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honeyedmiller · 7 months

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Law of Attraction — Chapter Three: The Offer

series masterlist | previous chapter | next chapter

rating: 18+, minors dni.

warnings: professor!Joel, professor x student relationship, one-sided emotional pining (for now), jealous!Joel, possessive!Joel, dom!Joel, smut (unprotected piv, fingering, m oral receiving), no use of y/n.

word count: 3.6k

chapter synopsis: joel makes you an offer that you’re apprehensive about, but don’t want to refuse.

“Hold the fuck up. I’m sorry, you did what?” Adrienne paces back and forth before you in your bedroom as you sat down at the edge of your bed, gnawing at your bottom lip as you fiddled with your tangled fingers in your lap.

Shame swarmed throughout your whole body. You couldn’t believe it, either.

Stupid, stupid girl.

“Maybe this could be good for me.” Your voice is meek as you try to defend your own honor, but truthfully, your rebuttal wasn’t very promising.

“Babe. Listen to me. You know I love you more than anything in the world, right?” She looks down to you, grabbing onto your shoulders softly. You nod your head, still unable to meet her eyes.

“Okay, I know you and I both know this just isn’t going to end well. You literally just confessed to me that you’re starting to fall for a man you’ve hooked up with a couple of times and now you’re telling me you’re agreeing to do this—this dangerous game with him? I don’t understand why he even offered this in the first place.” Adrienne huffed in exasperation, trying to wrap her head around the whole ordeal.

You honestly couldn’t point out why on god’s green earth that you agreed to be friends with benefits with Joel. Your fucking professor, of all people.

The conversation you two had the night you two slept together at the hotel in Los Angeles before he left your room to go to his kept replaying in your head.

“So I was thinkin’ about this. Us. And I wanna propose somethin’.” Joel’s voice was a soft lull, drawing your attention up to him.

You waited for him to continue, nervousness coursing through your body.

“I wanna keep doin’ this– uh, ‘hookin’ up’– so I was wonderin’ if you wanted to do the whole friends with benefits thing.” Joel’s words were a bit apprehensive, probably because he was trying to choose the right ones to say.

Your heart absolutely sank at his suggestion. Friends with benefits? What were you two, high schoolers?

You tried to not let your expression falter and give away what you were really feeling, which was sadness and pure disappointment. Was he ashamed to be seen with you publicly or something because you were a bigger girl?

You thought your relationship with him meant more than that.

Your mind swirled a million miles a minute, and you gnawed on your lip as your weight shifted back and forth between your feet. You studied his features, and he appeared to be cool and collected.

You contemplated his offer, weighing the pros and cons of it all. He eyed you, keeping his arms crossed over his chest as he tilted his head to the side.

“You don’t have to do this with me if you don’t want it, darlin’. ‘M not forcin’ you.”

“I–I know that, Joel. I’ve just never done something like this.”

You honestly didn’t really know how to feel about it. You knew yourself and knew that your feelings for the man standing before you were blossoming in the deepest parts within you, and now it felt like thorns from a rose bush were digging into your chest, constricting you from breathing.

You didn’t want to lose him. You couldn’t. So, you took a deep breath and bit the goddamn bullet.

“Okay. I’ll do it.”

You looked up at Adrienne who looked sad for you.

“I’m fine, Adri, I promise,” Lie. “This could be good for me, y’know? I mean, sex with no strings attached with a hot, experienced man.” You shrug. Adrienne saw right through your façade.

She sighs and sits down next to you on your bed, putting a hand on your thigh.

“I just don’t get it. He claimed that you’re his, possessive as fuck, and then throws this offer at you? The fuck is that?” She throws her hands up, clearly frustrated for you.

You wish you could answer that, because you were wondering the same thing.

“I’m just going to see where this goes. I mean, if it gets to be too much, I can just pull back and say I don’t want to do this anymore. It’s not like a contractual bind or anything.”

“Just… be careful. I don’t want to see you get hurt.” She says, wrapping her arms around you to give you a hug.

“I will, Adri. I promise.”

Tess reprimanded Joel when he told her what he asked you. She couldn’t believe it.

“Joel, you’ve got to be fucking kidding. Friends with benefits? At your grown ass age?” She stares at her best friend in complete disbelief, whisper shouting at him in a small coffee shop in Austin. Tess flew back with Joel to Texas for a conference, so she was visiting him for a bit.

“Fuck, Tess, I panicked, okay? I’m feeling things with her that I haven’t felt in so long and—and I just don’t want a repeat of what happened with Christine.” Joel felt shame creep into his body, hanging his head low as he stared at his reflection in the dark liquid of coffee in his cup below him.

“Joel, it’s been like five years since everything happened with Christine. What’s got you thinking that this girl would do the same thing to you? I’ve seen the way she looks at you.”

“Yeah, well, Christine looked at me that way once too before she started fucking her colleague in our bed.” Joel spat, leaning back in the booth as the palms of his hands covered his eyes. He groaned softly, remembering the awful feeling in his gut when he saw his then fiancée fucking someone else.

“Christine’s a bitch. I know that. I also know that you deserve better. This woman is your better, Joel. ‘M not just talking out of my ass on this one.” Tess takes a sip of her coffee as she eyes Joel, replaying her words in his head.

“I just—fuck, I just can’t.” Joel closes his eyes, shaking his head.

“She deserves better than this, Joel.”

“We’ve only fucked twice. If she had feelings for me like that I’m sure she’d make it known to me. It’s not like we can exactly show out anyways, considerin’ she’s still my student.”

“Didn’t you say she’s graduating with her masters degree in a couple of months? And it’s not like she’s not of age, Joel. She’s only a couple years shy of thirty.” Tess quirks her brow, resting her elbows on the table as she folds her hands to rest her chin upon them.

“Can we not talk about this anymore? How are you and Misty?” Joel’s poor attempt at changing the subject made Tess chuckle sarcastically.

“When she’s had enough of your shit, don’t say I didn’t tell you so, Miller.” Tess points the wooden stirrer at him, wishing to the heavens that he would just let go for once in his life and move on.

The following week returning from spring break was, well, awkward. At least for you. You had to sit in Joel’s class for two and a half hours twice a week until you graduated.

You felt weird knowing that you and him being friends with benefits was an unknown phenomenon to the rest of your classmates. It was your dirty little secret.

One at which you were hiding pretty well, but Joel wasn’t.

You walked in with your classmate, Tyler, who was also in Professor Sanchez’s class before Joel’s with you. You were both talking about an upcoming project for the class and stopped in front of the usual desk you sat at. It was nothing more than causal conversation, but Joel couldn’t help but blatantly stare at the two of you.

Tyler’s hand came up to your shoulder, resting it there before nodding. You smiled at him, ever so innocently, not taking in account that Joel was now scowling. That same muscle in his jaw ticked with pure annoyance.

“If we could all take our seats, class will be starting in a minute.” Joel’s voice boomed throughout the classroom, and Tyler’s hand dropped from your shoulder as he nodded at you and went to his seat at the back of the class. You slipped into your desk, pulling out your pen and notebook.

You took in the way that Joel’s eyes settled on you, an unmistakable fire behind his dark stare. You furrowed your brows at him.

The lesson went by, and you could tell he was annoyed as he taught. His voice was gruff and his his movements were none short of agitated.

When class ended, you took your time finishing your notes and packing things up so you could linger after the rest of your fellow classmates left.

“My office. Now.” Joel grits, striding ahead of you to the small room in the back of the hallway in his classroom.

You followed suit, bag slung over your shoulder. Your sneakers scuffed the floor as you tried your best to keep up with him.

“What’s up with you, Joel? Why are you so mad today?” You ask as you softly close his office door, leaning against it afterward.

“The hell’s Tyler touching you like that for?”

Your brows furrow as you look at him in disbelief.

“Joel, you cannot be serious. It was an innocent touch to my shoulder.”

“I don’t like people touching what’s mine.” He steps closer to you, a daring glint in his eyes.

“I’m not yours, Joel.”

“Oh? ‘S that so? Get on your knees.”

You swallow thickly. “Wh-what?”

“You heard me. On your knees.”

A dark desire pooled in your core, secretly loving this possessive side of him.

You dropped your bag on the ground, sinking to your knees as you looked up at him to wait for further instruction.

He cupped your jaw with his rough hands, forcing you to meet his gaze.

“You’re so beautiful. That pretty mouth of yours needs to be around my cock right now though, dont’ya think?”

You pressed your thighs together at his words, biting your lip as you tried to suppress a whine.

“Answer me, little girl.”

Fuck.

“Yes, sir.” Your voice is meek as you felt heat rush to your face.

You could already see his cock hardening in the confines of his jeans, the outline of it taunting you. Truthfully, you loved that you turned him on so much. It made your head spin that you bagged one of the hottest men you know, even if he just wanted a friends with benefits type thing.

The thought of that reminded you that this—having sex with him and doing these dirty things—meant nothing to him. Maybe you oughta get a little bit of revenge. You smiled smugly to yourself as you kept your eyes trained on the outline of his cock.

His large hands started working the buckle of his belt, fumbling with the button of his jeans and his zipper afterward. He groaned with relief as he moved his jeans and boxers down just enough to release himself from the constraint of his clothing.

You’d almost forgotten how much seeing his cock this close made your mouth fucking salivate. He was thick and long, veins protruding from the underside and the head was bright red, swollen and leaking precum.

“Such a dirty fuckin’ girl for lookin’ at my cock like it’s your last meal. Gotta say though, baby, sure does feed my ego.” Joel darkly chuckles as he takes a step forward.

The tip of his cock touched your lips, smearing the salty precum on your lips.

“Be a good girl f’me and show me what ya got.” Joel coos, and you don’t hesitate a second longer to wrap your lips only around the tip. You poke your tongue out to trace the vein on the bottom of his shaft, the silky flesh tasting salty on your tongue. You hummed in appreciation, using your lips to glide you back up to the tip. You gave the tip a kiss, smirking as you looked Joel straight in the fucking eyes.

You were determined to keep your eyes on him the entire time; see what your mouth can do to unravel such a man. You took him in slowly, cock heavy on your tongue as he slid onto your tongue and toward the back of your throat. You gagged softly around him as your nose met the coarse hairs at the base of his cock, and his hand went flying to cradle the back of your head.

“That’s it, there you go baby. Such a good fuckin’ girl.” He praises, and you hum around him. One of your hands moves to wrap around the back of his calf, and the other reaches up to pay his balls some attention.

He moans softly, his breathing becoming uneven as it forms into a slight pant. The slick pooling between your legs became nearly unbearable, because the sounds he was making was turning you on beyond belief.

You began a steady pace on him, your saliva pooling around his cock the longer you kept going. You hollowed your cheeks out, and he looked down at you with that same dangerous glint in his eye he’s had all day.

You moved down his cock again so you were swallowing him whole, this time taking him better as your throat constricted around him. He let out a strangled moan, head lolled to the side and eyes closed with furrowed brows as he tried to focus on not cumming right then and there.

You had other plans for him.

You were determined to get your aforementioned revenge on him, which involved a very much overstimulated Joel whining and fucking begging you to stop.

You kept constricting your throat around him, only moving up once in awhile now while hollowing your cheeks.

Joel was going to lose his fucking mind. Never in his forty five years of life has anyone given him head this good. If he thought the first time you did it to him was incredible, this time blew the last completely out of the water.

“Look s’fuckin’ pretty with your mouth full of my cock, hm? ‘M not gonna last much longer.” He cradles the side of your face as you made sure you looked at him in a sultry manner. Eyelids half hooded; eyes gleaming with a dark and carnal desire for the man above you.

You were showing Joel Miller exactly what he signed up for.

You felt him twitch in your mouth, letting you know he was dangerously close. You slowly slid your tongue up to the tip, flicking your tongue between the slit on his head. That’s when he lost all control.

“Fuuuuuck.” He groaned, thick ropes of cum spitting into your mouth as you wrapped your head around his tip once more. Even after he’d exhausted all of his spend, you kept going. Kept sucking, kept licking, and didn’t fucking stop.

This was revenge for the friends with benefits ordeal.

“Fuck, darlin’ please stop. Please, s-top. Fuck.” He hissed, grabbing your hair to pull you off of him. You yelped as he yanked you backwards, a string of saliva connecting from his tip to your lips.

You smirked up at him and quirked an eyebrow, and his eyes go completely black.

Oh, you were fucked.

“Get up.” He grits, and you stand to your feet. He pushes you against his desk and fists your shirt from behind, forcing you to bend over the dark mahogany.

“Think it’s fuckin’ funny? Huh?” He reaches around your front to unbutton your jeans button, pulling down the zipper and yanking your jeans and panties past your ass and down your legs in one swift motion.

You sucked in a breath as the cool office air hit your slick pussy. You closed your eyes to try and regain your composure, but truthfully, it was too late. You were bent over his desk with your pussy on display for him and you were just truly, utterly fucked.

“I’ll show you how funny it is.” He chuckles darkly, rubbing your ass before bringing a hand down to it. The slapping sound rung through your ears as your flesh stung, and you cried out.

Truthfully, it only turned you on more.

He rubbed your other cheek before bringing his palm harshly down against your flesh, ass rippling as another loud smack echoed off the walls of the room. You hissed at the contact, squeezing your eyes shut as you let out a shaky breath.

“Look at you. Fuckin’ drippin’ f’me and I haven’t even touched your perfect little pussy yet. Little fuckin’ whore ready to be fucked, hm?” He asks, finally bringing his ring and middle finger where you need him most.

You moan as his fingers easily slide through your folds, gripping onto his desk like the Earth will lose gravitational pull if you don’t.

“Yes sir.” You choke out, voice garbled.

“You weren’t a good girl just a bit ago, though. You think bad girls deserve rewards?” He questions, and as he stands directly behind you, you felt his hardening cock on your ass.

“No, sir.”

“‘S right. Bad girls deserve to be punished. Dunno if I’ll let you cum this time, princess.” He threatens, and a whine escaped your throat.

Sure, you had a little pink vibrator in your nightstand drawer at home, but Joel’s cock and the delicious stretch it gave you provided much more relief than a silly little toy would.

“Please, sir.” Was all you could say, on the verge of tears. He could literally pump his fingers in you once and you’d be fucking done for.

“I’ll think about it.”

That’s all that was said before he lined his now fully erect cock up with your entrance, easily sliding in all the way to the hilt. The way your warmth squeezed him had him pausing to inhale shakily.

You moan at the contact, feeling his coarse hairs against your ass. You writhe beneath him, begging him silently to move.

“Stay. Fuckin’. Still.” He warns, spanking your ass once more. You cry out, breathing labored as you tried to do what he says.

“Sor– fuck, sorry, sir.”

It only took two beats before Joel started to move—really move. He was snapping his hips against your ass at a relentless pace, tip kissing your cervix repeatedly. The slight pain quickly subsided with pleasure as every ridge and vein of his silky flesh slid in and out of you at a perfectly timed pace.

He grabbed both of your hands and held both of your wrists together behind your back, other hand on the middle of your back to keep you held down. He was fucking you so hard that the desk started to scrape against the floor.

Your moans were muffled when Joel then moved his hand from your back to clamp over your mouth.

“Gotta fuckin’ be quiet, doll, or else you’ll get us both into trouble.” He tsked, but he wasn’t any better at suppressing his own moans. He removed his hand shortly after to brace it onto your shoulder.

“Takin’ me so goddamn well. Pussy was fuckin’ made f’me.” He smacks your ass once more, with less power as he drives his hips into your ass relentlessly.

“Feels s’good Joel, love your cock.” You slur, tears welling in your eyes.

“I know you fuckin’ do, little slut, takin’ my cock so easily. Droolin’ for it. Beggin’ for it. Beggin’ me to fuck you so good that I’ll ruin you for any other man.” Joel’s words dripped with venom, and you fucking knew that was a promise.

It’s you! You’re the man I want! You you you!

That’s all you wanted to say to him, but you couldn’t. How could you when you simply agreed to do this… arrangement with him? Him fucking you meant absolutely nothing to him. Simple as that. End of story.

But fuck, you wish it did. You wish he’d say fuck it, forget about the offer because I want to be with you unashamedly and show you off as my girl.

But you knew that would never be reality. Just a fantasy you conjured up in your head, torturing yourself with the fact that the “what if” will never be.

Stupid, stupid girl.

You snapped back to reality once you felt your legs tremble. You were close, and the obscene sounds of your wet pussy squelching around Joel’s cock as he pounded into you were nearly deafening.

“‘M gonna cum, Joel.” You cried, balling your hands into fists.

“Better not fuckin’ cum until I tell you you can.” His voice isn’t as rough as it was before, probably because he was close to his high too. His hips started stuttering and his pace faltered, breathing becoming so ragged that it sounded like small heaves.

Your walls clenched around him, body unable to hold off any longer.

“Please Joel, please, I can’t hold on anymore.”

Joel let go of your wrists as his hand slid between your legs, rubbing small, tight circles around your clit.

Your body simply couldn’t deny Joel’s expert touch. Your eyes rolled to the back of your head at the overwhelming sensation of Joel literally everywhere around you. His scent, his touch, his voice, him. Your walls clamped down on him harshly, legs shaking violently as you tried to suppress a scream.

Joel didn’t stop from rubbing your clit, and you realized he was doing the same exact thing you did to him.

Fucking bastard.

In a matter of seconds, he was grunting, spilling into you.

Someone was mumbling something repeatedly, and shortly after, you realized it was you saying Joel’s name continuously.

“JoelJoelJoelJoelJoelJoelJoel—”

“Sh. I’ve got you.” He pants, rubbing your shoulders. He pulls out of you, spent and utterly exhausted.

Your brain was still trying to process all of the events that just happened, finding it hard to believe what just occurred.

Joel pulled up your panties and jeans for you, prompting you to stand up straight as he zipped up your zipper and buttoned your pants back up. You turned around to face him, and he looked down at you as he readjusted his clothes himself.

“You okay?” He asks, and your brain couldn’t find words yet so you just nodded.

“Fucked you dumb on my cock, now, did I?” He smirked, and you swallowed thickly. He pulled you into him, kissing the top of your head. He bent down to grab your bag and slung it over your shoulder once more, nodding at you. “Mine.” Was all he said before kissing your head once more, opening the door to his office as you walked down the hallway back into his classroom.

You were dazed and confused, really wondering if this whole thing was worth it. You knew from that point forward that this offer of his was going to tear you apart piece by piece. Ruin you for what you’re worth.

Were you going to stop it? Of course not. You know you should, but, you couldn’t lose him—no matter the cost. But this meant nothing to him.

Naïve.

Stupid, stupid girl.

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sparring-hyena · 3 years

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again and again.

i think this kinda counts as a groundhog day-esque AU with some quirky time travel mixed in for fun. is that even a thing? idk.

OR, time is complicated, and so is love. here’s a story about both.

“i will destroy you,” Poppy says, her tone razor-edged and precise. she feels a pulsing thing beneath her skin. something that warns her to tread carefully in a manner that’s much too pleased for the situation at hand.

“good luck with that,” AJ answers, her tone somehow daring to be amused.

and then a beat. a moment that exists only between the two of them. it rings loud in Poppy’s mind. thrums along in time with that pulsing thing beneath her skin. it’s warning her about something. telling her to make the right choice, as though it’ll be forced to do something if she doesn’t do this right.

pshhh. ridiculous.

“i hate you.”

and that’s the last thing she says before the pulsing thing expands and consumes her whole. it drags her away from the fountain and AJ and that clear night in May, and drops her in bed just as her alarm to wake up goes off.

Poppy sits up in bed, her hair a tussled mess, and watches as her phone buzzes and plays that horrible alarm tune on the nightstand.

strange, she thinks, reaching out to silence the damn thing. she checks the date, which is right, but the time is, decidedly, wrong. it was well after ten at night the last she checked, only now her phone is telling her it’s nine o’clock in the morning. she pads to the windows and peers outside, and sure enough, the sun is in the sky. it’s morning.

a dream then, right? it must’ve been. her loss and meltdown and run-in with AJ at the fountain, it was a dream and now she’s awake. good, she didn’t really lose to AJ-fucking-Hughes.

she showers and dresses and heads downstairs in search of something quick to eat. Veronica is in the kitchen, scrolling through her phone as she waits for her coffee to brew. she looks up and nods in greeting, and Poppy’s suddenly hit with a very strange sense of déjà vu.

“you ready for tonight?” Veronica asks, head still buried in her phone.

Poppy hums and then, unsure of why, she says, “i had the strangest dream.” the pulsing thing returns. a warning. a caution. a very much not-exclusive-to-dreams thing.

be careful, it sing-songs.

“oh yeah.” Veronica looks up, suddenly curious.

“yeah, it was…” she’s actually not quite sure of what to make of it. of what hidden insecurity it sheds light onto. maybe she shouldn’t say anything then. best to keep her cards close to her chest—they are competing against each other after all. “nothing. it’s nothing. never mind.”

Veronica shrugs and returns to her phone.

her day carries on as it usually would and before she knows it, she’s stepping onto the red carpet for the awards show. cameras flash and she smiles as she presses through, as though feeding off the attention.

and then the end of the night comes and— AJ wins. AJ wins. AJ-fucking-Hughes. Poppy’s shouting and cursing before she can stop herself. she’s peripherally aware of her parents calling out to her, begging her to stop, but that pulsing thing beneath her skin hums with energy. it tells her this is right. that this is how it needs to be. so she doesn’t stop.

she doesn’t stop until she’s out of breath and finally realises what she’s done. and then she slips outside and tries to disappear for a moment at the fountain.

she takes deep breaths, paces back-and-forth, and tries to figure out where it all went so wrong. and how— she’s back at the fountain. the same fountain she was at in her dream. how the fuck?

second time’s the charm, right?

and— what? second time?

yes, do try and keep up.

“fuck you,” she thinks, she says, speaking aloud into the world.

“you say the sweetest things to me,” a voice, it’s AJ’s voice.

Poppy spins around, absolutely fuming, and with déjà vu sitting heavy in her mind. this is just like her dream. how the fuck can this be just like her dream?

the pulsing amps up, thrumming along her veins. this is it, it says, excited and breath held in quiet anticipation.

it? what the fuck does that mean?

there’s a moment where it looks like AJ is about to extend an olive branch. where she offers one of those small and hesitant smiles that asks for a do-over. but Poppy’s learnt her lesson. she knows that branches almost always have thorns. so instead of accepting AJ’s hand, she slaps it away and says something cruel. something prickly and sharp that slices at skin and won’t ever really heal.

