#lol it worked out in the end. Em is not mad at me thank the stars
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As a prank for April Fools, I impersonated the offical JSB account using the @shapesandbeats handle on twitter. And uh.. that ran and went on a little too much didn't it 😅
First things first: that was NOT the official JSB twitter account, that'd be @shapesnbeats. You can prove this by scrolling through my and the real account's profile. Also, any tweets made by the official account is shared within the official server in a designated tweets channel.
Second, I did NOT draw that artwork of the characters holding transgender flags. That image is an edit of the "flags of Asia" artwork originally made by Em of Berzerk Studios.
Third, Just Shapes and Beats is not cancelled or in hiatus, and the characters are definitely not sentient (I'd hope not!)
Lastly, all those other tweets under the handle were me being goofy. And no, sonicgirlana is not banned.
So why'd I do it? I had no other idea for a prank at the time. Wanting to be silly, I assumed since my account was smaller it wouldn't be a problem. I could not expect the amount of attention those tweets got, nor the dozens of folk who actually believed they were real..
Before I realized it, that tweet got over a thousand likes, and I gained like.. 200 followers o_o;
I knew I created a mess. Unfortunately, I was busy with irl things and worrying about how I was going to go about fixing it, that the prank went on a little too long.
But, I'm here now.
I'd like to apologize to the folk who were fooled by my tweets, and the Berzerk team for having to put out the fires. In hindsight, I should've made it more clear I was a parody account once things went out of hand!
Yall, I'm never doing this again 😭
Thank you to my friends and mutuals who played along, and to those who put up with this instead of blocking me... appreciate it 😅
Take care! Love ya <3
#gm.txt#yeah pretty much word for word from the thread#lol it worked out in the end. Em is not mad at me thank the stars
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Wicked Fantasies Part 4 (MBJ x Black OC)
Warnings: mentions of grief and death… NSFW, public sex, name calling, BDSM themes
A/N: lol remember when I said this was gonna be two parts? Well I finished both so I said why not lol long chapter ahead but I hope you enjoy!
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“It’s really insane when you think about it,” she laughed. “I mean God, these people are saying shit I wouldn’t dare breathe out loud… to a complete stranger. Do your DMs always look like this?”
Michael nodded, causing Raven to shake her head in complete disbelief. “I don’t see most of ‘em but my team likes to share the wildest ones sometimes. The people are mad creative.”
“You don’t ever feel objectified by it?” Raven asked, her nails tapping quietly against her screen as she deleted DM after DM.
“Sometimes but it’s par the course in my world. And they do it to all celebrities. It’s also not like me and my team don’t play into that shit. So it’s kinda hard to get mad. When you get branded as a sex symbol, people treat you like one. And generally, people don’t mean any harm by it. As long as people, you know, keep that shit on social, I don’t get bothered.”
“Fair. People need to like get offline and touch grass. The amount of women in my DMs insulting me for ‘stealing you?’ You’d think I wrecked their fantasy home. It’s kinda disturbing, not gonna lie.”
Despite the rise in explicit DMs, Raven was pleasantly surprised at how little her life had changed since she became the public girlfriend of a mega movie star. She had never seen so many follow requests in her life and the cameras swarmed the library for the first few days. However, other than that and one or two articles detailing the sparse details of her life that were available, things were pretty much exactly the same. It also helped that there was a major celebrity scandal each week so their relationship had quickly become old news. But they were the new “it couple” on the block. The world bought their act hook, line, and sinker. A few more months of this and the debacle of their first date would be a funny passing joke on SNL or Late Night tv and nothing more.
“I feel bad dragging you to this shit on your birthday,” Michael mumbled apologetically.
Raven scoffed. “It’s a dinner party at Ryan Coogler’s with the cast of my favorite superhero movie of all time,” she exclaimed, a bit of her fan girl side slipping out. “Hardly a punishment. We got our photo so you can post something cute and sappy for the gram and I get to do something fun completely unrelated to my birthday. Win, win.” She assured him with a smile.
Michael still did not understand her aversion to her birthday, it was one of the many things about her that were a big question mark. He thought she was just being modest when she told him so when Ryan invited the couple to dinner at his spot, he felt bad for even asking her to give up her special day for a work event. However, she said yes immediately, clearly thankful for a work obligation to fill up her evening.
Her phone rang, interrupting Michael’s response. She rolled her eyes when she saw her sister’s name pop up. She had been dodging her and her dad’s calls left and right since she and Michael’s first date weeks ago. She knew her sister would find out from social media and would tell their dad, and she knew they both were just calling with their hands outstretched. She could tolerate them asking for her money and the money she did not have yet, she always found it and, even if she complained, she would give it. But she would not entertain requests for money that was not hers to give away, nor would she give Michael the impression she was a gold digger trying to bleed him dry. He was upholding his end of the bargain, she would not milk him for anymore than that. She let it go to voicemail, however, soon the car filled with the constant dings of her texts.
“You gotta take that?”
“Umm… yea,” Michael could feel her entire mood sour at the idea. “It’s just my sister. She’ll never stop calling if I don’t. You mind? Sorry,” her tone was apologetic, knowing how frustrating it would be to listen to half a conversation in a car you can’t escape from.
She held the phone to her ear and waited for her to pick up, making sure to turn the volume down as low as possible in hopes Michael would hear as little of whatever insanity her sister would spew. She knew she was not calling to merely offer happy birthday wishes, if she even acknowledged the day at all.
“Raven! I’ve been calling you for days. What the fuck?” Kiara’s voice filled her ears.
“Hi Kiara. Sorry, I’ve been a little busy. How are you?”
“I’m fine.” She responded shortly without asking Raven the same. “And yea, a little busy all over the fuckin’ ShadeRoom. You know how fuckin’ embarrassing it is to find out you’re dating MY celebrity crush on Insta?? You didn’t even like that nigga or his movies.”
Not true, Raven wanted to yell into the phone. She and her sister were not close enough to know each other’s favorite movies or actors, hell even favorite colors, let alone gossip about their relationships together. So she was not sure why Kiara even expected to know about her relationship, even if it hadn’t been a complete farce.
“You have me out here lookin’ stupid as shit to my friends.”
“I’m sorry I didn’t realize how it would impact you.” There was a hint of sarcasm in her voice, which she could tell Michael picked up on as he choked back a laugh. However, she knew Kiara was too self absorbed to notice.
“When are you gonna bring him here for us to meet him? The girls want to meet him too.”
“You and dad are always welcome to come to LA and meet him. O-Or just, you know, visit me?” she threw him an apologetic shrug that just made him laugh. She wished she could laugh at how quickly her family’s tune had changed about seeing her. She had invited them to LA countless times before everything fell apart but they couldn’t have cared less about her life and how she was doing. And when she tried to visit them, they made excuse after excuse about why it was not a “good time.” But now that she had a famous boyfriend, it was “when are you coming to visit?” As if the invitation had always been open. She had not seen her family in two years. “Don’t think either of us have time to come to y’all with his schedule. He’s going out of town soon for his new movie.”
“Maybe I can convince dad if you can get us tickets to the premiere of that movie…. What’s the name? I don’t remember. The girls would love that shit. Or… oh! He has to be invited to the new Black Panther premiere next month too. Maybe we can go to that? I don’t know what that shit’s about but it’s Black Panther so you know hella celebs will be there. He’s gotta be a brand ambassador for some fancy shit. Can you get us some Birkins or something?”
Raven clenched her eyes shut as her sister outlined her laundry list of impossible wants from her “boyfriend.” She knew she could never and would never ask Michael for a fraction of these things. And if she was going to ask him for something out of their contractual obligations, she doubted whether it would be to benefit Kiara of all people. She would do it on behalf of someone who would actually appreciate it.
“I’ll ask him. But maybe for now, you can settle for an autograph? Look, we are actually headed out on a date. Did you or dad need something?”
“Oh yea… I need money for a lawyer for that charge from a couple weeks ago. You know that fuck ass bar is suing us for damages? But that shit wasn’t even our fault.”
Raven’s head lazily fell to the side as she half-listened to her sister complain for several minutes, drowning on with details from the fight that made Raven think the bar was well within their rights to demand payment. But accountability was not Kiara’s strong suit. She offered lame “ohs” and “wows” to give the impression that she was truly paying attention. She was just waiting for the ask, there always was one and everything before it was pointless. She finally tuned back in when her sister demanded cash.
“I gave dad the rest of my savings to bail you and your boyfriend out of jail. And I already sent money for the mortgage and dad’s car. I’m tapped out this month.”
“Fuck you mean tapped out? You’re living like a fuckin’ big shot in LA with a millionaire for a boyfriend and you can’t slide me money for a lawyer? That’s fuckin’ foul, Raven.”
Raven clenched her eyes shut. It had already been hard enough to keep up the appearances that she had a thriving career in LA. Adding a fake relationship to the house of lies she existed in did not help matters. Her family had no idea how much she was struggling now and while she knew she could tell them, she did not want to deal with their reactions, which she knew would likely be to blame her. She felt enough guilt and blame for her situation as it was.
“I can’t just make money I don’t have materialize, Kiara.” She lowered her voice though she knew there was no way Michael was not listening. “You know just because I let you and dad treat me like an ATM, doesn’t mean I do that to other people. I don’t have the money right now but I can pay the bar in installments when I come into more in a couple weeks and just pay off the damages for you.”
“No, we aren’t payin’ the fuckin’ bar cause we didn’t do shit. And wow… God. You’re so fuckin’ selfish, running off to LA and abandoning us here to make all that money with your fancy degrees and shit.”
“Did I run off and abandon you or did you make it impossible to stay?” Raven asked, her exhaustion at constantly being the villain of her family’s story getting the better of her.
“Poor Raven. Always the fuckin’ victim as if everything that’s wrong in this family isn’t your fault. And to pull that card today of all days when you know it’s the anniversary of mom’s death. If it weren’t for you…” Kiara started to say before Raven cut her off, tears welling up in her eyes as she already could hear her sister and father’s voice finishing that sentence.
“I’ll figure it out and send the money, ok?” She called out, cutting her sister’s words off completely. “I’m getting an advance from my next book in a couple weeks. Find a couple lawyers, meet with them and get their rates and I’ll pay for it. No one crazy expensive, Ki.”
She knew lying was wrong but she did not have any other option. She couldn’t tell her family where the money would be really coming from. Michael had a whole list of things for her for the next two weeks before he went on his press tour, which meant she would easily make enough to pay her sister’s legal fees and pass it off as an advance.
“This is me and Jay’s lives, Raven. It’s not like you don’t have the money or access to itto pay for the best.”
