most observant people you've ever come across, it's only inevitable for him to notice one particular change in your appearance. he's barely entered the parlor car when he spots some sort of brown fabric comfortably stretched across the width of your neck. the realization dawns not even a second later—that's his scarf, one of the several that have grown weathered over the limitless journeys.
still, once welt sees the serene, relaxed expression on your face, and how the stiff vigilance in your eyes has melted—that alone brings out a tiny smile from him—he comes to the conclusion that you pay no attention to the scarf's loose threads and holes. or, that you do, but you don't care about them.
finally, your eyes meet his, your lips curving into a familiar little smile of your own. he walks over to where you're sitting before taking his place next to you. "hey, baby." you greet him tenderly.
"hi, dear," welt hums. with no one else—besides pom pom of course—in the parlor car at the moment, he reaches for your hand without any trace of hesitation. his fingers, calloused yet warm, envelop yours. "i see you've found one of my old scarves. i'd honestly almost forgotten that they were still in my drawer."
"yeah, you caught me.." vaguely, you start to look bashful, your gaze drifting elsewhere, your teeth nibbling softly on your lower lip.
however, he's quick to appease your diffidence. the man says his next words with the kind of adoration that can never be faked. "it looks far better on you than it could have ever been on me."
wide with surprise, your eyes find his. "you.. you mean that?" you whisper, but your heart is already swelling with joy.
welt leans down to place a careful, meaningful kiss on your forehead. "forever and always, my love."
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JING YUAN.
the present moment was likely the worst time for your clumsiness to show. just a second ago, your foot had slipped on the loose material of jing yuan's burgundy turtleneck. barely managing not to fall on your face, you stumble into your shared chambers. what really makes your cheeks burn in humiliation, however, is what happens next.
without a warning, the general of the xianzhou luofu bursts into laughter.
it's not his usual kind of laugh, either; instead of being brief, restrained, and courteous, it's prolonged, loud, and unbridled. one would almost think that he's cackling, if not for the respectable kind of individual that he happens to be.
"do my actions entertain you that much, general?" you grumble with your arms crossed, a forced, but mild anger lacing your tone.
once he hears your words, jing yuan ceases his hysterics. "why do you address me so formally, darling?" he asks, clearing his throat despite the remnants of mirth still lingering within his aureate eyes.
"maybe because you seemed unable to control your emotions a second ago," you retort. your answer doesn't even fully make sense, you're well aware, but by now the shame covers you from head to toe. you can't exactly find the effort needed to care.
still, the general maintains his appropriately perceptive nature. sensing your change in mood, he quickly and efficiently dispels all traces of amusement. he pats the vacant spot next to him. "come, sit with me."
you move to sit down next to him, your movements completely quiet except for your breathing. this time you make sure that you don't trip on your boyfriend's annoyingly long turtleneck. to jing yuan's surprise, you speak first. "i'm sure you've noticed what i'm wearing," you start, and he nods affirmatively. "i found it while i was cleaning your closet."
you look down, nervously pulling on the sleeve. "it reminded me of you, so i put it on. it.. it helps me feel normal, i guess, like i don't have to constantly put my guard up."
there's a stubborn beat of silence that ensues, and with your unease growing, you lift your head to meet jing yuan's eyes. however, your worries are futile; the look on his face tells you that he understands completely.
of course he does.
"i'm sorry for laughing earlier, my beloved." the man says earnestly. "i was just taken by surprise, especially since your steadfast caution is of another level. to put it into other words, i suppose.." jing yuan trails off, taking a moment to properly articulate his thoughts. "it makes me glad that even a strict, unwavering lieutenant of the cloud knights has their moments of humanity."
with the way your boyfriend gazes into your eyes, you're unable to do anything else but let your embarrassment slip away, subdued by what you know to be jing yuan's love. "and it makes me glad that even a general of the xianzhou has their moments of immaturity," you giggle softly. the man shakes his head, amused once again.
"i'll offer you a deal, darling. if i kiss you, perhaps, will you promise to forgive me?" jing yuan hums, his large hands already reaching out to trace the familiar hem of the turtleneck.
"i already have," you smile, but nonetheless you lean in, taking in his placating scent of cedarwood, fresh ink, and earthy leather. your eyes slide shut, lithe arms circling around your boyfriend's strong neck as your lips meet his. his fingers dip underneath your clothing, tenderly ghosting over your skin as he kisses you more deeply.
neither of you pull away for a long while.
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kalims · 1 year
Note
I SEE SLOT REQUEST OPEN— IG??
Can i request a fluff with Octa trio(separately) on a date but being disturbed by the first year by questioning “why are you dating with this shady guy mom— you could’ve get better step father for us.” ace said…
AHAHAHAHAHA I JUST WANT CHAOS DURING TTHE DATE BETWEEN THE TRIO THAT WOULD BE FLABBERGASTED OR SHOCKED AND SPEECHLESS BY WHAT ACE SAYING THAT😭
that time where you became a parent | octavinelle
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premise. there's a lot of firsts in relationships and getting your date crashed by your partner's self-proclaimed kids for the first time is apparently one as well.
cw. mention of getting tortured once (brief), someone disappears, mention of mafia as a comparison to the octa trio, not proofread
includes. gender neutral reader, fluff
note. hi yes, after ten years /j I've decided to test my flexibility with requests since I plan to take up commisions 😚
also ik that cw is really concerning but it's nothing bad in the writing i swear!! also you sent this ask a few hours ago (4) but I'm already done?? wow
hey also im so sorry I just realized you used a feminine term 'mom' and i only realized after I finished writing 💀 you didn't specify the reader and I didn't notice so I thought it's like gender neutral my bad!
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azul ashengrotto | all of the above
"azul you've been frozen for a minute,, are you okay?"
"I'm,,, fine?" he thinks?
ace snorts. "dude you call that fine? you look like you just saw one of ursula's tentacles get cut off,"
shocked? flabbergasted? speechless? azul is just one huge combination of those three even though they're pretty much the same thing. he's just suprised, albeit a little disturbed that your... five grown men friends—‎also your apparent 'children' have now kidnapped you as their parent and is planning to make him a step-father without his consent!
he looks at you with a blink as if to as 'what in the great seven are they talking about' meanwhile you just shrug and take a bite out of the lunch azul had just bought you, thoroughly enjoying it because come on. who wouldn’t enjoy free food? it's your right as his partner to experience getting spoiled but that doesn't mean you don't get to not like it.
judging by the casual, indifferent demeanor you display and even your unbothered face? azul can tell that this happens lots of times and at some point you had accepted it.
also the ursula comment.. he got offended on her behalf, no way the great ursula would even let that happen to her. she's the epitome of greatness! plus... he'll have your bratty child know that octopuses can regrow a limb!
wait a minute.
azul sputtered and frowned defensively. "excuse me? shady?" he'll have them know that he is a perfectly—perfect father for your children! there is no 'better' because he simply is the best.
oh azul... who's gonna tell him that he's obviously showing off whenever your grown 'kids' are around in hopes of getting their approval? no one apparently cause ace thinks it's too funny for it to be stopped and he needs seriously good entertainment that matches up to this level.