“i hate you,” she spits, just like in her goddamn dream.

the pulsing thing doesn’t like that. it tells her no, you’ve done it wrong again, and then rips her away and throws her back into bed as her alarm to wake up goes off.

she sits up in bed and is more pissed than anything else. her alarm is still ringing and vibrating like everything’s okay—everything is not okay. because she’s in her bed again and her alarm is vibrating and it’s somehow morning again.

she gets out of bed and marches downstairs, more determined than ever to finally get some answers.

she finds Veronica in the kitchen, just like in her dreams that didn’t at all feel like dreams.

“you ready for—”

“what the fuck is happening right now?”

Veronica blinks. takes a second to properly wake up. “uh, what?”

“this.” she gestures widely to everything and that little pulsing thing warns her again. “what the fuck is this? what is happening?”

“are you high?”

“what? no, i’m not high. i just want an answer. why have i already lived through this morning twice?”

and she never does get an answer because the pulsing thing yanks her back and drops her bed just as her alarm is going off. again.

Poppy screams into her pillow and the pulsing thing says sorry, but you broke a rule, i had to pull you back.

and suddenly Poppy’s demanding answers from this stupid pulsing thing, but it remains silent.

so she pulls herself out of bed and tries again.

attempt number four goes wrong around noon, and attempts five through nine are all spectacular disasters because Poppy decides that she just does not give a fuck.

if some cruel force of the universe wants to lock her in this never ending purgatory, then so be it. she’s done enough shitty things in life and probably deserves it.

attempt number ten goes better. it still goes wrong because she got into a fight with AJ and apparently that’s not how it’s supposed to go, but she overhears a conversation between Chloe and Veronica and realises just how horrible she’s been to them.

she stays in bed for the entirety of attempt number eleven.

the pulsing thing begs her to get up, says please, i only want to help. but Poppy doesn’t buy it. who would want to help her?

the pulsing thing goes quiet and gently pulls her back until it’s 9 o’clock in the morning and her alarm is going off again.

c’mon, one more time. please? the pulsing thing asks as soon as attempt number twelve starts.

Poppy sighs but gets out of bed anyway. she can do this one more time. she finds Veronica in the kitchen just like the last eleven times and feels strangely compelled to say something new.

“i wasn’t a very good friend, was i?”

Veronica looks up from her phone, wary but curious.

the pulsing thing says no, not yet. but Poppy ignores it and pushes on. and as soon as she gets to the end of her apology, the pulsing thing pulls her away and drops her back in bed just as the alarm is going off.

not yet, it says.

“then when?” Poppy shouts at the top of her lungs. “when do you want me to start being better?”

she gets no response from the pulsing thing, but Chloe does knock on her door and ask if everything’s okay. she snaps at Chloe, tells her to go away, even though she knows she shouldn’t and wishes she didn’t.

she decides then that she’s done playing this stupid game.

she shaves her head during one version of the day and streaks across campus in another version because fuck it, no one will remember.

it’s during attempt twenty-one that she accidentally bumps into AJ on some quiet part of campus. they sit together and talk and the pulsing thing tells her to be careful.

“can i ask you a question?” AJ says.

“sure.”

“did i ever mean anything to you?”

“yes—”

the pulsing thing tells her to stop.

“—i think i was scared because i knew i could lo—”

the pulsing thing rips her away.

Poppy can feel it in her bones that this is it. attempt twenty-two will be the one to break this cycle.

she plays through the day as she usually would, making only small changes that she knows are the right thing to do. then comes time for the award show and it’s just before the winner is announced that the pulsing asks if she knows what has to be done.

yes, she does know.

AJ wins and Poppy’s strangely okay with that, but the pulsing thing tells her now, go, you have to do it. so she does. she shouts and she curses and is vaguely aware of her parents begging for her to stop.

she runs off outside and finds herself at the fountain again.

she doesn’t have to wait long until AJ sits down beside her and Poppy looks up at her and smiles, waiting for AJ to accept the olive branch she’s extending.

“i’m glad you won,” Poppy breathes, almost like a sigh of relief.

and she feels something in the air shift then. it’s small, barely noticeable. but she knows that something is different in the way that sometimes you just know something even if knowing it has no rhyme or reason.

“really?”

Poppy hums. “you deserve it.”

the pulsing thing says i’m proud of you.

and Poppy wonders if she’ll be okay without the constant nagging, because this is the furthest she’s ever made it before and she has no idea what comes next.

that’s the point.

what if i screw up.

then you fix it.

what if i can’t.

you can.

“you alright?” AJ asks, breaking Poppy’s trance. “you just kinda zoned out for a sec.”

Poppy smiles and finds AJ’s hand with her own. “i’ve never been better.”

time is linear, Poppy firmly believes. like dominoes in a line, stacked neatly in formation, and all tumbling one right after another when nudged.

time does not repeat. it does not offer do-overs. except maybe when it does. which might be complete bullshit, Poppy thinks. but years—decades even—after that day she lived through twenty-two times, she’ll listen as AJ recites some corny pickup line in their kitchen.

“i can’t believe i married you,” Poppy will say with a smile.

“tragic, isn’t it?”

“couldn’t agree more.”

“good.”

and then AJ will swoop in and plant a kiss on Poppy’s lips. and it will be in moments like those that the pulsing thing will hum and ask aren’t you glad you finally listened to me?

and yeah, maybe she is.

#my writing #poppy x mc #poppy min-sinclair #queen b #playchoices #a funky little story about love and time travel #does that even make sense?#i sure hope it does

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wannabe-fic-writer · 3 years

Text

Carol Danvers x GN!Reader : Compensation

Summary: Money isn’t the only form of payment.

Genre: Smut. It’s filth truly, I’ve never written anything like this, feel free to scroll away!

Warning: 18+ dom!carol\switch!reader, oral, unprotected sex, light choking, bit of a breeding kink, cockwarming

Word Count: 1,921

* * * * * *

An immediate sigh falls from your lips when you step into your apartment. Classic Rock blasts through the unit accompanied by the sounds of a video game.

You were so ready to just relax after work, maybe read a book while listening to Lo-fi, eventually cook dinner.

But it appears your houseguest is back tonight.

“Carol.” You greet the woman with nod, dropping your bag on the ground by the entrance way.

She smiles over at you brightly,“ Y/N!” She shouts over the music as opposed to turning it down.“ Figured you’d be pretty late, there’s pizza in the oven.”

Narrowed eyes stare back at her as you cross the living room to the radio and deliberately turn the music down slowly.“ This is an apartment complex Carol, I’m gonna get a noise violation if you keep blasting music all night.”

“Oh screw them.”

“You say that until I lose this place and then where would you bring your trysts and live rent free.” You tease as you head into the kitchen.

Carol stands and walks to the island connecting the kitchen and living room. With a mocking pout she tilts her head at you and says,“ you know you love having me around.”

“Do I?” Your eyebrows raise, both of you chuckling softly.“ Look I don’t mind having you here and I’m happy to house you but it’s been months Care, my bill’s gone up cause I’m using twice as much elec and water. I was able to cover it before but-”

An eyebrow quirks,“ bold of you to assume I have the income to pay rent.”

She definitely has the income. You’ve seen the paystubs she gets from the Avengers. She could pay your rent for the next eight months off one check and still have plenty left.

The eyeroll you give her is in place of the comment on her funds.“ Well geez Carol, I can’t cover this on my own.” You mildly gesture to the place around you.

It’s quiet for a moment, before she stands, and rounds the corner into the kitchen. She takes careful yet precise steps forward.

“Well I may not be able to pay your landlord, but I can most certainly repay you for letting me stay here.” Her tone drips suggestion and your eyes snap up to hers.

Brown eyes stare back at you in a way you had never seen them before and it takes everything you have not to swallow nervously.

You can’t lie and say your friend isn’t absolutely gorgeous. Her suggesting that she repay you this way has thoughts flicking through your mind that had previously been confined to dreams you kept to yourself. Heat rushes to your cheeks and you look like a deer in headlights.

“W- what’d you mean?” Mentally you curse yourself for stuttering.

Carol, who had been joking, takes pleasure in your flustered state. It gives away your thoughts and she’s now curious to see if you’d actually go through with this.

Taking yet another few steps forward, she halts in front of you, her hand brushing your arm before she rests it on the counter at your side.“ You know exactly what I mean Y/nn,” the fingers of her other hand teasingly trail over your belt,“ you aren’t a little curious as to how I make all those girls scream.”

She watches as you swallow, your throat bobbing with the action, and she smirks.

“Carol I, whatever your thinking probably isn’t a good idea.”

“What I’m thinking? From the looks of it you can’t seem to take your mind off it either.” She pointedly glances down and you already know she’s eyeing your hardened member.

You’d felt it begin to strain against your compression shorts the instant her hand brushed your arm.

When you don’t give any kind of denial, she hooks her finger into your pants, and walks you back toward your bedroom.

Truthfully you’re far from opposed to having sex with Carol. But she’s your friend and quite frankly you never thought something like this would actually happen.

Her back hits your door and she uses her free hand to open it, pulling you in. Just as the door closes her lips crash onto yours. You both keep moving until the backs of your knees hit the bed and she’s more than happy to push you back.

Your body bounces on impact and Carol’s smile turns dangerously seductive. If your heart hadn’t been pounding before it certainly is now.

“Take your clothes off for me baby.” There’s no room for arguing in her tone so you do as she asks.

Keeping your eyes on her, you remove your clothes. Each article hits the floor with inaudibly and both of you wait with bated breath, Carol’s eyes taking in every inch of your body.

Why had she not seen you like this before? You look as if you’d been sculpted by the gods.

Quickly her hands reach out to stop yours,“ I’ll handle that part.” In a way that has you damn near drooling, she eases to her knees, and pulls your briefs down to the floor.

As you watch her, she watches the way your member springs free and stands at attention. Her jaw drops(probably the first time you’d ever seen her shocked), brown eyes staring at you.

She doesn’t even own straps as big as you are, and that’s saying something. Your length and girth had her questioning if she’d be able to handle this, but she was nothing if not curious.

The woman’s finger runs across your tip, the small action making you moan, mainly in anticipation.“ Carol please,” you sigh.

“For the record,” she swipes away the precum that spilled from you, allowing that to slick her hand as she started to pump you,“ I’m going to be taking control, understand?”

Momentarily frozen in pleasure, you fail to reply, which makes her stop, her hand leaving you completely and the air much colder than her palm hand been.

“Do you understand?” She asks again with a challenging raised brow.

It wasn’t often that you aren’t in control, in fact you’re usually the main one giving in your relationships and sexual escapades. You didn’t mind relinquishing control, at least this once.“ I understand.”

That’s all she needs to hear. In an instant her lips are wrapped around you. When she adds her tongue into the ministrations of her sucking you completely understand what made her girls scream.

How and why the appendage seems to be so long, you don’t understand, but it’s driving you mad. Your hand raise and you push a few fallen strands of hair back from her face, nearly falling apart at the sight of her mouth around you.

“Fuck Carol, if you keep this up I’m not gonna last long.” You sigh as you fall back on the bed.

“Can’t have that just yet now can we.”

Your chest heaves as you breathe deeply. Carol’s eyes linger on your naked form hungrily. Mustering the little self-control she has left, she strips, taking pride in feeling your eyes on her.

She’s stunning in every way. God those curves, those legs. The second she’s within reach, crawling up your body, your hands are on her. Every inch of skin is smooth, angel soft being the best description.

The blonde rests on your lap and you moan at the feeling over her wetness on your member. You hadn’t touched her yet and she’s this aroused?

Hesitantly, you move your hands to rest on her thighs, thumbs smoothing over the skin there.“ This okay?”

Carol smirks at you, loving that you asked, like a proper bottom she thought.“ It is.”

You grip her thighs in your hold as she rises and grabs you. Teasingly she rubs your tip through her folds and watches you as she sinks down.

Inch by inch she feels herself conforming to your size. The stretch stinging in the slightest but majority pleasurable.

It takes her a moment to adjust to you. Once she does, she rises and falls again. She pulls her bottom lip between her teeth and you watch yourself disappear inside of her over and over again.

“Goddamn.” You throw your head back.

Carol clicks her tongue against her teeth when she feels you plant your foot into the bed. Both of you are well aware that you were about to thrust up into her.

Her hands trail up your body, squeezing your breasts, and then one moving up to your neck. Palm resting over your throat, she gently squeezes the sides of your neck, and you moan.

“Who’s in control?” She leans down to whisper against the shell of your ear.

The choking puts you in a bit of a daze. It’s a sensation you didn’t realize you’d ever enjoy. There’s a possibility it feels so good because it’s Carol doing it but you can’t know for sure.

“You.” It’s a breathy reply but it’s a reply and Carol takes it with pride.

Sitting up, she keeps her hand around your throat, and speeds up the movement of her hips. Her walls flutter around you and the familiar tightening in your stomach is a warning.

“Carol I- fuck, I’m close.” You grip the wrist of the hand around your neck.“ You gotta move or I’m gonna-”

Blonde hairs tick the side of your face as she leans down and kisses your neck where her hand had been,“ I want you to.”

A flustered frown pulls at your brows,“ are you sure?”

“Fill me up.” She smirks and her hips stutter as she lets go.

Despite that she continues to ride you slowly bringing you over the edge right after her. And she moans at the feeling of your seed shooting into her.

Silence settles, minus your labored breaths, as you both come down.

Tiredly you reach up to run your fingers through her slightly damp hair. Her body seemingly shines from the thin layer of sweat she’d produced with all her hard work.

When she rises up a shiver runs over her body at the now cooling atmosphere and you sit up as well. It appears she has no intention of moving off of you, so you wrap your arms around her waist and stand.

A small laugh falls from her lips when your member twitches inside her and she wiggles just a little to feel it again.

“Carol.” You groan, pulling the covers back.

“I’d say I’m sorry but I’m not.” She laughs again.

Narrowing your eyes at her, you drop her on to the bed, leaving her empty once again and she glares at you instantly. Your cockiness however vanishes when she takes a hold of your sensitive member.

“Sorry, I’m sorry.” You breathe with raised eyebrows. Moving quickly, you lay down, letting her slide you back inside her.

She sighs and cuddles back into you, surprisingly soft after her sexual dominance. Admittedly you’d never seen her like this, as her friend you could honestly say she’s a bit of a douche at times, so this is new to you.

Before the quiet settles entirely and you fall asleep she asks,“ was that payment enough?”

“I would say yes but your behind a few months.” It’s a risky statement on your part, especially knowing that Carol doesn’t sleep with the same person twice.

“Well I guess I better catch up on that.” She retorts, rotating her hips in a way that has your member awakening again.

#carol danvers #carol danvers x reader #captain marvel #captain marvel x reader #mcu #mcu x reader #marvel #marvel x reader #reader insert #request

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homeformyheart · 3 years

Note

Hi I already love Nora with my entire heart and am requesting from dialogue prompts:

#19 “I think I’m in love with you, and that scares the crap out of me”

- ❤️ PD

from these dialogue prompts (always accepting)

ahhh thank you PD for indulging me <3

author’s note: thank you so much @wayhavenots for requesting this and for indulging my Nick x Nora headcanons. More of the backstory and context will be written up in a separate fic, so this fic takes place about six months of these two agreeing to give each other a real chance. I hope you all enjoy! *fyi, Nora is Nick’s LI in all of my MB universes, and Nick’s features will vary based on that, so feel free to self-insert or use one of my Nicks’ below :)

copyright: all characters, except the oc and oc button, are owned by jo o’connor @mindblindbard. series/pairing: mind blind – nick wiseman x f!oc (nora mcconnell) rating/warnings: 14+; swearing, minor angst, fluff based on/prompt: dialogue prompts // 19. “I think I’m in love with you, and that scares the crap out of me.” (in bold) word count: 1.7k summary: six months into their relationship, nora freaks out when she finds out nick is falling in love with her.

permission

nick’s hand brushed nora’s as they walked side-by-side toward his house. he held his fingers near hers and looked at her imploringly, making sure that she knew he was giving her permission while giving her the space to set boundaries.

nora smiled and closed the gap between their hands, intertwining her fingers with his and inching closer. the instant their hands were flush, a simmering warmth bloomed from their joined fingers up her arm and passed through her chest.

happiness. joy. peace.

even below the surface.

she was getting better at recognizing and reading the emotions of others without skin contact. eight months working for unity gave her the opportunity to hone her skills and she could read surface-level emotions from up to two feet away and read deeper, repressed emotions with prolonged touching. she was reluctant at first, but rosy and adsila had demanded insisted that she be trained properly lest it distract her on the job.

throwing open the floodgates to all the emotions around her had been excruciatingly overwhelming. nick had ended up being a supportive presence throughout it all, helping her learn how to narrow her focus and practice differentiating between her emotions and his. they set boundaries, but he offered to be a lifeboat whenever she felt like she was drowning.

it still took her a long time to be convinced that he wanted something serious with her – that his playboy days were over.

he yanked her gently out of her reverie by pulling her close, his other hand coming up to her waist to hold her against him.

“what are you doing?” she asked, a laugh escaping her as she brought a hand to his chest and looked up at him.

“i’m just happy,” he said, his eyes sparkling with sincerity. “permission to kiss you?”

she nodded and nick leaned in to capture her lips with his.

nora didn’t think she’d ever get tired of the way nick kissed. each time was unique – sometimes soft and featherlight that made her want to chase, and other times so deep and consuming that she wanted to drown.

and these were perfectly in-between. his soft lips pressed lightly against hers in rapid succession, the pressure deepening incrementally once she matched his tempo in return. she started to smile into the kiss as she felt his hand tighten at her waist.

after a few moments, nick pulled back slightly to rest his forehead against hers. she could feel his emotions pulsing under her hands, a warm leggero of affection, happiness, and lo—no. not that.

anything but that.

panic started rising in her throat and she clenched her fingers where they rested on his chest, scrunching the fabric of his shirt. she needed to stop him from saying it anytime soon. it shouldn’t come as a surprise, but she had gotten comfortable with the idea that he’d never fall in love with her.

love came in a package deal with hurt and she refused to subscribe.

she didn’t need her powers to recognize that she was starting to spiral inwardly. but then she noticed that nick hadn’t moved or said anything.

maybe she was in the clear. she started to let out the breath she was holding, relief beginning to settle into her lungs.

“i think i’m in love with you, and that scares the crap out of me,” nick said quietly.

her body froze, the breath in her lungs trapping the relief that had started to seep in before, holding it hostage against her ribcage. she didn’t know how to process what he just said so she pulled her head back to look at him.

nora blinked rapidly to keep the tears in her eyes at bay. “i can’t—i mean, we can’t—”

“hey, hey, hey, it’s okay,” nick murmured, trying to pull her back into his arms. “i’m not expecting you to say you feel the same.”

she took a deep breath and forced herself to look up at him, pushing his arms away from her. the goosebumps on her arms punctuated how much she already missed his warmth. his eyes swirled with hurt, and she could feel his confusion.

“no, you don’t understand, nick. you can’t fall in love with me. i’m not—” she bit her lip. “i’m not someone who can love you the way you deserve. i’m sorry.”

nora turned and walked away as briskly as she could, wiping away the stray tears that slipped down her face. she headed toward the nearest metro station, digging around in her purse for her card. her fingers brushed against the off-brand kirby trinket hanging off her keychain and she pulled it out to look at it.

the features on the trinket did not look anything like the famous video game character. its eyes were too far apart, and its smile was definitely creepy. but nick found it hilarious and insisted on pretending it was kirby, attaching it to her keychain and checking for weeks afterward to make sure she kept it.

it was from one of their first dates and possibly, her favorite – he absolutely surprised her by not taking her to some fancy restaurant. and when she tried to call him out for the lack of originality in a navy pier date (since anyone who’s grown up in and lived in chicago for some time has been to navy pier at least a half dozen times), he simply responded that he wanted to show her more of who he was outside of being a ment and ucrt’s leader.

it was the most fun she’d had in a long time – and seeing nick genuinely enjoy himself brought out a side to her that she had long forgotten about. the side of her that wanted to let loose and be child-like for once. it helped that his ment abilities were useless against rigged carnival games – the great equalizer, she had teased him at the time as he tried (and failed) to win her a big prize.

off-brand kirby was the consolation prize and a perfect reminder of that night.

nick made her want to bring down her carefully and rigidly designed walls that she clung to after her dad abandoned her family. she had grown too comfortable behind the walls – they protected her time and again from getting hurt. after all, if she didn’t let anyone in, then they couldn’t leave her behind.

but she didn’t consider the fact that nick willingly let her in, and she may have just done more damage to him than he deserved by leaving things the way she did.

she clutched the keychain in her hand and walked right back to his house. she knew that he’d see her coming, but she still hoped that he’d answer the door. she steeled her nerves and knocked with three, quick raps on the door, nearly tapping nick’s chest as the door swung open after her third knock.

“what do you want?” nora cringed at the harsh tone of nick’s voice.

“you don’t have to forgive me. but you deserve an explanation,” she replied, fiddling with the keychain.

nick just stared at her for what felt like minutes, eyes darting to the keychain in her hands and back up to her face. nora wondered if she should just walk away. maybe it was too late to explain. after a few awkward moments, he turned and walked back toward the living room, leaving the door open.

nora took a deep breath and followed him, closing the door behind her and joining him on the opposite end of the couch.

“please know that the way i reacted didn’t have anything to do with you. i have a lot of baggage and you deserve to be with someone who doesn’t scare you. someone who is worth it in the end.”

“you don’t scare me, nora,” nick said quietly.

“but you said being in love with me scares you?”