Raven focused her eyes on the ceiling of the car, a sorry attempt to stop tears of guilt and frustration from falling. She felt a tidal wave of shame hit her knowing Michael was seeing her like this. “Whatever you need. But once my advance money is gone, I’m tapped out for a while. Seriously, Kiara.”
“Yea yea yea. I gotta go. I’ll call you in two weeks about the lawyer. Bye.”
Raven clenched her phone in her hand with a fist, her entire body turning away from Michael as a small frustrated sob escaped her that she couldn’t quite keep in. She tossed her phone down on the seat and wiped her eyes.
She had hoped to make it through today, the annual reminder of the worst day of her life, without thinking too much about it. But there her sister was, picking at the threads of her composure, forcing her to unravel.
The worst part of all of it was she could not even be mad at her sister or her father and how they treated her. She deserved it and she knew it. She had ruined their lives and this was her atonement. So she endured it, every slight, every barb, every wound because she - perhaps foolishly - hoped that if she kept reaching out her hand and kept giving, one day they would reach back and not expect something in it. They would forgive her and she would have a real family again.
It did not matter how they spoke to her or treated her, she just repeated the same mantra over and over and over again.
Keep reaching out your hand, she reminded herself as she took a few deep breaths.
“You good? We can drive around for a bit longer if you need a minute.”
“Yea, yea.” She sniffled and cleared her throat. “Just stupid family shit. One day we’ll have a date without me crying o-or having a panic attack,” she let out a watery laugh as she forced a smile onto her lips.
The smile was wide, and Michael knew, to a stranger, it would likely seem authentic and bright. It would certainly be enough to fool everyone at dinner tonight. But he could see its inauthenticity in her eyes, that’s where all of her emotions shown through. And her eyes? They were void of even the minuscule amounts of light and joy he typically saw and that were present moments before that phone rang. Now, she just looked torn down. And this version of her did not have enough energy to do more than put on that facade and pray no one looked too closely. But when it came to Raven, Michael always looked too closely… and he knew that was the problem.
Michael slumped back in his seat for a few moments, the wheels turning in his mind as he studied her. He knew he could continue with their plan for the night, that she would play her part and play it well. However, he could not, in good faith, allow that. All their dates thus far had been about him. She deserved for the one day to celebrate her to be all about her. He pulled out his phone and went to Google. After a few minutes of searching, he closed that and opened his call log.
“Hey Coog.” His voice filled the car, Raven glancing over to him as she continued trying to reign in her emotions so she could play her part. “My bad, man but we ain’t gon’ make it tonight. Send my apologies to the rest of the team and your wife.”
Raven’s head whipped to the side as she listened to his words. She could hear the faint accent of Ryan Coogler asking if everything was ok. She immediately turned to him and threw an expression at Michael before mouthing, “What are you doing??”
Michael merely winked at her before answering Ryan. “Yea yea. Just somethin’ came up I gotta take care of.” Michael chuckled. “Aight, ‘preciate you, brah. I’ll make it up to you. Talk to you later.”
As soon as he hung up the phone, Raven immediately spoke up. “What was that? Why aren’t we going to dinner?”
Michael ignored her and directed his next statement to Allen. “New plan, Allen. Just sent you the address.”
“Yes, sir.”
He continued to avoid her confused and wide eyes. He could not sit at a dinner party, regardless of how fun it was going to be to see the entire cast, knowing Raven was in pain. And even if he did not know or understand the extent of it, he could empathize and recognize she needed a night of someone caring for her, not the other way around.
“Where are we going?”
“You’ll see.”
When Allen finally stopped, Michael helped Raven out and handed one of the cards out of his wallet to Allen, whispering something in his ear that Raven could not hear. With that, Allen sped off, leaving the two behind. Michael placed his hand on the small of Raven’s back and directed her down the block.
“What about your dinner party?”
“That nigga hosts a dinner party for everythin’. My role in the movie ain’t that big. Just settin’ up future shit so they won’t miss me. He’ll host another after the premiere next month and at the end of the award season if it gets nominated. Trust me, we ain’t missing shit.”
“But you’re paying me to go to work events with you?” Raven hated that once again, he felt the need to cater to her and her emotions. “I don’t need to be coddled. O-or for you to rearrange shit to celebrate a day I don’t even want to celebrate. You’re paying me to do a job, let me do it.”
“Yea and now I’m paying you to have a relaxin’ evening with me. This’ll be more fun anyway. We can still pretend it ain’t your birthday if you want.”
“Relaxing… at a rage room?” She glanced up and gestured toward the sign outside of the building they were standing in front of. It was quiet, no one but a front desk attendant gawking at them. But she was not surprised it was quiet for a Wednesday night.
“You tellin’ me you don’t have some rage you wanna exercise a bit, ma?”
She chewed on her lip, she had more than enough rage to get out, but she needed to fix that on her own time, not his. “I do… we all do, I’m sure but… then you shouldn’t pay me for the night. This isn’t work. You’re just doing this to make me feel better and I’m good. We really should go to that party. You can’t just blow off work obligations because your fake girlfriend’s having a bad day.”
Michael closed the distance between them and used his fingers to pry her lip out from between her teeth. He wanted to smile at how she rolled her eyes and pouted a bit, clearly resisting the urge to draw her lip back where it was.
“You aren’t ‘good.’ I don’t know you that well but I do know that much. Just because this ain’t real doesn’t mean I want to watch you suffer on the one day of the year that’s supposed to be about you. A dinner party isn’t what you need. You need fun, seems like you get little of that shit anyway. So since I’m payin’ for your time, I’m tellin’ you not to worry about my shit. And I’m tellin’ you that your only job today is to have fun. And I don’t like having my money wasted, baby girl.” His voice dropped to his commanding tone, a tone that let her know he’d pull out the flogger again if she did waste his time.
She rolled her eyes and scoffed. “Fine. But this really isn’t necessary.”
“It’s my money. Let me decide what’s necessary and what’s not. Now come on.” He pulled her in the door, using his award winning smile to get them into the largest room that was clearly meant for more than two people.
The attendant got them set up in their protective gear and closed the door behind them, locking them in the room for an hour.
“So what do we do?” Raven muttered as she glanced around, quietly giggling at their absurd bee-keeper style gear. The room was filled with breakable items, bats and golf clubs and other makeshift weapons. There were holes in the walls and punching bags and dummies and stacks of plates.
He picked up a vase and chucked it at the wall, the glass shattering against the wall. Then he picked up another one and handed it to her.
His hand pressed into her chest, right above her heart. “Every negative thing you feel in here? Destroy everythin’ in this room til it doesn’t feel like you’re drownin’ in it.”
She grabbed the vase from his hand and held it for a moment before she threw it as hard as she could at the same spot on the wall. Lacking his strength, it did not make it to the wall but she did enjoy the rush of adrenaline and satisfying crash it made as it shattered to the ground. She did not even need further prompting as she picked up the discarded baseball bat near her and started using it to break everything she could see that was breakable.
Michael spent most of the hour cheering her on as she released every bit of pent up frustration and anger and pain and shame she felt. She was so tightly wound all of the time, never letting any of it show so she could never let any of it go. But this was a cathartic release that she did not even know she needed. She knew she would feel it all again tomorrow but every crash, every piece of glass shattered, every dent she made into the walls of that room felt like a small bit of everything she kept in started to vanish piece by piece.
By the time the buzzer rang, signaling the end of their session, she was exhausted, her arms tired but she had never felt lighter.
“That was…” she breathed heavily as they walked out toward Michael’s SUV. “Amazing. I didn’t know I needed that. Thank you.”
“See? You gotta trust me more, baby girl. I know more than just what your body needs.” He winked at her as he closed the door behind him. “And now, we have one more stop.”
They spent the entire drive recapping their favorite things to break in the rage room, which “weapons” caused the most damage.
“Remind me never to piss you off,” Michael joked as Allen pulled off onto an overlook.
“What do you mean??”
“You were downright terrifyin’ with that damn bat. Can’t have you goin’ all Jazmine Sullivan or Carrie Underwood on my car.”
“Whatchu know about Before He Cheats?”
He let out a barking laugh. “Enough to know niggas go up for that song, me included.” He admitted. “But if you try to sell that to a gossip site, I’ll deny it.”
“Wow, learning something new about you every day. And please, I’m sure there are more effective ways to hurt you if you pissed me off,” she teased. “You’d have a new car before I even finished taking a bat to the old one.”
“You might be right about that.”
“Where are we?” She asked as Michael helped her out of the car and she followed him around to the back of the SUV. He opened the trunk and laid out a picnic blanket and soft pillows that Allen had purchased while they were raging and jogged up to the front to grab the box of Prince St. Pizza that had made Raven’s stomach growl the entire ride and a bottle of white wine.
“Overlook by the Hollywood sign. Perfect view of the city with my favorite white wine and favorite pizza.”
Raven smiled as he helped her climb into the back of the SUV, both of them leaning on the back as they looked out over the city. The silence was comforting, both of them eating their way through the giant pepperoni pizza and several glasses of wine. When they finished one bottle, Allen just produced another from the front seat and handed it back to them.
“Thank you… for tonight,” Raven smiled as he poured her another glass of wine. “I… did really need this. And you didn’t have to.”
“Don’t mention it. Seemed like you needed this more than I needed a dinner party.” He paused. “So your sister… did she even say happy birthday to you?”
Raven let out a cold laugh as she took a long sip from her glass. “Nope. But I didn’t expect her to. Told you,” she whispered as her fingers played with the strings on the edge of their blanket. “Just another day.
“So that’s why you don’t celebrate your birthday? Your mom?” At her startled expression, he shrugged apologetically. “I didn’t hear everythin’ but your sister was talkin’ loud as fuck toward the end. When’d she die?”
Raven sighed. “She died in labor. Had some condition, doctors told her no more kids… she got pregnant by accident. My dad wanted her to have an abortion, she refused. She gave birth and died a couple hours later.”
“I’m sorry,” he offered quietly, his hand rubbing her thigh. He had tuned out most of their conversation, not wanting to eavesdrop. But the moment he heard frustration and pain in Raven’s voice, he could no longer block it out. He heard every word her sister hurled at her and he hated that they treated her so callously. “And they blame you?”
She wiped her tears for a moment before muttering. “I blame me.”
“You were a baby, didn’t ask to be born. How is her choice your fault?” Michael reasoned, hating that she blamed herself for something so out of her control. But he also knew grief was not the most logical of emotions, particularly grief as deep seeded as this.
