#in real life i would be squinty at this kind of move done to me like 'wow he's so used to it; does he do this every time"
Photo
alex who is good at heart & said “good luck” when he rejected you after “nah... I'm gonna ask someone else” on flower dance festival
and actually care about having friends,
that he has been acting friendly to u even at 0 hearts, in seek of new friend opportunity.
#him trying to be 25% considerate 25% friendly 50% flirty#the way he talks might make you go who asked u?? mind your own business - but i like to think he meant well#stardew valley#sdv#flower dance#sdv alex#stardew alex#stardew valley alex#sdv farmer#stardew farmer#stardew valley farmer#in real life i would be squinty at this kind of move done to me like 'wow he's so used to it; does he do this every time"#popular vibe; very suspicious#like how can u tell how much they are being serious when making a move on u#in conclusion god irl me would never be able to get together with someone like alex#i am just keep thinking about how funny total rejection on 1st year flower dance is#if someone offer to dance with u at the side to cheer u up that would be nice i thought#when he said it's hard when u don't have friends; he actually thinks about himself#he and sebastian seems to be the two that concerns about hardly having any friends from the thing they said#or others do to? do fill me in#fanart
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Ok...u got my attention...💘 for skuldugery and cassandra
OH BOY I GOT ONE
send me 💘 + A SHIP and i’ll tell you—
where they first met and how
Okay so when they first meet, it's way back before he met Skugwife, when he was on-again-off-again with China and Ghastly and making his way up the ranks in the Sanctuary army.
A dashing young officer with an impressive inheritance and a string of victories under his belt would've been prime 1600s marriage real estate. They meet at some Sanctuary party, dance together a bit, get along very well. Skug was already arrogant and vain, but he was also charming and funny, which was a bonus, and they were social equals - she's from a wealthy, landed family herself. She was interested in him and they were in each other's social circle from around his mid-20s to when he met Wifey and fell disgustingly in love, at which point she conceded defeat and let him go.
It's actually Gordon who brings them back into each other's lives in the 1980s. They've both changed a lot since they last saw one another and she's not really sure what to make of him. He's colder, more serious, and she knows he's lost...pretty much everyone. When she tells him to come by anytime, he's polite but detached and basically says that's not a good idea, so she doesn't expect to see much of him in the future. But he comes back some months later with a difficult case to ask if she's seen anything, and from that point on they work together sporadically, if she has any visions that might be useful to him.
how long their ‘flirting’ phase was before feelings got involved
They rekindle their flirtation after he comes back in Dark Days. He's not okay, not in the slightest, and she can see it. He's faking being okay, but he's overselling it. She knew him through the period where his mother was killed, and he tried to play that off the same way. He ends up driving out to her cottage at some ungodly hour of the early morning because he's falling apart and he doesn't really have anywhere else to go. she takes him in, sits with him until long after the sun comes up and lets him talk it out until he's dozing off where he's sitting.
By the War of the Sanctuaries, they're Together.
who fell for who first ( if applicable )
She was rather taken with him when they first met. She liked to think of herself as the future Mrs Captain Pleasant. He was attracted to her, but also otherwise entangled and considerably less invested.
When they get back together, it's more. Falling in love at the same time.
where their first date was and what it was like
They've spent a lot of time together, usually at her cottage, already. But he gets it into his head he wants to take her on an actual date, and she's a homebody, so he decides to make her dinner. It's kind of a disaster because he hasn't had to cook anything in hundreds of years - he follows a recipe, but he still manages to burn it and get food absolutely everywhere with the electric whisk. He's pretty frustrated and upset that he ruined it, but she finds it hilarious, and they end up cuddling on the couch with takeout and a movie.
who asks who out and how ( with a sign? spelled out on a cake? just a simple ‘will you go out with me’? )
She gives him a key. She prefaces it with a big speech about how it doesn't have to mean anything, he just spends so much time there that he might as well be able to let himself in, and she wants him to have somewhere he really feels safe and comfortable and her place can be that for him if he wants, and -
He kisses her mid-speech, so she never gets to finish it.
who proposes first
He does. She'd never bring up marriage to him, when she knows how his first one ended. She can't be completely sure he's done grieving his first love, and she doesn't want to hurt him, so it's better not to bring it up.
if they keep / kept their relationship secret or let everyone know right away
It's not a secret at all. Valkyrie still goes nearly a decade without noticing.
where the proposal happens and how ( kiss cam at a baseball game? on a hillside surrounded by ducks? at a disney park? )
They're in bed together first thing in the morning. He doesn't remember the last time he was this relaxed and happy. He watches her wake up and she cuddles closer into him with the squinty morning-sun-in-your-face look and he never thought he'd love this much again and it just. Comes out.
who’s more dominant
Neither, really. They're very much a team. She tempers his recklessness, and he gives her a nudge out of her comfort zone. She has the same ability Wifey had, though, to wrangle him without ever letting on that she's doing it.
where their first kiss was and what it was like
He was totally drained after unloading a year's worth of torture on her post-Dark Days, and she was trying to comfort him. It doesn't lead anywhere - she puts him to bed on her couch and stays with him so he feels safe enough to switch off and sleep.
if they have any matching couples stuff ( mugs? sweaters? pillowcases? )
She buys him a hideous Christmas sweater the first year they're officially together, but has yet to successfully bully him into wearing it.
how into pda they are
They're your average couple. If she drops in on him at the Sanctuary, she'll kiss him goodbye. He'll put his arm around her when they're walking, or let her hold his hand. But neither of them is an exhibitionist.
who holds the umbrella when it rains
He does. He could easily just redirect the rain, but she likes nature stuff and that includes getting soaked through on occasion, kissing him in the rain, and splashing through puddles.
where their usual ‘date spot’ is ( if applicable )
Her cottage, more often than not. He'll happily take her out whenever she wants to, but she's a homebody at heart and she's more fond of going for long walks in the countryside near her home or cooking together, watching old movies, that sort of thing.
who’s more protective
Him, by a million miles. She doesn't necessarily like the amount of violence in his life, but to her he's very much the capable soldier who can look after himself. But she is a pacifist and very into the hippie ideology, so especially after the Night of Knives, she relies on him to protect her. He knows damn well that the only reason he didn't lose her the same night Finbar died is because he just happened to be sleeping over and the would-be assassin got more than he bargained for.
how long it is before they sleep together ( can be as in ‘had sex’ or as in ‘shared a bed’ )
Probably circa KOTW? It can't have been Death Bringer, or he'd have asked her to the Requiem Ball.
if they argue about anything
Not often. She's one of the most emotionally healthy people in this series, and she's the closest Skulduggery Pleasant has ever gotten to therapy. She's all about communication and talking it out.
who leaves more marks ( lipstick, hickeys, scratchmarks etc. )
Skug.
who steals whose clothes and how often
She steals his jackets and coats. She'll wear something just a little too light for the weather, so that he'll inevitably offer her his suit jacket. It's an old way of courting that she finds very endearing.
how they cuddle ( spooning? facing each other? )
what their favourite nonsexual activity is
They bring out the Old Person in each other. They like to go for long walks, and picnics, and dancing to old gramophone records. They read books and bicker about how much they did or didn't enjoy them. She likes to garden and paint, and he's not half bad at art either, so they'll paint each other and laugh about it.
how long they stay mad at each other
They don't. They argue very little in the first place, but Cassie is very communicative, so she usually manages to head off any potential arguments before they even start.
what their usual coffee / tea orders are
She has hot chocolate, and he has his black.
if they ever have any children together
No - but if he was ever going to have children with anyone else, it should probably be Cassie. She's sensible, level-headed and emotionally healthy, so he could be the same loving-but-irresponsible dad he was with Skugbab.
if they have any special pet names for each other
She's "Cassie" and he's usually "sweetheart" or "lovey".
what their shared living space is like ( messy? clean? what kind of decor? )
He "moves into"/spends most of his time at her little hippie hobbit hole, so nothing matches, tapestries everywhere, Interesting™ colour schemes, fuckin...crystals and tarot cards and witchy shit everywhere. They both have to make some compromises ("You don't bug me about making the bed and I won't play the banjo in the shower")
what their first christmas / hanukkah / etc as a couple was like
Very inappropriate to talk about at parties.
He's a Christmas grouch, but he did get two days off work, so they basically spent the entire time eating, fucking or fast asleep.
what their names are in each other’s phones
She's just "Cassie" but that makes her one of the few people in his phone not to be "Firstname Lastname". He's "SP".
if they have any ‘couple traditions’ ( buying a new mug for their collection every year? baking every friday evening? )
They can never really make plans for set days or times because of his incredibly erratic work schedule, but they make time every week to just spend time together. Unless the world is ending, which it usually does at least once a year.
who falls asleep first and who wakes up first
She falls asleep first at a sensible hour, and wakes up when he gets in. If she sleeps through him coming home, he'll stay up for an hour or two to work on a case, but if he wakes her, he'll go straight to bed and she'll go back to sleep with him holding her.
After the Night of Knives, she gets very anxious and stressed about being alone, especially when she hears the door open. So he'll call and wake her when he's leaving the Sanctuary, so that she knows to expect him home, and he's at the end of the phone any time she wants to get hold of him.
who’s the big spoon / little spoon
He's the big spoon like 70% of the time, but she's not opposed to letting him be the little spoon at all. Even the strongest general sometimes needs a good snuggle.
who hogs the bathroom
Cassie likes to take a book into the bath and spend hours in there. He'll come in and out as he pleases and sometimes do her hair for her or swipe bubbles on her nose.
who kills the spiders / takes them outside
Skug. This is, apparently, one of the greatest benefits to having him around all the time. He's glad she's comfortable enough with him to be honest that she's using him for his spider removal skills.
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My Thoughts on Chapter 193
SPOILAHZ.
Link: https://read-beastars.com/manga/beastars-chapter-193/
WHELP. I don’t know if I should be happy or terrified about that smile. That happy, squinty kitty smile... XD
This is giving me some real-life serial killer vibes right now. Like, holy schtick. Melon keeps proving me wrong again and again. I thought he was gonna die, we ALL thought he was going to die with Yafya, but nope. XD
Just... nope. I’m kind of curious about the fan-mail, as it’s giving me some Charles Manson and Ted Bundy vibes. Is it from Holger (pfft, imagining the sloth writing all those letters to Melon so Melon could pretend he has friends is depressing as fuck XD)? The people at the tattoo parlour he frequented? The guys working behind the Bloodbone drug? Members of the Ivory Tusk Trade? A new character (or characters)? The carnivores that hate Yafya?
That last look on his face makes me think he’s getting some trick up his sleeve and he’s not done just yet. That something is going to go down in the future. I swear, if Melon evolves into an Overarching Villain, I will freak out. XD That would be freaking AWESOME, but that’s most likely just wishful thinking due to the anticlimactic ending this arc has gotten.
The conclusion to the Revenge of the Love-Failure arc is very.... anticlimactic and rushed. The BAM is demolished, which I have mixed feelings about, as Louis stated a few chapters ago that “carnivores need meat”. When Louis said that it was necessary for carnivores to eat meat, I don’t think he meant destroying the BAM. I always thought that the Back-Alley Market was going to stay and the carnivores and herbivores were going to have to live with it, while fish meat and seafood were going to be included in the market as remedies or alternatives for carnivores that had cravings for herbivore flesh. But, I guess they're all just going to eat fish meat now? Yay? How did that not occur to them before?
This sudden resolution feels like a Deus Ex Machina, and the sudden pacing of Chapters 192 and 193 make me wonder if Paru's editors or publishers are forcing her to rush it to move on. It's disappointing, because I was really invested in Melon's story, despite the arc's flaws. I was on board for most of the way and was very excited to see what happened after the end of Chapter 191, until Chapter 192 happened.
The Revenge of the Love-Failure arc was all over the place, to say the least. It started off great, with Melon’s introduction and his clashes with Legoshi and his interactions with Haru, but after the game-quiz thing, it started getting crazy and a lot of things were left unresolved, like in my previous post.
Legoshi’s fight with Melon was kind of anticlimactic and all over the place, and this ending has left plot-threads revolving around Melon hanging and unresolved.
What was the point of introducing Melon’s father if they’re not going to meet at all? The guy might as well have just stayed dead if that was the case. And what happened to Melon’s ‘promise’ with Haru? It makes all their previous scenes together pointless. Unless Melon somehow breaks out of prison or his father decides to drop by and visit him, I can't see either happening.
With Haru being the only animal that gave him the urge to eat for the first time in his life, I thought his promise with her was going to conclude with him kidnapping her and recovering his sense of taste after his fight with Legoshi. Even if Haru had changed her mind, it wouldn't have hurt to have had a brief scene where she'd tell him she changed her mind, only for Melon to try to kill her anyway.
Kyuu’s betrayal also comes across as filler as well. Even if she did tell him Legoshi was using dentures, what was the point of that if Legoshi grew his teeth back anyway before Melon could use it to his advantage? The whole thing with Legoshi starving himself in preparation for the final fight didn’t really change anything, either. I remember people speculated that he was going to lose control and try to eat Melon and go feral, but nothing ever really came from it.
From the way Ch. 191 ended, it looked like Gosha was going to get shot and I feel like having somebody (be it Yafya or Gosha) get wounded or die in that moment would've been very powerful, realistic, and would've risen the stakes higher. I thought Ch. 192 would open up to Legoshi and Yafya rushing to Gosha's side and Gosha was going to say some heartfelt words to both of them and die, Melon was going to see his killing of Legoshi's grandfather as an opportunity to goad Legoshi into killing him by harming more of his friends, like Louis or Haru. I thought he was going to escape with Louis, Louis was going to discover a kidnapped Haru, where we'd get a flashback chapter as to how and when Melon caught her, Louis was going to buy Melon some time until Legoshi got to them, Legoshi was going to turn up and, with Louis, fight Melon one last time. For something so unexpected and big like the death of Gosha to happen, it would've made Legoshi and Melon's animosities toward each other more personal, and it would've shown us that nobody is safe and anybody could die at any time much like in real-life. But for everybody to just survive at the end, and for everything to be just magically resolved like this, it all feels like a cop-out.
And another thing... I wish Melon had had a bigger goal, or at least a warped vision of the society he wanted to achieve. I remember there was a theory on Reddit about Melon inspiring the carnivores of the Back-Alley Market to rise up in a civil-war against the city that was forcing them to hide away what they were, similar to what he did in the Turf-War scene (the one where he cut Dolph), and I was hoping something along the lines of that was going to happen. I suspected Melon was plotting something bigger and crazier than Yafya and the others were prepared for, and it was going to get crazier and crazier, forcing Legoshi and Louis to put a stop to it and their cooperation and efforts would earn them the titles of “Beastars”. That would've been an epic climax, but alas.
If this is the end of the Love-Failure arc, I kinda hope this isn’t the end of Melon. I know some people are getting sick of him, but I kinda hope he’ll make a better-written comeback since his introductory arc was rather weak. But that’s probably just wishful thinking from me, as it does feel like the manga is reaching its conclusion.
On a less depressing note, I think I’ll end this with.... a happy Melon.
The Fruit-Boi may be behind bars, but the Fruit-Boi is behind bars with no fucks to give.
#beastars#writing#gazeopard's thoughts#melon#louis#juno#legoshi#manga spoilers#SPOILAHZ#happy leopard-boi ish happy#beastars manga#review??#rant? idk#gazeopard rambles#chapter 193#whelp#at least Melon's not dead#I guess...?
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guess who watched given and immediately had to shove tony waist-deep into this fucking thing because [they forgot they already ”wrote” this au]
it’s me
unedited as always, light spoilers for given if you havent seen that and wanted to.
anyways, tony stark is the high profile son of a business mogul based in LA because the mcu loves giving tony centric plot points to howard stark industries is capitalizing on the silicone valley fever. after a major manic episode tony uproots his life and goes to school in new york, as far as he can physically move away from his stifling family and the pressure.
tony’s done with building robots for his father’s business, he’s done being manipulated by the adults in his life and he abandons everything from the stark life. he picks up a guitar, learns how to play it, and never looks back.
tony finds he likes the life of a garage band. he glides through classes and focuses on his fingering (not that kind) and absent-mindedly writing down notes for songs he doesn’t really think he’ll write. He really likes being that guy, bringing out a guitar and everyone groans but people request songs anyways. besides, he’s never really been a fan of wonderwall.
of course he plays piano, it was that or violin and his dad thought strings were for girls. he’s used to playing in front of a crowd, stiff collared and sweating under the calculating gazes of his parents’ party guests. just another new trick to show off.
there’s something so indescribably different about playing guitar under cheap lights in a garage, the casually gathered crowd gaining interest and beer and his fingers feel like splitting over the strings of his instrument. The noise, the whine as he coaxes his guitar to sing, amplified through speakers that thump with his bassist’s steady beat and he can feel the sweat slick down his back making his shirt sticky.
tony’s lucky to have met the bandmates he had. Pepper’s a riot on the drums and Rhodey is tony’s constant, reliable bassist and both of them have deigned to take him under their wing even if he’s less experienced and more annoying then they should have to deal with. Being able to play with them, it’s more than tony could’ve asked for.
he’s happy with his life, which is why he’s a little less than pleased when he runs into a short, scrawny blond holding a guitar with white knuckled fingers. tony runs into him, and the boy jolts violently, the guitar slipping the grip like he’d tossed it. it’s a nice guitar, so tony instinctively reaches out for it.
“why are you keeping the snapped strings on like this?” he asks, taking the chance to inspect the guitar.
“Give it back.” The boy says. well, demands. Tony does nothing of the sort. Instead he straightens it out and sights down the fret board.
“it’s a nice guitar, but leaving your strings like this is a bit--”
“I said: give it back!”
The boy’s grip is surprisingly strong for someone so small, tony thinks distantly.
“Okay! No need to bite my head off about it,” He lets go of the guitar, but doesn’t leave quite yet. “Look, these will work to replace those...” Tony digs in his bag for a second, taking out an unopened pack of his own replacement strings. Maybe not the exact match, but they’d do well enough. “Get them done as soon as you can, it’s a shame to see something that nice look like that.”
He gives the packet of strings away and leaves.
Tony doesn’t think much of this incident. But he guesses he made more of an impact than he thought because now he’s been ambushed by the same blond boy.
“Look, I can’t figure out how to change the string. Just show me!”
“Can’t you, I don’t know? Youtube it or something?” Tony asks.