“i’ve never been in love before. and i’m scared you’ll decide one day you need someone more mature or interesting or—” he took a deep breath. “i’m just so goddamn happy with you that i don’t want to lose that.”

the distance between them felt stifling. nora couldn’t read him beyond surface-level from this distance but it didn’t matter, the hurt and longing in his eyes said everything. she wanted to reach out to him so badly that her chest ached. but his arms remained folded over his chest, a visible signal that she needed to stay where she was.

he wasn’t giving her permission to come closer.

tears welled in nora’s eyes. “i’m terrified of losing you, nick. you run headfirst into dangerous situations and have this—this self-sacrificing nature that might get you killed one day. and then you’d be another person who’s left me behind.”

her voice dropped to a whisper as she stood up to leave. “i can’t go through that again. i’m sorry.”

nick finally looked up and made eye contact with her as he stood from the couch. “i won’t leave you and i’ll be more careful, i promise. i don’t want to lose you.”

he held out his arms toward her, eyes vulnerable and open. “permission to fall in love with you, nori?”

she almost chuckled at the nickname, reminiscent of a date night where they dissolved into giggles while attempting to make sushi. her heart leapt toward him before her body could react, but she followed the instinct and moved into his arms. she nodded against his forehead resting on hers, his arms wrapping around her lower back.

“only if you give me permission too, nicky,” she said softly, daring herself to look into his eyes.

she can tell he’s trying hard to be serious and not break out into an ear-to-ear grin, but a smile escaped him anyway. “yes, please.”

from these dialogue prompts (always accepting)

* * * * * taglist: @pearlsandsteel; @anotherbeingsworld; @sosolenoo; @mevnraels; @wayhavenots; (if you don’t want to be tagged for nick x oc, let me know!)

#my writing #mind blind #nick wiseman #nick wiseman x oc #nick x nora #oc: nora mcconnell #my prompt fill #mb prompt fills #nick wiseman x nora mcconnell #not twc #not choices #wayhavenots #mb moodboard #my moodboard #nick x oc

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eightysixed · 3 years

Text

happier than ever

You call me again, drunk in your Benz Drivin' home under the influence You scared me to death, but I'm wastin' my breath 'Cause you only listen to your fuckin' friends I don't relate to you I don't relate to you, no 'Cause I'd never treat me this shitty You made me hate this city

words: 3.2k plot: emma and tomo’s relationship, in a nutshell. trigger warnings: abuse, assault, drugs, cheating, violence, blood, suicidal ideation, nsfw

Five years is a lifetime when you’ve just begun your twenties. It’s half a decade of years so formative and important that you don’t really realize their importance until they have flown past.

Emma spent those years with Tomo.

[ SEPTEMBER 2014 ]

A twenty-one year old goes to an Outkast concert. She gets propositioned by a guy. Rough, pushy, handsy, it’s enough to make her feel suffocated, plan paths of escape or desperately look for a face in the crowd that could intervene. Then he comes in with his buddies and they all but rescue her. How ironic Emma thinks, years later. What a Disney-ified, damsel in distress moment to have and to meet by.

They spend the rest of the concert together, follow it up with an after hours at Los Coyotes, wolfing down soft shells in between food-spitting laughter. Emma, Tomo, and his two buddies. The energy is infectious, and she doesn’t want to say goodbye at the end of the night. It’s a feeling she has never felt before; those sparks in his eyes that are in hers too, the way he grounds and floors her. They exchange numbers and Emma’s face lights up as she’s getting off her Muni owl: it’s a text from him.

It doesn’t take long for his contact name to acquire an Emoji heart next to it, the girl who ridiculed these kinds of things in high school now finding herself enamoured, head-over-heels, and not caring for the criticisms of formerly cynical self.

[ OCTOBER ] A month later and she’s packed up and moved into his place, about as happy as she has ever been of late; everything in life falls into place with him, just makes sense.

[ NOVEMBER ] He gets エマ tattooed on his collarbone; her name in katakana. She gets 23, his lucky number.

They spend thanksgiving with her mom in Cupertino. Frankie hasn’t seen Emma this animated again in a long time, composes a poem about in her head as the green beans and pumpkin pie are passed around. Later of course, she pulls out the baby photos, much to Emma’s embarrassment and Tomo’s delight. “You were such a fat baby, Jesus,” Tomo laughs. “She looks like she ate baby Jesus,” her mother quips.

When her mom falls asleep, they sneak out and climb up Emma’s childhood treehouse armed with blankets. They gaze at a sliver of night sky through a gap in the roof as Emma tells him her childhood dreams of flying to space and inventing computers that could contact extraterrestrial life. They kiss, they make love, Emma ponders her stance on marriage being outdated and for chumps and losers next to a snoring Tomo.

[ FEBRUARY 2015 ] Their first Valentine’s day together they drop acid at Pier 39. An irate parent yells at them for making out on the merry-go-round in view of children; have they no shame.

She makes new friends, dozens, someone always at their place as Tomo plays them new tracks, smoke weed together, and watch the oil projector light show make shapes on the ceiling. They talk about the future, fame, and world domination.

They don’t discuss babies because neither of them care for that sort of shit — but they do talk about moving into a bigger place together, maybe getting a dog or two — the breed is subject of many arguments.

[ MARCH ] In peak puppy fever, Emma adopts a two year old rescue bulldog named Tito. It’s the first, tiny sign of a crack in their relationship, of dissent — she thinks she sees Tomo glare at the precious pup when he thinks she isn’t looking. But maybe she imagined it. He does shed and slobber uncontrollably after all, and her boyfriend happens to be a clean freak.

[ JULY ] That summer, Emma braves a plane once more to see Tomo play in Atlanta. His set is off the walls and for the first time, she is amazed to see just how many fans he has, how far this boyfriend of hers has come from making tracks in his living room. It’s just too bad she is fast asleep when he tiptoes out of their hotel room to meet one of said fans for a back-alley blowjob.

They roadtrip across the South to play some more venues and the pattern repeats itself in Louisiana, Texas, New Mexico. She wakes up in a cold sweat one night in Vegas, confused as to why he’s gone. “Out getting food. Got hungry.” The message hits her in a weird place, but she is tired, sleepy, and in a haze; Emma accepts, does not question. He even returns with some Taco Bell for her.

Timeskip — 3 years:

[ APRIL 2018 ]

Emma is on her hands and knees in a bathroom, vomit dripping off the toilet rim. She can’t remember how or why she got here, but she’s here. Everything seems to be swimming backwards. Eventually she is able to collect herself off the floor, splash water against her face and wall-to-wall stagger back out of the bathroom. It didn’t work, she’s purged the worst of it but still feeling funny. “Oh, Emma, there you are.” A man’s hands wrap around her. He says he’s friends with Tomo. Says he’ll take her to him. Fade to black.

Waking up with strange bruises should not become a norm, but it does. Emma dismisses it, goes to work, does her best.

Things with Tomo are a violent rollercoaster; some days are great, some days nondescript; and some days downright nightmarish. They fight, throw shit, break shit, yell at each other. Things almost border on the unacceptable as words turn into threats, threats turn to action. A hand around the throat; a body pinned to the wall — her body, of course. His weed grinder he threw that hit her in the head which he swore he’d meant to only toss at the wall. It never crosses a line into the unacceptable, though. That’s what Emma tells herself. He might push her down on the bed, sure, but a bed was soft. He might squeeze her throat in the heat of an argument, but never so much that she’s passing out. He doesn’t hit, kick, or punch her. That was what abusers did, not him.

She tells herself he can’t help it, his mother used to punish him and his father didn’t love him and now he lashes out the only way he knows how, on the only person he can. He didn’t grown up in as loving a home like she did. He had his reasons. It was okay. They were okay. And the makeup sex afterwards? The best ever.

[ MAY 2018 ] A month later and Emma is walking in on some girl riding Tomo’s dick like the world was ending, right there on their couch. On their goddamn couch they picked out together, hauled up the stairs with the delivery men. Somehow, the worst part about it all, Emma’s fucked up brain tells her, is that Tito is there to witness it. Her innocent, furry son, witnessing his ‘dad’ for all intents and purposes, cheating on his mom. A ridiculously thought but one she has nonetheless as she’s driving away, Tito next to her in the passenger seat. She goes to sleep at a friend’s and sobs the entire night.

Despite herself, she doesn’t break up with him; but the rift is a mile wide and constantly palpable. Tomo becomes relentlessly apologetic. Not only does he beg forgiveness, he does it live on-air at a radio station, on social media, Emma bombarded by strangers she doesn’t know writing her to take him back. Then he goes and uses her personal kryptonite pulls a Lloyd Dobler outside her work with a Cocorosie song she was absolutely weak for. She hates making a public scene but the sentimental part of her is melting at the gesture, the boombox, all of it. Emma stays. He’d been a shitbag, but he was her shitbag, with all his lovable and terrible qualities wrapped into one person, and she just had to take the shit with the good. Because there was no one else she’d rather be with, ripping side-stitches from too much laughter at four in the morning, tears in her eyes for a good reason this time, from one of his horrifying jokes.

He was hers and she was his, that’s just how it was to be. Well, as much as she could call him hers when he seemed to be everybody else’s in the process.

Emma does ridiculous, degrading, uncomfortable things in the name of love, and yet in the end she can’t hold on to the love she had for him in the beginning. Way back when they were going up on that ferris wheel at the pier and he looked at her like he had nothing but love in this world, for her. That was what hurt the most, because now the ferris wheel only went down.

There are threesomes, fivesomes, sixsomes, so many bodies in between hers and the one she loves, all in the name of exciting him, holding onto him, trying to be something for him that measured up to Enough. But none of it is enough. None of it makes him happy, nor did it make her happy. She gives him an inch and he takes a mile and then demands more, smiling with blood in his mouth. She breaks down and becomes something she doesn’t recognize in the mirror. Whether it was an act of revenge or desperation, or finally wanting to give him a taste of his own medicine, Emma sleeps with Corey, one of his best friends. She takes pictures, sends them to him “by accident”. She hates herself through it all, every moment of it, mostly for what he made her into. And yet, underneath all the layers of attempts at hurting him she was really just crawling on all fours, begging him to love her again, need her and want he the way he did in the beginning. Craving to get that first hit back, the one she had been on a residue high off of for four years, the one that now tasted metallic and rancid in her throat.

The worst part? Tomo doesn’t care. He texts her back, telling her to have fun, to send more pictures. She’s never felt this hollow, this empty, this non-entity of a being. The day of her high school graduation flashes in her mind, her dad telling her to never lose her identity, the core of what made her, her. Emma took that core and probably threw it into the Pacific. Somewher between Japan and California, it lies at the bottom of the ocean.

[ APRIL 2019 ]

Turns out, Emma could draw a line, and that line was becoming accessory to a drug deal. She knew Tomo sold on the side to make up for all the money going into the records, but it had always been a few pills here and there, nothing big. But this? Fentanyl, Xanax, bricks of coke and hash? It was a lot. It was too much.

He sells the drugs and her to go with it, and that’s the end right there. The package she delivers to the apartment he asks her to deliver it to turns into a hostage situation, and she leaves hours later, bruises and caked blood on her. She can’t go home, doesn’t want to. She wants to jump off the bridge she’s crossing from Oakland back to the city. Any bridge, any of them would do. She understands why people jump from the Golden Gate now, or maybe always had. She was there now, climbing the railings, she was ready. She wanted that plunge so badly, would be sad to leave one parent, but good to be reunited with the other. Maybe there she’d be happy, maybe there she’d find peace.

She calls Ben that night. She’s dry eyed and unemotional, but as soon as she gets the right words, verbalizes her situation, she’s sobbing again. Tomo is out of the city, across the country in Philly on tour. Now was the time, if there was any time for it. She’s not even done with the call when Ben is getting in his car to drive to her. It’s 6 hours from Ojai to San Francisco; he tells her he’ll be there in five. She never deserved a friend like him and never would, Emma thinks as she packs, hastily because somehow Tomo walking through the front door as a ‘surprise’ wouldn’t be out of the question. In the end, she can’t pack everything, has to leave so much behind, her records, books, knickknacks. Five years in this apartment and she’s leaving all of it behind, making a getaway in the middle of the night like some kind of burglar.

By three in the morning he’s here, and they get to packing her suitcases in the car, stacking them as best as they fit in his trunk and backseat, all of Tito’s things and then Tito on a bed in the seat in the back. Emma is in busy mode, stacking and packing everything as fast she can, still somewhere in the back of her mind thinking Tomo would appear at the last minute, and how with Ben here, things could get ugly. She doesn’t want them to get ugly. She loved him far too much to see him have to deal with Tomo, the only person in that specific firing line should be her and no one else.

They drive off. She only feels herself unclench an hour out of Daly City, somewhere in between the Bay and Southern California, where she can exhale. She’s still looking behind them constantly, wondering if every passing car could somehow be him. The saddest, most desperate part of all this that a part of her wants him to have followed. One last ditch attempt to get her back. An all out attempt, one where he would get on both knees and apologize, swear to never be this way again and follow through with it, because he was her person, he was her only person, there was nobody else in this world for her but him, but what do you do when you had to run from your person in the dead of night?

She pulls her raincoat tighter when they stop to get gas, a cold and windy middle of nowhere gas station. She’s not sure how she ends up embracing him, but they’re in it, and feeling someone’s arms around her, somebody that actually cares, who’d never hurt her, who was family, was her mom and his sister and everybody she loved rolled into one, feels like a reprieve. She feels like dirt for making him do this, making him worry, Emma was a piece of shit for that.

She says as much. He tells her to shut up, that she’s nothing like that and this was nothing that he wouldn’t have done for her on any night, any time at all. And maybe that, that was the night she fell in love with him a little bit, or realized she had always been, all along, but God likes to play Lucifer’s games with the little lives he watches over, and it wasn’t made to be, too late anyway since she’d left her heart in somebody else’s hands where it would stay. And he doesn’t need a mess like her anyway, just thinking of the name Catarina was enough. It had been five years but she still remembered the day like yesterday. How low he had been back then. How they would get high together and feel miserable together because at least they had that. They had Weetzie too, but she hadn’t experienced loss like they had, she sympathized but she’d never know what this particular slice of hell was like. But Ben and Emma knew. She knew it in that part of her ribs that met his, and she did not know what she would do if she didn’t have that, have Ben Abrams in her life.

[ MARCH 2021 ]

Fast forward two years, and the ex is in town. Here, in Los Angeles. That very ex you worked so hard to forget, to heal from, to act like he wasn’t there. And yet, reminders of him were constantly there, everywhere. She doesn’t tell her friends, doesn’t tell anybody he’s in town, just balks when his so called best friend turns up in her neighborhood. She nearly grabs Tito and runs the other way, but it had been too late for that and they have a forced, awkward catch-up. He’s oblivious to anything happening, had barely known about her and Tomo breaking up. Figures, Emma thought, that he would act like nothing happened at all.

He’s in town, and every day she goes to work dreading something happening. She thinks she sees him outside the tattoo parlor’s window, but it’s someone else entirely. She’s losing it again, losing sleep, falling prey to her nightmares. Has a boyfriend now but even that doesn’t help, if anything, he’s a guilty reminder of just how little progress she had made, because she couldn’t devote the time and attention somebody like that needed in her life. Not when all she could think about was him.

The worst part is that once he’s long gone again, back up north, she’s feeling that hollow feeling again. Feeling upset that he didn’t seek her out, didn’t come see her. Even though she knew what an unmitigated disaster that would’ve been, the horrible, rotten part of her wanted it. Of course it wanted it. Two years and her skin still itched for him like an addict longing to be in the throes of fullblown relapse. But he didn’t track her down, call, or text, and that was that. Her only run-in with him involves a party flyer papered on a wall, his name in big stylized letters as the headlining DJ at the club. She stares at that flyer for a little too long, it burns itself in her eye like she’d looked at the sun for too long. And then she does the worst thing she could probably do, go on instagram. Only to find he has a new girlfriend. A brunette with tattoos who looked fun and flirty and everything she had been all those years ago.

That was the last tip of the scale. She reactivates her Tinder, finds some half okay looking guy, makes plans to meet him that night. It’s terrifying, so terrifying going through with, but she gets sufficiently drunk, then high on top of that, and goes through with it. Thinking of another boy’s name the entire time, his face, his body, hands and all the rest. Twelve hours later she’s leaving his apartment, no longer the nun of two years she’d become and feeling shitty about that on top of everything else. It was probably time to go see Karen again she thinks, smoking a cigarette under the sun that melts her while waiting for her Uber home. Thanks friends, thanks family, I’ve made terrific process with all your help and am now back to square one. Thanks for everything.

Maybe in a decade’s time.

Maybe she’d be over it by then.

#billie eilish and her new album sponsored this para #literally billie wrote this song for emma i die #did i have his s.para tucked away for 2 whole years because i was too lazy to finish it? yup #emma #self para #self para: emma #npc: tomo slater

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notjanine · 3 years

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2020 in books!

the only kind of new year’s resolution i made as a naive baby last january was to try to read 40 books for the year. (i read 37 in 2019, for context.) well, with all of my commuting time eliminated and an increased need for immersive escapism, i ended up surpassing that goal three times over lmao (thanks library ebooks!)

idk how to summarize my year in books in a way that makes sense but

(f) = fiction, (nf) = nonfiction, (p) = poetry.

books that rewired my fucking brain:

braiding sweetgrass by robin wall kimmerer (nf)- GOD?!?!?! good. dr. k is right. ostensibly a book about plants, but actually a book about shut up and go outside. consumerism and capitalism are doing their damnedest to fuck you up, but you can just choose to value different things. take care of yourself by taking care of your environment. etc etc.

wasp by richard jones (nf)- lissen. when i got this book, my wasp-phobia was so severe that i had to put it away face down on a high shelf because there are wasps on the cover and i couldn’t bear to RISK even GLIMPSING them. now i am like... a wasp evangelist. (also due to the bugs 101 course on coursera it’s so good.)

wag by zazie todd (nf)- i have a dog, but i am NOT a Dog Person (i.e. i love my dog, but please keep yours away from me, thanks.) this book helped me understand my little guy better, plus it gives actionable tasks and activities to do with and for your pup! plus, y’know, learning about things you’re scared of helps to lessen that fear. i’d recommend this to anyone who has, wants, or regularly interacts with a dog.

a closed and common orbit by becky chambers (f)- is this series complete fluff? absolutely. am i fundamentally different after reading this one? maybe.

the best we could do by thi bui (nf)- this is so far outside of my personal experience but somehow still made me come to peace with my relationship with my mom?? and it’s barely even about that?? idk. this is probably objectively the best book i’ve read this year.

books that were just fun as hell:

mexican gothic by silvia moreno-garcia (f)- this book made me YELL out loud

death on the nile by agatha christie (f)- i grew up on agatha christie shows, but never actually read her before this year! she really was That Bitch. read this before the movie comes out

cosmoknights by hannah templer (f)- i read this in one sitting through the worst headache i’ve had in years. it is a goddamn DELIGHT. this book has everything: spaceships. mech suits. fighting the patriarchy. a perfect otp. fun art in bright colors with clean lines. onomatopoetic WAPs from before the song gave that hilarious context. 800 lesbians. this is an antidepressant in graphic novel form.

stiff by mary roach (nf)- ms. roach is like the 4th most represented author on my bookshelf because she 1. stays writing about shit i’m interested in and 2. manages to talk about gross and ridiculous things without resorting to sensationalism. it takes skill to write a hilarious book about corpses.

black sun by rebecca roanhorse (f)- excellent sexual tension between a horny siren pirate and a hot doomed... monk, kinda? set in the pre-columbian gulf of mexico with magic and shit.

cuisine chinoise by zao dao (? n/f)- this graphic novel about chinese food history/mythology is BEAUTIFUL.

the color of magic by terry pratchett (f)- you’d think a hardcore douglas adams stan would have gotten to this sooner, but no, i had to date a nerdy white boy to get here. it’s fun though! i’m not gonna read them all, but this one was good. bonus: contains one (1) great himbo.

gideon the ninth by tamsyn muir (f)- like 500 pages of action and mystery and jokes and space necromancy. harrow the ninth gets a special mention bc it has a meme reference that took me out so hard i had to close the book, lie down, and groan for an entire minute before continuing.

other minds by peter godfrey-smith (nf)- i love octopuses. on one tma bonus ep, jonny sims says that if a creature can choose to do evil, then it’s a Person. octopuses are People. but anyway frfr this has an explanation of the evolution of consciousness that is cool af. (this one is much better than the other recent popsci octo book which i will not name out of politeness.)

the perfect predator by steffanie strathdee and thomas patterson (nf)- i read this bc my microbiology prof recommended it and it’s cool as heck! it’s got adventure, drama, mystery, Science-with-a-capital-S. i’m biased bc i’m a bit of a microbes nerd, but i had a blast with this. (but only bc we know going in that everything works out okay; if i hadn’t known that, i would have been TOO stressed!)

books that were a little less fun but still very readable:

my sister, the serial killer by oyinkan braithwaite (f)- i couldn’t find this as funny as other people bc i, too, have a beautiful sister who’s an insufferable narcissist, so it hits a little too close to home, but. it is a wild ride.

piranesi by susanna clarke (f)- idek what to say! i went into this one blind just bc it had a cool cover and title, so i guess i’d recommend that for other people too.

the sixth world series by rebecca roanhorse (f)- monster hunting! a post-apocalyptic take that doesn’t feel tired.

the shades of magic trilogy by v.e. schwab (f)- easy escapism. some ideas feel a little first draft-y, but idk, it’s also a pretty simple premise (which isn’t a bad thing). it’s a decent urban fantasy set in ~georgian?-era london. very actiony. suffers from a bit of i’m-not-like-other-girls disease, but i didn’t even notice until book two or three, so.

the only good indians by stephen graham jones (f)- starts off a little ??? (and reeks of being Written By A Man) but picks up. the pacing’s great and there’s just a super fucking cool monster.

robopocalypse by daniel h. wilson (f)- this reads like a tv miniseries so much that i can’t believe it isn’t one yet.

confessions of the fox by jordy rosenberg (f)- not my usual cup of tea, fiction-wise, but still compelling. a fresh take on the white-male-english-professor-self-insert? but not insufferable. gets weird!

spinning silver by naomi novik (f)- rumplestilstkin, but make it interesting! a great, richly-told fairy tale, but like, large scale. good to read on a cold day while you’re wrapped up in a blanket with some hot tea.

interior chinatown by charles yu (f)- compulsively readable. a couple things bugged me, but not enough to make me dislike it. a fun companion piece to how to live safely in a science fictional universe. i like this guy’s style.