“My dad could barely look at me as a kid, wanted nothing to do with me beyond keeping me clothed and fed. The only person who didn’t blame me was my grandma, she basically raised me until she passed when I was in middle school. And I get it,” her voice broke slightly with her grief. “If it weren’t for me, my dad would still have his wife and my sister would have a mom. So yea… I was born and she died for that… not much worth celebrating in my book… or anyone’s really.” Her voice trailed off to a soft whisper before she shook her head and rolled her shoulders back as if she could shake out the negative emotions. “But you didn’t bring me to this gorgeous spot to trade childhood trauma. Thank you for helping me take my mind off all that for a bit.” He could tell by her tone that she did not want to discuss it anymore. “I don’t know why you’re so nice to me,” she mumbled as she took another bite of pizza.
He wrinkled his nose. “Am I not supposed to be?”
“No, no. I just… still waiting for you to be what I’d thought you’d be, I guess. What Tasha warned me you’d be.”
“And what was that?”
“An asshole,” she answered bluntly, Michael chuckling as he bowed his head.
“I am… an asshole,” he admitted. “I’ll never deny that. Couple bad decisions after a bad break up and Hollywood bad boy became the image so I leaned into it. Self-centered, arrogant, cold… Aside from my family, that’s the version of me people see.”
“But that’s not you.”
He raised an eyebrow. “How you know? We just met a month ago.”
She examined him with a soft smile before sitting up a bit straighter. “Because a self centered, arrogant asshole doesn’t do half the things you’ve done for me. You don’t treat me like a body or a business transaction. You treat me like… a friend? Even when you have no reason to. You may be a jerk but hell, plenty of niggas are jerks. You may even be a little selfish, not shocking when the world caters to you. But I think the real you is kind and thoughtful. I don’t know why you don’t want to show the world the side of you I see.”
“Cause that nigga gets taken advantage of, gets heartbroken.”
She nodded, she knew more than a thing or two about being taken advantage of.
“Who was it then?”
“Hm?”
“The girl that broke your heart and created this version of you?”
He let out a humorless chuckle and placed his hand on her knee. “One day, I’ll tell you.” He paused, glancing at her. “I treat you like a friend because I think we are… friends?”
He wanted to be so much more than friends. Every date, every moment with her he realized that more and more. However, if friends was as intimate as their relationship could ever truly be, he would settle for it. Anything, just to have her nearby.
The small smile on her face turned brighter. “I think we’re friends too.”
With the declaration of their friendship, both of them laid back against the pillows on their backs so they could stare out of the sunroof at the midnight sky. The sky was so perfectly clear, she could see endless stretches of stars.
“What made you decide to be a writer?” Michael asked as they laid there.
“I used to dream of being anywhere but where I was,” she admitted. “Still do most of the time. And when I was a kid, books, particularly fantasy books, were just the one place I could always escape to. Other worlds and lives so vivid so I could leave this one behind for a short while. And they always gave me hope that things could get better, maybe. I wouldn’t get saved by a dazzling prince or whatever. But they made me think things could turn around somehow. But when I was young, so few books had characters who looked like me or were written by women who looked like me.”
“‘If there’s a book you wanna read, but it hasn’t been written, then you have to write it,’” he quoted the quote she had above her desk in her room.
“Exactly.”
“Why’d you stop after one book?”
She clenched her eyes shut. “Didn’t have much of a choice. A… misunderstanding,” she muttered the word bitterly, “with my editor at my publishing house… and they dropped me, wasn’t able to find another. So I got the job at the library to tide me over till I figured shit out. That was… about a year and a half ago? Haven’t been able to write much since.”
“A misunderstanding?” He repeated, glancing over at her, his question clear even though he did not explicitly ask it. However, when he felt her body shift uncomfortably next to him, he quickly backtracked. She had already rehashed so much that she did not need to tonight, there was no need to unearth anything else. She kept giving him more puzzle pieces but the picture remained a mystery. However, he could tell that it was one that held as much darkness as it did beauty.
His hand grasped hers and squeezed. “You ain’t gotta tell me. Add it to the one day list?”
Her eyes were still closed but he felt her squeeze back. “Thanks.”
Silence fell over them as they laid there. Michael rarely just laid and did nothing like this. It was contemplative and nice, to simply exist beside her. He spent so much time being on, playing a part or an image. But he liked that he did not have to do that with Raven when they were alone. She let him be Bakari… the version of him that was only safe with his family and closest friends.
“Tonight… I needed it too,” he offered, ending the silent reprieve. “So thank you for indulgin’ me.”
Raven turned and propped her head up on her hand, turning her body to face his profile. He looked different bathed in the moonlight. He was gorgeous, anyone with eyes could see that. But he seemed more youthful to her, his features more relaxed than they typically were when they were on dates. His jaw was relaxed, his lips settled into a smile that was effortless… not his movie star smile, which she had seen enough times to recognize the nuances that signaled its inauthenticity. This one though, his real smile,… it made him heartbreakingly gorgeous.
“Thank you for caring about me a-and for today. Haven’t had anyone do that in a long time,” she admitted before settling back on her pillows.
He knew she had that void in her life but hearing her admit it out loud broke his heart in places he was not expecting.
“What about right now?”
“What about right now?” She asked, her tone filled with confusion.
“Do you wish you were anywhere else but here right now?” He asked.
She tilted her head to glance at him, finding his eyes trained on her and not on the sky above. She let out a deep breath as she studied him.
“No, there’s nowhere else I’d rather be.”
He smiled. “Good.”
They turned back toward the sunroof, content smiles on both of their faces. They did not talk much beyond that, both of them enjoying the silence and each other’s company.
She did not even know how much time had passed when something finally broke that precious silence, the buzzing of Michael’s phone. Instinctively, she glanced over and caught a glimpse of his bright screen. Tasha’s name scrolled across, Michael sighing a bit as he sent the call to voicemail.
Suddenly, Raven felt overwhelmed with discomfort. He was still seeing Tasha… why did that upset her so much? He had never promised not to, at least not to her. So she knew she had no reason to be mad. But she could stop the claws of jealousy from sinking their talons into her heart and soul. And when that subsided, all she felt was inadequacy. Another moment where she was not enough for someone.
She cleared her throat. “It’s… um kinda late?” she glanced down at her watch before sitting up and sliding out of the back of the car. “L-Looks like you’ve got plans?” She tried to hide the bitterness in her voice but she knew she failed, knew Michael could see all of it.
Michael shook his head. “Nah, it’s not wh-”
Raven cut him off. “I have an early shift tomorrow… would hate to oversleep. Mind taking me home?” She did not know why she lied, her shift was not until noon. However, she knew it was an excuse he could not argue with.
Raven started to walk around to the car door when she felt Michael’s grip around her arm, halting her movements. Michael hated that she saw that. Similar to her, but for entirely different reasons, he had been dodging Tasha’s calls like they were the plague. Usually he reached out to her to set up dates but when two weeks passed with radio silence from her best and most frequent customer, she started calling more often. He met up with her once, an act he regretted the morning after when he woke up. But she had promised discretion, if anyone knew how much of a farce he and Raven’s relationship was, it was Tasha. But he did not even enjoy it in the same way, he felt like he was just going through the motions. So when she reached back out earlier that week to set up another date, he ignored it. And ignored all the subsequent messages. He could not avoid her forever, but he knew he needed to put her on pause until Raven was out of his life and out of his system. While he was drugged up on her, no other fix was as worthy or quite as right.
But he did not know how to explain that to Raven. He had not promised her exclusivity but it had most certainly been implied. He would not be pleased if he found out another man she had fucked was calling her.
“Tasha and I aren’t…” he started to say but Raven pressed her hand to his chest to stop him.
“You don’t gotta lie to me. You’re allowed to sleep with other women, Michael. This isn’t real, we’re just friends at the end of the day. All good. I’m really tired though and need to get up early.”
With that, she gently maneuvered her arm out of his grasp and slid into her seat in the car. She was thankful with every passing mile that took her closer to her apartment and out of his presence. She did not have a right to be upset but she could not change the fact that she was. She enjoyed being his only and she wasn’t, and she was wholly unprepared for how that would make her feel. But that’s what she got, for thinking his feelings for her extended past their business relationship. He was kind but she had signed up to be used and he was getting what he wanted. She had to accept that.
“Thanks for the ride, Allen,” she said as she opened the door. She fixed her face and offered him a smile that was a bit forced but, despite the end to the night, still was partially genuine. “Thanks for tonight, seriously. I had fun.” His phone buzzed again, causing her to grimace. “And have fun with Tasha. Night, Michael.” She did not let him respond before she let the car door slam shut and she raced inside as fast her legs in her heels could carry her.
Michael groaned, his head thudding back against the headrest as he looked at his phone screen.
“I fucked that up, didn’t I?”
“Wasn’t your shining moment with her, sir.”
He clenched his hand into a fist before answering the phone. He never wanted to see that look on Raven’s face again and truthfully, he did not care to frequent Tasha anymore. He knew Raven and he had a shelf life that would expire but even when it did, he was not sure he could go back to fucking Tasha like Raven never existed. She had infiltrated every aspect of his being in the last two week and tonight had only made him fall deeper for her, made him want to give her everything she did not have. It was strange to feel this emotion again, to long for someone like he did her. Even if it could not be something long term, he wanted to savor it while he had her.
But that was not something he was truly ready to admit to himself, let alone to Tasha. So he decided to take the easy road out and blame it on something else: the image and his manager. Tasha would have to respect that, right? And he would spin some lie about seeing her after Raven and he broke up, even though he was not sure if he had the desire for dispassionate, unattached sex in him anymore.
“Hey Tash,” he muttered coldly into the phone.
“Hey baby… wanted to see if you wanted to meet up tonight? I miss you,” her voice was sultry and inviting, a voice that, once upon a time, would have had him racing through LA to get to a hotel with her. But today, it did nothing. “And a little birdie told me you were headed to Paris in two weeks for press. Should I pack a bag?”
Michael rolled his eyes. That was his own fault. He flew her out once last year to Cannes Film Festival and now she thought she was invited on every trip. There was only one person he wanted to take on this trip with him and after tonight, he was not even sure she’d say yes.
“Yea… listen Tash. You know how I feel about you. But I can’t see you anymore… just for a few months.”
“What?? Why?”
He rolled his eyes, she knew why. “Well, you know… I got this relationship with Raven that is really important for my career and I can’t be seen with other women. We’re gonna have an amicable split in a few months and then I’m all yours again. But until then, we gotta keep our distance.”
He could hear the frustration and bitterness in her voice, though she tried and failed to hide it. “You’re my best customer, Michael. You can’t just… drop me outta nowhere.”
“It’s just temporary. Just a couple months. And I’ll send you some money to tide you over till you get a new client. Also means no Paris. Sorry, I just really gotta focus on cleaning up the image over the next few months. You understand, don’t you? You know you’ll always be my favorite girl.”