“Don’t be an ass! I just--” Tony notices how startlingly blue the boy’s eyes are as he glares to the side. “I can’t undue the pins.”
It feels like pulling teeth, the way the words force their way past the kid’s lips. Like he’s spitting out something bad, admitting that he can’t do something.
“I don’t have the right tools and I--I don’t want to break it more.”
His fingers grip the guitar awkwardly, and Tony knows that kid hasn’t played even one chord before. Probably hasn’t played even a guitar themed rhythm game with how unbalanced he’s holding the body.
Tony rubs the back of his neck.
“God, I don’t know why I tried!”
“It’s fine--” Tony blinks as he cut into the kid’s frustrated venom.
“It’s fine,” he starts again, “I’ll help. Here.” He holds his hand out and is handed the guitar very reluctantly.
He remembers his first snapped string. The shock, the sharp sting as it flicked against his hand. But learning to play guitar was painful. From the blisters to the muscle aches, the endurance. He finds himself smiling.
He narrates what he does, his hands gliding over the sleek body of the guitar. “See, you need to keep track of the pins. it’s easier with tools, I can lend you these ones I have an extra set. My name is Tony.” He shifts the guitar so he’s holding it properly, plucking a string and adjusting the peg.
“What? What are you doing?”
“Listen,” He says, as he twists a peg. The blond gets that look on his face again, the squinty one with angry eyebrows. Tony laughs, and strums the guitar.
The chord comes out sharp and clear.
“There you go, it’s all fixed.”
Tony thinks it should be the last he sees of him. Tony’s pretty sharp, so he noticed the graphite smudges on his fingers and the large portfolio on his hip. An art student. There’s no reason to cross paths again when Tony’s classes are all music based and he should probably start paying rent for how often he’s fallen asleep in the computer labs.
But apparently that kid isn’t finished with Tony.
“Teach me to play this.”
Tony blinks.
“I don’t even know your name.”
“If I tell you, will you teach me to play?”
Tony shrugs.
“It’s Steve.”
Tony tries walking away. It’s not very effective.
He can’t really dodge Steve, and finds himself followed all the time now. Honestly, tony would be a little flattered if Steve didn’t look like he was swallowing a lemon every time Tony catches a glance at his face.
To be fair, Tony is kind of relishing the attention. He complains to Rhodey and Pepper and they both roll their eyes at him before they start jamming. It’s after one of these jams that he runs into Steve again.
He’s standing outside the door, his face with angry looking eyebrows but his eyes watery. His face is red, he doesn’t have a jacket and Tony is getting reacquainted with the cold himself now that he’s let himself out of the steaming jam room.
“Teach me how to play like that!”
Tony tries ignoring him, but Steve is determined to follow him, even through the cold, dry night. Even when his breath hitches and his voice turns reedy.
“Teach me! Teach-- Te--” Steve starts gasping every other breath and Tony spins around. Steve’s flushed cheeks from the cold have drained away and now he’s pale, pale, pale.
“Steve!” Tony stops, right there, his hands hovering over Steve like concerned birds, unsure where to touch. Steve looks, if possible, angrier than ever, still trying to speak even while gasping.
“Please, Steve shut up!” Tony puts his hands over Steve’s mouth, he doesn’t know what to do. “I’ll teach you, or whatever, just! Do you have an inhaler or something?”
Steve points to his bag, and after Tony is done rifling through it and hands Steve his uncovered rescue inhaler, he’s grinning the smarmiest grin someone having an asthma attack can possibly muster.
Tony finds himself feeling distinctly played. He doesn’t mind it as much as he should.
Steve is an incredibly stubborn student and Tony is perhaps not the most patient teacher. He grabs Steve’s hands more than once to force them into the right position and demands he try again, and again, and again. It almost gives him flash backs, but Steve almost dares him to be less than serious about the lessons. Like it would kill Steve if Tony treated him the least bit kindly.
Tony brings him to his and Rhodey’s and Pepper’s jam sessions. He grins and points and says “this is how a real rock star does it,” and plays with a loose fluidity he hasn’t felt in a while. He sees Steve’s foot tapping and grins widely, like he’s won something. He feels like he won something.
Steve learns the chords and how to read tabs and even how to restring his own guitar, though Tony finds himself doing it more often then not. There’s something really endearing about the ferocious way Steve devotes himself to learning guitar.
They sit next to each other, out of class but on campus. Tony is demonstrating a fingerstyle more suited to an acoustic guitar even though Steve is learning on an electric. It sounds like shit, but they’re both grinning anyways.
“Then what kind of music do you like?” Tony asks, shaking out his hand.
“Just, you know. Stuff.”
“Come on, you have a favorite song, everyone does!” Tony says, blustering. “You already know what I like.”
“I wonder...” Steve says, trailing off. He stares into the middle distance for long enough that Tony is about to laugh to break the sudden tension and switch topics but Steve interrupts him.
“It’s like...” and he humms something, his hand doing half-aborted conductions as he feels his way through a tune. He trails off and looks into Tony’s startled face.
“Did you, did you write that?”
“Not, I mean, not really. That’s just what came to mind.”
“Freestyle, just now?!”
Tony can’t tear out his notebook fast enough, transposing the notes steve had hummed onto the page. Steve finally looks something other than stubbornly angry or determined as Tony pries him for another verse, to repeat this melody, to hum that again.
For once, Steve finds himself following along with Tony, watching as his hand rushes to keep up with their conversation, as the notes spill across the page and Tony grabs his guitar half way through to pick his way through half written melodies.
Tony’s dark hair is short, relatively speaking. It curls at his neck. But his dark, dark eyes are the same and his eyelashes sweep against his cheek as he leans over to check his fingering on the fret. He’s sitting cross legged and when he looks up to grin at Steve, Steve is already walking away.
“He’s a genius!” Tony starts as he barrels into the jam room.
“Ohoh?” Rhodey laughs and Pepper dutifully plays the rim shot as Tony slides his carry case off his shoulder.
“I’m not kidding, look, listen!” he demands
tony does his damndest to get steve to write songs for the band. he reaches out and compliments him and buys him lunch, and new pencils, and compliments him some more and well, he’s out of practice with the whole shmoozing thing now. it’s fun though, and tony thinks steve at least enjoys the attention.
at least steve enjoys the attention enough to keep brainstorming with tony as they go through their guitar lessons. steve has a certain way of composing, tony notices. he pulls notes from the air that tony wouldn’t choose, but it compliments the way he and rhodey and pepper play. still, tony can’t help but think the notes are being written for someone else.
tony knows this life can’t go on the way it has been. He’s been expecting a shoe to drop for years now. but he’d been preparing for his father to fly in and tie him back down to the californian mansion, or maybe someone from his past coming in to wreck his life.
he’d been a mess before the move. even after it. he’s always expected it to catch up, or for his touch to ruin the good things in his life now. between being half in love with the three people who care about him, and spending too long hoping three thousand miles was enough distance to outrun his past, tony knew his number would be coming up soon enough.
at least he’d been happy for a while. truly, genuinely happy.
he was the son of a household name, popular in the tabloids for getting in trouble, and the internet was forever he’d been told. so he was prepared for the past to come up.
He had just been expecting it to be his past to come knocking.
bucky barnes is tall, broad, and missing one arm. he’d be impossible to miss and yet somehow tony didn’t notice six feet of pure american beef stalking across the campus. it must be the arm, or lack of arm. maybe how he kind of hunches down to hide it?
He approaches with only the sound of boots to announce his presence and Tony looks up startled, but it’s only Steve this man has eyes for.
“That my guitar, Stevie?”
Steve has kind of locked up, his fingers white against their grip on the guitar. His face is turned away, but Tony can see the tenseness of his thin shoulders. Tony isn’t good for much, but he’s not gonna sit back while Steve faces whatever this is on his own.
“Well, I don’t see you playing it anytime soon.” Tony says.
It’s like shattering a mirror, the moment Tony sees the threads holding Steve snap. He looks at Tony with something like disgust as he jolts to standing. “I’m sorry,” he says, before bolting.
He leaves the guitar behind. Tony knows it wasn’t him that Steve was apologizing to.
“Was it something I said?” Tony asks the air.
Tony doesn’t know his name yet, but Bucky Barnes takes the seat across from him.
“Might’ve been me.” he says, like a confession.
turns out bucky barnes and steve might’ve been a thing. tony finds out through less than reputable means, but bucky says himself steve feels guilty about the accident that led to bucky’s hospitalization and amputation.
he used to play guitar
the one tony’s been thinking of as steve’s.
bucky’s hand is callused the way a working man’s is. If tony tried he could probably find the places strings wore at until they hardened, but tony doesn’t try. he can imagine well enough. like he can imagine the summers spent listening to guitar plucked on windowsills or whatever sickeningly cute domestic childhood things steve and bucky got up to
and, because tony’s never been one to let himself go without a good rubbing in, he’s found a couple ancient recording on the internet of bucky’s old high school recitals. he can hear the strings of bucky’s guitar through the tinny audio and though and suddenly he knows just who’s fingers the notes for steve’s song was meant for.
tony won’t let steve go without a fight. whether the songs were meant for him to play or not, tony wants to play them. he wants the chance. so he drags bucky into the band whether anyone wants that or not.
bucky can’t play the guitar--right now, tony suspects with enough research and bugging of that cute radiophyscist that could change--but he still wants to reconnect with steve and it’s easy enough to use that to tony’s advantage. bucky’s kind of a puppy once you get past the six feet some inches and what seems like solid muscle.
tony takes him aside one day, with his guitar and set him down. “listen,” he says, and plays the skeleton of the song steve had been helping write.
bucky blinks, recognition in his eyes and tony nods as he plays. bucky gets it, tony thinks. steve is supposed to be writing these songs. he’s good at it, in a way that tony thinks he used to be good at things. like he was creating something worthwhile.
“this is steve’s?” bucky asks, softly. tony doesn’t have to answer him. “I remember. it’s familiar like... hmm, how did it go...” bucky’s hand twitches like his fingers want to find a fret board. “like... i never liked the winter / the cold never leaves soon enough / and i’m tired of waiting / for the sun to call your bluff... something like that...”
Tony’s fingers have stopped strumming, and he stares at Bucky with widened eyes.
“what?” Bucky asks and Tony whips his arms out, gripping Bucky’s shoulders as if to stop him from bolting.
“you can sing. no one told me you could sing.”
“well, it’s nothing much.”
“No, shut up. it’s amazing. you have to sing with us.”
It’s almost harder than convincing steve to write with him was. but eventually tony has all his pieces lined up. steve writing songs, bucky singing. him, pepper and rhodey doing all the hard work.
tony can sing, but he’s never been drawn to it the way he had been with playing guitar. RIP to his father’s weird brand of masculinity, but tony just liked strings. Still, he knew enough to help bucky strengthen his voice. to sharpen his consonants and find where his head voice and chest voices lie.
he plays scales on the guitar and leads bucky through vocal exercises. It’s like working on fingerwork with steve, only bucky’s got less of a temper. He’s surprisingly earnest, taking criticism easily and turning around with the proper work. tony almost feels out of depth with the ease he has coaching bucky.
where steve would shove and huff and yell when he didn’t get something right, bucky would nod and clear his throat and ask questions before trying again. steve would roll his eyes and grab tony’s card so he could pay for his half of the lunch. bucky would smile that half smile and thank tony when he picked up the tab.
it was cute.
or, well.
tony makes steve play the scales for bucky and spends a couple weeks jamming with just the band. he’s rusty, he says, too much teaching means not enough practicing. bucky seems understanding if melancholy and steve’s face is stubborn as always.
it’s while all of them are in the jam room that pepper announces they have a gig in two months.
“it’s a good opportunity to debut some of the new songs we’re working on.” she says.
“we should start doing group practices at least twice a week,” rhodey says, narrowing his eyes at tony.
“ah, we don’t actually have lyrics for most of our songs.” tony says, haphazardly.
“we have some, you can teach bucky those. or you can sing them like always,” pepper says, brightly.
Bucky seems to perk up, catching tony’s eye. “you have songs?”
“nothing that special,” tony says.
“I’d like to learn them with you,” bucky replies. tony blinks.
“two months is enough time to write lyrics.” steve asserts. “bucky and i have been working on them anyways.”
“okay.” tony finds himself agreeing with the rest of them.
They spend some times going through their set list. Pepper and rhodey bring up some songs they like that bucky and steve will need to learn. they rearrange the order to accommodate the new song steve and bucky have been working on.
tony bites his lips. it’s perfect. steve writing songs for his band. bucky singing in his band. pepper and rhodey, perfect and constant. tony’s hands on the neck of his guitar. it’s as perfect as it can get.
tony’s glad that the impending deadline is at least forcing steve and bucky to come head to head. he doesn’t know what happened exactly, to drive a wedge between the two in the first place. he doesn’t want to ask. he doesn’t want to know. but being forced to volley lyric timing and melodies back and forth is eating away at the distance between them.
it’s also driving home the fact that tony’s the last thing on either of their minds. he can hear it in the chords he picks out, that steve has written for someone else’s hands. and even though he isn’t going to school for literature he can read symbolism when the lyrics are as plain as what bucky’s been mumbling under his breath for hours now.
“i thought you were done marching to someone else’s tune.” pepper says to him as steve drags bucky through another practice.
tony shrugs his shoulders. “i think... i think i’m happy we’re all here. together. i think this is happier than i’ve ever been.” he looks down at his hands. he’s got the calluses from guitar blisters like every other wanna be rock star, but his hands are rough for other reasons. his knuckles littered with scars from welding, his thumb and forefinger smooth in the places he’d strip wires. there’s a burn on his palm from touching something that hadn’t quite cooled.
he might’ve loved building once. that could have been his life. but he’s sure he would have missed out on this: real friends, who cared about him. who wanted to play with him. he’s not sure he would have had that, if he’d stayed.
it’s happier than he thinks he deserves, really.
the date of the gig draws closer and while steve has been writing and rewriting the song chords--and tony and rhodey and pepper all drag themselves through rememorizing the new versions--bucky hasn’t submitted any lyrics.
it’s troubling but tony can’t help but feel relieved each time practice comes and goes without bucky’s voice rising in some new chorus or verse.
each time, tony claps his hand against bucky’s shoulder and grins at steve and says, “you can do it!”
“why don’t you help?” rhodey asks one time and tony shrugs. “i think they need it?” he answers.
and, increasingly, tony is sure he doesn’t want to help write someone else’s love story. it’s bad enough seeing steve strike through the tabs tony had just played and know it’s because he wasn’t doing it the way bucky would’ve. steve keeps writing for someone who won’t play again.
tony doesn’t mind standing in that much. a replacement is what he’s been his whole life.
but having to sit next to steve and bucky and help spell out why they’re having such trouble? tony’s never been a saint. he can’t just say “you like each other!” without any thought to himself.
ah.
he thought it.
“it’s fine, we’ll just use the instrumental version and lead with Star Driver.” he says.
“I’m fine with it,” Rhodey agrees.
“Well, Bucky doesn’t have a part in Star Driver.” Pepper points out.
“Ah, then we’ll start with uh, Monaco, Bucky you practiced the lead for that one, right?”
Bucky nods but Steve cuts in.
“why can’t we do it as planned? That’s the way we practiced!”
“because we spent the whole rehearsal playing the same first chords waiting for someone to start. We’re playing tomorrow, there’s no more time!”
steve, angry faced as always, steps forward like his short, skinny body was ready to fight tony right then.
“what happened to ‘you can do it!’ did you not actually believe that?”
“Steve, c’mon...”
“we’re out of time! it doesn’t matter if i believe in you or not if you don’t follow up yourselves!” tony says.
pepper looks to the ceiling like a prayer.
steve scoffs, “it’s not like you ever believed in us in the first place! you just take whatever new shiny thing there is to put in your band so you don’t get bored and have to fly back to california!”
tony’s fist clenches and rhodey pinches his nose.
“we don’t have time for this,” rhodey says under his breath but no one listens.
“whatever.” tony hisses and spins.
the next day is fraught with tension as they prepare for the show. none of them are willing to back out, even if they’re a mess.
“did we decide on a set list.” tony asks rhodey.
“well,” rhodey trails off.
“we’re doing it as planned,” steve interrupts.
tony gives him an unimpressed glare, “well, i’m good enough at improvising, whatever actually happens.” he says.
steve clicks his tongue and turns back to his guitar, tuning it.
tony pulls a face. he glances up at bucky in the middle of it, and feels kind of bad. bucky’s been nothing but nice, it’s steve that has a bee in his bonnet. but tony’s words probably hit just as hard if not harder for bucky.
tony clenches his jaw.
“Ah, Bucky, I...” He trails off as Bucky meets his eyes.
tony can sing. he even writes lyrics. he’s the front man of the band, or was before he drug bucky into it. so of course, after steve and hummed the song to him the first time he’d written some lyrics on the back of a napkin because he couldn’t get it out of his head. and when bucky had started outlining a sketch of verse, tony’d rewritten those lyrics like the impressionable boy he’d tried to grow out of.
he just likes playing guitar more. he’s always like working with his hands more than talking in front of a crowd. but as the hot, heavy lights turn on them, and the crowd in the cafe all face them he remembers the first time he’d ever played. not just guitar but anything at all.
plucking the ivory keys of a piano, the discordant clanging echoing through the big house. his mother had clapped and he frozen up, suddenly frightened at the thought of someone looking at him, of seeing him maybe fail. his mother had slid into the seat next to him, her finger showing him where to hit.
his father had swung in and scoffed, said if he was old enough to fool around he was old enough to actually learn. none of this coddling, maria, get the boy a real tutor.
Pepper taps her drumsticks and lays out, her foot keeping a steady beat. Tony automatically joins in, his fingers following muscle memory. tony’s used to the lights now, he even likes it. the heat and the attention.
he hears steve join in, the dual guitar melody working even though steve isn’t very talented yet. Rhodey jumps in, the bassline smooth and grounding.
They play the intro, then loop it when bucky misses his cue. the second time they loop tony glances away from the crowd to see bucky, sweating by the mic. he catches steve’s worried eyes, sees white knuckled fingers again, and he takes a step forward.
he gets close enough to bucky he can lean into the mic, and bucky jumps at his presence. tony grins at the crowd. this is planned, he says with his grin and waits until the cue comes up again.
“how did it go?,” he says into the mic, “i never liked the winter, i’m tired of the sun. as days go on, i fall apart, and i thought this might be fun.” he steps back from the mic and plays breathing in for the next part.
