#it’s been at the very least twenty years since she’s been on a first date lol | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

therealbeachfox · 3 months

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Twenty years ago, February 15th, 2004, I got married for the first time.

It was twenty years earlier than I ever expected to.

To celebrate/comemorate the date, I'm sitting down to write out everything I remember as I remember it. No checking all the pictures I took or all the times I've written about this before. I'm not going to turn to my husband (of twenty years, how the f'ing hell) to remember a detail for me.

This is not a 100% accurate recounting of that first wild weekend in San Francisco. But it -is- a 100% accurate recounting of how I remember it today, twenty years after the fact.

Join me below, if you would.

2004 was an election year, and much like conservatives are whipping up anti-trans hysteria and anti-trans bills and propositions to drive out the vote today, in 2004 it was all anti-gay stuff. Specifically, preventing the evil scourge of same-sex marriage from destroying everything good and decent in the world.

Enter Gavin Newstrom. At the time, he was the newly elected mayor of San Francisco. Despite living next door to the city all my life, I hadn’t even heard of the man until Valentines Day 2004 when he announced that gay marriage was legal in San Francisco and started marrying people at city hall.

It was a political stunt. It was very obviously a political stunt. That shit was illegal, after all. But it was a very sweet political stunt. I still remember the front page photo of two ancient women hugging each other forehead to forehead and crying happy tears.

But it was only going to last for as long as it took for the California legal system to come in and make them knock it off.

The next day, we’re on the phone with an acquaintance, and she casually mentions that she’s surprised the two of us aren’t up at San Francisco getting married with everyone else.

“Everyone else?” Goes I, “I thought they would’ve shut that down already?”

“Oh no!” goes she, “The courts aren’t open until Tuesday. Presidents Day on Monday and all. They’re doing them all weekend long!”

We didn’t know because social media wasn’t a thing yet. I only knew as much about it as I’d read on CNN, and most of the blogs I was following were more focused on what bullshit President George W Bush was up to that day.

"Well shit", me and my man go, "do you wanna?" I mean, it’s a political stunt, it wont really mean anything, but we’re not going to get another chance like this for at least 20 years. Why not?

The next day, Sunday, we get up early. We drive north to the southern-most BART station. We load onto Bay Area Rapid Transit, and rattle back and forth all the way to the San Francisco City Hall stop.

We had slightly miscalculated.

Apparently, demand for marriages was far outstripping the staff they had on hand to process them. Who knew. Everyone who’d gotten turned away Saturday had been given tickets with times to show up Sunday to get their marriages done. My babe and I, we could either wait to see if there was a space that opened up, or come back the next day, Monday.

“Isn’t City Hall closed on Monday?” I asked. “It’s a holiday”

“Oh sure,” they reply, “but people are allowed to volunteer their time to come in and work on stuff anyways. And we have a lot of people who want to volunteer their time to have the marriage licensing offices open tomorrow.”

“Oh cool,” we go, “Backup.”

“Make sure you’re here if you do,” they say, “because the California Supreme Court is back in session Tuesday, and will be reviewing the motion that got filed to shut us down.”

And all this shit is super not-legal, so they’ll totally be shutting us down goes unsaid.

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We don’t get in Saturday. We wind up hanging out most of the day, though.

It’s… incredible. I can say, without hyperbole, that I have never experienced so much concentrated joy and happiness and celebration of others’ joy and happiness in all my life before or since. My face literally ached from grinning. Every other minute, a new couple was coming out of City Hall, waving their paperwork to the crowd and cheering and leaping and skipping. Two glorious Latina women in full Mariachi band outfits came out, one in the arms of another. A pair of Jewish boys with their families and Rabbi. One couple managed to get a Just Married convertible arranged complete with tin-cans tied to the bumper to drive off in. More than once I was giving some rice to throw at whoever was coming out next.

At some point in the mid-afternoon, there was a sudden wave of extra cheering from the several hundred of us gathered at the steps, even though no one was coming out. There was a group going up the steps to head inside, with some generic black-haired shiny guy at the front. My not-yet-husband nudged me, “That’s Newsom.” He said, because he knew I was hopeless about matching names and people.

Ooooooh, I go. That explains it. Then I joined in the cheers. He waved and ducked inside.

So dusk is starting to fall. It’s February, so it’s only six or so, but it’s getting dark.

“Should we just try getting in line for tomorrow -now-?” we ask.

“Yeah, I’m afraid that’s not going to be possible.” One of the volunteers tells us. “We’re not allowed to have people hang out overnight like this unless there are facilities for them and security. We’d need Porta-Poties for a thousand people and police patrols and the whole lot, and no one had time to get all that organized. Your best bet is to get home, sleep, and then catch the first BART train up at 5am and keep your fingers crossed.

Monday is the last day to do this, after all.

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So we go home. We crash out early. We wake up at 4:00. We drive an hour to hit the BART station. We get the first train up. We arrive at City Hall at 6:30AM.

The line stretches around the entirety of San Francisco City Hall. You could toss a can of Coke from the end of the line to the people who’re up to be first through the doors and not have to worry about cracking it open after.

“Uh.” We go. “What the fuck is -this-?”

So.

Remember why they weren’t going to be able to have people hang out overnight?

Turns out, enough SF cops were willing to volunteer unpaid time to do patrols to cover security. And some anonymous person delivered over a dozen Porta-Poties that’d gotten dropped off around 8 the night before.

It’s 6:30 am, there are almost a thousand people in front of us in line to get this literal once in a lifetime marriage, the last chance we expect to have for at least 15 more years (it was 2004, gay rights were getting shoved back on every front. It was not looking good. We were just happy we lived in California were we at least weren’t likely to loose job protections any time soon.).

Then it starts to rain.

We had not dressed for rain.

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Here is how the next six hours go.

We’re in line. Once the doors open at 7am, it will creep forward at a slow crawl. It’s around 7 when someone shows up with garbage bags for everyone. Cut holes for the head and arms and you’ve got a makeshift raincoat! So you’ve got hundreds of gays and lesbians decked out in the nicest shit they could get on short notice wearing trashbags over it.

Everyone is so happy.

Everyone is so nervous/scared/frantic that we wont be able to get through the doors before they close for the day.

People online start making delivery orders.

Coffee and bagels are ordered in bulk and delivered to City Hall for whoever needs it. We get pizza. We get roses. Random people come by who just want to give hugs to people in line because they’re just so happy for us. The tour busses make detours to go past the lines. Chinese tourists lean out with their cameras and shout GOOD LUCK while car horns honk.

A single sad man holding a Bible tries to talk people out of doing this, tells us all we’re sinning and to please don’t. He gives up after an hour. A nun replaces him with a small sign about how this is against God’s will. She leaves after it disintegrates in the rain.

The day before, when it was sunny, there had been a lot of protestors. Including a large Muslim group with their signs about how “Not even DOGS do such things!” Which… Yes they do.

A lot of snide words are said (by me) about how the fact that we’re willing to come out in the rain to do this while they’re not willing to come out in the rain to protest it proves who actually gives an actual shit about the topic.

Time passes. I measure it based on which side of City Hall we’re on. The doors face East. We start on Northside. Coffee and trashbags are delivered when we’re on the North Side. Pizza first starts showing up when we’re on Westside, which is also where I see Bible Man and Nun. Roses are delivered on Southside. And so forth.

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We have Line Neighbors.

Ahead of us are a gay couple a decade or two older than us. They’ve been together for eight years. The older one is a school teacher. He has his coat collar up and turns away from any news cameras that come near while we reposition ourselves between the lenses and him. He’s worried about the parents of one of his students seeing him on the news and getting him fired. The younger one will step away to get interviewed on his own later on. They drove down for the weekend once they heard what was going on. They’d started around the same time we did, coming from the Northeast, and are parked in a nearby garage.

The most perky energetic joyful woman I’ve ever met shows up right after we turned the corner to Southside to tackle the younger of the two into a hug. She’s their local friend who’d just gotten their message about what they’re doing and she will NOT be missing this. She is -so- happy for them. Her friends cry on her shoulders at her unconditional joy.

Behind us are a lesbian couple who’d been up in San Francisco to celebrate their 12th anniversary together. “We met here Valentines Day weekend! We live down in San Diego, now, but we like to come up for the weekend because it’s our first love city.”

“Then they announced -this-,” the other one says, “and we can’t leave until we get married. I called work Sunday and told them I calling in sick until Wednesday.”

“I told them why,” her partner says, “I don’t care if they want to give me trouble for it. This is worth it. Fuck them.”

My husband-to-be and I look at each other. We’ve been together for not even two years at this point. Less than two years. Is it right for us to be here? We’re potentially taking a spot from another couple that’d been together longer, who needed it more, who deserved it more.”

“Don’t you fucking dare.” Says the 40-something gay couple in front of us.

“This is as much for you as it is for us!” says the lesbian couple who’ve been together for over a decade behind us.

“You kids are too cute together,” says the gay couple’s friend. “you -have- to. Someday -you’re- going to be the old gay couple that’s been together for years and years, and you deserve to have been married by then.”

We stay in line.

It’s while we’re on the Southside of City Hall, just about to turn the corner to Eastside at long last that we pick up our own companions. A white woman who reminds me an awful lot of my aunt with a four year old black boy riding on her shoulders. “Can we say we’re with you? His uncles are already inside and they’re not letting anyone in who isn’t with a couple right there.” “Of course!” we say.

The kid is so very confused about what all the big deal is, but there’s free pizza and the busses keep driving by and honking, so he’s having a great time.

We pass by a statue of Lincoln with ‘Marriage for All!’ and "Gay Rights are Human Rights!" flags tucked in the crooks of his arms and hanging off his hat.

It’s about noon, noon-thirty when we finally make it through the doors and out of the rain.

They’ve promised that anyone who’s inside when the doors shut will get married. We made it. We’re safe.

We still have a -long- way to go.

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They’re trying to fit as many people into City Hall as possible. Partially to get people out of the rain, mostly to get as many people indoors as possible. The line now stretches down into the basement and up side stairs and through hallways I’m not entirely sure the public should ever be given access to. We crawl along slowly but surely.

It’s after we’ve gone through the low-ceiling basement hallways past offices and storage and back up another set of staircases and are going through a back hallway of low-ranked functionary offices that someone comes along handing out the paperwork. “It’s an hour or so until you hit the office, but take the time to fill these out so you don’t have to do it there!”

We spend our time filling out the paperwork against walls, against backs, on stone floors, on books.

We enter one of the public areas, filled with displays and photos of City Hall Demonstrations of years past.

I take pictures of the big black and white photo of the Abraham Lincoln statue holding banners and signs against segregation and for civil rights.

The four year old boy we helped get inside runs past us around this time, chased by a blond haired girl about his own age, both perused by an exhausted looking teenager helplessly begging them to stop running.

Everyone is wet and exhausted and vibrating with anticipation and the building-wide aura of happiness that infuses everything.

The line goes into the marriage office. A dozen people are at the desk, shoulder to shoulder, far more than it was built to have working it at once.

A Sister of Perpetual Indulgence is directing people to city officials the moment they open up. She’s done up in her nun getup with all her makeup on and her beard is fluffed and be-glittered and on point. “Oh, I was here yesterday getting married myself, but today I’m acting as your guide. Number 4 sweeties, and -Congradulatiooooons!-“

The guy behind the counter has been there since six. It’s now 1:30. He’s still giddy with joy. He counts our money. He takes our paperwork, reviews it, stamps it, sends off the parts he needs to, and hands the rest back to us. “Alright, go to the Rotunda, they’ll direct you to someone who’ll do the ceremony. Then, if you want the certificate, they’ll direct you to -that- line.” “Can’t you just mail it to us?” “Normally, yeah, but the moment the courts shut us down, we’re not going to be allowed to.”

We take our paperwork and join the line to the Rotunda.

If you’ve seen James Bond: A View to a Kill, you’ve seen the San Francisco City Hall Rotunda. There are literally a dozen spots set up along the balconies that overlook the open area where marriage officials and witnesses are gathered and are just processing people through as fast as they can.

That’s for the people who didn’t bring their own wedding officials.

There’s a Catholic-adjacent couple there who seem to have brought their entire families -and- the priest on the main steps. They’re doing the whole damn thing. There’s at least one more Rabbi at work, I can’t remember what else. Just that there was a -lot-.

We get directed to the second story, northside. The San Francisco City Treasurer is one of our two witnesses. Our marriage officient is some other elected official I cannot remember for the life of me (and I'm only writing down what I can actively remember, so I can't turn to my husband next to me and ask, but he'll have remembered because that's what he does.)

I have a wilting lily flower tucked into my shirt pocket. My pants have water stains up to the knees. My hair is still wet from the rain, I am blubbering, and I can’t get the ring on my husband’s finger. The picture is a treat, I tell you.

There really isn’t a word for the mix of emotions I had at that time. Complete disbelief that this was reality and was happening. Relief that we’d made it. Awe at how many dozens of people had personally cheered for us along the way and the hundreds to thousands who’d cheered for us generally.

Then we're married.

Then we get in line to get our license.

It’s another hour. This time, the line goes through the higher stories. Then snakes around and goes past the doorway to the mayor’s office.

Mayor Newsom is not in today. And will be having trouble getting into his office on Tuesday because of the absolute barricade of letters and flowers and folded up notes and stuffed animals and City Hall maps with black marked “THANK YOU!”s that have been piled up against it.

We make it to the marriage records office.

I take a picture of my now husband standing in front of a case of the marriage records for 1902-1912. Numerous kids are curled up in corners sleeping. My own memory is spotty. I just know we got the papers, and then we’re done with lines. We get out, we head to the front entrance, and we walk out onto the City Hall steps.

It's almost 3PM.

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There are cheers, there’s rice thrown at us, there are hundreds of people celebrating us with unconditional love and joy and I had never before felt the goodness that exists in humanity to such an extent. It’s no longer raining, just a light sprinkle, but there are still no protestors. There’s barely even any news vans.

We make our way through the gauntlet, we get hands shaked, people with signs reading ”Congratulations!” jump up and down for us. We hit the sidewalks, and we begin to limp our way back to the BART station.

I’m at the BART station, we’re waiting for our train back south, and I’m sitting on the ground leaning against a pillar and in danger of falling asleep when a nondescript young man stops in front of me and shuffles his feet nervously. “Hey. I just- I saw you guys, down at City Hall, and I just… I’m so happy for you. I’m so proud of what you could do. I’m- I’m just really glad, glad you could get to do this.”

He shakes my hand, clasps it with both of his and shakes it. I thank him and he smiles and then hurries away as fast as he can without running.

Our train arrives and the trip south passes in a semilucid blur.

We get back to our car and climb in.

It’s 4:30 and we are starving.

There’s a Carls Jr near the station that we stop off at and have our first official meal as a married couple. We sit by the window and watch people walking past and pick out others who are returning from San Francisco. We're all easy to pick out, what with the combination of giddiness and water damage.

We get home about 6-7. We take the dog out for a good long walk after being left alone for two days in a row. We shower. We bundle ourselves up. We bury ourselves in blankets and curl up and just sort of sit adrift in the surrealness of what we’d just done.

We wake up the next day, Tuesday, to read that the California State Supreme Court has rejected the petition to shut down the San Francisco weddings because the paperwork had a misplaced comma that made the meaning of one phrase unclear.

The State Supreme Court would proceed to play similar bureaucratic tricks to drag the process out for nearly a full month before they have nothing left and finally shut down Mayor Newsom’s marriages.

My parents had been out of state at the time at a convention. They were flying into SFO about the same moment we were walking out of City Hall. I apologized to them later for not waiting and my mom all but shook me by the shoulders. “No! No one knew that they’d go on for so long! You did what you needed to do! I’ll just be there for the next one!”

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It was just a piece of paper. Legally, it didn’t even hold any weight thirty days later. My philosophy at the time was “marriage really isn’t that important, aside from the legal benefits. It’s just confirming what you already have.”

But maybe it’s just societal weight, or ingrained culture, or something, but it was different after. The way I described it at the time, and I’ve never really come up with a better metaphor is, “It’s like we were both holding onto each other in the middle of the ocean in the middle of a storm. We were keeping each other above water, we were each other’s support. But then we got this piece of paper. And it was like the ground rose up to meet our feet. We were still in an ocean, still in the middle of a storm, but there was a solid foundation beneath our feet. We still supported each other, but there was this other thing that was also keeping our heads above the water.

It was different. It was better. It made things more solid and real.

I am forever grateful for all the forces and all the people who came together to make it possible. It’s been twenty years and we’re still together and still married.

We did a domestic partnership a year later to get the legal paperwork. We’d done a private ceremony with proper rings (not just ones grabbed out of the husband’s collection hours before) before then. And in 2008, we did a legal marriage again.

Rushed. In a hurry. Because there was Proposition 13 to be voted on which would make them all illegal again if it passed.

It did, but we were already married at that point, and they couldn’t negate it that time.

Another few years after that, the Supreme Court finally threw up their hands and said "Fine! It's been legal in places and nothing's caught on fire or been devoured by locusts. It's legal everywhere. Shut up about it!"

And that was that.

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When I was in highschool, in the late 90s, I didn’t expect to see legal gay marriage until I was in my 50s. I just couldn’t see how the American public as it was would ever be okay with it.

I never expected to be getting married within five years. I never expected it to be legal nationwide before I’d barely started by 30s. I never thought I’d be in my 40s and it’d be such a non-issue that the conservative rabble rousers would’ve had to move onto other wedge issues altogether.

I never thought that I could introduce another man as my husband and absolutely no one involved would so much as blink.

I never thought I’d live in this world.

And it’s twenty years later today. I wonder how our line buddies are doing. Those babies who were running around the wide open rooms playing tag will have graduated college by now. The kids whose parents the one line-buddy was worried would see him are probably married too now. Some of them to others of the same gender.

I don’t have some greater message to make with all this. Other then, culture can shift suddenly in ways you can’t predict. For good or ill. Mainly this is just me remembering the craziest fucking 36 hours of my life twenty years after the fact and sharing them with all of you.

The future we’re resigned to doesn’t have to be the one we live in. Society can shift faster than you think. The unimaginable of twenty years ago is the baseline reality of today.

And always remember that the people who want to get married will show up by the thousands in rain that none of those who’re against it will brave.

#gay marriage #gay rights #gay history #gay

18K notes · View notes

sl-ut · 1 year

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still here

pairing: joel miller x fem!reader

description: joel is older than y/n, but that’s never been a concern of hers until very recently.

warnings: UNEDITED, age gap (legal), swearing, mentions of sex, mentions of ageing, mentions of health issues, mentions of insecurities, angsty, i literally stole the final line from tlou s1e3

words: 2.3K

date posted: 29/03/23

(idk how i feel about this yet, the idea just popped into my head and i wrote it in about an hour and a half so don’t be too mad if its not great!)

Fifty-eight was not old. Y/n had been reassuring Joel of that since they had started dating. Maybe he was older than her, but that had very little to do with the way that she felt about him.

His age was among his biggest insecurities. He was a man who had lived through and was hardened by the apocalypse, while she was just a child when it happened, and was able to deal with the trauma of the world ending much better due to the fact that she simply couldn’t remember any part of her life from before. The apocalypse had taken a great toll on him, both emotionally and physically.

Twenty-odd years ago, he was a relatively young man, and a rather fit one at that. As a contractor, his body had developed and hardened from the amounts of physical labour that he was constantly performing, and while he was still physically active after the outbreak, his age made it more difficult to prevent his belly from softening and his joints from weakening. He was less willing to admit that he was insecure about his physical appearance, though he did very little to hide it. In fact, he had batted her away during their first few times having sex when she had tried to unbutton his shirt, instead choosing to stay mostly clothed while she was nearly bare. She did her best to assure him that she was very attracted to him, though it still took quite a bit of coaxing before he was willing to shed his clothes in her presence.

Her attraction was not phased by his age, in fact, it may have been accelerated by it, though she could not deny the fact that it definitely frightened her. When she first met Joel, she was a bright-eyed twenty-year old who was morbidly turned on by the sexy fifty-year old man next door, and was wildly ignorant to the looming danger when she had started a relationship with him a few years later; the world was not built for long lifespans anymore, and there would come a day when Joel would no longer be there with her. During their early relationship, Joel warned her of exactly that, but she waved him off and promised him that it didn’t scare her.

And it hadn’t, until fairly recently. She was grateful that she, Ellie, and Joel had come across Jackson; she was able to let her guard down, socialise, and thrive in the new community. She and Joel were able to settle into their new home while Ellie set up camp in the garage out back, and they could look forward to actually living rather than basic survival. The lessened worry in her life allowed her to see what was right before her for the first time.

She had comforted Joel before when he complained about the pain in his knees and hands, though she was truly seeing the effects that it was having on him since their arrival in Jackson. Just last week, the man had nearly thrown his back out from laughing a bit too hard at something that Ellie said, and his salt-and-pepper hair seemed to have lightened considerably more.

She had even noted his lowered libido, having gone from wanting her at least once a day to once or twice a week–though she was certain it wasn’t for a lack of physical attraction on his end, as he had been eager when she began to kiss him, only his body seemed to be working against his wants. That was his greatest insecurity yet, especially since it had begun happening on a more regular basis. He was always quick to apologise, offering to help her out in other ways, though she always assured him that everything was fine, and it was.

Everything was fine, but her fear of that changing was growing exponentially with every physical sign of his ageing. She did her best to hide her concerns, knowing that they would only be proof of his insecurities, and instead made an effort to keep him healthy in a more subtle manner, such as suggesting that he eats less red meat, inviting him on long evening strolls through the town, and forcing him to join her for long bubble baths to soothe his aches and pains. If he had picked up on this, he hadn’t mentioned it, and she could always tell when he did, because he would wave it off or do something ridiculous that would only end up proving her point.

Then came the final straw.

She was working in the gardens with Maria that day, chatting back and forth happily and they worked to tidy up the growing crops. They had become good friends in Y/n’s time in Jackson, bonding over their shared love for the Miller boys. Maria had been rambling, going on about something that Tommy had done to piss her off earlier that week, finishing her story with a shake of her head before she changed the subject.

“Oh, I meant to ask you,” the woman turned her head, “How’s Joel feeling today? Tommy told me about what happened, that’s an awful scare. At his age, chest pain is not something to be taken lightly–not to say that he’s old or unhealthy, but you know how it is.”

Y/n froze, tilting her head at the woman, “Tommy told you…chest pain?”

“He never told you.” Maria’s expression tightened, realising that the younger woman had no idea what she was talking about. She sighed, dropping her tools and turning to face Y/n as she placed her hands on her hips, “Look, I don’t mean to be the one causing issues between you two, but this isn’t something to mess around with. The other day, while Joel and Tommy were out on patrol, Tommy said that Joel suddenly got dizzy, weak, and was complaining about some pain in his chest. Now, in saying that, I know that he’s been to the doctor, and he’s probably got his reasons for not telling you.”

Y/n pursed her lips, face hardening at the sudden burn of tears at her waterline, “Yeah, I’m sure he did. When did you say this was?”

“Earlier this week. Tuesday, I think.”

She shook her head. It was Saturday, meaning that it had been almost an entire week since this happened and Joel had neglected to tell her. Y/n chose not to respond, quickly finishing up her work before bidding Maria goodnight, heading back to her shared house with Joel.

When she arrived, there was no response to her call, but Joel’s coat thrown on the back of the couch betrayed that he was home, and the soft sounds of his guitar coming from the back porch revealed his location. The strumming came to a stop as the backdoor creaked open, his eyes turning to face her with a soft smile.

“Hey, darlin’-” His peaceful expression shifted to one of worry when he took her in own sombre face, “What’s the matter–did something happen?”

She shook her head, shrugging as she leaned against the railing, “I don’t know, did something happen? Because today, when I was with Maria, she seemed awfully concerned about how you were feeling.”

Realisation dawned on his features, his brows furrowing as he moved the guitar out his lap and ran a hand over his face, “Baby, it’s nothin–”

“Don’t do that,” she scowled at him, “don’t tell me it’s nothing when it’s so clearly not nothing. Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I didn’t want you worrying about me.”

She scoffed, “Fuck, you did a great job of doing that, didn’t you? What am I supposed to do when I hear from someone else that you had to go to the infirmary almost a week ago because you had chest pain? I mean, really, that’s not something to fuck around with, especially–”

“Especially what?” He challenged, already knowing what she was thinking.

Y/n stopped, debating whether or not she wanted to say it, “Especially at your age.”

He stood up and marched to the other side of the patio and rested his hands on the railing, looking out across the small backyard. Y/n could practically feel the emotions that radiated from him; a mixture of anger, annoyance, embarrassment, and shame.

She sighed, moving to rest a hand on his back, “Joel, you know I don’t care about your age. I love you, but I need you to start taking care of yourself. This needs to be a wakeup call, I mean, it definitely is for me.”

“Why,” he huffed, “you finally coming to your senses? Finally realising that sooner or later I’m gonna–”

“Please don’t say it,” she whispered, sniffling softly as she rested her forehead in the middle of his back, “Please, please, please.”

Joel scowled, sliding away from her grasp, “About time you start to face reality, darlin’. I’m old, I’ve accepted it. Maybe you should wisen up and go find someone who’s not gonna leave you sooner or later, huh?”

Joel escaped into the house and out the front door, slamming it shut behind him. Y/n let out a shaky breath, moving to sit on the bench where Joel had been when she had gotten home, curling into herself and letting silent tears streak down her cheeks. It was only moments later when she heard her own name being called, Ellie creeping out onto the patio nervously.

Y/n wiped her cheeks, smiling weakly at the girl as she sat next to her, “Hey Jellybean.”

Ellie smiled at the name, having not heard it for a while now. She felt somewhat bad about that, having been a result of her requesting to be treated more like an adult, “Are you okay? I didn’t mean to eavesdrop but I was just over there, so…”

Y/n smiled at the teen, curling her arm around her shoulder affectionately, “Yeah, I’m fine. Just…concerned, I guess.”

She nodded, leaning against the older female, “Are you guys gonna be okay?”

Y/n smiled at the child-like question, as if she were asking her parents if they were getting a divorce–which, to be fair, she sort of was, “Yeah, baby. We’ll be okay.”

“Are you sure?”

The uncertainty in Ellie’s voice caused her breath to catch in her throat, finally thinking over the fight. Were they okay? Maybe you should wisen up and go find someone who’s not gonna be leaving you sooner or later. Those words in themselves felt like a knife driving into her gut–was that him ending things? She had dealt with Joel’s insecurities before, but he had never blatantly told her to leave him behind, nor has he ever explicitly pointed out that he would probably die long before her. Before she could even finish her thought, her head fell forward and a loud sob escaped from her throat.

Ellie was quick to pull her into a hug, awkwardly trying to soothe her as she wept into her shoulder. She listened to her ramble on, struggling to understand everything that she was saying, frowning to herself as she made a mental note to go after Joel the moment that she felt comfortable enough to leave Y/n to herself.

– – –

Y/n’s eyes fluttered open as she felt the mattress shift beneath her. Her foggy vision took in her side of the room, dimly lit by the lamp on her bedside table before she glanced over her shoulder, finding Joel’s back as he leaned down to untie his boots. His back cracked as he straightened up, reminding her of their fight, though she was feeling more confident that he hadn’t broken up with her considering that he had come to bed with her.

She reached out tiredly, fingers brushing over his back as she murmured his name. He turned his head slightly to acknowledge her, but he didn’t entirely face her.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered, voice hoarse from crying, “I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

“I know,” he sighed, finally twisting his body to sit sideways on the mattress. His own face showed signs of stress, and his eyes were rimmed with red, “I know, baby. I’m sorry too.”

Joel apologising was no small feat, that much she knew. Normally when they fought, he would give a simple you were right and do something nice for her, but it was very rare for him to actually apologise.

“It’s just…” she pushed herself to sit up, “I know you don’t like to think about this, but it’s really scary for me. I’m not stupid, I know you’re older than me and I know that there’s no stopping the inevitable–” she choked, “but I won’t apologise for trying to prolong it as much as possible.”

He dropped his head, “I know, I’m scared too. Just the thought of leaving you here all on your own…”

She crawled across the bed, smoothly working her way onto his lap and engulfing him in a tight hug. The weight of his arms around her pulled yet another sob out of her throat. His large hands found purchase on her back, sliding up and down her spine as his chest shook with his own tears.