god lord if anyone sees him snooping around the library on topics that typically interest teens.. or jade leaking out the fact that he sent the tweels to collect information about the five.. that makes for good blackmail according to them and he's starting to get concerned with how many material they had gotten from him.
jade leech | more amused than suprised
"I believe that I am capable of reaching the standards of your 'children'," a chuckle.
epel quips over from the side casually, toning his pitch up a notch to showcase the knowing voice. "hows your criminal record? clean?"
the chuckling ceases.
okay maybe he can reach their expectations in ways that doesn't involve a clean record. in his defense that person had crossed a line so jade had to... remind them which line to stay behind. it's not like epel knows that the speeding ticket was just a cover up for the more concerning one and as much as jade liked to tell the tale, he supposes he'd get much more disagreement if he told the other story, so he resorted to talking about the less... severe crime.
jack in particular voices his disagreement, more so when jade had commented on craving meat while eyeing jack in a way that the buff man immediately got offended and snitched to you.
safe to say that as much as you love your concerning, tall, red flag boyfreind he's definitely gonna feel the heat from your glare. that day jade learned not to mess with jack cause despite how ironically strong the man is? apparently he's a pretty big snitch cause he always goes to you and tries to 'convince' you that even kalim makes a better lover.
jade did not like that at all. why like the excruciatingly boring sunshine of scarabia? I mean come on, over kalim and jade? who's less boring? he questions you with a particularly coy smile.
for your sake, he supposes. the five troublesome first years had gotten less treatment for him nowadays and he's made it perfectly clear that he has the capability to mess with them once again, be it in a battle of mentality, or strength. but just cause he let them off doesn't mean their off the hook yet! which is great because with the subtly implications he had made meant that jack with the quick mouth wouldn't be so quick to snitch on him.
for a guy who tortur—I mean, gave a perfectly justified punishment to a sinner jade is pretty childish and competitive to prove that he's a pretty damn good boyfriend that no one,,, absolutely no one (not even your kids lol) can mess with.
floyd leech | thinks it's really funny and wants to be the dad
"awww.. shrimpy you didn't tell me you got a whole troupe of baby shrimpies," floyd giggles.
"I mean they didn't tell me that I was their parent too so,"
"hmph! calling the prefect my parent would be disrespecting master lilia!" sebek bemoaned—loudly despite accepting a parental scold about volume from you.
most of the sentence that ace commented about him being... shady? just went in one ear and out the other. I mean yeah, he isn't gonna blow the 'cover' but they're mafia type shit shady and he can't exactly deny what they see. and apparently what ace sees is that you need a better 'husband' and they need a better 'step-father' to which floyd replied a; "there's no one else. you're stuck with me baby shrimpies,"
floyd's grin was very ominous but when was it not? though his specific harder emphasis on 'no one' concerns you a little and you even had a moment of realization because besides that one guy who miraculously disappeared after he flirted witn you quite literally disappeared from thin air... who else approached you after that?
but just like any other MC you shrug it off :) (for the sake of the plot)
for some reason floyd believes the family thing wholly and had now squeezed himself into it—to the dismay and endless complaints from sebek. besides the obvious dislike the angry teen had out for him, floyd seems to think the opposite and even finds sebek amusing! (to the further suffering of sebek floyd had requested for him to call him dad)
sebek refused of course and explained he already had a father and simply could not!
floyd took it the wrong way and asked you if you were seeing another person 😭 I mean there's only one person 'lilia' in the school and from sebek's 'master-lilia' from their conversation it's clear that the boy was referring to whoever lilia is as his father so he tried to get jade up in it (who loved the idea of storming diasomnia but hell, even jade was wary of the nobody floyd never heard of in his life!)
^ coughs that was his jealousy speaking. in the end jade outright talked him out of it and told him that he could always spread some.. things since it always works.
out of jealousy floyd had told you that lilia sounds like a 5 year old name and is lame. jealousy may come in fire but floyd's come in grude. you just feel kinda bad for lilia lol
──  ko-fi
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thatasadbitch · 1 year
Text
𓇽༆𓇽I Want U𓇽༆𓇽
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Neteyam Sully x Omatikayan oc/reader
Warning: light smut and Fluff, neteyam and reader are aged up
Wordcount: 1.8K
Charater: I use a name because it's easier for me to write but change it with yours or whatever you want, the character is female, daughter of two strong warriors of the Omatikaya clan, she herself is known for her dowry in battle.
( I accept requests if you have ideas I would love to hear them, I accept requests on Jake sully, Lo'Ak, neteyam, Kiri, Tsireya, aonung and Neytiri, all kinds of stories are welcome ;) write in private or in The comments 💙
and sorry for any grammatical errors but this is not my first language ♥♡
We had grown up in the Metkayina clan by now, I have a nice scar on my shoulder from the battle but I can say that I saved Nateyam from certain death.
Now I'm remembered as the strong warrior with the heart scar, I'm still not too used to the way of fighting of this water clan it doesn't come too natural to me even if according to Ronal and Tsireya I'm an excellent warrior also for this clan.
" how are you?" Tsireya asks gently looking at me from the water and leaning her elbows on the wooden bridge "Me? I don't know if I want to talk about it...Why don't we talk about you and Lo'Ak? Your love problems empty my mind" I say wallowing feet in the clear water next to her "ok...then it's pretty good apart from my mother doesn't agree too much on our relationship as always, she thinks Lo'Ak is reckless and that I should look for a serious man to mate with and marry" she snorts as she floats and looks at the sun kissing her skin " well I've been friends with the Sullies since I can remember and can confirm your mother's words Lo'Ak is reckless and reckless but he's a very good friend as well as I also think a great boyfriend, he's faithful, loyal and tremendously sweet and sensitive more than I want to admit and show" I say smiling softly to my friend "I don't know I wanted you know...to take the next step with him to connect, but my mother does not give me his blessing and not I feel like doing it behind her back I think she would kill me first and then the guilt "I look at her fake shocked" do you want to connect?! Know that after I want to know everything the first time is always crazy" I laugh and she splashes me with water giggling embarrassed " as if you two have never done " shrug " Neteyam and I joined our braids several times but we never we find ourselves too much in agreement on when to take the other step " she looks at me smiling " why don't we talk about you and Neteyam then ?" I roll my eyes and she giggles " I was going to kill him this morning about what Neteyam and I have different visions, he wants to recreate the stability of his family but I'm more of a solitary warrior than a mother of a family" I say throwing myself in the water with her "yes? " she giggles following me " I want to fight, it's my nature I was born for this I'm descended from generations of warriors but I know that sooner or later we should have children and I won't be able to be a warrior anymore like this... well I almost killed myself more than once i sometimes wonder why he chose me as his mate i'm so difficult and on the other hand i'm afraid to disappoint him i'm afraid i'm not worthy of neytiri as a yardstick she's crazy as a mother " she swims around me and laughs " but you want to take that step with him I can see it from your eyes, you two complement each other as Lo'ak and I complement each other, and if you want children you will do something else for a while, you will hunt and I could teach you something about a healer plus it doesn't mean that as soon as you do that you'll get pregnant you're 20 you have time for that you'll be a great mother because it's you you protected your own mate with your life you looked after Tuk and Kiri and thank God you kept an eye on Lo'Ak when or I can't, you're a bit grumpy it's true maybe you love being on your own, but believe me you would give your life for each of the people you care about and with them you change you are a mountain of sugar with them your eyes light up when you look after them to Tuk and when Nete shows you affection, you don't have to be Neytiri, you are you and clearly in everyone's eyes you will be a perfect mother and above all in Neteyam's eyes, he has chosen you as a mate because you are meant to be together and to be also parents together" I snort and go under the water " you know that taking care of isn't for me and yes I can't wait to do it with Nete and I thank you for those words I think they really help me these days, I love you Tsireya " I say with sign language hug her "Ali'iem you will think about it when it happens, continue with your normal life just take that step we all love you and we will be with you forever" we continue to swim and hunt together for a while and then I go back to the my tent with anc now the mind crowded with thoughts.