“I never liked the winter,” bucky’s voice cut in, and if tony hadn’t been expecting it, well. “the rain won’t go away. but it’s fine, you see, because this is just the start.”
tony let his fingers follow the frets as he leaned into the song. it was a mistake not to practice this. it was a mistake letting bucky debut a song no one in the band had actually heard the full version of. but tony hadn’t been lying when he said he was good at improvising.
he followed steve’s lead well enough--hell, he knew enough of steve’s style he could ape a riff or two if need be. and he’d written down enough of bucky’s half thought poems mumbled through jam sessions that he might well have had the whole song compiled in his notebook somewhere.
He leans back in for the chorus as bucky’s voice swelled. “And even if you let go, there’s something holding on to you!”
the concert is a blur, with the stage lights and the crowd. tony backs off as bucky finds his feet, manages to get back to his own mic and sing back up from there. it isn’t like he’d imagined. somehow, there’s room on this stage. hearing bucky sing, for real, for the first time. it’s tugging something inside tony’s chest. and even though the riff he’s playing wasn’t written for him he finds that there’s a flair here and there, a little space for him to improvise.
there’s a place for him here.
he can hardly believe it’s over, just the cheers of the audience that make him aware that his fingers have stopped moving and no one is playing any more. it’s a rush to get back stage where rhodey and pepper clap his back and yell, and bucky and steve both look ready to have some kind of attack.
“that was good, right?” bucky asks
“good?” steve says, incredulously.
“that was amazing!” tony exclaims. he throws his arms over both their shoulders. “that was something else!” he grins back at pepper at rhodey who are hugging as well.
“i want to...” bucky starts, then stops.
“play it again, right?” tony says.
steve is the one who answers yes.
“we will! we have to!” tony shouts. he can barely stop from jumping for literal joy. the sweat under his shirt makes the fabric stick to him when he moves and now that he’s not under the stage lights his skin is chilling fast but hell if he can focus on that.
“i want to write more songs.” bucky says
“i want to, too.” steve says and they both look at tony, like if he tells them yes or no they’ll listen.
like maybe they want him to have a say in this.
“i want to play them,” tony answers. he bites his lips.
“i want to play songs your write for me. and, i want to play songs we write together.”
he closes his eyes, his heart pounding in his chest. he can feel it again, the weight of someone watching him, the potential of failing in front of someone he cared about,
“okay,”
he blinks his eyes open. steve is staring, stubborn and determined, into tony’s face, like tony was a new fingerstyle he had to learn. bucky looked slightly confused.
“i did write the song for you... well, you and steve but--”
tony inhaled sharply, looking at bucky for what felt like the first time in a long while. exhaling, he lowered his face into his hands. “nooooooo.” he whined.
“this is why you can’t have nice things, tony!” rhodey yelled from somewhere behind him.
“you’re always over thinking it!” pepper agreed.
someone’s hands patted him on the shoulder. “i thought you knew, you were there when i came up with the first lyrics,”
tony shook his head.
“it was pretty obvious,” that was steve.
tony stuck a hand out to swat him, but found it caught instead. he looked up. “i guess it’s my fault.” steve said, “i’m not good at explaining things.”
“neither am i.” tony grinned. “but i think i get it now.”
“good”
#kamaeteWRITES#the ot3#tony stark#james barnes#steve rogers#what the fuck with the ship name for these three#oh#stuckony#i hate it.#stark spangled arms engineering
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Fictober #4 entry for “I know you didn’t ask for this”
Original Fiction
Want the whole story?
After being photographed attending the matinee, which Ellis complained about, and going to a dinner that Ellis didn't eat, Felipe had thankfully found peace and quiet for a few precious minutes hiding in a hotel lobby bathroom. Lillian Frost had, thankfully, found out that Ellis was in New York and called to have a meeting with her about her upcoming role opposite Xavier.
This left Felipe alone for the rest of the night and hopefully longer. He splashed water on his face and plotted his next move. He wanted badly to go visit the store where Xavier had met Erika but didn't know how to approach it.
If the photographers, whom he was almost positive Ellis had tipped off, were still around and attempted to follow him, he'd hardly be able to get much insight into the woman his secretly single friend was smitten with. He took a long breath and walked into the lobby slowly. It seemed the vultures had left, and he took it as his cue to follow.
As he crossed the street, he passed by a redheaded woman who'd clearly been crying and what he assumed was her boyfriend who had caused it. The woman was wearing sunglasses even though the lights of the city had replaced the sun an hour or two earlier and he could hear the man saying something about her being too good for “most men.”
Felipe shook his head, remembering himself using lines like that after doing something to make a woman cry. He wanted to tell the woman it was probably true, this jerk in a hoodie didn't deserve her tears, and offer to buy her a drink. Then again, that drink would probably lead to another and maybe even another, ultimately ending the night in a bed together which was the kind of thing he was trying not to do anymore and one of the reasons he was stuck in this arrangement with Ellis to begin with.
Besides, he thought looking up at the giant children's store in front of him, I have far more important things to do tonight, so he kept on walking. Inside he examined every worker on the first floor before heading up the elevator and starting his search up there.
Finding her in a room full of people wasn't going to be easy. He'd heard about Erika many times, but he'd only ever seen one picture. It was a blurry group shot with Xavier and at least one other person. It was somewhere in Brooklyn and they'd taken a picture with a cow on a leash. It came as part of a text that Felipe had of course deleted that raved about an urbanite who turned a pet cow into a creamery business.
Felipe had thought how New Yorkers were weird, but he remembered loving the message because blurry Xavier had looked so happy. So, she was probably weird, or rather eccentric, but everyone was wearing a uniform, so her clothing wasn't going to help give her away.
She drank coffee a lot, he remembered coffee in some of Xavier' stories which meant she might be hyper. Oh, but they'd meet after work so maybe she'd look tired.
She wore glasses sometimes—she'd forgotten them the day Xavier and she went to see a cartoon festival where there was a short in which Felipe voiced a lawn mower that fell in love with a Rake. He remembered the story of how close to the screen they had to sit and how Xavier gushed over how her "squinty eyes and wrinkled nose looked like a cute bunny watching a movie."
The elevator opened and Felipe attempted to find a white girl with light-ish hair (assuming she hadn't dyed it), around thirty who was either wearing glasses or not with a nose of some sort that looked either hyper or sleepy.
"Piece of cake" he mumbled, as he walked towards a table of T-shirts being knocked over and refolded by one of the three workers who fit the description.
"Hi. Excuse me," Felipe started. The glasses-less blond looked up.
"Are you?" she said, almost scowling. "You're Felipe O’Shane. Son of a bitch."
She threw a shirt down.
“That’s not the first time I’ve been greeted that way,” Felipe shined his ample teeth, “but I’m pretty sure we’ve never met.”
"Listen Dreamboat,” She calmed down a bit. “I'm sure you're really nice but I hate you as collateral damage."
People had very strong feelings about Ellis, and it sometimes led people to attack him. Plus, his characters had done some rather horrible things, so it wasn't unheard of that fans lashed out at him for their doings. After a second look at her less angry face, the T-shirt girl looked familiar. Perhaps she was in the picture.
"Are you Erika?"
"That's a no," she tossed her hair. "Why are you asking about Erika? She’s not working today."
"We have a common friend," Felipe smiled and looked at her name tag. "Rachel, that's a nice name."
With that, Rachel started twisting another shirt, as if her name being spoken by his voice had released a venom she needed to wring out of her hands.
"Your friend is an asshole." She snapped her head up so they were eye to eye, her teeth gritted in a smile. "Now please, if you could be so kind as to get the hell out of here before I get my ass fired."
Felipe backed away and jogged down the escalator. It appeared Erika's coworkers weren't nearly as nice as Xavier claimed she was. When he reached the bottom, he saw the tear stained face of the crying girl from earlier talking to one of the men downstairs.
"Well it's inconvenient, Erika, but you need to heal. Thanks for stopping by with a progress report," Felipe heard the man say as he put his arm around the girl. She started to walk toward the door.
"Holy shit," Felipe whispered. "That’s her." Having realized he needed to get her attention, he started calling her name and waving his arms over his head.
He was a semi-well-known actor with his face on buses drawing attention to himself, but he panicked, and it worked. Erika stopped and turned around. When she saw him, he could see her eyes get visibly larger.
"Don't worry, I was going to wait for you right outside, Dave." She hollered back before existing.
When Felipe got outside, she was true to her word, standing just left of the door.
“Hi,” he extended his hand. “I’m Fel-”
"Two months ago my life was sane," she said, tears coming to her eyes again. "I was normal and boring. Strange men weren't coming to my job!”
"I'm so sorry," Felipe handed her a tissue as she pressed on.
“I wasn't eating large meals at four am. I'd watch TV, work, maybe read, but you know what? I liked it. I didn't care that I was coasting through life. I don’t want chaos and I hate, I fucking hate drama. The only reasons I went to acting school at all is because most actors fail, so nobody would be surprised or disappointed in me. And because it’s all fake, even if you succeed nothing is real and nobody knows you, they just think they do but it’s not really you.”
Her eyes were saucers and her face had become a deep scarlett as she reached a hysterical pitch. “But now this isn’t fake, it’s real. This is my life and it’s too much. I want boring.”
“Breathe,” he steadied her shaking frame. “Please?”
Erika nodded between sobs.
“My name is Felipe, Who's Dave?"
Erika started to laugh. "Funny."
Felipe joined in. "But really, who's Dave? I saw you crying with your boyfriend before. Is that Dave?"
This time Erika laughed so hard she started to cough. "It was a code name. I couldn't exactly say Felipe O’Shane, famous actor, currently in theaters everywhere playing the guy who created cell phones."
"Right, I'm an idiot," he said, rubbing his stubble. "But hey you stopped crying." He smiled a toothy grin.
"True," she sighed. "And Blake is not my boyfriend."
"Oh, well I just assume when a girl is crying with a guy, he's the reason."
"Blake's not the reason I was crying, but that's a story for another day."
"Or today, we could get coffee. Xavier tells me you like coffee."
Erika took in a deep breath. That was possibly the worst thing she could hear today.
"Rain check, I'm not feeling up to it today." She put her hand on his arm. "It was nice to meet you and maybe we can talk again some other time."
She turned to walk away before looking back over her shoulder.
"Oh when you talk to Xavier tell him I send my sincere congratulations on the baby."
According to Xavier, he and Erika had only kissed—barely. Felipe stared at her leaving, dumbstruck until he Goggled Xavier's name. Three outlets were reporting a pregnancy rumor.
"Fuck my life," he hit the phone against his head. "I'm gonna kill Ellis."
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The Scars That Make Him: Chapter 1
Ao3
Stiles is ten when he and his dad moves to Beacon Hills. He is freshly without a mother, and arrives with an ugly scar marring his face. It starts directly under his right nostril, trails with a slight angle over his mouth and under his chin and then directly opposes the angle just to the right of his Adams’ apple. It follows the curve of it and continues straight down to his right collarbone, where it bumps over it and stops just a centimeter under the hard just of it. This is the only scar visible for all to see. He hates it’s origins, hates what it remind him of and what he’s lost. He wears it with a strange pride regardless, the pride shown only in survivors of terrible things. A pride to old for a ten year old to wear so confidently, like an old friend or familiar companion.
Stiles is only ten when his life changes, when his innocence is lost forever to the cruel mistress of human life.
___
The waxing gibbous moon shines bright over the treetops. Fate has her plans tonight, a destiny unwritten but well known that must be met. She sets it into motion with a simple push of wind on old wood, and a doorway opens in the Stilinski household. An old but loyal dog escapes into the dark, and the young Stilinski follows suit. He calls up help from the asthmatic McCall, loyal in his own, selfish, way. The two souls venture into the forest. Though the circumstances are different, they do not search for torn and shredded bodies; they do not separate as late as they should, the outcome will never change. The Stilinski child stumbles upon his loyal dog and the search party led by his father, and the McCall is nearly trampled and certainly bitten by a wolf.
___
Stiles slips out of his blue and trusty jeep, sweet sweet Betty, followed quickly by four-legged Roscoe. Today the dog wears his blue vest, matching the blue flannel showing under Stiles deep green hoodie. As usual, there is no leash in sight, despite the school’s requirement for one. They have long overlooked the fact, Roscoe has been around as long as Stiles himself has. They wait for Scott to arrive at school, Stiles’ idly petting the brown fur of Roscoe’s head as they sit on the steps. Scott’s beat up bike arrives not long after.
Stiles feels himself smile at his friends arrival, quickly ignoring the uncomfortable but familiar stretch it brings to his scar tissue. The thing is no longer the obvious shock-white it had been when it first appeared, but it remains an obvious lighter shade to his skin, and easily splits three of his moles into jagged halves. He turns his mind to Scott’s tale of the night before, apparently his friend had found the body his father was looking for, but lost his inhaler in the process. The claims of a wolf bite, however, are absolutely ridiculous.
“Look, Scotty, it’s not that I don’t believe you, it’s just that it literally can’t be a wolf.”
“Stiles, you weren’t there, I know what I saw.”
“There aren’t wolves in California dude, haven’t been for 60 years.”
“Oh.”
Scott looks defeated at the news, most likely bummed his bitten-by-a-wolf story is now a much more boring bitten-by-a-dog one. Stiles doesn’t try to lift his friends feelings, knowing far better than to try the impossible. Instead he distracts Scott with the beginning of the Fall Semester, and with it, Lacrosse Try-outs. He himself knows that his spot at bench-warmer is guaranteed, and he certainly isn’t going to attempt to get a field position. But Scott wants to get first line this year, and so Stiles will gladly support his inane idea, no matter are far-out and impossible they are.
Things only get weird though. Roscoe is acting strange around Scott, suspiciously submissive around the teen, and Scott as a weird moment in English were he offers the new girl (He thinks her name is Allison) a pen he had no previous clue to her even needing. It only get’s worse, with Scott seeming to completely ignore him and Madison in the hall, somehow hearing what Allison and Lydia are talking about despite them being more then 10 feet away and whispering. Something is up with Scott McCall and Stiles is going to get to the bottom of it.
___
It’s so much weirder at Lacrosse Try-outs. Scott gets chosen to play goalie while everyone (minus Stiles) throws goal-shots at him. Scott catches his first one, in fact, he catches them all. Even Jackson’s. If he didn’t know better, he would assume steroids or some other athletic enhancement drug, but he does. Scott’s as innocent as a butterfly, would never even accidentally do drugs. So something fishy is going on. Scott doesn’t even seem concerned though, simply ecstatic that all his practicing actually worked. Stiles knows though, without a doubt, that his practicing at best would have only gotten him to second line and nowhere near first.
He, unfortunately, doesn’t get a word in edgewise with all of Scott’s rambling about Allison and finally getting his life together. He would almost say that Scott is talking more than even Stiles could, but he’s fully aware of how carried away he can get. Before he knows it, him and Scott are back out in the woods looking for Scott’s inhaler. Those things aren’t cheap, and while Stiles has a backup for Scott, he would rather not waste it if he can avoid it. Roscoe trots dutifully in front of them, leading the way while he and Scott finally have proper conversation.
“Maybe it was a werewolf dude.”
Scott balks at the idea, no imagination whatsoever bumping around in his noggin.
“Yeah, right. Because werewolves totally exist.”
Except, Stiles actually thinks about it. Scott had told him he could literally hear Allison while she as outside the school building. It would be one thing if she’d been outside the classroom door, or right near the windows, but apparently she had been on the other side of the courtyard when Scott reported hearing her. That plus the sudden athletic prowess and suspicious lack of asthma attacks or just wheezy breath- werewolves are looking kind of plausible right now. Scott isn’t even limping or favoring his side like he had been that morning, when his bite wound had only been hours old. Stiles would bet his jeep that the “dog bite” was gone or quickly on its way there.
He’s about to seriously suggest the idea to Scott when the sudden voice of Derek motherfucking Hale spooks the ever loving shit out of him.
“This is Private Property.”
Roscoe immediately returns to Stiles side at his surprise, and Stiles instinctively places a hand onto the dogs soft forehead. Scott doesn’t jolt at all, though he does look mildly surprised. Stiles momentarily squints his eyes at his friend, clearly remembering that Scott is just as jumpy as he is normally.
“Are you deaf? I said this is private property, so leave.”
Derek’s voice rings out again, and Stiles feels a bit of irritation at the presumption tone the Hale uses. He turns his squinty gaze to the older teen, full intensity locked onto his chiseled face.
“Actually, the county reclaimed about a year ago- after all there were no able-bodied Hales living here.”
It’s a low blow- and Stiles really hate pointing it out, especially in such manner and tone. He knows all about losing loved ones, even if it’s not to the scale of what Derek must of lost. But the older teen is getting on his nerves and needs to be knocked down a peg or two, he and Scott have every right to be there. (Somehow though, Stiles still feels like what Derek said is true. How despite the legal nature of who owns the land, it will always belong to the Hale’s).
Derek scowls at him, clearly not happy with his words or tone no matter how true they are. Something about Derek sends warning bells off in Stiles’ head, and he and Roscoe seem to shift into high alert at the same time. The change brings Derek’s attention to the German Sheppard by Stiles side, and Stiles absolutely hates the calculating gaze behind the green eyes.
“Sorry man- we were just looking for my inhaler, I dropped around here last night.”
Scott’s words bring Derek’s attention back to the two of them, and Stiles relaxes a little without the scrutinizing glare on his dog. Derek’s eyes seem to narrow even more, glare becoming almost deadly sharp, and Stiles is very glad that eye’s can’t actually cut anything, or he and Scott would need some medical care. Derek throws something at Scott, too fast for Stiles to really process what he’s throwing or that he even moved at all until after it’s done. Scott, however, managed to catch the thing with ease, holding it against his chest for all of a second before looking to see what it was. It’s revealed to be the inhaler in question, and Stiles idly wonders how Scott managed to catch something moving so fast when not even days ago he couldn’t he catch something going much slower. Of course, he’s pretty sure he knows the answer already.
Derek looks unimpressed, but the calculating look is back in his eyes. Stiles narrows his own in turn, no liking at all what that could mean for Scott. If he’s right about the werewolf thing, it could mean that Derek is also a werewolf, or even a hunter. Because if werewolves turn out to be real then it would be a no-brainer to assume that werewolf hunters are also a thing that exist.
“Leave.”