She pulled her head out of his neck, staring up at him with large, teary eyes. Her hand came up to cup his cheek, forcing him to meet her eyes, “Please let me help you. I’m not ashamed of you or your age, but I don’t know how I’m gonna live without you, so please tell me next time.”

He nodded, “I’m sorry. For not tellin’ you, and for being so fuckin’ old.”

“I like you older,” she snorted, fingers stroking along his furry jawline, “it means you’re still here.”

#reader insert #x reader #imagines #joel miller x you #joel the last of us #joel miller smut #joel miller #joel miller imagine #joel x reader #joel miller one shot #joel miller fic #joel miller fanfiction #joel miller x reader #tlou #tlou series #joel tlou

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bloatedandalone04 · 2 months

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In The Way I Need You | Part 10

Series Masterlist

➪in which you start your first shift at jess’ after leaving clay’s house in tears, and a confrontation at work leaves you feeling a lot worse than before.

PSA: strongly suggested to read the warnings before proceeding.

WC; 3.5k | Do not repost this anywhere, reblogs are fine ♡

Clay watched you flee his house with tears in your eyes, and he couldn’t even question you on it before you were gone, your body covered back up by your dress from last night instead of his shirt.

He had no idea what happened in the three minutes he left you alone for, but apparently it was a lot. Only a few seconds passed by the time he made it to the front door to go after you, but when he looked outside, you were long gone.

You said you weren’t feeling well and that you needed air, but he was still confused as to why you didn’t let him take care of you. If you weren’t feeling up for that second date, then he would’ve happily let you lay in his bed all day until you felt better, but you fled before he could even offer that to you.

What happened?

His brows furrowed as he closed the door loudly and made his way back up to his room, planning on calling you, or at least texting you, as soon as he located his phone.

But as soon as he entered his room, that plan slipped his mind as his gaze narrowed onto the framed picture that was placed on his still unmade bed. Clay felt his heart drop as he neared the photo, a sick feeling creeping up his throat as he realized who it was of.

Clay picked up the picture of him and Sam that was taken on their wedding day, and he couldn’t even recognize the version of himself in the photo. It felt like so long ago, and he knew he was a very different person now.

The guy in the picture was a lovesick fool who missed every single warning sign and red flag Sam gave out. His twenty two year old self felt like a stranger now since he had been forced to grow up so quickly after Joey was born and Sam left him.

He wanted to laugh, because the second things had gotten good with you, Sam fucked it up for him without actually being there.

Where did you even find this picture? He couldn’t remember where he had put it after tearing his room apart of anything that reminded him of her, so what were the odds that you had found it?

Clay looked around and noticed one of the drawers in his dresser was open a bit, and when he pulled it open and saw an unfolded blue shirt thrown in there, he knew that was where you discovered it.

This was the drawer Clay barely went into as it was full of all his old tees he used to wear when he was in his late teens and early twenties. They were his vintage and graphic shirts, and the ones he didn’t wear often, so he truly didn’t remember putting the picture in there since he hadn’t opened the drawer in quite a while.

“Fuck,” he muttered as he picked up the shirt and and looked down at the photo. No wonder you suddenly didn’t feel good, Clay was beginning to feel sick, too, as he stared down at the smiles on his and Sam’s faces.

Young, dumb and naive Clay. How stupid can you be?

With a groan, he tossed the shirt onto his bed before turning the frame over and practically ripping the back of it off. He pulled the photo from the glass and tossed the frame aside, too, and without a second thought, he ripped it into countless pieces.

He knew he wouldn’t have been able to do that before he met you, but now that he’d had a glimpse of what life looks like with you, he never wanted to go back. He hadn’t even thought about Sam at all since he left her that final voicemail, and he hated the fact that you must think that he still loves her.

But that couldn’t be further from the truth.

The only part of her that he loves is the one he shares with her. The one that brought you and him together. His son; someone who he doesn’t even consider hers anymore.

Joey isn’t Sam’s. He never was. She brought him into the world, and then she abandoned him. No mother does that to their child.

As far as Clay was concerned, Joey was all his.

He throws the pieces of the picture into the garbage bin beside the dresser before looking around for his phone. He finds it on his nightstand next to his alarm clock with your sticky note on it, and his heart ached even more.

Without wasting a second, he picks his phone up and calls you. He sits down on his messy bed and tugs at his equally messy hair as it rings and rings, and he knows you probably won’t answer him for at least a few hours.

You were upset, and rightfully so.

“Y/n, I’m sorry,” he started when he was met with your voicemail, and he would’ve laughed at the fact that he is leaving someone else another pointless voicemail, but you weren’t just someone, and nothing was pointless when it came to you. “I didn’t realize I still had pictures with her around, and I hate that you found that. I swear, I would’ve never told you to grab some of my clothes if I remembered that it was in there. It wouldn’t even be in there anymore.”

He felt stupid calling you like this, but he needed you to know as soon as possible that he was over Sam and that she was no longer in the picture.

“Sam doesn’t mean anything to me. All she is…she’s just the person who helped bring my son into the world. That’s it,” he was rambling now and felt his chest tighten. It hurt a bit, and it felt like he was straining his heart, so he knew he needed to end the call and calm himself down. “I’m sorry. Please, call me back.”

He hung up after that and tossed his phone onto the bed before sitting down and running his hands through his hair.

How did he always manage to fuck things up? It was going great, you trusted him enough to let him pick you up after a night out, and your second date was a mere few minutes away from happening when you left in tears. Ones that he caused, more or less.

You were embarrassed as you turned off your phone, declining Clay’s second call to you since you left his house crying.

Sam was stunning, and now that you knew what she looked like, you could see the similarities her and Joey share.

You felt like an idiot and you were humiliated and feeling so insecure right now. A million doubts ran through your head and left it hurting, and your unrelenting tears definitely didn’t help.

Once you were home, you completely shut yourself off from everything and tried to focus on preparing for your first shift at Jess’ cafe. You wanted to check your phone and even wanted to see what Clay had said in his texts, but you also needed some time away from all that.

So you didn’t turn your phone on for the rest of the night, and by the time you entered Jess’ the next day, you still hadn’t powered it on. You didn’t have much time to use your phone as Jess would be starting your training any minute now, but you still didn’t want to completely cut Clay off. You decided that much after a whole day had passed.

You turn your phone on and click on his contact, but before you could read one of the four texts he sent you, Jess calls your name, and you have to put your phone away and begin training.

Around an hour passes before Jess allows you to continue your shift without her hovering over your shoulder. You had just taken your first order when your new coworker moved to get started on it. “Oh, you don’t have to do it for me,” you wave him off. “How am I supposed to learn if I don’t actually make the drinks?”

He just shakes his head with a grin, “The guy you took the order from is a regular,” he says. “Trust me; it’s best if I make his drink. If you mess it up even a little bit, he’ll ruin your whole day.”

“Okay,” you laugh and decide to let him take this one as you begin to wipe away the messy counter. “Good looking out.”

He smiled over at you as he made the drink and gave it to the guy you took the order from, his glare turning into a content smile as he sipped on it. “See? Told you,” he mumbled and you just shook your head, setting the cloth aside and beginning to change the coffee filters. “I’m Miles, by the way.”

You look over and see that he held his hand out to you. “Y/n,” you say and shake his hand. “I’m new, clearly.”

“I can see that,” he nodded and braced his elbows against the counter. “You new to the city, too?”

“Um, kind of,” you answer and wipe your hands on your brown apron. “I’ve been here for about a month now. Still getting used to all of it.”

Miles nods in understanding, giving you a boyish smile afterwards. He was cute, but not nearly cute enough to get your mind off Clay. Miles looked to be around your age, or maybe a bit older, and he had dark brown hair that covered his forehead, and from what you could tell, his eyes were a deep green. “Yeah, the city isn’t for everyone,”

You furrow your brows then laugh. “Oh, no, I’m not…I love it here so far,” you further explain. “It is a lot to take in, though.”

“Ah,” he nodded again and gestured to the customer on his side of the counter, politely pausing your conversation as he began taking the girl’s order.

You smile at him and turn to your side, and your breath gets caught in your throat when you meet Clay’s pretty blue eyes as he enters the shop. He briefly smiles but it falters as he nears the counter, guilt swimming in his gaze as he places his hands against the marble. “Hi,”

“Hi,” you whisper back and try to distract yourself by cleaning a nearby mug. An awkward silence fell over the two of you, and you hated every second of it. It was never awkward with Clay, and the sudden change had your face heating up as you avoided eye contact with him. “Um, do you want a coffee? Or a pastry?”

Clay sucked in a breath and shook his head. “No, I just,” he trailed off and you hesitantly met his eyes again. “I wanted to see you. Wish you luck, you know, on your first shift.”

He was dressed in what you think is his work attire - though it looked just as formal as his usual clothing - and your heart swelled a bit at the fact that he stopped by before work so he could talk to you, even though it was a bit out of the way from what you knew about where his job location is.

“Oh,” you say quietly and want nothing more than to throw your arms around him and kiss him right then and there. He was so sweet, you hated how tense things were between you right now. “That’s…nice, Clay. Thank you.”

Clay smiled at you but it didn’t quite reach his eyes. You wondered if he felt as miserable as you did, then you remembered you hadn’t actually read his texts, so you really had no idea on how he was feeling right now. “Yeah,” he murmured and his eyes held so much longing, you felt your own burn a bit. It looked like he wanted to ask you something, but he didn’t and instead said, “I don’t know if you read my messages or listened to my voicemail, but…I’m sorry about yesterday. If I had known…”

You tear your eyes away from his and bite down on your lip. “Yeah, I um…haven’t gotten around to checking my phone,” you confess and grip onto the edge of the counter as you feel your face begin to heat up. Glancing to your right, you can see Miles eyeing the two of you with a poorly hidden look of judgment on his face, and you could only hope he didn’t bring this up later.

Clay stayed silent and nodded. “Oh,” he said quietly and it somehow made you feel even worse. “That’s okay. Just, whenever you get the chance…I miss you.”

You bite down harder until you were sure you were about to make your lip bleed before looking up at him. You wanted to say it back, but you were still hurt and a bit stubborn and your emotions were a mess right now. “Do you need me to watch Joey later?”

His face falls a bit and he steps away from the counter. “Yeah, if you’re able to. If not I can call my-”

“No, I can,” you say quickly and give him a tight smile. “I’ll see you later then.”

Clay swallows hard and nods, giving you a so clearly forced smile and making your heart ache even more. “See you later,” he rasped and turned around, leaving the shop without another glance at you.

As soon as he was gone, you blew out a breath you didn’t know you were holding and turned your back to the rest of the shop as you pulled out your phone. It was nearly dead as you didn’t bother plugging it in last night, and you were seriously regretting that now as you finally allowed yourself to read Clay’s messages.

8:09 AM

Clay Beresford: I’m so sorry you found that, I swear I didn’t know I still had pictures of her and I around.

8:43 AM

Clay Beresford: Sam is not in our lives anymore, I promise. I care about you so much, and so does Joey. Please call me back.

1:19 PM

Clay Beresford: I understand that you need time, and I’ll give you as much as you need. Just know that she means nothing to me anymore, and she hasn’t for a long time now.

9:21 PM

Clay Beresford: Joey missed you today, we both did. I know you have your first shift as Jess’ tomorrow, but are you still able to pick him up from school after? I’m sorry again, Y/n. I never wanted to hurt you.

He’d been trying to apologize and explain ever since you left.

You felt your eyes sting again, and you brought your phone up to your ear after clicking on the voicemail. “Everything okay?” Miles asks as he hands a freshly made drink to a girl. His voice sounded a bit humorous, and you furrowed your brows at it but couldn’t call him out on it before Clay’s frantic voice met your ear.

Your lip was hurting now as you had gone back to biting it while you listened to his voicemail, and by the time it was over, you were sure you could taste a hint of metal on your tongue. “Fuck,” you whispered as you typed out a text to him with shaky fingers.

Miles coughed loudly next to you, and you lifted your gaze and glared at him. “I take it you and that rich guy are close?” He laughed and leaned against the counter with his arms crossed. “Or maybe you were but not anymore. He looked like a kicked puppy walking out of here, poor guy. But he’s not poor, right? He looks like he probably owns his own business or something.”

“Shut up,” you say before you could think it through. Your eyes widened and you opened your mouth to quickly apologize, but Miles just scoffs.

“Oh, come on. A guy like that has no business coming into a place like this. I bet he could buy this whole street if he wanted to, then he’d own us,” Miles continued and you forget your task of texting Clay back in order to defend him from your coworkers petty assumptions.

“And what if he could? What if he did? What would you do about it, Miles?” You ask with annoyance lacing your tone. You weren’t sure why he felt the need to assume all this stuff about Clay when he had no idea what he was actually like.

“I’d quit,” Miles answered with a shrug. “I don’t need some rich prick holding anything above my head.”

You drop your phone onto the counter loudly and move towards him. “Shut the hell up,”

Miles laughs again and it only irritates you further. “Make me,” he muttered. “Christ, Y/n, you don’t believe guys like that actually care about people like us, do you?”

“People like us?”

“Yeah,” he grunted. “Poor people. We don’t need the rich pitying us when they have it all at their-”

“Shut up,” you nearly yell and then realize you were literally in the middle of your first shift and getting into a heated argument with your new coworker you only shared one brief conversation with before this. The patrons looked over at you with wide eyes and quiet laughs, and you felt embarrassed for the second time this week.

You couldn’t say anything else, and neither could Miles, as Jess came in from the back room and glared at the two of you. “What is going on?”

Miles just raised his hands and turned back to another customer. “You hired a spaz, Jess,”

You opened your mouth to give him a witty remark, but Jess reached out and grabbed your wrist. “Hey,” she said and pulled you with her into the storage room. “What’s going on? You were doing great when I left you, and now I find you yelling at my best worker?”

You let out a surprised laugh, “He’s your best?” Jess raises a brow at you and you sigh before looking down at the floor. “Sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry,” she said, slightly frustrated as she crossed her arms. “Just tell me what happened. Why were you and Miles arguing?”

You huff and meet her gaze. “You know that boyfriend I told you about at that bar? Well, him and I got into a fight or…something, and he came into the shop today and apologized and I stupidly pushed him away and I guess Miles decided he should assume all these things about him and I couldn’t just stand there and take it,” you explained as plainly as you could, not wanting your boss to completely know what’s been going on in your personal life. “I know it’s a dumb reason, but I couldn’t help it. I’m sorry, Jess, I promise I’m not like that all the time. I just got mad.”

Jess pursed her lips and nodded, her hard gaze dropping a bit. “So I missed seeing just how cute your boyfriend supposedly is?” She teased, lightening the mood and making you huff out a quiet laugh.

“He’s very cute,” you repeated your words from a couple nights ago, and you were reminded of the way Clay came out and picked you up before taking you back to his house and taking care of you. “Things are messy right now, and I’m sorry I allowed it to be brought into my work life. What happened with Miles won’t happen again.”

You shifted the conversation back to a more serious one, and you could tell Jess appreciated it by the way she smiled and nodded at you. “You better not,” she said sternly. “Because I like you, Y/n, and I want you to have a real chance here. Okay?”

Nodding quickly, straighten yourself out. “Okay,”

“Good, now get back out there,”

A few hours later, you successfully made it through your first shift and were currently listening to Joey ramble on about what he did at school in the backseat of Rick’s car.

You were nearly back to Clay’s place when Joey shifted and tugged at his backpack from its place on the floor. You reach over and help him, and once he grabs a piece of paper from it, you let it gently drop back down as Joey leans against the seat again. “I made this today,” he said and held the paper out to you.

Taking it from him, you’re once again almost in tears as you look at the drawing. Joey was getting better at drawing and coloring with each passing day, and his attention to detail at his young age was extremely impressive. This drawing was of you, Clay and Joey, with you being in the middle this time and the Beresford boys on either side of you. “Wow,” you say quietly, meeting Rick’s gaze in the rear view mirror. “You’re quite the little artist, huh, babe?”

Rick gave you a knowing look as Joey said, “Daddy and I like it when you’re at our house. You make things better,”

And then you were on the verge of tears for the second time today.

@evilnight07 @espinathena-17

#hayden christensen #hayden christensen imagine #hayden christensen edit #hayden christensen gif #anakin skywalker #hayden christensen icons #anakin skywalker imagine #anakin skywalker x reader #clayton beresford imagines #clay beresford imagines #clay beresford x reader #clayton beresford x reader #clayton beresford #awake 2007 #awake #clay beresford #in the way i need you #in the way i need you series

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its-your-mind · 4 months

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alright fuck this I’m making a TIMELINE. and a FACT SHEET. it will not be in order. Nor will it actually track dates really. Mostly it’s going to contain the seeds of my theories. I’m red stringing this Shit via tumblr post on mobile.

TIMELINE:

Magnus Institute fire: 1999

Windows NT 4.0 (the Windows NT that was the commercial predecessor to Windows 95) was released to retail in 1996 (with the final version released in 2001) so Freddy has been creeping around the web since around the time the Institute burned down

Jon, Martin, and probable Jonah Norris, Chester, and Augustus started actively reading roughly 1/30 statements entries out loud ~a year ago, according to Alice

Statements Entries so far are dated to May 2022, and it’s implied that Freddy collects them more or less as they appear, so as far as rough estimates for when tmp is set, it’s nowish, or just a bit earlier than now (similar to how tma was)

My kingdom for an ARG player who can hook me up with the founding date of the OIAR and the dates on those Magnus Institute records, just cuz I’m curious

SHIT WE KNOW:

Jonah Magnus exist(s/ed) in SOME form in this world, and built an institution designed to research the paranormal. That institution burned down and cleared of all records. Unclear exactly when the clearing happened.

The voices in the computer are the same as Martin Blackwood’s and Jonathan Sims’s

The OIAR has a department (this one) dedicated entirely to sorting weird shit scraped from online with an obsessive specificity

Everyone who works in this department wasn’t forced to be here and isn’t forced to stay, but all of them do have something that guided them to this position and is keeping them here

There is supernatural shit happening here in this world right now

Annabelle Cane said that the rift under Hilltop Road was a rift in reality - time, space, dimensions

She also said that the Fears would be following the voices that were woven into the web made of the tapes

In the TMA-verse, the Fears had a penchant for spreading themselves around via books (and then someone stupid idiot motherfucking dusty ass book collecting rat old bastard avatar of the whore biggest clown in the circus cowboy— starting slapping a label on em

SHIT THAT IS STILL A ???:

Did the fears exist in this world for an extended period of time, or have they only recently appeared? All the dates we have for statements entries are recent, but there was at the very least some FUCKED UP SHIT happening before the jmart+Jimmy Magma squad popped up

Did Robert Smirk build batshit crazy buildings and also a panopticon under London?

Was Magnus fear-aligned? Was the Institute? Or was it just a place for fucked up research?

Are there alternate-reality versions of any beloved TMA recurring cast members running about?

Was the og TMA world the place where the Fears started? Or had they already spread?

How far have they made it at this point? Is this the first new world post-archives-crew? Or are we several down the chain?

COLLECTION OF FACTS INTO BATSHIT THEORIES:

The Fears have been Updated for the Twentieth (not twenty-first, rip to Colin) Century and now they have infused themselves into computer systems via Jon’s tapes letting them encode themselves in a new and fun way (I am not 100% sure how tapes work besides magnets somehow, but I DO know that early computers used them for data tracking, which makes enough dream-logic sense for me) and are thus able to hack themselves into forum posts and also spy on the whole world via one (1) government computer system

Panopticon screenshot happened in March 2021. First two statements are May 2022. Alice said the voices started showing up about a year ago. So even if the Fears were already here, JMart are here now once more to lend their voices to the verbal record of Fear

Speaking of the Fears already being here. If the Rift was also for Time, I’m sure the Web could have figured out a way to drag the Squad back along the timeline while somehow leaving jmart behind

OIAR is EITHER. The Fears (Web specifically) preparing a perfect funnel-spider web trap for JMart when they did show up (oh voices? tapes? telling fear stories? here you go motherfuckers) or someone’s Leitner/Smirk/Magnus-ass attempt to wrangle all the trauma under one roof. Either way I’m p sure it is Web-ish-aligned, if the Fears even exist in this world in the way we’re used to seeing them

If we’ve got two grown up paranormal guinea pigs, AND a bouchard running around, and all of them are here because of Some Sort Of Reason, and are Still Here Even Though They Could Leave, I assume everyone else is too. I wonder if they all have some tie to this world’s Institute, or if they’ve all had encounters, or were selected based on their compatibility with the OIAR’s aims

Speaking of which

WHAT IS THE OIAR? Cuz this part of it is clearly kinda similar to the Archives in terms of collecting and sorting statements. Is there more of it? What do those people do? Do they use these sorted entries somehow? Also why tf do they have do work overnight????

#tmagp #the magnus protocol #tmagp spoilers #tma spoilers #the magnus protocol spoilers #the web #tmagp meta #tmagp speculation #tmagp theory #OIAR #everyone start yelling back at me I am THRIVING I have needed something to throw my conspiracy theory energy at

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shadowkoo · 9 months

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What Friends Are For

→ Summary: When your closest friend confides in you with something truly surprising, it's only natural to step in and offer your assistance, because that's what true friends do, right?

↠ vernon x f.reader | 2.8k words | 18+ ↠ genre: smut, best friends, friends to lovers, virgin/first time au

→ Warnings: explicit & unprotected sex, oral sex (male & female receiving), handjob, doggy, language, creampie, jealousy, teasing, slightly dominant!vernon, virgin!vernon, riding, breast play, nipple play, dirty talk, fingering, rough sex, deep dicking, hair pulling, begging, cum swallowing, deep throating

→ Author note: This is an updated version of an old fic of mine, I hope you enjoy it!!! If you’d like to read this on ao3 instead it’s been crossposted here! As always, all likes, reblogs, and comments are appreciated <3

“You can’t be serious!” you burst out laughing, sharing a dumbfounded look with your best friend. You’re at his apartment and he just finished telling you the most ridiculous thing ever. You chuckle again while you continue to look for a movie to watch. “You are such a liar.”

“I’m dead serious, don’t laugh,” Vernon huffs, “You have no idea what it’s like having to pretend with the guys like I know what I’m talking about.”

“Oh please, I know you’ve watched porn before and I still don’t believe that you’ve never at least gotten a blowjob before.” He can’t be a virgin. And you seriously doubt he’s made it to twenty-five without ever having his knob slobbered on.

“Well, it’s true! So just let it go,” he barks. “I shouldn’t have said anything.”

You look over to see if he’s just playing with you, he has to be. But you’re surprisingly shocked to see that he genuinely looks upset.

Realizing you hit a nerve, you apologize. “I’m sorry, I guess I just can’t believe it.” You click on a random movie to ease the awkwardness and decide to text your friends.

♡y/n♡: okie serious question, who wants to blow vern [7:50 pm]

♡cee♡: askjlasjdflkj !! [7:50 pm]

♡mal♡: giiiirl what are you on [7:50 pm]

♡y/n♡: he’s feeling down, someone’s gotta take one for the team [7:50 pm]

♡anna♡:: 👀 …. [7:51 pm]

♡anna♡: KIDDING [7:51 pm]

♡anna♡: but on a real note, why can’t you?? [7:51 pm]

♡y/n♡: ur joking right [7:51 pm]

♡cee♡: yeah you do it, i’m busy rn [7:51 pm]

♡cee♡: plus we all know he wants none of us [7:52 pm]

♡mal♡: lmao truuu [7:52pm]

♡y/n♡: what’s that supposed to mean?? [7:52 pm]

♡mal♡: idk why don’t u suck on ur boyfriend [7:52 pm]

♡mal♡: sorry i mean boy FRIEND [7:52 pm]

♡mal♡: major emphasis on the friend [7:52 pm]

♡y/n♡: i hate you guys [7:52 pm]

♡anna♡: no u don’t, now grow a pair of balls and play with his [7:52 pm]

♡y/n♡: OMG [7:53 pm]

♡cee♡: ur with him, aren’t you? sounds like the perfect time to do it [7:53 pm]

♡anna♡: and let us know after how it was 😏 and size, we’re all curious [7:53 pm]

You set your phone down intentionally upside down so Vernon can’t see the messages. At one point, you did have feelings for him but you pushed them aside in fear of ruining your friendship. How pathetic is that? Peeking over at him, you wonder if those feelings ever actually went away, or if you’ve been pretending this whole time.

He’s very attractive, that’s obvious. The last time you thought about your feelings for Vernon was about a year ago when he started dating this horrible girl. She was awful, but he was trapped under her spell and it drove you two apart. Back then, you thought that it was for the best since you wouldn’t have had the courage to tell him to break up with her and date you instead.

They dated for almost 6 months, and when they broke up Vernon was devastated. It didn’t take long for your friendship to go back to normal after their time apart, so that’s why you didn’t want to take any chances now.

Those 6 months without him were miserable and you didn’t want to live without Vernon in your life again. He was too special to you to let something as silly as old feelings come between your friendship. You don’t want to mess it up.

But on the other hand, you’ve heard friendships often create the best relationships. Would yours?

Vernon cares for you, that’s a given. But how far does it go? Sure, you two pretty much act like you’re in a relationship, but you haven’t kissed. Other than that one time when you brought drunk Vernon home… but that didn’t count because he was trashed at the time and didn’t remember it, or so you told yourself.

If you are ever going to make a move, now is the time. Do you really want to lose another chance that the universe is obviously lining you up for? Why else would he bring up the fact that he’s never had a blowjob unless he secretly wants you to give him one? Does he want more than a blowjob? Does he want you to…take his virginity?

You force yourself to quit overthinking and muster up enough courage to ask, “Vern?”

“Hmm?” he responds. He’s so caught up in the movie you’re watching that he doesn’t seem to notice you sit up and scoot closer to him. Your hands are shaking but you aren’t going to let that stop you.

‘God, what am I doing? This is so embarrassing…’

“Can I…” You mumble nervously, not being able to finish the sentence.

“Can you what?” He asks back, still not really registering what you are about to say.

’Well,’ you think to yourself, ’It’s now or never.’

You move off the couch to kneel in front of him and rest a hand on his thigh, commanding his attention away from the TV screen.

“Please, let me.”

It takes Vernon less than a second to understand exactly what you’re asking and he has no idea how to respond.

If he’s being honest, he’s always had a thing for you. Though he’s never had the guts to make a move or even admit it to you.

He swallows nervously as his length inevitably twitches in his pants. “You’re joking right?” ‘She can’t be serious. There’s no way. This had to be some kind of sick joke. But you don’t look like you were joking. In fact, you look like you’re pleading. Holy shit…’

“Not at all. I mean, we’re friends, right? Friends help each other,” you say while sliding your hands up to the button of his jeans. His eyes follow your movements as you unzip his pants and reach a hand in.

“You really don’t have to. Mingyu’s having a party and I’ll find someone and get laid this week-” his words are lost in his mouth as you wrap your small hand around his rather growing member.

“Why would you want a stranger to do it when you could have me? That’s what friends are for, silly.” You’re trying your damn hardest to make it sound like you’re doing him a favor as a friend and not doing this out of your own desire, your own need to touch him - to taste him. It’s your safety net in case he says no. In case this ends badly. However, you aren’t so sure that’s the message you’re sending since you’re quickly pulling his pants down his thighs.

You look up at him and run a finger over his tip before bringing him into your mouth for a taste. “Before I continue, I need to hear you say that you’re alright with it. Tell me that you want my mouth on your cock,” you demand playfully while your hands stroke his length.

Vernon is at war with himself. Should he give in to his desire of wanting you? Or should he pull back, laugh this off, and forget about this? How the hell is he supposed to forget about this? To forget the look of you on your knees asking to suck him off? There’s no way. It’s impossible.

“Fuck,” Vernon rubs a hand over his face and you freeze in fear of what he’s going to say. “Babe, you can do whatever you want to me. Fuck.”

Without hesitating a second longer, you lean down to take him in between your lips. His girth stretches your mouth in the most wonderful way, and you’re unable to control the moan that escapes from your parted lips. God, you aren’t even embarrassed. You lift your eyes up to watch him, his mouth ever so slightly opens and his tongue drifts out to lick his lips.

Vernon is lost. Is he supposed to hold your hair? Is he just supposed to sit here and watch? Should he be praising you right now? He has absolutely no idea. All he knows is that what you’re doing with your mouth is driving him crazy. “Oh my god, this is what I’ve been missing out on? This whole time?” Vernon leans his head back in pleasure. “Fuck,” he gasps, “I have a lot to catch up on.”