As I pull my wet hair back I see a red strand in my hair my eyes widen 'will this be a sign of Eywa?' "every day you are more and more beautiful you know that?" I feel Neteyam's delicate hand on my waist while his lips gently rest on my neck and I smile slightly " sorry if I was a bit stubborn and unreasonable with you earlier" I say, turning to look him in the eyes he smiles softly at me " we'll think about it if it happens right?" I smile back, infected by his , before giving me a kiss on the lips "sure" he replies "you know I think Tsireya and Lo'Ak will join for the first time it's a great thing for those two" he chuckles " it's an important step but Lo'Ak is completely crazy about Tsireya I knew he would get there and then she calms him down makes him think a little more and that's good for everyone" he giggles pulling his hair into a ponytail involuntarily showing me his muscles of his back tense, he turns his gaze catching mine passing over him "am I beautiful?" He asks teasing me "beautiful" I say giggling and he approaches me leaving me a few kisses on the corners of my mouth, I put my hands on his chest tracing the darkest signs with my fingers.
It's a moment that Neteyam hugs me more and finally he kisses me on the lips properly and I feel the need to connect with him " Nete..." I call him softly sighing Ali'iem ?" His pupils are wide and he looks at me softly but at the same time a shadow passes through his eyes, I gently stroke his face and I quickly reach his braid stroking it, he smiles and moves it to his shoulder holding it in his hand, I quickly do the same and bring my end closer to his connecting us, a moment of ecstasy that soon leads us to everything else, Neteyam rests his forehead on mine and squeezes my waist gently, I can feel he is holding back a lot he licks his lips, his breath is heavy and then he can't take it anymore and kisses my lips looking into my eyes "Nete let's do it..." I hiss through my teeth looking into his eyes "are you sure? " I nod letting him kiss me passionately, I have no more thoughts if not Neteyam.
He puts me on our 'bed' without ever detaching from me, our tails caress us and it's as if everything came from if we don't think too much concentrated on both our sensations and those of the other, I perceive his ecstasy, his love and his wish .
It doesn't take long that our intimacies are connected giving a feeling and sensations never experienced before, the slow but decisive movements of his pelvis make me feel an intense pressure in my lower abdomen, the deep and hoarse grunts of neteyam do nothing but increase this sensation that makes small noises of pure pleasure come out of my lips.
When his hands squeeze my thighs bringing them higher and resting them on his shoulders making me see the stars with a stronger push than the previous ones, my hands squeeze his back scratching him slightly.
The rhythm of his thrusts doesn't waver and I feel that feeling of pressure inside me about to burst "Nete...I..." I don't have time to say much because that pressure explodes completely making me scream nothing but his name which I he too says my name several times feeling my walls tighten around him, a feeling of burning heat floods me and then moments of silence where only the sound of our breaths makes noise in the air, I see him smiling above me looking at me with slightly tired eyes and a few drops of sweat on his forehead.
From a tender kiss on my leg before letting them both fall snugly around his slim waist, he kisses my lips multiple times before framing my entire face with soft comforting kisses, my legs still shaking.
We don't separate our braids nor our bodies but the guy above me switches positions letting me doze peacefully on his chest, while he watches me rest I hear the rumble of his purr on his chest which also starts mine letting him kiss his chest and her soft lips "hey…Ohe see ngenga and you are the best woman that could happen to me whatever happens I will always be with you" he says moving a strand of hair from my damp forehead, I smile at him tenderly "Ohe see ngenga too, and yes I think you won't get rid of me that easily either.” I rest my chin on his chest as I watch him already fantasizing about something I'll have the pleasure of discovering later.
𓇽༆𓇽
The next morning my legs were screaming in pain but this didn't relieve me of my duties, as always I met Tsireya taking a bath together " Ali'iem you are really slow this morning you won't take anything so" she will try again " Tsireya give me peace my legs they're screaming in pain "she whips her head towards me" you? You? Have you taken the step? You've mated tell me yes please I can't wait to see little puppies of the forest with your big emerald eyes " she takes my hands all too excited " yes yes we did but I don't know yet if I'm pregnant we'll just find out further on " she dives in and caresses my flat belly and I see her gesturing under the water a ' great mother make it a girl ' I giggle seeing her return to the surface " you are impossible you know ? Really embarrassing " she squirts me but whatever happens i can't keep a sincere smile off my face i have no more worries i just want to be with Neteyam forever " anyway me and Lo'ak bonded " i open my mouth in shock as she swims fast away from me“ COME HERE YOU MUST TELL ME EVERYTHING“.
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racinggirl · 11 months
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unspoken words || max verstappen 1
type: one shot pairing: max verstappen x reader word count: 3.5k summary: admitting your feelings isn't that easy, especially when the man you're having feelings for is your brother's best friend... requested: yes! I've combined multiple requests for this fic, simply because I feel like they all fit well together! ''PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE write something for max thank you I love you & hey! can i request something with max that's angst to fluff or possibly hurt/comfort? feel like that trope really suits max for whatever reason?? anyways thank you! + i love your writing <;3 & driverXbestfriends!sister with max and daniel’s sister plsss & max verstappen, enemies to lovers, drivers x driver or driver x driver/bestfriend!sister & Could you do one where the reader is drunk out of her mind coming back from a party/club then maybe she throws up and max just comforts her and helps her shower to get clean?'' requests are CLOSED!!! warnings: angst, alcohol, reader being drunk, anxiety (a little?), protective!max. notes: HOOOLY FCK this took long. I think I've been working on it for literal MONTHS. However, it's finished, and I really hope you like it. Please leave a comment or even a reblog, because it's really something that keeps me motivated other than a like. Don't read me wrong, I love to get likes, it's just that a comment feels a lot more personal! Also, it's been so long, I've had to look up one of my older fics to see how I used to make this set up thingy. It's been way too long and I've missed you all <3 P.S. Did you guess correctly who the brother was?
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Formula 1, something you had grown up with ever since your brother decided it was his passion, his world. And it slowly became yours too. Accompanying him at races became a monthly habit, and even though you were still in college, you always found a way to support your brother from the garages in the pitlane. Starting in the Toro Rosso garage, making your way to the Redbull garage. Renault was the next place you’d find yourself, and it all ended last year, in the McLaren garages.
It was a time of uncertainty for both Daniel and your family, as you knew how much love your brother had for the motorsports. He always mentioned that he’d rather live racing, than race living, because that’s what, according to him, wasn’t the goal in life. You had to enjoy every moment of your life, something he would often refer to as ‘enjoy the butterflies’.