Derek’s tone brokers no room for argument, so before Scott can get uppity about being told what to do, Stiles wisely leads him the fuck outta there. He briskly walks them away, trying to put some distance between them and Derek Maybe A Werewolf Hale. He has no clue if he’s right about this, but on the off-chance he is and the super senses are a regular werewolf think, he wants to make sure that Derek doesn’t overhear them.
“Dude stop dragging me-”
“Don’t you realize who that was?”
“Uh no, super creepy if you ask me, what was he doing out he-”
“Scotty that was Derek Hale, you know, of the Hale Fire and the Hale House Ruins? His whole family minus him and his sister got burned alive-”
“Oh shit dude, really?”
“Yes really, I wonder what he’s doing back in town, I was sure he would never come back after what happened.”
“Stiles, who cares? He’s creepy and I have my inhaler, let’s just get out of here.”
Stiles sighs in response. He’s not really surprised at Scott’s response. Scott has never been the brightest bulb, he probably thinks that whatever changes he’s going through are natural at best and rabies at worst. If Stiles is right, and it’s looking like he is with every passing minute, then he has his work cut out for him.
___
Stiles’ first scar is received at the ripe age of four. A simple starburst of shock-white just under the dimple of his left knee. At this age, he is all babbling brook speech over crooked rock beds and four lengthy limps that stumble clumsy like over uneven ground and not-there cracks. It’s no mystery how nor why he falls and scrapes his knee onto harsh sharp rocks. Only a wonder in how he did it in the cityscape park where no such rock can be found. His mother laughs off the injury, just as energetic as he and simply antiseptic wipes and bandages the bleeding skin. A kiss that makes a younger Stiles’ think of mother’s magic healing touch over the band-aid. The injuries pain seems to disappear in thin air with the gesture, and upon looking back Stiles will wonder if it was all in his mind or is something more was happening under the surface, but in present time as an enchanted four year old, Stiles simply giggles with glee and demands ice cream from his favorite parlor.
It’s the first of many similar scars, all the pain washed away by the same magic kiss only mothers seem to know. It is only looked upon fondly by older amber eyes in the futures, when the scar is nothing more than a strange change in texture on the knee. The first of many to come, but held in special memory of long gone simpler times, nostalgia worn. It is one of few that brings a smile to his eyes.
#sterek#stiles stilinski#derek hale#eternal sterek#teen wolf#alternate universe#canon divergent#the scars that make him#chapter one#fanfic
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A5, C1, F1, G4, J5, L3, N2, R4, U4, Y2, and Z4! Any OC you like, mix and match, up to you.
A fine list. I had to think about these overnight.
~For Bae Lavellan~
A5. what is their most impressive talent?
She actually excels at many things, but her most uniqueskill is that she can speak backwards. She’ll do it when she’s bored, she’ll doit when she’s upset, she’ll do it to unsettle someone she dislikes. She cansustain it for quite awhile if she’s feeling talkative. Leliana thought that itwas a secret code or cipher at first. When pressed, Bae didn’t have a goodanswer for why or how she’d learned to do it. It’s especially surprising whenyou consider that she’s not fluently multilingual – she was a hopeless studentwhen it came to elven, so she mostly gets by in Common.
J5. what brings them the most joy in the world?
Interesting question. Her skills aren’t necessarily what shetakes pleasure in – they’re just things that she happens to be good at. Sheenjoys problem solving and looking for things that other people miss (it’s anuncontrollable reflex anyway), so she enjoys climbing, especially if the goalis a quiet and private spot with a good view. When she was still living withher clan, it was one of the only ways that she could really clear her head. Shecan be a bit clumsy with other kinds of movement and doesn’t have big muscles,but she’s very flexible and climbing just…makes sense somehow. She could alwaysreach heights that others didn’t dare to go to or couldn’t see a way to get to,although she rarely did it for competition’s sake and not everyone realize howgood at it she was.
~For Gelya Tabris:~
G4. what parts of them do they like and dislike?
She always wanted more muscle. Life in the alienage meant alot of crime, and not just involving humans. There were few depths thatpickpockets and muggers wouldn’t stoop to. As befits a rogue, Gelya always hadfair reflexes, but no matter how much she tried to build muscle mass, she couldnever make real progress (partly because she was never exactly well-fed andpartly because she was born very prematurely and was never going to have alarge frame anyway). A man of even middling strength could have easilyoverpowered her, though luckily many elves pitied her instead and sometimesshunned her a little or even regarded her as mentally ill (which isn’tcompletely incorrect, though most of her psychological issues are directly dueto alienage life, not genetic predisposition).
She is, however, a very fast learner, and she knows it. Shecan improve greatly after making just one mistake, and once she’s learned howto do something, she never forgets it. She’s not especially skilled inanything, but it’s always been obvious – even to her – that her chances ofsurvival are ultimately better than many others’ because she understands how toadapt and adjust (even if it kills her a little inside sometimes). It’s a small comfort, but it’s enough to get her through the day.
~For Mervyn Lavellan~ [y’all haven’t seen him yet since he’strapped in the PS3, but he was my first Inquisitor and first DA build]
F1. what do they do for fun?
Though he didn’t grow up playing it, he ADORES chess and anyother games that even vaguely resemble it. He’s not always the absolute bestplayer, but his strategizing skills are a perfect foundation for learning it.He frequently hounds his advisors for a chance to hone his skills and learn newmoves. He can be quite cynical about non-elves sometimes, but he greatly admiresthe other races’ board games and sees the value in applying the skills neededfor them to real life and vice versa.
~For Radi Lavellan~
C1. how do they sit in a chair?
At a formal dinner table? Tidily and carefully. Her sitting posturein front of others is so polished that you’d think she’d grown up in Orlesianhigh society.
But in an armchair by a roaring hearth? All bets are off.She usually just ragdolls and passes out because she’s very prone to worrying andlong days and basically never gets enough sleep.
L3. are there any foods they hate?
Bread pudding, rosemary, and most pickled foods. She’s alsonot crazy about most liquor unless it’s cider, beer, or wine.
N2. what have they never done that they want to do?
While she’s socially confident and isn’t particularlyinhibited, she was never in a relationship pre-Inquisition. Growing up, she sawteenaged friends and family gradually marry off or at least get involved inmatchmaking, but she never even spent private time for a picnic with someone,never mind a kiss or something more. Cullen is her first everything.
It’s not that she didn’t want anyone prior to that (she’s not ace or aro), butshe saw enough families get separated by war, feuds, etc. that she couldn’tquite commit to the idea herself. She also always focused on protecting othersin the clan, so tbh she was honestly too busy keeping track of the clan’ssafety most of the time to really step back from worrying long enough to thinkabout it.
R4. have they broken any rules they now regret breaking?
I think she regrets that she doesn’t regret breaking rules. She’s usually done so for thegreater good and she only defies authority when its logic no longer serves agood purpose, but it’s happened often enough over the years that she waspainted as a cocky youngster early on. Some in the clan praised this and otherscalled her a traitor for it.
Now and then, she has a quiet moment of reflectionand wonders if things would have been better if she’d let others share some ofthe load. She’s not assertive by default and didn’t quite choose to be theguardian type – it sort of just happened in some moments when others didn’thave the same willpower. By the time she’d realized what she’d become, it wastoo late to change course…especially considering there was nothing actually wrongwith who she was.
U4. have they ever been doubted?
Considering she’s fairly atheist for an elf? You betcha.Plenty of people in her clan always resented her input/advice/opinions onimportant matters. Even the Keeper only let her be Second – Radi doesn’t try tostep on others’ toes and she doesn’t openly try to tell other people how tothink, but her lack of firm belief in the gods definitely meant that she waslooked down on, held back, and not always taken seriously.
Y2. what inspired you to create them?
It’s like this: my last DA OC was pretty nondescript on theoutside but basically scarred beyond recognition on the inside. I thought I’dtry the opposite with Radi: someone with a lot of literal scars but a bit lessof the “acute psychological trauma” side of things (not that there isn’t any,but it’s not the outright paralyzing sort like Bae has). She’s alsoneurotypical, so the scores of things that bother/confuse/upset Bae don’tnecessarily stand out to Radi.
I also have a bit of a hangup about making my OC’s look “tooperfect.” Granted, none of mine have horrible deformities and I’m thrilledevery time someone calls one of them cute, but mine don’t have fancy hair, alot of makeup, large eyes, flawless skin, etc. I’m not complaining becausethat’s 10000% deliberate. I spend much moretime making them look the way they do, not less.
While I definitely wouldn’t call Radi ugly, she does have some verydistinctive features which may or may not be attractive according tostereotypical beauty standards (a very angular jaw, noticeable cheek hollowsthat point to her scarily underweight tendencies rather than nice bonestructure, a cleft and sort of puffy chin, recessed eye sockets and puffy eyes that make her look a lot more squinty/suspicious than she actually is, etc.).
Furthermore, although she’s cis female, I wanted her to bean example of a woman who doesn’t necessarily get positively recognized for heroutward appearances since her features aren’t widely praised (or even widely acknowledged) for women. In fact, a fewpeople have already misgendered her. That actually makes me happy because it shows that Idid my job right.
And, of course, I loved the idea of having a character whohas very visible, very striking scars but actually isn’t that bothered by themcosmetically because they’re proof of just how tough someone can be – even ascrawny mage.
Z4. what’s their dream pet?
She’ll take every opportunity she gets to have a new pet, regardless of species, but she’s fascinated by turtles and tortoises. She’s goodaround most domesticated animals but appreciates the ones that have a quietsteadiness.
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#BeautifulinNY 07.14.17
This is purely for me to remember everything that happened during my long ass adventure for monsta x
GOD okay so once Friday finally rolled around and i was actually IN NEW YORK!!!!!! we ( @jminsnose & i) got to the playstation theater before 8am bc they told us to line up then but we werent really even ready so we ran back to our place real fast and did a half ass makeup job (which just ended up melting off our faces anyways but thats besides the point) and got back by 8:30 and the line was almost at the end of the street. so once we waited there it started pouring rain but we were smart and brought an umbrella and bought cheap ass ponchos
this is all pointless honestly SO finally by like 12ish they finally took us around to where the ticket booth is (it was shaded from the rain tho tHANK @ GOD) for us to get our wristbands (we had p2 so we got the hi touch experience to “meet” them) but we didnt even get the wristbands until like 6.... ok
we barely ate anything this whole damn day either and had to stand ever since 8am because they literally told us we couldnt sit bc it was a “fire violation” or some bs. i really only had two bites of a muffin from starbucks and half a small bag of cheez its and a small bottle of water. dont ever do this its not healthy at ALL.
but anyways by the time 7:04pm came we finally started lining up to get into the venue and we got split up from our friends we made in line (alee karen and clarissa my little babies i miss them too) but once we got inside we found them off to the right side on the stairs and honestly it was the PERFECT view
the show started half an hour late because of a “medical emergency” but after all the suffering and not eating/sitting and waiting THE SHOW FINALLY STARTED.
they were sooooo happy to be in new york. they kept on singing NEW YORKKKKKK and saying they loved us and how we were amazing to them and i just. they really loved new york. we loved them back. it was so magical.
and i swear to god WONHO knew he was my bias because
i have never
in my life
had the kind of experiences i had with him with any other singer/band member whatsoever
he ket messing around with me on PURPOSE knowing he could get a reaction out of me..... i...... dont know how i even survived any of the concert honestly. i had to keep crouching down on the ground to breathe i literally was dying for monsta X. wonho ruined my life forever ill never be the same ever again. he would purposely look at me and either rub his chest, bite his lip, body roll, or he even. HE EVEN.
i have to mention this. so before fighter (their “last song” before their encore) they were saying how it was the last song and i was waving my finger and shaking my head, wonho literally was just like staring at the ground then he randomly looked up RIGHT AT ME while i was waving my finger and he starts to smile and shake his head the way i was waving my finger back and forth. then i guess i was messing with my hair trying to fix it because wonhO FREAKIN COPIED ME AND DID THE SAME THING TO HIS HAIR then i slapped my hand over my mouth and died AND THEN HE GIVES ME THE BIGGEST SMILE AND LAUGHED SO CUTE AND SO BIG MY HEART HURTS THINKING ABOUT IT. AND I FOUND IT FILMED IN SOMEONES VIDEO. i honestly just want to die. he also killed me during White Love aka one of my top 3 songs of the life. thanks a lot wonho. OH AND FROM ZERO...... I DONT EVEN WANNA TALK ABOUT THAT. I WAS LITERALLT SWEARING THE WHOLE TIME. i kept throwing finger hearts at him and thats when he would tease the hell out of me. i see u wonho.
JOOHEON WAS SO BEAUTIFUL????? like they all are and i couldnt believe any of them were real. but joo-fucking-heon. am i right. he came out and i was like
WAIT
thats him??? that beautiful man????
he done snatched me from shownu i cant even deny it anymore. he crawled up my bias list soooo fast (its funny bc in line people were passing out buttons and i kept getting jooheon... it was a sign) he was SO happy during the whole show, and i cant believe the way he raps, HE EVEN SANG i wanted to throw up everywhere. once he did his duet with kihyun. i was floored. i knew he had my heart after that. he kept saying a few things in english my heartu.
kihyun is such a smol but hes so beautiful too and his voice is even more beautiful in person?? he was so damn happy too the whole concert he kept smiling and being lit as hell. he had these really cute moments with i.m and wonho i wanted to just die right then and there.
SHOWNU MY BIG BALL OF CUTENESS. ive never seen someone that was soft as hell and also a man (besides wonho) during sweetheart he tried throwing candy in our direction but he threw it too high and it hit the speakers/lights above us and it all fell on the ground and he just looks like .... the fuck it was adorable as hell i love him mom. but when he threw a handful again i actually got a piece of chocolate and thANK the lord because i was hungry as hell. he went hard as hell in 24k magic... wow a man.
i.m. was adorable as hell too. his english ;__; i cry every time. he really didnt give us the time of day except for a wave (UNLIKE WONHO!!!!!!!!!!!!!) but he was just cute as hell and he also goes hard when he raps. WE HEARD MARATHAWN in person i was a changed person.
Minhyuk really is wild irl he was one who kept grabbin his crotch every possible moment he could. hes so tall and thin oh my god you can break him in half but hes also so beautiful??? i dont understand how any of them look the way they do. his little english moments too. i was crying and dying.
since hyungwon wasnt there they kept all his placements in the choreo empty and i was crying bc i missed my turtle son :( we kept chanting his name every moment we could. he was definitely loved and missed by all of us.
SO ONCE THE SHOW FINALLY ACTUALLY ENDS!!! we get ready for the hi touch and i swear to god. i cant believe. i actually. got to. touch. monsta. x. theyre so adorable as hell. and being so close to them i want to die. and touching their hands. o my god
the order was jooheon, minhyuk, shownu, i.m, wonho, then kihyun.
jooheon was saying thank you to everyone with this big ass smile on his face and cute squinty eyes. NO THANK YOU JOOHEON. im p sure they had them standing on something bc jooheon was like 2x taller than normal i was like THAT SOUNDS FAKE.
minhyuk really smacked everyones hand so hard omg a wild child
shownu was so cute he had a hand on his hip and was just hi fiving everyone i cant believe i touched a mans hand.
i.m i really dont remember well he was just adorable as hell, and tbh my focus was just getting to wonho (im sorry i.m i swear i love you a lot)
WONHOS TURN. so i get to him i hold his hand and do a finger heart with my other hand and im like “youre my favorite i love you” then he does a finger heart back to me and nods his head. BOY U BETTER AFTER EVERYTHING HE PUT ME THROUGH. i didnt wanna let go afterwards but i had to “keep the line moving”
i literally blacked out after wonho and dont even remember looking at or acknowledging kihyun. it was so bad i swear i love you too my smol child.
i really cant believe i got to see them and meet them and FLY ALL THE WAY TO NEW YORK????? just for them, oh my god it was worth it. we literally only had a total of 10 hours of sleep all four days we were there. but it was worth literally dying. i cant wait to see them again and meet them again. they relaly put on the best show ever. i miss thems o much :(
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Venus, by Sara Flemington
fiction by Sara Flemington | third-place winner of the 2016 Blodwyn Memorial Prize in fiction, sponsored by Book*Hug
We were suddenly on a lucky streak. Following a very long, very unlucky streak. For example, the movies. Four bad movies in a row. And you being the type of person who could tell right away if a movie was going to suck or not, and me being the type who was clairvoyant enough to start panicking as early as the concession if it seemed like I’d taken someone out to a sucky movie, it was an all around uncomfortable series of unfortunately campy and “ha-ha” date nights. Then, there was X. Popping up everywhere: drugstore aisles, bars, the post office. And you being nice enough to always say hi, and me being nice enough to not comment on how her smile made her look like she was teething, or ask the reason as to why she was regularly done-up as if about to hit Prom ’85, we always had to stop and have a quaint little chit-chat about her newest accomplishments — arts-grants-wise — or about the tragic passing of Dear Aunt Beatrice, who was nothing if not her biggest source of moral support and guidance, as the lesbian of the family, and therefore, the only other dissenter. And on top of all that, the cactuses died. For no reason, as if by suicide to get away from the doomed home they had recently been moved into. And so I was pretty certain that, Mercury retrograde aside, I had become a jinx for you and our love would never be allowed its proper chance to sprout, let alone effloresce, (remember that homemade haircut I tried to give you ultimately resulting in a entire shaving of the head?) and in very little time you would, in turn, begin to despise me and wish we had never met and hope that somehow, in some life, you might find your way back to the inflatable tube man arms of X.
And then, Christmas came. But not in the It’s a Wonderful Life sense of the holiday, where we both would learn the power of a positive outlook; more like, in the holiday-packs-of-scratch-tickets sense. Because we were sitting beside each other at the very back of the very last bus of the night, heading home from drinking far too much acrid red wine at a disappointing poetry reading held at the “recently renovated” i.e. recently primer-painted community art gallery, and the heat was cranked far too high for our winter jackets and toques and scarves so we were both uncomfortably sweating through the crevices of our armpits and nostrils, and the reddish + greenish hue our skin had adopted from the alcohol + overhead bus lighting was making us appear even more dismal than we already naturally did. And that’s when I spotted them, jammed between the two seats directly across from us: the shimmering, unopened stack of lottery cards. Of course, it took a while for one of us to get up and “just take them,” being overly anxious over-thinkers plus regular sufferers of mental inertia, but finally, seconds from our stop, I threw my arms up as high as they could go in a puffy winter jacket + two more layers of sweaters and declared, “It’s not like they’re gonna be winners anyway,” and tucked them into purse. Then we stepped off the bus into the refreshingly frozen night.