Hearing his words gives you more courage, and you relentlessly bob your head on his length, making sure to have just enough suction while doing so.

You pull back for air and let your hands tug on him while you kiss his tip, listening happily to his husky groans. Honestly, this is the best part of giving a blowjob. Knowing that you can make a guy, let alone Vernon, feel this good. You feel him twitch in your mouth and moan in pleasure. Drool is running onto your hands at this point, proof of how much you like his taste.

Vernon smirks, “I don’t know who’s enjoying this more. You,” he quickly inhales as you shove your mouth further down onto his length, “Or me.”

You slowly pull your mouth off of him, watching his face twist as you tease the underside of his tip with your tongue. “I don’t know, the look on your face tells me that you’re enjoying this a lot,” you taunt.

His legs quiver as his length once again finds the back of your throat, your hands massaging his balls. It’s too much. He has to cum, he can’t wait.

Wanting to help him out, you hum and instantly feel the sticky liquid running down your throat. Your hunger grows listening to Vernon call out your name, his hand pulling at the hair by your neck.

He watches in wonder while you swallow him, licking some of his seed off his length when you release him from your mouth. You lift a finger to rub the remaining cum around his tip, “You came.” Vernon shudders while you tease his sensitive member.

“Shit, Y/N,” he whimpers, “I couldn’t hold it any longer; not when you were doing that last thing.”

“I hope you’re not tired because I am so not done with you yet,” you whisper. You had a taste of him, and now you want more. You want all of him, and you don’t want to wait another second.

The lingering salty aftertaste in your mouth is washed away by Vernon's kiss as he pulls you up onto his lap. He lifts your shirt up and off of you, barely breaking contact with your lips in the process, before he takes off his own in the same manner.

Your hands rub along his chest, feeling his muscles tighten and relax as your touch moves along his silky skin. His head dips down to catch one of your breasts in his mouth. You roll your head back as his tongue plays with your hardening nub, a gasp leaving you when his teeth graze your nipple.

Your head snaps up when he pulls away from you.

He chuckles, “Relax, it’s time for me to return the favor.” He leaves a wet kiss on your other breast and moves down to nibble on the inner part of your thighs. After what feels like years, his hands reach for the waistband of your shorts and pull them and your panties off of you.

His tongue protrudes out and licks your center before moving closer to your clit, which he circles and sucks on gently at first. His mouth on your heat pulls moan after moan out of you, and you involuntarily take a fistful of his blonde locks when his tongue enters you repeatedly.

Vernon pulls back all out of breath and his cheeks glistening. God, it’s such a turn on to see him like that, his face damp with your cum. He reaches for you at the same time you grab for him. His lips crash against yours, your tongues twisting with each other.

Vernon slides a hand back down between your naked bodies and rubs your sensitive clit, making your back arch in pleasure. You moan into his mouth which he gladly swallows before sliding two fingers into your dripping heat, bringing you right back to where you just were. Only this time, your juices cover his long fingers instead of his face.

Just as you finish riding out your amazing orgasm, Vernon starts to sit up. Although, your hands are wrapped around his neck so he doesn’t make it that far. You pull him back down onto you, which he isn’t ready for. His knee falls next to yours, his other foot landing on the floor, causing his length to rub right up against your wet heat.

You both gasp at the contact, but it isn’t enough for you. Your hand moves to grip his member and bring him further between your lower lips, your hips moving along with his - until he hesitates, his eyes full of worry…

Vernon bites his bottom lip as you ask, “What is it?”

“I don’t know if we should go any further. I don’t have protection,” he explains.

“Oh Vernon, I don’t care. I need to feel you.” You kiss him again. “I’m on birth control anyway. I need you inside me,” you finish before gripping his hair to pull him closer to you. “Fuck me, Vernon. Fuck me hard, please,” you beg, “It’s all I’ve dreamt about. I need your thick cock stretching me out. Please, Vernon,”

Vernon almost dies hearing you say that. Shit, he’s dreamt about this moment too, and watching you beg him to fuck you like that made his length twitch with excitement. There is no way in hell he’s going to say no to you after hearing that. He leans in to kiss you hard before dipping his tip into your dewy folds. He’s being too gentle for your liking, typical Vernon behavior, so you push him to sit up and lean against the back of the couch, yourself following, and slide the rest of the way down onto him.

It takes you a moment to collect yourself before rolling your hips into his. Once you’re ready, you anchor yourself by holding onto his shoulders and he lifts his hips up to meet your delicious pace.

Your arousal soaks his member as he slides deep inside you. It’s a perfect fit, he hit all the right places and has you squirming in his arms.

“Oh my god, Vernon!” you whine, gyrating your hips to bring some relief to your aching bundle of nerves. Sweat covers both of your bodies as you fuck each other. The pleasure is almost unbearable; your insides scream for release.

As if he knows exactly what you want, Vernon flips you over and squeezes your ass cheeks before he enters you from behind. You push your face into the throw pillow below your head and grip the sofa’s arm for dear life.

“Oh god, don’t s-stop,” you drag out while he ferociously pounds into you. Vernon groans and hovers over top of you. His hand wraps around your neck and pulls your back against him.

This new angle has you shivering and Vernon can tell that you’re close again. His other hand wraps around your waist, pulling you down onto him harder. The sound of your arousal echoes through his living room, your breaths combining with the creaks of his couch.

You feel Vernon stiffen inside you, he’s close. “Cum in me. I want to feel you cum in me,” you sigh, begging for him to do so.

Vernon grits his teeth, there’s nothing he wants more than to fill you up with his cum right this second. Your legs clench as you tip over the edge. The climax hits you both instantaneously and sends you spiraling.

“Oh my god, oh god!” you cry out. Wave after wave of pleasure passes through your limp body. Thankfully Vernon is still holding onto you or you would have fallen off the couch. Resting against him, your breathing matches his.

His delicate touch leaves goosebumps along your body where his fingers trace. Everywhere tingles. You can’t remember the last time that you came this hard. It’s earth-shattering, exhausting, and yet you feel totally full of new energy at the same time.

Vernon’s cum starts leaking out of your folds, it’s a strange feeling. This is the first time you let someone cum in you and it felt oddly satisfying. Vernon reaches over to the coffee table and grabs a tissue to clean you up with before laying back down on the couch, bringing you on top of him.

“Jesus,” He pants, still completely out of breath, “Where the fuck did that come from.”

“I don’t know but I’ll be needing more of that when I wake up,” you moan, your eyelids feeling awfully heavy. Vernon’s chest vibrates, laughing at your response. He puts an arm around your waist as he whispers, “Thank you, for… well you know. That.”

“Mmm, no problem.” You turn your head over to look up at him and smile devilishly, “That’s what friends are for, remember?”

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idkwhatever580 · 22 days

Text

Her pt. 2

Pairings: Natasha Romanoff x reader

Prompt: after y/n gets rescued what is in store in the next chapter of her life with Natasha?

Warnings: cursing

Pronouns: she/her

A/N: I’m super excited about this one. Make sure you read chapter one first so you have some insight on how nat and y/n met!!! I hope y’all like it :)))

Here’s part one :))) I’m working on a master list I swear -> https://www.tumblr.com/idkwhatever580/749750524015984640/her-pt-1

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Y/n’s pov

I cannot believe it’s been a whole year since I met Natasha.

She and the avengers immediately took me in and I found myself going over to the compound much more than I expected.

I still have my house in Long Island. But I never stay there really anymore. Ever since Natasha and I started dating I haven’t spent too much time there.

It only took three months for me to virtually move in with her. Although I do wish she’d come with me sometimes.

But I don’t really worry about that since one of the floors in the tower is my new soup kitchen. It’s open twenty four hours a day and there are at least 2-6 people working there at all times.

As promised Tony Stark and SHEILD helped me get my business up and running.

I make homes for the homeless. Sometimes they are bigger more communal homes and sometimes they are tiny one or two person homes.

My first two homes are side by side. They were for gran and pops. They were always my biggest supporters and still are.

My program has changed so many lives. There are so many people out there who just need a little bit of love.

Sometimes the homeless people will use the homes as a forever home but most often they get jobs. Become more financially stable and independent and then they will move out. It’s really great. Because I see so many people I’ve helped become something. Someone.

There are so many who have told me they thought they would never amount to anything. And a few of them have become very successful even as far as becoming a CEO.

I am incredibly proud of my work.

And honestly it’s so exciting to see what changes I can make every single day.

For example. Today is the release date of my nationwide program.

All over the country a program is being launched where homeless people can find shelter, rehabilitation centers, and other necessities for free so they can have a second chance at life. I am doing some interviews today.

Unfortunately Natasha isn’t here. She has a mission. I’m a little sad that she won’t be with me tonight as the program launches but the show must go on.

I check my watch and see it is time to leave for the opening ceremony and I go downstairs to find Happy.

I smile and say

“What’s up Happy! Are you ready?”

He smiles sadly and says

“Yes I am ready. But I must inform you that I am only your chauffeur tonight. Unfortunately I cannot be your plus one.”

I frown when he says this because he was supposed to fill in for Natasha and now I have nobody.

“Oh. Well. That’s okay!”

I smile and cover up my disappointment. He drives me to the red carpet and helps me out. I kiss his cheek accidentally leaving a lipstick stain and I say

“Thank you. Have a good night Happy.”

He usually goes home and I have a different driver drive me home.

I walk to the red carpet by myself and put on my best smile. I make it about halfway through the carpet and an arm snakes around me and this mystery person says

“Am I late?”

“Oh!”

I jump and put my hand to my chest and I look at my beautiful girlfriend with a huge smile on my face and I say

“Jesus! You scared me!”

My brain doesn’t even register that she’s back since I’m in the zone and then I do a double take and say

“Wait! What!?”

She giggles when I realize and I slap her chest and say

“I thought you were at a mission?!”

She chuckles and says.

“I got off early enough to make it. That’s why Happy isn’t here with you. I tried my best. But I couldn’t get the best suit”

She looks down at her suit and I look her up and down and say

“You look amazing baby. Perfect right here with me.”

I smile and give her a kiss. We always wear matching lipstick colors so that we can kiss and not get it messed up.

Then I put my hand on her chest and we keep taking pictures.

The rest of the night goes smoothly and I give a speech. I talk to a few people who have helped my journey and then we head home.

I get changed and wait in bed for Natasha. She takes a while so I complain

“Nattyyy”

She comes out of the bathroom and smiles and says

“Yes baby?”

I hold my arms out for her and pout

“I missed you”

She gets into bed with me and says

“I missed you too.”

Once we’re comfy she looks me in the eyes and says

“Goodnight my love. You have done such amazing things for so many people and I am so lucky to be yours.”

I smile and say

“I love you baby. Goodnight”

We kiss and drift off into a nice comfortable sleep.

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A/N: guys this is so bad. It feels rushed and blah. Idk how I feel about it. I became so unmotivated and just wanted to move on to the next thing but I didn’t want to just leave it. 😭🔫

#avengers #marvel #fanfic #natasha romanoff #natasha romanoff x reader #natasha x reader

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percervall · 4 months

Text

Mamma mia, here I go again {pt10}

Summary: A summer of poor decisions leads you to having to face the consequences of your actions —and the men involved. Pairing: Kevin Magnussen x fem!reader, Lewis Hamilton x fem!reader, Mark Webber x fem!reader Warnings: mentions of homophobia, hinting at religious trauma Word count: 1479 Taglist: @ashy-kit @averagef1fansblog @barcelonaloverf1life @bradfordbantams @dannyramirezwife-simpaccount @doofenshmirtzevil-inc @exotic-iris13 @goldsainz @hiireadstuff @iloveneteyam @jaypreshpresh @laura-naruto-fan1998 @monzamash @norrisleclercf1 @opheliaas-stuff @roseseraj @szobosz @vellicora @ystrolllll

Part 10 of the Mamma Mia series

As promised, the following morning the three of them show up to your hotel room with breakfast. You gratefully accept the take away mug Mark hands you as you let them in. It reminds you of that first conversation you had with the three of them at the beginning of September and you can’t help but feel a little emotional at how far you’ve come since then.

Sitting down at the small breakfast table in your room, you accept the smoothie bowl Kevin hands you. It’s a little cramped, but all four of you fit around it. Lewis and Kevin catch you up on how their teammates and some of their closer friends on the grid fared during the race while Mark fills in the gaps with what he’s heard from DC and Jenson.

“I can’t believe the FIA ever thought this weekend would go without a hitch. The fact that Pirelli set very strict pit stops windows tells you all you need to know, really,” you say, shaking your head.

“I’ve heard rumours that they’re looking at moving it later into the season to avoid these high temperatures,” Mark adds.

“That’s the least they can do. Greedy vultures,” you reply, muttering the last bit under your breath, earning a chuckle from Lewis.

“Wait,” you say, a realisation hitting you, “if we’re really doing this, does that mean I am also adopting an Australian rookie?” Mark laughs, head thrown back.

“I guess so. Hope you’re alright with that?”

“I mean, Mick has become like a little brother. Him and his family are the closest I have to one. Him and Jasmine; she’s my oldest friend. I-.. I cut contact with my parents when I was in my early twenties. They’re very religious and it got to a point where it became detrimental to my mental health to allow them access.” Even remembering their disappointment when you went into engineering and not pursued a career in teaching –which was deemed much more suitable for a woman by your parents– makes you feel about two inches tall. It was impossible to live up to their standards and their constant meddling in your love life to find you a man so you’d settle down and become the perfect little house wife messed with your perception of love a lot more than you even realised.

“That’s also why I completely panicked when I realised I am in love with all three of you,” you continue, pushing through the uneasiness of the memories, “A relationship is meant to be between one man and one woman according to them, and while I have done a lot of unlearning over the years, this took me by surprise.”

“Thank you for trusting us,” Kevin breaks the silence that follows. He rests a hand on your knee, giving you a reassuring squeeze.

“I’m trying. When you’ve been on your own for so long it’s hard to let people in. But I want this to work, not just for me but also for this little peanut,” you say, putting a hand on your stomach.

“We’ll follow your lead, sweetheart,” Mark says, to which Kevin and Lewis nod in agreement.

“I know we will have to let at least our teams know about what’s going on, but outside of that can we hold off until the end of the season? I hadn’t considered the logistics of dating three people and it’s a little overwhelming.”

“Works for me,” Kevin nods, “and how about we try to have a proper sit down dinner with the four of us at least once a week? We can think about next steps after the season, but that way we’ll at least see one another outside of the track.” You mull this over. It’s not a bad idea, even if it might prove difficult to get everyone in the same place without living together.

“I’d like that,” you reply.

“I don’t mind us using my house in Oxford for that. It’s got plenty of space for everyone,” Mark offers. You shoot him a thankful smile; staying in the UK as much as possible while you figure out next steps does make it a lot easier for you with regards to your responsibilities at the factory. The anxious flutter you had felt from the moment you had woken up is slowly disappearing, and in its place a calm washes over you. You know that it is not going to be easy, navigating this relationship with so much media attention and different moving parts, but you also know you owe it to this baby to at least try and make it work. There are five races left this season, and with the triple header coming up, you know it is going to be mayhem.

“Wanna call Toto together?” Lewis asks you, bringing you back to the present. You nod, but bite your lip.

“I just-.. Before we do, I just need to know that you’re all okay with raising a child that might possibly not be yours by blood. I know how Kevin feels, but..” you trail off.

“As long as they’re healthy and happy, I don’t mind. I just know that I am looking forward to doing this alongside you,” Mark says, pressing a kiss against your temple before getting up to go phone his boss.

“Same here baby. Family is more than just blood. I can’t wait to be one of three dads for peanut and spoil them and you,” Lewis reassures you.

The phone call with Mercedes went about as painless as could be. After what happened and your reaction on Sunday, Toto had his suspicions that the two of you had begun dating. The fact that Kevin and Mark were now also part of that didn’t seem to phase him whatsoever, or if it did your boss had the acting skills to not let it show. You did have to promise him to give Susie a call whenever you felt like you needed a girly chat.

“That wasn’t so bad,” Lewis muses, pulling you against him. You hum in agreement, content to just stay like this for a minute when the peace is rudely interrupted.

“No. No, you listen to me Gene,” Kevin seethes as he paces the length of your hotel room, “Do you genuinely think they are spying on Haas? We are dead fucking last, what kind of delusion are you smoking?” Kevin looks up and locks eyes with you. Without a moment's hesitation you get up from the couch and cross the room. Kevin holds out his hand and visibly relaxes ever so slightly when you lace your fingers together.

“Guenther had no issues with this relationship. What difference-..” He’s quiet for a moment as he listens to the team owner. Whatever excuse Gene is giving him, it’s the wrong one; Kevin’s eyes flare in anger as he clenches his jaw. A quiet fury simmers through your veins at the way Kevin is being treated. The magnitude of this feeling takes you by surprise, this notion of how you’d go to war for him –for all three of them. You know Kevin doesn’t need you to fight his battles, so instead of taking the phone from him to tell his team owner just what you think of him, you squeeze his hand.

“No, let me stop you there. I know my sponsors well enough to know that this won’t change anything financially. And even if it did, I am sure that there are plenty of brands who will gladly take their place if it means they can boast about their so-called diversity pledge. And if you talk about my family like that ever again, I quit.” Before Gene can even respond, Kevin hangs up and throws the phone onto the dining table. You take his face in your hands, brushing a thumb over his cheekbone before pulling him closer for a hug. Kevin wraps his arms tighter around you, burying his face in the crook of your neck.

“You alright, mate?” Mark asks. Kevin nods, taking a deep breath before straightening up.

“Steiner was no issue, surprisingly. Gene is a different story. Guenther had forwarded the information because it involves an employee of a rival, just out of courtesy. That fucking idiot first insulted my intelligence by saying how they are using me for information on Haas, and then began some rant about how this would cost the team money, and then came for me personally with some homophobic slurs I don’t feel like repeating.”

“I’m sorry man. If there’s anything we can do,” Lewis offers. Kevin nods gratefully.

“I’ll let you know.” You can feel your nose prickle with tears at how ready they are to help one another. The fact that Kevin referred to the four of you as his family isn’t lost on you, and it fills you with so much love and gratitude that despite everything, you have found a home in these three men.

I can't believe it's almost over, I have been working on this fic since October. There's an epilogue left which will come next week

Again, biggest thank you to @curiousthyme for being my beta reader. I would be lost without you babe 😘

Please let me know your thoughts, your comments, tags, and likes mean the absolute world to me 💜

#f1 fanfic #kevin magnussen x reader #kevin magnussen x you #lewis hamilton x reader #lewis hamilton x you #mark webber x reader #mark webber x you #mamma mia fic

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eoieopda · 1 year

Text

foresight (myg)

It all started with a bad joke and a bottle of Tanqueray.

Pairing: Min Yoongi x Fem!Reader | Darksided AU Type: One-Shot / Prequel to darksided (no. 2) & blindsided (no. 3,) but can be read as a stand-alone fic. Word Count: 11.3K 😳 Content: SPICY FLUFF (18+ or else - oral (m receiving) and penetrative, protected sex (p in v)); strangers to lovers au; POV switches; discussion of anxiety and negative self-talk; alcohol consumption (primary setting is a bar); tteokbokki; and just the cutest fucking duo. ft. Seokjin and a surprise cameo by reader's cat. A/N: The origin story for my beloved babies, which takes place in 2016 (and uses Korean age, fyi.) I found this photo after I finished writing and nearly fell tf over because this was the Yoongi in my brain; jacket and all, omfg. My actual note (and tags) will be at the end! 💕 Listen to the playlist here. Read Interlude: Sunrise drabble here.

Min Yoongi wanted it on record that he tried.

When Seokjin pushed, and pushed, and pushed Yoongi to ask out that girl, he did. She was someone Seokjin knew from somewhere, and she seemed nice enough. All Yoongi really knew about her was that she was pretty, though he hoped to learn that this was the least interesting thing about her.

If nothing else, Yoongi proceeded out of spite. He wanted nothing more than to shove it in Seokjin’s face that he was capable of being a normal, twenty-four-year-old man. He wanted to prove to Seokjin — and to himself, if he were being honest — that he wasn’t a borderline-reclusive workaholic.

Or, at the very least, he wasn’t exclusively a borderline-reclusive workaholic. He did want to get out and meet new people; just in negligible and infrequent doses.

It had been so long since Yoongi last went on a date that three (3) generations of iPhones had come and gone. Children who hadn’t yet been born were now entering pre-kindergarten, making macaroni art with the motor skills they’d obtained during his romantic sabbatical. It was embarrassing; it was depressing; and it all piled up at his doorstep, barricading him inside his apartment.

There was a vicious cycle at play, making matters worse. It casted Yoongi as the lone sock, swirling and drowning inside his washing machine brain. The plot was as stupid as it was repetitive:

Relentless schedule aside, Yoongi didn’t date because it made him anxious. Then, he’d become more anxious because he wasn’t dating. Ultimately, he’d end up too anxious about his anxiety to address the thing that caused it in the first place. And around and around and around he went.

Why the fuck did people subject themselves to this on purpose?

Asking her out was the simplest part. With a quick text and an emoji — the latter of which Yoongi deliberated over for far too long — he’d knocked the ball into her court. She’d responded within minutes, which he assumed was a good sign. Saturday night, they’d decided, at eight o’clock.

Unfortunately, no part of what came next was easy.

Yoongi had spent the four subsequent days in a tailspin. Spiraling over where to take her, what to wear, and what the fuck to talk to her about. In the few interactions they’d had before, all she seemed to do was pepper him with questions about his career. Like everyone else, she was fascinated by Yoongi: the Concept.

Whether or not she cared about Yoongi: the Person was yet to be determined.

Worse, after three years in the public eye, Yoongi worried that he’d lost track of what once made him relatable. That boy from Daegu — with a chip on his shoulder and a fire in his belly — was traded in for a luxury model. He no longer had to debate between purchasing a meal or a bus ticket home from work because he was now loaded and living in Hannam-fucking-dong.

Ugh.

People looked at him with stars in their eyes, but he could never tell if anyone truly saw him. And even if someone did, what was left to see, anyway? Yoongi doubted that he could pick himself out of a lineup now.

Eventually, after three nights of tossing and turning, Yoongi had landed on something that felt meaningful. He would take this girl to a hole-in-the-wall that he loved dearly, which sat relatively unnoticed in a lesser-traveled pocket of Seoul. It was quiet and unassuming, but had a life of its own.

As far as Yoongi could see, it was the perfect place to find the parts of himself that’d dropped on his rapid, record-breaking ascent. Decidedly unremarkable but worth it, nonetheless. There, she could get to know the person behind the persona. Maybe she’d even come to like who he actually was.

Before heading out, Yoongi had pitched his plan to Seokjin and received a thumbs up in response. Unfortunately, her reaction came from two knuckles down. Her departure followed less than sixty seconds after her arrival. She’d fled so quickly, in fact, that she managed to flag down the very same cab before it could clear the block.

Through her window, she’d shouted out her scathing review: Yoongi was cheap; she would never drink bottom-shelf liquor with him in a glorified dumpster; and she both expected and deserved better because he could access better. Yoongi had stood stunned on the sidewalk as she disappeared — likely forever — in a cloud of exhaust.

Somehow, it felt like that cab had run him over as it peeled out.

To be clear, none of this was painful because Yoongi was disappointed; he wasn’t, not in the slightest. Good fucking riddance. It was worse than that. He felt validated, and he knew exactly how fucking sad that was.

See? Told you so, he’d thought bitterly to himself. Then, immediately, Yoongi criticized himself for being too critical. Hypocrite.

So, there he stood.

If Yoongi followed his instinct and went home, he could rebuild his barricade and watch several episodes of Chopped before passing out alone in his bed. A productive night, despite its fruitless start. But then, he realized, he’d have to answer when Seokjin inevitably called to ask what the fuck went wrong.

Fuck it.

Yoongi shrugged to no one but himself. He then slipped from the sidewalk, through the dumpster’s front door, and straight to the bar. Slumping down onto a leather-topped stool, he rested his elbows against the mahogany countertop and dropped his dejected chin in his hand.

Is this rock bottom? He wondered, Drinking in a bar alone on a Saturday night?

Within seconds, there was a loud crash several meters away. Yoongi jerked his head towards the source of the sound, but he saw nothing. His brows furrowed. All was quiet until a whine erupted from the doorway to the back room.

“Shit, shit, shit!"

Upon standing, Yoongi pressed his hands against the bar and leaned forward to investigate; equal parts concerned and nosy.

On the ground in the doorway, he found shattered remnants of what was once a bottle of Tanqueray. Crouching above the pine-scented wreckage, plucking chunks of glass off the hardwood, he found you.

Yoongi immediately grimaced at your chosen method of disaster clean-up. There was already a bandage wrapped around your finger — with a Hello Kitty pattern, he noted — that confirmed your ongoing battle with clumsiness.

You didn’t need to add to that collection and he couldn’t watch in good conscience while you made that outcome more and more likely.

Mind made up, he crossed quickly to the side of the bar he had no authorization to be on. As soon as Yoongi reached you, he saw the nearby bucket labeled “broken shit.” Then, he clocked the small hand-brush and dustpan resting against it. Wasting no time, he grabbed all three; and without a word, you allowed him to carefully usher you out of the way.

Crouching down the way you had, he began to sweep the broken shit into the dustpan. Too preoccupied to glance up, he asked without looking, “Are you okay?”

When you didn’t immediately respond, Yoongi’s eyes quickly rose to find you with strawberry-pink cheeks and wide, vaguely horrified eyes, and —Shit, was he staring?

Say something. Say anything. For fuck’s sake, Yoongi, at least smile so she knows you’re not angry.

What he landed on looked more like a grimace, he was sure of it, and it didn’t seem to fix that look on your face.

“I’m so sorry,” you squeaked once he finished dumping the glass into its designated receptacle.

You didn’t give him a chance to tell you that an apology wasn’t necessary, opting instead to rattle off your perceived sins at an alarming rate:

“I think I’m the only bartender in Seoul that’s this bad at tending bar. I mean, I didn’t even know anyone else was here — because I wasn’t paying attention — and now you, the patron I’m supposed to be serving, are cleaning up after me. It’s definitely supposed to be the other way around —“

A smile was twitching at the corner of his mouth that he couldn’t prevent. Without a door into the so far one-sided conversation, Yoongi had to jump through the window you created when you finally drew a breath. “Have you got a mop?”

Based on the way your eyebrows knit together, you’d been thrown entirely for a loop. You re-opened your mouth, likely to apologize for not following the sudden twist. Yoongi refused to allow further self-flagellation, though.

Classic Yoongi: demonstrating more compassion for strangers than he ever shows himself.

“For the gin,” He chuckled softly as he gestured down to the puddle at his feet. Suddenly and baselessly bold, he shot you a playful look and tacked on, “And for all the words you just spilled.”

The aforementioned eyebrows shot up as your jaw dropped further. Thankfully, it was amusement and not offense glittering in your eyes. Pretty. As you crossed your arms over your chest, you tilted your head and sized him up with a quick glance.

If this was a test, he was determined to pass.

“Maybe,” you hummed.

Yoongi wanted to volley your nonchalant tone, but he couldn’t swallow the laughter bubbling up from his chest. He was grinning like an idiot; there was no denying it. “Maybe?”

Your eyebrow twitched ever so slightly, the perfect overture to the mischief on your lips. When you replied, that microscopic smirk never faltered: “Let’s say, for arguments’ sake, that there is a mop.”

A manicured finger was held up to stop Yoongi from interjecting.

Mystified, his poor brain tried to crunch the numbers. Statically, it made no sense that — out of the thousands of people he’d met in his life — he’d never come across someone quite like you. In a matter of minutes, you’d pirouetted from adorable, to self-depreciating, to coy and confident.

All-encompassing, all electric, you moved through tone shifts far more gracefully than you did through the bar.

And if he’d done the math right, this was the first interaction he’d had in recent memory that didn’t deplete his energy. In fact, it had the opposite effect. Gazing at you, Yoongi began to wonder if this was how extroverts got to feel as they moved through the world. Like it gave back more than it took. Lucky bastards.

Once Yoongi was thoroughly disarmed, you continued breezily, “Hypothetically speaking, would you let me be the one to use said mop? After all, it’s both my job and my mess.”