The uncertainty soon ended when Daniel told you he was going back to Redbull. ‘’But you must keep it quiet, little one.’’ He told you with a smirk plastered on his face. ‘’Oh my god, are you for real? That’s incredible, Dandan! I’m so proud of you!’’ That was your first reaction, because you were beyond excited for your brother. Even if it was as a reserve driver, you couldn’t obtain your excitement.
It wasn’t just because of Daniel you were a Redbull fan, but ever since 2016, you had secretly started to admire the team more and more. Sure, your brother had always been your idol, and you couldn’t help but feel an intense rush of pride every time he got behind the wheel. But your attention wasn’t solely focussed on him.
Max Verstappen, currently one of the best drivers on the grid, and one of your brothers’ best friends, was the reason you could feel your heart pounding against your chest once you stepped foot back into the navy-blue garages. You and Max had known each other for quite a few years now, ever since he joined the Redbull team back in 2016. He was a few years older than you, and your admiration for him slowly grew into something more.
His talent, charm, and his fierce determination were something you found yourself captivated by, and it only grew more every time you saw him. But you were just Daniel’s little sister, at least you thought.
Monaco 2023, the Grand Prix of Europe, where the high class, fancy people wandering the paddock made you feel like a teenage schoolgirl on your first day of university. Even though you were twenty-three years old, and couldn’t complain about the money you had, you were never one to dress like you were attending a royal wedding.
You were watching the cars, and then looked at your brother, who was dressed in his Redbull polo, seated on the pitwall whilst you were standing in the back of the garage, him watching the screens. As soon as the camera turned to capture the Australian man on the pitwall, you could hear the crowd go absolutely wild. They loved him, and so did you.
After the race, you made your way over towards your brother’s apartment, changing your outfit for something more afterparty worthy. That’s where you were going, and you knew it was one of the few chances you had of being close to Max.
Realising the feelings you had for Max were more than just friendly, brought a bittersweet taste to those afterparty’s, because you knew Max probably didn’t feel the same about you. You always did your best to hide your emotions, burying them deep inside so that nobody, not even Max, could catch a glimpse of your true feelings. It was a delicate balancing act, pretending to be just friends while your heart yearned for something more.
‘’Hey, congrats on your win.’’ You embraced the Dutch driver as he was quick in placing his arms around your body, pulling you in for a friendly hug.
‘’Thanks, y/n, I’m glad you’re here.’’ He partially shouted over the music, your cheeks heating up at the thought of what he meant, or what you thought he meant.
You quickly shook that thought away and nodded at him, shooting your shiny smile, the one you and your brother had in common, and you pulled yourself away from his hug.
As the night went on, both you and Max were sharing stories and naked truths, finding yourself on a conversation that went beyond your usual banter. The alcohol loosened your inhibitions, blurring the lines between friendship and something more. It was dangerous territory, and you both knew it.
‘’Naked truth coming.’’ He said, leaning against the wall in front of you as you stood facing him, the blue coloured cocktail in your hand. Your eyes went over his features as he licked his lips, ready to tell you one of his naked truths.
‘’I’m not going to sign a new contract after this one.’’ He smirked, watching you, looking for your response. You weren’t surprised, to be fair. You kind of did see it coming, because there have been quite some rumours going around lately. But you did feel privileged as he trusted you enough to say this. It might be due to the alcohol he had burning in his system, but you liked it, you liked this intoxicated version of Max, because this way you could be close to him, without anyone thinking anything.
‘’Your turn.’’ He smirked, stepping a little closer and you could swear you felt his body heat warming you up, even though you were still a meter apart from each other. Your mind was trying to come up with something, because you had to be careful of what to say. You wanted to tell him about your feelings, you wanted to speak the words that had been dancing on the tip of your tongue for so long now, but you couldn’t, and you hated it.
‘’I think I’m in love with one of Daniel’s friends’’ you managed to spill, avoiding his eyes as you immediately tried to wash your mouth with the alcohol in the cup you were holding. You searched for the straw with your tongue, sucking the burning liquid through the straw, all the way to your throat, as if it made your words less harsh.
‘’Really?’’ Max answered, clearly not expecting this kind of naked truth coming out of your mouth. ‘’Who?’’ He immediately shot this question after the other, wanting to know which guy stole your heart, but little did he know.
‘’Do I know him?’’ You could almost facepalm yourself at the awkwardness, because now you knew you had to lie to the world champion. ‘’No, I mean, I don’t think so…’’ you simply replied.
As you continued to avoid Max’ gaze, you felt a mixture of relief and regret for not being completely honest with him. Regret, because you wanted to tell him the truth, you didn’t want to hide your true feelings any longer, but relief, because you knew that if you would have spoken the truth, things would have become more than awkward between the two of you. Besides, what were the chances that he would feel the same way about you?
However, Max’ eyes did not leave your face, trying to study your expression for a moment, he was seemingly lost in thought. The weight of his silence was hanging in the air, and you could almost hear a pin drop. Your heart was racing with anticipation, but then he finally let out a deep breath, breaking the heavy silence.
‘’Well, whoever it is, they are a lucky person,’’ he said softly, a flicker of something you couldn’t quite place crossing his eyes. Happiness? Sadness? Jealousy? Relief? You couldn’t place it. However, you started to remind yourself that he probably wasn’t talking about you, but that it must have been a general statement, a well-intentioned compliment.
As the night wore on, the music became a distant hum, the conversations of the people around you started to fade as you let the alcohol numb your feelings. It was one way of forgetting them, or at least, not having to think of them. The tension between you and Max was heavier than before, and it was as if the universe wanted to test you, pushing you closer to the edge of admitting your true feelings.
With each sip, each passing moment, your longing for Max intensified, but the fear of rejection held you back from speaking the unspoken words. You knew that crossing that thin line of friendship with Max could change everything, although you weren’t sure if you wanted to take that risk.
As the afterparty came to an end, you stumbled out into the cool night air, the city lights blurred before your eyes as you faced reality. Max didn’t love you, and the love you had for him would forever be unspoken.
‘’There you are!’’ You heard a faint voice, a pair of arms holding you by your elbows as you saw the man in front of you. ‘’Jesus, how much alcohol have you had?’’ Daniel had a concerned yet relieved expression on his face as he embraced you in a hug.  
When you entered what you thought was Daniel’s apartment, alone, you immediately located yourself on the nearest couch, laying down as your stomach started to twist and turn because of the litres of alcoholic beverages you had been consuming this night. Your hand was fumbling around in your bag the moment you felt something buzz, and without blinking, you answered the phone call you were receiving.
‘’Hello… y/n?... where are you?... hello?’’
‘’Hello,’’ you managed to croak into the phone, your voice barely audible as you fought off the dizziness and nausea that threatened to consume you. ‘’I’m… I’m at Daniel’s… apartment.’’
The voice on the other end of the line sounded frantic. It was Max. ‘’Y/n, stay there. Don’t move, I’m coming to get you.’’ His tone was laced with worry, and you could hear the urgency in his voice.
As you waited, your mind started to spin, mainly because of the alcohol, but also because of the confusion. Was Max coming over because he was genuinely concerned about your wellbeing, or was he just being a good friend to both you and Daniel?