But I was wrong. Ten dollars. That’s what we won. And Jupiter was about to make its move through Cancer.
“Can you believe it?” I said to you — sincerely, actually. “Can you believe we just happened upon these tickets? And now we have enough to buy like, four more bus rides? That’s like, two bus rides each.”
And you with your ever-salient shrug replied, “Happened upon? Really?”
Regardless, that was just the start. Because then, along came the cat.
“How is the cat good luck?” you argued. “He’s disgusting and annoying and he gets litter everywhere. And I’m pretty sure he’s slow. Like slow slow. Watch his eyes.”
“But, re-examine the point,” I begged. “So I was just walking along, like normal, like I always am, and right there in the window, there’s this little guy! Fresh off the streets, all shaking and on-sale and with a weird squinty eye. Look, it looks like he’s winking. Which is just like how you described your beloved childhood cat that only just two nights ago you had come across an old picture of and went on and on about how much you missed so much, which led right into a conversation about adopting our own little kitten –”
“Maybe adopting our own little kitten.”
“Maybe adopting our own little kitten. But anyway, here he is, and it was clearly meant to be.” And even though, granted, this particular kitty was a bit off somehow, he did serve to prove my point that good, possibly even great things, were now on the horizon for us. You still didn’t believe me at this point, but you had, at least, learned to love to humour me, and also learned to love the oddly vacant cat, while I was taking a daily inventory of signs from the universe divining our good fortune:
Your favourite hat — lost two months prior — resurfaced, magically, while I was cleaning out the refrigerator.
The day every single item written down on our grocery list was on sale at the grocery store.
The cookie thing (when the second cookie got stuck to the one we bought to share, but the lady behind the counter didn’t notice, so basically we just got a free cookie, which was mostly good for you because then I wouldn’t eat two thirds of the first one after claiming I only wanted a single chocolate chip and leaving you with basically nothing).
The second chance you gave me at giving you a haircut, and it turned out to be a pretty spot-on attempt modelled after a picture of Ryan Gosling.
The discovery that we had, at one point, attended the same film screening in Toronto, on the same day, years before ever meeting in real life.
The discovery that we had ALSO been at the same concert for one of our mutually favourite bands, in Toronto, on the same night, ALSO before ever meeting in real life.
The lucid dream I swear we shared.
“Maybe you’re right, like, maybe we’re soul mates or something,” you said one day, petting the winking feline and, joking or not, I continued to discover more coincidences to add to the inventory; a rare 1979 Boba Fett Loose Action Figure with Original Back Blaster for pennies in a bin of kids books at Goodwill; the big power outage and thus free popsicles from the convenience store the same night I found some old weed in the bookcase; the twenty bucks in the building’s dryer. Even kitty seemed to be getting a little bit smarter, not batting his turds out of the litter box so often. And with the new moon beginning to wax, everything in both of our entire lives began to feel like it was not only coming together to complete a circle in which we would inevitably end up in the centre of — deeply happy and entirely X-less — but a sphere. Like we existed in some sphere type thing, like a planet, like our own planet following its own orbital path. Or fate. Or something.
“You’re losing your mind,” you said to me, combing your fingers through my hair one night as we lay across the couch watching yet another good movie. Maybe, baby, maybe. But maybe, I wasn’t, actually. Because then, as it often happens when things are going well, I started to wonder when it all might start to go wrong again; you know, when karma would decide it was time to balance things out. It was turning into spring, and while everyone around us was getting cheerier and everything around us was getting colourful and good-smelling, I was becoming paranoid that at any moment you’d be calling me at work in the throes of a severe allergy attack, or the hospital would be calling me with news of your newly broken legs due to a bicycle accident (knock on wood), and I continued to I waver consistently between calm and vomit-mode. But these grand fears never materialized. What did end up materializing was the bagel you burned one sunny morning resulting in the whole apartment smelling like singed sesame seeds.
“That’s a thing,” I said.
“It’s not a thing if I don’t even care,” you replied.
And I guess I kind of liked the smell.
So while I was out, walking along again, like I always did, I decided to take a chance and step inside the floral boutique I usually passed by but of course, never went inside of anymore. I meekly approached the thin young florist with a swoopy haircut and very well-ripped jeans who was tying white ribbons around lilac bouquets, and asked:
“Excuse me, I was just wondering, which plant would be relatively easy to maintain and, maybe doesn’t require much extra care and maybe, you know, could be left alone for an extended period of time or even accidentally forgotten about and still be okay afterward?”
And whose shrill snort should I hear pipe up right behind me, followed by her sudden eagerness to show off all of the green-thumb knowledge she had apparently accumulated over her many years of being perfect at everything, but X. Our lovely lanky phantom X.
“A cactus?” she laughed, and began in on how she used to raise orchids, nurse Venus flytraps, shape bamboo stalks into elaborate spirals and hearts and I could feel the acid reflux pushing up my trachea and clogging my nasal cavity. Sensing my panic, the florist stepped out from behind the counter, linked his arm through mine like a best girlfriend, and directed us safely away from X and towards the corner of the room, where the moderate moisture-loving shade-dwellers were kept.
“I think you’ll do just fine with one of these,” he said. I pocketed the laminated fertilization instructions.
And that was the day I brought home the spider plant. I set it down in the middle of the kitchen table with a dramatic thud, and I stood there and looked you in the eye and I made a promise. I promised that I would keep the damn thing pretty and green as long as I lived in this damn apartment with you, so help me dammit, and I may never be able to cultivate a banana plant or whatever, and even if we wake up one day to a flood or a fire or full body rashes or something, or Mars and Saturn and Pluto all simultaneously backspin right through both of our signs at the same time, I will still be here, keeping everything pretty and green and alive, for you, and for that weird cat over there, and for this plant, and that was about the point when I started to run out of breath, and kind of doubled over a bit, and realized how comforting it felt to know that while I was there, one hand on my chest and one hand stroking the long pointy leaves of our newest addition, you were looking at me with that composed smile.
“Okay, love. Sounds good.”
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If you’ve ever experienced the misfortune of taking a photo of yourself that will end up on the internet, you have contemplated the weight of the following question: How should I move the muscles in my face to communicate my identity in the most socially correct way possible?
For many of us, the answer is clear: a smile, with teeth! And yet thanks to the proliferation of social media, dating apps, and technology that makes taking selfies infuriatingly addicting (curse you, portrait mode), human beings are now forced to pose for more photos than at any other point in history. And in that span of time, we’ve had to innovate.
Selfie trends are not new, exactly. Since the dawn of duckface in the mid-2000s — the act of pursing one’s lips and pushing them forward as if leaning in for a particularly theatrical kiss — we’ve replaced it with “sparrow face,” “migraine face,” belfies, T-rex hands, Bambi-ing, and that weird thing where teens cover their entire face with one hand, thus eliminating the purpose of a selfie in the first place.
Nearly all of said selfie crazes are performed by women, and we rarely discuss the ones percolating among men. But all along, there has been a single face that’s gone entirely unnoticed for the past decade-plus of its existence. It is this: raised eyebrows, and tightened lips.
“This is a face that says, ‘I’m kind of fun!’ but still reminds you, the viewer, ‘I am a tough, serious dude.” —Alex Kirshner
This face is everywhere. Though I have surely done it at one point or another, it is especially prevalent among guys who are somewhere in between teenagehood and middle age, the period of life most fraught with questions and doubts about one’s place in the world. It is a face that expresses this uncertainty — it is both happy and sad, surprised and indifferent, hopeful and cynical, studied and spontaneous.
And for a very long time, I despised it. Every time I’d see a crush doing it on Instagram (a lot!) I would experience a deep, full-bodied pang of cringiness. To me, it always recalled the fraudulent “who, me?” poses of early 2000s pop-punk lead singers, an expression of nice-guyness reserved for dudes who would later ask you for nudes via MySpace.
Today, though, I think the face communicates a certain world-weariness that I find incredibly relatable. The bewilderment of the raised eyebrows is offset by a tautness in the mouth that reads as disappointment. The eyes, too, often have a certain deadness about them. Which, same!
According to body language expert Traci Brown, what the face is actually broadcasting is that the person doesn’t really want to be taking the photo in the first place. “There’s no smile — their eyes are kind of wide. They’re doing it because they have to, like they’re forced into it,” she told me over the phone recently. It makes sense, then, that men might be more likely to make a face that screams, “I am uncomfortable!” while participating in an act that is often coded as feminine.
When I showed her a photo of professionally annoying 20-year-old social media phenom Nash Grier making the face, Brown described it: “He’s not showing emotion like he really wants to be there. He’s like, ‘Ah, I gotta take this picture.’ When his eyebrows are raised, that shows emphasis on a certain point. So he’s just trying to emphasize that he doesn’t want to do it.”
“The tightening of the face muscles you have to do to make the face in question here also comes with, like, a 5 percent smirk, almost a hint of a hint of a smirk.” — Richard Johnson
To find out why so many youngish men who are not former teen Vine stars are making this face, I asked a variety of them. As it turns out, there are a lot of reasons, from a desire to hide one’s “jacked-up teeth” to an attempt to erase all the sadness from one’s face and create a facsimile of happiness. Spoiler: A lot of the reasons are sort of dark!
“First, it avoids crazy eyes — not all of us can smize like Tyra. Second, it’s hard to get a real smile (with teeth!) right without looking like a goober. It took me roughly 1,500 selfies during my trip to Peru to get my easy, breezy, and convincing selfie smile down. Third, it mimics the face you make when you see someone and think, ‘Ah, what a nice surprise!’ Last but not least, it’s exactly what comes up when you Google ‘Confident Face.’ Try it.” —Max Garelick, 26, works in finance
“You start off wanting to get a selfie where you look natural, happy, and attractive, but in every picture, your eyes are closed or you smile like a serial killer. After, like, five attempts, you just do the face so at least you have a shoot with your eyes open [and] you don’t look totally pissed off at the world, and call it a day. Guys just don’t have the patience to take a good selfie.” —C.J. Martinez, 26, producer
“Why do I make the face? A few reasons:
When I force a smile, it looks like an alien trying to replicate a human smile for the first time.
When I press my lips together, my eyebrows kind of naturally rise, which does give an added benefit of reducing my fivehead back down to a forehead.
Unsure why I regularly include some sort of hand gesture. Thumbs-up, peace sign, hang loose, I’m also working on reclaiming the ‘OK’ hand sign. I think the hand just kind of helps fill out some of the negative space in the photo, or maybe it distracts the viewer from my face (another bonus).
“All of this is probably just made up to make myself feel good and I do it totally subconsciously.” —Kyle Jackson, 29, project manager
“I think the hand just kind of helps fill out some of the negative space in the photo, or maybe it distracts the viewer from my face (another added bonus).” —Kyle Jackson
“This is a face that says, ‘I’m kind of fun!’ but still reminds you, the viewer, ‘I am a tough, serious dude, and I barely have time to engage in such trivial things as selfies.’ It’s the pictorial equivalent of putting exactly one foot in the pool, so I’m participating but not vulnerable in any real way, because who cares about looks? I need to grow up.” —Alex Kirshner, 24, college football writer
“This face is a male equivalent of the duckface. It’s an entry-level, go-to, easy-to-pull-off pose for a man to use in a photo without much effort or risk. I usually choose not to make this face in any photo taken of me. Instead, I opt for a laugh/smile that instead makes me so squinty it looks like my eyes are closed because I’m blinded by the sun. Also not a good look, but it’s really all I’ve got. I think bros make this face because they believe it gives off a combination of mysteriousness and quirkiness at the same time. The raised eyebrows signal, ‘Oh, wow, you caught me off guard! Ha! Oh, a photo of me?’ which deep down is a way for the subject to justify the fact that they’re taking a selfie. The smirk is like, ‘I’m too cool for school but I’ll still take this selfie because hey, I’m a fun guy.’
“Sidebar: For some reason, I think it’s fairly accepted that women take selfies — but if you catch a guy trying to get a fit pic off in a public bathroom, it usually makes everyone feel awkward. I believe we should work together to reverse this trend and support the dude that’s just trying to flex a bit to feel good about himself.” —Max Levitzke, 27, works in solar energy
“It’s an entry-level, go-to, easy-to-pull-off pose for a man to use in a photo without much effort or risk.” —Max Levitzke
“I don’t usually take these types of selfies very often, but I feel like what it’s communicating is, ‘I wanna send you a pic of me smiling, but I don’t want to fully smile because that’s too cheesy, so here’s a pic of me with somewhat of a half-smirk so you know that I’m excited about what you’re talking about but don’t want to come across as overly excited.’ I know that probably doesn’t make any type of sense, but the male brain can be strange. I feel like I’ve sent these type of selfies usually through Snapchat so they can disappear. Also maybe men just aren’t good at taking selfies? I know personally I’m quite trash at it.” —Joe Ali, 25, shooter/editor
“Some combination of shyness and plain old male lizard brain command me not to smile. It’s something I’ve increasingly tried to override — smiling is good and makes everyone feel good! — but my instincts don’t want me to. I guess smiling feels like it’s too much? Or maybe I’d just feel exposed. I’ve got pretty jacked-up teeth.” —Seth Rosenthal, 29, video producer
“Ugh, I have made the selfie face you are referring to but I’m not sure I ever realized I was doing it until now. Add it to the pile of things to be insecure about. I think it happens a lot more when you have to take it for a dating app. I think the raising of the eyebrows is meant to, like, soften your face? Like, eyebrows up means ‘hey! :)’ and eyebrows down or neutral means ‘hey.’ As far as the tight-lipped thing, that’s just dudes not wanting to smile because it makes you vulnerable or whatever.” —Ryan Simmons, 30, video producer
“I feel like I’ve sent these type of selfies usually through Snapchat so they can disappear.” —Joe Ali
“I feel like this may be inherently a look with a hint of shame among us men, because in the traditional sense, dudes aren’t even really supposed to be taking selfies, are we? When the selfie really started taking off in the Myspace 2009-ish days, duckface was all the rage thanks to the mirror pic and there was no way in hell 16-year-old me was going to be caught dead doing duckface (because that was for girls, of course).
“Fast-forward a decade or so and maybe I’m still a little held back by the faux machismo prepubescent me subscribed to in regards to the selfie. Besides that, I think the face is also pretty neutral. I’m not gonna frown in a selfie because that would look dumb. But then again, if I flash some toothy grin in a solo selfie, that looks kinda dumb too. I mean, how happy am I really supposed to be about taking a selfie? The tightening of the face muscles you have to do to make the face in question here also comes with, like, a 5 percent smirk, almost a hint of a hint of a smirk. I’m too cool for school (and by school, I mean emoting in a tangible way).” —Richard Johnson, 25, sports writer
“Something to do with the perceived masculinity of selfies. Smiling naturally would imply that I enjoy this teenage girl ritual way too much. The eyebrow raise and nonchalant smirk gives the appearance that I don’t care about my appearance and that I didn’t retake this five or 10 times — even though they did.” —Zach French, 32, business development manager
“Is this what happiness looks like?” —Mike Imhoff
“I think (generally) guys are less comfortable taking photos than girls. But I think everyone has a game plan when it comes to photos. Instead of having to wing it, you just have your go-to because you generally know the outcome, the same way girls do the cross leg/arm bent on the waist/lean-in formula. (I tend to do this open mouth grin thing like I’m doing a big laugh.)
“Guys also potentially feel a certain vulnerability, or perceived vulnerability, when it comes to photos. Like, it’s uncool to enjoy being photographed. So the more you downplay it, the more comfortable you feel (like how guys follow everything they text with ‘haha’ or ‘lol’ in text, even when they’re not even attempting to be funny). —Mark Topel, 30, senior copywriter
“I would say it’s the equivalent of unnecessarily crumpling and eating a journal entry just because someone walked in the room. You need to hurry up and get all that deep sadness out of your face before the camera goes off. Is this what happiness looks like?” —Mike Imhoff, 30, senior director
As I expected, men have a lot of very different reasons for performing this particular facial expression. All of them, however, support the idea that being a person with a face who sometimes has to post photos of that face on the internet can be a very fraught activity — even for men. Who knew!
Original Source -> Why do guys always make the same face in selfies?
via The Conservative Brief
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Text
Angst Fluff Whiplash -14
18+, m/f, technically OCxDiego Jimenez [Power]
Summary: What does an apex predator do after confessing undying love? Princess is about to find out.
WARNINGS: Ridiculous descriptions and ‘the code is more like guidelines’ outlook on grammar. Is it OOC if the character was given essentially zero development in canon???
Non-descriptive sexytimes, the L word, criminal activities glossed over, relationship building, plus size woman+fit man, Anxiety, This one is all feels and
I Am So NOT Sorry.
THE TIME HAS COME
A/N: Princess took on a life of her own and has essentially become an OC. There are infrequent mentions of her description (specifically as plus size) and her actual name in later pieces (its Bicki). She started as self-insert so she looks like me (plus size, white, short, blue eyes, curly hair). If that is not your thing, I totally understand. And do not feel obligated to read this, I will not be offended!
I’m not a fan of “plot” so be aware that most of this series is just meandering through their relationship, angst-fluff-smut whiplash style. But with dick jokes.
TAGLIST: @chelsfic @symbiont13 @nicke0115 @bunnykjm @rosee-sensuelle @girlpornparadise @mandoplease @heresathreebee @xxsteph-enrixx @jetiikad @joalsglasses @mutantcookiesecrets @demoncatstone @squidlywiddly87 @lockedoutofmyotherblog @poeedamerons
"I don't know, Lisa. He won't tell me. Not until this weekend apparently? We're supposed to go shopping."
"Honestly, I'm scared. I mean, there's the whole how did he get a passport FOR me dilemma. Then the part where he knows I don't like surprises. And he said he was calling my sister!"
"Oh my God, she could tell him anything! Please don't tell him about the Backstreet Boys phase. I'm going to have a panic attack."
"Of course he would tease me about it for eternity!"
"What? Watch what words? What are you talking about?"
"Do not hang up this phone! Do you even love me?!? Lisa? …. Hello?"
You toss your phone down on the bed and heave a huge sigh. Your very own BFF, abandoning you like that. Luckily its your own phone and not the insane cell Diego got you because it bounces off the other side of the bed and smacks into the wall before admitting total defeat to gravity.