“Hypothetically?” He repeated, sucking in a breath through his teeth. Your eyes narrowed further as he paused to formulate a counterpoint. Meanwhile, Yoongi’s involuntary smile spread in a straight line across his face.

You’re a goddamn delight, full stop.

“Assuming, for the sake of this argument, that I do concede the mop in question —” Yoongi raised an eyebrow, “— How could I be sure that you wouldn’t hurt yourself? After all, you did just try to clean up broken glass with your hands.”

If this had been a gun fight and not banter behind a bar, you would’ve shot him dead. Like lightning, you quickly unraveled your arms and held your hands at the ready. That effervescent grin of yours might be his undoing instead.

Eyes alight, you threw down the gauntlet: “Gawi, bawi, bo?”

Never before in your life had you played rock, paper, scissors, and lost at every single turn. You’d also never requested a rematch for every loss before, continuing the game into perpetuity; but you had a hypothesis to prove and a perfectly unique smile to make wider.

No matter what you threw, he’d offered a gesture to counter it. If his eyes hadn’t gotten wider and wider with shock as it just — kept — happening, you would’ve simply decided that he was psychic. A mind-reader, predicting your every move before you’d even settled on it yourself.

Spooky.

At the start, his amusement had been more or less concealed. Withheld, even, like it was dangerous to grin with every single one of his teeth. Eventually, though, his shoulders shook the way yours did; and mirth pooled in the corners of his eyes as he wheezed through laughter with you.

You didn’t know him, but still, you couldn’t help thinking: there he is.

At some point during your unending match, he doubled over to catch his breath. Seizing the element of surprise, you’d darted into the storage room before he could’ve stopped you. When you reappeared with a mop and bucket in tow, you’d immediately begun to address the mess you made. It took a few moments of buffering for him to realize what you’d done.

That time around, he hadn’t shouldered your burden for you and thank god for that. First impressions were never your strong suit, and you were already starting from behind. Always too much, you couldn’t be useless, too.

Instead, he’d simply resigned himself to swapped names and spiked blood pressure as you struggled — stubbornly and independently — to dump the contents of that yellow, wheeled mop bucket into the utility sink. Standing quietly out of your way, Yoongi had looked close to proud when you managed to do it all without spilling a drop.

See, you’d thought, I’m verifiably Not Useless!

Once the evidence of your clumsy crime had been disposed of, you’d returned the cleaning supplies to their rightful space in the storage room’s closet. Similarly, you and your patron returned to your rightful places: him on his stool at the front of the bar; you, finally fixing him a drink behind it.

Ardbeg, single malt, neat.

After sliding the glass across the mahagony to his waiting hand, you glanced towards the front entrance. As usual, there were no pedestrians wandering this way; no cars on the street, either. The only quiet part of Seoul — especially on a Saturday night.

The bar routinely bordered on empty, but it had some magical quality to it: Nobody you saw inside for the first time seemed to be there for the first time. This was especially odd because it wasn’t a place anyone went to, just a place they ended up. Nobody’s first choice, it was a last resort only visible to people who knew where to look for it.

Yoongi was the first one to speak, unknowingly putting an end to your mythologizing. You just barely flinched at the surprise of his voice, but he managed to catch it. Then, he conducted a brief yet careful study of your face to determine whether you were simply jumpy, or experiencing some sort of medical event.

A gesture like that, done in passing, shouldn’t have meant so much to you. Really, all he did was look at you. It felt like more than that, though, because it was the second-kindest thing anyone had done for you in months — and it occurred merely twenty minutes after the first-place winner.

Now, that’s depressing.

“I haven’t seen you in here before,” He hummed, “I only ever run into Yang Daehyun-nim, though it’s been a minute. Honestly, I don’t even know if he’s still around. You know him?”

“Yes, absolutely. He’s my husband.” You deadpanned and Yoongi nearly choked to death on his drink.

You were, of course, fucking with him. The man in question was swiftly approaching ninety, but he looked twice as old. You successfully maintained your ruse until Yoongi’s tongue breached the barrier of his lips and gathered his runaway whiskey.

Where am I? Who am I? Is that legal?

Yoongi simultaneously picked up the joke and his glass. He raised both with pure amusement on his face, “Cheers to the happy couple, then.”

Never one to raise a toast empty-handed, you quickly dumped what little remained of a nearby soju bottle into a shot glass. His eyes sparkled as he watched you race to catch up; even more so when you leaned in to clink your glass against his.

Oh, so he’s pretty pretty.

“To the happy couple,” you echoed.

With both of your drinks dispatched, you grabbed the bottle of Ardbeg to top him up. Expensive taste, you noted, not the low-rent version you were destined for.

If Yoongi hadn’t shown up to order it, that bottle would’ve continued to gather dust on the top shelf. Like you, none of your regulars had the capital to even glance that high. Granted, the sample size was abysmally small at only three (3) people, but the point still stood.

Until Yoongi mentioned Daehyun, you couldn’t think of a single reason why your employer bothered to keep anything like that in stock. Now, that piece seemed to fit. Still, you were puzzled as to why Yoongi would come to a dive like this to drink liquor like that.

Clearly, the man sitting in front of you contained multitudes.

At the exact moment you asked how long he’d been coming here, Yoongi wondered when you joined the staff. Your respective answers came simultaneously, too. His six years easily dwarfed your eight months.

True to form, you joked that he was more qualified to tend bar here than you were. He said his only relevant skill was cleaning broken glass.

It made you sad in some stupid way to realize that you could’ve met a hundred times over by now. Had more conversations like this, haunted the joint jointly rather than on your own. Truthfully, though, you were at least semi-soothed by the timing.

You were a horrible bartender now, but you’d been even worse before. He might not have survived this long.

Once again, Yoongi set your runaway train-of-thought back on track. “Eight months ago.” He took a sip, then he asked, “Is that when you moved to Korea?”

It was a simple question, certainly not an offensive one. The reason it nearly bowled you over was that no one had ever bothered to ask. Nobody seemed to notice the non-native accent that occasionally appeared when you spoke — not unless you referenced its existence first, that is.

Even then, people forgot. You wished you were confident that they simply got used to it, but you had the sneaking suspicion that nobody really listened when you spoke. After all, no one had a reason to give a shit about you, so long as you kept their glasses full.

The weight of your curiosity caused your head to tilt to the side. You allowed a tiny smile to spread as you asked, “What gave me away?”

“Don’t get me wrong —” He held up his hands to prevent a reaction you’d never dream of giving. “It’s not obvious. You’ve got a better grasp than some of my friends do — which is kind of sad, actually. They’ve lived here their whole lives.”

He gifted you a reassuring smile, then came the true prize: he licked his lips absently before speaking again. You had to clench every single muscle in your body to keep from swooning.

That cannot be legal.

“I noticed it earlier, but you were already embarrassed. I didn’t want to risk making it worse.” Yoongi still looked like he was afraid to hurt your feelings. “When you word-vomit — like you did earlier — your consonants sound like they would in English.”

This linguistic assessment didn’t surprise you; it was dead-on. It didn’t embarrass you, either, but you blushed nonetheless. Without thinking, you mused, “Makes sense that you’re the first to say something. You spend more time overseas than most, right?”

For a split second, you swore you saw Yoongi frown. A little twinge, one you would’ve missed if you weren’t so fixated on his every micro-expression. If you could have, you would’ve hit the rewind button and reverted back thirty seconds.

Was it off-limits, finally acknowledging that you knew who you were dealing with? Did it bother him that you did know, and proceeded to speak to him like the glaring disparity between the two of you didn’t matter? Did it matter?

“You mean to tell me —” He started quietly with a flex of his eyebrow. You feared the worst, even though Yoongi didn’t strike you as the type to make your failure to fawn a problem. “— That the place you lived before wasn’t under a rock?”

As soon as he saw your expression morph from panic to blatant relief, his eyes crinkled until every one of his facial features contributed to his smile. It was difficult to process how an expression that gentle hit you like a punch, but it did, and you felt a bit dizzy.

Professionalism be damned, you cracked open another bottle of soju and filled not one, but two glasses. Yoongi smirked — likely unsurprised by your willingness to drink with him on the clock — and easily accepted the shot you slid his way.

“To the worst bartender in Seoul,” You cheered as you raised it.

He rolled his eyes at your self-depreciation, but followed your lead without any meaningful resistance. Like it was choreographed, you both downed your shots in unison. Straight, no chaser. Just the slight burn in the back of your throat and the very first thing your scrambled brain could think to say:

“Do you want to hear a joke?”

Yoongi was clearly stunned by your sudden maneuver, but you didn’t wait for him to co-sign your antics. You cleared your throat like you were about to say something worth hearing, then you warbled, “Knock, knock!”

You expected him to pause again; or worse, to leave you hanging entirely. It was, frankly, stupid how much of an effect the latter always had on you. You were a demented scientist and your bad joke was a litmus test, ready to reveal on the front-end what kind of person Yoongi really was.

Translation: Tell me now if I’m too much. I’m always too much.

“Who’s there?”

He didn’t hesitate. There was no blink of an eye, no breath taken in between your call and his response. This time, it was you who needed a split-second to buffer.

When your brain finally reloaded, you peeped, “Cargo.”

“Cargo who?” Yoongi asked slowly, growing visibly suspicious about where this stupid, stupid road was leading. Somehow, he looked as amused by you as he did continually bewildered.

Springing the trap, you accentuated your shitty punchline with a sing-song tone and pantomime for emphasis, “Car go beep beep!”

Nobody had ever — ever — looked at you the way Yoongi did when you concluded your comedy routine. As if your teary-eyed grin and raucous laughter were something beautiful; and your presence alone wasn’t killing off one, sorry brain cell for every minute that passed.

“Knock, knock,” Yoongi volleyed with a soft chuckle, and without breaking eye contact.

As if you weren’t too much.

Yoongi needed a minute to take inventory.

When he left his apartment at a quarter-til-eight, he was headed out for his first date in a long damn time. It was Seokjin’s setup and that girl’s letdown. For Yoongi, it was another drop in the bucket; one final reason to commit to life as a hermit.

Troll that he was, Yoongi was ready to crawl back under his bridge; emerging only to pose impossible riddles to passersby who didn’t know to stay away.

His brain had given him an out, but for once, he didn’t take it. So, what did he end up with instead?

You, sitting on the bar, going shot-for-shot with him; and telling your self-titled villain origin story with award-worthy narration.

Equally as enthralling as the story itself was the tangential webs you weaved along the way. As he’d already learned to expect, you apologized frequently for the way one thought trailed off in a direction you didn’t intend. He wished you didn’t; he had no trouble following wherever your mind led you.

You, born here but not raised here, returning to claim a master’s degree in photography and to reclaim what you felt you missed out on. Yoongi loved your foreign take on local foods, even if you hadn’t yet acquired a taste for pickled vegetables.

We’ll get you there, he’d promised.

You, gesturing with hand movements so impassioned they nearly knocked you off balance; right off the bar. He was down to listen to you talk about whatever — for any amount of time — because he could feel how much you cared about — well, everything.

Animated, fully alive, and so fucking refreshing.

Him, with one hand on his drink and the other hovering on the bar top near your hip — just in case your full-body laugh did, in fact, provoke a fall.

Yoongi, who do you think you’re fooling?

So, maybe it was never exclusively about concern for your safety — even though you’d demonstrated from the jump that it was warranted. Yoongi was quickly coming to realize that, when it came down to it, he simply liked having you close. He liked you, full stop.

Every now and then, you’d wiggle where you sat, and the denim of your jeans would brush against his knuckles. It was as innocent as contact could be, but for someone so secretly touch-starved, it was bliss. Is this the kind of feeling he gave up, locked away in his tower? It sure as shit made leaving feel worth it.

He was buzzed, sure, but not drunk enough to blame the warmth he was feeling on the liquor. Any flush on his cheeks would only be partly genetic. The rest of it was all you — and the way you talked with your whole body, and that giggle.

Seriously, what the fuck is that giggle? A wind-chime made out of stars?

“Yoongi?”

It didn’t dawn on him that he was staring until you called his name. Then, it dawned on him that he didn’t care if he’d been caught — not even a little bit. Red-handed, all Yoongi could do was smile up at you as you blinked down at him.

He’d thought it before and now he was thinking it again: You are goddamn delight.

You threw your head back and laughed. Maybe it was the soju, or how fucking obvious he made it that he was infatuated with you. Whatever the cause, the effect was music to his ears. He’d record it, if he could, and play it on loop to appease the butterflies going wild in his stomach.

Unfortunately, he was accurate in his prediction. The sudden movement of your laughter sent you reeling, but before you could fall, Yoongi was quick to intervene. He stood abruptly from his stool to secure you; one hand on your hip and the other — unintentionally — on your thigh.

“Shit — Sorry,” Yoongi muttered, though he was very much still holding you. Oh, fuck, his brain screamed as he glanced down at his hand on your thigh. Heart pounding, his gaze flitted from his touch to your face.

Your mouth was still slightly open, but that could’ve easily been attributed to the fact that you’d so narrowly avoided launching yourself headfirst at the ground. If it wasn’t that, then you were looking for the words to yell to get him to back off.

Those were the only possible explanations; and any minute now, his hand would accept his brain’s signal to pull away.

Any minute now. Any —

Yoongi watched it all happen in slow motion and he still couldn’t believe it when you leaned in. Or when your hair slipped over your shoulder and brushed against his. Or when you kissed him quick and pulled back just to smile from mere centimeters away.

“Impressive reflexes.” You were breathless but you still managed to sigh. Have you had freckles this whole time? “What’s that saying? Not all heroes wear Lewis Leathers?”

Your playful tug at his jacket had no force behind it, but even with his feet firmly planted, Yoongi knew that he was falling. His stomach fluttered from the pinnacle of that emotional rollercoaster and, for once, he wasn’t afraid of heights. He’d kiss you again and follow that thrill all the way down.

Or, he would have, if the bell above the door didn’t chime.

Just as quickly as you’d kissed him, you spun around and prepared to dismount from your perch on the bar. Yoongi’s hand still seemed to vibrate, even when you slipped out from underneath. It was absolutely ridiculous that his body missed you already — automatically — but he couldn’t think of any other explanation.

He wasn’t a violent person by any means, but he was suddenly overwhelmed with the desire to throw the incoming patron out on their ass and lock the door behind them.

The audacity. Who does this clown think they are, coming into a place of business during their business hours? For fuck’s —

“Finally!” You squeaked as you stuck your landing. Then, you skipped around the edge of the bar and continued on your way towards the door.

Jesus Christ. Even the way you walk is cute.

Yoongi was initially too preoccupied with watching you to notice the intruder, but when he did, he couldn’t force the exasperated look off his face. That is, until he saw the panicked look on the prepubescent face of the delivery boy.

The poor kid’s eyes bugged out at Yoongi from under the brim of his uniform cap. Immediately, Yoongi felt inclined to atone, to bow. Instead, he offered a mildly apologetic grimace for the heart attack he didn’t mean to cause.

You accepted the bags of food into your arms, beaming like the fucking sun as you glanced over your shoulder to Yoongi. “You said you liked Hongdae Dakgalbi, right?”

Yes. Yes, he did. But his brain was spinning its wheels in the mud because —

What he finally said wasn’t a question, but it certainly sounded like one: “You ordered food.”

Clearly, Yoongi was missing something. He glanced around and confirmed that there was, in fact, an operational kitchen still situated at the far end of the room. He pointed to the small window carved out for taking and producing orders. “What about —?”

“Binna called off,” you shrugged through your explanation. Then, you tilted your head with a coy smile, “Were we supposed to starve?”

Yoongi had questions. A lot of them.

First and foremost: When did you summon takeout and how did you manage to go unnoticed in the process? He was certainly staring at you for long enough to catch it. Or maybe his heart-eyes were getting foggy with age.

Also, we? As in, you ordered food with the intention of sharing it with him? And you paid for it?

When his broken brain snapped back to attention, it registered the fact that you’d settled on top of the stool next to his. You either didn’t notice the smoke flying out of Yoongi’s ears, or you accepted his brain damage for what it was. Either way, you were too excited about the piping hot tteokbokki in front of you to notice the way he still lingered by the door.

The delivery boy was long gone by now; he took the first opportunity to get as much distance between himself and the visibly annoyed person he’d interrupted. Looking at it now, Yoongi’s fingers twitched with a desire to engage the deadbolt. But he didn’t — he, a coward, wouldn’t — so he simply reclaimed the spot next to you.

You immediately held up a pair of chopsticks as you fished out napkins with your other hand. Yoongi stared at them for too long, prompting you to look quizzically up at him. You asked no questions, and he couldn’t think of a single reason why he said it, but he blurted out:

“I’m supposed to be on a date.”

Unfazed by the lack of context, you gently tucked that pair of chopsticks into his useless hand. Yoongi blinked down at them like he didn’t know what to do with them. You went back to unpacking your takeout.

“And I’m supposed to be working,” You chirped, as if what he just said — unprompted — wasn’t completely idiotic. “I won’t tell if you don’t.”

Yoongi shook his head, praying it would knock his trapped thoughts loose. “I meant that I was supposed to be the one buying dinner.” He frowned down at the spread you’d provided. “If I knew you were hungry, I would’ve —“

“Taken a bite by now?” You teased with wiggling eyebrows. “Come on, Min Yoongi, you know the rules. The eldest eats first.”

Stunned wasn’t adequate. Entranced? His mouth hung open, primed to speak, without a single, coherent response on the horizon. Mystified, at the very least. You were always one step ahead of Yoongi, dancing off in a brand new direction.

How on Earth did you do it so easily? How were you so effortlessly bold when he couldn’t even blink without deliberating over the idea for days?

Yoongi wasn’t even jealous the way he would’ve expected to be, meeting his non-neurotic foil. He didn’t want to steal that spark for himself, or try to mimic your fearlessness. If he could just continue to witness it, that would be enough.

You threw him off again when you plucked a small piece of tteokbokki from one of the cardboard containers below and gently maneuvered it into his unwitting, waiting mouth.

Game over. Min Yoongi is done for.

“There we go,” You cooed with a smirk. Then, those chopsticks grabbed a piece of tteokbokki of your very own. You smiled adoringly down at it, winked up at him, and said, “Now we’re off to the races.”

After several minutes of deeply contented, quiet chewing, you turned slightly to gaze at him. You didn’t say anything at first; you simply watched and let your lips curve slightly into an understated smile. Yoongi didn’t care if that was all you did because — for once — he felt seen.

Eventually, you did speak. Your voice was soft, barely casting a ripple through the silence. “Can I ask?”

Your eyes scanned over his face for permission. Yoongi had no idea what your question was, but he doubted that he was capable of saying no to you. Fire at will.

“About the date you’re not on,” You clarified.

The one I was supposed to be on, or the one I might be on instead?

“Why aren’t you on it?”

He didn’t know how to explain any of it without sounding pathetic. He knew he’d rather die than have to relay his earlier misfortune to Seokjin; somehow, though, Yoongi didn’t hesitate to respond to you. Like everything else about the past few hours, it felt laughably easy.

“She’s a friend of a friend,” He began as soon as he wiped excess gochujang from the corner of his mouth.

“He basically harassed me into asking her out because I, uh — I don’t get out much. And I know a lot of people say that, but I really do mean it. You can probably guess as much from my frighteningly translucent complexion.”

Your mouth hitched up at the corner when he joked, but you didn’t laugh. In some odd way, he was grateful that you didn’t — not just because you didn’t enable his self-depreciation, but because you seemed too invested in what he was saying to interrupt him.

Nobody had ever looked at him quite like that before.

He cleared his throat, then he pressed on, “So, I did — and that part was fine. After that, though, I don’t think I slept at all. For, like, days. Now, I think I was just dreading the whole thing, but while it was happening, I figured I was nervous. Rusty, you know?”

Yoongi looked down at his hands, which fidgeted autonomously with his chopsticks. “I put way too much thought into the whole thing — I always do — even though I had this feeling that nothing was going to happen the way I planned.”

He paused, poked mindlessly at a lump of rice, and exhaled a breath he hadn’t intentionally held. Nothing had happened the way he planned, but if it did, who would’ve hand-fed him tteokbokki because they were too impatient to wait?

You dropped your chin in your hand as you continued to watch him. Wordlessly, you reached out with your other hand. Yoongi noticed just in time as you gently removed a piece of lint that had stuck to the tip of his jacket collar. Your eyes followed it as it floated off towards the floor.

Yoongi couldn’t see anything but you.

“You picked this place,” you murmured. Slowly, your eyes drifted back up to his face; he froze solid. The only thing moving was the pounding heart in his chest. “Must mean a lot to you.”

He wanted to be brave and tell you that it meant even more now. He wasn’t brave, though, so he swallowed that thought down with a mouthful of soju.

“She was not a fan, as it turns out. Hated it so much, just from the sidewalk, that she jumped right back in her taxi — yelled at me through the window that she deserved better than to drink bottom-shelf liquor in a dumpster with me.”

You furrowed your eyebrows and he wondered which part of that statement bothered you the most. Having your place of employment referred to as a dumpster would be a reasonable sore spot; one he probably should’ve avoided. Fuck. Could he rewind thirty seconds and omit that part?

“Well,” you frowned, “Joke’s on her. This dumpster has exactly one bottle on its top shelf, and it was apparently reserved just for you.”

He could kiss you. He really, really could.

You shifted on your stool, though, and stared out into the middle-distance at nothing in particular. Deep in thought, too, judging by the way your frown curved even further.

“It’s kind of funny, in a shitty sort of way. She more or less told you that you’re not enough, and people love to tell me that I’m too much.”

It was Yoongi’s turn to frown. Who in their right mind could look at you, experience the goddamn magnet that you are, and willingly detach themselves from you? The thought alone made his jaw clench.

There hadn’t been a single second since he met you — albeit, not that long ago — where he didn’t want to see and know more of you. Where he didn’t beg those seconds to slow the fuck down because the night kept moving faster than he wanted it to.

So far, no amount of time felt like enough.

“You’d think it would be nice, being everyone’s favorite new toy,” You laughed, to Yoongi’s surprise.

Looking genuinely amused, you glanced over your shoulder at him. “And I guess, for a minute, it really is. You do your silly song and dance; and everyone loves you — until they don’t anymore. Eventually, your tricks get boring; you burn them out; then they take out your batteries. You get shelved pretty quickly.”

There was a flicker of genuine hurt in your eyes, but you were smiling when you picked your glass up off the bar and raised it. “To always being the wrong amount!” You giggled.

“Nah.” Yoongi shook his head. He grabbed his drink, touched his glass to yours, and winked, “To being just right.”

One way or another, you spent most nights watching the clock, holding your breath, and waiting for midnight.

On New Year’s Eve, it was hope that bloomed bright in your chest like fireworks. When those final seconds dissolved, it meant closing one chapter and opening another. Something bigger, something better, something blank for you to fill in. A year in fresh white paper, with every color at your disposal.

Ten — nine —

For the rest of your midnights, it was relief that finally allowed you to unclench your jaw and drop your stiff shoulders. Closing time. Freedom to clean up, clear out, and drag your tired, little body back up to your apartment.

Thankfully, when your work hours were over, there were only three flights of stairs separating you from your bed, your cat, and your Netflix subscription.

Eight — seven —

Tonight was an outlier, a statistical anomaly. As the short hand inched closer and closer to twelve, your pulse picked up its pace. For once, it wasn’t relief and it certainly wasn’t hope. It was distinctively dread forming a pit in your stomach.

Even more than that, it was a telepathic plea shooting out from your brain that begged, and begged, and begged for more time. Five more minutes, just five more minutes.

Six — five —

You felt stupid, of course, because you knew that neither of you would turn into a pumpkin when the clock struck midnight. There was no spell, just two strangers who happened to be in the same bar at the same time, with bad jokes and a bottle of Tanqueray.

No bomb would detonate, no one would drop dead. When it was over, you’d simply go home, and Yoongi would go home and then…

Four —

That “and then what?” had you frantic. What if this moment ended and nothing followed? What if the magic didn’t survive the night?

You couldn’t take that disappointment; you knew that much. Gripping tight to your last first night, you tore your eyes away from the clock and looked at Yoongi.

He didn��t notice you staring because he had also become fixated on the clock ahead. His brow furrowed just slightly as he observed it, and you wondered what it meant.

Three —

You knew what you hoped it meant.

For all you knew, though, he might’ve been begging that hand to move faster. The end all, be all of justifications to say goodnight and go. To drop the moment in the bin with the spent, citrus garnishes on the way out; and then crawl back into that bed he spoke so fondly of.

The way you did whenever four zeroes lined up in a row like cartoon cherries on a slot machine. A personal jackpot any other midnight, but the farthest thing from a prize now.

Two —

No. You refused to believe that.

In the reality you’d chosen, he was strapped into that rollercoaster car beside you. He felt his stomach flip the way yours did as you stared down at the path ahead. You didn’t know how you knew it, but you were sure that you weren’t up there alone.

So, when the countdown was over, you took a deep breath and stated, “I’m calling a time-out.”

In actuality, it was more than a statement. It was a shout and it startled him so badly that he flinched.

As soon as he resettled on his stool, Yoongi’s neck could’ve snapped with how quickly he turned to look at you. His eyes were wider than you’d seen them at any point in the last four hours. Those once-knitted brows shot up to kiss the blonde strands brushing against his forehead.

You envied them, as stupid as that was.

“You’re — what?” He peeped.

Even louder than before, you blurted out your explanation. “I’m stopping the clock!”

You might’ve been the sole American in the entire neighborhood, but you could guarantee that you still knew less about football than Yoongi did. Knowing all of that didn’t stop you from making your worst attempt at a metaphor, or throwing your hand out to mime your way through it.

“Flag on the play — or whatever, I don’t know.”

At first, his expression didn’t change and you began to panic. Maybe you could duck down behind the bar and he’d eventually forget that you were hiding there. Then he wouldn’t see how pink your cheeks were; how the hope in your eyes bordered on desperate.

Shockingly, you weren’t delusional. You’d simply underestimated him.

Yoongi glanced down at his watch — already two minutes into Sunday — and then back to you. “Wow. Would you look at that? Only a minute til midnight.”

You could kiss him; you really, really could.

“Do you want to, uh, hang out? With me? Like, not here?”

Yoongi was smirking slightly at your stammering, just enough for you to notice, but you didn’t faint the way your body wanted you to. Instead, you doubled down.

“I live in the apartment upstairs, and this isn’t a proposition — it’s also not, not a proposition — but I need to lock-up here, and I still want you with me when I’m done.”

He blinked rapidly like you’d once again shook him off your tail. You watched in slow motion as his smirk dropped, and his brows dipped back into thoughtful wrinkles at the lowest part of his forehead. It hurt, physically somehow, that there was something to consider.

Were you really this egregiously wrong in your conclusions, or had he finally hit his quota with you and decided that you — this — were too much, too soon?

You wanted to explain yourself, to say that you were just offering for him to come up and sit on your couch with you. Because you wanted to keep this night alive and keep talking for as long as you could. Because this was something and you knew it.

You opened your mouth to do so, but he was the quicker draw.

Yoongi looked genuinely conflicted and you believed him when he said, “I don’t think I can. I have to be up in four hours to —”

“It’s okay!” You chirped. Stupid little bird, flying headlong into a window. You smiled and prayed it looked genuine, but Yoongi didn’t look convinced. Still, you breezed, “Raincheck, then — maybe.”

Maybe when you take the trash out later, you can heave yourself into the dumpster with it.

Deciding that your disappointment shouldn’t be his burden, you grabbed the takeout containers from the counter and whisked yourself over to the trash bin to discard them.

In a magnificent showing of restraint, you didn’t stuff yourself inside it, too. Instead, your tidy tornado kept spinning, picking up every glass you encountered and shoving them hurriedly into the dishwasher below the bar.

Are you suddenly Employee of the Month? Why is this the moment you choose to actually do your job?

With your hip, you nudged the dishwasher door closed much more clumsily than usual. Then, you began wiping down the counter at warp speed; damn near scrubbing a hole straight though the wood.

Why are you so frazzled? Are you really this sensitive after being politely turned down by someone you just met? This is what they mean when they say you’re “too much,” and you know what? They’re right.

“Is there anything I can do to help?” Yoongi asked because he was lovely.

You were, as it turned out, as bad an actor as you were a bartender. Your reassuring smile was more unsettling than anything else, but you hoped that — maybe — the shake of your head was enough to dispel the concern from his face.