Minutes felt like hours as you lay on the couch, your mind racing with a thousand different thoughts. Finally, you heard the sound of hurried footsteps approaching the apartment. The door swung open, and there stood Max, breathless and confused at the same time. His eyes widened as he took in your state, and he rushed to your side, concern etched deep into him.
‘’What happened, y/n? Are you okay?’’ Max’ voice was filled with genuine worry, his hands gently cradling your face as he tried to assess your condition.
You forced a weak smile, trying to make Max feel a little more at ease about the situation. ‘’I… I had a bit too much to drink. I’m sorry, Max. I didn’t mean to worry you.’’
His eyes saw straight through you, his gaze piercing into yours, his worry transitioning into a mix of frustration and tenderness. ‘’You should have known better, y/n. Drinking yourself into this state… it’s not like you.’’ His words were filled with disappointment, and you felt a stab of guilt pierce through your already shattered heart.
He helped you sit up and handed you a glass of water, his touch gentle, but you felt every nerve on your skin tingling with his touch. You couldn’t help but feel the weight of his disappointment, causing you to feel even more ashamed of what you had managed to get yourself into. It was as if your actions, your decisions to drink more alcohol than you could consume to keep a somewhat sober state, caused your friendship with Max to become even more tensed.
‘’I know,’’ you whispered, avoiding his gaze as you took a sip of water, hoping it would wash away not only the physical effects of the alcohol, but also the mistakes you had made. ‘’I’m sorry, Max. I didn’t mean to disappoint you.’’
His expression softened a little, but the tension remained. ‘’You didn’t disappoint me,’’ he whispered, his voice filled with a mix of genuine concern, but also a slight frustration. Was he frustrated with himself for making you feel as if he was disappointed, or was he frustrated with you, for putting yourself in this kind of state?
‘’I’m just worried about you, y/n. You mean a lot to me, and seeing you like this… it hurts.’’
The honesty in his words made you tear up, tears welling up in your eyes. You had been longing for a moment like this, a chance to be vulnerable with Max, but not like this. ‘’Why did you let yourself get this drunk, y/n, you’re never drunk, you hate being drunk.’’
You knew he was right, and that made you feel even worse, because he knew you so well, your friendship had grown into such a big thing, that you feared breaking it. You were scared of crossing that thin line, and losing Max, both as a friend, and possibly something more than that.
But you knew you had to spill the words, because the pain of keeping your feelings bottled up was becoming unbearable, even if the fear of rejection still lingered.
‘’I…’’ You started, trying to one by one collect the words, the words that would cause either a lot of damage, or a lot of relief. ‘’I’m sorry for everything. I just can’t hide it anymore. I’m sorry for hiding my feelings, for not being honest with you. I… I love you, Max. I’ve loved you for so long, and it’s tearing me apart. I thought maybe if I’d get wasted, I’d stop the pain in my chest, at least for this evening. Because I couldn’t bear it anymore, it hurts.’’
The room fell silent as your confession hung in the air, the weight of your emotions suffocating you. Max’ eyes widened, his gaze searching yours as if trying to decipher the truth behind your words.
‘’Y/n,’’ he whispered, his voice barely audible. ‘’I… I had no idea.’’
This could go two ways, and that mixture of hope and fear filled you up, danced within you as you waited for Max to speak again, you had to know if he felt the same way. But before he could respond, a voice broke through the tension that had been built up, slicing through the moment of vulnerability you were in right now.
‘’What’s going on here?’’ Daniel’s voice boomed from the doorway, his eyes filled with concern and confusion as he took in the scene before him.
You quickly managed to stand up, your hand rising to wipe the tears that were on your skin, the rawness of your emotions leaving you in a horrible situation right now. Max stood up as well, his gaze shifting between you and Daniel. He was lost for words, and it was evident on his face.
‘’Daniel, I…’’ you began, struggling to find the right words, how were you going to explain to him that you just confessed your feelings to one of his best mates? You didn’t have to, because your brother held his hand up, cutting you off.
‘’Not now,’’ he said firmly, his voice filled with a mix of protectiveness and disappointment. ‘’Y/n, let’s get you to bed. We’ll talk about this tomorrow.’’
And so, days went on, you explained Daniel you just drank a little too much, and that Max was there to bring you home, and waited till he would arrive home so Max could go to his own apartment. You hated lying to your brother, because you two were so close, and you felt as if the tension with Max now also elongated to you and your brother.
It was race weekend, yet again, and you and Max had avoided each other the entire week already. You never received an answer from him, after you poured your heart out, explaining to him you had been in love with him for a while now.
Every time you saw Verstappen in the paddock, you felt a pang of regret, wishing you had never revealed your true feelings. Those once unspoken words were better than the distance the two of you had now, the pain of those unspoken feelings was better than the pain you felt every time you saw the Dutch man.
It became harder to pretend everything was normal when the truth hung in the air, casting a shadow over your interactions. The once vibrant friendship between you and Max seemed to fade, replaced by awkward glances and strained conversations. The pitlane, once a place of excitement and joy, now felt suffocating, reminding you of what you could never have. Max.
As the season progressed, you found your strength in supporting your brother at Alpha Tauri and throwing yourself into your studies. You buried your emotions deep within, trying to move on from the pain of rejection. But no matter how hard you tried, thoughts of Max lingered the corners of your mind, constantly reminding you of those words that were no longer unspoken.
Months passed, and the distance between you and Max only grew wider. The dynamics within the team had shifted, mostly because Daniel was no longer in the same garages as Max was. This made you feel like an outsider, looking in. The once close group Daniel would bring you along in, was now separated, fragmented, and you longed for days when everything was simpler, when your love for Formula 1 brought you together rather than tearing you apart.
One evening, as you sat alone in Daniel’s apartment, as he was in Italy for some meetings for Alpha Tauri, you received a text message from a not unknown number. Curiosity and a glimmer of hope filled your heart as you read the words on the screen.
‘It’s Max. Can we meet and talk? I need to apologize.’
Your heart raced with a mix of anticipation and anxiety. You agreed to meet him the next day at Daniel’s apartment, knowing your brother wouldn’t be home this week anyways. He gave you full responsibility for the apartment.
When you opened the door and saw Max standing there, you couldn’t help but notice the weariness in his eyes. He looked nervous, his usually confidence replaced by vulnerability. As he walked inside the apartment, he sat down after you gestured for him to take a seat on the sofa.
‘’I’m sorry, y/n,’’ he began, his voiced laced with regret. ‘’I didn’t handle things well after you confessed your feelings. I was caught off guard, and I didn’t know how to respond. I let our friendship suffer because of it, and I’m sorry.’’
You sat up straight, taking a deep breath to maintain your somewhat calm heart. You had missed the connection you once shared with him, and hearing him acknowledge his mistakes brought a sense of relief. Even though your feelings for him were still very much apparent, you’d rather deal with that pain, than the pain of never seeing him again.
‘’I understand,’’ you whispered, your voice filled with a mixture of pain and forgiveness. ‘’It’s not easy for either of us. I never wanted to jeopardize our friendship, but the feelings became too much to bear.’’
Max reached across the couch and gently took your hand in his, a glimmer of hope shining in his eyes. ‘’I’ve been doing some soul-searching, y/n. I realised that I’ve been pushing my own feelings aside because I was afraid of losing what we had. I guess you just had more balls to admit it, which made me think.’’