cannibalism by bill schutt (nf)- COOL. mostly covers the animal kingdom (fun), spends too much time on the donner party (less fun), ends with a SPICY take on prions that i cannot get out of my head!!!

buzz, sting, bite by anne sverdrup-thygeson (nf)- BUGS! broad but not overwhelming, neither dumbed down nor overly scientific, short enough to finish in a day or two. recommend this to literally everyone.

books that made me want to read everything else in the author’s ouevre:

the time invariance of snow by e. lily yu (f)- this FUCKS but it’s too short!!!

an unkindness of ghosts by rivers solomon (f)- okay this book is SO good and so well-written and interesting and blah blah blah all the good things, but... the whole time, i was just like?? why???? why is this what you’re choosing to write about??? (i did also read the deep and blood is another word for hunger after this one, and i did like them both, especially the latter, but i think they can do better! like i think they could write a perfect book and i am gonna be *eyes emoji* until then.)

the space between worlds by micaiah johnson (f)- a fine debut novel, but i want to see her do something a little more... idk, refined? i think she overreaches here, like it’s a little... idk looper? this is how you lose the time war? there’s a better comparison, but i can’t think of it, but you get the idea. and then halfway through it shifts gears to mad max. there’s something weird about one of the central relationships, like it’s not complex enough to take as long to resolve as it does. idk idk. there are just a lot of little nitpicky things. it’s not bad! but i think she can do better and i look forward to finding out.

postcolonial love poem by natalie diaz (p)- thinky! like i tried to read this before bed, but it’s not the sort of thing to parse out while you’re falling asleep, it requires more attention than that.

books that Learned Me Somethin:

smoke gets in your eyes by caitlin doughty (nf)- i am a self-professed death obsessed weirdo, fascinated by death and mourning, but i didn’t know all that much about what happens to a body between the dying and the funeral! this book isn’t big, but it covers a lot and doughty’s writing style is engaging and honest. it’s very memorable.

queer by meg-john barker and julia scheele (nf)- i’m gonna be totally honest and say Queer Theory is above my intellectual pay grade, but this book takes you by the hand and explains the basics.

vitamania by catherine price (nf)- LMAO my fellow americans, never take a supplement. this book is great and well-researched, but normal folks don’t need to read it, just listen to season two of the dream podcast, which definitely cribbed from this.

vegetable kingdom by bryant terry (nf)- this is a fine cookbook, my favorite of his that i’ve read so far. gets a special mention bc i had a religious experience just reading one of his kohlrabi recipes. absolutely gutted that i didn’t have an opportunity to try it this year, since the pandemic put the kibosh on all family bbqs.

the best american food writing 2020 edited by j. kenji lopez-alt (nf)- this really is just a great collection.

are prisons obsolete? by angela y. davis (nf)- yes.

i moved to los angeles to work in animation by natalie nourigat (nf)- before reading this, i had basically zero knowledge of how the animation industry works. now i know like three things.

the secret lives of bats by merlin tuttle (nf)- BATS! okay this book is more about the adventures of being a bat scientist than it actually is about bats, but there are bats in there. insectivorous bats basically shit glitter, you should know this.

books from valuable perspectives:

hood feminism by mikki kendall (nf)- a breakdown of who’s getting left out of feminist spaces, why that’s happening, and why it shouldn’t be happening.

all you can ever know by nicole chung (nf)- a (transracial) adoptee’s take on adoption and learning more about her birth family. the personal storytelling of this one really stuck with me.

motherhood so white by nefertiti austin (nf)- a single-mom-by-choice’s take on the foster system/adoption process. walks you through some things i always wondered about and some things i wouldn’t even have thought about.

this place by kateri akiwenzie-damm et al (? n/f)- i, like a lot of non- native americans, only know that history in broad strokes. getting this many highly specific stories in one dense and beautiful book felt like a lucky find. and taking that perspective into the future in the context of that history is v good.

empty by susan burton (nf)- eating disorder stories are important to me bc i care about food so much. this one is so relatable- not in its specificity, but rather its generality. it’s easy to empathize with her perspective because it’s like, Oh, i don’t have that exact problem, but i struggle with different problems in a very similar way. (feels like the opposite of roxane gay’s hunger, in a way.)

obit by victoria chang (p)- this exploration of grief is... woof.

short story collections are hard to evaluate bc you’ll never read one where every single story hits but i generally enjoyed these:

a thousand beginnings and endings edited by ellen oh and elsie chapman (f)

how long til black future month? by n.k. jemisin (f)

her body and other parties by carmen maria machado (f)

books i revisited:

the broken earth trilogy by n.k. jemisin (f)- i read the series backwards this time and like... i can’t really find any faults in these books, man. they’re just the best.

everyone’s a aliebn when ur a aliebn too by jomny sun (f... but is it really?)- half of this book’s sales are from me buying it for other people bc it’s the only way i know how to say i love you. i reread it every time just to make sure it still feels right and it always does.

other honorable mentions:

white is for witching by helen oyeyemi (f)- not to pit two bad bitches against each other, but this book does what akwaeke emezi’s freshwater was trying to do. it’s a little weird, a little haunted, a little of a lot of things. read this only in the dead of winter. (and with stephen rennicks’ score for the little stranger playing in the background.)

homie by danez smith (p)- there’s a lot going on here, but this just made me crack a smile a couple times in a way that no other book of poetry has ever done.

the murder of roger ackroyd and murder in mesopotamia by agatha christie (f)- That Bitch!

blues by nikki giovanni (p)- she sure has some Things To Say

the three-body problem by cixin liu (f)- interesting concepts, but... idk something’s missing? felt weirdly soulless to me. i’m probably not gonna read the sequels. but it did make some points!

the sisters of the winter wood by rena rossner (f)- i’m a slut for shapeshifting, okay. but this is a good fairy tale, it works!

parable of the sower by octavia butler (f)- i read this in march, when the pandemic was just kicking off and boy that was not the right time. def my least favorite of hers so far, but an octavia butler i don’t love is still better than a hell of a lot of other books. no idea when or if i’ll get to a good enough headspace for the sequel.

faves:

saturnino herrán by adriana zapett tapia (nf)- i got to learn new things about my mans and see some of his paintings i’ve never even seen online! GOSH.

on food and cooking by harold mcgee (nf)- yeah yeah, i’ve already mentioned this book half a dozen times on here this year, but i don’t care. this book lives off the shelf in my home bc i reference it like every other fucking day. this book is a part of me now.

#long post #final total for the year will be 120 by the end of the day!#and i had a pretty good hit rate. would probably recommend at least half #and only outright hated four

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vagrantblvrd · 5 years

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Jeremwood FAHC where battle buddies formed before they joined the crew? Everyone is terrified until they find the pair dead asleep on Gavin or Lindsay, or both, and they just look confused/pleased respectively, and shoo everyone away when they try and wake the pair up? And just, sheer shenanigans between all of them as they all settle into a the full force of the FAHC

Hmm, yes, yes, I see what you’re getting at with this, Anon?

But may I humbly suggest the reason these two Very Scary and Spooky figures choose Team Losers for their respective human pillows has to do with their Tragic Backstories?

For an example:

Before they became the Super Scary duo known throughout all Los Santos (and certain areas outside it, most of which have been reduced to rubble and charred remains because idiots) they were (baby) agents in An Agency somewhere?

Very hush, hush, totally no shady goings on here, no sir Mr. Government overwatch group!

Just patriotic assassinations and the whatnot.

Ryan is all clean-shaven and by the book. Perfect role model for the other baby agents who came after him.

Stellar record and all that, did everything Right.

And then the handler he’s had since graduating the academy retired. (Or is retired, something that plants the initial seed of unrest/suspicion in the back of Ryan’s mind about what he’s been doing all this time, but we’ll get to that later.

Anyway, he gets a shiny new handler in this guy all the way from England, kid with this accent who makes no damn sense and Ryan is >:( because he doesn’t trust him? (Gavin’s a goddamned kid, wet behind the ears and the most ridiculous questions and Ryan’s supposed to trust him to keep him alive?)

But then they get tossed into training exercises and simulations to get used to each other and as annoyed as Ryan is with the ceaseless chatter, Gavin’s always on point when it comes to getting Ryan through the exercise/simulation flawlessly. (Well, okay. There’s a miscommunication or two due to cultural differences but they sort it out before disaster befalls them.)

And at the end of things Ryan’s a little annoyed at the fact he can’t fault Gavin’s expertise at his job. Especially when he’s kind of glowering at Gavin after one of the “cultural differences” arguments and Gavin challenges Ryan to take over Gavin’s job while Gavin runs through the exercise/simulation.

All, “…what?” because his old handler wasn’t a field agent in any form of the word, amazing at her job, sure, but a klutz who only passed the annual certifications because Ryan and her previous agents kept on her about them to make sure she’d pass and all that.

And Gavin, okay. Goddamned twig and just look at him, no way he could pull off an assassination in a controlled setting like this, okay. Gavin just looks at him like he thinks Ryan’s chickening out, because of course he would, and Ryan will be goddmaned if he lets this twig of an asshole get away with that. (Or…something.)

Gavin chortles all the way down to the training room floor, grins up at the cameras he knows Ryan’s watching him through and tosses off a little salute before wading into the training exercise.

Entirely new one the two of them haven’t gone through yet because this is meant to be a test for both of them, right? Gavin going to their superiors and agents and whatevers involved in running these exercises for an official okay from them and all that. (He puts it forward as a bonding exercise, way to gain trust between partners which will up their efficiency rating and all that and of course their superiors are eager to jump at the chance to have the two of them reach active status all the sooner and the whatnot.)

So.

Ryan in Gavin’s little command center realizing he’s maybe made a misstep with this dare/bet? He’d been in the room once or twice before talking to his previous handler, but when Gavin came into the picture he’d had it upgraded. More cameras and gadgets and other bells and whistles Ryan isn’t sure what their function is?

And hes clumsier than he’d like about it, toggling between camera feeds to keep track of Gavin’s progress through the levels. Goddamned mansion the agency had built for this particular exercise and Gavin charming his way through with barely a ripple to mark his passing.

Hasn’t alerted anyone yet and Ryan is struggling to keep up with him and okay, yes, it’s definitely harder than it looks from the outside. (He’s always known it in the back of his head, but it’s different now, isn’t it?)

Things go…okay for a bit, but then their superior threw in a little plot twist towards the end, this Ultimate Test for the two of them they obviously didn’t anticipate and Ryan almost gets Gavin “killed”, sends him down a dead end corridor, guards closing in and they both know he fucked up, and Gavin looks right at the closest camera.

Should, by all rights, be furious with Ryan because he fucked up – but all he does is ask Ryan some simple little question, look up the blueprints on one on the computers and see if there’s a discrepancy with the layout of the area he’s in.

Contractors and clients and other bullshit he doesn’t have time to explain, because Plot Reasons. Mainly due to the fact Gavin got his hands on the real blueprints involved in building the course level they’re using for the exercise because he likes to be thorough like that. (Might be considered cheating, but he’s all about everything he can do to keep his agent alive, even in a supposedly safe environment like the agency training courses.)

Lo and behold there is, some botched bit with the ducts or something hastily covered up, Ryan’s hardly an expert despite all the time he��s spent crawling through various systems in his career to date.

Gavin grins as he backtracks and finds the botched bit of construction hastily covered over. Since the “building” the agency is using for this training exercise is an overblown set piece it’s just been wallpapered over or something else, and Gavin is easily able to get through it and escape that way, because Plot Reasons.

Ryan’s still a bit shaken at the close call and Gavin has to get him back on task of leading him out of the ducts he’s in, which he does. Watching silently as Gavin exits the training level with the McGuffin he was sent to steal and a dead target behind him.

He apologizes to Gavin for almost getting him killed, which Gavin laughs and dismisses because he knows it wasn’t intentional (right, Ryan?), but maybe now he understands Gavin’s up to the job of keeping Ryan alive if he’ll let him.

Their bosses side-eye them for basically Kobayashi Maru-ing their way out of the training exercise, but decide Gavin’s more of an asset than they anticipated and praise him for his thoroughness. (While making a mental note to keep an eye on him because he really shouldn’t have been able to get his hands on those blueprints, you know?)

Anyway, they work together for a year or two until Ryan gets picked for this new agency that’s come along in the meantime. Even shadier doings than his original agency and so sorry, but you’ll be given a new handler and a field partner and really, Agent Haywood, you’ll be doing your country a great service with this new agency.

There’s this whole Thing where they say their goodbyes and Gavin, who has a bad feeling about all of it, warns Ryan to watch hi back out there since Gavin won’t be there to do it for him. Ryan is all ??? and also ditto and a little if Gavin ever needs anything to contact him? Which Gavin promises to do with more vice versa, but honestly they know the odds of them ever meeting again are slim to none.

(And Ryan’s kind of right, when his old agency goes down in flames a half a year or so later. Sabotage and all that and so many dead with Gavin’s name of the list of casualties and okay, right, totally nothing suspect there. Ryan absolutely buys into that load of horseshit after the way he saw their agency being whittled down before Ryan was picked for his current agency, or course. Totally doesn’t have a little side-hobby of untangling that mess to get to the truth, goodness no.)

ANYWAY.

Ryan gets paired up with Jeremy who is obviously a rookie agent out of whatever agency handed him over to their current agency.

Young and inexperienced in the field but eager to learn and smart as hell. Lot of potential and best of all doesn’t take Ryan’s bullshit, which is awesome.

There’s an adjustment period for both of them because their new agency is a bit more lax with the rules and regulations, and Jeremy rubs off on Ryan a little over time and vice versa.

They get this handler who is calm and professional – for the most part.

The three of them don’t really click as a team for their first few missions, but the third or fourth one in things go to shit in the most chaotic, bizarre ways possible?

And their handler, who up to this point has been completely normal proposes a ridiculous plan to get them out of their predicament and the worst thing is it works? Ryan in a goddamned clown suit and Jeremy posing as a cowboy (???) and they get their target and escape without incident somehow?

Get to listen to their handler howling with laughter as they speed away in a speedboat and share this look because what the hell? And Lindsay – of fucking course it’s Lindsay – getting herself under control to coordinate their extraction and whatnot.

Things get better (worse???) after that because their missions tend to go to shit more often than not requiring the most ridiculous plans to succeed and they’re still considered their agency’s top operatives.

Life has never been so strange for any of them.

Ryan loosens up, decides he likes the look of the beard he grew for a mission and keeps it unless there’s another mission that requires he shave it. (And then he goes right back to growing it out, and also just kind of loses his mind in general because no one can stay sane with both Jeremy and Lindsay in the mix, okay, no one.)

Lindsay starts joking around with them when they’re in the field and Jeremy is just. So flabbergasted at half the things she says and it’s all gloriously wonderful shenanigans and chaos and all that for a good long while for the three of them.

Lindsay watches these two idiots she’s responsible doing the Mutual Pining Thing and laughing at them because it’s pretty damn obvious they’re head over heals for one another?

All these little gestures between them in and out of the field, but then it just gets sad, you know?

Close calls thanks to the nature of their line of work, Jeremy sitting beside Ryan’s bed down in medical after a bad mission and vice versa. Longing Looks and Quiet Pining and Lindsay is their confidant and does her best to drops hints without betraying either of their trust in her.

Setting up situations where they have lunch or dinner together. The three of them out to have a dinner to celebrate some team milepost or whatever but she gets called away at the last minute for some minor problem but no, really, you two enjoy yourselves they can do this again at a later date. (Heavy emphasis on the word date, but they’re too dense to pick up on it.)

And then! Just when she thinks they realize there’s a Mutual Pining Situation going on and might be about to do something about it?

Bad shit happens, because of course it does.

Someone contacts Lindsay, tells her trouble’s headed their way and to look out for her boys because they’re going to be at the heart of it, and Lindsay.

Oh, she knows exactly who sent her that message, the ones that follow because Gavin’s clever, right, but she’s just as good at her job as he is. (There’s this whole Thing where they met years ago, thanks to friendly inter-agency rivalries and Gavin worrying about idiot Ryan and just. Yeah.)

It’s thanks to him the three of them are prepared for the suicide mission meant to get rid of the Battle Buddies (the usual Conspiracy Plot Reasons) that allows them to fake their deaths. Handy little tip telling them a good place to hide out is Los Santos, and hey, take the scenic route just in case, which they do.

Meanwhile, Lindsay has all these files and the whatnot on what their agency have been up to that end up in the right hands, some reputable reporter or whoever and goes to lunch one day and forgets to go back afterwards.

Doesn’t go so far to fake her death, just disappears as far as the rest of the world is concerned while the agency more or less burns to the ground behind her.

She ends up in Los Santos too, gets a nice little apartment somewhere and gets a reputation for being a crazy cat lady with all the strays she looks after, fosters, handing them over to good homes and the like.

Hears rumors going around about this pair of mercs new on the scene a year or two later. Big scary bastard going around wearing a skull mask and his partner with the cowboy ensemble and laughs herself sick when she sees her boys on the news one night, because they haven’t changed a goddamned bit.

Wonders if they ever figured their shit out and makes plans to contact them to ask how they’ve been doing, but she gets a job offer before she can.

Some crew or other with a reputation of their own and this skinny prick of a Brit with the most obnoxious grin and gaudy sunglasses and the Fakes would be interested in someone with your particular skills, and is she interested?

Lindsay just looks at Gavin in his ridiculous get up and decides the hell with it, you know? She’s been on vacation long enough and if someone like him trusts these assholes she’s fine with it.

They hand her control of B-Team and she kind of loves it. The crew is her kind of chaotic and she gets why Gavin chose them out of all the crews in Los Santos.

No brainer when Geoff’s looking to expand the crew and there are these two idiots running around causing chaos without anyone to watch their backs but themselves. (Well, okay. And Gavin and Lindsay from the shadows, but they’re stretching themselves thin watching out for the Fakes and the Battle Buddies and it just makes sense to have them all under the same roof, so to speak.)

And then!

Ryan and Jeremy being ??? and !!! at seeing Gavin and Lindsay – initially suspicious because what are the odds?

Jeremy watching Ryan circling Gavin because it’s been years and he really wants to think he can trust the little shit, but so much has happened he’s not sure he can?(All this time he’s been trying to find out what happened to him only to see Gavin cozied up to the biggest crew in Los Santos???)

But then he realizes Lindsay trusts Gavin implicitly, that Gavin’s the reason the three of them made it out of the agency alive at all, and Gavin’s just giving him this little smile waiting for Ryan to make up his mind the way he did when they met all those years ago.

Various shenanigans as he realizes Gavin’s safe, the Fakes are safe, and Jeremy relaxes because he trusts Ryan’s judgment in this?

The two of them realize the others have no idea the four of them know each other from Before and get a kick out of fucking with them whenever they can, hence the human pillow Thing.

Big scary mercs napping like little kittens on them and everyone else being !!! because what do now??? while Gavin and Lindsay are like, no! They need their sleep, hush up or go away because you have no idea about these idiots and their sleeping habits! >:((((((((((

The slow realization the rest of the crew have that allowing the four of them to Shenanigate was a Terrible Idea as they rain chaos on Los Santos (and occasionally the crew itself).

Also?

Just shenanigans in general with Ryan being a creepy bastard and Jeremy being Jeremy and everyone worrying Gavin and Lindsay are going to be horribly murderized like the idiots they are because they just keep teasing and making fun of Ryan and Jeremy. Like. Mercilessly so the way they do the rest of the crew?

At least until something happens with someone from their old agencies out for Revenge and Gavin and Lindsay get grabbed and the crew going crazy trying to find them?

And then there’s the Battle Buddies all terrifyingly professional about ripping these bastards apart for touching their family – and their Tragic Backstories are revealed in which the crew had no idea about the (former) sekrit agents in their midst this whole time.

Also, also, the bastards who grabbed Gavin and Lindsay are suffering before the rescue party gets to their little hideout because Team Losers is a force to reckoned with on their own, you know?

Supposedly where the baddies want them, but the baddies miscalculated because they’re locked in there with Team Losers and oh God, make it stop, make it stop.

Absolutely no one on the crew’s side of things being surprised by this turn of events and it’s kind of a mercy killing for the baddies once they realize what’s going on.

Gavin and Lindsay just :DDDDDDDDDD “What took you guys so long?” even though they’re a bit bloodied up and kind of hurty feeling and everyone is just fucking Christ, you idiots.

And then shenanigans???

#jeremwood #Battle Buddies #Team Losers #ragehappy #technically not a fic #vagrant fic #Anonymous #Prompt Fills

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acegirlinasimworld · 4 years

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Episode 3: Ace Girl Gets Pregnant Twice, Tries Not to Be a Terrible Mom

Welcome back! Now that Cattie’s had her first baby, it’s time to get pregnant again!

Cattie tried to invite Don over, but he evidently was already at her house. I looked around for him and found him on a run outside, and decided to try to go for the Try for Baby interaction.

Don continued running away from Cattie. Super. She is me.

Almost four hours later, after calling Don again and asking him to come over for real this time, Cattie managed to seal the deal and get pregnant with Donor Number Two’s baby!

Now that we’re done with Don...

...Cattie can focus all her attention on Stephon. Theoretically. But this isn’t the same challenge as it was in the beginning. Cattie has a baby now, and that baby is needy.

Thankfully, though, Athena has a birthday! As part of the challenge rules, babies can’t be aged up until it’s actually their birthday. Then, we have to use the in-game randomizer to choose our toddlers’ traits. And Athena got...fussy. Great. Cattie and I are so excited for that.

While that’s definitely not true, Cattie and I are excited that Athena has some autonomy now. We will absolutely taking full advantage of this.

Another note about how I’m following the rules of this challenge: Cattie can’t have a rabbit hole job. She has to stay home and take care of her kids. So, I’m making her a writer. We’re not doing so great right now, but we’re making progress. Kind of.

Now, back to our regularly scheduled programming.

Cattie is not doing too great as a mom right now, but she’s just getting started. She’s definitely putting more attention on her 100 baby goal than on Baby Number 1. She did make that mac and cheese for Athena, but put it in the fridge for later and then promptly went to bed.

The Sims 4 gave us a message after this incident reminding us that Athena is a toddler and needs help. Personally, I thought they were being dramatic. So what, she ate dinner out of the fridge and put herself to bed?

That does sound kind of bad now that I see it written out like that.