In case it wasn’t, you quipped, “You’ve already done more than your fair share of cleaning tonight, I think. Thanks again for that, by the way. I ran out bandages, so…”

Your sentence petered out when you finally looked up and locked eyes with Yoongi. His expression was indecipherable and, only for a moment, it made your hurried hands stop moving.

“So, I’m glad you came in,” You finished through an exhale, quiet to the point that it was hardly audible. You hoped he heard you, though, as loudly and clearly as you meant it.

Straightening up, you dropped your bar rag into the “dirty shit” bucket underneath the counter. You quickly wiped your hands against your jeans, laughed with no real joy behind it, and hid your wobbling voice behind a poorly imitated French accent, “Et voilà.”

Yoongi was still staring, still unreadable. For a few moments, you simply looked at one another. Neither one of you made a sound — at least, nobody spoke. There were gears grinding in his head, judging by the look on his face, and you swore you could hear them from across the bar.

“I guess I should — um,” Yoongi eventually muttered as he gestured to the door. He briefly glanced at it, but you doubted that he registered what he was looking at.

Oddly, it wasn’t awkwardness that seemed to have him short-circuiting — not as far as you could tell. It was like his brain was moving faster than it could form words, leaving his mouth open with nothing to say.

You nodded. You knew where he was going with this, and you didn’t want to prolong whatever he was so visibly toiling with.

“Yeah, of course,” You squeaked. Somewhere, the world’s tiniest violin began to play as the corner of your mouth hitched up. “I’ll see you around, I hope?”

Then, Yoongi’s gaze dropped to the phone in his hand. If he heard your question, he didn’t acknowledge it. Instead, deep in thought, he mumbled, “I need to — fuck, okay —” Urgently, he looked back up at you and said firmly, “I’ll call.”

He dashed out the door before you realized the problem with his plan: he had no way to call you.

You’d been so caught up in each other that you never thought to exchange phone numbers. Not only was he now gone, but he hadn’t actually said goodbye.

Seems kind of fitting that yours is the only fairytale without a happy ending, huh?

You occupied the borderline between being a hopeless romantic and a masochist, so you immediately decided that, if you ran, you might catch him before he was truly gone.

Kiss him or kick him, it didn’t matter — you just couldn’t let it end like this.

You skirted around the bar and darted to the door, throwing it open and shocking the bell above it. You were already out on the sidewalk before it had the chance to chime. It was the only sound, and it echoed through otherwise dead air.

Similarly, you were the only person on the street. Judging by the dark windows lining the road, you were the only proof of life in that little corner of Seoul. The lack of visible stars was likely due to light pollution, but you wouldn’t be surprised if they dipped out on you, too.

No matter how many times you looked up and down the street, Yoongi didn’t appear. So, you closed your eyes like an idiot, and wished on a star you couldn’t see that he’d be there when you re-opened them. Standing on the other side of the street, laughing, and asking how you’d missed him on your thirty previous scans.

But he wasn’t.

Yoongi had disappeared like smoke right through your fingers; exiting your night as abruptly as he’d entered it.

You weren’t inclined to stand on the sidewalk all night, stunned by your complete failure to see the plot for what it was. You slipped from the sidewalk, through the front door, and locked it behind you. And once you did, you stood there with your hand on the deadbolt for several moments — just in case.

When no one came to knock, you turned all the lights out and flipped the sign in the front window from open to closed. From there, you made your way to the back of the storage room. Finally reaching the stairwell door in the far corner, you unlocked it slowly like the wait would make a difference.

As you climbed the three flights to your apartment’s entrance, the night’s events formed a whirlpool in your mind. The playback settled it: there was simply no way that you were this wrong — not about this.

Clearly, you weren’t clairvoyant to the extent that Yoongi seemed to be. You hadn’t seen it coming when you nearly fell backwards off the bar, but he did. He’d kept his hand close all night like he sensed you’d need it. Just like he sensed every rock, paper, and scissor.

Even still, it felt like a premonition every time you turned to look at him at the same time he did; and you couldn’t put a finger on it.

That something was more than simply chatting with a person stuck in your close proximity — more than commiserating and drinking simultaneously. That was the nature of your job: circumstantial friendship. Not uncommon, not designed to last beyond last call.

This, though? Cosmic interfere or craziness, maybe, but not nothing. You weren’t superstitious and you didn’t necessarily believe in fate, but the odds of all of this had to be shockingly low.

It felt cinematic, in a way, or straight out of a dream. You would have believed it either way if the pinch of your fingers on your forearm didn’t debunk both theories. It was all too perfectly timed to be a coincidence, though, you knew that much.

Out of all the nights you’d worked at this bar — and all the years he’d been a customer — this was the one time your paths had crossed. And when they finally did, he found you right when you needed him. The same, you hoped, could be said for him.

Too Much meeting Not Enough, proving perfect balance. It was just right, but the ending didn’t fit.

Sure, he knew where to find you — but that was assuming he wanted to. With his quick and wordless departure, your confidence in that assumption wavered as you unlocked your apartment door and stepped inside.

The ball’s over, Cinderella. Sorry about your shoe.

When his third call went to voicemail, Yoongi was ready to launch his phone down the alley.

There was no fucking way that Seokjin — of all people — was asleep already. This could not be the night that he turned off whatever game he was playing and went to bed at a reasonable hour. Seokjin was rarely reasonable. As it turned out, he wasn’t reachable, either.

Yoongi growled, kicking the nearby dumpster. He thought that some explosion of physical activity might take the focus off his anxiety, but it didn’t — it just made his foot hurt.

“Fuck!”

He didn’t even want to make the plans he was now trying desperately to reschedule. He didn’t like fishing; he liked his friend, and his friend liked fishing. So, Yoongi agreed to share the cost of renting a boat that he would have to leave at five o’clock in the morning to catch.

If it's 00:17 now, I have three hours and forty-three minutes until —

The unexpected chiming of his phone stopped Yoongi’s pacing before he could wear a trench into the concrete. “Finally!”

“Do you always yell at people instead of greeting them?” Seokjin scoffed. As expected, Yoongi could hear some sort of video game blaring in the background.

Typical.

“Hyung, I’m so sorry, but I'm not going to make it back in time. Can we re-schedule this fishing thing?”

Yoongi felt awful for having to ask in the first place, but he felt even worse as he anticipated Seokjin’s reaction. Yoongi swallowed disappointment and stewed in it. Seokjin was quite the opposite, and Yoongi didn’t want to ruin his night.

To Yoongi’s surprise, he did not get yelled at the way he expected to. Instead, he got Seokjin’s juvenile, sing-song voice directed right into his ear, “Ooh, staying with Hyunjoo, are we?”

Yoongi, having completely lost the plot, paused for a moment before asking, “Who?”

“What?”

Oh, fuck, was that her name? It’d slid out of his brain the second that abuse slid out of her mouth.

Quick to avoid that conversation, Yoongi sputtered, “I’ll give you the story tomorrow, hyung, but I really need to go. Can we push the fishing thing to another day?"

“Oh, I forgot to book the boat, so don’t worry about it!” Seokjin cheered and Yoongi was this close to following through with chucking his phone like a grenade. “Have fun with —”

Not inclined to wait another second, Yoongi hung up and turned to sprint up the alley towards the bar’s entrance. When he reached it and found the lights out, he skidded to a stop so forcefully that he almost fell over. What the fuck? He tugged at the door handle just to make sure he wasn’t missing something.

Didn’t he tell you he was going to make a phone call?

Fuck! He'd said I'll call. He didn't say that he was going to call Seokjin, and he sure as shit hadn't clarified that he was going to do so right that second. There'd been no explanation, no “please wait because I promise I’m coming right back for you" — just a mad dash out the door to get rid of the only thing standing between him and more time with you.

Shit, shit, shit.

Yoongi never indulged in unadulterated rage because he decided a long time ago that it took more effort than it was worth. In that moment, though, he felt the overwhelming urge to punch himself right in the face. How did he fuck it all up this badly?

Instead, Yoongi scrubbed his hands over his face and begged his brain to figure out a better plan. He couldn’t just call you because he was too busy making googly eyes at you to ask for your number. He couldn’t pick the lock because it was illegal — and because he didn’t know how.

Unable to do anything else, Yoongi threw his head back with every intention of screaming at the sky. But before he could let his frustration rip out of his mouth, he saw it: his saving grace.

Mere moments after he sprinted up the alley, Yoongi was tearing back down it like his life depended on it. The end of the iron emergency ladder sat too high off the ground for him to comfortably reach it, but — thankfully — he had garbage at his disposal. Without a second thought, he stacked whatever semi-sturdy trash he could find to bridge the gap between him and your fire escape.

With all the strength and recklessness of a lovestruck teenager, Yoongi threw his twenty-four-year-old body upwards and grabbed hold of the nearest rung.

Maybe you overestimated that strength a little bit, eh, Yoongi?

He gritted his teeth and pulled himself up enough to swing a leg up, too. Groaning triumphantly, he hooked the bottom of his shoe on the lowest rung.

From there, it was easy enough to reach the first landing. When it came time for Yoongi to tackle the other two, he picked up the pace — and he didn’t give a shit about how sore he’d be tomorrow.

Finally, finally, finally, he reached his destination. Unfortunately, that fleeting moment of relief was replaced by fear as he stooped down to knock on your window. Staring back at him through the darkness was a pair of big, yellow eyes.

Yoongi shouted as he stumbled away from the window. He knocked over a planter on his way down, landing on his ass with a crash and a grunt. Adding insult to injury, that black cat looked positively smug as it stared down at him.

It was quiet when you called out — in English — from another room. “Toph, did you break something? I thought we talked about this, bub." As your voice grew closer, you switched to Korean, "You can't ruin my stuff until you start contributing to this household.”

What's the incubation period for lovesickness?

Yoongi heard footsteps headed towards whatever room he’d failed to break and enter. He saw the light as it flicked on, and then he saw you — wearing a fluffy, tan headband with little, round ears at the top —with a bare face glistening as if you’d just finished tending to it.

Oh, fuck. Is lovesickness terminal?

If your eyes opened any wider, they might’ve fallen right out of your skull. They would’ve landed where Yoongi did — in the mass grave of pepper sprouts he’d just outright annihilated. But they stayed beautiful where they belonged, and you simply gawked at each other.

Yoongi spoke first despite not thinking first. “Toph? Like, Beifong?”

Your shock gave way to the biggest, brightest smile and Yoongi was thankful it didn’t blind him. If it did, he would’ve missed the way your cheeks went pink to match the tips of your ears. Whatever the shade, it was his new favorite color.

Just bury me in this potting soil, doll. I'm dead.

“Yoongi,” You started with a giggle that turned into a hum when you pursed your lips and tilted your head. Your eyes narrowed and then you asked, “Any reason why you chose the fire escape over the door?”

The what?

Sensing his confusion, you leaned out the window and pointed. Yoongi’s eyes followed the invisible line from your fingertip until they located an awning, which sat mere meters away from his impromptu stepstool made of trash.

Inwardly, he winced. Outwardly, he turned to you with a lopsided smile. “I was checking out your little garden."

Yoongi cleared his throat, now wincing outwardly, “And, uh — then I killed it, a little bit. I promise I’ll replace everything as soon as the shops open. I am so —”

“Cold? I bet,” You interrupted with a smirk, “Come inside then, Min Yoongi. Just don’t break the window too, alright?”

You didn’t have to tell him twice.

Immediately, he was on his feet, furiously dusting potting soil off the back of his legs. When he suspected that he’d gotten it all, Yoongi turned around and glanced at you over his shoulder. Even without a question, you knew what he was asking; you signaled okay with your fingers and a giggle.

With more care than he’d ever shown in his life, Yoongi crawled through the gap you created when you ducked back through the window. Once he had his feet underneath him again, he quickly toed off his shoes and plucked them off the tile.

As soon as he was upright again, you took his wrist in your hand — oh god, your skin is so criminally soft — and led him through your kitchen to the living room.

Gently, you set his shoes down on the mat beside your front door. Then, you turned back around to gaze up at him. Looking at that face of yours, Yoongi forgot every word he’d ever learned. It was just his hammering heart beating in time with yours, until:

“So, this is where I live.”

You were close enough that Yoongi could smell the toothpaste on your breath when you spoke, but still too far. You must’ve thought so, too, because you shifted your weight to your other foot and wound up slightly nearer to him.

Yoongi hummed in reply, though he could barely hear it over his pulse pounding in his ears, “It’s nice.”

He didn’t actually know if that was the case because he’d spent every second so far staring at you, but he had faith that you’d prove him right.

More quiet, more anticipation disguised as quickening breaths.

Like a magnet, you drew him in. Yoongi echoed every tiny move you made towards him until the distance was gone; and he could feel the heat of your body mere centimeters from his.

This close, he could see flecks of gold in your irises that he hadn’t noticed before. Yoongi knew he shouldn't have been surprised. If he'd learned a single thing tonight it was that hidden treasures were par for the course with you.

“Yoongi.”

It was baffling how you could sound so shy, even with desire blowing your pupils wide. Just as confounding was the fact that Yoongi knew, without question, that you felt it, too — that this new and perfect something was the start of everything.

“Please, just kiss me already.”

That wasn’t an opportunity he’d ever expect to turn down.

You were already breathless, weightless, and floating in fucking space when you finally crossed over the threshold into your bedroom.

Because, fuck, that man took your oxygen with him whenever his lips left yours. Without even trying, he’d fashioned himself into a ventilator that you really might suffocate without.

Thankfully, whenever he pulled away, he didn’t stray far. Even as you both stumbled towards your unmade bed, tripping over obstacles — up to and including Toph, whose favorite spot was between your ankles — there was always one hand on your hip and another lacing fingers through your hair.

As you moved, you couldn’t help thinking of the leftovers you’d brought home from work before. All single-use encounters, wastes of time that you normally didn’t care to recall. Though he may end up being the last, Yoongi wasn’t the first person to have you in this position.

He was, however, the only person to rescind his tongue just to comment on the tiny, design details of your shit-box apartment.

“How did you —” He paused to moan into your mouth when your teeth gently claimed his bottom lip. “Find a place with — oh, fuck, you taste like spearmint – original crown-molding in this —” The back of his knees bumped into the edge of your mattress and suddenly, he was sitting. “Neighborhood?”

There was no way you could ever explain Min Yoongi’s duality. He was unequivocally, fatally hot — and simultaneously, he was the most endearing, grandfatherly person you’d ever encountered. Somehow, this mind-boggling man turned architectural factoids into dirty talk.

You might orgasm on the spot if he brought up your built-ins, and you didn’t know or care what that said about you as a person.

“I’ll show you the blueprints later if you want,” you giggled while Yoongi ‘s cheeks flushed. Before he could find a reason to feel embarrassed, you tilted his chin up in order to kiss him properly. As you did, you murmured against his lips, “But if you take those jeans off, there’s something else I’d like to show you first.”

Your little finger was near to his throat as you held his chin captive, so you felt it when it when he growled. Against your knuckle, in your chest, and in that growing ache in between your thighs. There was roughness in him that you’d only seen snippets of, but you’d bet that you could pull it out if you tried.

Maybe not now while you were both masking nerves, but eventually.

When Yoongi made to stand, you backed up to give him room to do so. You were already on your knees when his belt came off, unbuttoning his jeans before the leather even hit the floor. As you pulled that zipper down — slowly and carefully — you glanced up at him from under your lashes and watched the breath catch in his chest.

It wasn’t the first time you noticed how fucking beautiful he was; in fact, that thought had been looping through your mind all night. But there was something new in his expression as he observed you taking his cock into your hand.

Something reverent, like he believed he should be the one on their knees.

A few languid, kitten licks at the tip, and his eyelids fluttered. They screwed shut entirely as you ran the flat of your tongue along the vein underneath. When your mouth finally enveloped him fully, his head drooped backwards as he groaned.

Your name would never sound better than it did exhaled from Yoongi’s chest.

More often than not, fellatio felt like an obligation. A quid pro quo, you always figured, though none of them kept up their end of the deal. But with Yoongi buried in the wet heat of your mouth, it was a gift you might never get tired of giving. Every breathy moan and involuntary twitch felt like a prize — and still, neither came close to the way it felt when he looked at you.

In those fleeting moments when he could focus, of course.

“I’m fucking dreaming,” Yoongi groaned, bringing his hands up and scrubbing them over his face. “Shit. Perfect figment of my imagination, that’s the only explanation for you. Where the fuck have you been my whole life?”

You hummed as you let him slip out of your mouth. In turn, it prompted a flurry of expletives to slip out of his. Tracing a feather-light line from hilt to head, you smirked up at him, “Waiting at a bar for you to show up, Min Yoongi. You sure did take your time.”

“Ugh, don’t remind me,” He laughed, “I already plan to regret that for the next — I don't know — forever?”

He dropped his hands from over his eyes and held them out to you. “Come here, angel. You’re too far away.”

As soon as you were back on your feet, Yoongi enveloped you in the warmth of his arms. You were halfway to melting when he kissed you; dead and gone when he laid you back against the mattress; and downright astral projecting when the weight of his body was added to yours.

Not to be dramatic, but is heaven a place on Earth?

With your head resting comfortably on the pillow, you gazed up at Yoongi as he addressed the tied waistband of your sweatpants. It wasn’t until that knot came undone that you realized: if he’d come home with you earlier — before you’d swapped out your street clothes for shapeless knits — he would’ve had a prettier present to unwrap.

Lace over your hip bones instead of cotton briefs. A black, balconette bra that made your tits into something worth looking at; not lackluster bareness that barely registered under your paint-stained t-shirt.

Unintentionally mimicking him, you covered your face with your hands to conceal the way you were blushing. You didn’t even dare to peek through your fingers at him while he dragged your sweatpants down over your legs.

That is, not until you heard the world’s softest chuckle and it hit you like a bus.

“Pretty girl,” Yoongi hummed. He left a chaste kiss on the top of your left thigh, and you whimpered. So sweet, so brief that your skin still tingled when he moved to mirror that kiss on your right thigh. “Where’d you go, baby?”

Baby.

That settled it. Min Yoongi was trying to kill you.

Nobody kissed you that carefully, not ever. No man, no woman, no one in between or beyond spoke to you that softly; turned you to putty in their hands with gentleness alone. Not like he did.

You were going to love him — you already knew it — and that stupid, four-letter word just sealed your fate. There wasn’t a single thing that you could do to prevent it, even if you wanted to. So, your options were limited to one:

Leaning into the fall.

You reached out with the hand that once covered your face and grabbed him by the shirt to pull him closer. Once he was within range, with the tip of his nose bumping into yours, you stared him dead in the eye and told him just how badly you needed him inside of you.

It took no time at all for the two of you to cast aside what remained of your clothing. Hand-me-downs mingled with designer items that exceeded the cost of your rent, and you didn’t give a fuck. You discarded your inhibitions in that heap, too, sitting up on your knees as he rolled a condom down his length.

Yoongi’s return to you was marked by his hands cupping your face. He kissed you until you were no longer breathless, until you felt the rush of air filling your lungs. You followed his lead back down to the mattress where he rested on his side; and without any need for instruction, you draped your right leg over his hip.

It was the closet you’d been to him, but it still wasn’t close enough

“Is this okay?” Yoongi broke the kiss just to look at you.

The fondness in his eyes was competing with concern, but that didn’t surprise you. Considerate to a fault, he’d no doubt been thrown for a loop when you went from zero to one hundred in merely half a second. “I can —”

Oh, I bet you can.

But you couldn’t wait. Impatient, through and through — and thoroughly dripping — you shook your head.

Your hand left its place on his bare bicep and dipped down to wrap around his cock. There were two individual heartbeats hammering in sync as you guided him to your cunt, though it sounded a lot like one.

“Like you said earlier,” You sighed as he pushed into you. “Just right.”

Six years later...

tagging: @mgthecat @jihopesjoint @jaejoontrashpanda @taebaelove @cyanide-mustard @xjoonchildx @borahae-k @i-purple-buff-bunni @pamzn @myimaginationsrunningwild @nonbinary-demonbrat @yoongiphoria @sstarryoong @xcherrywaltz @btschimeyplanet @persphonesorchid @take-u-2-an0ther-w0r1d @goodsoop @jkoofier (couldn't tag)

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likes are always appreciated, but it's feedback that means the most — whether that's in a comment below, PM, reblog, tags, etc. tysm for reading ✨

a/n: holy shit. just, holy shit. i've spent less time on literal thesis papers than i did on this. i'm so thankful for everyone who blew up darksided and blindsided — i really hope this provides context for how these two got together, and how tf they love each other that much. i will not apologize for the sexual cliffhanger because this smut wasn't going to be included, initially! this was going to end at the bar, lol.

also, this is an ode to those very special (very impermanent) nights with someone new that feel like perfect lifetimes in just the span of a few hours. in my experience, they never went anywhere (which i think made them more special, in hindsight) but i wanted to write a fic where things didn't stop there.

anyways, i'm very tired of writing words now, so please enjoy and let me know what you think 🫶🏻

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wildestaugust · 2 years

Text

Call it What You Want • M.V

summary: reader has 'the talk' with Max, then spends the whole day teasing him until he's had enough.

author: I've had this Max oneshot for a few months (which I made due to a very special request form a mutual here) and I just want to clarify that I'm no longer taking MV requests unless it's something very specific considering I'm not inspired by him at all. — just felt I had to say that and that I'm taking requests rn for the other drivers I write for!

warnings: smut, fluff, breeding kink, mentions of childhood trauma, unprotected sex, rough sex, +18.

There was no better feeling than the week off after a grand prix. Having Max back after a tough race in Baku meant staying at home doing nothing too productive; they hated being apart so he liked to make the most of it by sleeping, watching a film or just going out on dinner dates. This time around, however, they were flying to Amsterdam for Victoria's —Max's sister— birthday which fell perfectly during his days off.

The trip back to his hometown was a special one since they were also going to meet their nephew. Victoria had given birth to another boy and due to Max's schedule, they weren't able to be there for his birth, specially when she was going to be the baby's godmother. When he finally found the right time to spend his week off in Amsterdam, it was a no brainer for both of them to just immediately fly out there.

"I can't wait to meet Lio!" she said while on the plane. "Do you think they'll like the basket we brought them? It has everything, clothes, pacifiers, socks..."

"Don't worry, Victoria will love it, after all you're fantastic at everything you do." Max assured her, kissing her bare shoulder.

"Ugh! I'm just nervous, he's my first godson and I want it to be special." she rested her head on his shoulder while he caressed her cheek.

"You'll be fine, this is my second nephew and I'm as nervous as you." Max admitted laughing, trying to calm her down.

"Well, you're not the baby type at all but, you know how to hold them, at least that's what I imagine due to your experience with your little siblings and Luka."

"Yeah, but I'm still terrified of them, Jay was a menace when she was a toddler." They laughed.

They rarely talked about having kids, even though they had been dating since they were twenty-one and pretty much were going to get married at some point. The baby talk wasn't important, although some of their friends had started to have them and they asked the inevitable question of 'when will you have one?'.

Seeing Victoria —who was two years younger than her— having her second child, sort of changed her views on motherhood, she wanted to be a young mom as well but Max's reasoning for not having children at that time was very understandable, he would want to be present and with his job it would be a difficult task to fulfill.

Something he didn't spoke much about was the way his father treated him when he was young. As a young karting driver his father used to be tough on him. She was the only person —besides his mom and sister— whom he trusted enough to open up about those childhood moments, which made it all more personal. Being aware of those insecurities just made her want to make him feel more loved; she wanted to assure him he would do great if he ever wanted to have children of his own and that whatever happened to him, while being young, didn't necessarily defined the rest of his life.

"Do you think I'd be a good mom?" she asked; that wasn't a conversation to have at that moment, however, the question came up so natural to her that it was inevitable not to ask it.

"Is this a sort of set up to talk about having kids, again?" he asked, making her roll her eyes.

"It's just a question!" She replied while intertwining their hands.

"Honestly? You'd be perfect, you do a great job with the cats." he jokingly said, making her laugh. "Now being serious but, if how you treat me is half as how you'd treat a kid of ours, then you'll be an exceptional mother."

Max felt every single one of those words deeply. When he wasn't on the race track, she was the one by his side, celebrating if it was a win, comforting him if the race didn't go his way and uplifting him when the season wasn't how he planned it to be. Those things meant the world to him and, it was no secret to him that she desired a family with him.

He loved how much fun they were having since they moved in together; traveling to the races, spending the weekends either on a boat in St. Tropez or partying on their favorites clubs in Monaco, amongst the more mundane things that would change drastically with a baby.

"You're an expert at making me emotional!" she said rolling her eyes. "I love you."

She slept with her head on his shoulder for the majority of the flight, while Max kept thinking about what they had talked earlier, clearly there was a lot going on inside of him.

—

They arrived at noon to their apartment which, thankfully, was near Victoria's place. She knew his sister had gone beforehand to clean the place when she found a little note where she simply wrote 'welcome <3 my lovebirds!'.

"Look at this! That's so nice of her, I hope it didn't take her much of her time." she said as she laid on the bed with her boyfriend.

"Oh don't worry, someone else came. I just didn't want you to bother on doing chores since we'll be here for just a few days before we go to Austin." he explained.

"That's great." she replied kissing him.

"I'm so tired." he said with his face buried on her neck. "Can you tell my mom i'm jet lagged?"

"Come on! they haven't seen you in months." she replied shaking her head.

"But I want to fuck you." he then said with his hand on her waist.

Max longed to touch her after he came back from Azerbaijan, and since he had arrived late at night, they didn't have much time for themselves as they were leaving for Amsterdam early in the morning. They had done it a few times on his plane, however, he didn't want to bother her earlier as she slept throughout the whole flight.

Before his hand could reach her underwear, she stopped him by placing her hand on his crotch. While she lightly stroked him, she could feel how hard he was; max was always rough in bed but, when he was needy, he was all about letting her do her thing.

"Fuck, you're so hard." she said while unzipping his pant.

"That's what you cause on me, schat." He replied while he kissed her neck.

"Does it feel good? Touching you like this?" she innocently asked while she stroked his balls for a moment.

"Yeah it fucking does, princess." He moaned. "Are you going to let me fuck you?"

She let out a laugh while she made direct eye contact with him. The neediness in his blue eyes was showing, he was desperate to take off her clothes and fuck her relentlessly, however, he wasn't aware that she had other plans, that he may or may not like.

"I tell you what..." she pressed her finger on the head, sending him over the edge. "If we go now to your sister's place, I suck you and then we can fuck all night long if you want."

"What if I don't want to?" he said.

"Then... good luck getting off." she replied. As soon as she stopped, Max wanted to shout.

He put his hands on his face groaning in resignation as he had no other choice, she left him on the bed like a mess. Max vowed to make her regret that on the night but, for the moment being, he would play it cool, specially since they were going to visit their nephews.

After a few minutes, he came out of the room, finding her sitting on the living room with her purse and their gifts to the kids. She had quickly changed her clothes, however, she liked to tease him and he clearly knew that was what she was doing in that moment.

"I quickly got changed because I wanted to use these new boots, do I look good?" She asked getting up. Her black blouse fitted her like a glove and he had to stop thinking about all he wanted to do before he got hard again.

"Yes." simply said with a smile. "I'll carry the gifts to the car, those look a bit too heavy for you." He added.

"I hope you're not mad at me." she commented with a grin on her face. If you only knew, he thought.

"Why would I? it's not like I won't fuck you tonight." he cockily said while smiling.

Without saying anything else, they exited the apartment as Max carried all the gifts. Aside from what had happened, he couldn't wait to meet his newest nephew. He was surprised when during the summer break his sister had asked both of them if they wanted to be Lio's godparents, he missed his family a lot during those long seasons so, having that big responsibility with his nephew meant the world to him because he'd have a reason to spend more time with them.

Amsterdam was where all his friends and family were, going back always made him happy; even if he didn't grow up there, he remembered all the road-trips back and forth from Hasselt and, although the memories with his dad were bittersweet, he would never forget the weekends when his mom used to buy him and his sister ice creams; the days where they would go inside a bookstore and buy thousands of stickers that he would end up giving to Victoria and those few moments between his karting career that reminded him of a childhood he never really enjoyed but rather one he somehow had.