You stand there staring at your open suitcase. Your typical items are in there already. You don't need any toiletries. Or makeup, now. Or bras. Or underwear. Fucking hell, its like I already moved into the penthouse with him.
… Could I do that? He already basically asked for it. He keeps telling me to quit my job and let him spoil me for real. You wring your hands together while rubbing your lips against each other and being bombarded with intrusive thoughts. Yeah. Until he's done with me and then I have to start all over. At 35.
But its been almost a year now that you've been seeing Diego. What does that even mean, "seeing" him? You think about how the last few months have been so… easy. He practically lives in New York now, their territory split. He opted to control the East Coast and let his sister deal with the logistical nightmare of receiving the imports.
He has been a lot looser since then. Faster to laugh, quicker to goof around, less likely to do anything as hard as he used to do. The distance from Alicia has allowed him to really flourish in every aspect. And he's beautiful with it. The laugh lines and the soft brown eyes wreck you every time.
He says he wants to keep you. Take care of you. You finally believe that he loves you. He has made so many improvements in communication. Hell, he read books on how to be with someone on the spectrum. Do you understand it? Hell no. Are you going to take it and run? Fuck yeah dude. I love him and I want to keep him.
And now he wants to take you on a trip. A surprise destination. Out of the country with a mostly legal passport. You don't doubt that you'll be safe with him. Your parents were a little concerned when you told them since they've never even met him. And they saw him on the national news that time he got arrested by the Feds, so that really inspires confidence.
Your middle sister Lynne and niece Halley accidentally met him that one afternoon about a month back. And they have not shut up about it since. Diego this, Diego that, blah blah blah, paid the restaurant bill in cash, yadda yadda, took us all shopping to a Coach store and then got Halley some crazy new sold out Nikes. Diego had been delighted to be surrounded by a gaggle of giggling girls enjoying his spoiling attentions. Just like always, Diego went to the max and charmed them silly.
It was like having an out of body experience to see Diego with them. You couldn't really fault them, he swept you off your feet with no problems. He was grinning and joking the whole time, making raunchy comments with your sister and encouraging your niece to be assertive (unnecessary according to her soccer coach and the 'Most Aggressive' trophy). He fit right in with them. Afterwards he had asked if that was what it was like to have normal siblings and your heart broke thinking about what his childhood had been like with his sister.
Which brought you back to the here and now. He had mentioned off hand that he was going to call your sister. Maybe you should text her. She might know something.
Maybe you should just pack your bag and trust him.
Your Diego Cell chirps and you dive for it on the nightstand. Is he okay? Please don't be hurt.
Its a pic of him. In the shower. With his own hand wrapped around himself. You choke on air and have to sit down.
I miss you Princess
Holy. Shit. Its been almost a year that you have had unrestricted access to that incredible body and your reaction is still the same. Before you can respond another text arrives:
SOON
The attached pic is just from squinty eyes up.
You burst out laughing at him. You love that he is secretly a nerd about internet stuff. His appearance would never give that away. Time to be ridiculous right back.
Don't make me lick your eyeball
You are a crazy person laughing to yourself alone in your bedroom.
You are so weird
Yet there you are, lusting after this weirdo
You shoot back.
… Am I the weirdo??
No. Still you.
I would threaten to bite it.. but you would like that
Well now you have to
Oh my God. You're fairly certain you could do anything to this man and he would think it was sexy. Its a novel experience.
Can we eat dinner at home tomorrow? I don't feel like wearing a real bra
You know the answer to that.
YES. NO MORE BRAS EVER AGAIN. BE FREE
… no panties?🙏🥺
You can see the hopeful puppy dog eyes clearly.
A for effort babe. One of these days you might get your wish lol
...Are you panty free right now?
Wow. He is really trying here.
I'm packing.
Your pic is a heap of tangled thongs dumped on top of Tiny Murder Panther.
💜🔥😛
He would find that hot. Fucking nympho.
Lemme finish this so I can go straight to the airport tomorrow
Fine. But I am pouting
You do not doubt that.
Don't care. Still love your stupid face
You cannot believe you just sent that.
Princess.
Mi amor.
Diego's good little girl.
You shudder with the praise. You can hear it in his voice, as if he were right here with you.
I love you
Dream of me?
Oh baby, if you only knew. You sigh wistfully.
Always, baby
---------------‐---------
The flight is uneventful, thankfully. Your maxidress with a built-in shelf bra is stupidly comfortable and you actually take a nap.
The plane has barely come to a stop and you already have on your silly lambswool lined Ugg flip flops. You had argued with Diego about these (Why would flip flops need a warm fuzzy lining??) but he had won by sticking one in your face and ordering you to feel. It didn't take a full second for you to snatch them both from him and cuddle them to your chest. His pleased smile full of dimples was worth all the subsequent teasing.
You slip on one of his previously stolen shirts in a metallic lilac color and roll up the sleeves so you have use of your hands. Bending at the waist, you flip your hair over and fluff it back up from the nap. What was that he had said? Oh yes: Wild and thick, just how I like it. The memory makes you bite your bottom lip and smile.
Bastian is waiting for you on the tarmac. He takes your bag and kisses you on the cheek in greeting. "Hey, sweetie. Nice shirt, is that new?" His knowing grin is infectious.
You nuzzle into the collar with a laugh. "Thanks! My boyfriend gave it to me."
Bastian chuckles as he opens the passenger door for you. "Oh, honey. That is not all he is going to give you." He closes the door while you roll your eyes smirkingly.
The ride to the penthouse is uneventful. Well, as uneventful as Friday evening rush hour traffic can be in New York.
Bastian waits until the song is over before lowering the stereo volume. "We're supposed to pick up dinner. Any requests?" He drums his fingers on the steering wheel while you sit at the red light.
You ponder the options. "What kind of a day has he had? Meetings? Tours? Disciplinary action?" You ask Bastian thoughtfully. Sometimes when Diego has a bad day he likes comfort food. Mostly a giant heap of rice and beans next to homemade tortillas, he isn't so picky about the variety of meat.
Bastian glances at you out of the corner of his eye before warily answering, "There was a… termination… at a construction site this afternoon that took longer than expected. That's why he didn't come to get you, he wanted to shower first."
You keep your eyes focused forward to look out of the windshield. "Okay. How about Jalisco's then?" Comfort food it is.
Bastian nods and adjusts course to obtain those tortillas.
‐--------------------
The instant the elevator doors ding open Diego pops up from the sectional and comes straight at you. Your giant sidestep to let Bastian pass is barely completed before Diego is slipping those big hands under his own pilfered shirt to crush your body to him. Your arms go around his neck like a reflex, like this is their natural resting place. He leans his forehead down onto yours and kisses you so very gently.
"Mmmm. Hi." You murmur softly into his beard. Those bottomless brown eyes look over your entire face before coming back to your own. His smile is huge, those dimples make your pulse trip. He blinks slowly down at you, just like the big cat you nicknamed him after.
"Princess. How was the trip?" He always asks you this. You still aren't sure if its just culturally specific manners or if he is requesting a review of the flight crew's performance. Either way, your answer is always the same.
You pull him back down so you can cuddle into his neck. "Its better now that I'm here." He rubs his cheek against your own and purrs directly into your ear in response. Your body's reaction is immediate and decisive. You shiver in his arms and your nipples peak to full attention.
Except this time is different. With only a bralette and the dress's shelf bra Diego can clearly feel what just happened in real time. His eyes are comically round as he peers down at your cleavage in pleasant wonder.
"Oh. I like this outfit." His hands rise up your back to crush you further into him. You chuckle and rub your chest on his firm pectoral muscles. He watches hungrily as your compressed decolletage rises higher yet from the added pressure. "New rule to match the bedroom pants bar, no bras in the penthouse. Fucking magnificent, bonita." He licks his lips after making this proclamation.
You throw your head back and laugh joyfully.
‐----------------------
As it always does the weekend passes too quickly. Its already 1:00pm on Saturday when you two finally come down from the bedroom.
Diego is delighted to hear that your time-off request was approved for the trip. You had told him not to worry about it, your boss always kept her word about this stuff.
That’s when he pulls a ridiculous pith hat out from under the couch. It looks like it came straight out of a Looney Tunes cartoon about a big game hunt on the African savannah. You lose your entire shit and laugh until you do that silent clapping seal move.
Diego keeps repeating, "Wait, stop laughing. Stooooop." But he isn't faring much better. You finally wipe the tears and calm down enough to take it from his limp fingers while he chortles a few last times.
"Baby. What. What the fuck. What fucking is this??" You plunk the hat on your own head and Diego collapses facedown into your lap to gigglesnort uproariously. "Stop. Stop laughing. Stoppit!" You smack the back of his head lightly until he comes up for air.
He closes his eyes and composes himself. You take the opportunity to plop the hat on his head.
"Oh my god, that is so sexy!" You declare in high dramatics.
He grabs your hands and leans in very close to explain. "You need this hat for our trip." Your eyes narrow in suspicion. "You will wear it for our safari quest…" he pauses for dramatic effect and your lips twitch in suppressed amusement. He leans closer yet and captures your stare. His face is hilarious, you can tell he is biting his cheek to keep from laughing. His eyebrows are drawn down in concentration but his eyes are widened in mock excitement. He sucks in a deep breath to exclaim, "To locate palm trees in the wild!"
He laughs as he puts the hat back on you.
You blink a few times in shock. Palm trees? You're going somewhere with palm trees? A tropical locale. Palm trees. Beaches. SWIMSUITS. Your sudden panic must show on your face because Diego's laughter dies off.
You blink furiously, but its too little too late. The tears burn as they well up in your eyes and spill down over your cheeks.
He reaches out to cup your face. "Princess?" His tone is an even mix of concern and fear. "Bicki? What?"
You shake your head 'no' and throw yourself into him. Diego catches you and hauls you into his lap. You curl up against his chest and sob quietly. He pets over your hair, open handed strokes so his fingers don't tangle in the curls, and soothes your back while you shake. Rubbing his nose against your temple, he kisses your cheek and whispers, "Do you want to write?" His gentle care only makes you worse. "...so that is no." He looks crestfallen. He buries his face in your hair and breathes heavily.
Your tears are slowing and your chest is finally beginning to loosen. "Dieg-" you hiccup, wrapping both hands around his forearm. You wheeze a few times before trying again. "I. I. Where? Where are we g-going?"
He sighs deeply before answering. "Nowhere. I won't take you somewhere you don't want to go. I should have known better. I-" He snaps his jaw shut so fast that his teeth click together.
Tilting your head back, you try to catch his eyes. Diego won't look at you. "H-hey, please." You cup his jaw and pull him down to you. He comes, but the motions are stilted. "Look. Please, baby. Let me s-see you."
When he finally meets your eyes it breaks your heart. That chocolate gaze is disappointed, hurt, frustrated even. You wiggle around until you're straddling his lap. He just holds his hands out of the way, not hindering you but certainly not helping either. Standing up on your knees to lean your forehead against his, you reach for his hands and bring them to your chest where you lace your fingers together.
"Baby. I want that." Your nose rubs against his as you speak. "I want to go everywhere with you. I never thought I would ever get a chance like this. To travel? To go somewhere tropical? To have someone who loves me enough to do this for me?" You're crying again. And so is Diego? A little??
He brings your joined hands up to tap your chin. His face is adorably conflicted when he speaks, "You… want to go?" You nod slowly. His eyebrows lower as he tries to make sense of this. "Then why do you cry? Are they, the uh, is that 'happy tears' ?"
Your hands shake in his. "Yeah. Happy tears. I just. I was overwhelmed. I'm sorry." He huffs out a sigh. You continue, "Its almost like the super intense emotions short circuit my responses and I guess my default is panic crying? I don't know."
Diego huffs at you again. "Please stop that. I'm going to have a heart attack." There is a hint of real annoyance in his voice but his lips curl up at the corners.
You free your right hand to reach up and brush his wet lashes. Why did something this little bring him to tears? "Baby, is everything okay?"
He leans into your hand, then turns to kiss your fingers. You giggle, you can't help it, his beard both tickles and delights you. He smirks at you, "It is now, Princess. You should get dressed so we can go."
But you're not done here yet. "Where are we going on the trip? A place name, not foliage that may or may not be present."
His Cheshire cat grin is intriguing and mildly worrisome. He gives you one word, "Xcalak." And then watches while you access your mental map and pinpoint the exact location.
It takes you a moment but you find it with a gasp. "Costa Maya? Like Caribbean-sea side of Mexico??" He nods and you immediately start in with 20 Questions. "Are there cenotes? Is the water really those unreal colors? Is the food amazing there? Can we see ruins?"
Diego cups your face to stop you. "Whatever you like, little girl." With a kiss to your nose and a smack to your ass he ushers you upstairs to get dressed.
-----------------------
The shopping is less traumatic than normal for you thanks to Diego making enthusiastic innuendo nonstop and feeding you between stores. You find sandals, and flip flops, and little slip-on sneakers. All kinds of flowy maxidresses and flouncy skirts paired with new tank tops in buttery soft fabrics. Cover-ups and kimonos and huge airy loose knit sweaters get rung up with linen pants and shorts you actually feel comfortable wearing.
But swimsuits? A disaster. Everything that fits your hips is way too big for your ribcage. Tankinis big enough to go around your middle are about a foot too wide around your chest. You try some maternity stuff… amazingly there isn't any chest support. That confuses both of you for almost 20 minutes while you discuss it over croissants and various iced beverages (coffee for him and some kind of hot chocolate slushie for you).
Then you look across the street and inspiration hits. One of the stores you order bras from is right there and has bra-sized swimwear in the display window. Diego turns to see what stole your undivided attention from him and slaps his hand down on the table in celebration.
You aren't sure which one of you is more excited to get into the store. But while you run around exclaiming at all the things that come in your size Diego stands in the doorway and gawks. When you circle back to check on him he just points to one display wall.
There is lacy, frilly, corseted lingerie. In. Your. Size.
He demands one of everything that fits you and isn't red, brown, or yellow. You don't even argue.
The store does alterations and makes very good recommendations. The sales clerk is impressed with Diego's input, she comments that he really does seem to know your body well. You flush with it, glad that he isn't close enough to hear that. You leave with three bags and seven personalized swim outfits under construction. One is ready to wear and you keep reaching into the bag to touch it in wonder.
Diego notices but just gives you a raised eyebrow.
"This is the first time I've ever felt good about how I look in swimwear." You confess quietly.
Diego wraps a massive arm around your shoulders and tucks you into his side while you continue down the sidewalk.
--------------------
Sunday is a mess as you try to make pancakes and Diego tries to remain physically attached to you like an excessively attractive barnacle. The pancakes are either burnt or still batter in the middle. Leftover carnitas and tortillas to the rescue. Diego teases you about the kitchen failure all day because this is the first time he has witnessed such a thing.
You doze on the couch under the pretense of "reading". Diego rotates through his laptop, cell, and the soccer match on ESPN+.
Until his phone rings.
You both tense up. Only one person calls him instead of texting. He takes the phone into the office to answer his sister. You wait on the couch to see which Diego you get back: silly tickle fight Diego, sad puppy dog eyes Diego that requires cuddles, or angry Diego that needs to fuck you through the nearest horizontal surface.
The elevator dings and Julio comes in with a tray of coffees. "Ay, Gordita. Buenas tardes. I got you the hibiscus thing you like." He greets you with a big smile, then looks around when he doesn't see Diego on the sectional with you.
Hopping up to help him carry stuff, you point to the office in indication of Diego's location. Julio makes a face, "Hermana perra?" and you simply nod. Julio takes Diego's iced coffee and bites the bullet for you. The door closes softly behind him.
You munch plantain chips and slurp hibiscus lemonade until they come out. Diego just looks tired when he comes back to you on the couch, coffee in hand. You open your arms in invitation and he plops next to you with a sigh. Cuddly Diego it is.
He doesn't tell you anything and you don't ask. Everyone watches the match mindlessly. Diego snores softly in your lap while you pet his hair.
He rides to the airport with you but you forbid him from coming onto the plane with you. He is already making this harder than it has to be with his big brown eyes and clingy hands.
"Baby." You breathe into his hair while he snuggles into your neck in the backseat of the SUV. "Its only a week. We do this every week." You pet down his bicep and immediately regret it.
"I know." Diego huffs into your skin. "Why don't you just quit? Let me take care of everything." You go through this almost every week now, too. He nuzzles you, the sensation makes you reconsider his proposal. You pull his head up by a fistful of soft hair and look him in the eye. He blinks guilelessly at you.
"Number one: No. Number two: Stoppit." He laughs at your fond exasperation. "Okay. I'm gonna go. You stay on the ground."
"Fine." He whines. "But I am going to send you a dick pic the moment that plane takes off." He crosses his arms as if daring you to tell him no.
You cup his stupidly attractive face in your hands for a kiss. Okay, several kisses and 27 minutes later, you respond, "Send me one every day. Its my favorite dick." His startled laugh makes you feel very pleased with yourself.
He pulls you into his arms again to kiss you one last time. His beard scratches and you sigh into him. Finally that tongue retreats and he rests his forehead on yours. His voice is low and rough, his hands squeeze tight on your hip and thigh, "I love you, Princess."
Will that ever stop hurting? You close your eyes against the burn of tears but smile with happiness. "I love you, Diego." You pop the door handle before you open your eyes to see him watching you, jaw tense. You stick your tongue out and he breaks into a smirk. With a laugh, you slide out of SUV and walk to the plane, determined not to look back.
When you get up the stairs the pilot greets you, but his gaze shifts behind you. Turning around, you see Diego standing outside the SUV, arms crossed and trying to look so not soft. You smile and mouth Bye baby, he gives you a short little wave. You duck into the plane before you can start crying.
The wheels are not, in fact, off the ground when the phone chirps.
‐-----------------------
The trip is a few weeks out and there is some kind of emergency at the San Diego docks the next weekend. So. You don't get your Murder Panther fix.
And your coworkers notice. They spend all day Monday strolling past your cubicle, straining their necks to see if you're wearing new shoes or some fresh bling. Finally someone has the nerve to ask how your weekend was.
You find yourself blinking back tears. I miss him so much. This is ridiculous, he just texted you at like six this morning. But its not just the conversation you miss, now is it? You miss that big body crowding you into the corner of the couch. His soft curls under your hands. That beard on literally any inch of your skin. Draping yourself over shoulders wider than your hips and knowing that not only can he take your weight, he likes it.