Your heart skipped a beat, hoping flickering within you. ‘’What are you saying, Max?’’
He took a deep breath, his grip on your hand tightening. ‘’I’m saying that I’ve come to realise how much you mean to me. I’ve been blind to the love that’s been right in front of me all this time. I don’t want to let fear hold me back anymore. I want to give us a chance.’’
The emotions you were feeling at this moment were all over the place – joy, relief, and a renewed sense of hope. The pain and regret that had haunted you for so long began to dissipate, replaced by the possibility of something beautiful.
‘’I want that too, Max. I’ve been forcing myself to get a grip and end my feelings, but I couldn’t. I’ve never stopped loving you.’’
In that moment, the weight of unspoken words lifted, and the hand Max was holding a few seconds ago found itself at his cheek. His hands slowly moved from your arms to your cheeks, pulling your face closer to his.
‘’May I?’’ He whispered, his voice so delicate, gentle, barely above a whisper. You always imagined your kiss with Max to be out of this world, but the tender feeling of his lips, the smell of his minty breath and his hands caressing your cheeks as if you were a porcelain doll were more than you could ever imagine.
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vampiretendencies · 1 year
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request; hi! i love your writing! if you could maybe do “tell me about your day.” with jj! maybe he’s your first boyfriend & you’re taken back by such a simple question/gesture since nobody has ever cared about you in that way before.
warnings; fluff
pairing; jj x fem!reader
authors note; writing blurbs rn bc of writers block (sorry to keep saying that btw i just repeat myself in case there’s a new reader, though i am currently starting to get over it) but still send in requests for one shots, imagines, etc. you may choose a blurb from the list below or send in your own idea.
other ways to say i love you prompt list
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2 months.
So fresh, and so perpetually new.
Honeymoon phase striking JJ as something that would actually last this time. Not that he had many relationships to base it off of, but the past few he had typically went sour within the first few weeks.
None of them could get along with his way of life, or they just simply didnt appreciate the wholeness of everything that was JJ.
But he sensed it with you; he felt it in his bones, under his skin, on the tip of his tongue, every ounce of his being felt you, even if you weren't in the room.
This was his most serious, longest, emotionally involved, admiration filled relationship he'd been in.
This was your first relationship, but after being underwhelmed in his past endeavors he found this to be his first too.
And he's thinking about you first thing when he wakes up in the morning, last thing when he goes to sleep- unable to function properly if you weren't near.
JJ was your first everything; first kiss, first time holding hands, first time cuddling, first time being sexually involved with a boy.
But, Christ were your standards low about yourself.
Initially thinking a human with such with breathtakingly confined gestures didn't exist like JJ.
He proved you wrong, convincing you that everyone else in this world were heathens.
He taught you how to create such passion for another, how to know someone's heart and you did the same.
"How was your day, baby?"
It rolled of JJ's tongue, finitely. The two of you were entangled in the hammock at the Chateau, and you were cradled into JJ's arms. Attached to his side, whilst he studied your features; peering down at your scrunched up nose as if you were heaven sent. You thumbed over the material of his beer-stained Heyward's t-shirt, coming to a halt at that question. Almost like the hammock stopped swinging, the unearthly beaming sun stopped shining on the two of you, and as if you'd sunken into the mucky ground.
You were in awe, glaring up at JJ like he'd grown two heads.
Was he being serious? You thought.
"Something on my face? It's okay you can tell me-"
"No m'just ... you meant to ask me that?"
Stunned, was an understatement, as you are now propping your chin onto JJ's muscular chest, needing a better view. Almost uneased and taken aback as that wasn't an everyday question anyone asked you— lead alone a boy.
"Course' I did ..." and then he noticed your furrowed eyebrows. "C'mon, what's goin' on in that pretty little head?”
"Nothing J, you're the first guy to ask me that."
""Let's keep it that way, baby. I'll be the only one."
He's repeatedly pecking the skin of your forehead leaving you to say, “Since I've met you all of my days have been perfect."
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thissongisawesome · 2 months
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now, do i personally believe that maya and franziska would actively try to get phoenix and edgeworth together? not really. BUT. i don't see the harm in people writing scenarios in which they would? ik this sounds silly since maya and franziska wingmaning is one of the more popular ace attorney fic tropes, but i feel like recently i've seen a lot of hate towards and and i don't understand why!
think of it this way: maya is phoenix's best friend and like pseudo little sister, they're extremely close, and i'm pretty sure she teases him about his love life AT LEAST once in canon (it could be more, or i could've completely made this up, but i've played the trilogy enough where if i tried i could probably find an example but it's late and i'm tired). anyway with that said, why WOULDN'T she care about them getting together? she's shown in the first game to be pretty invested in "the deal with [nick] and edgeworth" her words, not mine. i'm not one to speak on later games because i honestly haven't touched them in over two years and even then they were a complete blur and i forgot everything except that edgeworth looked really ugly from the front. but. if my memory serves me i don't think their dynamic changed much? i can't see her caring AS much at 28 as she would at 17, because obviously she's grown and matured, but i don't think she'd be completely uninterested like some people say. maybe she wouldn't be wearing comical disguises to spy on them, but i could see her encouraging nick, or idk just telling trucy stuff about their old cases to stir something up.
i think the franziska side of things is where i'm a little more understanding, but also not really. on one hand, i get that she's very well put together and mature seeming. on the other hand, that's only how she SEEMS. i won't get into a whole franziska analysis because this post is already longer than i wanted and no one wants to hear me ramble about her, but she's not really as mature as she seems. anyway, would she care THAT much? the answer may surprise you!
now think of it THIS way: edgeworth is franziska's little brother. despite how she acts sometimes she obviously loves him dearly, and would (probably) just want him to be happy, with whatever foolishness it may endure. phoenix wright is franziska's sworn enemy. she can't stand him and feels as though he has personally wronged her before they even met. absolutely hates his guts (except for when they investigate together then they can be friends). franziska is incredibly smart, but she's clearly not the best emotionally. even with that, though, she seems to understand how important edgeworth is to phoenix ("earthquake blah blah blah" "are you thinking of miles edgeworth blah blah blah"). she kind of just accepts this, even though it implies that phoenix (a man he only recently reconnected with) would be on a similar level of emotional connection as his sister. maybe she doesn't think much about it though. she's just like sure whatever you're his most dear and indispensable friend i don't care anymore. do people really think that, if somehow she came to the conclusion that edgeworth had feelings for phoenix she wouldn't care in any way??? i'm not saying it'd necessarily be positive and all "you go girlfriend!", but to say she wouldn't CARE is so wild. she'd probably be furious, and so maybe she wouldn't wingman. but she does CARE about her brother, and honestly if it were presented to her on the right way she probably would wingman. one "hey franziska. i bet you can't make your brother get with phoenix wright. if they get together without your guidance then that basically means edgeworth beat you btw" and she's suddenly invested. (dramatized, but you get the point)
tldr; maya and franziska are not so nonchalant and cool that they wouldn't care about one of the most significant people in their lives having feelings for their courtroom rival of over a decade. that is all.