He dreamed of a day when he could finally move back but, to do that, he knew that he either had to retire or have his own family; the former being an unrealistic possibility for at least the next three years of his career while the latter simply frightened him, perhaps due to his own experience.

—

The car ride was very quiet as neither of them spoke. She assumed he was giving her the silence treatment, which was entertaining to her because he couldn't stay angry with her for longer than 2 hours. Reuniting with his family was all she was thinking about, she'd deal with Max later that day.

The ride was short as Victoria's house was just 4 blocks away from their apartment. Every time they went back to Amsterdam, she realized how isolated they were in Monte Carlo. She'd love to have their families at a walking distance but, that was Max's job and she really couldn't complain because they enjoyed their life in Monaco.

After they got out of the car, she took some of the presents while Max carried the heavier ones and, just before they could ring the doorbell, he leaned closer towards her, so close she could hear his breathing.

"Good luck thinking you got away with it." he whispered right before he rang the doorbell twice.

"Is that a threat?" Max was about to answer when the front was opened by his mom.

"Guys!" Sophie hugged her immediately with the biggest smile on her. Her bond with his mom was quiet special; she had known Sophie for as long as she knew Max which translated to more than two years, and throughout all that time, she had treated her like a daughter.

It was at Sophie's house where she met him; max had arranged a small party with his friends shortly before the end of the 2019 season. She went to that party with her friend who used to date Max's best friend; the connection was almost instant considering she was one of the few people there who weren't interested to talk about motorsport with him, she came from a racing family so it wasn't exactly the type of conversation she was striving for. They bonded over Max's love for football despite the fact that he was a Barça fan while she had been raised her whole life as a madridista, which wasn't a surprise for her considering he was dutch and, almost every single dutch person worships Johan Cruyff.

Sophie gladly welcomed them in. As they walked, they saw Victoria in the living room with Lio on his bassinet while Luka was playing with his toys on the carpet. The younger of the Verstappen's —immediately— got up to greet her warmly with a hug.

"Binkie!" Victoria smiled. "Aaaw! i'm so glad you guys are here."

"Me too, I couldn't wait any longer to meet Lio!" she said as her eyes went to the tiny baby laying on the bassinet next to them.

"He's awake, you should pick him up!" Her sister-in-law suggested.

When they turned to get Lio, her eyes went instantly to Max, basically sitting on the floor, kissing and hugging Luka, who giggled as his uncle tickled him. It was such a heartwarming moment to watch, Luka and Max had a very special nephew-uncle bond and it was beautiful to witness it since the birth of the boy.

"I see Max found his clone." Victoria commented, joking on the incredible resemblance her kid had to his uncle and grandpa.

"I missed you little one!" Max said as he picked him up on his arms. "Every time I see him, he gets bigger and bigger."

While Max gushed about Luka, she sat on the sofa as she waited for Victoria to put the newborn on her arms. She smiled when she finally saw the baby, he wore a white onesie while wrapped carefully on a baby blue blanket, and as Victoria gave it to her, she noticed he had his mother's eyes, which were also Max's.

"He's so dreamy." she softly spoke, not wanting to disturb the baby at all. "Hi sweetie, i'm your auntie!" carefully with her fingers, she caressed his cheeks.

"You both look so beautiful, i'll take a picture." Sophie said enthusiastically as she took out her phone.

Max was completely hypnotized as he looked at her. It was very out of character from him to play fake scenarios in his head, however, the intrusive thoughts of her having their kids was too hard to resist. He saw a smile on her that he hadn't seen before, he didn't know whether it was genuinely her or just his mind conveniently tricking him.

"Max, do you want to hold him?" she asked smiling.

"Of course." He replied, handing his older nephew to his sister. He sat next to his girlfriend and she carefully placed him on his arms, making sure he was holding him right. Max smiled as he looked at Lio.

"He's perfect!" she added while kissing him softly.

—

Sophie had prepared Max's favorite pasta which consisted of feta cheese and tomatoes; to know Max, it meant that you knew his weakness was Italian food, in fact, their first date had been at an Italian restaurant near the Amsterdam canal which wasn't that far from their current apartment.

They all ate together, with Luka sitting on Max's lap as the little boy couldn't seem to separate from his uncle. The image of both of them was simply adorable.

"It looks good on you, maybe you should give him a cousin." Victoria commented, looking at Max.

"Jimmy and Sassy are their cousins!" She jokingly replied, making all of them laugh.

"Well, we should see what the future holds, there's no rush, right?" Max added while holding her hand.

"Yeah, besides, I'd love for us to be nearer when that happens, this seems like a good place to raise kids." she explained.

"Yes, I really don't like monte carlo at all if you're having kids, you either raise them here or you homeschool them there." Sophie commented taking another sip of her wine.

Max barely had any school time as he spent the majority of his childhood competing in karting across europe so, it was understandable for his mom to care for his future grandchildren's education as she really didn't want him to make the same mistakes she did when she raised him, although Max never blamed his mom for his difficult childhood.

"Well, good thing is... we've got plenty of time to worry about that, I really don't think we'll always live there." Unintentionally, they were agreeing on something very important for both.

"Well, everything comes at the right time, doesn't it?" Victoria replied. "I'm just glad you guys make time to visit us here, specially in the middle of the season." she smiled.

"I'll make sure we come more often, don't worry about it!" she responded smiling at Max.

Once they were done, they all went back to the living room. The conversation drifted to how the season was going and how challenging would it be for him to get the title even though he had a comfortable lead at the moment. Sophie and Victoria were planning to attend the French grand prix since it fell on the day of Luka's 2nd birthday, besides, they would be joined by Tom —Victoria's partner—, who wasn't with them that night since his flight from rome to amsterdam got delayed.

She went upstairs for a moment to Luka's room to get the pacifier her sister-in-law had left on the changing station table. As she turned around, she was surprised to see Max entering the room and closing it almost immediately.

"I thought you were mad at me, maxie." she said smiling.

"I still am, and I can't help but notice you're wearing my favorite skirt, mijn liefde." He said while his fingertips played with the hem of the skirt.

"Oh so you have a favorite skirt? I didn't know." she asked, playing it dumb.

"I love how you parade around in these whenever you tease me." He added.

"And what if i told you I'm not wearing anything under it?" That wasn't a lie, he just was too mad earlier to notice it. Max's hand almost pulled off the skirt but she was quick to stop it. "I suggest you let me go downstairs as if nothing happened and then we can leave... if that's what you want, of course."

"You're getting too cocky." he said faking a smile.

"Out of all the places I'd love for you to fuck me, our nephew's nursery isn't even on the list." she added as she opened the door.

She left the room to quickly rejoin Victoria and Sophie downstairs. When they asked why she had taken so long, her excuse was that she got a bit of a headache so she had to lay down for a bit, to which they immediately shared their concerns.

"It must be the jet lag kicking in." Sophie commented. "Do you want a pill?"

"No, it's okay, it's probably nothing!" She said as Max walked back into the living room completely confused on what was going on.

"What's happening?" he asked, clearly confused as he had been with her just five minutes earlier.

"She's got a headache." His sister replied.

"Oh... are you okay?" He replied confused, yet to realize what she was doing.

"Yeah i'm fine, I just told them it's the jet lag, we've been awake since this morning so it's probably the exhaustion kicking in." she added with a grin. "We just need to rest a bit, don't we, Max?

All the pieces fell into place for Max as soon as he noticed the way she addressed him. They had played games like that before, however, it was the very first time he had no idea of what she was doing.

"Of course! why don't you guys go rest? I think it's best so you can sleep properly, we've got plenty of time together." Sophie suggested. Max couldn't believe the stunt she was putting on, it came off very easy for her.

"I agree with mom, besides, we can all go tomorrow to take a walk downtown since Tom's arriving in the morning!" Victoria added.

"Sure, we would love that! right, max?" She asked getting up.

"Yeah, why not?" he replied smiling, trying to act like he didn't know what she was doing.

"Well, it's settled! Now, go home and relax." Sophie reminded them. "Besides you still need to visit your father; there's plenty of stuff you need to do and you need enough energy for that." she added while looking at Max.

After a few minutes of saying goodbye, making sure Luka didn't realize they were gone since he'd cry, Sophie advising her what pills to take and Victoria reminding Max to pick up their little sister earlier, they had finally walked out of the place.

"Nice stunt you put out earlier." he commented as they got inside the car.

"It worked, that's all that matters, right?" she replied with an innocent smile.

"I suppose it is." He replied.

While he drove, her hand softly stroked his hair. He hadn't had a haircut in over a month so it was longer than usual which she liked a lot since it made it more satisfying to run her fingers through his hair, plus, it suited him. She wanted to persuade him into letting it grow a bit more.

"Can you let it grow for a few more weeks?" she asked with a grin.

"Would you like that?" he teased with his hand pressing her tight. "I feel you need to earn that."

"Oh, Really?" she replied with her hand pressing his crotch. "Do I need to suck you?"

"You need to do more than that, darling." he said while his hand kept pressing her tight, brushing his long fingers against her soft skin.

—

Few minutes went by and they had arrived to their building. Something he loved about that place was the large window they had on their living room which overlooked the city's canal, both of them were keen on having a fantastic view from their penthouse, it also was majestic while he fucked her since their room also had a big view.

As soon as she pressed the button to their floor, he threw his arms around her and kissed intensely her neck. Max had waited so long to finally get what he wanted since the afternoon, specially when he had to endure watching her walk around with that skirt during those last few hours.

"Max... fuck!" she moaned while his hand went inside her skirt, his fingers lightly touching her entrance, confirming what she had told him before.

"So no panties... you've been a very naughty girl today." he said devouring her lips until the elevator doors opened again. As soon as they got inside the apartment, he pinned her against the nearest wall, his hands going under her blouse to massage her boobs while kissing her.

His lips went further down her neck, making sure he left marks all over it, to let her know, once again, she belonged to. As he was too busy sucking her sensitive skin, she tried to find some stability through the grip her fingers had on his hair while letting out whines the longer Max sucked her neck.

"I want to suck you, please." She begged.

"I'm afraid tonight it's about you, I need to fuck some manners into you, don't you think?" he explained with a mischievous smile.

"But... I really missed this, I want your cock in my mouth." Her incessant begging made him even harder.

He enjoyed how eager she was; his ego was flying across the room as he wrapped his arms around her tights, sucking them as he made his way to her entrance. She gripped onto the bedsheets tightly as her back arched due to Max's position between her legs.

"You'll be the death of me, baby" she mumbled. He loved when she called him by all the pet names she had for him, that was his soft spot and she knew how to use it to her advantage.

Max was known by many people as a reckless driver with a strong personality and, on the bed, it wasn't any different; he liked to be rough after certain time apart, he wanted to be in control as much as he was inside his car, even more when she acted like a brat and, fortunately for him, that day she had ticked all the boxes.

He licked a stripe through her folds, groaning as he noticed how impatient she was growing as he pleased her. He couldn't hold himself anymore, he wanted to feel her as much as he could, so that's exactly what he did. His tongue swirled inside of her while her legs were shaking, she let out another moan as he deepened his movements.

"Mijn liefje, i need you to stay still for me." He said while his hand traced circles on her middle. "Be good for me."

"Yes, I promise." she replied almost through a whimper.

Laying naked in bed had her moaning endlessly. Max had many ways to show how much he had missed her, the most telling one, was always the sex. That night was no different, she felt a sort-of shine on his eyes while he focused on pleasuring her as much as he could; certainly, they both needed to release all that steam, specially after leaving him all alone earlier. She was lying if she said she wasn't turned on before they left the house, however, she was aware of how good the sex was when she spent the day teasing him.

He slide a finger through her folds which made her tremble while her moans filled the room. Max tried not to give in yet since he wanted to hear her beg for it, however, her wetness was such that he felt the need to see her cum all over his mouth, clearly, he wanted to make her feel good but also to get what he felt entitled to earlier that day.

"Do I make you feel good, liefje?" He asked, introducing another finger which sent waves of pleasure all over her body.

She couldn't make out the words as his fingers moved with such ease; he knew her body very well, what she liked, what she didn't, what would put her on edge. As his fingers relentlessly fucked her, he had his eyes set on her, he wanted to see in real time how she crumbled at his touch.

"Use your fucking words." he encouraged with a smirk on his face.

"Yes! You make me feel so fucking good." she replied breathlessly.

"You're mine, all mine." he said with such possessiveness that almost made her come undone. Her legs trembled as she couldn't hold her high for much longer, she needed to cum.

Max knew she was close, for which he simply increased his pace while his mouth left marks all over her middle, being aware that in the morning her whole body would be scattered with red and purple marks. His cock was twitching inside his pants, not wanting to wait any longer to have it inside of her.

"Cum all over my fingers, let go." he said, and that was all it took for her to have, perhaps, one of the best orgasms she's had in weeks; it was always like that whenever they hadn't seen each other in a while, however, that night was something else.

She was a mess as she came, clenching around his fingers as her whines were the only sound coming from the room. Max groaned as he looked at the mess he had caused; he had the biggest smile on his face as he licked his fingers without breaking eye contact, wanting her to see how she tasted.

"My girl tastes so good." he said as he slammed his mouth against hers. She licked her own cum from his lips as it was all over hers; his tongue had her whining and sending her over the edge as she still wanted to have him inside of her. Her hands went quickly to his pants, and as she tried to unbutton it, he stopped her of doing so.

"I want to make you feel good, I haven't even congratulated you for winning." she said while caressing his cheek.

"You do make me feel good, lieverd" Max replied just before sucking her neck, leaving another trace of him on her skin. "But I want you bouncing on top of me, would you like that?" He asked.

He took off the last item of clothe he still had on, discarding it somewhere in the room which was already a mess considering their clothes were scattered on the floor.

Shifting positions, he smirked at the sight of her, naked, on top of him ready to ride him but, what he hadn't notice at all was the gold necklace she was wearing; he gave her that on their anniversary earlier that year, it had his name engraved at the front while their anniversary date was on the back.

"You look absolutely beautiful with my name on your neck" he mentioned as his fingers touched the piece of jewelry hanging around her neck, with a lustful look on his eyes while detailing it. "Do you ever take it off?"

"I would never, that's my way of having you close when you're not here" she replied, leaning close to his ear, "To feel you during the lonely nights when I've got no other option but to touch myself." If that didn't send Max to edge, nothing would've. He adjusted himself inside of her; a groan leaving his lips as she sat on him, moving slowly around his cock.

As red bull's golden boy, he was used to be in control of everything, to have everyone and everything work around him, so nights like these were exactly what he liked after bossing everyone from thursday to sunday; having his girlfriend on top of him while his hands could rest on her ass or, having his mouth all over her tits, were some of the things he was so used to that, he wouldn't change for anything else.

"You take my cock so well, prinses" he groaned, slapping her ass.

The feeling of his skin slapping against hers, filled the entire room with grunts and moans from both of them. His hips moved upwards, keeping up with her pace as his hands slapped her cheeks constantly, almost certain that by the morning she'd wake up covered by marks all over her body; with the physical reminder of him which should last her a couple of days. As she increased her pace, she leaned forward, causing Max to suck one of her tits while her hands gripped onto his shoulders.

"It feels so good... Don't leave me again for that long" she mentioned, causing him to run his fingers through her damp hair with a smirk on his lips.

He had missed the sex, the intimacy, the closeness of their skins as he pounded inside of her, those sounds that escaped her lips which were exclusively for him. Their relationship was indeed so much more than sex, however, nothing beat the feeling of coming back from a tough weekend and knowing she was waiting for him; perhaps it wasn't entirely the sex what he longed, instead, it was the assurance that there was someone waiting for him at home that, whether a race went right or wrong, was there to comfort him if he needed to.

"I won't, trust me, schatje" he reassured with a smile as his arms wrapped around her middle.

"You're driving me nuts, max" she said in a thin voice.

"You've been a very naughty girl" he replied with a smirk "my beautiful naughty girl"

"Just for you, as always" she let out with a giggle.

"You're taking my cock so well, my sweet sweet girl" he praised. "I don't know what I did to deserve you" those words held a lot of truth.

All he had known for most of his life was the toxicity between his parents before and after their divorce, the same that made him live with his dad as he pursued his dream and, subsequently, made him grow apart from his mom and sister for most of his teenage days; growing up with toxicity around him, made Max think that, perhaps, he was better off on his own than being a carbon copy of his Dad with the way he handle his relationship with Sophie.

It took him a while to open up fully with her, however, he couldn't feel more lucky to have found someone on whom he could always rely on —just like she could rely on him whenever she needed to— and have a healthy relationship. According to him —and this was something he told his closest friend about once—, she changed the way he perceived love.

Her walls clenched around him, there was no denying that she was close to come undone at that point. She cursed his name out as her hips rocked back and forth against him, feeling all sorts of things as her orgasm started building up. She was seeing stars at that point; having max's mouth all over her tits, while his hands gripped onto her hips, sent an unmeasurable amount of pleasure inside her, especially when he knew her weaknesses and, in usual max style, played them against her perfectly.l

"I'm close" she said breathlessly.

"Do you want me to fill you up, liefje?" he asked almost in a whisper, knowing exactly that's what she wanted.

"You shouldn't play dumb with me, you know" she replied. "Please."

"I should fuck a baby into you, don't you think?" The words slipped up his mouth, however, he knew what he was doing; max thought again about the conversation on the plane, and he couldn't stop fantasizing about it as she moved up and down his cock.

Before she could say anything, he tightened his embrace around her middle, being at such proximity that her tits were pressed against his chest while his mouth left wet kisses all over her neck. Max was about to come undone when he placed his left hand on the side of her face, pushing back her messy hair in an attempt to let her have a better visibility of him.

"Let go." he whispered softly in her ear while his movements were nothing but rough.

As she gripped tightly onto his shoulders, they both came at the same time; her orgasm came crashing into her while he whispered in her ears words that were only between them, things that would always stay between those four walls. They shared a heated kiss as his hand rubbed her back, feeling her soft skin on his fingertips.

She laid her head on his chest, clearly exhausted by all that action since they had arrived. The comfortable silence ruled the room as they allowed themselves a moment of peace, however, that swiftly changed as she looked at him once again, ready to ask him about what he had said a few minutes before.

"You want a baby?" she said almost in a thin voice, which was perfectly audible for him.

"I mean... I don't see myself with anyone else" he confessed while he stroked her hair with a lot of tenderness "I'd love for you to be the mother of my children, lieverd"

"Oh, darling... I'd love that too" she said smiling as she drew small circles on his skin. "But are you thinking straight? I understand everything we talked abou to—"

"Yes, I am." Max was quick to cut her off, reassuring her about what he wanted "I've never been more sure about anything in my life and, I want to do it with you"

She pressed a soft kiss on his chest with a small smile on her lips; the hopefulness that filled her that night was unmeasurable, it meant everything to hear him say those words, specially when she knew it came with a lot of sincerity.

"Your Mom would love to have another grandchild!" he smiled while he drew small circles on her skin.

"Yeah, she would also want to live with us during the whole pregnancy" he joked.

Their future looked bright for many reasons but, the idea of a kid made it brighter and exciting. For her, it was a beautiful moment she was looking for, meanwhile, for Max, it was not only exciting but also, a way to finally break a cycle, have a family of his own and leave behind the demons of his childhood.

#max verstappen x reader #max verstappen one shot #max verstappen x oc #f1 smut #f1 one shot #max verstappen imagine #f1 imagine #max verstappen x you #formula one x reader #formula 1 fic

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am-i-the-asshole-official · 1 month

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aita/wibta for NOT breaking up with my bf ?

i'm not sure if the title is phrased weirdly, bare with me. my bf and i are both 18, he is cis M & i am FTM (relevant).

My bf and i are both currently in first year uni, both living at home due to high cost of living in our country (also everywhere else lol). We met about halfway through highschool, and were friends for a while before getting together. we are coming up on two years together in a couple months, and have not really had any major bumps in our relationship. we see eachother i would say 1-2x per week, with both of us living at home and being broke it gets a little challenging sometimes but we call most nights and generally we make it work. Also worth noting that I am my bf's first everything, down to his first kiss, while he is not really this for me. this is the longest relationship i have been in (probably because i'm 18 lol), but not at all the first. however, the only "serious" relationship i have had outside of of him, aside from just casual stuff, was very abusive & toxic, so i do sort of see us on equal footing as neither of us has ever been in a normal, functional relationship before.

Now, the issue: while we are both currently living at home, i see this as a very temporary arrangement and something i am counting down the days until i can get out of. while living with my family is not abusive or anything, it is just very straining as i am not very close with them, and also cannot transition while living at home. as previously mentioned i am ftm, and while my mom is tolerant it would just put even more stress on the relationship if i were to start changing physically while living at home or even asking her to use different pronouns for me and is just something i prefer to leave until i'm not 100% reliant on her. that being said my dysphoria causes me very intense depression and without getting too detailed, i don't know how much longer i can take living here and putting off any sort of meaningful transition outside of close/online friends calling me he.

my bf, however, plans to live at home at least until he graduates, which is six years away. i understand that this is a very normal thing, especially culturally (he is middle eastern + muslim, i am white + agnostic), but the issue is that his mother is, among many other things, extremely homophobic. she already hates me for reasons i'm not really sure of (my bf refuses to go into detail, i think to protect me, but i have seen extremely graphic and nasty texts about me by name on his phone and have been told by him that he doesn't even mention me around the house or else she gets extremely upset, though she is always extremely nice to me the few times we have interacted), but anyways, me transitioning while he is still living at home would be essentially putting him in legitimate danger.

my bf does not like to think about this, which i understand. it's hard enough dealing with what i get from my family, and that is absolutely nothing compared to the fact that everyone he knows from his culture/religion beleives he should be dead just because he is gay (i know, as does he, that there are queer muslims. but they do not exist openly in his personal community). but the problem is that anytime i adress to him that the idea of waiting until we are in our mid-twenties for me to even think about transitioning is a really big issue for me he basically refuses to talk about it and just says that "it will work out". on top of the transitioning thing i just generally don't want to be twenty-five (the age he has told me is when he plans to move out) and still having to cancel dates last minute because my boyfriend's mom was in a bad mood and decided he's not allowed to go out tonight. i know this is how life is for many people and they learn to deal with it! and i respect them very much! but it is genuinely my nightmare. i understand why he cannot/does not want to cut himself off from his family, especially since his dad lives overseas and is extremely wealthy so therefore paying his entire tuition out of pocket. i'm just saying it's not a lifestyle that meshes well with my future plans.

this is where the asshole part comes in: my bf genuinely thinks that we are going to spend the rest of our lives together. this started with small comments, things like alluding to the idea of our potential future kids (i love kids and raising my own is genuinely my end goal in life, something he knows just because i am very open about it), or talking about our future apartment/house, but now is basically just a constant conversation in our relationship. i try not to feed into it, but i also feel badly responding to his sweet comment when i point out a house i like on the street about how we'll buy it one day with something about how i don't ever see that happening. i generally just respond neutrally, but i will admit i get caught up in the fantasy sometimes and contribute to it as well.

he is such a lovely guy with a beautiful heart and i do really adore him, and it's not a situation where i don't want to spend the rest of my life with him. to be honest, that's the dream. i love him with everything i have and i would literally do anything for him. the problem is just that when he talks about this future together all i can picture is all the million ways our relationship is doomed to implode.

but we are happy right now, because me moving out of my family home is not something that is going to be possible for another 1-2 years, so none of those issues are something that are going to come up right now. i just forsee them being pretty much impossible obstacles between us and spending the rest of our lives together down the line. but i have this nagging feeling in the back of my mind that even though i want more than anything to be with him forever, the fact that i don't remotely beleive it's something that will actually work out still constitutes as leading him on.

so, am i the asshole for staying with him, because we are happy right now and these issues are not going to be relevant for another 1-2 years, and a solution might somehow present itself in that time? or is the right thing to do to just leave now, and rip off the bandaid?

What are these acronyms?

#aita #am i the asshole

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bloomingdog · 10 months

Text

𝐅𝐨𝐫 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐑𝐨𝐬𝐞𝐬 — 𝐇𝐨𝐛𝐢𝐞 𝐁𝐫𝐨𝐰𝐧 𝐱 𝐅𝐥𝐨𝐫𝐢𝐬𝐭!𝐑𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐞𝐫

data: your basic florist au, bit of angst, identity reveal, all that stuff. 4k words, no use of Y/N.

You know him, you know what the looks like at the very least. Once a week—the day never stays the same—him and a group of other instrument-carrying people go into the small venue in front of your shop at nine in the evening, an hour after closing the shop, when you’re about to head home. One early morning, out of curiosity, you checked the schedules adhered and covering the roller shutter in a poor attempt to find who this mysterious guy was. You found no useful information in that regard, you did foind, however, that the club opened at ten and most concerts held there started at least half an hour later. With that new gathered intel your best guess was that they came early to get everything set or a rather quick sound-check.

The venue is on one of the corners that limit the four way pedestrian crossing, the two corners on either side both hold pubs, and diagonally there’s you. “For the Roses” is a name given by its old owner, a sweet lady—and Joni Mitchell fan—you had worked for since you were seventeen, and four years later she had decided it was time to retire. For the last five months it’s been just you, it was easier to take care of it when you were two people working, that much is true, but having to close the shop has given you staring privileges. Years ago, when you first started working here the placement of the shop seemed rather odd, between clubs, pubs and the many other forms of amusement, this, however, was a strategical position. A big part of the clientele consisted of repenting boyfriends and enamoured halves of a first date, and they kept the business afloat.

You recognise him the moment he walks in.

“Hello! How may I help you?” The clock ticks away the last minutes before closing as you try to put on your cheeriest voice.

“Hi, sorry about comin’ in so late. My mate’s playing a gig, I just want some flowers to throw on stage, whole dramatics and all.” His voice is smooth with only the slightest rasp to it. He’s a fun last client.

“Do you want the classic roses then?”

“Nah don’t bother, give me the leftovers.” There are one or two extra cuttings and a bouquet that never got picked up you wouldn’t mind getting rid of.

You excuse yourself to pick out the best leftover flowers you could in an attempt to make a half-decent bouquet. He’s oggling your shop, he’s particularly eye-catching inside your light coloured, slightly old-fashioned establishment. He likes it there, it’s cosy, the floors are filled with different types of flower arrengements and the walls display an amalgamation of different decorations gathered throughout the years, his inspection is only interrupted by your coming back behind the counter.

“Here, I tried to make it as cohesive as I could.”

“It’s alright, love, it’s gonna get thrown anyway.” Oh, that pet name went straight to your chest.

“It felt unprofessional not to give you at least a small sample of my usual, better, quality.” He gave a side smile as a response.

“How much do I owe you?”

“It’s on the house, no worries, I wouldn’t make you pay for only scraps.”

“That’s quite nice, take this as a tip, then.” He slid a twenty pound note on the counter, right before turning around a saying his goodbyes with a single wave of his hands.

Spinning the sign at the glass door so it reads “Closed” you turn to sweeping the floor and leaving your workplace as neat as possible, you hum along to the song playing from your phone on the counter. The 20 dollars he gave you felt a bit too much, not that you’re going to complain, not with the cost of everything, a flower shop isn’t a luxurious job to have, so it’s much appreciated.

Drawing the curtain-like metal you spot a group of people walking into the club, one of them must be his friend.

A mere day later, he’s back, making the dainty bells above the door chime.

“Hello! Got another show you need to throw flowers at?” You quip and he chuckles.

“Nah. Only wanted to get actual flowers to have a good reason to ask you out.” He’s confident, maybe overly so, and Hobie is well aware of that, it’s not often that his confidence fails him, though. You look surprised before laughing, it’s ridiculous.

“And what were you thinking of getting?”

“I was hoping you could recommend me something.”

“Roses are usually the go-to flower, although I much prefer freesias.”

“Sick, I’d like a single freesia, please.” He says it in an overly polite manner, the whole situation is laughable.

“That’ll be two pounds.” You say as you hand him the flower.

“Here you go.” You mutter a thank you for an answer. “My band’s playing tonight, at ten, just on the other street, you could come and we could get a drink after.”

No way you’re attending a club on a Wednesday night, with a stranger nonetheless.

“Sure.”

“Sweet, I’ll see you. My name’s Hobie by the way.”

And it sounds like proper fun, really.