So, Cattie makes an effort to be a better mom. Yes, that toddler needs a diaper change but at least they’re eating together. Bonding. It matters.

It’s a good thing Cattie’s finally starting to get the hang of this, because Baby Number 2 has arrived: a boy, Boreas!

As for me, though, I’m about to lose my goddamn mind.

Cattie’s an idiot now when it comes to cooking - she wants to stop in the middle of cooking to go watch TV - and I just wanted her to satisfy her hunger before changing Boreas’s diaper. It really didn’t seem like that much to ask. But no, evidently it was, because this starving single mom kept stopping cooking, not to take care of the children, but to WATCH. TV.

Sim Gods, please help me. Oh wait. That’s me?

Cattie’s not pregnant right now, and that needs to be quickly rectified. Just when she was about ready to invite Stephon over, though, Don showed up at the house. Cattie had to tell him she just wanted to be friends. Don took it well, but was still in a flirty mood after, which was awkward. Very awkward. For me, as a human.

Then, I went to call Stephon, and lo and behold, he showed up at that moment of his own accord! Great! This should be easy, right?

Four and a half Sim hours later, three attempted Try for Baby interactions that just didn’t even make it to the bed before they were cancelled (AAHHHH!!!!), and finally, finally, Cattie is pregnant with Baby Number 3. Goodbye, mailman who vaguely resembles Keanu Reeves. You will be missed.

Not really, though.

#sims #sims4 #sims 4 challenge #100 baby challenge #kelsey impicciche #asexual #acegirl

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ghostofviperwrites · 4 years

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Derailed Interview

Requested by @wrestlingismyfavourite

Pairing: Tetsuya Naito/FC

Category: Smutish

“Do you think at all before you speak?”

You had never known the feeling of being on display before. Sure you had drawn glances of admiration, and even lust, but never before had you felt like you were on the auction block. Of course, you had never been left in a room alone with five predatory men the likes of Los Ingobernables de Japon before either. Each as gorgeous as the last, charisma practically dripping from their pores. You had to fight against your natural instincts to flee, telling yourself it was just a job and to calm down. You were just here to do an interview with them about their upcoming United States tour, it would be nice and professional. No reason to be nervous. Still, you couldn’t shake the nerves, not with the five of them sitting on the opposite side of the table with you, their eyes unwavering on you. Six if you counted that unsettling cat. Which you did, because stuffed animal or not that damn thing looked like it was judging you. Why did a grown man have a cat anyway? You thought looking at the man you had been introduced to as Hiromu Takahashi.

Clearing your throat you grabbed the manila folder your employers had given you containing snippets on each of the members of LIJ and points they wanted touched on. You hadn’t had a lot of time to prepare for this interview, in fact you had just been told an hour ago that you would be handling it. Had barely made it here on time. It was your first assignment in the field, having just been promoted to field reporter and you were determined to prove your worth. But it was kind of hard when you were flying blind. You didn’t watch wrestling, weren’t familiar with any of these men or the company they worked for. You hadn’t even had time to study the notes provided so you hoped you didn’t come across as a complete moron.

“Okay,” You finally said looking up with what you hoped was a confident smile. “Let’s start with the group stuff.” Your smile turned to a look of confusion as snorts of laughter escaped from the men.

“You sure you want to start with the whole group?” Tetsuya Naito chuckled. “Maybe you should take us one by one first, break you in a bit before trying to take on the whole gang.” His comment brought on a whole new round of laughter deepening your confusion.

You took a deep breath to calm yourself, already feeling the interview derailing. Maybe you should have shown up a few minutes late to review the notes so you knew what you were walking into.

“I am happy to do whichever you prefer Naito-sama,” You told him. “Would you prefer one by one or a group session to start?” You huffed angrily as once again smothered giggles filled the room. You didn’t understand what you were saying that was so hilarious. You thought back through your comments, and your face turned bright red as you caught the innuendo in what they had implied from your comment.

“Baby, LIJ is down for whatever you want to do,” Naito replied with a leering grin. "We aim to accommodate."

“No, no, that is not what I meant,” You spoke quickly, determined to get their minds out of the gutter and back on track. “I was asking whether you wanted to do the group questions first or the individual questions. Not what you’re implying.”

“Well you’re no fun.” Evil said rolling his eyes and leaning back in his chair, arms folded crossly over his burly chest. You glanced over the rest of the table seeing looks ranging from irritation to amusement levied at her. You weren’t exactly sure what look Seiya Sanada was giving you, his face an almost impassive mask staring at you.

“Where’s that other reporter chick? She was a lot more fun than this one.” Evil continued, receiving a quick nod of agreement and elbow in the side from Bushi.

“She was a lot more fun.” Naito said in agreement. “She had her panties off and skirt up around her hips in about five minutes.” Your mouth dropped open in shock, appalled at both your colleague’s unprofessionalism as well as the LIJ group’s casual disclosure of it.

“Do you think at all before you speak?” You asked Naito furiously, unable to let things continue along this vein. “Do you realize how inappropriate you are being?” For some reason they all found that hilarious, once again breaking out into laughter at your comments.

“Why don’t you boys go find something to do?” Naito said to his brothers. “I think I need to have a one on one discussion with Ms. Tiang.” You glared at the men as they filed out of the room, not liking the lecherous looks on their faces as they left. What did they think was going to happen in here? Absolutely nothing is what. You thought resolutely.

Once the room was emptied you met Naito’s eyes with your own, immediately regretting it as you found yourself drowning in the charismatic leader’s eyes. You followed his movements as he shifted in his chair, throwing his feet up on the table and leaning back, peering at you from under his black Los Ingobernables cap. You waited in what seemed like interminable silence, unable to find your own words to break it.

“You’ve been incredibly rude Ms. Tiang,” Tetsuya said mockingly. “Apparently you do not understand how things work around here. We are not here for your entertainment or to jump to answer your insipid questions. The same fucking questions you people ask every goddamn time. You are here for our entertainment. So if you wish to return to your place of employment with an article that is even remotely palatable I would suggest you lose the attitude and get on the correct page.” You started to protest only to stop short as Naito silenced you with a raised hand as he dropped his feet to the floor.

“It’s been a long day. I don’t want to hear any more from you. So unless you plan to get on your knees and suck me, you can get the fuck out.” He told you with a challenging smirk. You sucked in a breath at his bluntness, eyes inadvertently darting to his crotch which was sporting an impressive bulge. Your tongue darted out, licking along your bottom lip as you thought about his cock in your mouth and before you knew what you were doing you had rounded the table and dropped to your knees in front of him.

“Go ahead,” He motioned his crotch with a lazy hand movement, beckoning you to begin. You quickly unzipped him and pulled his semi-hard dick out, stroking your hands around the thickness until it was fully erect and sliding it past your lips. Tetsuya moaned as you took him deeper into your mouth, spreading his legs a bit more to give you some space while leaning back and watching you pleasure him with a smirk. He didn’t know why these women even bothered arguing with him anymore, they all ended up in the same position at the end of the day.

#naito fanfic #naito imagine #njpw fanfic #wrestling fanfic #mywriting #ghostofviperwrites

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iridescentanachronism · 5 years

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when one night only turns into two

hello folks, i have never written fanfiction and never used this blog! i guess i’m diving in headfirst LMAO!!!

this is a lil blurb i thought of when y/n is a singer (not super big but for sure up and coming) and she covers kiwi at one of her shows and it goes viral and harry notices and decides to just SHOW UP at her show the balls on this guy!! anyways this is my first fic so please be kind! constructive criticism is always welcome

“thank you for coming out tonight! your presence gives me the ability to do my job- i will always be grateful for each and every single one of you. drive safely and love one another, los angeles. thanks again for having me, you have been wonderful.”

as you walked off the small stage at the house of blues your heart swelled with pride. this was your first show out of state, and from what the audience sounded like, you had crushed it. performing in LA had always been a dream of yours, but a daunting one, considering that their crowds were used to big names and powerful stage presences. you were intimidated by the city- yet you walked off their stage with an indescribable feeling of pride, adrenaline, and confidence. this was the start of something new and you could feel it.

feeling someone’s eyes on you, you made a sharp turn and ran into your tour manager, rosco. “hello! hey, hey, hey, that was amazing wasn’t it? the energy felt absolutely maddening! god, i could do that everyday for the rest of my life. what do you think? was it too much, did we do too many covers?” the words seemed to flow right out of you, even though you gave LA your all, it was still LA, and rosco had always been your best critic. he quickly responded to let you know it was as amazing as you’d originally thought, and that if this show was any indication, you would have plenty more shows in LA.

what you didn’t expect, however, was the ruckus that one of the aforementioned covers would cause on twitter. you had always loved harry styles, and after taking quite some time to look into the legalities on the matter, decided to cover kiwi for the first time last night. logging into your account, you noticed the song title trending- and after clicking on it you were led to a video of your show, hair being shaken around you, throwing yourself around the stage with the heavy music, and the scene was completed with a boisterous crowd jumping around and singing every word along with you. a smile covered your face- this is your favorite part of performing, losing yourself entirely in the stage, and in this video you were doing just that. however excited you had become at the potential this showed for your career, you immediately had so many questions. why had this blown up so much? you covered four songs last night, why is this one such a big deal? after looking through the tag, chuckling at some memes, and being freaked out by some responses, you had found the tweet that made you lose your shit. the tweet itself wasn’t even the raunchiest you had found this morning, it simply stated: “@y/t/n: fuck my shit up, babe. literally, whatever you want to do to me, do it” with the linked video of you singing kiwi. however, one thing in particular stood out to you. the part that said “liked by harry styles”.

you immediately dialed rosco, not only is he your tour manager, but basically your entire support system. a musicians life gets lonely, and he is the only one who has stuck by you throughout the entire tumultuous journey.

“sweetheart! perfect timing, i actually was just about to call-”

“harrystylessawthekiwivideoandlikedatweetaboutitholyfuckingshit-” you started to ramble, your most prominent nervous trait, in the highest pitch rosco thought he had ever heard from you.

“sweets, first of all, where was that pitch when we recorded the album? second, take a breath and tell me again, i can’t understand a damn thing you said”

you took a deep breath and told him of the tweets you saw, and when you told him about harry’s interaction he simply told you to chill out. he had favorited a tweet, and he may not have even been the one to do it. with an odd sting you realized he was correct, while it was exciting to have your idol recognize you, you could not overthink it: it was simply recognition for a job well done.

“it seems as though the people you needed to impress are just as proud of you as i am, lovey, your ‘one night only’ in los angeles has been extended to two, you interested in doing it all over again tomorrow night?”

you must have looked like a goldfish in your kitchen, jaw slack and eyes wide open, you struggled to come to your senses. you had asked for the chance to prove yourself in a city known for music, and good music at that, and were apparently being gifted with a second chance.

“oh! um, yes, of course, why wouldn’t i? holy shit, this is amazing, holy shit!” you began to squeal and run in circles around your house. whilst giggling with elation, the seriousness of this event hit you: two nights of rocking out with the liveliest crowd you have ever played for, in the city you’ve dreamt of doing this in for years. drops began to form in your eyes as you managed to spit out a quick thank you to rosco, who knew you would cry. he, quite frankly, did not want to hear your tears, so he hung up after telling you what to tweet.

after logging on you realized you had gone from a respectable 10k followers to an overwhelming 30k, you almost squealed again, composing yourself enough to type, you wrote:

@y/t/n: wow. in absolute awe of you la. thank you for supporting me, and thank you for letting me do what i do. and thanks to you all, i have been gifted another night here (-: night two at the hob! tickets on sale at 6pm california time, come see me tomorrow night, peeps! i’ll be sure to make it worth your while <3

with the click of your fingers and the ping of your phone, the announcement had been sent, and the stage had been sent. the pressure was on, and you had never felt more in your element.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

everything that could have gone wrong on the morning of your fateful second show, had. you had woken up late (something minor, but was an omen for your bad day), gotten a flat tire, been hit on by the man sent to fix said flat tire, and had been late to soundcheck. after arriving at soundcheck you had found that everything was wrong, the stage wasn’t set up correctly, the duct-taped x’s from the previous show had been removed, and you had to all but start from the beginning.

you had planned to change things up from your previous gig, but had no time to practice the changes. you spoke to your band and hoped that was enough, you drank some coffee, did some jumping jacks, warmed up your vocals, and put on your game face. this is your second show in LA, and you weren’t going to let anything ruin it; hearing the sounds of a sold out bar in front of you, feeling your heart began to flutter in your chest, and knowing that in a few minutes you would be putting on the best show of your goddamn life had set you up well. you were ready. with your shoulders back and head up high, you walked onto stage and, unknowingly, commanded the attention of the room.

about twenty minutes into your set you decided to take a quick breather. taking a long sip of water and leaning into the microphone, you decided to do a quick little check in, “hey folks, hows everyone doing out there?” your southern drawl had just slipped in towards the end, and you felt so at ease on stage that you hadn’t even noticed. someone else did notice.

harry styles had decided to surprise you at your show, he had favorited that tweet because he agreed- you could do whatever you wanted to him, but he would rather do whatever you wanted to you. he had his signature smirk on as he stood backstage, listening to rosco ramble about how surprized you would be when you realized he had come, and how much you adored his album. as you continued to banter back in forth with the sold out bar, harry had taken note of how peaceful you looked. you stood proudly on stage, with messy hair, and a sick body you looked comfortable; the stage had seemed like your home.

luckily, you hadn’t noticed harry the entire show, hadn’t even noticed how his eyes hadn’t left your body while you passionately belted out every word to his song, completely losing yourself in the melody, and delivering another breathtaking performance. he watched you take your final bow, and heard your last expression of gratitude, before watching you run off stage and into the arms of your tour manager. harry quickly noticed the tears in your eyes and the smile so large that it looked painful, he heard your rambling and the joy in your voice, it had reminded him of when this was all new, when nothing was guaranteed, and the only thing keeping him in this trying industry was the feeling you were experiencing right now.

his moment of nostalgia passed as you had unraveled yourself from rosco’s arms and did a double take. harry styles was standing in front of you. you heard a deep chuckle coming from him, likely due to your wide eyes and gaping mouth, he heard a quiet “no fucking way” come from you, and decided he had waited long enough. as cocky as usual, he rasped out, “hello love, your show was amazing. it’s a pleasure to meet you, i’m harry, as i think you may know” he didn’t bother waiting for a response from the gobsmacked young woman before continuing, “y’know, i’ve seen plenty of covers of kiwi, but none have been as genuine as yours. you captured the song for what it is, you blew it away, blew me away in fact, so i knew i had to come out and see ya tonight.” his accent grew thicker as he became more bemused with your state of shock.

your breath eventually caught up to you as you nervously chuckled, “holy shit, thank you so much. you have no idea how much that means coming from you. thank you for coming out, oh my god, i have so much to say to you but nothing is coming to mind other than thank you, so thank you, again”

“of course, darling, i loved it. i’ll be sure to pass along my number so whatever comes to mind can be said. unfortunately, i have to run, but i’ll be seeing you around kiddo, keep up the good work” harry said with a sly wink, leaving you flushed at the pet name, and yearning for more time with him. while you let out a soft thank you and goodnight, you began to think of what the future held for you. praise from harry styles was not to be taken lightly, and his impromptu visit had only fanned the flame in your soul, his visit meant you were doing something right, and this had been the fuel you needed to continue putting in long hours at the studio, and spending evenings alone, writing in your shitty and overpriced apartment.

while you had been thinking of what this visit meant for your career. harry had thoughts of you headlining arenas swimming around in his head. as he walked away he thought of you; thought of how immensely talented you were, how charismatic you were, and how far you had to go. he also thought of your grace, the presence you carried as you pranced around on stage, and the charming beauty that you seemed unaware of. harry styles knew you were talented, but he also knew you were breathtaking, and he could see absolutely nothing stopping you.

as he walked away and you listened to rosco’s compliments, you allowed your own mind to wander. maybe, just maybe, things were going to look up for you. and you couldn’t help but sigh happily at the thought.

A/N: hello peeps! sorry this was super long hmm i’m torn between cutting it or not, because not much harry but also the buildup is important to me, please let me know what you prefer! constructive criticism is ALWAYS welcome and apprecited! thanks for reading this far if you did, you mean the world to me! let me know if y’all would want a part two (-:

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lokiarsene · 5 years

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like yesterday, here's a bullet list of my thoughts for episodes 18~21

thoughts on episode 18:

oh no, it's the beach episode.

-- i really like how they show the way the PT take care of futaba. ren patiently cleaning up her room in between hours at the florist, them playing vidya with her, or just having lunch together in montage moments is very sweet. it makes me wish the anime had much slower pacing, more slice of life-y kind of drama.

-- watching yusuke, ryuji, and futaba lose their freakin minds over good curry is VERY relatable.

-- i still don't understand why ann and makoto thought that a two piece frilly bathing suit was the way to go with futaba. a one piece that she could wear under a long wrap or a hoodie would've made so much more sense... but >male gaze

-- have i told y'all how fucking tired i am of the sexualization of the teenage girls in p5 yet, and how it is one of the several things that fuckin ruined this game for me

have i?

well here it is again

none of the previous games were as bad as this b t w and p4 had one of the dungeons be a STRIP CLUB.

-- yusuke and his lobsters are wonderful.

-- oh god i forgot COMPLETELY about the whole 'mental shutdowns' thing in this game's plot. i think because it's all so pointlessly convoluted. p3 had something similar but even there it was just people turned catatonic for weeks on end when the monthly boss-shadows drew near.

i think the reason i find this so hard to understand is because from p3 to p4 the rules of shadows didn't really change so much. p3 had the persona users go up against shadow bosses; p4 had people confront the shadows within themselves, either accepting them completely (which then turned into persona), or the shadow 'absorbed' the person and ran rampant as a monster. neither of those rules really contradict each other, but in p5 personal shadows for persona users are gone completely, and how you deal with other people's personal shadows doesn't even involve them being present to complete the merge.

mona says that persona users can't have palaces, but persona users in 4 could and DID have 'dungeons' within the shadows' worlds. these dungeons dealt specifically with what was at the core of the shadows' emergence--a deep secret and a hidden truth that caused the shadow to grow, a place that was a replica and a distortion of reality based upon that suppressed truth. so that sure sounds like a fucking palace to me.

so....................... unless there's like, multiple realities folded into our own, and persona users can only access certain ones.................. i'm just super confused.

like, i know it's because the rules change game to game, but p3 to p4 didn't have any contradictions, and p2 didn't contradict anything in p3, either. it just went from a full party of wild card users to a singular one.

-- i'm glad ann's getting a little screentime here. i was just thinking about how other characters' development was lacking after makoto and futaba got so much focus.

-- mona's so sweet to ann ;-; now that he has a human form in p5r, i hope they become really good friends. she needs a kind guy friend that'll be reliable~ plus he makes her laugh.

-- sojiro talking about the anniversary of wakaba's death is......... really interesting........ considering that screenshot of futaba sitting next to a woman with the exact same haircut as her "deceased" mother.

-- ren reassuring mona that he absolutely has to be human, that he will return to who he used to be once they figure out what's happening in the metaverse is jsut jdfklasd

AND HIS LIL ROUND OF APPLAUSE WHEN MONA TALKS ABOUT ALL THE THINGS HE'S GOING TO DO TO KEEP THE WORLD SAFE ;-;

AND THAT SHOT OF HIM SLEEPING CURLED UP ON REN'S STOMACH

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

-- listen i know mona isn't rly a cat but he's the BEST cat

thoughts on episode 19:

oh it's the hawaii episode.

-- man what the hell kinda budget do these school's got that they can just go overseas with dozens of students on a yearly basis? that's impressive.

-- ryuji: "whoa, awesome! ..... i don't really get it, but awesome!" fjdsafds okay that got a laugh outta me. good one, ryuji.

-- ren: "i'm excited, too." (said in a monotone) fjklsadsl BLESS THIS BOY

-- ren's FACE when he learns that futaba installed a spying app on his phone and can hear him/see pictures he takes is...... kind of hilarious. especially if you have the headcanon that he and akechi send dumbass snapchats to each other a lot--which i do. and which you do now, too.

-- mona's depression is ten times more sad because he's a cat okay :c why they gotta make the cat so cute

-- ren, ryuji, and ann's lil sleepover is adorable. especially since ann chastises ryuji for not knowing one of the basic rules of a sleepover: if you start talkin' about your crushes, you gotta start with your own~ thems the rules lads

-- rip principal bloatneck.

-- honestly that truck shoulda at least TRIED to stop.

-- "A LO HA." goddammit that's adorable

AND HE GIVES THE LEI NECKLACE TO MONA FJDSKFJDSKL ren you're so SWEET.

-- I TOTALLY FORGOT THAT MONA CALLS SAE "ONEE-NO-NIIJIMA" FJADSKLFJDSKL ahhhh it's so cute.

-- the PT targeting okumura, who is essentially the dave thomas with political ambitions of the persona 5 world, is far funnier now that i phrase it like that.

-- ANN, OF ALL FUCKING PEOPLE, SAYING THAT THEY PROBABLY BROUGHT THIS RECENT TROUBLE ON THEMSELVES, IS A FUCKING STUPID WRITING DECISION. I CAN'T BELIEVE SOMEONE DIDN'T LOOK AT THAT AND GO, "ANN WOULDN'T SAY THIS. ANN HAS NO REASON TO SAY IT." god. lmao PLEASe let p5r be a goddamn second draft.

-- mona's totally right that ryuji's just concerned with getting popular and his dick wet. like,,, that's why this argument only made me hate ryuji more than i already did. he gets pissy when mona points out the truth.

god he sucks lmao

I'M SORRY I'M SO SALTY YOU GUYS

LOOK I'LL SAY SOMETHING NICE: SAE AND AKECHI ARE COOL

-- i really like how guarded akechi's face looks in his conversation with sae, and how off his guard he looks when she tells him that she's not going to hold back, especially since the culprit is doing such dire, awful things. he's not exactly surprised, but he's definitely uneasy and shaken by what he hears. which makes me wonder who he’s really concerned for--himself, or for ren (and the PT by extension, but akechi only really seems to care about ren, so).

the reason i like that is because the okumura arc in p5 is really where akechi's mind starts its downward spiral. principal kobayakawa's death obviously rattled him, especially since the only reason the principal died was because shido saw him as useless and disposable, something akechi is desperate NEVER TO BE. and it's that + what happens with okumura that really kicks him over the edge.

i hope p5r will give us the chance to pull him back from it. he deserves a better chance than the game's subpar writing gave to him.

thoughts on episode 20:

-- ren wakes up in a panic because he thinks he sees mona on his bed ;___________;

-- goro snoopin' on the PT's LOUD, TOTALLY CONSPICUOUS conversation in front of okumura foods' HQ is kind of adorable if you remember he clearly loves star wars (HE HAS A LIGHT SABER), and the camera cuts to his face right as they're talking about big bang and outer space lingo.