There was a long pause that made Michael check to ensure the call had not been disconnected.
“Yea I understand. Just a few months though, right? Then you’re droppin’ the new girl?”
Michael rolled his eyes before nodding, though she could not see him. “Of course, baby. Just a couple months and then she’s gone. Promise.”
They shared a few pleasantries before Michael hung up and prayed she did not call him again for a while. His fingers itched to text or call Raven and explain. But something stopped him, the part of him that still adamantly rejected his feelings toward her roaring. He did not owe her an explanation, he did not owe her anything but the money he paid for her dates. She did not ask for an explanation either so why would he volunteer one? Those two parts of him battled until he threw his phone to the side in frustration.
He sighed and took a deep breath as Allen pulled up in front of his family home in the hills, his oasis, Raven’s perfume still lingering in the car… that hint of lavender danced on his nose. He fell asleep with that phantom smell haunting him, Raven finding ways to pop up in every dream he had that night, leaving him no escape from her or his feelings for her.
***
“Here you go.” Michael handed her an envelope filled with cash. “I’ll be gone by the time you wake up.”
Raven nodded and stored it in her overnight bag before grabbing her clutch. They were finally alone after being poked and prodded all afternoon by his stylist and glam teams to get ready for the premiere. They had ten minutes before the car would be there to take them. And then Michael would be jetting off at an ungodly hour to New York and then Paris for press. Raven was actually a bit sad to see him go.
Though they never discussed the Tasha debacle from her birthday two weeks prior, she and Michael were slowly but surely getting closer and closer each day. They had had an event or something to go to almost every night, Raven was shocked at the amount of money she had been able to make in such a short window of time. Even helping her sister with her lawyer, she felt as if she could actually breathe easy for the first time in a while. And on the nights they were not together, they generally texted or talked on the phone at some point. They hadn’t had sex again, Raven finding any and all excuses to avoid that since he was still seeing Tasha. He never pushed or seemed angry, albeit a bit disappointed when every date ended with her asking Allen to take her home. It was petty she knew it but she did not care. She had no interest in competing with Tasha, she knew who would win every time.
“Thanks.”
“You sure you’re gonna be good while I’m gone?”
Raven glanced at him and rolled her eyes as she threw her lipstick in her clutch. She did not quite understand how the small bag was even functional, it did not even fit her ID. But Michael’s stylist said it fit the look so she did not question it. “Don’t flatter yourself, Mr. Jordan. I’ll be just fine without you for a few weeks.”
Michael came up behind her and laughed. “You ain’t gotta pretend like you ain’t gon’ miss me, baby girl. I mean… you know, financially. I’m in New York for a week then Paris for a week. That’s a while without dates. I can slide you some extra if you need it.”
Raven bristled at the idea, she did not want him to view her as a charity case.
“No,” she responded shortly, immediately regretting the sharp edge in her tone as his face fell. “S-Sorry. No, thank you but I’m good.”
“Even after your sister’s legal shit or whatever?”
She let out a small huff. “Yea… she managed to pick the most expensive lawyer below the damn Mason Dixon line but I got it covered, I think. And with this,” she gestured toward her bag. “I’m good on the other stuff too. Seriously, you shouldn’t worry yourself about my finances. I always figure it out.”
He grabbed her wrist to stop her from walking away from him.
“It ain't charity or worry. Don’t want you stressin’ and shit while I’m gone. And I like to know my friends and everyone on my team are good. You’re both… why would I treat you any differently?”
“I just don’t want you to feel like you have to take care of me. Or fix my problems.”
“You’re here fixin’ my problems. I can’t return the favor?”
“Because… that’s not what we agreed to. This is a job, you pay me… we go out. That’s it. My family shit has no part in this and isn’t your concern. I’ll deal with them.”
“Why do you?” At her raised eyebrow, he added, “Deal with that?”
“You don’t give up on your family. You reach out your hand even when they swat it away. And one day, they’ll see all I’ve done for them and how much I love them and they’ll come around.”
“Seems to me that you let them bleed you dry as if it’ll pay whatever debt you think you owe them. And they seem content with lettin’ you bleed out in the street.”
She chuckled mirthlessly. “They’re all I got… so I don’t have much of a choice. It’ll pay off. All of it,” she forced more conviction in her voice. “One day.”
“You really believe that?”
She turned to look at him. He could tell there was genuine hope in her eyes, true belief that things would get better. A dreamer, indeed.
“Yea… I have to.”
“I dunno... There’s gotta be better out there for you… you certainly deserve better.” There was a not-so-small part of him, a part that grew with every moment he spent with her, that desperately wanted to be that more for her.
“This world is filled with people who deserve better, Michael. But we’re stuck with the hand we’re dealt until better comes along. And I don’t see any better hands coming my way. Just a long game of this shitty hand,” she whispered the last part under her breath as she checked herself in the mirror once more. She grabbed her clutch and started toward the door. “You ready? Car should be here, right?”
He hated how resigned she was to her fate and treatment. He had more than enough money to give his family and friends, more than enough for them to take advantage of if they chose and none of them did. Raven had none of that and still gave her last to people that clearly did not appreciate it. And to know, she had every intention of doing it under some misguided belief they would thank her for it later broke his heart. It reminded him of how pure and kind-hearted she was but he knew her efforts would likely be wasted. But he would have loved to be proven wrong.
He did not know her family so he knew it was wrong to judge them but all he felt was red hot anger. Quite frankly, the only benefit he saw to the reality that this arrangement was fake was that he would not have to meet her family himself. He did not know if he could even sit in the same room with them.
“Before we go… got somethin’ for you.”
Raven raised an eyebrow, “I don’t need a gift. It’s your special night.”
“Yea but wanted to give you somethin’ to remember me by. It benefits both of us, don’t worry.” His face was a sly smirk that told her the gift was not a normal one. “But first, Tasha and I aren’t hookin’ up anymore.”
“Michael… you don’t have to…”
He shook his head and interrupted her. “Nope. You didn’t let me finish that night and you’ve been weird about it ever since. So now, I’m talkin’ and you’re gonna listen. It’s ok to be annoyed. We should be exclusive. I called her and put that shit on pause until our arrangement is done. We’ve only hooked up once since we started dating and it was early on. But either way, you don’t gotta worry about her callin’ or me seein’ her while I’m with you. I got my hands full with you anyway,” he winked at her.
Raven tried to limit the smile that wanted to blossom at his words. She was happy to hear she was not “competing” with Tasha as she thought. It was a narrative her own insecurities and anxieties created and fueled, a narrative that now seemed foolish. She still did not know why it mattered so much to her. Or rather, she knew, but she would never admit it out loud.
“So we’re good?”
“Y-Yea we’re good. Wasn’t worried,” she lied, trying to make her voice sound aloof and unbothered. She did not know why she bothered, she supposed she did not want her pride to be anymore damaged than it already was.
Michael merely pursed his lips and chuckled before nodding toward the bed. “So you ready to be my slut again or am I still on pause?”
Raven smiled. “I’m all yours.”
“Good. Lay down for me, panties to the side.”
Raven laid back on the bed, hiking up her dress to her waist so she could part her legs. She pulled her thong to the side, Michael licking his lips as he took in the mess between her thighs.
“Already so wet for me. You missed me too, huh? This is gonna be fun,” he muttered to himself as he pulled a gold vibrator out of his pocket before sitting on the bed beside her, careful not to ruffle his perfectly-tailored tuxedo.
He wasted no time sliding the vibrator inside her, Raven moaning lightly at the intrusion, the way his finger brushed against her clit. She wanted more, desperately. Her hips rolled to find his touch, his hand, her body begging for more action. But he denied her. His other hand fiddled with something small that looked like a remote control.
“Know what this is?”
“No, sir.”
“It’s the controller. Tonight, you’re gonna keep that in you and I’m gonna have a little fun with this.”
Raven let out a shaky breath. “Y-You expect me to keep this in… while we’re at a movie premiere? No way.”
He nodded, a mischievous grin in his eye. “I recall you wanting to explore some fantasies. You tellin’ me sex in public ain’t one you’ve had?”
She bit her lip as she contemplated it. The idea was certainly an intriguing one… but the risks??
“When would you use that?”
“Whenever I want. That’s the fun part… for me anyway. And you’re gonna spend the night making sure that sexy ass face when you cum isn’t plastered across TMZ tomorrow.”
Raven shook her head. “I dunno, Michael. I’m all for risk but this seems insane.”
He let out an exaggerated sigh, his voice playful and teasing. “I thought you’d be up for it, thought you wanted to have fun but I understand if you’re too scared.”
She heard the challenge in his voice. He was testing her, trying to see if she was really up for anything. She could not deny that the idea was intriguing. Having her orgasms at his mercy in public? Per usual with him, she knew she could say no. But as she ran over the risks, all she could think of was the thrill of it. She wanted it. She hated that she wanted it and hated that he knew she wanted it. But she did.
She sat up and swung her legs off the bed. She clenched her muscles to ensure the new addition to her ensemble stayed tucked where it needed to be and she shimmied the delicate fabric of her gown back down to its proper place.
“Car’s waiting,” she offered with a smirk as she grabbed her purse and walked out of his bedroom, deciding then and there that she would win whatever game he was playing tonight, and would show him that she was indeed up for any and everything.
Michael watched her ass sway as she exited and smiled.
“Gonna have a lot of fun with this.”
***
Raven was so overwhelmed by the screaming fans and reporters and flashing lights that she almost forgot about the “gift” nestled in her core. She kept her smile bright as she and Michael started down the red carpet, his arm tightly wrapped around her waist.
He looked down at her like the perfect image of a doting boyfriend, with love and protection in his eyes. He played the role so well, Raven almost caught herself falling for the act. But she supposed that was a good thing because it made her glances back at him more genuine. She knew they looked like the picture perfect couple, every gossip site raved about them after every date. She knew tonight would be no different.
She was so focused on keeping her smile intact and her eyes from blinking too much as they stood on the red carpet that she failed to notice Michael slip his hand into his pocket. Her smile faltered for just a second as she felt the device come alive, sending shock waves directly against her g-spot. It was a steady soft buzz, just enough to make her feel it, causing the heat to rise throughout her body. But it was not enough to overwhelm her.
Once she got over the initial surprise of the vibration, she was able to recompose herself with ease. She played off the change in her expression by adjusting something on her dress and continued posing with him.
Minutes passed and the vibration continued at its low pace, Raven enjoying the small jolts of pleasure. This was what she was supposed to be worried about? This was a piece of cake.
She leaned in and kissed him softly on the cheek before turning her head from the cameras and whispering in his ear, “This is easier than I thought it’d be.”