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russellsppttemplates · 2 months
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Hii I love your account and all the stuff you do for the drivers as dads (you’re my fave when it comes to that)
Could you potentially do (with anyone) their daughter getting her first period and her mom isn’t there so they have to deal with it together and he calls the other drivers with daughters who have gone through this to ask for advice
Cw: mentions reader's endometriosis and struggles with her menstrual cycle
Note: thank you so much for your lovely words, I'm always happy to write dad!driver 🥹🫶
"Daddy, when is mummy getting here?", Margot asked Lance as she picked up a book from the shelf, "her flight got delayed a couple of hours, so probably after dinner", Lance informed. You had been on a business trip and because of the bad weather, your flight had to wait a few hours for it to be safe to go up.
"Okay, if you need anything, I'll be in my room", she waved the book at him as she went up the stairs.
Lance was enjoying the snowboarding competition he was watching on the TV when Addalynn stepped into the living room, "Dad, I have a problem", she mumbled.
Lance thought the worst, but kept calm, "what's up?", he wondered.
"I think I've come on my period", she said after dwelling on what to say for the past thirty minutes she sat in the bathroom.
"Oh, okay", Lance said as he got up, turning off the TV and focusing on his oldest daughter, "how are you feeling?", he asked.
"A little crampy, and not clean?", she quesioned out loud, "it's all a little weird", she admitted.
"Why don't you go and have a quick shower? It helps with the cramps and you'll feel better, darling", Lance suggested as they both went up the stairs, "I'm going to get mum's things from our bathroom for when you're ready", he smiled, kissing Addy's forehead before they separated into each of their bedrooms.
Lance immediately got his phone and called Mick since he also had a daughter and, despite not wanting to intrude on her privacy, he wanted to make sure he was doing this the right way, "I'm not a moron, Mick, I know how it all works! I'm just trying not to do anything that will make her ashamed of it because she doesn't have to be!", Lance half hisse into his phone as he gathered pads and tampons from your bathroom cabinet. Lance told Mick his plan and the both of them seemed to agree it was good, so he went along with it.
"I'm done with my shower", Addalynn said as she opened the ensuite door a little, "Good, darling, here are the pads mum uses, maybe you could put the bigger ones to feel safer? If it bleeds out is fine, but this way you can prevent it better", he said as he passed her clean underwear, pyjamas and the little bag with the products.
He sat on her bed as he waited for her to come out of the bathroom, thinking how fast time was going. His little girl was all grown up.
"Do you still feel crampy?", Lance asked once she sat next to him, "it's fine, it's not that noticeable anymore", she said.
"I know people always say it's supposed to hurt, and they make you believe that you have to live and endure that pain, but periods aren't supposed to be painful, not normal ones anyway", he stated, "if you ever feel like it's too much, we can visit the doctor - mum's doctor, Dr. Marlin, she's really good and very nice - and we can go from there. It's not something you have to be ashamed of and it's something you should feel okay with".
"Okay with?", Addalynn chuckled.
"I don't have them, so I could never tell you how you have to feel or that they're the best thing ever - they're not for your mum", he noted as Addalynn nodded, "but, just tell us if you feel anything is off".
"Is there a chance I might have what mum has?", she wondered. Even though she was young, she knew how she was conceived and could understand that whenever you had your period, it would often get painful.
"There might be, but we'll take this slowly, you don't have to worry about it right now. You'll just pay attention and notice if there's something off", he smiled, pulling her to hug him, "How about some cuddles from you old man?".
"You're not old, dad", she smiled, getting up with him and walking closer to Margot' door, "I know you're reading, but do you want to join me and Addalynn in a family cuddle?", Lance asked as they heard a stumble before the door opened, Margot appearing, ready to go to the living room.
"If mum knows about this, she'll have me on a cuddle ban for a while", Lance said as he pulled both daughters into his embrace, "we'll bribe her with more cuddles", Addalynn said, "sounds good to me", Margot concluded, picking up her reading where she left it as Lance picked out something to watch on the TV, Addalynn falling asleep almost immediately.
(Thank you for submitting an ask ✨️)
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antimony-medusa · 8 months
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hi saw your daddy kink post discussing the phenomenon of giving grown characters surrogate parental relationships, and I understand where you’re coming from, but i really feel like it’s just a matter of the circles you run in, and the assumptions that you might make because of that. you mention how platonic reads of these dynamics are more uncommon than kinky reads, which i just don’t think is the case, and I think that arguing that people don’t even realize that they’re writing a kink is a little bit bizarre, and sort of assumes that you know more abt them than they do by projecting your own experiences onto them.
it isn’t inherently sexual to crave protection or a parental relationship that you may have missed out on, and it is certainly not universal. in my own family, my “grandpa” isnt my biological grandfather (nor do I really consider him to be my grandfather), but he’s my mother’s surrogate father and has been since she was in her twenties. an adult. he sees her as a daughter. she sees him as a father. there’s absolutely nothing kinky about it. and anybody who automatically assumes that must have their mind deep, deep in the gutter and/or the stranger side of the Internet. really, i find it a bit of a strange argument to randomly post in the first place—as if it’s a problem that so many people enjoy non romantic and non sexual relationships, and that these people must, in fact, have a daddy kink that they are unaware of.
that said, i do absolutely agree that fans bringing any part of that into phil’s chat is weird and they should Not do that, and that infantilizing characters is also very weird, and personally i dont even see him as being father figure to anybody on that island except his eggs, wilbur, and MAYBE an argument could be made for tubbo (which other cc’s on the island have joked about), but to each their own and all that.
sorry this is so long. TLDR, i get where ur coming from in terms of “warning , some people might read your stuff differently than you want here” but really not everything is a kink and paternal dynamics can easily happen in regards to adult characters, particularly young adults, without there being any inappropriate connotations. i know nothing i said will change your mind, obviously it’s set, but ykno diff perspectives and all that. hope ur doing well
Thank you for the ask! I see you were on mobile, I believe. :D I am also going to push the character limit with this response, I fear.
I agree that it isn't inhernetly sexual to go after a parental relationship that you missed out on, and there are many such cases. I'll even go so far as to say that it's not inherently kinky to go after a parental relationship that you missed out on, because there is such a thing as non-sexual kink, and heaven knows that MCYT writing is full of non-sexual kink. Lots and lots of stuff that is platonic that is kinking on fear, or being drugged, or kidnapping, or hypnosis, or familial relationships, etc— there's lots of people who aren't doing that. There are tons of people out in the real world (and in fiction), who are simply just expanding their family as an adult, and that's awesome. When I was in college there was this older couple who kind of adopted me and invited me over for thursday dinner, and they were awesome. There was nothing untoward going on there.
But look. I am an emduo fan who likes to see my guys be murdery, and because of that, I've ended up reading a bunch of Dark SBI. I've ocassionally gone "this cannot be what everyone is doing" and I've read stuff tagged as "family fluff" that I find recommended. I am aware of where the genre is going, particularly with the rise of "dadbur" and "dadnoblade" interpretations.
And look, you have just got to trust me on this one. People are writing stuff that in any other fandom I would be recommending they put kink tags on the work so that people who liked that trope could find it and people who didn't like it would avoid it, but that comment in DSMP would just lead to people getting doxxed, so I just grit my teeth and go "i guess that's baked into Dark SBI or Tooth Rotting Fluff now, I sure hope that doesn't hit anybody's triggers".