He says he wants to keep you and you desperately want to keep him. Why do you fear this? Is it just his profession? The risk? Oh god, how do you even go about introducing him to your parents??? Diego can be all kinds of charming but he can be a real asshole, too.
And they know what he is: A criminal. For your boomer parents he is the living embodiment of Public Enemy Number One.
Grand Theft.
Money Laundering.
Arson.
Murder.
International Cocaine Trafficking.
HE IS A LITERAL DRUG LORD.
You lay your head down on your desk and try to keep it together.
Your Diego Cell chirps.
Your laughter bubbles up until it comes out of you without your consent. It turns hysterical and you realize you need to leave the office suite. Now.
In the bathroom you stare down at the phone as it lights up again with another message.
Miss my Princess💔👑
How? How is someone who can do all those illegal things so nauseatingly sweet to me?
And then it hits you. Illegal. You didn't use the word immoral. Illegal. You think back to how everyone you see working directly for him is well into adulthood. No children. There are a few women but they are not being sold by him, they are there by their own free will. And he has never laid a hand on any of them, they're just as comfortable around him as the men are. No sex trafficking. You saw someone give their resignation last month. The dude walked away with a suitcase of cash for a decade of trustworthy service. Its a better retirement plan than what I have.
Have you seen him assault people? Yes. You've seen him stab people. Carve off someone's ear because they weren't listening as assigned and it cost the Jimenez Cartel a shipment. You've seen him push an informant down an empty elevator shaft. Choke a man into unconsciousness with his bare hands when you were disrespected.
And you still love him. Not a single one of those incidents weighs on your conscience. Your morality is a dingy grey 12 year old men's undershirt that you should just throw away but you're definitely going to cut into rags to keep for cleaning when it comes to Diego.
The cell lights up again.
Mi amor 💞😍🍑🏝✈⏲👙
You don't know what's worse: His excessive and ridiculous usage of emojis or the fact that you understood.
Look what came
The attached pic is a few pieces of your new swimwear. They look gorgeous, you can't even tell where the alterations were done.
You have to try on all of them. And show me
Of course he wants his own personal show. You feel desire burning low in your belly. Its been a year and not once has he ever shied away from your stomach rolls or hinted at weight loss. He never questions the food you order. And while the two of you have chuckled about shapewear he has never mocked you for using it. Or seemed disappointed when you opted not to wear it. He tosses you around like its nothing and prefers for you to sleep on top of him. Its not that he loves you despite your weight, he loves it as part of you.
-------------------------
Its now Thursday and the desk drawer where you keep your purse at work is vibrating. He knows I'm at work. If he calls right back I'll answer him. You try to keep your Diego Cell out of sight at work or you'll never get anything done. Plus your coworkers are always dying to catch a peek of your infamous sugar daddy/boyfriend.
Yeah. Boyfriend. Keep practicing that. It feels good.
You finish the insurance call and hang up your headset when the vibrating starts again. Your next door cubicle neighbor pops around the divider to advise you to answer that before he comes down here and abducts you.
What deity should I pray to for that??
You snatch Diego Cell and march out to the hall. Poking the green button, you answer the call.
"Baby. You okay?"
"Princess! I… yeah. I'm not hurt."
He sounds odd. There is definitely something going on here.
"What's up? You need me?"
The silence stretches.
"Yes. Please?"
Diego sounds very uncomfortable. It causes you physical pain.
"Well, you have me. What is it?"
You can hear him swallow and in your mind you picture him looking away, hiding some soft emotion shining in his eyes.
"Baby?"
"Here. I am here. I just. I just wanted to hear you."
Something is very wrong with my Murder Panther, you think.
"Babe," your voice is soft, you're trying to ease him. "Can you tell me what's wrong?"
He huffs and you can hear him scrape a hand down over his face. "I know you are at work. And I should not have called. But."
His voice trembles, even over the phone you can hear it. He's afraid.
"Diego. If you need me, then you have me. Tell me, baby." You try to be reassuring but you also really need to know what is wrong.
"I would like to come down there." His declaration is overly formal. You wonder who he is trying to impress. Its certainly not me.
"You… want to come down here instead of me going up there this weekend?" You're trying to make sense out of any part of this conversation.
"I…. grrrrrrrrr." He growls in frustration. Between English being his second language and your sensory processing issues, this is not an uncommon occurrence. He sucks in a deep breath and charges forward in an emotional rush. "I know you're working, but I want to come down there because I miss seeing your face." Before you have a chance to answer he adds, "Pick me up? At the airport, after work? Please, Bicki." His voice cracks at the end and his inhalation is ragged. Your heart implodes.
"Diego. Baby. Of course. Of course I will. I can be there by six." You have a mental flash of how dirty your bathroom is, all the clothes you have laying around, and the vacuum you haven't touched in over a month. Diego needing me is more important.
"Good. Good. Yes, I. I will text you. When I land." His voice is raspier than ever, low and gravelly.
"Sure. I'll be there." I'll always be there.
"Okay. You… you should go." You can hear his determination. You can visualize him squaring his shoulders and setting his jaw, taking on the Jimenez Cartel persona.
"Hey." He grunts in acknowledgement. "I love you." You blurt it out before you have a chance to talk yourself round in circles. You can hear voices in the background.
"And you. You as well." The call ends, but you know.
---------------
You're sitting in your car at the little regional airport second guessing the coffee you got when the phone chirps.
Here
Springing out of the car, you wave to the security guard as you trot past. "Hey Jim, I just have to grab someone real quick. That's okay, right?" You wave vaguely back toward your car parked in the fire lane. There are only four security guards who work here and they all know you at this point.
Jim laughs but waves you on. "Go get 'im, sweetie." Jim must be pushing 90 by now, he doesn't care about traffic laws.
You enter one of the two sets of automatic doors on this entire building and cross through the tiny lobby. There. You can see his dark hair and ridiculous shoulders over a completely unnecessary row of potted plants. He must hear your echoing footsteps because his head whips around in alarm, but his face relaxes into a wide smile. He lengthens his strides to come around the stupid plants, hands automatically reaching out for you.
"Diego." You laugh breathily and fling arms around his neck. He smells so good.
He crushes you to his chest and buries his face in your neck. "Printhesss." He murmurs into you, slurred because he refuses to remove his mouth from your skin.
Turning your head to kiss his cheek, you moan shamelessly for him. He surges back upward to capture your lips and kiss you with mild desperation. That devious tongue sweeps over the roof of your mouth before curling up behind your top front teeth.
Your entire world narrows down to Diego. Chocolate. Tastes like the smoothest Belgian chocolate in existence. He smells perfect, clean but definitively male to you. His silky button-down is smooth under your hands, stretched taut over muscle. Those massive hands gather you closer, molding you to that big, solid body. His beard scratches your face in soft tickles when he alters the angle of the kiss just so.
"Goddamn." A woman's voice exclaiming somewhere behind you catapults you back into the here and now. Which is a dinky little regional airport in rural central Pennsylvania. You know, a very public location in a very prudish area of the country. Fuck.
You pull back and Diego's hands shoot up to the back of your head. Holding you in place, he leans his forehead against yours with a contented sigh. He rumbles softly to you, "Take me home."
You feel so silly seeing Diego in the passenger seat of your Corolla, he just seems so out of place. "You can adjust the seat however, nobody really sits there. I just put it all the way back to make sure you can get in without cracking your head." You sound nervous even to your own ears.
Diego turns to you with a response but his attention is captured by the cup holders in the center console, specifically the Dunkin Donuts styrofoam cup. He points to it, then looks up at you with a slow grin. "Princess. Is this for me?"
You flush but can't stop the embarrassed little smile so you cover it with sass, "Well, it sure as hell ain't for me." You start the car and give Jim a little wave. He winks and gives you two thumbs up. Yeah, I'm aware that you saw that kiss too, old man. Everyone saw that shit.
When Diego reaches for the coffee his fingers brush your hip. The contact burns and you suddenly remember that you have not touched this beautiful man for well over two weeks. Apparently he remembers, too, because he wraps that huge hand around your thigh with rather a lot of force. Right hand slapping down to cover his, your heart rate jumps through the roof. Did I take my blood pressure pill this morning?
"Don't." You choke out.
He rumbles softly next to you, purring with conceited pleasure. "Did my Princess miss Diego?" He asks you with an incredibly pornographic voice.
"Oh, fuck you." Your answering groan is also obscene. So glad the windows are up.
His hoarse chuckle makes your thighs tremble. "You're Diego's good little girl, you will." He's right and you both know it. You would ride him right here in your own damn car if he demanded it. You have a problem.
He lets you redirect his hand to the coffee with only a little resistance. "Focus." You hiss.
"Me or you?" Diego quips.
"Yes." You declare.
Diego's guffaw is contagious and you don't even try to hold back.
Your apartment always seems like an adequate size until Diego is inside. No, bad Bicki. Do not say it like that. His presence just sort of… lounges about in a vaguely threatening but highly attractive manner. Much like the actual man on your couch. You tried to pick up dinner on the way but he just wanted to 'go home'. You are disgustingly happy that your place feels like home to him.
Diego had flopped on your couch immediately and hasn't moved since. Something is very definitely very wrong. There were bursts of your Murder Panther in the car, but he has been just subdued overall. He had turned your stereo up and smiled faintly, watching you sing along. He had also complained that the stereo in your car sucked (Agreed) and this was unacceptable. You're sure he'll do something ridiculously extravagant to remedy this.
You try to give him the remote, he takes it but doesn't do anything with it. You offer him food, both junk and something home-cooked, all you get is a shrug. You putter around for a while, picking things up and sighing before putting them down somewhere else. His dark eyes watch you, unfathomable.
Finally you disappear to the bedroom only to return in your pajamas. This he likes, perking up and blinking rapidly. "Okay, I know you brought something softer than those jeans, so get comfy so I can order shitty pizza and cuddle you."
His jaw drops in momentary shock. Then he scoffs, "I do not cu--"
You cut him off, "Yes, you do and yes, you're going to. Up. Now." This has to be hilarious. This short little woman in overly long pants barking orders at the massive man who heads an international drug cartel. Well, its either hilarious or fatal. I'm about to find out.
Diego looks around, as if someone else might secretly be here to witness him be a little bit submissive and moderately soft. He raises his chin in a tiny show of defiance. "Fine. But I am showering first." He glares with this proclamation, daring you to contradict him.
You throw your hands up in the air. Why the fuck would I have a problem with that?? His eyes follow your hands, like a cat when you try to point out a bit of food but all it does is rub your finger. You sigh, resigned to your fate. "Of course that's fine, Diego. You know where everything is, have at it."
You watch his butt as he walks away to the bathroom.
The pizza actually isn't shitty and Diego eats half of it by himself. When you offer him the cinnamon dessert sticks he shoots you a calculating look. You split the contents, pulling two sticks over to yourself and piling up the rest in front of him. His delighted grin is decidedly not calculated and you lose track of time watching him enjoy dessert.
He's beautiful like this. He wears a soft, silky t-shirt that is tight enough to help you get through the nights you spend alone. His hair is a riot of fluffy curls, free of product and clearly trying to break free of gravity, too. He hasn't shaved for at least a few days and that salt and pepper beard is filling in nicely. His face is unguarded, expression open, those laugh lines and dimples you love make frequent appearances.
After dinner you lay all over each other in some weird we-have-intimacy-issues approximation of cuddling. It works so you don't question it. He has his laptop and you have your tablet and together you have sporadic conversation. Its comfortable.
Until Diego asks you a seemingly innocuous question that you know is very nefarious:
"What color do you like in cars?"
Your eyes narrow so much that you have trouble seeing. "...Why." Your low tone might be frightening to anyone else.
He looks at you over the laptop screen, brown eyes innocently wide. "Just curious. Your car is green. Do you like any other colors?" He slowly pulls the laptop closer to himself to subtly cover the screen with his bulk.
"Diego." You slowly put down your tablet and start leaning toward him. He has nowhere to go, propped up in the corner of the chaise end of the sofa. "What. Are. You. Doing."
"Will you let me take care of you? Just in this one way right now?" He licks his lips, brow furrowed in concentration. Building desperation shows in his eyes and you can't fight that. You don't want to win this.
"Let me see, baby." Your sighed acquiescence has an instantaneous effect. Diego drops the tension from his shoulders and opens an arm to you in invitation. You crawl up him to cuddle into his chest, wedged on your side between all those muscles and the back of the sectional. From here you are stationed directly in front of the laptop screen.
He is looking at cars.
Armored cars.
Armored, bulletproof, explosive resistant cars.
What. The. Fuck.
"Diego, what the fuck is going on?!?" Your apprehensive demand sets him right back on edge. You can feel him go tense underneath you. The laptop gets shoved onto an empty cushion as you throw yourself over him. Tiny hands land on those broad shoulders with extreme force as you use all of your deadweight to trap him. Below you, Diego shakes but you can't tell if its from anger or anxiety because his eyes are scrunched closed tightly. "Tell me why I need a fucking bulletproof car!"
He surges up into your face to match your volume, "She knows! Mi hermana perra knows about you! Alicia found out about us!" You lurch back in shock, but the steel hands on your hips stop you from retreating. His voice is hoarse, louder than you've ever heard him, and its terrifying. Your fear must show because he releases his grip on you like it burns.
"WHAT?" The ramifications here could truly be lethal. Alicia has already tried to set Diego up to take the fall when they were arrested almost four months ago. You know she has scorned Diego's familiarity with his men in the past, that is why he handpicks them personally. To Alicia, everyone is disposable, even her own brother. Her only loyalty is to herself.
Diego's hands come up in an aborted reach for you. You're still too shocked to move. His face crumbles in agony and he blinks furiously, hands balling into fists. "Everything I have ever wanted she has ensured I never got. She, she manipulates me into destroying everything I touch. I will not let her hurt you! I refuse to allow her to break us, mi amor!!" His volume has steadily escalated until he is yelling.
He's afraid. He is afraid that he will lose me. The realization emboldens you enough to take his hands in your own, bring them to your chest, and press them close to your heart. You trust that he won't hurt you in his rage. You don't fear him, this dangerous, powerful, ruthless man that you love.
His hands open to slide up your shoulders, curl around your neck, and his thumbs glide over the pulse point under your ears. He brings your face to his own, his expression twisted up with fear and anger and possession and love.
"You are mine! And I will keep you!"
You realize everything that you have been debating with yourself, all of your pro versus con lists, your stupid little dry erase board covered in sticky notes with your fears, your scribbled timeline of events and possible future predictions, none of it matters. All you care about is the man in your arms. Diego is the most important thing in your life and you can't imagine a life without him. If you had to give up everything to keep him, you would do it in a heartbeat.
Your hands grip tightly around his wrists and you consciously straighten your spine. Expression hardening, your eyes open to meet his anguished gaze.
"I want black."
The armored 2020 Camry is delivered that Sunday. You thank him for finding something inconspicuous with an upgraded JBL sound system and he compliments your understated color choice of Black Sand Metallic. By the time you drop him off at the airport that evening you've managed to replace the new car smell with something better and you're thankful that the leather seats just wipe clean. Monday morning in the parking lot at work, however, is a literal ordeal.
---------------------
The next two weeks feel like they’re seven months long. You clock out at noon on Thursday to a chorus of your coworkers making vaguely lewd remarks and howling with laughter about your vacation. 'Two whole weeks on a beach in Mexico with an absolutely loaded hottie' is what they've been repeating gleefully all week.
You turn around and walk backwards to give them finger guns, "Yes," then you reach down to adjust your pants, "And YES." Their squeals are contagious and you're still laughing when you burst out the front doors to drive home.
You turn the volume waaaay too high in the car so that your teeth vibrate and it feels like you're having heart palpitations. I love this fucking car and I love that man.
There is a rental Tahoe parked in the grass next to the huge gravel driveway at your farmhouse, but he left the second assigned parking space next to your Corolla open so you can park The Beast (as you have affectionately named your new ride) appropriately while away. When you get out of the car you glance up instinctively, Diego is standing outside your front door on the small third floor balcony laughing.
"Are you deaf yet, Princess?" He hollers down in amusement.
You flip him off with the middle finger that wears the gemstone ring he gave you while yelling back, "WHAAAAT??"
His laughter fades as he disappears inside, leaving the door wide open to let out all the cold air. Were you raised in a barn?? Close the door, the electric bill-- You cut off your own thoughts when you suddenly remember that you haven't been paying that electric bill for the last six months. Nevermind.
Before you can start up the stairs, Sara, your first floor neighbor, appears on the porch with their toddler. "Hey stranger!" Sara waves with a big smile and the kid does the same but with some kind of unidentifiable kitchen utensil in hand. "That is your boyfriend, right? He had a key so I didn't think it was your ex but I wanted to make sure. I mean, from what I just saw it is your boyfriend. Also, holy shit, that's your boyfriend?"
If she says the word 'boyfriend' one more time I'm going to spontaneously combust.
"Uh yeah, definitely not my ex. Sorry, I forget that you guys haven't really seen him before, I meant to tell you he was coming." You can feel your face burning and it isn't from the August sun. Sara fans her own face with a hand while mouthing 'he's hot' like you're somehow unaware. You forge on before she can start gushing aloud. "We're actually leaving on a trip tonight so I'll be gone for the next two weeks."
Now Sara drops the kid and scrambles over to whisper fiercely to you, "Oh my god, seriously? Where are you going? Wait, this is the same guy you've been going to see in New York, right? How long has it been, like a year? Is he taking you on a trip for your anniversary? I don't even know his name. Oh my god, that is so sweet!"
Okay, down girl. You're not sure who you're trying to will into being chill, Sara or yourself.
"Um, we're going to Mexico. And yeah, he's the guy in New York. It's just a vacation." You don't even touch the relationship questions with a ten foot pole. You glance up but Diego is still inside, Thank fuck.
Sara hops a little in excitement. "I'm sooo jealous!" She squeals. "You have to take a ton of pictures! I need to see! Oh my god, I bet you guys are such a cute couple!" You nod and start backing away, trying to wave goodbye so you can climb the stairs and then climb Diego. "Ooh ooh, wait, what's his name?" Sara hisses conspiratorially. "Does he speak Mexican? Is he Mexican!?!"
You suddenly remember why you tried to move away from this area. Repeatedly. "Yeah, he's Mexican and yes, he speaks Spanish." You sigh. Sara nods but continues staring at you expectantly. Fine. "His name is Diego."