Michael let out a deep laugh as if she had told a funny joke and pecked her sweetly on the nose, continuing their slow march down the carpet.
Raven genuinely felt like she could deal with that all night as she listened to Michael give an interview. She remained tucked at his side with a smile on her face. The interviewer did not really ask her any questions, thank God. So she just smiled and concentrated on keeping her thighs together.
“So Raven, I have to say, you look gorgeous. Who are you wearing?”
“Th-” her words were cut short as the vibration pattern changed, this time a long vibration that steady increased before pulsing against her g-spot and starting over again. She coughed awkwardly, pretending as if she had swallowed wrong before saying. “T-thanks. V-versace.”
Her answer was clipped and short, afraid her words would betray her if she opened her mouth. This was far different, this was ecstasy. Each vibration felt like the slowest, most tantalizing march up a mountain before someone pushed her back toward the bottom to do it all over again. And that pulse at the top? It sent a shockwave through her that made her see stars. Each time, she felt her fingers grip the fabric of Michael’s tuxedo jacket harder. The longer it droned on, the more her legs started to shake.
“You ok, baby?” he asked sweetly, kissing her on the cheek innocently.
“Y-Yea, of course.”
“You two are so cute. Thanks for chatting with me and I can’t wait to see the film.”
Michael said his goodbyes to the interviewer before guiding Raven away.
“What’s harder?” he whispered in her ear as they walked inside the venue. He stopped her in the corner of the giant atrium before they walked into the screening room and tucked her against a wall in a corner. Only official photographers were allowed at this point. To anyone passing by, they just looked like a couple having a sweet moment.
“W-what?” She found even such a simple word laborious to get out and it sounded more like a moan than a word. With him mostly covering her body from view, she could not stop the way her hips rolled as the setting changed again. The pattern was the same but the cycle was faster, the intensity overwhelming as he increased it to the next setting.
“What’s harder?” he leaned in and whispered in her ear so lowly she almost could not hear her. “Keepin’ that pretty smile on your face when all you wanna do is close your eyes and bite your lip while you cum? Hidin’ your moans so no one here knows you’re a loud filthy slut? Or stoppin’ yourself from beggin’ me to fuck you in the bathroom over there?”
She felt as if her entire body was in a frenzy. It was not just the vibrator, it was his hands gently pressing her to the wall innocently, it was the courses of people walking by them having no clue that she was on the cusp of the greatest pleasure of her life, it was that she could not stop it or him if he decided he wanted her to cum right then and there in front of everyone.
“A-all… of it,” she whispered, her face burying itself in the nook of his neck, which helped hide the pleasure swimming in her eyes but only increased it as she took in his scent. His signature cologne had become intoxicating to her.
“You wanna cum for daddy, baby?” His words were a light whisper that they knew could not be heard over the conversations and music playing throughout the hallway.
It was taking everything in her not to collapse in front of him, his arm around her waist was the only thing keeping her standing. Her legs were pure jello, every inch of her body was on fire, boiling with pleasure and humiliation at being brought to orgasm at the nicest event she’d ever been to in her life. All she wanted to do was cum but she did not trust herself to hide it.
“P-Please…” she whispered. She did not know if that please was to stop or to keep going.
Michael smirked as he felt her hips buck against his again. She was so close, he could see it in her eyes, feel it in the way her hips ground against nothing but air. It was subtle, not obvious to anyone else from the angle they stood at but he could feel it.
“Beg.” He demanded.
She clenched her eyes closed. All she wanted was to fall over this particular edge, right then and right now. She was so close, so close, it was almost agonizing to hold it in until he gave her permission. She glanced down as his finger hovered over the button to increase the setting again, knowing that she could not will him to hit that button. She would have to give him exactly what he wanted, what he always wanted. Submission.
“P-Please… m-make me cum,” she muttered in his ear. “I-I need… it… p-please.” Tears stung in her eyes as she struggled to fight the urge to let go right then and there, hearing her own needy voice in the space.
“Hm.” he offered quietly. “I don’t think you deserve it.” And with that, the vibration stopped completely.
Raven could not stop the groan that escaped her lips as he stole her orgasm, her body screaming and protesting at her in pain at the sudden loss of pleasure.
She let out a soft gasp as she glanced up at him. “You mother-”
He leaned forward and kissed her deeply, completely silencing her. Raven’s entire body fell into his as they kissed, she could hear the soft snapping of a camera nearby on her right side.
He offered her the sweetest smile before leaning to her left so the camera could not catch what he was saying.
“If you wanna cum at all tonight, I wouldn’t finish that sentence.” He straightened up and pressed his lips to her forehead, his arm still around her waist. His voice returned to a normal volume as he fixed her hair and ran his hand over the front of her dress. He looked like he was helping her adjust herself but he also wanted to make sure there was no evidence of their crimes. “It’s time for us to go to our seats. You ready?”
Raven felt like she had whiplash from the last 5 minutes. He was good, far better than she gave him credit for at these games. She thought this was just going to be a fun experiment. But Michael never did anything small. And she was foolish to underestimate him. 24 hours ago, she would have never thought she would enjoy something like this. But now? She could play this game all night long, even though she was losing miserably.
She peeled herself off the wall, her own hands running against the bodice of her dress. Her legs still felt a bit wobbly so she wrapped her arm in Michael’s to steady herself. She nodded and allowed him to lead her into the theater.
She barely paid attention to the movie as she spent the entire two hours watching Michael like a hawk. Every time he shifted in his seat or moved one of his hands, she wondered if he was going to turn the vibrator back on. Halfway through the film, she realized it was not because she was dreading it. She wanted him to. She was internally willing him to turn the stupid thing back on, even if it was only at its lowest setting. Because even at the lowest setting, she knew she was sensitive enough to get where she wanted to be. She wanted to feel the tidal wave of pleasure, she wanted to drown in and bask in it and feel the adrenaline of doing so in public. Besides, the dark theater seemed like the perfect time if he truly wanted to push her completely over the edge. When she wasn’t praying to God that he would turn it on, she was wishing it was his fingers or his dick filling her and not a toy.
She needed him so bad and truth be told, would have begged him to fuck her right then and there if they weren’t surrounded by hundreds of people.
However, nothing happened. He paid her no attention throughout the entire film except for the hand that rested on her thigh. The minutes ticked on and on and on as the cast went up on stage to say a few words when the film ended. By the time they finally finished and were in the car to the afterparty, she was a horny, disgruntled mess.
She kept her eyes trained on the window, even though it was tinted, when she felt Michael slide into the seat next to her. Two could play the ignoring game, she decided.
His hand slid into the slit of her dress, pushing the expensive material to the side so he could have full access. When she did not part her legs for him immediately, he let out a disgruntled growl that was meant to be a command. She pretended she did not hear him and ignored it.
He merely shook his head and laughed. “Aight, baby girl.” He pushed her knees apart with his hands, it took everything in her not to moan and keep her face stoic.
His fingers immediately slid into her panties, the heat of her arousal hiting his skin before he even made contact with her body. He caressed soft circles into her clit. She gave him nothing, no moans, no humping into his hand. Nothing. So he upped the ante and turned the device on to the highest setting it had available.
“Fuck!” She cried out, unable to keep it in as her body was assaulted with pleasure. The vibrator was more than enough to make her cum but adding his thumb against her clit was just simply unfair in her opinion.
His free hand grasped her chin, firmly but loose enough that it was not painful and forced her eyes on him. Her breathing was heavy as she felt pleasure building fast in her core. Tears pricked her eyes, not from pain, but overwhelming, soul shattering pleasure, “You wanted me to make you cum in that theater, didn't you? In front of all those people like the filthy whore you are? Didn’t you? Upset that I ignored you? But guess what, baby girl?” he switched the setting to a lower one to keep her on the cusp of pleasure without sending her over.
She let out a soft sob of agony as he held her there, suspended right at the cusp of her orgasm. This was more tortuous than him stopping cold turkey because she was so close she could taste it. And he kept it just out of reach. Every pulse, every caress of his finger was so much and overwhelming but still was not enough. And there was nothing she could do to force him to give her more.
“Your body is mine, your pleasure is mine. And I decide when to fuck you, when you cum, when you suck my dick… I decide when you’ve been good… when you’ve been bad and what to do about it. It’s all mine. You can ignore me all you want but see how quickly you fell apart? You can’t win against me, baby girl. Daddy always wins. You understand?”
She nodded rapidly, her body shaking lightly as she teetered on the edge, pleasure was consuming her every cell. She could barely think of anything but the raging inferno in her core. “I-I understand. P-Please…” her voice broke. She felt as if she would quite literally perish if she did not come soon. He had never kept her on edge this long, a few seconds sure. But time was stretching into minutes.
“You think you deserve it?”
She didn’t deserve it, she knew the answer he wanted. “N-No, no… I’ve b-been bad, a bad girl. I d-deserve to be punished b-but I’m begging you… l-let me cum. I c-can’t… P-please,” her voice begged him for mercy.
Deciding that she would pass out if he continued this game any farther, he pressed the button to return it to its highest setting. Her scream was nearly inaudible as she came on his fingers, her body shook as she gripped the door handle, shuddering through an intense orgasm.
“That’s it, cum for me,” he whispered in her ear. “That’s a good girl…”
“Thank you, t-thank you,” she babbled back to him as he talked her through her orgasm. He turned the vibrator off completely, finally giving her a break.
“Allen, circle the block a few times.”
“Yes, sir.”
At the sound of Allen’s voice, Raven’s eyes flew open and shock and humiliation set in. She had just cum… with another person in the car. And she had completely forgotten he was there. Once Michael had started going, the presence of another human being in their vicinity had completely vanished. She glanced up, surprised to find the limo divider up. She didn't even know when that happened. However, she knew that that barrier was not sound proof. However, instead of being utterly turned off by that idea, it just turned her on more.
“You like knowing Allen heard you?” Michael whispered in her ear.
“No,” she shot back as she fixed her dress and used the compact mirror she had stored in the limo before the premiere to fix her makeup. Thankfully she still looked pristine, despite feeling physically depleted. She did not know how she and Michael went round after round when one orgasm made her want to cuddle up under the covers and fall asleep.
“I keep tellin’ you how much I hate lies. But you never listen. Might think because we have a long night and I got an early mornin’ that you’ll escape punishment. But you won’t. Means I have a couple weeks to think of the perfect punishment for such… insubordination.”
“Don't threaten me with a good time,” she offered with a sweet smile and a wink that made him laugh.
He did not get a chance to retort when Allen pulled up at the venue of the after party. He gave Raven a once over before getting out of the limo and grasping her hand. He longed to bury himself inside her but he knew he did not have time, at least not enough time to satisfy the urges he had. And while he would toy with public sex, this was not the venue or event to be caught fucking in the bathroom, as much as he wanted to.