-- oh, haru. i really wish you were the black mask. that would've been so much cooler--and an actual twist. her total hopeless panic about being a beauty thief could still be a thing (because it is actually endearing), it'd just be an act. but that's me talkin' fix-its again.

-- i really like the scene of haru defending mona to the PT on the rooftop, then cutting to show just how strained her relationship is with her father. she exists to be useful to her father's ambitions and nothing else, and that scene really drove home just how painful that is for her.

-- REN TWIRLS HIS HAIR BETWEEN TWO FINGERS WHEN HE'S DEEP IN THOUGHT. AHHHHHHH I FORGOT HE DID THAT

-- oh hey remember how the game went through the trouble of showing how haru's fiance is a sexist, violent, animal-hurting piece of shit and then promptly failed to actually separate her from him in game (i think you only can do that in her s-link?? the s-link you can barely finish in your first run of the game??), and in t hEN SHOWED HER IN THE CAR WITH HIM LATER, LOOKING HORRIBLY UNCOMFORTABLE?

god this story makes me so fucking mad lmfao STOP PUTTING GIRLS IN PHYSICALLY OR SEXUALLY VIOLENT PERIL AND NEVER ACTUALLY ENSURING THAT THEY'RE SAFE, YOU DAVID CAGE LEVEL OF HACK BULLSHIT WRITERS.

-- ryuji running into the attic, all worried about mona, with a first aid kit, is..... very good. very good and endearing. good on you, ryuji.

-- haru gently encouraging mona to tell the truth is also really good. idk if i just missed it in the game or what, but i really like how she's presented in the anime. she's like a counterpart to ren--soft, sincere, observant, patient, yet she's made of pure steel beneath all that.

thoughts on episode 21:

-- WHY WAS HARU'S GRANDFATHER GIVING COFFEE TO A FIVE YEAR OLD

-- haru, the reason your father's heart grew twisted is thanks to capitalism. you gotta change the heart of capitalism.

-- not to be all poochie here but whenever akechi isn't on screen, all i can ask myself is whERE'S AKECHI?

-- HOW CAN I TAKE THE EVIL DAVE THOMAS SERIOUSLY WHEN HE'S DRESSED LIKE FUCKIN MEGAMIND?

-- okay see this is where i'm thrown completely out of the story or even really liking haru. haru just listened to her dad's shadow saying he would PIMP HER OUT TO HER FIANCE WITHOUT A SECOND THOUGHT. and she still is just like ~no i want him to go back to being kind~

bitch are you nuts

are you NUTS

youR DAd SHOULD DIE AND YOU'D BE BETTER OFF

CONSIDERING HOW THE GAME GOES, YOU ARe BETTER OFF

god. i'm getting so mad again lmao

-- ren approaching haru to point out that if the truth of her father's crimes comes to light, she'll forever be associated with him (and with all the harm and ruined reputation that brings) is, once again, further reminder of just how... damn good ren is. he doesn't hesitate to speak from the heart nor does he ever fail to listen to someone else speak from theirs.

-- also not for nothing but uh

how did the cops not like

figure out how the PT phan-site was set up within the first few months and track it down to mishima? was that ever addressed at all?

-- honestly another reason why i get so fucking mad about this okumura stuff is the game goes SO FAR OUT OF ITS WAY to make you feel BAD that he died, when he was by all rights a fucking shitheel monster, yet when akechi dies it's like 'oh well. that sucked.' fuck off, atlus. the death of a greedy, heartless CEO isn't more sad just because his gaslit daughter is conditioned to be sad about it.

i understand that a large part of the shock after okumura's death is because the PT don't know if they did anything wrong. but okumura was in no way a good person. he was in no way a person whose redemption overruled all the hurt and harm he did. that has been the case for EVERY PT target before this, so why the fuck is okumura suddenly so different? why SHOULD he be?

the difference between him and, say, akechi is that okumura et. al. all made those choices on their own to do terrible things. they delighted in it, they enjoyed it. but akechi, much like futaba, was forced into a cycle of self-destruction--it’s just that in futaba’s case, her self-destruction targeted herself, and akechi’s was quite literally weaponized and used against others. he approached shido as a young teenager and was then used by him for years.

a teenage boy being used as a magical hitman by his shitlord father is far more deserving of sympathy and redemption than grown adults who willingly make the decision to harm, abuse, and prey on others. but no, the game didn’t want to do that.

this is another big problem i have with p5's second and third acts: it's so tonally dissonant and sloppy. it's like they didn't try to actually be as rebellious and hellraiser-y as the first act WANTED to be, and it all ends up being such a limp-dick shriveled mess of "let's fight against this rotten society!! ......... as long as it in no way actually upsets anyone or does any REAL change." fuck off lmao

that's not me even commenting on the "twist" and how it needed to be explained MULTIPLE TIMES to the player for it to make any sense.

and it still doesn't make sense to me btw.

so that's another thing i hope p5r fixes.

-- rip evil dave thomas megamind.

-- akechi floating the idea to sae that the phantom thieves had nothing to do with okmura’s death is............................ interesting.

#this is the ask tag #p5 anime #some slight salt in this post y'all

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tacticalgrandma · 5 years

Text

So I don’t know how links are working on here anymore, but I have a new fic I’d like to share as best I can! Sombra returns to Dorado after the events of the “Hero” cinematic, and explores exactly how much she hates Jack Morrison. Primarily a character study of how she’s broken and not really about Jack Morrison at all. I’m going to post the fic as well as the link, and as always, comments & kudos would mean the world! Remember, you can leave both even if you don’t have an ao3 account.

AO3

Sombra hears about Soldier: 76’s little excursion in Dorado, of course. Tiburón texts her some pissy message about how if she isn’t too busy being a fucking sellout, maybe she could help them deal with the asshole who bashed Azabache’s head in like it was nothing. Sombra lets her jabs slide. Tib has a right to be angry. Sombra’s angry too.

She knows who Soldier: 76 is, of course. She did her reading on the SEP. One hundred participants, four survivors. Soldier: 12 died in combat. Soldier: 95 developed Stage IV breast cancer about a year after the war ended and died within the month. Soldier: 24 is present and accounted for. Soldier: 76 was never exactly subtle.

What’s funny is, she can’t figure out what game he’s playing here. He named himself something that would identify him to every person in the know in the world. And even Jack Morrison’s not dumb enough to have done that unintentionally. He’s got to have a bigger plan in mind, but when she asked Gabe what he thought it was, he just grunted and told her that Morrison never planned a goddamn thing in his life.

Sombra will figure him out, of course. In due time. Right now, she has business with Los Muertos.

Sombra doesn’t think the Gulf air in Dorado will ever stop feeling like home. She remembers as a kid, when the smell of burning metal and flesh permeated her world, she would sometimes catch a whiff of it and tell herself that okay, it’s still Dorado, it’s still home, things will be alright. On Rosh Hashanah, the Nieveses would march her and Patricia down to the coast and give them sheets of paper and tell them to number the ways they had wronged the world. Patricia would do so solemnly, head bowed and brow furrowed in concentration, and Sombra would toss her scraps in and crane her neck to see if she could spot fish darting around the ripples. The Nieveses would shake their heads and sigh but Sombra still took something from the ceremony. She had liked the idea of the ocean containing a part of her. Even if it was her sins.

Tiburón runs up and hugs her when she sees her, and that feels like home too. They can snipe at each other over text all they like, they’re still Muertos, they’re still family. They’ll have each others’ backs.

“How’s Aza doing?” Sombra asks. Tib loses her giddy smile and Sombra’s heart sinks

“Bad,” she says. “Still in the hospital. Migue and Luci went to visit him last week and he was talking to them then, but he crashed a couple days later. They say he’s stable but they won’t let anyone visit so I dunno. Dunno how his family’s going to pay for the bills, either.”

“It’s just him and his dad, right?”

“His sister’s in prison for the next twelve, so yeah.” Sombra’s runs her fingers through her hair and leans against the guard rail, the Gulf lapping up at the breaker behind her. Tib’s staring at her.

“What are you going to do, Sombra?” she asks.

Sombra chews on her lip. She’s struck by how much things have changed around here. Not even five years ago, she would be the one asking that question to Tiburón. Tib’s nearing her forties, practically ancient by Muerto terms, and she didn’t get there by being soft. Tib can take anyone in a fight, rally anyone to her cause, smooth over any problem with enough beer and laughter. She’s one of the ones who plucked Sombra out of the mass of grasping orphan children, cultivated her, taught her how the world really worked. She’s a god among the Muertos and Sombra idolized her.

But things have changed. Lúmerico’s just one part of a globe-spanning web that’s entrapped Dorado. The head of Overwatch is descending upon the city to get off on beating up her friends. And Sombra’s the one who rebuilt herself to play on that scale. Tib’s tough. Sombra’s not expecting her to go anywhere anytime soon. But she’s the old model, and Sombra’s the new one.

“You said he let the others go,” Sombra says. Tiburón nods.

“Yeah. Mateo got him off their tail, thank Christ.”

“How?”

“Threw a bomb at him,” Tib says with a laugh. “He just wanted to blow him the fuck up, but it ended up landing near the kid instead. Still distracted him. And she’s fine, but her mother bitched us out good.”

“Which kid?”

Tib won’t meet her eyes all of a sudden. “He didn’t mean for it to get near her,” she says. “He didn’t know she was still there.” Sombra pushes off the railing and narrows her eyes.

“Christ, Tib–”

“It’s fine, okay Olivia?” Tib snaps. “No one got hurt. Except for fucking Aza. So try to focus on that.”

Sombra stares at her and Tib meets her gaze for a moment before she drops her eyes again. All the anger Sombra had seen in her melts away and leaves behind something tired and pathetic.

“I’ll take care of it,” Sombra says. She starts to walk away.

“Sombra–”

Sombra wheels around and catches Tib flinching. “I said I’ll take care of it, okay?” she says. “When I say something, I mean it. I take care of my fucking people.”

She walks away from the pier. Tib doesn’t say anything else as she leaves.

The bakery’s just a few blocks away, in the more residential part of town near the church. Sombra smells it before she sees it and it mixes in with the Gulf air and if salt water smells like home, then baking bread smells like family. Sombra steps in through the shop door. Patricia looks up from the counter when she hears the bell above the door chime and gasps.

“Sombra!” Sombra grins and gives a wave.

“Hey, Patty.” Patricia rushes around the counter and towards Sombra. Sombra spots her flour-covered hands and apron and takes a step back. “So I’m happy to see you too, but–”

Patricia pays her absolutely no mind and crushes her in a hug. Sombra hides her smile in her shoulder and hugs back.

“It’s been so long,” Patricia says. “And the last time you texted me was months ago, and that was to send me some dumb meme about Portero. I thought something had happened to you.”

“Ah, I’m sorry.” Patricia lets go of her and folds her arms, but Sombra’s seen her cross too many times to be too affected by it. “I’ve just been really busy, shit with the job and all, and you know, didn’t want to get you guys involved accidentally–”

“Oh, stop.” Patricia waves her towards the little table near the window. Sombra sits down and Patricia hustles back behind the counter, rummaging around for something. “So what are you here for now?” she asks.

“What, I can’t just stop by and visit my dearest friend?”

“Sombra.” Sombra drums her fingers on the table and sighs.

“Well. I need to talk to Ale, actually.”

Patricia pops back up and looks at her quizzically. “Ale? What for?”

“Tib told me what happened.” Patricia’s face darkens and she dips back around the counter and walks to the table. She puts a buñuelo in front of Sombra and leans her face on her hand.

“They wrote me a check for her college fund,” she says. “And God, that’s good to have. They did seem sorry. But…” Sombra takes her hand over the table and squeezes it.

“I took care of it,” she says. “Don’t worry.” Patricia swallows hard and nods.

“You said you needed to talk to her, though?” she asks after a moment, when she’s blinked the shine from her eyes.

“Yeah,” Sombra says. “There’s some other shit I need to take care of.” Patricia nods again and stands up.

“No swearing around her,” she reminds her. Sombra rolls her eyes, Patricia rolls her eyes even harder back, and then heads through the door behind the counter. A couple minutes later, the door bursts open and a girl runs towards Sombra, her mother in a tired pursuit.

“Olivia!” Alejandra squeals. “You’re here!”

The name still takes the air from her lungs for a second. Patricia must notice because she coughs into her hand. Alejandra glances back at her, then looks back up at Sombra guiltily.

“Sorry, Sombra,” she says, emphasizing the last word in a way that would sound sarcastic without the accompanying puppy eyes. Sombra grins and musses her hair.

“It’s okay, kiddo,” she says. “It’s good to see you again.” Alejandra makes a little noise of pure excitement and hops up on the chair across from Sombra.

“Mom said you wanted to talk to me about the guy,” she says. Her eyes are jumping between the buñuelo and Sombra pushes it towards her. She grabs it and takes a bite. “Do you know him?” she asks with her mouth full.

“I might,” Sombra says. “I’m not sure. I’d like to hear what you remember about that day.”

“Sombra, it was so crazy!” A bit of buñuelo sprays out when Alejandra talks but she’s too busy gesticulating to notice. “So Migue and the others, they took my purse, so I ran after them, and then he showed up, and they were shooting at him, and he started shooting back, and then his mask did this cool red glowy thing–” Sombra nods, trying not to let her anger rise at Alejandra’s enthusiasm and dumb grin. “And then there was a truck, and they jumped on to it and threw a bomb at me, and he ran and grabbed me and got me out of the way! And he even got my purse back for me!” Alejandra finally swallows her mouthful and looks up at Sombra with big round eyes. “So? Do you know who he is? Can you thank him for me?”

She can’t take it anymore. “He put Azabache in the hospital, do you remember that part?” Sombra asks scathingly. Alejandra looks down at the remains of the buñuelo.

“Azabache, he– I don’t think he–” Sombra drops a hand on the table and Alejandra jumps.

“I don’t care what you think about Aza, he’s one of us! And we protect our own!” Sombra jabs a finger out the window, towards the Gulf, in the vague direction of wherever the hell Morrison’s fucked off to. “You think if there had been a bomb on you and a bomb on one of his buddies, he’d have picked you? You think if there had been a bomb on some rando or a bomb on you, Aza wouldn’t save you? That bastard did one thing for you and then he ran. Well, Aza’s still here, Mateo’s still here, Tiburón’s still here. When it gets down to the wire, Ale, that’s the shit that matters.”

“Sombra!” Patricia says. Sombra looks up and sees her making her way towards them. Her face is stony in a way she has to take seriously. She stands up. Alejandra pushes the rest of the buñuelo towards her. Sombra snorts.

“I’m good,”’ she says. “Just think about what I told you.” She heads towards the door.

“He saved me,” Alejandra said in a small voice. “Doesn’t that make him a hero?” Sombra turns back to her and she knows she’s just a kid, she knows she should be patient with her, but fuck, Sombra learned this shit when she was eight years old. Ale’s got to grow up sometime.

“There’s no such thing as heroes,” she tells her. “And anyone who says otherwise just wants something from you.” Alejandra says nothing and Sombra leaves, the bell above the door chiming in her wake.

On her way back to Venice, she thinks about Jack Morrison. She remembered growing up and hearing him called a hero a thousand times in the news. Patricia and the Nieveses had nodded along to that and so she shouldn’t be surprised by Ale being the way she is. But still, it’s fucking ridiculous. Jack Morrison isn’t special. People like Jack Morrison are everywhere.

People like Jack Morrison don’t come to Dorado to learn or to help, they come when they want to feel good about themselves. People like Jack Morrison have the world at their fingertips but run around dressed up as the little guy because they want to feel like a victim instead of a fuckup. They beat up actual little guys when they want to feel big. People like Jack Morrison ignore the hunger in Dorado until someone tries to take a crumb from their plate. People like Jack Morrison give little kids dreams about the world being just because they never want to admit how the odds were stacked in their favor.

She’d been holding on to the intel, waiting to see the best for use for it. Maybe blackmail him into telling her what she wants to know, maybe dangle it in front of the right party to get something in exchange. But you know what? Fuck Jack Morrison, and fuck people like him.

“Your ex is in Giza,” she tells Gabe. “Go get ‘em, tiger.”

#i already have one pissy comment but aklsj i'm not taking down the troll description #sombra #soldier: 76 #olivia colomar #jack morrison #overwatch #fic #orig

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gaylortruther · 5 years

Text

(many) tag games

saw someone else do this so i figured i’d go through all my tag games in one looong post instead of spamming you all with a bunch of separate posts!

i’m gonna tag everyone now and yall can choose which tag games you want to do or whether you want to do them all (or whether you want to do any)!!

thanks to everyone who tagged me in all of these! i LOVE being tagged in tag games and i am always up for more! <3

tagging THE SANCTION (including ppl that i haven’t gotten up on the page yet im sorry abfjffsdhsjbjsdf it will happen SOON): @newdivinities @wolvesofarcadia @maskedlady @victoiirres @sancta-silje @bumblebeesonpaper @wasting-ink-not-youth @horrorspell @ya-lady-tauriel @awritinglen @purpleshadows1989 @ivonoris @theforgottencoolkid @the-ichor-of-ruination @grotesqu-e @lucacangettathisass @tea-ndi @hazeywrites @lunar895 @thewordsinthesky-andstars

[LAST LINE TAG]

TAGGED BY @melwrotethat AND @hazeywrites

thank you both for the tags! these are the last few lines of the prologue-excerpt-thing i wrote for the page i’m working on for WHERE THE CELLAR MEETS THE SKY

Somehow, Collin hears them. Silently, she rolls up her sleeve, and Rowan feels the Collin Sutherland they knew is somewhere far, far away. The tattoos are black, geometric in design, two on each arm, and eerily similar to the ones Rowan has just discovered on their own left arm. They're sure if they were to roll up their right sleeve, they would find more.

"I should have told you a long time ago," Collin whispers. "I didn't know you were a part of it, but I should have guessed. I didn't want to put you in danger."

"I'm not- I don't- in danger of what?"

The waves crash onto the shore, and in the distance, a seagull cries, sending Collin into action. She grabs Rowan's hand and starts pulling, dragging them back behind the house.

"Come on. We don't have a lot of time, we have to get going. I can tell you everything on the way. I don't know why he brought me here instead of straight to the veil, damn it-,"

"Wait!," they say, wrenching their hand out of her grasp. "Just- stop! Where are we going?!"

Collin's eyes flash bright, despite the lack of sunlight. "Home."

yeah, a bit long, a bit unedited, but *shrugs*

[SPELL OUT UR URL USING SONG TITLES]

TAGGED BY @tea-ndi

thank you sage!!! <3

hard feelings/loveless | lorde

another one of those days | cavetown

let’s fall in love for the night | FINNEAS

ocean eyes | billie eilish

honey and milk | flower face

i know | king princess ft fiona apple

dreamz | sara king

iloveyou | BETWEEN FRIENDS

nobody’s home | gnash

greek god | conan gray

sycamore girl | rex orange county

and there you have a small sample of my music taste! add in literally every taylor swift song (dont judge me), some lo-fi tunes without ANY words whatsoever, and the occasional fall out boy or panic at the disco goddamn absolute banger, and you have my XANDERS JAMS playlist on spotify. ENJOY

[11/11/11 TAG]

TAGGED BY @awritinglen <333333333333333333333333

thank you for tagging me len!!! your questions were so fun!! i’m doing this for WHERE THE CELLAR MEETS THE SKY

Name all OCs in your WIP

OMFG okay,,, wait do you mean full names?? POV characters as of rn are Collin Aisling Sutherland, Rowan Tilley (doesn’t have a middle name) and Avery Bristol Charter. then the next most important one is Isaac Michael Rosewell, even though he’s the antagonist. then the side characters that are still very featured are Noah Rosalyn Pratten, Reese Iseul Radley, and Sage Emarosa Delgado. THEN we get into the very very side characters, Willa Robinson and her son August Robinson. then we have Avery’s parents, Alaric and the late Octavia Charter. and thennnnn we have Beldane Moreno, Avery’s uncle and Collin’s grandfather (undecided abt that last name but going w it for now). i promise it all makes sense. i promise anfnfsjnfdjsfd

Name at least one hobby your Main character love

i’ll give this one to Collin, she is a musician! Avery’s mother always taught her music before The Accident (dun dun dunnn) and after Collin was abandoned in the Nigh she threw herself into music. she plays guitar mostly, but she secretly loves piano the best out of every instrument she knows

3 sentences about your current WIP

OOF. im so bad at summaries why would you do this to meee abfhshjbsbshfjsbf. “A determined believer wants to return to a home that never wanted her. Almost 4000 miles away, an incisive, intellectual outcast of a dreamer muses over getting out of their hometown. And infinities away from them both, a teenage revolutionary disappears into thin air, on his way to bring back his past and fix his (and everyone’s) future.”

Is there a romance in your WIP and did you plan it from the beginning?

yes! there are three! they are definitely a main focus of the plot, but not THE main focus. Reese and Rowan were definitely planned from the beginning. Collin and Noah were, too, but they weren’t originally enemies to lovers, and they are now (hehehehehe). and Isaac and Avery were DEFINITELY not planned from the beginning. in fact, Avery was originally paired up with Sage, but it’s literally so much better this way and i’m so glad it’s been changed. Isaac and Avery has been planned since about when Isaac’s character was thought up, one year into planning WTCMTS.

What genre(s) is it?

a mix of dystopia and urban fantasy. and it’s YA, borderline NA because some of the characters are 19-20, but i still think YA is appropriate because of the style of writing.