You’ve managed to avoid the biggest wave of people going home during rush hour and, thankfully, your ride home is as pleasant as the tube allows it to be and yet, you’re restless. His invite plays around in your mind. He’s handsome, that’s for sure, and it would satiate your curiosity on the other side it would also make you tired for work the next day, you’re too old for that, you think and softly laugh at your own joke. The walk home gives you time to ponder on wasted opportunities and the best years of your life, your flat instead greets you with the promise of a reheated dinner and an eight-hour-long sleep which for a moment makes you think about ditching him.

The commute back feels longer than it usually does. You ate in a rush and got ready far too fast after your flatmate complained about needing to use the bathroom. Your phone marks 10:05PM, fashionably late. You’re thankful the show hasn’t started by the time you sit by the bar, ordering a beer. You still haven’t decided if it’s brave or cocky to ask someone out to your own show.

The whirring of a guitar being plugged signals the beginning of the show.

“Hello, we’re The Spider-Slayers! One two three!” Is your only warning before they start playing. They’re quite good, you have to admit, Hobie, as you’ve recently learned he’s named, exudes power and confidence while on stage, he’s rather skilled. It’s enjoyable, half of the audience is too plastered—it's only ten in the evening—to pay attention to the actual music and are merely glad to have a loud noise playing for them, but they’re well-liked, no doubt an established part of the community. It passes faster than you had anticipated, not even an hour later he’s walking your way while another band prepares to play.

He’s sweaty as he sits down and orders a rum and coke, he looks at you questioning if you also want one. “Make it two.” He indicates the bartender. “Did you like it?”

He’s tall but not intimidating in the slightest, the metal in his face a contrast to all of his warm side smiles.

“Yes!” You’re quick to answer. “It was really nice, you guys are good.” He fully smiles at the compliment, he’s got a pretty smile.

“Thanks. I forgot to ask your name earlier, sorry about that.”

“No worries, it’s Y/N.”

“Pretty.” It’s flirty.

“Did your mate like the flowers?” You ask as the man behind the bar hands you your drinks.

“Totally, made a mess on stage and everything. She was grateful, seriously, funny and praising in equal parts, the bouquet was beautiful too, such a shame it ended like that.” You laugh at that. “How’s it working at a flower shop?”

“Good, actually, better than one good expect, I’d say it’s one of the better retail jobs out there.”

“Seems hard.”

“It is at the beginning, you should’ve seen some of my first arrangements, they were bloody awful, I’m still wondering how we didn’t get any complaints.” It’s Hobie’s turn to laugh.

“You’ve made some improvement then, your shop’s beautiful.” You beam and thank him, you’re proud of the way it’s looking these days. “How’d you end up working there? Do you need a degree to be a florist?”

“Not really, no. I’ve taken a couple courses but for the most part I was trained by my old boss.”

“Hm.” He nods. “Strange place to set up a flower shop, innit? I see you closing all the time and wonder who in their right mind would think of opening it at a nightlife epicenter.” Good to know you’re not the only observer.

“You’d think so! We get a lot of our clientele thanks to that, not all flower shops open until eight either way. Flowers make both great apologies and gifts, you can only imagine the kind of people who walk in there.”

“What, like me?”

“No way, I’d put you in the normal bunch.” He quirks an eyebrow, an invitation to tell him more about yourself. And that you do. You talk for the two hours that the club remains open, he’s fun, you’re both chatty, you’ve got a multitude of things in common, he tells you about his bandmates, you exchange numbers, he’s a cat person by the way.

“You want me to walk you home?” The underground closed an hour ago, it wasn’t that big of a trek to your place, you could say yes if not for the stranger—acquaintance—danger middle school talks flashing in your memory. The bus, though taking longer than the tube, was still an option.

“It’s fine, really. I’d rather take the bus.”

“Got it, I can wait with you if you’d like.” Yeah, yeah, you’d like that. The two of you walk close to each other to the nearest stop. The pavement is damp, it gives you another reason to be glad that you wore your trusty old, slightly dirty, converse instead of a more sophisticated option.

“Thank you for inviting me, I had a nice time, you’re fun.”

“So are you, love.” How could an overused term like that have such a big effect on you when he says it remains a mystery.

You sit in a comfortable silence until the right bus gets there and as you bid your goodbyes you’re unable to contain the big smile you give him, blame it on the drinks. You send him a quick text noticing him that you got home safe and sound before falling into deep sleep.

Your phone rings and vibrates from the bedside table, it always goes off at the same time and yet today it manages to scare you awake. The trip to the bathroom and coffee making is accompanied by a string of curses: music, bad choices, the opening hours of your business and pretty boys all fall victim to your vulgarities. The lack of proper sleep makes your day go by twice as slowly, nodding off and almost missing your stop and doomscrolling during work hours to pass the time, even turning to reading an article from The Daily Bugle, it’s laughable, it’s says something something Spider-Man, something juvenile delinquent something menace for the city.

The chime of little bells half an hour before closing wakes you up better than your alarm had done earlier in the day. Looking up from your phone you spot the same bright eyes and confident stroll that kept you company last night.

“You need to stop coming in right before closing.” You scold him. You’re confident he’s aware that it’s an invitation for him to keep showing up.

“My bad. Do you like food?”

“I-What?” Indeed, what? “I like food, yes.”

“Peng. You want to grab dinner?” And he also needs to stop proposing last-minute plans.

“Where?”

“What do you fancy?”

“Thai?”

“Sure.”

“I close in half an hour, you can stay here if you want.” Not that you’re expecting any more costumers.

He asks if he can help with anything and you hand him the broom and dustpan that hangs in the back of the shop, he laughs and takes it as payment for having you get out earlier. The floors aren’t dirty per se, it’s mostly leaves and bits of cutting that have fallen. He sweeps while you get everything ready for tomorrow and put away what’s been used today. Half an hour later you hang your work apron and close the shutters.

There’s a nice restaurant a couple blocks away you’ve got food to-go from before. You order a spicy noodle soup, khanom jeen nam ngiaw, and he settles for stir-fry noodles. It’s good, warm and comforting, you take a bite from his plate and he follows suit with a spoonful of your broth. The conversation picked up while cleaning and it has yet to die down, he tells you about his hobbies—you can't help to make fun of him by saying Hobie's hobbies—and you share your love for museums with him, ‘We should visit one.’ he says to which you agree in excitement.

You don’t let go of his hand until your bedroom door is closed and you softly push him into bed. Taking only a short break to take off both of your shoes you don’t waist time in straddling him, his hands on your hips as you return to kissing. Soft moans mark the tempo for your exploring hands and you stare at his bare abdomen with much less shame than you think you should have. His hands are slightly calloused and scarred, it doesn’t matter with how skilled they are. It feels like you’re drowning in him, you hope he feels half as good as he’s making you feel, if his breathless mutters of ‘fuck’ and ‘good girl’ are any indicator you can pat yourself on the back after it’s over.

The dinner is paid for, the night chilly compared to the warmth inside the restaurant. He offers to walk you home again, this time you agree because you’re no longer strangers, right? You make it half of the way before puts his hand on your lower back, you don’t make an effort to move it, it’s comfortable.

You make it three quarters of the way until you start kissing, your back against the wall of a mildly busy street, you feel like a horny teenager. You climb up the stairs to your flat two-steps at a time, your hand holding his and praying that your flatmate has confined herself to her room so you don’t have to introduce one to the other, not right now at least.

The morning after your alarm not only scares you awake but it also makes him sit up in bed with a jolt.

“Sorry.” Sleep is still evident in your voice.

“S’okay.” He replies before giving you a chaste kiss on the lips, you don’t think either of you wants to deal with each other’s morning breath, it’s a tad early for that.

You offer him breakfast. Your flatmate has left for work but she won’t forgive you if you don’t tell her of last night’s events. At least it won’t make this morning awkward, or more awkward than it already is, it happens with first breakfasts: sleepy, a mess, cranky from waking up, it’s not anyone’s best look.

You take the underground while he chooses to walk home, it’s not crazy far away from yours, apparently. In the meantime, the work day is spent looking up frantically every time the bells over your door chime, hoping that it will be him at some point. He does come over, at ten past eight, and he has to knock on the door to catch your attention. Your strange arrangement goes on for the better part of the next two months, he comes over when you’re about to close, you eat together multiple times per week, he’s quite a skilled at making exactly seven different dishes, he invites you to his shows and you’ve met his bandmates, you’ve had every cliché date imaginable: the park, the cinema, the natural history museum, markets, the full deal. You don’t call them dates though, you’re not a couple even with all the kissing and sleeping together—literally and figuratively—he’s told you he doesn’t like labels, but he’s being exclusive with you so you’re okay with it.

He shows up with little cuts and bruises, you attributed to being clumsy at first but it’s become more common lately, he excuses it as a protest that went south, a moshpit or just a friendly scuffle with his mates. It doesn’t ease your nerves. But you're soon to forget all about it once you’re outside, walking hand in hand and sharing headphones, he’s incorporated bits and pieces of your music to his playlist and he makes sure to show you the songs he thinks you’ll like first than anything.

Your phone lights up with a text notification from Hobie, he’s coming over soon. It shouldn’t be, but it reads as ominous, he doesn’t usually tell you in advance and would rather showing up unannounced.

“Hey pet.” He greets, it’s his latest nickname for you, you’ve always thought it ridiculous but he’s making you grow fond of it.

“Hi Bee” An animal-related nickname you gave him after he tried calling you ‘duck’ that has stuck. “You want to do something or should we head home?”

“Home’s fine, I’m tired.” It’s fair, he’s always running around doing things, you’re okay with a night in.

He sweeps the floor, it’s his assigned task, you feel bad but he says he doesn’t mind and likes helping you. The ride back to your place is quieter than usual, he seems pensive. You’re about to open the door to your building when you notice him stuck a meter away.

“Are you okay?” Your heart is picking up speed.

“Listen, love.” Oh no. “I don’t know if it’s a good idea for me to come up.” You’re on the second and final step of the stairway while he’s at ground level, he looks smaller than he’s ever been. “I’ve had a lot of fun, really, but I don’t think I can go on with our thing, you know? I’m not good at commitment anyway.” Your lack of a response get’s him speaking again. “I’m truly sorry, I just don’t wanna go on with this and end up hurtin’ you.”

“Okay.” Is the only thing your brain is able to formulate.

“Okay.” He replies. “I’ll be leaving now.” He says as he kisses your temple, turning around and giving you a single wave of the hand for a goodbye.

You feel the tears beginning to fill up your eyes, your vision blurry, at least you were able to hold them until he left, it’s already embarrassing as it is. You don’t bother re-heating dinner that night, choosing to go straight to bed and waking up with puffy eyes in the morning. For the first time in a while you’re sure you won’t have any visits at work, it’s terrible. You feel stupid. He told you enough about himself to know that the two of you weren’t in for a long-term relationship and still you held onto some sort of hope of being an exception.

That was two weeks ago. You’ve seen him two times since, while leaving for home. He waves your way and you wave back, out of politeness more than anything. Two weeks of radio silence that break your established routine and fill you with a sense of expectation during the last hours of work.

It’s nine-twenty on a Sunday, it’s usual for you to stay until late at the end of your work week, Hobie knew that and would make sure to keep you company and take you home those days. The early November weather has made it so it’s already been dark for hours, the city is rather calm, you don’t suppose there’s much to do on a cold November night. A series of knocks on the door alerts you of the presence of someone outside, it startles you as you hold the broom you were using against your chest.

Nothing could have prepared you for the sight outside the door. Spider-Man was doubling down and leaning against the glass of your shopfront, electric guitar strapped across him and hanging in his back, clad in his usual metal decorations while his suit had been torn. You let him in a hurry, it’s not ideal to have an idol of the working class dead on your welcome mat. He limps to the back of the shop, in your current state of panic you don’t stop to wonder how he knows the way so well, until he’s sitting on the floor and leaning against one of the walls, guitar forgotten besides him. You follow him and crouch at his side just in time for him to take off his mask.

“Fuck off.”

“Hi pet.”

You were so excited to be done with work and head home to watch a film, lucky for you, your ex-situationship still has a habit of coming in right before you leave.

“Bloody hell Hobie.”

“Please don’t be shocked right now, we can talk about it tomorrow.” He can’t be serious. “I’m knackered.” I wonder why, you think. He looks like proper shit.

“Hobie you’re bleeding.” You’re trying your best to be helpful and not panic.

“It’s fine love, it’ll heal in no time, I kinda have superpowers.” You’re choosing to ignore that and get up to retrieve your first aid kit, it’s far too basic to be useful right now, only equipped to help with cuts and minor injuries.

You can feel his eyes on you and your whole body is shaking as you kneel by his side. You try your best to keep your hands steady while pouring rubbing alcohol into a cotton pad.

“You don’t have to, I’ll be fine.”

“Let me clean it, please, so it doesn’t get infected.” He lets you, wincing at the alcohol making contact with his open injuries. He knows you're doing it more for yourself than him. “Sorry.” He shakes his head as a way of saying ‘no worries’.

You reach for his face with your bare hand once you’ve considered him clean enough, you cradle his cheek and can’t hold your tears from spilling.

“This is why I cut thing off with you, you know? Don’t wan’ you getting hurt.”

“I don’t care.”

“Don’t say that.” He pleads.

“What about you getting hurt? Does that not matter?” He laughs and winces right after.

“You’re a sweet thing. I don’t have a choice but you do.”

“And what if my choice is to stand by your side?”

“You can’t.”

“Yes I do!” You’re reaching tour breaking point and can’t help but raise your voice. “I didn’t know I loved you as much as I do until these last weeks without you. It’s been torture.”

“It’s been torture for me too.” His words soften you, and it’s only then you realize what you said, you don’t dare acknowledge them, maybe he didn’t notice or the head trauma will make him forget it.

You’re crying now and it feels awful because you should be the one comforting him, he’s hurt not you. He holds you as you shake and places a kiss to your head.

“Can we sleep here?” He asks once you’ve calmed down. The tile floor is anything but comfortable and still you nod yes.

You fix a make-shift bed consisting of your bunched up jumper and apron for pillows and your big coat, that barely covers his upper body, for a blanket. Not that it matters, you chose to turn the radiator up and it’s hard to get cold while curled up to a human heater. You’re careful while laying with him, both out of fear of hurting him and prudence of this hurting you even more. He doesn’t care and brings you closer, your head on his chest and his hand drawing shapes on your back over your clothes, you can’t help but worry about the state of his back in the morning.

You find sleep easier than you have since your “break-up”, his rhythmic breathing lulls you and his caresses calm you down. You’re in the before-falling-asleep-limbo when you hear his voice, he says “I love you too” like a confession secret, you’re not sure if you were even supposed to hear it. It’s too late for you to react, his words mix with the beginning of your dreams into a spiralling nonsense.

🕷 i really enjoyed writing this! i was thinking of maybe doing a part 2? tell me your thoughts if you dont mind too! i haven't written anything that isnt academic in years and i feel rusty

#hobie brown x reader #hobie brown x y/n #hobie brown x you #hobie brown fanfic #hobie brown fanfiction #hobie brown drabble #hobie brown blurb #spider punk x reader #spider punk x you #spider punk x y/n #florist au #atsv x reader #hobie brown fluff #hobie brown imagine #hobie brown angst #hobie brown x fem!reader #spiderpunk x reader #spiderpunk x you #spiderpunk x y/n

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mickeys-malarkey · 2 years

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Pt. 3/3: My BATDR Timeline & Plot Twist Theories!

First, I think both BATIM and BATDR take place sometime between 1978 and 1991. I already suspected BATDR was happening in the ‘80s based on the fact that card readers – which have featured in many of the environment screenshots we've seen – were invented in 1979...

…and Audrey's clothes and hairstyle look very 1980s.

Then they released the images of Audrey's office, where her chair and desk lamps also look very 1980s, and the wallpaper and flooring looks pretty 1970s…

…and @inkdemonapologist pointed out that the type of bankruptcy we see documents for in Joey's apartment didn't exist until 1978…

…and I remembered that Joey's apartment also had a newspaper whose headline took place in the future— Princess Diana's 30th birthday which, as TetraBitGaming on YouTube pointed out, would be in 1991 since Princess Diana was born in 1961. She should be two years old if BATIM were really taking place in 1963!

Maybe, at the time, they didn't mean for these two to be clues, since they seem to have rolled the date backwards a bit from the newspaper one; but at this point it feels pretty clear when BATDR takes place, to me. And I'm even more certain than I already was, after finding out that this image from the JDS website…

…is titled “museum” (good work yoinking it, @halfusek /gen 👍🏻), that we know the ink dimension's new home: Nathan Arch Sr.'s private Joey Drew Studios museum that he mentioned he was curating in TIOL (meaning it's existed since around 1972).

“Over the years, I have collected every single piece of the studio memorabilia I could find to restore it to its former glory, to create, in a sense, a private museum that gleamed with the true vision of Joey Drew…” ~ Nathan Arch, The Illusion of Living, pg. 2

Also, besides the fact the museum image has clearly aged, here's some more evidence that at least a few years have probably passed since Bendy was purchased: it generally takes a fair bit more time (years!!) to make movies/documentaries, as Archgate Pictures seems to have made about Joey, than it does to make shorts.

As for BATIM, I think that time has been moving as normal outside of the loop, we were just seeing a repeat of that significant day in 1963; Henry and Joey have been trapped in the ink dimension for somewhere between twenty and thirty years, and the bankruptcy paperwork and Princess Diana newspaper were pieces of the real world leaking into the memory. This explains how there seems to be evidence of Audrey in BATIM and how BATDR is still supposedly neither sequel nor prequel to BATIM despite all the evidence that it takes place long after 1963! They're happening at the same time!! I wonder if Audrey is the daughter of the little girl we hear at the end of BATIM? So, Henry's (great-)granddaughter or Joey's (great-)great-niece?

Now, onto my big theory: the plot twist.

If they handle it right, it would be really, really cool if “break the cycle” really doesn't just mean “end the time loop” but also “break the cycle of abuse/trauma” and a lot of the huge cast of not-so-innocent characters wind up with the potential to get redemption arcs. I have an idea of exactly how they might be planning on even providing the opportunity for Joey.

Victor McKnight commented this on his Artistic Hallowing music video and pinned it:

Those last two sentences. “Make sure you're watching every second! You don't want to miss any vital information. 😉” Does that not sound to anyone else like he's got insider information? Now, I want y'all to watch these music videos that either Victor himself or his brother Noah were suspiciously involved in all of (and one of which is supposedly a BATDS song but for some reason involves Audrey) and tell me if you notice any patterns.

youtube

This one seems to be a duet between Sammy and the Ink Demon, both singing to Audrey. Sammy mostly sings in the default sepiatone, asking us things like “Can you see me? Can you feel me?” (that feels so… sad… and desperate…) and telling us things like “make sense of the consequence we witnessed on that day” (Excuse me, you're telling me that there was a consequence for something on a specific, significant day that we witnessed?? 👀) The demon, on the other hand, mostly sings when the grayscale effect is on, and seems to just be playing a stereotypical villain roll until you notice “be forced to believe what I see” (why would we even give a crap about what you're seeing /srs? How the actual heck would we see what you're seeing /gen? You don't even have eyeballs, bro /j) and “be damned in this evil received” (how do you receive evil that damns you? Maybe by being abused and becoming an abuser in response?).

youtube

Two apparently-separate characters singing with the same voice but very different tones and outlooks on the situation, still both singing to Audrey, in this one. One mostly sings in the default sepiatone, again, at first seeming more hopeful, helpful, and friendly until you start noticing ominous comments like “you've made mistakes, accept the change. You will be punished too” (*incoherent noises* 🚨🚨) and “welcome to my dream . . . you still think you are safe in my dream.” The other mostly sings when the grayscale effect is on, again, and seems much more aggressive and seductive until you start noticing comments like “take up your weapons, just leave my friends be” (why is this stereotypically evil-seeming character both telling us to take up weapons, not just letting us have them, and asking us to leave his friends alone with them?).

youtube

More hints that the demon who will rise and presumably is most important to the story is linked to grayscale, in this one.

youtube

And, in this one, Sammy's asking if the grayscale-linked demon is the one who will set him free (as he claims to be in the first two videos).

Across all four of these first videos, there seems to be an overall “things change when we switch from the default sepiatone to grayscale” and “grayscale is dangerous and seems hopeless but it's important and linked to truth and freedom” theme…

youtube

…You're telling me that Sammy and his followers' past (BATIM?) selves were worshipping an imposter demon…? And the truth will be revealed in BATDR…?

Hum, hum, hum… fascinating. I'd noticed the sepiatone vs. grayscale split and imposter vs. true savior thing long before I read the books; for the longest time, I thought it meant we would be dealing with a Henry-Bendy and a Joey-Bendy, as I've been seeing people theorizing. But then I read TIOL, and discovered what I think is evidence that this info is indeed canon and was not left on the cutting room floor while BATDR was in development limbo.

Nathan makes a very strange note on Joey's story about the Sparkle Unicorn speakeasy…

“…I remember this night well. Though I remember it being at the Bee Room, gold and black, not silver as the main design aesthetic. Doesn't really make much of a difference though, I suppose.” ~ Nathan Arch, The Illusion of Living, pg. 44 (emphasis added)

Nathan remembers that night in sepiatone, Joey remembers it in grayscale.

Now, I've seen all kinds of theories all over about how Wilson actually “banished/killed the ink demon…” “Wilson took advantage of some sort of blip in Bendy's existence that happened when Joey died,” “Wilson got rid of him by purifying him and turning him into Dapper Bendy,” “Wilson got rid of him by fusing him with either Henry or Joey,” “Wilson got rid of him by trapping him in Henry's loop,” “he didn't, Wilson's just another liar manipulating everyone,” etc…

What if we're looking at this from the wrong angle? What if the point is that, whatever happened, neither of the BATDR Bendys is the original soulless monster we see in BATIM and the books? What if, whether they share a body or are separate, there are two human souls involved here? What if one of those souls is the “new evil” in the ink dimension, not Wilson, who may have been meddling in ink dimension affairs since 1963?

Going back to the time frame I propose BATDR is happening in… Joey was born in 1901, which means that if Nathan was 18 or 19 when Joey was just turning 16, then he was born in 1899 or 1898. So, in 1978, Nathan would've been 79 or 80, and in 1991 he would've been 92 or 93. Especially considering the clues that point towards Nathan having been a smoker, it wouldn't surprise me if he's straight-up already dead in BATDR. Mayhaps for 211 days? During Loop 414…? Could this be why the BATIM loop is different, with Henry apparently not remembering anything that previous versions of himself could? The now-previous owner of their prison has died of old age and/or lung cancer? And could that be why the JDS museum has fallen into bankruptcy? Has Nathan Jr. taken over and isn't as ruthless a businessman as his father?

Itsjustjord on YouTube pointed this out in his trailer reaction, which when he said it set my Clue Radar off so that I went to the trailer again to get a closer look. And… well… *clears throat*

…Do y'all see this weird effect over Dapper Bendy? Compared to every other character we see in the trailer as well as the environment around him, does it not look as if we're seeing him, specifically, through some sort of cartoony filter? Maybe it'll only be in circumstances like this (far away in weird lighting) that the edges of the illusion will fray in-game, based on the other teaser image we have of him, but it definitely looks off to me.

Especially with what I now suspect Allison and Susie's situations were in relation to Nathan, I think that the ink creatures’ perfection vs. imperfection has nothing to do with how pure/good vs. impure/evil their hearts are as we've been lead to believe/is the conventional surface-level reading, but instead how intact vs. broken their hearts are. I think that the more horrific the ink being's appearance, the more the soul inside was abused while it was alive. Allison isn't a perfect Alice because she's a better person, it's because she obeyed Nathan and wasn't made to suffer as severely as Susie, who Nathan chose to be his next Isabel. So, why is one new Bendy (apparently created after Joey lost everything, I suspect even being made to watch his Shoulder Angel's murder before being murdered himself) so much scarier than the original (created before Joey lost everything) and the other so goshdarn perfect, proportions and all?

Maybe the banning of everything related to Sammy's demon cult and Henry under Wilson's rule has to do with his decades-old mission to keep the Creators from joining forces, as well as everyone including himself feeling like they're finally free from The Great Puppet Master?

I love Dapper Bendy's design as much as everyone else!! He's positively adorable, and it would also be a nice outcome if the baby boy is exactly what he seems and just a precious lil friend to love forever; but I theorize that Dapper Bendy is the perfectly sane, untraumatized, and truly evil one, that (assuming we actually get choices in BATDR, unlike in BATIM) his route, no matter how things seem in the moment, is the wrong one, that he's Nathan. And I think Freaky Teeth Bendy (that's been my nickname for him since we first saw him and I'm sticking to it lolol) is the damaged as heck but able to be saved one, that his route is the correct one, that he's Joey. I also think that we won't get to see either demon for what they really are – won't be able to get the True, Broken Cycle, “Joey's Redeemed & Nathan Faces Justice” Ending – unless we somehow unlock Grayscale Mode like we could in BATIM and gain the ability to see Joey's truth. Until then, we'll be seeing the demons the way Nathan wants us to see them. Through Nathan's tainted, gaslighting, sepiatone filter.

If I'm right, the fact that they did choose these color palettes is so perfectly poetic~! Sepiatone is what happens when black-and-white images have been chemically altered for preservation purposes; Nathan's altered our perception of himself, Joey, and all the events surrounding them, and his version of events is much more resilient. Meanwhile, Joey's would be more pure and unaltered but easily destroyed— including by himself, with his Illusion of Living coping mechanism… The only thing that could make it more perfect is if not only do we get to see Henry in BATDR, but when we do he's an angelic toon… *Vibrates with excitement*

Please, please, please, JDS, let me be right about where you're going with this!! Cause this would genuinely be so freaking cool…!! 🙏🏻 I hope that we eventually get to “rejoice with our founders,” as Artistic Hallowing says, when they're reunited.

Thank you for coming to my TED Talk, rofl. Congratulations on making it through the ramblings of a hyped AuDHD fangirl (though, I guess we already knew you were capable, if you've read TIOL. I could do a whole nother rant on evidence that Joey's basically confirmed canonically ADHD(+?), my freaking gosh). 😝

Read the Rest of the Original Analysis/Theory: Part One • Part Two • Unexpected Part Four

BATDR Analysis/Post-Playthrough Theory Revision: Part One • Part Two • Part Three • Part Four

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possibilistfanfiction · 5 months

Note

for surgeons AU could we get some early days, maybe first date or something? obsessed with your work as always

[s/o to everyone who asked for their first date, love u, crossposting this au to ao3 now too i guess lol!]

‘don’t laugh.’

‘i’m not.’

you glare.

‘i swear, i’m not,’ she lies.

‘cam, you’re actively laughing. physically. audibly. at me.’

camila takes a deep breath and forces herself to frown. ‘okay. sorry. continue.’

‘bea is just — hot.’

you can tell that camila fights a grimace, which is fair, maybe, because she’s known beatrice for years through medical school. ‘she’s also very kind and understanding, if you wanted to, like, do something that would actually be fun for the both of you.’

‘hiking sounds fun.’

‘ava.’

it’s not all that often you feel the tightness in your chest that you remember from childhood: things are far less limited to you now. you have care you need, and your physical therapy and surgeries and medications are usually effective at letting you do whatever you want day-to-day. ‘just — don’t.’

camila sighs. ‘okay. but i promise bea wouldn’t think any less of you.’

you flop back on her sofa. ‘i know that, i really do. but it’s just so not sexy. and you know what is sexy? beatrice without a shirt on hiking ten miles, all sweaty and —‘

‘— it’s november, i’m pretty sure she’ll be wearing a shirt and a jacket —‘

‘— that’s not the point.’

camila loses her battle and does outright laugh at you now. ‘okay. well, to answer your question, you can borrow whatever of my gear you need, and i won’t tell bea.’

‘you’re a saint.’

to be fair, beatrice picks you up in her extremely clean subaru — you refrain from saying anything; it’s way too easy for it to actually be fun anyway — and offers you a breakfast sandwich and a coffee from, apparently, her favorite place near her house. it’s a cool, cloudy morning, typical november fair, and it’s still dark out, but you’re used to being up early or really at any time of day or night at this point. you’d done every spine decompression stretch you’ve ever learned in physical therapy, taken some ibuprofen, and truly have no plan other than hoping camila’s trekking poles — a very serious name for very fancy walking sticks — are enough to see you through.

beatrice, for her part, is clearly nervous, and it’s charming: she spends at least twenty minutes talking to you about all of the features of the hike and why it’s an ideal one for the two of you — ‘it’s moderate elevation gain up to the crest, about 2.5 miles, and, since it has southern exposure, we won’t get too much wind today.’ and, ‘if you want to keep going, it’s beautiful along the ridge, and there’s two mild peaks we could summit.’ and, ‘i’ve packed enough food and water for essentially however long we want to go; you can carry some if you’d like, if you didn’t pack much yourself.’ and, ‘anyway, the entire thing is wonderful and, in my experience, fairly empty, especially as it grows colder. but, just our luck: not much rain forecast for today.’ — and then asks, almost painfully awkward, about your last shift.