No, he supposed he would just deal with cold showers for two weeks until he could fuck her again, and spank her until she begged for mercy. Her pleas had done something to him, sweet music to his ears. The perfect orchestra. And he would use every free moment of the next few weeks to think of ways to get that sound again.
***
Michael rubbed his eyes as he scrolled through his email. He knew he would sleep well on the plane. He hated the first thing in the morning flights but he knew they were the only way to keep up with his crazy press schedule.
“We’ve arrived, Mr. Jordan,” Allen called from the front seat, Michael immediately hopping out. Allen grabbed his sea of bags as he waved at his castmates who were also just arriving to the tarmac.
“Thanks, man. See you when I get back. Make sure Rae gets home ok today, aight? Then enjoy your time off.”
“Thank you, sir,” Allen responded as he handed off his bags to the baggage attendants who would ensure they made it onto the plane.
Michael started to walk away and head to the flight when he heard his name behind him.
“Mr. Jordan!” Allen called after him, causing Michael to turn around. The older man jogged up to him. “A word of advice? If I am not overstepping my bounds?”
Michael nodded, allowing the man to continue. Allen rarely spoke, he was the type who liked to do his job quietly and fade into the background. And he preferred to keep it professional with Michael though there were a few topics they could shoot the shit over while in the car like basketball and the like. But Michael knew that meant Allen likely knew more about him than anyone else on this planet, which meant he would have been a fool not to hear him out.
“Avoiding love and companionship, even when it is right there waiting for you to take it, will never bring you happiness. And some would say such an ill-guided venture was foolish and selfish, particularly when the world is filled with people like Ms. Turner who love and seek out love with their whole souls and it's denied to them at every turn. And you may be a bit selfish, Mr. Jordan,” Allen admitted. “But I never pegged you as foolish.”
“What’re you sayin’?”
“I’m saying that it does not matter how this whole thing between the two of you started. It only matters how you end it. And whether you are brave enough to admit to her and yourself that perhaps you don’t want it to end at all.” Allen patted him on the arm before taking a step back. “There’s no reward for loneliness, Mr. Jordan… no Oscar to win for denying yourself more when you know you want it. The only prize those actions will give you is a lifetime of regret. And I believe you’re living a life too bright to have it dimmed by regrets.” he paused. “I hope I have not overstepped too much. But… well, there was a time a decade or two ago when I would’ve liked someone to overstep and tell me that.”
Michael stared at him for a few moments before he nodded. After his last very public and embarrassing breakup, he vowed never to fall in love again. Years of women warming his bed before he kicked them out before sunrise. He got what he wanted and gave nothing of himself… to any of them. But Raven… from the moment he watched her staring out that window, he gave without even realizing how much he had given. And now, he felt things for her that he had not felt for a woman in so long. Hell, he wondered if he had ever felt this strongly for another person in his entire life. He wanted more… not a contract or a business dealing. He wanted her. Was he being utterly foolish by pretending that was not the case?
“You did… overstep.” His tone was a bit cold but he was unsurprised at how Allen did not backtrack or shrink. He said his piece, called him out and was willing to accept whatever the consequences of that were. “But maybe I need more people to do that. Will you do me a couple favors when you go back to the penthouse to pick up Raven?”
“Anything, sir.”
***
Raven groaned as she turned over in Michael’s soft bed. She had fallen asleep in his master bedroom alone, as she always did when they slept here. He always took the guest room. She wondered if she should be more sad that they slept separately but she agreed that that was not intimacy either one of them truly needed. She groped around the bed for her phone, groaning when she realized it was already 11 a.m. Thankfully, she had another two hours before her shift but she knew she needed to hurry up so she could get home and change into her real clothes, not the fancy designer ones she kept there.
She pulled herself out of bed and stretched, part of her sad that Michael opted to go to sleep instead of fucking her. She understood he had an early day but she could not deny that all she wanted was for him to bend her into a pretzel after that orgasm in the car. But last night was, for the most part, strictly work. They did not get home and go to bed until 3 am and he had to get up shortly thereafter to catch his flight. And now she was left with nothing but a vibrator and fantasies of him to occupy her until he returned. But he had succeeded in giving her something to remember him by. She walked into the kitchen to grab a glass of water, rubbing her eyes as she dragged her feet across the hardwood floors.
Michael gave her free reign of his penthouse, even when he was not there. She did not spend the night there often but she had started to learn her way around, figure out where the sparse things he kept there were. A few dishes, a couple glasses, a fridge filled with coconut water and little food. When she slept there, so did he. But she had never really stopped to wonder where he spent the rest of his time. She guessed he had some giant mansion in the hills like every other star. But she wondered if that one was just as cold as this one, just as void of comfort and love, just as sterile.
She guessed it was not. Otherwise, he would have her come there. No, that one was the sanctuary for the real him, she imagined it was warm and overflowing with his favorite things. Japanese anime artifacts and art and memorabilia and his awards and family photos and all the things that meant something to him. And this one was merely for his image, sterile and artificial.
She blinked a couple of times, shocked to find a neat and perfectly packaged gift bag waiting on the counter with a long envelope sitting up against it.
She sucked her teeth and chuckled, “This nigga. I thought I said no gifts,” she muttered to herself as she grabbed a glass of water and sat at the barstool. Part of her contemplated not opening it. What had he even given her a gift for? Her birthday was weeks ago. But her desire to know what he got her won out.
She went to the envelope first, her name written in handwriting far too nice to be Michael’s on the front. She flipped it over and smiled as the person had written on the back: Open me last :)
“On the other side of the damn country and still giving commands.”
And you’re still following them, she imagined his voice shooting back at her as she placed the thick envelope to the side and reached into the bag. She made quick work of discarding the multi-colored gift bag paper to reveal two books. She pulled the first one out.
“Whoa,” she muttered as she took in a first edition copy of I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. She turned it over in her hands, mouth agape as she studied it. It was beautiful and she knew it cost a pretty penny.
Her hand reached into the bag and pulled out a book she knew all too well. Her own. An odd gift, she thought, though she supposed it was sweet that he went looking for it in the first place. She wondered how he found it as she published under a pseudonym but she imagined a man with his resources could find out almost anything he wanted with time.
She flipped it open as she sat back down on her bed, a smaller envelope the size of a card falling out of it. He had stuck it in on the acknowledgements page, which read: From one dreamer to another.
She opened Michael’s card and took in his handwriting.
Thank you for sharing what you did with me on your birthday. I know the day isn’t easy. And apologies that this gift was so late - but I figured this was a loophole in the no gifts rule if you got it weeks later? And it took some time to track down your book. You didn’t make it easy. I’m looking forward to reading it on my flight. I generally agree with everything you say but I would disagree with one thing you said that night. The first time we met, you said Maya Angelou’s book saved you and gave you hope. I’m sure somewhere in this world, a young girl is reading your book and it’s doing the same for her. That’s something good that came out of October 15: the world got you. And that’s worth celebrating in my opinion.
I hope, one day, you see that too.
Happy Birthday
Michael
Raven let the tears that streamed down her face fall, one of them splashing against the glossy cover of her book. She wiped it away before rereading his card over and over again. She hated how he seemed to see her, really see her, and everything she truly needed. There he was again, caring more than anyone else, more than he should have, even when she was mad at him. It just made her want him for every reason she shouldn’t. She should want to fuck him… she should want his money… That was all she signed up to get. A few months of cash and to let him dick her down better than she ever had been before. All her problems and loneliness solved, at least temporarily.
Instead, her heart and soul were slipping deep into dangerous territory, he was dangerous territory. She still tried to force herself to resist it, her body hanging by a rope that was fraying at the middle as if an invisible force was taking an ax to it. And she did not know if she wanted to scramble back onto the ledge or let herself fall.
After a few minutes, she picked up the other envelope and slid the folded up pieces of paper out of it. The first one made her gasp… a flight confirmation for a first class ticket to Paris dated for one week from today. The second page was a short list of the things she should pack. And the third was her hotel confirmation, a suite at a hotel she could not even pronounce but one quick google search let her know it was one of the nicest and most expensive hotels the city had to offer.
The last page only contained two sentences in Michael’s handwriting.
I hope you have a passport. See you in one week.
Raven spread the pages out on the counter, her face paralyzed in shock.
“What the actual fuck?” She examined all of them, rereading as if the information on them would vanish or change right before her eyes. But the flight confirmation had her name on it, the hotel room… her name. It was all there in black and white. He was inviting her to Paris.
“I should say no…” she spoke to herself, a false ring of conviction in her voice. “I can’t accept this.” Her internal debate raged as she paced up and down by the kitchen island, her eyes studying the papers with each pass.
You know you want to, the devil on her shoulder reasoned. And fuck, did she want to. It’s fun… when’s the last time we took a trip or did anything fun?
She had never wanted to accept anything as badly as she wanted to accept this. She chewed on her lip so hard she was surprised she did not draw blood as she debated and debated. Until her phone buzzed with a text from Mr. Surprises himself.
Michael: damn you sleep late as hell.
Michael: Am I gonna see you in Paris in a week?
Raven: This was a huge gamble… What if I didn’t have a passport? 🤔
Michael: It was a huge gamble but not because of the passport. Consider it PTO… Come live a little.
Michael: So did my gamble pay off or nah?
She read through the papers one more time, deciding then and there that she was 100% going to Paris. Even her pride could not allow her to deny herself this experience. However, she decided to make him sweat a little, though she doubted he actually would.
Raven: I guess you’ll find out in seven days. Thanks for the gift.
Raven locked her phone before chuckling to herself. She grabbed her phone and the itinerary page and let out an excited squeal and did a happy dance before she raced off to her closet. She had a trip to pack for.
Tag list: @readinghere2023 @blackerthings @prettyisasprettydoes1306 @physicxal @purplehairgawdess @miyuhpapayuh @rueruesclues @geemamii @certifiedlesbianbaddie @pipsqueak-98 @nyifly22 @destinio1 @twocentaur @gopaperless @musicisme333@roguekiki @majesticbrownjawn @taurusqueen83 @mysteryuz @miamormilan @itsknor-thedeep @naj-ay444 @mads-grace4 @nayaesworld @kholdkill @msniaimani @nccu-rnc
***
A/N: Wellllllllll… a lot happened! A little angst, a little fluff, a little smut lol just gave y'all the full spectrum of things. And it wouldn't be one of my fics if I didn't give you a character or two to despise along the way lol
Next chapter, we go to Paris, which not gonna lie… that wasn't in the OG outline of this haha but inspiration struck and now I'm very excited lol Drop a comment and let me know all your thoughts lol Thanks for reading!