What’s the aesthetic of two of your characters?

fun question! Collin’s aesthetic is very emo-punk, with a splash of yellow towards the end of the series. piercings, blue hair, rips on clothing, dirty converse, smudged eyeliner, safety pins. the yellow comes in as part of her character arc, as she learns to accept that her childhood memories are tainted and not actually perfect utopia. Rowan is way more minimalist (sometimes). they’re into the bookstagram type aesthetic, and mom jeans with sneakers, jean jackets, plants against a white wall, colorblocked windbreakers, rain against a car window.

When did you start your current WIP?

WTCMTS was started in august of 2017

How far along are you in the process (i.e 1st/2nd/3rd draft, worldbuilding)

still worldbuilding, unfortunately, for personal reasons

Who’s the hardest character for you to write?

OOOOOOF. sage or rowan?

What music genre best decribes your main character(s) and whats their favorite?

Collin - alternative (favorite band would be like twenty one pilots, p!atd)

Rowan - ichillwave (clario, rex orange county)

Avery - emo (fall out boy, all time low)

Isaac - indie alternative OR instrumental lofi (jaymes young, birdy)

Noah - electropop (lorde, halsey, charlie xcx)

Reese - folk rock (the head and the heart, of monsters and men)

Sage - indie pop (lana del ray, florence + the machine)

Are you working on more than one WIP?

yes! i have four currently but only two are important lol, ILLUNIUS and WHERE THE CELLAR MEETS THE SKY (this one). WIP PAGE

MY QUESTIONS

how did you come up with the title for your WIP?

is there anything you want to change about your WIP but you are hesitating on?

do you have a favorite character? a character that is your baby?

write a tinder bio for one of your characters.

how do you feel about epilogues? does your wip include an epilogue?

what changes does your MC go through over the course of the story?

what is the most significant insignificant thing that happens in your story? don’t explain why it is significant if it spoils things ;)

do you know what will happen after the ending of your wip, or would you rather not picture it?

how long does your wip span? is it a novel? a series? does it have prequels or spin-off wips?

what is a major internal conflict for your MC?

do you include flashbacks in your wip? do you like writing flashbacks?

[HOW TO KNOW YOU’RE IN A ______ NOVEL TAG]

TAGGED BY @writevevo AND @wolvesofarcadia

thank you both for this tag! it’s so much fun and both of your novels sound like novels that would be very interesting to be stuck in :D

inspired by this post

HOW TO KNOW YOU’RE IN A HALOHIDINGS NOVEL

you’re an older sibling and you have a younger sibling. you’re extremely bitter towards your younger sibling for stealing opportunities from you, damning you to a life you never truly wanted. your younger sibling adores you and just wants to please you. they never meant to do it.

you’re stuck in constant, wistful wanderlust, never feeling like you truly belong, never fitting in anywhere, not with friends, not with family, and when you finally find the place you’ve been looking for, you realize it’s nothing like you dreamed or remembered.

you’re not heterosexual. no one around you is. no one is cisgender either. where are they? no one knows.

you have a peculiar capability dancing under your skin. it trickles from your pores and muddles with your mind. maybe you asked for it, maybe it was predestined, maybe you never wanted anything to do with it. whatever the reason, it’s there, and you don’t know what’s you and what’s it. maybe you’re not meant to ask. maybe you’re meant to succumb.

your memories are as fickle as the rain, coming and going and breaking through the clouds, shattering the fog and disappearing with the sun. you can’t recall what you’re doing here, or where you’re meant to be instead. what’s your name?, they ask. you don’t know.

there are two worlds. one world is blissfully unaware of this, or at least, as unaware as any world of millions and millions of people can be. no secret can be kept forever, they tell you. you are desperately trying to keep the secret.

the one closest to you, despite your abhorrent denial of this fact, the one you would trust with your life, will betray you. because of their decision, their selfishness, you will either lose them, or lose yourself.

THOSE WERE SO FUN OMG. they all mostly apply to both of my major wips, which is probably bad. oh well LMAO

SORRY THAT WAS SOOOOOOOO LONG hope at least someone does one of these tag games lol <3

xander out

#taggedin

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rainbow-sides · 6 years

Text

Anomalies: Chapter Twelve

Summary: Anomalies is about different reactions to grief and how four brothers each respond to the death of their mother. The oldest brother, Roman, gets custody of the twins, Patton and Virgil, and the youngest brother, Logan, after their mother’s death. Virgil is also trying to navigate through a multitude of anxiety disorders, including OCD and trichotillomania, with the help of his brothers and his therapist, Dr. Picani. But meanwhile, Roman isn’t sure he can handle the responsibility of taking care of his brothers, Logan doesn’t process loss in a way most people can understand, and Patton isn’t nearly as okay as he seems…

Warnings: Death of a parent, grief, talk of self-harm and panic attacks, mention of a suicide attempt of a family member, overworking, stress, neglect of self-care, keeping secrets, coping mechanisms, insecurities. For a list of the content warnings for the whole story as well as more information, please see this post. Please heed the warnings and stay safe.

Word Count: 3,191

Notes: Roman’s chapter! This basically takes you through what Roman has been doing and feeling since his mother’s death. The chapter also really focuses on the Logince relationship. Hope you enjoy! <3 ~Martin

Masterpost to All Chapters

Roman couldn't remember the last time he had gotten a full night's sleep.

It had to have been before their mother's death. Between making phone calls, doing paperwork, and comforting his little brothers, the week between the death and the funeral held no sleep at all for him. And the night after the funeral, he had slept for a few hours in Logan's bed but had then gotten up to check on Patton, who had fallen asleep on the floor. He had picked him up and put him in bed, noticing the tear tracks on the poor kid's face.

And after that, if he wasn't working or driving the kids around or studying for tests, he was writing. The novel flowed from his mind to his hands, through his pen and onto the pages of his many fancy notebooks faster than he had ever written before. He poured his heart and soul into this book, venting his grief and frustrations and fears onto the Prince of a faraway kingdom whose mother, the Queen, died and left him in charge of a kingdom that he wasn't prepared to rule. That he had never wanted to rule. The Prince had to navigate politics and trade and laws, as well as his own grief and that of his siblings. There were sicknesses in the kingdom and dragons attacking, and the Prince didn't know what to do.

Roman didn't, either. All he could do was stay afloat for another day, another week, month, and soon it would get easier. Right? It had to. He couldn't continue like this much longer.

He spent every night hunched over his notebook until he was close to passing out from exhaustion, and then he would hide the notebook in the secret drawer in his desk. That way, nobody would find it. When each notebook was filled, he would type it out and add it to the document he kept on his computer. It was getting close to 50,000 words. Not the longest thing he had written, but it was going to be eventually. He had plans.

Of course, he never planned on publishing it. There was no way he could do that, even though he knew it was the best thing he had ever created. If he published it, his brothers would see it. They would read it, and they would realize how Roman did things so wrong. He was making light of the situation, making it into a fantasy. They would know that he couldn't handle it if it was real all the time, and they would hate him. He knew they would.

But without being able to continue with theater right now, he did need something, some fantasy world to lose himself inside of. If he didn't, he would go absolutely crazy. He knew that too well. And he had to keep himself sane however he could. His brothers needed him.

He had just barely begun to think that maybe it was starting to get easier, that the reprieve he so desperately needed was upon him. The routine was becoming less impossible to follow. His frantic writing slowed down just slightly, and he started to get about 5 or 6 hours of sleep every night. And then Patton had done that.

Trying to drown oneself belonged in Shakespeare plays and the biographies of old poets, not in Roman’s goddamned family.

The couple of minutes between when he had received the call from Virgil and when he had been told that Patton was alive were the worst minutes of his life. And that included being at the hospital to hear the heart monitor flatline and having to go back out of the room to where Patton and Logan were waiting, terrified, catching Patton as he fell to the ground screaming before Roman had even said anything. The look on his face must have been enough. And calling Virgil, having to tell him what had happened…

Roman had made the decision to tell him immediately. It wasn't fair, he thought, to tell him to come to the hospital and not tell him why. He would know, but he wouldn't know. And the fact that Virgil had immediately begun to demand to know what happened, Roman, tell me, just tell me made Roman know he had made the right choice. Even if it had wrenched his heart right out of his chest to hear Virgil sobbing over the phone in a public place with nobody to help him.

But thinking that Patton might have killed himself was worse. So much worse.

After it had become clear that Patton wasn't going to die, and the appointment had been made with Dr. Picani, Roman had left Virgil and Patton curled up in his bed with Logan watching over them. He had collapsed onto the couch, buried his face in a pillow, and screamed. When he had screamed himself hoarse, not letting a single sound escape from the cushion he used to muffle his voice, he had burst into tears. I almost lost him, he thought, and he couldn't stop crying. I failed you, Mom. And I failed Patton.

He needed his notebook. He needed to write, to do something to relieve the pain and pressure inside of him. Is this what Patton felt when he cut? But he didn't have a story to write to make it go away, so he had to cut himself to let it out. He needed his notebook.

“Roman?”

Roman flinched and tossed the pillow away, wiping his eyes quickly. “What's wrong, Lo, are they okay? What's--" He broke off.

Logan was holding out the leather bound notebook that Roman was sure had been put away safely in his drawer. “Nothing is wrong. They're both sound asleep, I made sure. I thought you might need this.”

“Where did you even...how…” Roman stood up and snatched his book away from his little brother, looking at him suspiciously. “You didn't read it, did you?”

“Of course not. But I'd like to.” Logan was unphased by Roman’s glare. “I know you've been writing again, ever since she died. I know how you get when you’re working on a project, and all the signs were there. Is it a novel or a play, or just poetry?”

“...novel,” Roman muttered. “How did you even know where to find this?”

“Roman, I helped you put that desk together. It's not a secret drawer if you already know it's there,” Logan informed him. “So, can I read it?”

“It's not finished yet.” Why didn't I just say no? Roman wondered despondently.

“I know. I'm a very good editor.”

Roman raised his eyebrows. “Oh, is that it? You just want more of an excuse to criticize my grammar?”

“I don't need an excuse. But no, I just want to read it. I'm curious about what you're writing, what it is that could help you at a time like this.”

“What?”

“Well,” Logan said, “you write when you are upset. You turn the pain of reality into artwork. That's fascinating. And I like your writing. I think it's clever.”

High praise from the clever one. “Thank you, I suppose.”

“Can I read it?” Logan pressed.

“It's not something I'm sure I want to share,” Roman said.

“I won't tell Virgil or Patton anything, I promise.”

“I don't know if I'm comfortable sharing it with you, either,” Roman clarified.

“Why not?”

“Because…” Roman searched for an answer that Logan would accept. “Just because.” Well, that's not gonna go over well.

“Hm. Try again,” Logan said.

He sounds like Mom, Roman realized, and almost snorted. “You won’t like reading it.”

“Why not?” Logan asked again.

Roman groaned. “Because it’s stupid, Logan. It’s a dumb book and I haven’t edited it at all and it’s...it’s just been the only thing keeping me sane, so quality isn’t really what I’m going for. You understand?”

“Like I said, I’m a great editor.”

Maybe...no. No. “No, Logan. I’m sorry, I’m not ready to share it yet. Or ever, probably. Thanks for bringing me the notebook, now go back to my room. I don’t want them left alone,” Roman said. “And I have to call my boss.”

“Fine,” Logan said resignedly. He handed Roman a pen. “Tell me if you change your mind.” He turned and went back down the hallway to the bedroom where Virgil and Patton slept.

Roman looked down at the notebook and pen in his hands. He was itching to spill more words out onto the paper, but he really did have to call his boss. So he did, and he explained to her that there had been an emergency at home and he might have to rearrange his schedule. To his relief, she had been very understanding.

After he had hung up, he opened the notebook and turned to the page where the ribbon bookmark lay. The left-hand page was covered with his neat, scrawling handwriting that switched seamlessly between print and cursive every few sentences depending on how fast he had been writing. And the right-hand page was blank. The grey lines invited him to un-cap the pen and to press the tip to the page. He began to write.

On Monday night, when Patton had moved to Virgil’s room, Roman found himself alternating between sitting at his desk writing feverishly and, about once an hour, rushing to where the twins slept to check on them. Each time, he feared that Patton would be gone. But he always found both of them in the same spot, fast asleep with Virgil’s arms tucked protectively around his twin. Although he knew he was being paranoid, Roman would put his hand on Patton’s chest carefully to make sure he was still breathing.

He would go check on Logan afterwards. The youngest had fallen asleep with a textbook on his pillow and his head resting next to it. He held it like it was a stuffed animal, and Roman covered his mouth, snickering quietly. The kid was such a nerd. Roman loved him so much.

And then he would go back to his room and write for another hour, then spring to his feet and head back down the hallway to Virgil’s room. This continued until almost 4 a.m. when he finally sank down onto his bed and turned his light off.

He did the same thing every night that week. On Thursday night, after they had a small and pretty pathetic Thanksgiving meal of pizza and Sprite (only the Sprite for Virgil, who was still worried that his stomach wouldn’t be able to handle much more), Roman filled the notebook. He opened up his laptop and began to type. He changed a few words here and there but mostly, it was exactly what he had written in the notebooks. The hours ticked by and he checked on the twins a few times. They seemed fine, and Virgil hadn’t gotten sick again.

It was after 3 a.m. when there was a tiny knock at his door. Roman leapt from his chair and opened it, worried that it would be Virgil feeling ill again. But it was just Logan. “What’s up, Lo?” Roman whispered, not wanting to wake the twins across the hall.

“Can I come sit in here?” Logan asked.

“Of course.” Roman let him come into the room and watched him sit down on the bed. “Why are you awake?” he asked, closing the door quietly.

“Why are you awake?” Logan shot back.

“Fair enough.” Roman sat down in his desk chair and rubbed his eyes. “I’ve been writing.”

“Every night until about 3:45, I know.”

Roman narrowed his eyes. “And how do you know that?” he asked.

Logan sighed. “‘Cause 3:30 is the last time you come and check on me. You can stop doing that, by the way, I’m not going anywhere.”

Roman sputtered, “Wh--you--I didn’t mean to wake you up!”

“Oh, I’m almost never asleep when you come in.”

“You, uh, do a pretty great job at pretending,” Roman stated, taken aback.

Nodding, Logan said, “I know. I turn my lights off when I hear you go into Virgil’s room and regulate my breathing.”

“...Why?” Roman demanded. “Why would you pretend to be asleep? And why aren’t you asleep, for that matter?”

“I pretended because I didn’t want to worry you, and I’m not asleep because I’d rather be reading. Is that sufficient explanation?” Logan asked.

“Uh-uh, specs, you don’t get to do that. You're thirteen, you need sleep!” scolded Roman.

“And you’re only twenty-one,” Logan countered. “You still effectively need as much sleep as a teenager because your brain still hasn’t fully developed its frontal lobe yet.” He crossed his arms, his face saying I could do this all night.

Frustrated, Roman threw one of his hands up into the air. “Fine! Both of us should be asleep. And we aren’t. So where does that leave us?”

Logan glanced around. “...In your room?”

“Not what I--oh, dear.” Roman frowned suddenly. “Wait, why are you in my room? You wanted to come sit in here, is everything alright?”

“Um…”

The hesitation was enough. Roman left his chair and sat down on the bed next to his little brother. “What’s up?” he asked gently.

Logan sighed, and it was too old of a sound to be coming from a teenager who wasn’t quite 14 yet. “I have to tell you something.”

Heart beating faster, Roman was imagining all of the possible things Logan would need to tell him. “Okay,” he said. “Hit me with it, Lo.”

“I haven’t just been at the library.”

WHAT--

“What?” Roman said calmly.

“When I said I was going to the library, I wasn’t always at the library,” Logan restated.

“Then...where have you been?” asked Roman.

Logan took a deep breath. “I’ve been taking classes at the community college.”

“Oh,” Roman said. He’s been doing what now????? AND HE LIED TO ME ABOUT WHERE HE WAS, THAT IS SO NOT SAFE-- “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I am telling you.”

“Okay, how long has this been going on? And how did you get there?” Roman demanded. “What classes are you taking? How are you paying for them? And how the hell do you have time to do all the work for college classes as well as high school classes? You’re already a freshman with three honors and one AP class, don’t you understand how much of a workload that is?”

“Slow down,” Logan pleaded. “Okay--I’ve been taking classes since August. I take the bus from the library to the college. And Mom paid for them.”

“She…” Roman couldn’t breathe for a second. “Mom knew?” he choked out.

“She encouraged me to take them,” Logan mumbled. “I’m taking astronomy and organic chemistry. She saw the course listings online and suggested them when I told her that the high school classes were boring.”

“So she…” Roman was having a hard time speaking through the sudden lump in his throat. His eyes were misting over. “She wanted you to do this?”

“Uh-huh,” Logan said, nodding. “And I was...I was going to drop out, after she died, because I thought...I thought I might not be able to handle it.” That was clearly difficult for him to admit.

“But you didn’t,” Roman murmured.

“No, I didn’t. Actually, it’s been…” Logan hesitated. “It’s helped. I’m working towards something, and I don’t have time to just stay sad. I think it’s been good for me.”

“Okay, well…I’m so glad that you know yourself well enough to know that. But Logan, why didn’t you tell me sooner?” wondered Roman. “You could have, really. Even before Mom died, you could have told me. Do Virgil and Patton know?”

“No, they don’t know anything about it. It was Mom and my secret.” Logan glanced away.

Roman understood. Having something that was only between him and their mother must have been a lifeline for Logan to cling to. And as he realized that, Roman was confused. “So why tell me now?”

“I’ve wanted to tell you since Mom died,” Logan confessed. “And I know I should have. But I wasn't ready, not yet. I was going to before the semester was over, I promise. But the reason I’m telling you now is because there’s an astronomy overnight next week and obviously, I couldn’t go without you knowing. Even if I snuck out, you’d know, because you insist on checking on me every single hour.”

“Okay, the fact that you had even considered sneaking out as a valid enough option to know the problems with it worries me,” admonished Roman. “But I’ll let that slide this once. Yeah, alright. What day is this overnight, and where is it? Also I’m still debating whether or not I even want you leaving my sight.”

“It’s from Tuesday to Wednesday, on campus. There’s a small observatory in the eastern wing. And why are you worrying about me?” Logan asked. “I haven’t hurt myself and I don’t pass out from panic attacks.”

“No, but you’re thirteen,” emphasized Roman. “And you’re my baby brother. I’m allowed to worry about you. Fine. I’m driving you, though. And you’re giving me your class schedule.”

“Are you going to tell Patton and Virgil?” Logan asked, a note of apprehension in his voice.

Roman pretended to consider it. “If you don’t tell them about my novel, I won’t tell them about your classes. Deal?”

“I’ll let you drive me if you let me read the book,” Logan counter-offered.

“And you have to tell me about your classes at least once a week. And I’m not talking about ‘how was school’, ‘it was fine’, I mean actually tell me. I want the details on what the professors wear and exactly how dumb the kid who sits in front of you is.”

“Nobody sits in front of me. I always sit in the front row, Roman, you know that,” Logan said, confused.

“Do we have a deal?”

“You’re letting me read the book?”

“If you agree to the terms.”

Logan nodded and held out his hand. “I agree to the terms.”

“Done.” Roman shook his head quickly. “Addendum: you also have to sleep at least seven hours a night.”

“Back at you.”

“Fine.”

“Addendum accepted,” Logan said.

Roman grinned and wrapped his arms around Logan, who squirmed. “Starting now. And you’re staying here, ‘cause otherwise I can’t trust that you won’t just be reading under your covers with a flashlight.”

“I haven’t tried that since I was ten,” Logan muttered.

Ruffling his little brother’s hair and giggling at the resulting offended squawk, Roman added, “Go turn the lights off, and close my computer for me. We’ll have to sleep until ten tomorrow to meet the seven hour minimum.”

Logan flicked off the lightswitch and powered down the laptop before coming back to the bed and curling up on his side underneath the sheet. He pushed the comforter towards Roman, who gladly accepted the extra blanket. “That doesn’t sound disagreeable,” Logan mumbled.

Closing his eyes, Roman answered, “No, it doesn’t, does it? Night, Lo.”

“Goodnight, Roman.”

They’re adorable, I love them so much. Okay ahhhhh, hope you enjoyed! Make sure you’re taking care of yourselves, writing is a perfectly valid and healthy way to cope with your emotions even if Roman is struggling to understand that, and try to get at least 7 hours of sleep every night. Alrighty that’s all I have to say, I love you!

Oh, and if you want more stories by me, check out my new multichapter fic A Snake in the Grass, it’s like, good and stuff. Thank you! <3 ~Martin

General Taglist

@a-lexicon-of-words @am-i-heaven-or-am-i-hell @sassy-in-glasses @iamsilentwolf @theshipqueenarrives @alurea-actually @haikyuupaladin @my-happy-little-bean @faithfulcat111 @iris-sanders-athena @riverblujay @faacethefacts @sushipug43 @decaffeinatedpersonnel @finger-gunsss @wicked-delights @escapingslowly @greeneggsandham1998 @blue-fluffy-dragon @fuzzypurplecloud @anuninspiredpoet @justanotherpurplebutterfly @candiukas @shortandfantastic

Anomalies Taglist

@i-will-physically-fight-you @alextheodd @a-lexicon-of-words @cinderlunarcyborg @justamassivenerd @quietdeerfan @haikyuupaladin @anonymous-at-midnight @toriwithacamera @k9cat @anuninspiredpoet @afilhadehades-blog @logicallyanxious-morallyromantic @akiraaria @drunken-ghost @hanramz-the-fander @callboxkat @blubblubfish @spectacled-renegade @anuninspiredpoet @fillyourteacup @im-a-bin-child @keys117 @brikcsandbones @jadekitten1 @too-queer-for-the-binary @arandomkoalainaustralia @cinnnamonrollpatton @infinityonthot @romanssippycup @kirsten-the-freak @ab-artist @super-magical-wizard @illiani

#anomalies #my writing #sanders sides fic #ts sides fic #roman sanders #patton sanders #virgil sanders #logan sanders

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bazypitchandsimonsnow · 6 years

Text

Part of Your World

Chapter 10: the storm above us

Rating: T

Genre: Fluff/Angst

Word count: 4356

Chapter: 10/11 (All chapters)

Summary: Everything has gone to to hell. Can Simon and Baz save each other and everyone else?

Read on AO3

AN: This is it! The grand finale! Hope you enjoy it :) (Also because @alive-alive-alive was dying over the last cliffhanger I’m tagging you. Thought you’d want the resolution as soon as possible!)