‘it was fine,’ you say, finishing your sandwich and making sure your trash is neatly packed up in the bag, with hers too. ‘but enough shop talk. i want to know about you.’

she blushes and you see, not for the first time but maybe in a way that’s more obvious than you have before, that beatrice is just a person after all, even if she’s unflappable at work.

‘it’s okay,’ you say, so she doesn’t shut down or feel embarrassed. ‘i don’t mind shop talk, but i’m just — i’m glad to spend the time with you, away from work. plus you’re like a total enigma. very mysterious. it’s kind of hot.’

you haven’t said explicitly this is a first date, but you’ve been on lots of first dates and you’re fairly certain this is one. you’re definitely certain when she laughs, her shoulders loosening down her spine, away from her ears, and says, ‘only kind of?’

‘well, i wasn’t sure if we were just colleagues or just friends or whatever.’

‘or whatever?’

you groan. ‘you’re extremely hot, are you kidding? i think it’s affecting my residency, actually. i get distracted by your hands and then i lose the plot.’

she takes that in, maybe more than you had meant to say but who cares at this point; you’d gotten up at 5 am for her on your day off, so it’s fairly clear how you feel. ‘you’re quite distracting yourself, dr. silva.’

‘in a good or bad way? like, sexy or annoying?’

she rolls her eyes; you can tell, even if she’s still watching the road. ‘it depends. often both.’

you grin, lean back in the seat. ‘i contain multitudes, what can i say. triple threat.’

‘sexy, annoying, and… ?’

‘brilliant, obviously.’

‘oh yes, obviously.’ you pull into a deserted parking lot amidst a lush green forest and a heavy early morning fog; it’s beautiful, and you don’t ever regret that you ended up here, but you feel particularly grateful for it now. ‘you are brilliant, ava.’ it’s serious, the way she says it and the way she squeezes your hand, just once, before she gets out of the car with a soft smile.

you watch her as subtly as you can as she puts on her gear, following suit as closely as you can without being too obvious about it. you know this is, objectively, really stupid and unnecessary, and jillian is probably spidey-senses yelling at you from somewhere in the world, but you have never wanted to impress someone so badly in your entire life. once beatrice is all ready to go, in her warm fleece quarterzip underneath a waterproof shell, a similar setup for her pants, her boots tied securely and her pack neatly zipped, poles ready at the correct height — so your elbows are at 90 degrees, camila had explained yesterday — and a beanie pulled down securely over her buzzed hair and ears.

‘the most important part for me,’ she says.

it takes you a second, but then you laugh. ‘you’re being funny.’

she makes sure her car is locked, zips the keys in a pocket inside her jacket, and then takes off down the trail. ‘i’ve been known to have a sense of humor from time to time.’

she’s not even walking that fast but it’s cold and jillian is mad at you all the time for how much you have to stand just for work, definitely without the however-many-long mile hike you’re about to go on. ‘the other interns are terrified of you, you know.’

beatrice turns toward you with a smirk. ‘and you’re not?’

‘well, i’ve seen you cry, once not even about a patient but about the fact that the coffee cart was out of earl grey tea.’

‘i hadn’t slept in thirty hours.’

you shrug — that’s probably true, but still — and bump her in the shoulder. ‘i like you,’ you tell her, honest, finally, amongst the moss and the ferns, the sun barely up, no one around to hear you. there’s a different kind of fear you feel when it comes to beatrice: not as dr. choi, indomitably talented and ruthlessly efficient resident, but as someone whose cologne you recognize, as someone who you want to make your grandma’s vatapáfor. ‘you’re kind to me.’

beatrice slows down for a moment — thank fucking god — and takes you in. you feel out of place often, and especially here, but the best thing about her is that, even if she senses it, she never faults you. ’that’s what you deserve.’ and then, ‘i hope i am. i want to be.’

you don’t know much about her, really: you know that she went to boarding school at 14 and had been at the top of her class at the best schools and programs in the world ever since; that she loves to be in nature and has known lilith for forever; that her accent loosens, just slightly, when she’s especially excited or especially exhausted. she likes otters, you’ve gathered, from a little pin on her coat, and she wants to go into cardio because it’s endlessly fascinating to her, and impossible, and miraculous. she runs so much admin for the free gender affirming surgery clinic even though it’s not her speciality and she certainly doesn’t have to; she learned asl last year, in addition to a host of other languages she speaks, to better communicate with patients and colleagues. you think, of anyone in your program, maybe of anyone at the hospital entirely, she’s chief superion’s favorite.

there are so many things you want to learn about her: what makes her scared and who she let take care of her after she had top surgery and what her favorite song is and what book made her cry as a child and if she likes comedies or is more of a drama kind of girl. you want, you can admit to yourself, to know everything about her in a way you’ve never quite wanted anything before.

‘you’re the best person i know.’ you’re worried it’s too much before she smiles — not at you, too shy, but you catch it anyway before she looks away.

‘that’s generous.’

‘still, true.’

she worries her lip before saying, ‘i am, technically, your boss.’

‘barely.’

‘ava.’

‘hmm. not dr. silva? doesn’t sound very position of power to me.’

‘i — i like you too.’ you watch her push her poles into the soft ground a little harder, like her whole body is fighting — to say what she means, or to not say it, you’re not sure.

you’ve had crossroads in your life before, most of them really fucking horrible — until they weren’t, until the world stretched out before you and opened up before you. you’ve talked over and over about this with jillian and the therapist she made sure you went to before you consented to any truly dangerous and experimental procedures or injections: disability was limiting, sure, but the real harm was done by the lack of care afforded you, not your lack of movement. you work so, so hard to believe it on good days; it’s nearly impossible on the worst.

but this is the best day, you decide. camila is right: beatrice is kind and caring and brave in ways you know; in ways you have yet to find out.

you’ve made it maybe half a mile into the hike but your back is aching, left foot going numb already, your right hand clenched too tight around the handle of the pole, so much so that even the soft cork of it hurts. so, instead of moving and moving and moving like you always do, like you have since the moment you could close your hands into fists so tight you swore you’d never let the world go: you stop.

bea takes a few more steps and then notices; she turns around and looks at you curiously.

‘sorry,’ you say, impulse and fear and habit, then shake your head. ‘actually, uh. i’m not? yeah, i’m not.’

she stands steady, unfazed by that. ‘okay.’

‘uh, well. i like you too. i already said that, but i really like you. i don’t — god, this sounds so stupid. but i don’t want to be your intern.’

the small, amused smile on beatrice’s face makes you feel better. ‘am i not a good teacher?’

‘i think there are lots of other things i would enjoy you teaching me.’ you close your eyes for a moment as she laughs, trying to regroup. ‘okay, i am sorry for that one.’

‘don’t be. i quite enjoyed it.’

‘before — before we tell chief superion anything, if you wanted to try, just — you should know that i shouldn’t have said yes to going on this hike.’

beatrice’s brow knits together, so immediately concerned you reach for her hand.

‘not because — it’s beautiful,’ you say. ‘you’re beautiful, and i’m so happy you asked me.’

she doesn’t look any less worried, which is fair.

‘i have a spinal cord injury,’ you say, and her face softens into something you’re terrified of for a moment, until you realize it’s only patience, only an opening for understanding — not pity, and certainly not anything close to contempt.

‘okay,’ she says, calmly and as kind as ever.

stupid, annoying tears burn at your eyes. ‘i just — you love hiking, and you asked and planned so nicely, and you wanted to share this special thing with me, and —‘

‘ava,’ she says, then brings her thumbs to wipe your cheeks with a gentle smile. ‘i just wanted to spend time with you. you’re right, i enjoy hiking, but i also enjoy lots of other things. things that i would also want to share with you.’

‘i should be using a cane at work,’ you admit, in the middle of this beautiful forest where no one but her can hear you. ‘i haven’t been because i didn’t, i don’t —‘

‘— while i think it’s wise you’re moved off my service,’ she says, ‘i will burn down that entire hospital if anyone looks down on you for that.’

‘that seems counterintuitive to do no harm.’ the way you say it is wobbly and your nose is full of snot and it’s kind of all so terrible, but then you catch up: ‘you don’t want me on your service?’

beatrice steadies herself. ‘i want to kiss you.’

‘even after —‘

‘ava, listen. i want to kiss you.’

‘yeah,’ you say, and lean forward.

it feels like your entire body lights up, even though it aches in the damp cold — golden light everywhere.

you laugh a little afterward, then beatrice smiles and takes off back toward her car without any complaints.

‘it’s still rather early,’ she says as you go on your way, ‘and we’re only about twenty minutes from the car.’

you grimace. ‘yeah, sorry.’

she shakes her head. ‘there are undoubtedly so many things you need to apologize for daily, ava —‘

‘— hey —‘

‘— but this is not one of them.’

‘fine,’ you huff.

she’s unfazed. ‘i was going to ask if perhaps you wanted to come over to my place. among other things i like in addition to hiking, i do like to catch up on rest as well. and then perhaps lunch? there’s a spot near me that has wonderful oysters.’

‘a nap? in your sexy house? lunch? with your sexy face?’

she ignores most of it: ‘it’s a rather normal house.’

‘i bet it’s sexy. lilith told me you were rich.’

beatrice grimaces.

‘it’s okay. like, really. i just bet you’re, like, the kind of person who has bespoke everything, aren’t you?’

‘no,’ she says, but she’s blushing and looking away from you.

‘you know, you’ve got a terrible poker face.’

‘only when it comes to you, i’m afraid.’

‘ah, what a terrible fate.’

‘the worst,’ she agrees, shaking her head with a smile. ‘it’s got a good view, i will say.’

‘well, lead the way then.’

‘ava, we’re just walking back to the car.’

you roll your eyes. ‘you know what i mean.’

beatrice’s house is beautiful, perched on a hill with giant windows overlooking the sound and the olympics. she laughs — not unkindly — when you admit that all of your hiking gear is actually camila’s, says, ‘i thought that pack looked familiar,’ and then lends you a hoodie and some comfortable running shorts to change into. you don’t ask her so many things brimming inside of you; she doesn’t ask you either, although you’re sure she — as bea and as dr. choi — has a billion questions. you’ll ask and answer everything in due time.

for today, you bully her — with far too little bullying involved to make her argument of i’ve never seen it before and i don’t waste my time on shows like this — to start binging season 4 of real housewives of salt lake city; even less convincing when she knows all about jen’s escapades last season and then clamps her mouth shut when you laugh into her shoulder.

‘it’s compelling, fine,’ she says with a very dramatic pout, and you’re kissing it off her face before you can think twice.

she smiles into it, your nerves dissipating, and it’s good, and right, and safe. you eventually kiss her cheek and run a hand over the soft bristles of her hair — which you’ve been dying to do — while she smiles and then settle into her side.

‘thank you.’

she lets out a big breath, peaceful under the blanket, thick socks on your feet, cold rain outside but only warmth in this house with you in it. ‘no, ava. thank you.’

#wn fic #avatrice fic #avatrice #prompts #surgeons au #if there's two things i love it's hiking & rhwoslc!#butch bea 🥺🫡#they’re both so silly

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slowandsteddie · 2 months

Text

Lazy Petals

AO3

Okay. This work is NOT completed. I cannot guarantee an update schedule because only the first chapter is completed. However, I DO have everything plotted out (assuming it doesn’t get a mind of its own) and the goal is to be 50k+ words.

This story is very personal to me. I’ve taken my grandparents love/live story and made it Steddie. The characters are going to be OOC. Just letting you know right off the bat in case that is something you aren’t interested in. Also, this is a No Upsidedown AU.

My grandparents were immediately obsessed with each other, but didn’t date until after they had graduated high school. Which means that while this isn’t a slow burn, it is going to be slower than the stuff I usually write.

I don’t want to give too, too much stuff away. There there is a post where I described the main highlights and asked your opinion on reading it. There is also a poll where I asked if I should start posting before it was finished, and I got a pretty definite yes.

I saved the divider that I plan on using for this series back when I first started talking about it. I have since lost my note that told me whom to give credit to. If you know who made it (or know how to find that information on mobile!!) please let me know.

I think that’s enough of a preamble. Without further ado, here be the CW’s and the first 3,489 words.

Content Warnings: Steve was hit by a car and in a full body cast for over a year - he makes a bowling joke about it, his parents are very distant, his grandparents got very distant after his injury and he doesn’t understand why, Wayne is very careful while babysitting to make sure that no one can accuse him of being inappropriate, mentions of his mom overmedicating him so he’s easier to deal with, mentions of how weak he got from being in the cast. And as always, let me know if I missed anything.

Steve didn’t remember much about that night.

His mother said that it was a blessing and refused to fill in any blanks for him under any circumstances.

His father, however, if he had drunk enough whiskey, would look at the six year old Steve as though he were a much older man and sigh before telling him anything he wanted to know.

Which meant that Steve knew that the car that hit him swerved in order to do so. (He didn’t know if the lady in the little blue car did it on purpose, or if she was a distracted driver. He wasn’t sure if he wanted to know that.) He knew that she had to have been going over forty miles per hour because the impact sent him flying at least a dozen feet before he slammed into that bus stop. He knew that the driver kept going and that at least half a dozen people ran to his aid and that one of the women had screamed because he was unconscious and she was so certain that he was dead. His little body was so broken and bloody and they couldn’t see him breathe.

He also knew that his father got to his hospital room before his mother, sweat pouring down the older male’s body as though he had showered in his clothes because he had run there from work. His mother showed up over twenty minutes later, all put together like she had taken the time to clean herself up before appearing. Something his father wasn’t sure if he could forgive her for. (This was one of the few times that his father would express just how much that he loved Steve, and he would carry that warmth with him forever.)

He knew that they had to revive him four times, that they had done twelve surgeries, that they had put him in a full body cast because nearly every bone in his body had been broken, including parts of his spine. He knew that his parents had been told that he would likely never walk again. He knew that a specialist had pulled his father aside to inform him that his brain wouldn’t develop normally after all of the trauma that it had been through after being smacked around in his skull. They’d have to be careful, and that they’d have to understand if he never progressed much past the age that he was now. That he could be in his fifties and still acting five and that there was nothing that could be done beyond what they had already done – remove a small part of bone behind his ear to help relieve the pressure and pray for the best while preparing for the worst.

And, while he couldn’t remember the absolute agony that he must have been in. He did have the descriptions that he used to tell his father. That there was lava in his veins and his bones were shards of ice cold glass threatening to tear him apart completely. His father had only told him that part once, with tears in his eyes. “There wasn’t anything I could do to help you, boy. I couldn’t take the pain away. I would have died to save you even a fraction of that.”

That was one of the few times that he could remember his dad hugging him. He had been so careful and gentle while pressing his face into his hair. He inhaled deeply and he cried. And Steve had done his best to hug him back despite the plaster that made it near-impossible to move his arms at all.

At first, Steve had thought that it was really cool to be stuck in bed all the time. He didn’t have to do anything. That got boring within a week and he still had at least a year ahead of him where he was meant to stay in bed unless he was in the bathroom or at a doctor’s appointment.

Even eating in bed, something that had once been unacceptable and even punishable before, lost its novelty pretty quickly.

He liked having his mom read him notes from the teacher and his classmates. He liked her reading him his homework assignments and writing down his answers for him so that he would still be on track. It made him feel like an important man, like his dad was going to be, with a secretary.

The thing is, though, that he really missed going outside. He missed playing in the woods outside of the trailer park where he lived. He missed going to his grandparents house with the pool and the stairs that he’d probably never be able to walk again. He could climb them, though, after the cast was removed. He was pretty sure. He might not have a lot of muscle left at that point, but that would just mean that he was lighter and had less to have to move anyway.

When Steve brought that up to his mother, her lips would turn into a very tight, thin line and something he couldn’t name would flash in her eyes. “You are not going to go to that house any time soon, young man. It’s best to let those ideas go.”

“But I miss Grandma Marty and Grandpa Pete, and they won’t come here,” he whined.

“The Harrington’s won’t come to the trailer park and you know that.”

“We’re Harrington’s too,” he’d say defiantly.

She’d leave the room at that. Effectively ending an argument that they had had multiple times before. But what else did Steve have to talk about? He didn’t really have anyone else to talk to either, other than their neighbor that he had taken to calling Mister Wayne.

Wayne was probably a few years older than his dad and lived alone in a trailer that had always seemed so lively despite the quiet man who lived in it. He always had the tv or the radio on when he was home and Steve lived for that. Because his window was always cracked open for the breeze, which meant the sound could drift to him as well.

It was better than the quiet of his house that only seemed to get broken up with arguments and slamming doors. He was so used to it, but he still flinched every time and did his best to pull the blanket over his head as though that would muffle the sounds.

Sometimes, Wayne would come to his window and read him a book that his own nephew liked. The Hobbit. Steve fell in love with the adventure of it, and Wayne never seemed to mind reading him the same book over and over, a few pages at a time while he smoked.

More often than not, Wayne was the one who came over to babysit once he noticed that Steve had been left alone. He never once complained about it, never once gave someone else the chance despite all the ladies who would come over with food. And wine for his mom, when they could spare it.

Sometimes, Wayne would talk about his nephew. He was a scrawny kid, a few years older than Steve, named Eddie. Had a dark mop of long curly hair, and eyes that always seemed to have mischief in them. They’d like each other, Wayne was pretty sure, and he’d introduce them the next time that Eddie came to visit.

Steve would want to ask when that would be, but he never did. He had Mister Wayne and that was more than enough for him. His dad was staying later at the office, trying to prove that he deserved that promotion that would get them the hell out of the trailer park, without his parents' money. His mother was getting into yoga and book clubs, and Steve was being left alone a lot. Because, what kind of trouble could he get into when he was stuck in bed? Besides, the neighbors could hear if he shouted for anything and Wayne seemed very invested in making sure that he was okay.

Steve never knew why the older man made sure that his curtains were always wide open and that his light was on so that others could see that he was reading to him, or talking with him, from a chair that was always at least three feet away. Maybe it was so they would know he wasn’t alone? He wasn’t going to ask about it, not wanting to chance scaring away the one adult who never raised his voice at him, who never abandoned him when things got hard like his grandparents seemed to.

Months went by like this. His parents not being home, his grandparents not even calling about him, and Wayne doing his best to fill in the difference despite his own job. The other neighbors would come on occasion, but Steve was very sullen with them where he would laugh with Wayne. That didn’t deter them from coming over as he would have liked, and begrudgingly he found himself becoming friendly with a few of them.

It was the beginning of summer when Steve was finally able to get the casts removed. His father took him to the appointment, and he tried to not be disappointed that his mother wasn’t there at first. By the time he was wheeled out to the front of the office, though, his mother was sitting where his father had been.

He did his best to not look at himself. He was pale and scrawny and kind of stinky from not being able to wash himself properly because of all the plaster that had basically covered him for over a year. Most of his bones had healed great, according to the doctor. He wouldn’t know because he still hadn’t looked.

His father came back from wherever he had been, paid the bill with tight lips, and then took Steve out to the car. His mother helped him into the seat before covering him with a blanket that he was grateful for. It wasn’t that he was cold, he just didn’t want the chance to look at himself yet. He wanted to do that when he was home, where if he broke down and cried, no one else would know. Or, he wouldn’t have to see them knowing in any case. And that was enough for him.

They stopped for ice cream on the way and Steve asked for a small strawberry cone. Strawberry wasn’t his favorite, but it was what Grandma Marty had all the time, and he missed her even though she didn’t acknowledge him anymore. Wouldn’t answer his calls, wouldn’t call him back. He didn’t even know if she got the letters that Wayne had helped him write.

When they got home, Wayne wasn’t home. Not for the first time, Steve found himself deeply upset by that. He’d never voice it. Adults had responsibilities outside of him. And he knew that he only got about an hour with Wayne a day, maybe two if he was incredibly lucky.

His father came to help him out of the car, because he had more muscle if Steve should happen to fall. He clung to his father’s arm with all the strength that could muster as he walked like a baby giraffe toward their trailer. Well, he called it walking. It was more like wiggling his lower spine and hips while throwing his legs forward. After maybe five steps like that, he found himself being lifted into his father’s impatient arms as he was carried the rest of the way in and sat on the couch.

“Thank you,” Steve said instead of complaining about not being able to use his legs. He had wanted to walk, to prove that he could.

His father simply grunted in response before going to the kitchen to grab a drink. The same way he always did when he was home for the night.

His mother was inside a few minutes behind them, having stopped to talk to a neighbor briefly. She looked at Steve on the couch and tilted her head at him with a calculating look in her eyes.

“Would you like a bath?”

“Yes, please.”

This time, Steve did get to walk on his own two feet to the destination. He was leaning heavily on the wall, almost gripping on to it with one hand as he practically threw himself forward. He was breathless by the time that he got to the bathroom and pain seemed to radiate out through his entire body, starting at his tail bone.

“You can have some meds after your bath,” his mother said gently. “And I’ll get you your refill before dinner, okay? So you don’t have to worry about running out.”

Steve didn’t think it was time to refill his medicine yet, but he didn’t question it. His mom was on top of it. He was a kid who lost track of time a lot.

He sat on the toilet and he watched his mom prepare the bath for him, knowing that she would only let him have the water a little above room temperature. His skin was sensitive and the steam wouldn’t be good for him with the medicine that he was taking. He couldn’t even have hot food without the steam making him nauseous.

Carefully, he was pulled back to his feet and stripped of his clothes before he was helped into the tub that seemed to be more bubble than water. He sat down carefully, wincing a bit as he did so, before letting himself lean back in the water that felt warmer than it probably was because of his weakened, cool skin.

He sighed in contentment as his mother washed his body for the first time in what seemed like years. He was nearing seven years old and thinking about years in the past, it would make his dad laugh if he shared that thought with him, an idea that made him smile.

His mom washed his hair, tilting his head back and using a hand to make sure that no soap got in his eyes that he had squeezed tight. He got to play in the bubbles for a few minutes, his dad standing at the door as his mom got him some comfy clothes and a towel.

It was his dad who dried him off and helped him get into his clothes.

“Thank you, Daddy,” he said softly. He knew he was expected to thank his dad for everything he did that was above and beyond, which meant he ended up thanking him for everything.

Steve was carried back to his bed, something that he would have whined about if he wasn’t so tired and in so much pain. He was tucked in and his mom came to give him some toast and juice to take his pills with. He knew he was only meant to have one, but he took both that his mother gave him anyway. He washed it away with grape juice and half of the slice of toast she had brought him.

“Thank you, Mommy,” he murmured.

“Get some rest, love,” she replied while kissing his forehead. “You had a big day today.”

Steve nodded in agreement, wishing that it could be that easy to just let the sleep overtake him. He closed his eyes as his mom left the room.

His father checked on him once a day, his mother gave him two pills instead of one, and made sure he at least had breakfast and dinner. One of the neighbors made sure he had lunch and new puzzles to work on, new toys to play with. Steve would wander around the trailer as best as he was able, and Wayne would read to him before he went to bed.

Days turned to weeks like that.

One day, Wayne wasn’t at work and both of Steve’s parents were gone. He wandered over to his bedroom window and opened it wide.

“Mister Wayne, if I can get to the front door, can you help me out?”

His walking was still unsteady and stairs were very difficult for him.

“Are your parents okay with you being outside?” Wayne asked sympathetically.

“Uh. Dad said I could as long as I either finished my puzzle or put it up first.”

Wayne gave him a knowing look. “Okay, you little hellion. But only because I know you’d hurt yourself trying to do it anyway.”

Steve beamed and closed his window most of the way before making his way to the front door. It was a struggle to unlock the door because of the latch chain, but he managed. Wayne was waiting there for him with an unlit cigarette hanging between his lips.

“Getting outside used to be easier,” he sighed before reaching out.

“Maybe it’s the weight of knowing that you’re doing something you shouldn’t be,” Wayne teased as he picked Steve up and set him back down on the ground.

“No idea what that means, but thank you for helping me pass the stairs.” Steve grinned widely, the dirt and grass squishing slightly beneath his toes. It felt so good.

“You’re welcome, brat.”

Steve giggled before doing his version of walking. He took maybe ten steps, very much aware of how closely he was being watched. His breath came a little harder from the effort, the times between walking so close together. Shakily, he sat down as carefully as he was able. Movement caught his attention and made his head snap up to look toward Wayne’s trailer.

“You gotta ghost!” He exclaimed.

Wayne laughed at that, shaking his head. “That’s the nephew I’ve been telling you about. He’s staying with me for awhile. Treat him like a skittish cat until he’s used to ya, and I’m sure y’all would be good friends.”

“Eddie,” Steve said happily. “Can he come out so I can meet him?”

“I’ll send him out after I smoke my cigarette,” he said as he put more distance between them before lighting up.

“Thank you!”

Steve laid down flat on the grass, spreading his arms and legs out as much as he could without the pain becoming unbearable. It wasn’t very far, but he didn’t care. He got to grip the green strands in his fingers. He got to feel the light and heat of the sun soaking into his skin and settling into his bones. He was beyond convinced that the bright yellow thing in the sky was much more healing than the meds that made him feel tingly from his head to his toes.

He must have fallen asleep like that, because next thing he knew he was being awoken by a toe nudging his shoulder. His eyes flashed open and he was met by the most dark, beautiful brown eyes he had ever seen.

“Uncle Wayne said you just got released from the mummy’s curse.”

“He said that?”

“Well. He said your name was Steve and you just got a full body cast removed a few weeks ago.”

“That sounds more like him.”

“So…What happened?”

“A lady tried to go bowling with me and her car. The only pin she knocked down was me.”

Eddie snorted. “Shoulda planted your feet more firmly, she woulda gotten a strike.”

Steve’s lips tugged into the widest smile that he had ever had on his face. “My parents don’t like it when I joke about it.”

“Parents are stupid.”

“Yeah. How long are you stayin’?”

“As long as I can.”

Steve hummed in thought. “You any good at reading out loud?”

“Depends. What book?”

“The Hobbit.”

Eddie’s entire face lit up, his huge smile showing off the chipped front tooth. “My favorite book in the entire world? Yeah, I’m pretty good at reading it out loud.”

“We should read to each other. I have troubles with some words, but I am trying.”

“I’d like having someone to read and play with.”

“Oh, uh. Playing is hard for me right now. I’m still trying to get my strength back.”

“It’s okay. We read The Hobbit, we gotta have a pretty good imagination. We can pretend to play.”

Steve blushed and looked away. He never had someone his own age willing to work around his limitations before.

“I heard about a game with dice where we can talk out stuff and the dice decide how well it goes,” Steve said suddenly.

“Dungeons and Dragons!” Eddie apparently decided that he was tired of standing because he flopped down next to him at that. He rolled around in the grass before eventually settling on his side, propping his head up on his hand. “I can find a way to make that work with just two people.”

“Oh.”

“Turn that frown upside down, friend. I like a challenge. We’ll make this work because it sounds like fun.”

Steve beamed.

Taglist (let me know if you want added or removed! I was just trying to get who I remembered to seem interested!):

@estrellami-1 @eriquin @epiclazershark @morganski-19 @ellaelsinore @y4r3luv @valinwonderland @thespaceantwhowrites @jackiemonroe5512 @spectrum-spectre @princessstevemunson @ghost--enthusiast @gothwifehotchner @kas-eddie-munson @auroraplume @salisbury-at-the-stake @currently-steddiebrainrot @finntheehumaneater @marshmellowpaint @littlewildflowerkitten @perseus-notjackson @sapphirecobalt-1 @xxfiction-is-my-realityxx @gloomysoup @anne-bennett-cosplayer

#stranger things #steddie #steve harrington #eddie munson #steve stranger things #eddie stranger things #steve x eddie #taking my grandparents love story and making it steddie #grandparents love story #lazy petals #no upside down au #read the cw #car accident aftermath #mention of medical abuse #let me know if i missed anything

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