#black writers#michael b jordan#michael b jordan x oc#mbjordanedit#michael b jordan x reader#black panther#michael b jordan fanfic#creed 3#adonis creed#creed iii
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Grant Us Peace, Forevermore | Chaos Universe OneShot for @endofn1ght
Summary: Wednesday and her fellow Raven (OC/Emiliana) engage in witchcraft, looking for additional peace after the horrific events of the past year continue to weigh on them.
WC: 4.9k (part of layla's <5k challenge that barely makes it lol)
Rated: E
Note: New Lovely Thorns content coming in the next day or so, for now enjoy revisiting another OC from the Chaos universe as @endofn1ght prompted Chaos-verse Wednesday with Emiliana doing witchcraft. Thank you for all the support and forcing me to analyze some of my work in ways I hadn't previously thought about.
This is part of my less than 5k writing challenge of prompts that I'm only allowed to work on at my place of employment when my free time is actually free (was a little less than usual over the last week which is why this took so long).
Set between Wednesday's birthday at the end of Chapter 31 and the start of the epilogue; end of semester / late April-ish at Nevermore - enjoy!
Wednesday kicked the final bit of gravel on her way up to the front porch of one of her favorite places. Emiliana’s cottage looked somehow smaller in the late spring; with everything finally green, the large shade cast from centuries-old woods dwarfed the structure considerably. Augustus slithered down her wrist, excited to enter the home, irritate Piper and greet his favorite turtles. The windows were open on the front, and she assumed likely the French doors on the back. Glad that Emiliana was letting in fresh air, as sometimes the house took on a more powerful odor of stale cigarettes when it was just her home for a while, Wednesday was surprised to have to knock – that she hadn’t heard her coming.
The door opened, revealing a frazzled looking Emiliana. It wasn’t terribly out of the ordinary to find her hair tangled and in just her long, black skirt and too-loose tank top, but she looked particularly greasy that afternoon. Wednesday bit back a sigh instead of a hello as she considered she’d need to shove her in the shower before they did anything productive to relieve the nagging sensation swirling around in her gut. “What is the day?”
Struggling not to smile, Wednesday regarded, “It’s Thursday.”
“I have not gone mad, then. I hate it when you do this – you send me into mild cardiac arrest. You are unharmed?”
Nodding, Wednesday stepped in as she closed the door – spotting a mess in the kitchen, a sink filled with unwashed dishes, a pile of laundry on the sofa, and the floor of the living room covered in remnants of a spell. Her entryway altar was a disaster and Piper was nowhere to be seen – probably avoiding the chaos. She watched as Emiliana struggled to place Wednesday, and tried to read her energy at the same time. She wondered if Emiliana could sense just how unease she truly was.
“I attempted to call and text all morning. I finished working with Aunt Larissa on the proposal for the new council duties, and she doesn’t want me to start anything new until next week. Enid has physical therapy and then her rehearsal. Mother is working with the Doves on oaths, father is entertaining Fangs that are in town, Josie is doing real administration, and you know I simply can’t be bothered with the Nightshades.”
“I am your last resort, then,” Emiliana crossed her arms, her expression mostly playful.
“No,” Wednesday argued. “I just know that you prefer your alone time unless it’s scheduled and was explaining why I’m interrupting…” She looked around at the mess. “This.”
The older Raven gave a chuckle, tugging Wednesday to her and placing an obnoxious kiss on the top of her head. Augustus immediately tore off in search of the yellow and white snake he longed to bother. “You are the one person who can always interrupt me, little bird, regardless of how it fazes my mental state. I am afraid we will have to take most activities upstairs or outside as it is a touch of a mess in here…”
Wednesday popped a brow. “Just a touch? Em – go shower. You’re gross.”
She gave a little cackle into her smoker’s cough. “Indeed, I am. The week has flown by, apparently. I shall see you on the other side of clean,” She didn’t fight the direction, and took to the bathroom with a small salute.
Once she disappeared, Wednesday hurried to start picking things up. It was far from her responsibility, but as Emiliana had picked up so many of the pieces of her life that spring, it hardly seemed enough or like a burden to care for her. Realizing the laundry on the couch wasn’t to be folded, Wednesday rolled her eyes and stuffed it into the washing machine, then moved to unload the half-full dishwasher that Emiliana had been taking things out of instead of putting them away throughout the week. That didn’t take long, and she made haste to reload and run a cycle there, too.
She was sweeping salt away from her to put in a jar after getting the majority of the spell on the floor picked up when Emiliana came out with her wet hair curling into ringlets. She opened the French doors, as hoped, and wondered, “Might we start with music?”
Tilting her head a little, Wednesday decided that was more than appropriate. Her goals for the late April recovery period were to get back to some of her long-abandoned hobbies, and starting a spell session with Emiliana by playing her favorite instrument would be a remarkable way to return to it. Playing music had once been one of her only ways of settling her spirit, and to play with a fellow Raven would be helpful.
She moved it to the end of the couch, wishing Thing were there to turn the pages as Emiliana set up a collapsible music stand for her and placed the selection she wanted there. “I have been composing something I shall play for you after this warmup, and perhaps you can come up with the strings to match?”
“I confess, original music content hasn’t been my forte over my studies, but I would be willing to try,” Wednesday agreed with a small shrug. Emiliana slipped onto her piano bench, wiggled her fingers, and counted them down twice before starting the melody to a famous duet.
Wednesday came in on the third line of music, her bow sweeping over the strings as her fingers moved in time up top. She couldn’t help the smile that came over her features as she got into it – the old habit returning, a swell of joy filling her from the outside in.
The first selection was about eight minutes long, and as it wrapped, Emiliana clumsily dashed over to Wednesday, hugging her tightly. “I love you.”
Grinning into her shoulder, Wednesday gave something like a nuzzle. She considered what she knew about the other Raven that had impacted them – how David Bowie’s music had been the soundtrack of her life. There was something distinctly soothing about music to someone so dark-coded as they, and she wondered if Goody had preferences as well, even if they were liturgical.
“Play me your new song?”
Nodding, Emiliana returned to her favorite place, closing her eyes and squaring her shoulders before letting the ivory keys take her away. She started, playing mostly minor chords – a haunting tune that Wednesday knew just what to do with, instinctively after the first repeating section. She jumped in – natural ability filling the air with cello sounds along with the piano.
It went on – the two playing in harmony for nearly twenty minutes. As they managed to come to a close without a single line of verbal communication, Wednesday was the one to get up first. She tugged Emiliana’s wrists, leading her to the back porch, where they sat on the swing together in silence.
There weren’t words needed between them – the energy spoke volumes. Emiliana kicked back, letting the swing rock. They both lost time – but not in a dangerous way, as they swung back and forth, back and forth until –
“Em? Oh! Hey, Wednesday!” Josie appeared, wearing a pair of athletic pants and an old reptile rescue organization t-shirt, her hair up in a high ponytail. She leaned down to push a kiss on Emiliana’s temple. “I tried to get a hold of you earlier, I figured you might be in the ether. Did you still want to do spring foraging and grocery shopping…?”
Emiliana opened and closed her mouth. “I am afraid I was not aware of the day. What is the time?”
“Going on four-thirty…I finished a meeting and swapped duty with Larissa for Sunday – I’ve got things to do at school then, regardless – I might as well be required to be there. I am so cool to just have turtle time if you -”
“I would still like – and require to, head into the forest. My stores are woefully low. Might we bring a small bird with us?”
“Yeah,” Josie smiled with teeth. “Provided she wants to? Wednesday – I’m not sure what your intentions were here?”
“To spend time with another creature of the dark,” She spoke in earnest. She wasn’t upset with it being Josie who disrupted the moment – but she certainly wasn’t ready to give Emiliana over to her fiancée. “My mother is out of birch – we could collect and distill some – if you’d be willing to go that far into the woods.”
“Whatever you need. The evening is mine now – we can go for a gathering walk, get groceries, eat something – then I am content to leave you two alone after for a bit before we’re ready to wind down for the night.”
Wednesday hurried in for a basket and her boots, while Emiliana insisted it was more than warm enough to be barefoot. Standing on the back porch with Augustus back around her shoulders from where he’d been snuggled in with a half-consenting Piper, Wednesday watched her big sister figures sharing a kiss in the middle of the grass before disrupting them with a hard stare. Josie giggled and pulled her to be between the Ravens, one arm around either of them. They walked a familiar path deeper into the woods behind the cottage, while Josie filled them in on the latest with just two weeks left in the semester – she was busy, but it seemed like the warming weather had behavior incidents down and she’d been largely able to accomplish her work during the daytime hours, instead of being constantly disrupted. Wednesday was distracted by wildflowers, tapping into her unique botany abilities she’d learned to mimic, discovering that a few could very well be useful in potion making with Emiliana. The red aquilegia was particularly interesting, but she warned Emiliana thrice about not attempting to eat it – as the toxicity would prove for a long and challenging evening.
Josie rolled her eyes when she produced a knife from her boot to peel back birch bark. “I find it interesting you’re still keeping a knife on your person, given all the recent trouble that’s caused you?”
“Maybe I just never learn,” Wednesday said with a shrug. “The consequences didn’t relate to having it on my person-”
“Only because Emiliana and I tampered with a crime scene,” Josie sighed. Wednesday felt a strange twist in her stomach. “I’m just saying, Wednesday. I…I’m not saying to walk around unprotected, just…I don’t even know what I’m suggesting. I just don’t want you forget what you’ve been through.”
“Believe me, I couldn’t if I tried,” Wednesday grumbled, picturing the woman’s biological father in a pool of his own blood. The inability to forget was half the reason she’d come to Emiliana that day in the first place.
“Alright,” Josie pulled her close. “I won’t nag.”
Emiliana snorted in a yeah right sort of disbelief and Josie slugged her a little before gesturing to some wild berries.
The foraging walk went on until nearly five-thirty, where Josie pushed a fruit pouch on both of the Ravens before getting them ready to go to the store. Emiliana tried to argue that she wasn’t the one with blood sugar regulation problems, but Josie told her the last thing she needed was scurvy from a week straight of eating noodles and broth.
They loaded into her SUV and Wednesday apologized to Augustus, who was disappointed they weren’t heading out of town to the pet store to get some of the live tiny mice he was fond of killing before eating fresh. Realizing she’d never been grocery shopping with the two women before, Wednesday should’ve been less surprised at just what a scene it was, with Emiliana’s need to touch every piece of fruit or vegetable before putting it in the cart, and asking Josie to read every label on packaged foods that caught her eye. Understanding why Josie usually just helped her with a delivery order, she found herself exercising patience before finally making it back to get started on a late dinner.