Like I PROMISE you. The first draft of this response included excerpts of fics that I've read and I was like "can YOU pick the ship fic from the /p fics here"? But I have a horror of ever leading to someone getting cancelled on twitter, so nothing that could possibly be identifiable of these writers. But like—
Some of the ways that Tommy gets treated in the narrative are almost indistinguishable from a bodice-ripper romance. Some of the tropes being used— within DSMP we've all clasped hands and agreed to interpret it being platonic, but in any other fandom, you are going to start getting comments that you might not want to get. The tag is FULL of stuff that is DD/LB in everything but name. Maybe my mind is in the gutter here, but if you move out of this fandom, you are going to move into circles where a lot of people's minds are in the gutter, and you are going to get a very different response from your comments!
And I was talking about daddy kink here specifically, because I see that one come up a lot and it's gotten egregious lately, but this also applies to dehumanization, and fearplay, and predator/prey, and "instincts" (in every other fandom that's gonna get people in a mashup of A/B/O, Hypnosis, and sometimes Agere responding to it), and kidnapping/drugging, AND the way a bunch of "piglin instincts" stuff is just a BDSM au now where the Brute (dom) needs to be callmed down by their Runt (sub). The SBI tag is super kinky right now. And I don't have a problem with that idealogically, write your truth, but a) please don't bring that up in front of the streamers, b) if you move to another fandom you have got to be prepared that not everyone is doing their kink platonically.
Like I'm assuming that people don't know what tropes they're playing into, they're just building them from first principles, because the other alternative is that they are deliberately and knowingly writing kink and posting it in the & relationship tag with insufficient trigger tags, and I prefer to believe that people don't know.
I'm glad we agree about people bringing that into Phi's chat, or Pol's, or Luzu, or any of the other streamers that people have decided is So Old. A lot of people aren't comfortable even being assigned dad, as we saw with Felps, so bringing it even further is just— uh oh, no.
I do not have a problem with people liking non-romantic and non-sexual relationships. I find it a bit odd that much of the fandom can't concieve of a non-romantic and non-sexual relationship without making it familial and specifically lately father-son— don't you have close friends?— but I am fully in support of gen writing. I primarily write gen! I'm an avid commentor on gen fics!
But some of the tropes at play in the fandom are kinky, there is no way to avoid that. The fact that they are set in a familial relationship doesn't negate that. Some of the ways that the DSMP characters get treated would be distinctly non-familial if you ever brought it out of that context. And I am just warning people, if you bring it out of that context, be prepared for the response you get.
You cannot take DSMP tropes and apply them one-to-one in other fandoms, with other streamers swapped in, and expect them to be read the same way. Like i'm sorry, but that's just true. If you are posting the same sort of stuff that for Cellbit & Phil that you would post for Tommy & Phil, people will assume that you have a daddy kink, because usually when a relationship between a adults that are actually similar in age is refered to with paternal language it's a kink thing. That is how the broader internet works. (And anon, if I had a daddy kink, would I be complaining about the fact that I can open any SBI fic and have about a 40% chance of hitting it and I'm seeing signs of this appearing in QSMP? I assure you I'm not "projecting [my] own experiences onto them" here.)
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gynandromorph · 10 days
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another little nofna style emulation comic i drew a bit ago that was primarily about why something can "look like words" when it isn't... it is possibly Legend's first time considering the involuntary nature of reading words. she can rationally know that she isn't looking at writing, but her mind continues to see words that she must try to decipher.
the comic ended up getting side-tracked, but i kind of just let these comics go where they go. it is the nofna spirit.
PS and Legend have probably only spoken several times at this point, as classmates. in my head, this is their first season of classes, and they have only just recently proceeded from practicing handwriting and making letters to writing out spoken word.
i imagine that letters and writing are not intuitive at all to people who haven't grown up with it. Legend knew how to read well before entering school. PS has not really internalized that letters represent sounds. she has seen her teacher or classmates speak words as they're writing lines, and later, other people can tell the words that were spoken while writing the lines. her penmanship is naturally excellent, and prior to this module, she was praised by her teacher lavishly.
i imagine that because MOST RODENTS become markscrafts, and rodents tend to be rather... prolific... in number. that classes for this profession would be fucking huge.
the teacher cannot individually dedicate attention to every struggling student, so the first practice is to pair two struggling students together who seem like they compensate each others' shortcomings and see if they can rehabilitate their grades together.
if students continue to fail despite peer review, that is probably the time where a teacher would talk to them privately or recommend a tutor, etc.
the classes also function by a "revise and resubmit" principle over an "extra credit" principle as it is the most direct way for students to figure out what they did wrong and the least amount of extra work for the professor.
their professor is a mouse; a tried to write the grade print small (called "mouseprint" in the canon).
PS's language here is very rough and strange; i imagine she has, at the VERY most, been exposed to common for only a year. she is maybe ~15-16 in age, psychologically. ever since i made her as a character, i assumed one of her core traits was a low drive to do work. she became a markscraft SPECIFICALLY because she did not want to put in the work to earn prestige or more credit. she picked the easiest possible career for her.
as a younger mind, and only recently introduced to the idea that she has to perform labor or GTFO society, her dislike of work is very obvious and she is not reserved about sharing it. she came from a life where she could volunteer to do small tricks for high value treats if she felt like it, and this life is comparatively brutal and demanding in her mind.
Legend's corsage is red star (Rhodohypoxis baurii) and PS's Leaf is a leaf from a large pineapple lily.
Legend is, conversely, probably 18-20 psychologically. idk, the ages are very weird with these animals. i've imagined her parents as highly Civilized people like XX's mother, but a little less strict. while many citizens of society hate wild people (presumably because many of them are serial killers who might serial kill them), not all of them do (example: nutsedge, who sympathizes with a Wild Hawk killing her classmates), and i imagined Legend's parents impressing into her rather strongly that she did not earn being born into a well-off family and physically gifted species.
of course, this didn't stop her from forming a superiority complex towards rodents anyway-- but, i think she's tolerating a significant amount of Weirdness from PS here that she extremely would not tolerate from someone she didn't assume was wild-integrating-into-society, from the constant touching, to the rude openness, the disdain for work ethic, the odd language usage, and the outfit that's essentially showing up to the study session in pasties and booty shorts.
it seems that in these stories, the animals attain a "fluent" level of speech in common relatively quickly (emancipation, secretary), somewhat influenced by natural talent; i think PS has a brute force spaghetti-against-the-wall approach that lets her just mimic as many phrases that she thinks are novel as possible. usually this is an option only available to toddlers who lack the self-awareness to feel embarrassment about constant awkward linguistic mistakes, but PS also has no cultural priming to be embarrassed of the behavior. you can see her parroting various things she's heard, such as "sooo much" as an emphasis phrase, and even "essentially" after Legend says it in passing. other more abstract phrases such as "with credit" or "okay" i imagine she knows simply by being exposed to them over and over again.
when the two get into deeper levels of literacy and markscraft classes, i imagine that Legend's knowledge of grammar and Big Words in general, combined with an ability to verbally express usually unwritten rules in the language, helped propel PS to a level of fluency that has her speaking like she was raised with it 99% of the time.
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