Sara makes a stupid face like this is a rom-com movie. I cannot take anymore, you must shut the fuck up. "Okay, okay. I won't hold you up. But seriously, we can have a 'pics and wine' girls' night when you come back!" She waves maniacally before snatching up the kid and skipping back inside.
I can't think of anything I would like less. Oh hell no.
You climb the stairs in record time before she can come back outside and start talking again.
Bastian, Julio, and a third man you don't know are in your living room. You do not care and your vague wave shows it. You can hear Julio's warm 'Gordita!' greeting as you spin around and march to the bedroom.
Diego is standing at your bed, tucking TMP into your small duffel, when you burst through the doorway and continue at full speed directly into him. He laughs breathlessly but holds steady against your weight. "Princess. Are you ready?"
You take overflowing fistfuls of his shirt, bury your face in his chest, suck in a huge lungful of air, and shriek at full volume.
"Uhhh...that is a yes, si?" He mutters uncertainly above you.
You rear back to look up at him with a smile so wide it hurts.
"Oh good." His hands come to your shoulders while those beautiful brown eyes sparkle. The dimples and laugh lines come out as he absorbs your infectious excitement. Your hands shoot up to his hair to yank him down so you can crash your mouths together with bruising force.
The effect is immediate. He moans loudly and crushes you against him. You dig nails into his neck and you lick your way into his mouth, his hands snake down to your ass to hold tight. Your left leg comes up as you try to wrap it around his hips. With a pained groan he rips those lips off of yours and pulls back. Undeterred, you move on to assaulting his now bared throat, moaning like porn come to life.
"Princess," he gasps, "You have to sto-- uhhh, yes, bonita. Your fucking tongue." You're too busy licking his adam's apple to pay attention to words right now. "Nooo, mi amor, please, lo siento, stopstopstop." You get in one last nip of his collarbone as he pulls your head back via a handful of ringlets. His pupils are blown wide and he's panting hard. You stare longingly at his delectable mouth while making pitiful whines.
"Please, baby, pleeeease. You're all I've thought about for days. I need you!" You try shameless begging, you're certainly not lying. Petting over his shoulders and down that solidly muscled chest, you shudder and try to pull yourself back to him.
He closes his eyes with a grimace. "Flight! Fuck you on the flight!" He croaks, then yanks your hair harder than you like. The pain clears the fog just enough for you to blink back to awareness. You nod jerkily and step back. "Have to leave now to get there before dark." He explains in a rushed huff. You blink as you remember how time works.
"Right. Yeah, right. Okay. Okay." Straightening to attention you yank off the cardigan you wore for the air conditioning at work, leaving you in a tank top and ready to be productive. Focus on not-dick.
Diego shoves your favorite notepad in your face so you can see your packing list and not him. The distraction works. He has checked off every item in each categorized list but left the strike through action for your completion. You lower the notepad until you can make eye contact with him and intensely whisper, "You know I fuckin' love you, right?"
He laughs so hard he has to sit down on the bed.
You go through every bag, touching each item and crossing it off your list one at a time. He did it. Everything but you.
"You know I don't need TMP, right?"
"Why?" He squints up at you from where he lounges across your bed.
Your face heats up and you clear your throat. "Well, its, I'm. I have, uh, you. So I don't need anything else." The realization of how true that is in every sense gives both of you pause.
Diego surges upright to cup your face and bonk your foreheads together just a little too hard. You giggle and he huffs.
"Mi amor…" he sighs for you, eyes closing in pleasure. You 'mmmmm' in response. Then his eyes snap open and he growls an order, "Get changed so we can go!" And punctuates it with a stinging slap to your ass.
----------------------------
You spend the flight with your face pressed to the window, vibrating in excitement, except for a brief intermission of seven orgasms in the bathroom.
The unknown third man is Joey, Bastian's boyfriend. Joey is even quieter than Bastian and just as cute. They're not overly demonstrative but clearly comfortable moving around each other. Joey works in "Packaging" and does an admirable job of ignoring his cartel drug lord boss being snuggly. Julio naps.
The customs agent at the Cancun airport looks you up and down with wide eyes but stamps your passport with no questions. Its a five hour drive to Xcalak but Diego is adamant it can be done in three. You give him an eyebrow question which he dismisses with a vague wave, "They paved the road all the way to the southern border last year."
Uhh, they what now? You understand soon enough. The drive drastically changes outside of Cancun. The scenery is both beautiful and heartbreaking. There are occasional mansions with armed guards, high fences, and SUVs like your own current ride. Mostly though, its shacks and people on foot or riding bicycles, weaving to avoid stray dogs and huge iguanas. Could I handle this as my daily reality?
The first time the road sidles right up to the ocean you have a small meltdown.
"Is that what I think it is?" Your soft whisper is accompanied by a shaking hand pointing to the left. Diego, crammed into the middle of the backseat between yourself and Julio so you could have an unobstructed view, indicates an order for Bastian to pull over. He reaches across you and pops open your door. You slide out with his hand on your lower back and take about a dozen steps to the lapping water. Diego appears to your right, watching you intently.
"Its gre-e-e-en!" Your stuttering squeal is accompanied by happy tears and you fling yourself into Diego with joy. He laughs at you, but hugs you back just as tightly.
----------------------------
The first week passes in a blur of amazing food, warm green sea, fruity drinks, and shirtless wet Diego. And so many orgasms that you can't keep count. Diego is all over you non-stop, more than he ever has been before (Astonishingly). Its incredible and you feel like the only person in the world. If he's not molesting you then he is at least touching you; keeping you in his lap, holding your hand, cuddling and petting and snuggling like a man obsessed.
You love it. You love him. You love this life.
On Saturday he lets you lead him through the tiny town, your Spanish improving by leaps and bounds as you try to navigate the streets and alleys and shops. The four years of high school Spanish actually prove useful as you manage to complete a purchase all by yourself. Your playful mock smugness evaporates under the blazing desire in his eyes.
He drags you back to the casita in a much shorter and more direct route than you took upon earlier departure. You're marched directly to the bed and he puts one massive hand in the middle of your chest to gently push you down onto your back. There is something different about this, something important in his eyes. Your voice is high and soft, "Diego?"
He climbs up between your legs and leans down to kiss you senseless. It goes on forever; soft lips, scratchy beard, silky tongue, and nothing but the taste of Diego. Your moans and sighs are mixed together, there are moments when you can't tell who is making what noise. His hands are shaking as he strokes every inch of newly bared and sunburnt sensitive skin while undressing you.
It takes repeated attempts, but you finally get him naked, too. The sight never fails to take your breath away. All that soft, and now freshly tanned, skin is like velvet to your touch. You're mesmerized by his muscles flexing and then evening out as he moves above you. He finally gets your linen pants untangled off your left foot and flings them across the room with unnecessary force. Your soft peals of laughter light up his face and it brings tears to your eyes. You reach a hand out to him, "Diego. Baby."
He comes up over you, threading fingers into your hair, kissing you slowly and thoroughly. You can feel him against you, fire hot and mouth wateringly hard, but he makes no move to take you. Your eyes open in hazy confusion as the kiss ends. Diego is watching your face, blinking back tears.
He is holding your head still, hands like steel. Whatever this is, he needs it. And you want to give him everything he needs. Forever.
You're captured by his eyes, bottomless, soulful, and hungry. His raspy voice is soft and trembling with desire. "I love you, Bicki. I want everything. Forever, Princess?"
Your chest compresses and your heart implodes. Scalding tears escape when you blink and you're nodding before you even know it. "Yes, Diego. Yes, baby, I'm yours."
Your back arches off the bed as he comes home and brings you with him.
-----------------------
You wake up crushed under Diego. The sun is still up so you might be able to talk him into going out for dinner. You rub your cheek on the huge bicep doubling as your pillow and Diego sighs directly into your ear from where he is spooned up behind you. Oh yeah, we should have done this waaaay sooner.
He nuzzles your neck just to incite squirmy giggles and you don't even fight it. "I have something for you, Princess. Stay here." He pulls away and you whine about the loss of your pillow. His low chuckle burns you alive with want. "Stay like that. Do not move." You obey while you listen to him rummage around behind you.
He comes around to your side of the bed, still completely and unabashedly nude. Hell. Fucking. Yes. You love it. He hands your glasses over and you slide them on to take in the now high definition view of naked Murder Panther. The view disappears as he kneels down next to the bed so you're on eye level. His expression is very peculiar.
His hands slowly come up to reveal a small box of black velvet. Time slows to a halt as he opens the box and presents it to you.
Inside is a ring. Gleaming in platinum and sparkling with three tastefully large princess cut diamonds.
Its an engagement ring.
Diego is proposing.
He swallows hard and rumbles gruffly, "Now remember, you already said y--"
You cut him off with a shriek. "YES! YESYESYES!!"
In the time it takes him to blink twice with surprise you're on him. Arms around his neck, you throw yourself into his lap. He topples backwards and you ride him to the floor, already bawling hysterically.
He stares up at you in shock as you nod furiously and cry all over him. "Princess. You… you are certain?" If this were any other time you would be howling with laughter at his huge eyes and lax jaw.
Your answer is stuttery but determined. "Y-y-yeah. Put it-t-t-t on me already!"
He laughs in delight at your order and the imperious presentation of your shaking left hand. The ring glides on easily, a perfect fit. It gleams up at you blindingly. After a moment of admiration you lace your fingers with his and sigh at the union. His other hand comes up to roughly brush away your tears. "I know you do not like labels so much… but, you will be my, my married... Person. Thing?"
You stroke his bearded cheek in return, thumb lingering on that dimple. With a hard gulp you dive in head first. Fuck it.
"Yes, Diego. I will be your wife."
----------------------
The next time you wake it is dark out. You reach for a phone on the nightstand to your left and jump when you find one with a loud crack. Diego pops upright behind you, instantly on high alert. "Princess?" He hisses while covering your body with his own.
You gigglesnort, then meekly answer him, "I forgot about the ring and whacked a phone. Everything's okay, baby."
He sighs so deeply that his breath ruffles your hair. "Jesus fucking christ, woman. You are a menace." He flops down on top of you and snuggles back into your warmth.
You reach back with your left hand and grope blindly for his face. He licks your fingers as soon as they're in reach and you stuff them into his mouth as retaliation. He just sucks languidly.
"Mmmmmm, I'm your menace, baby. And I have to pee." He nips your fingers but rolls over to free you. You slide out of the bed and stretch your arms high while arching your back. Diego groans painfully. "What?"
Diego rises to all fours on the bed while the sheet slithers off of him. "You forget that other people can see without glasses, huh?" You cock your head and realize that you have a shadow.
It's a full moon. And I just stretched naked in front of a sliding glass door. "Oh. Huh. I guess I do forget. Oops. I'll be sure to keep that in mind now." Your seemingly tame answer is directly contradicted by the exaggerated roll of your hips that makes your butt bounce when you walk off.
"Fucking menace, woman." Diego growls as you push the bathroom door shut with a trill of laughter.
You never do go back to bed but you do wind up on the beach in front of the casita to watch the sunrise. Julio finds you both snuggled together late the next morning, still asleep on the covered daybed under the palms while the rising tide comes ever closer. At least Julio has the decency to cover your bare ass with a beach towel.
-----------------------------------
By the time you think to check your phone gallery you have… 1,792 pictures. WHAT THE FUCK.
You scroll through the pics, there are a lot you do not remember taking. Was I that drunk or did Diego take some of these? One is a close up of your ass from below wearing a string bikini, I knew I wasn't that drunk. The next pic is Diego asleep on a lounge chair, one arm curled up above his head, muscles glistening in the sun, and swim trunks so low on his hips that it's almost obscene. Immediately following that is the same pic but with your own face photobombing about three inches away from the camera and giving a thumbs up with your left hand so your engagement ring is prominently visible. Oh yeah, I remember that one.
There are videos, too. The first one is Diego making lewd comments while you twerk in the ocean for about ten seconds. Okay, that's par for the course with us. Next is you successfully backflipping off of Diego's shoulders into the green water to everyone freaking out. Shit, even I'm impressed with myself. After that is video of you gagging through a dish of octopus at some restaurant. Both of you are clearly visible in the shot so Julio must have had the phone. Betrayal.
There are tens of dozens of the two of you in various poses and outfits, both disgustingly happy and blatantly in love. There's even a role reversal shot of Diego sprawled across your lap, one enormous arm wrapped around your neck and his knees over your own arm while you grimace and he laughs hysterically. The table to your right is covered in empty bottles and mostly finished drinks. An entire subsection depicts you asleep like you have a stalker. You count no less than 29 of you two trying on increasingly ridiculous hats in random stores.
You can't even keep count of all the close ups of a smoldering Murder Panther. You feel no guilt. Aren't you supposed to be ridiculously attracted to your fiancé??
Fiancé.
You have a fiancé. Your fiancé is Diego. You are engaged to Diego Rafael Jimenez.
I have to explain this ring to everyone. They'll have questions about him. People will want pictures. How do I explain what he does?? Oh my god, there's no closet here. I have to… find somewhere. And I can't I can't. Its-
Your head jerks upright when something touches your hair. Its Diego. Kneeling on the floor in front of you, he has unfurled a sheet over you to block out everything, and he waits there, watching you. Before you realize it your hands are reaching for his shoulders, just the feel of him, warm and solid under your hands, calms you.
Slowly, his right hand comes up to cover your left. "No closet, Princess." His huge fingers grip yours tightly. You nod a little. He just watches you, eyes guarded.
"Ask. Go ahead." You mutter. You can tell from his posture that he is uneasy, apprehensive.
He locks eyes with you and his gaze is intense. He curls all of his fingers around your left ring finger. "Still yes?"
The fear in his eyes breaks your heart. Your voice is shaky but determined, "No. You can't get rid of me. I'm your problem now, baby." His expression would make a meeker woman cower in fear, you laugh weakly.
He settles down on the tile floor in front of you, with the sheet over both of you. Its like four in the afternoon and I am sharing a blanket fort with my cartel boss fiancé while on vacation in Mexico. What even is my life? His elbows are on his knees, chin in hand. He studies you for a minute, you stare right back. He raises one eyebrow and you sigh in capitulation.
"I don't know how to just be happy. I suck at it." You shrug but reach for his face. Diego nuzzles into your hand while you stroke your thumb over his beard.
"Habby isz nawt a berb." He slurs into your palm with a soft kiss.
The epiphany is like a cinder block to the brain.
He's right. I don't have to 'do' anything. I'm happy right now. I've been happy every time I'm with him. And no one had to exert any effort.
People can define themselves. People can define their relationships. Why can't they define their own normal? I can make my own rules. Especially with someone like Diego as my partner.
His one eyebrow slowly rises as he watches your thoughts play out across your face. "You back?" He asks with a hidden smirk, you know its there from the way his eyes crinkle with laugh lines.
"Yup!" Is your decisive answer. Diego licks your palm. "I got better places you can lick, baby." You answer his smirk with a waggling eyebrow.
The rest of the afternoon passes in a blur of play wrestling and inappropriate noises.
-----------------------
You do, in fact, go on a safari. Of sorts. Tours of ruins and jungle and cenotes, lots of side quests because the both of you are easily distracted by pretty colors. You probably added another thousand pictures of various palm trees to your gallery. The hat makes multiple appearances.
Diego has to ship a crate home to New York because he bought you too many souvenirs. You laugh and tease him when he wants to pick out things for your middle sister and niece, until you hear his logic.
"They were nice to me." He murmurs with a little half-shrug, "It was like being in a real family for a little bit." He studies the bins of painted shells on display in the little store with way too much focus.
You spend a moment deliberating before you decide to reach out and touch his elbow.
"Hey," your soft voice brings his gaze your way momentarily before he goes back to ceramic turtle magnets. You take his hand with your own right and rest your left hand on his chest. Diego looks down where your ring glints in the light, then up to your face. "You know you're going to be part of that 'real' family, right?"
Diego's boyish little smile is heartbreakingly adorable.
---------------------------------
The flight home is much shorter than you want it to be and you spend most of it asleep on Diego. At one point you wake up to see Bastian and Joey cuddled up together napping. When you look up from where your head is resting in Diego's lap he is already looking down at you with an unreadable expression.
"What?" You whisper softly. You stifle a yawn and blink repeatedly.
Diego strokes one big hand over your hair and grips your jaw firmly. With a huge toothy grin he answers, "Mine."
"Uh huh. How many times you need me to say yes, baby?" You smirk up at him with an arched brow. He seems to be reveling in hearing you readily admit your commitment to him.
He considers your question carefully while his other hand trails down the front of your body under a blanket. I don't remember having a blanket earlier. Finally, Diego settles on "Every day. At least seven times. Seven is a good number, right Princess?"
Your body jerks as his fingers press between your thighs with steady determination. Your eyes flick over to Bastian and Joey, still out cold. You make a show of wiggling around to get comfortable, and, surprisingly, that involves spreading your legs. "Yessss." You hiss up at him.
Julio reclines his seat and exaggeratedly covers his face with a new hat.
Seven is a very good number.
------------------------------------------
Your first day back to work is a circus. You don't think twice about your normal greeting as you enter the office suite. You swipe your badge with your right hand and pop the door, then wave 'hi' to everyone. Like usual. With your left hand.
There is an excessive amount of squealing that makes you second guess going into a female dominated field. The whole day is a wash because you have a steady stream of people passing through your cubicle. You're glad you had the forethought to curate a photo album of appropriate images to show your coworkers despite Diego's repeated attempts to sneak a dick pic in there somewhere. You most definitely included the glistening swim trunks lounge chair picture. Squealing intensifies.
Everyone comments on the hat and you're forced to tell the story of the hat. How you once told Diego that you wanted to see palm trees, 'But like, in the wild.' And Diego had laughed so hard that he fell off the bed only to pop back up wheezing about a 'Palm Tree Safari' until you smacked him in the face with a pillow. Your coworkers think it is just disgustingly adorable that he never let you live that down.
Your coworkers have questions:
When is the wedding?
Where are you having it?
What kind of dress do you want?
What are your colors?
Are you going to do flowers?
What about the cake?
Who is your maid of honor?
How did your family take the news?
What about his family?
Are you going to New York?
Will you take his name?
Oh shit. I forgot about the whole 'wedding' part of this.
#damnit diego#murder panther#rough me up then dick me down#24 fucking 7 hours in this house#zash writes#all the feels#so gross#soft murder panther#melty princess
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