———————————————-

Baz couldn’t move. His brain was still trying to catch up to what in the Lord’s name just happened. Simon could talk, and he was a merman, and his crazy merman father had pulled him underwater.

Simon was gone. Literally ripped away from him moments before they finally kissed. And Baz was just fucking standing there because he was in too much shock to bloody move.

“Mother of god,” Agatha said, leaning over the railing next to him. “Was that Simon?

“Yes,” Baz replied from between angrily gritted teeth. “And I’m going to get him.”

He started shedding his white jacket, ripping the buttons out with all the rage and desperation he felt.

“Basilton, what on earth are you doing?” Malcolm clapped a firm hand on his shoulder. Baz threw him off, whipping around so he could properly sneer at his father.

“I lost him once! I’m not losing him again!”

Malcolm took a step back. Baz quickly realised his father didn’t look disgusted or angry. Rather, he looked afraid. Baz’s heart sank. He felt ashamed for being so selfish. For forgetting that, despite his annoying demands and expectations, Malcolm was still his father, who still loved him. And who had lost someone he loved before.

Baz softened. He took his father’s hand loosely in his, matching his gaze unwaveringly. “Father, please understand, I have to at least try to save him. If you’d had the chance to save her, wouldn’t have you have tried?”

Malcolm inhaled sharply. Baz feared he was about to be berated for using his mother’s memory for his own advantage. But to his surprise, Malcolm merely squeezed his hand and nodded slowly.

“Just be careful,” he said quietly. “I don’t want to lose you too.”

Baz squeezed back. “You won’t. Now, get the ship as far away as you can. Whatever this crazy...merman is doing, you should all be far from it. Okay?”

Malcolm nodded. Fiona, who stood beside her brother-in-law, nodded too with tightly pressed lips. Baz could see she was barely holding it together as well. She reached into her black boot and pulled out a leather handled knife.

“Here,” she said, pressing it into his hand. “Not sure how effective this will be against a goddamn magical creature, but it’s good too have a weapon.”

“Thank you, Fiona.”

Baz threw off his jacket and slipped the knife into his belt. He stood looking over the edge, balancing precariously on the brass railing. Part of him couldn’t believe he was doing this. But a louder part of him said it was the only real option. He wasn’t going to lose Simon. Baz refused to let him go ever again.

“Don’t die, you wonderful prick,” he whispered, then dived headfirst into the water.

———————————————-

Simon struggled against his father with all his strength, but David’s grip was iron. He dragged them deeper and deeper.

“Let go of me, you arsehole!” Simon roared.

“By Neptune’s beard, I will not,” David yelled in reply. “Look what happened when I left you once. You run away to sleep with the enemy!”

“They’re not the bloody enemy!”

David stop and whipped around to face him. His eyes were filled with crazed rage. “Yes they are! They lord above us on that land, keeping us in hiding, killing us when we dare show our faces. No more! Soon, we will have their precious land. The time of man will be done.”

Simon’s gaze widened with equal wonder and fear. “What in Poseidon’s name are you even talking about?!”

The older merman let out a strange laugh. It was breathy and high pitched. That of a person who’d truly lost their mind. “This is the ultimate goal, Simon. I’ve been scouting the land for years, looking for it’s weak points, then gathering the necessary materials. Today, we’ll finally destroy the human scum. We’ll sink the land beneath the waves. With our combined power and my skill, it’s possible! Then I can rule it like they once ruled over us!”

Simon just stared at his father with an open mouth. He couldn’t believe it. “No,” he whispered. “No, this is crazy! You’re crazy!”

“I’m a visionary, Simon! Why can’t you see that?! We can create a new world together!”

“I don’t want a new world! I just want to be happy!”

David snarled, his grip somehow tightening even more. “Happy? Who needs ‘happy’ when you’re a king?”

Simon pushed his face forward, sneering him like Baz did when he was being harsh. “Not everyone is as heartless as you, Father.”

The man scoffed, shaking his head. “Ambition doesn’t make one heartless, son. It makes one powerful.”

He started pulling Simon further down into the water again. But suddenly, a loud splashing sound caught their attention. A man was swimming down towards, determined fire in his grey eyes.

“Baz,” Simon said under his breath.

“Filthy human,” David grumbled.

His trident glowed as he pointed it at Baz. Tendrils of seaweed whipped up from the ocean floor below and grabbed onto the human’s limbs.

“No! Don’t hurt him!” Simon shouted, pulling even harder against his father’s hand.

“Maybe when this ‘Baz’ is gone, you’ll finally understand my vision, Simon.”

Baz did not give in so easily. He struggled with all his might and attempted to reach for the knife in his belt. But that just made the plants pull him harder. Simon could see him running out of breath.

Simon looked at David with wide, pleading eyes.“Father, stop, please! I’ll go with you if you just let him live!”

“Absolutely not,” David bit out. “He’s only holding you back. He has to die.”

Simon felt his rage flare, and his magic along with it. The water rippled and heated up. With nothing but uncontrolled anger, he screamed one word.

“NO!”

The ocean exploded around him in a thoughtless, powerful boom. There was no sense to it, only pure emotion made manifest. David was knocked far away, hurtling down into the dark waters below. Simon let out a long breath. His mind and body were a bit shaky after using that much uncontrolled magic. But the muffled screams behind him brought him back.

Simon swam up Baz at pilot whale speed. He cut all the seaweed with one tail slash, then snatched the human in his arms and rocketed them towards the surface. Baz gasped much needed of air. Simon held him by his biceps, and Baz held him tightly return. Both boys breathed heavily and stared at each other. The silence between felt charged in a different way than it had ever been before.

“You’re a merman,” Baz finally said, voice bewildered and amazed.

Simon nodded slowly. “Yeah.”

“Which is how you saved me from the shipwreck, on my birthday.”

“Yeah. I was...nearby when the storm hit.”

“How did you have legs before?”

“Sacrificed my voice to be human. Y’know, magic and stuff.”

“But, why?”

Simon didn’t respond with words, same as he had for days. Instead, he reached out a hand towards Baz. When the prince didn't flinch away, Simon cupped his face, thumb tracing over his sharp cheekbone. Baz’s breath hitched at the reverent expression on Simon’s face. He felt the blush spread across on every place where Simon touched. He could barely believe it. That this impossible creature would give up his voice, his magic, and his entire world for a simple human. For Baz. “Oh...

“Yeah,” Simon chuckled, almost sardonically. “Impulsive, I know. I was supposed to kiss you in five days to make the change permanent. But we were running out of time, and my father decided to get in the way.”

“He did seem cross.”

“You have no idea. So we have to get you out of here, before he comes back.”

Baz gripped him even tighter. “No, I won’t leave you!”

Simon’s face fell. His heart twisted at Baz’s broken, desperate face. “Baz, it’s too late for me. I can’t escape to land now, and I have to stop my father before he pulls off his insane plan. Please, let’s just get you back to shore-”

“You can run all you want, human, but you’ll still die. Either here, or with your kin.”

Both men looked in horror as David rose from the waves on a tower of water. His trident’s glow was even more menacing than usual. Simon put his arms out in front of Baz, making himself a shield between the human and his father.

“Don’t touch him,” he growled.

David scoffed with a smug smirk. “Or what, you’ll stop me?”

Simon let his magic flare out. The water and air heated up, becoming agitated with his explosive energy. Baz felt the urge to slink away, but instead stayed close. He had a feeling that staying near Simon was his best chance at survival.

“Yes.”

David shook his head, chuckling smugly. His water pedestal lifted him higher as a practical tidal wave swelled behind. The air thundered again even louder, the incoming tsunami casting an intimidating shadow over the pair.

“Wrong answer, son.”

The massive wave rushed towards them. Simon scrambled to grab Baz’s hand. He turned his head, frantic blue meeting terrified grey.

“Baz, I’m so sorry. I lo-”

The water crashed violently into them, throwing the lovers apart. Both watched the other fly away into the depths of the ocean. They reached out, trying to grab onto each other. Trying to save each other.

Simon stopped so suddenly his breath was completely knocked out. He felt Davy’s thick hand grand the back of his neck. His nails dug into Simon’s skin, making the boy’s heart rate increase exponentially.

“You should’ve joined me willingly, Simon,” he growled into his ear. “I hoped it wouldn’t come to this, but now I will have to take what I need.”

David’s other hand rummaged in the pouch on his belt, then thrust forward in front of SImon. In his palm was a smooth jet black gem attached to a thin rope. Simon could feel the magic radiating off the object, but it felt...wrong. It was like a dry sucking sensation, pulling Simon’s own power towards that.

“What,” Simon choked out, “in Neptune’s name is that?”

“An ancient relic I thought lost. Legend says it can take away a merfolk’s magic. Some called it the ‘insidious humdrum’, because it makes a merfolk powerless, almost human. But I have improved it. Now, I can use it to take magic and add it to my own. So since you won’t join me, I can take your’s.”

Simon’s blood went cold. He struggled against his father even harder. “No! Let go of me!” He tried to blast David away again, but his magic sputtered uselessly inside him. He was so scared, for the humans and for Baz and himself, that his power couldn’t find any grounding. Not even anger could make it past his sheer terror.

David chuckled, equal parts smug and derogatory. “Your power is wasted on a useless bleeding heart coward like you. You can never stop me.”

“But I can.”

Both of their heads snapped up. Penelope glared daggers at David, arms crossed over her chest.

“Hello again,” she said with fake sweetness. “Y’know, getting smashed against a boat really fucking hurt, Davy. Let me return the favour.”

She threw her hand. A concentrated jet of water shot out to hit the merman right in the chest. He flew away from Simon, freeing him to swim up to Penny. He hugged her fiercely.

“Thank Neptune you’re okay,” he whispered. “I thought he’d killed you.”

Penny scoffed, hugging him back. “It’d take more than fucking Davy to kill me, Si.”

He pulled back, gripping her shoulders. “We have to stop him, Pen. He wants to steal my power and sink all land!”

“Shit,” she hissed. “Crazy bastard. C’mon, let’s-”

Penelope’s words were cut off by the sudden boom. A whirlpool opened up beneath them. It was terrifying sensation, falling down in the open air as the water disappeared and created a funnel around them. The young merfolk hit the now dry ocean ground with horrible crack. Thunder and lightning exploded in the menacingly dark sky. All the old shipwrecks Simon loved so dearly floated to the surface, circling the vortex. They were like an army of decayed guards around them, with David at their head.

“Both of you.” he boomed, “such terrible nuisances. I can take your magic from both of your corpses.”

He pointed his trident towards the sky, then swung it back down. Lightning streaked down towards them. Penelope and Simon barely dived out of the way before being fried, leaving a black mark on the ground that was almost them. David did it again and again, each time only just missing the younger merfolk. Penelope threw her own smaller bolts of electricity at David but he dodged each one. Simon threw up makeshift shields, bouncing the lightning off, though each one got weaker each time.

“Fuck,” Penelope growled in frustration. “If only we could throw him off.”

And her prayers were answered, in the form of one of the smaller old ships breaking rank. It lurched in the water, then rammed straight into David. He howled probably in pain and shock, knocked off his pillar then forced underwater beneath it. Simon and Penny looked up. And Simon grinned.

“Baz,” he sighed.

Baz grinned back, saluting from the head of the ship. Simon’s heart soared.

But the celebration was premature. A geyser erupted through the middle of Baz’s ship, splitting it in half, with the insane merman at it’s head. He grabbed the prince by his throat, holding him up high.

“You insolent little land walker.” David squeezed harder, making Baz wheeze. “I should have just killed you. I-”

Suddenly, David yowled as streak of Penelope’s lightning cut across his shoulder. His grip on Baz loosened slightly, just enough for Baz to regain most of his reasoning. His eyes flicked over to whirlpool. He focused Simon, who was yelling something that he obviously couldn’t hear over the roaring water. But he’d been reading Simon’s lips for five days.

“The necklace! Get me the necklace!”

Baz looked at the black stone hanging around David’s thick neck. He ripped Fiona’s knife from his belt and sliced the thin rope in one easy slash.

“No!” David shouted. Baz hurled the stone down into the whirlpool. He threw Baz into the ocean, who hit the water with a thwack.

Simon gasped in horror. He could only watch helplessly as the man he loved was tossed away like trash. But he couldn’t think about that right now, as much as he desperately wanted to. Not when David was flying towards them, following the humdrum as it fell towards.

“Oh no you don’t!” Penelope yelled. She said a spell and threw all her magic into it, creating a powerful wind to hold David back. He stopped in midair while the necklace kept falling, scrabbling and scratching at Penny’s spell like a mad dog. Simon caught the stone in a firm grip. He felt it’s nefarious magic reach out towards his own. He knew it was too powerful for David to have.

It was too powerful for anyone to have.

Simon picked up the nearest stone and held it over his head. It became stronger in his hand. Like all his magic, there was no technique, only pure thought. He forced all his wants into the rock. His desire to stop his father, to protect Baz and all other humans, to destroy this tool of evil. David saw what his son was doing. He struggled harder, managing to push forward so he was only a few feet away.

“Simon, no!” David roared.

And Simon brought down the rock on the humdrum, smashing it to dust in one blow.

The kickback was monstrous. Destroying such a powerful artifact had powerful consequences. Simon and Penelope shielded their eyes from the bright flash and massive shockwave. The whirlpool imploded around them from the force. With a great sound like thunder, it became a massive geyser that shot forty feet into the air. Simon and Penelope flew in one direction, while David flew in another.

The young merfolk hit the water with a painful splash. Simon swam back to the surface just as storm clouds dissipated and the shipwrecks were sunk back into the waves. Only one thing remained floating. Or rather, one person

He rushed towards Baz at breakneck speed. Penelope followed behind. The human was floating on his back thankfully with his face towards the air, though not awake. Simon pressed an ear to his chest.

“Is he...” Penelope’s worried voice trailed off.

Simon let out a choked, relieved laugh. “He’s alive,” he sobbed. “Banged up and unconscious, but alive.”

Penelope sighed heavily, all the anxiety leaving her in that one breath. Simon took Baz in his arms, holding his body close. “We have to get him back to shore, Si, before-”

“Insolent brats!”

They both turned around. David lurched towards them. He didn’t look so intimidating now. His hair was disheveled, his eyes were tired, and the arm holding his trident was shaking with effort. Simon growled and held Baz closer to him.

“It’s over, Father,” he said firmly. “The humdrum is gone. You’re finished, and so am I.”

“It’s not over!” David tried to sound intimidating, but his voice was so pathetic that Simon almost pitied him. He pushed towards Simon, holding out his weapon. “I will end the humans, I will have my king-”

“Oh, I don’t think so.” Penelope flipped a single finger up. David froze, all his muscles suddenly clenched up. He was so focused on Simon that he hadn’t noticed Penelope muttering a paralysis spell under her breath. “You’re never going to hurt Simon, Baz, me, or anyone else ever again.”

“And...you’re going to...stop me?” He choked out.

Penelope clenched her fist. David gasped, suddenly struggling to breathe. “Yes.” She flicked her eyes over to Simon, softening when she looked at him. “Get Baz to shore, Simon. I’ll deal with Davy.”

A few days ago, Simon might’ve asked her to just let his father go. But David wasn’t just overly demanding, he was destructive, almost evil. Simon was pretty sure Penny wouldn’t kill him. But she would damn well make him suffer. That was good enough for him.

Simon nodded. “Okay.”

David tried to shout after him, but Simon was already swimming away, and didn’t plan on turning back. He held Baz close to his chest. His magic seeped out unconsciously, healing Baz’s bruises and wounds again. The human murmured incoherently in his sleep.

“It’s okay, Baz,” Simon whispered. “Everything’s alright, love. It’s done now. You’re okay. We both are.”

Baz hummed happily, instinctively curling into Simon. Simon’s heart both soared and broke.

———————————————-

The sun was rising in the east, bathing Watford’s shore in dark orange light. On the pale white sand lay the kingdom’s prince, who still slept in his torn wedding clothes. No one had seen him yet. Except the person who’d saved him. Again.

Simon sat on the rock, tail curled under him, still wearing the soaked navy nightshirt. He watched Baz on the shore from afar, as he had before and now probably would for the rest of his life. He’d lost his chance. The spell was done. Maybe Penny could cast it again. Simon doubted she would be willing to though. They’d just been through hell, and the pain was almost too much for him to bear last time. Could he really suffer even more? All for the human world? All for Baz?

Yes, he could.

“Hey.”

Simon didn’t need to turn to know who it was.

“Hey Pen,” he replied quietly. “Father’s gone away?”

“Yeah. Scared him out of his scales. He won’t bother you or anyone else ever again. How’re you doing?”

Simon shrugged, like he always did, but the pain in his eyes spoke volumes.

Penny sighed. She was so sad for her friend. He’d been so close to escaping David and finally being happy. It felt wrong that he didn’t get the life he so desperately wanted, as well as the person he so desperately wanted to be with.

“You really do love him, don’t you?” she said softly

Simon’s lip pressed together, eyes brimming with tears. And slowly, he nodded.

“Well,” Penny sighed, “I could cast that silly spell and take your voice all over again. Or... I could do something better with this.” She slowly raised the trident out of the water. Simon turned and his jaw hit the seafloor.

He slipped into the water next to her, hands hovering cautiously over the instrument. “How’d you get it?!”

“Your father dropped it after I made him swim off like a coward. Thought I could put it to better use than him.”

“C-Could you really do it with that?”

“Yeah, it’s definitely powerful enough. It may not be able to sink all of land on it’s own, but it can certainly make you a filthy human forever.”

They giggled, but the air quickly became heavy. This was it. No changing his mind later. Penny cupped her friend's cheek, swiping her thumb across it to wipe away his tears. Her mouth pressed together and quivered, her own tears threatening to spill from her eyes.

“You’re sure this is what you want, right?” she asked with a shaky voice.

Simon turned his head back to the beach. Back to where Baz lay flat on the ground. Brave, strong, wonderful Baz, an incredible part of the world Simon now wanted to live in forever. “Yeah, definitely.”

Penny quickly wrapped her arms around Simon in a crushing hug. And he hugged her right back, burying his face her soft hair.

“I’m going to miss you, Simon,” she whispered.

Simon let out a choked sob. “Me too, Penny. I love you, so much.”

She sniffled, trying to keep back more tears. “I love you too.”

And she really did, which was why she had to do this.

———————————————-

Baz didn’t know how he kept ending up like this, waking up on a beach, body aching all over. It would take awhile to recover from that fight with Simon’s insane merman father. (Christ, his life had suddenly gotten so weird lately.) He slowly opened his eyes. A blurry mix of familiar colours hovered above him. Again.

Am I dreaming of when he saved me, or when I found him? Baz thought. But when his vision came into full focus, there was Simon’s very real face only a foot away from him, with his enchanting blue eyes and gorgeous mess of bronze hair. He certainly looked real enough, but Baz still wasn’t fully convinced. His mind had to be playing tricks on him. But the other boy wasn’t naked this time (thank god), now dressed in that soaked blue night shirt he was in before. His sea scented breath was hitting right against Baz’s nose, and he was grinning with all his teeth.

“Good morning, darling,” Simon said.

“You’re here,” Baz replied, still in too much shock to move.

“Yeah.”

“You can talk.”

“M-hm.”

Baz’s eyes flicked downward. “You have legs.”

“Uh-huh. For good now. No time limit or required kiss.”

Baz rubbed his forehead. “This is still so insane.”

Simon sat back in a kneel, left corner of his lip quirked up. “Are you just going to lay there and keep stating the obvious? Maybe you’re not as smart as I thought you were.”

Baz sat up, legs spread, knees bent, and arms propped behind him, glaring menacingly. “I think I might’ve preferred you with no voice.”

Simon rolled his eyes. “Oh well in that case, I’ll just go.”

He began to stand, but a sharp tug on his wrist sent him tumbling down. He was pulled between Baz’s long legs, chest nearly colliding with his. The prince held Simon’s face firmly in his rough hands. Simon’s heart stopped at the intense look in Baz’s swirling grey eyes. He saw a determined, fierce kind of affection in them. He hoped to see that look for the rest of his life.

“No,” Baz said flatly. “I’m never letting you go ever again.”

“You’re adorable," Simon giggled, reaching to grip the front of Baz’s tattered shirt.

A blush spread across his dark complexion. “Shut up.”

He tapped his forehead against his prince’s, gazing into his eyes with equal parts of caring and mischief. “Make me.”

Baz surged forward and did just that.

Simon had never even thought of his first kiss before Baz. And even after meeting Baz, he'd imagined a short, chaste peck. Just enough to seal the spell. But this kiss was so much more. It was Baz’s soft lips slowly but perfectly moulding to Simon’s, long fingers clutching his curls tightly, their bodies perfectly lined so they could feel every part of each other. Simon kissed back with equal vigour, twisting Baz’s shirt up to dig his nails into Baz’s smooth, cool skin. Both of them felt like their very bones were lit up with utter joy. Because they finally had what they’d almost lost.

Too tired from the fight and too happy from this incredible first kiss, the men collapsed together. Baz fell backward and Simon followed. He held himself on all fours above Baz, and made him reach for his mouth. And Baz pulled him back down, again and again.

“I’m never letting you go either,” Simon whispered with ragged breath.

Baz giggled happily, and Simon did the same in return. The two descended in joyful sounds, rolling onto their sides with their foreheads together. They equally laughed and cried with joy. So much so they couldn’t even find a moment kiss again. After everything, they finally had each other. And for this moment at least, the rest of the world simply melted around them.

Far off in that forgotten world, a young mermaid spied them from behind a rock. She smiled to herself as she looked away, giving them their deserved privacy.

“Idiots in love,” she sighed. “Good choice, Si. Bloody good choice.”

———————————————-

AN: Yes, I've given this a happy ending. It's what Simon and Baz deserve :) (Also I'm a softie and can't handle sad endings.) I really hope everyone liked it. It's technically not over yet though. This is the last real chapter. Next Monday I'll post the epilogue. Hint: it's tooth rotting fluffy :D See you all soon!

#carry on #snowbaz #simon snow #baz pitch #penelope bunce #the mage #fluff #angst #little mermaid #little mermaid au #part of your world #mysnowbazfic

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