Grateful she’d done the dishes so that it was one less thing to do before she got overly hangry and acted out on it, Wednesday enjoyed the simple dinner of warm sandwiches and the fresh fruit and vegetable cut up before Josie finished up and a knock at the door revealed her best friend, who was going to take her out for a drink while Emiliana and Wednesday did their...whatever they were going to do together.
Wednesday eagerly sorted the foraging materials and she and Emiliana set to work cleaning her altar, putting her stones and other items to charge in the moonlight in a basket before smiling at Wednesday when she plopped beside her. “Alright, my little witch, what are you thinking?”
“Something for peace,” She whispered, finally confessing what she really needed with her fellow Raven. “Enid and I…let’s just say – the nights are challenging. I’m not sure how long she is going to be tortured by memories. She’s already had the worst of the feeling removed by the twins, and still, each night at the witching hour…”
“Less you say,” Emiliana sighed. “I am unsurprised. I doubt that I could even attempt to fall asleep at all under the circumstances. Much as I might like to be under a weighted blanket, I do not like to be in an enclosed area, considering what she went through.” She shivered. “My parents used to lock me into the small powder room when I was tearing off and…well, let me just say – I understand. I think…it is not even peace you are looking for. More like certainty.”
“Either way,” Wednesday sighed. “If you can think of a blessing, a potion, or a spell that will help, I will try it.”
Emiliana wiggled her fingers, reaching for a spell book in her native language. She tried to read the contents but sighed and gave up after several minutes, flopping back dramatically on the meditative carpet, mindful of her head. “Wednesday, confessions of truth. It is getting worse.”
“What is?” She asked gently, looking at Emiliana out of the corner of her eyes.
“I am afraid…I am afraid I may be losing more skills. It is common, with a brain injury, regression, or worse, a total loss of a previously mastered skill. But you know I used to be able to at least read decently in French! Now I can hardly manage. Everything looks like squiggles.”
Frowning, Wednesday bit her lip. She really didn’t have any advice to offer. “Would you like me to read to you?”
Emiliana had the base of her palm pushing against her closed eyes. “How am I to read wedding vows if I cannot even read familiar spells?”
That was an entirely separate problem – but that one, Wednesday had a solution for. “You don’t need to read anything. You’ll speak from the heart. And – if you do prefer to have something prewritten, so you don’t slip up, I will help you memorize it. You will give Josie lovely vows, okay? Don’t worry about that.”
When Emiliana didn’t immediately respond, Wednesday frowned, stretching out on the floor beside her. “What are you worried about, if that was just a mask?”
“I feel perpetually like I burden,” Emiliana confessed. “I just do not want this marriage to be a trap for Josie to take care of me.”
Thinking about how other people probably thought that about herself and Enid – but they didn’t see just how Wednesday could show up or be there for her, because it wasn’t anyone’s business, she gave a hug to Emiliana’s shoulders. There were other people in the world who surely struggled with similar problems, but only they knew how uniquely different they were. What it was to be and love a creature of such dark, always striving for light…
Emiliana hugged her in return, and she could feel her crying. “Sometimes I want to take you and hide us away in the countryside and just forage and do potions and spells and meditations forever.”
“Josie would miss you too much, Emi,” Wednesday promised. “I was with her, when you were not. Believe me, she loves you more than you even understand. She takes care of you in different ways as one of her expressions of that love, not in spite of it. You are not a burden. It is to be without you, that is her burden. Hey,” She sat up a little, pulling her fellow Raven up. “Let’s make a peace altar, for both of us. For all we want to ask of the universe.”
“The universe does not want us to have peace, Wednesday! That is half the point of our curse, and you know it!”
“Want doesn’t always get,” Wednesday quoted the myriad of adults in her life who’d long warned her about always having things go her way. “We’ve defied the dark before, and we’ll do it again. Don’t be pessimistic.”
Emiliana sighed, looking up, then to the side. She frowned, sitting up and looking at Wednesday. “When did you become the hopeful one?”
“I had no choice, Em,” She spoke, thinking about that awful night that sent Enid screaming in the middle of almost every night since. “I had to have hope. And I’ll have hope today, for both of us if you can’t find it on your own. I’ll ask for it for you. Come, help me,” She said, closing the book. They didn’t need it. They’d do their own spell, their own way – with her intentions shining through the dark that was clouding Emiliana’s vision.
Heading out to the back porch, she lifted a small, homemade tarp (she loved the way that Emiliana made it her own, lining the silver with black, celestial fabric, and putting a clear vinyl over the top). Beneath it, she took a water carafe, willed with water that she blessed under the recent moon. Bringing it in and sitting at the altar, taking the trunk full of Emiliana’s stores and the basket from their walk, Wednesday watched as she wiped at her cheeks, but started to take out potion ingredients, her little picture labels likely coming in handier than ever.
“I am recalling, somehow,” Emiliana rolled her eyes even as the left one twitched. “Acorns, are for luck.”
She held up a jar full of those that were dried and collected likely from the fall, full to the brim. “Well, add fifteen and hope for peace, then,” Wednesday agreed simply, watching Emiliana line up three rows of five, watching her double count to be sure before setting them into a bowl. She looked at Wednesday, waiting for her to go next.
Reaching into the basket of their yield from the woods, Wednesday removed a blackthorn blossom, placing it with the acorns. “For warding off negative energy.”
Emiliana found a little bit of a smile, apparently finding her approval of Wednesday’s method, lifting a piece of bark. “The city was removing the trees with Dutch Elm disease in the winter. I took a sample, and Holly found it was actually not completely affected, so – I saved the healthy part…As Elm…um, it…helps to balance…?”
“The heart,” Wednesday finished, smiling herself, squeezing Emiliana’s hand.
“Four pieces, then – with a lucky knife. Perhaps…” She took on a serious expression, that also offered Wednesday an out. “Are you yet ready, to open my summoning chest, retrieve your own?”
Shaking her head, she made it clear – Wednesday was not ready for that. “Not yet. Perhaps, come fall – we could do a purification ritual under the harvest moon.”
“Excellent thinking. Add it to your mental calendar, then. I happen to have one…” She lifted up her hands, wandering over to the basket of tools on the tall shelf by her altar. “I once used this to so very carefully remove a hook from one of those babies over there – when Josie and I found him,” She gestured to the tank of turtles. “She says it is a lucky knife.”
She chopped her bark with even slices, tilting her head, inviting Wednesday to make the next choice.
Taking a glance through her many jars and small, homemade sinch-sacs, Wednesday found a dried, pink flower. “Hollyhock. Useful to personal growth.”
“Hm…” Emiliana’s left eye wandered for a moment before she pulled it back, blinking and reaching for a bag. “Mint – for energy. Goodness knows this grows everywhere I don’t want it to out there. I need Holly to spend some time with me,” She mumbled, dropping in seven leaves.
“Pennyroyal,” Wednesday took one from the basket. “For harmony, tranquility.”
“And finally, the liquids.” She took a basket off the shelf, putting lavender and sage oil out, before looking at Wednesday with a sigh, then – sudden watery eyes yet again. “I am so happy to have a partner in the dark to do this with.”
Wednesday gave her a half a smile before headbutting her. “Would you like to grind or smash?”
“Oh, grind, please. You,” She passed her a mallet, “Smashy girl.”
“Always,” She said gleefully, taking the acorns and elm sticks and rolling them into one of Emiliana’s homemade altar cloths, placing it all on a silicone mat and taking it outside, giving them a good few playful whacks before going to town – not letting them stand a chance against the depths of her unrestrained violence.
Once they were more into a powder, Wednesday brought the folded cloth back to Emiliana, who was grinding everything else together with a large mortar and pestle. She let Wednesday add the newly crushed ingredients and continued to grind it all together before Wednesday prepared a simple setup for their spell and blessing.
She carefully selected runes from Emiliana’s collection, placing one of her homemade shell symbols in the moon water she poured into a small simmering cauldron. “Peorth, for luck.”
Emiliana nodded, drawing three Ogham Staves, that Wednesday was sure she hadn’t used at least since the Solstice break at home with her mother. “Hm. Ironic, is it not?”
“Ura, for spiritual healing, Duir, for strength, and Sail, for balance? It sounds exactly like what we need. Put them on the meditation plane.”
Emiliana set it all up, rolling out a clean scarf, putting the three Ogham Staves in a row, placing the dry ingredients in front of them. She added six candles, a photo of Enid and Wednesday, and one of herself and Josie, then as many crystals that gave positivity that Wednesday imagined she had at the cottage. Satisfied with her spread, she crossed her legs and took Wednesday’s hand, lighting the candles with a wave of her own. “Would you like to give your intentions?”
“I acknowledge, the break in traumatic events that we are presently being allowed – from the universe. I express, my gratitude for it – as I am not sure how we could have continued to cope. But – the ramifications of all that took place, continue to haunt us. I implore, peace – positivity – light. I must be able to be more present and grounded, I must be able to provide comfort to my beloved who needs me most at the current time. Em?”
“I recognize,” She could hear her swallow, “My privilege in position, in wealth, in relative health. But I also feel a sense of futility – that I am not able to give enough to my own beloved, and that I am taking more. I implore – peace, positivity – light. I ask for these things to be stable. I must be able to give as much of myself as is given to me.”
Feeling their intentions were matched, Wednesday spoke in verse, letting a natural sense of rhythm and rhyme take over.
I seek both light and peace,
I request that this darkness cease.
I need a positive force that can bring
Something good to this endless spring.
I require a flame from the eternal fire,
To help me be a healer and inspire.
I ask this, for the only one I adore -
Grant us peace, forevermore.
Emiliana spoke a familiar blessing in French, and Wednesday smiled at her as she finished, pouring their dry ingredients into the pot, while Emiliana added the oils. They stirred together, focused on intentions, before Emiliana lit the flame in the fireplace and put the small cauldron on her hook. Cleaning up just a little bit from the spell – it wasn’t a terrible mess, they passed the time while waiting for the potion to brew, about three hours.
Not realizing how much time had passed, Wednesday felt her cheeks heat up when her mother opened the cottage door with Enid, finding Emiliana and Wednesday in the middle of a very dramatic tarot reading for her Beanie Babies. Enid managed to take a picture before suggesting they head home as it was going on her late snack and bedtime, and she wasn’t one to skip her routines.
Feeling just a little bit irritated that she wouldn’t be able to see the potion through to the end, Wednesday let Emiliana scoot both members of the party out to the front porch before she located Augustus from where he’d been antagonizing her own snake, putting the boy around Wednesday’s shoulders, and tugging her close. “I will mind the potion and bring it to you tomorrow morning with an appropriate color tie and charm.”
She hugged her in return, feeling a strange pit of emotion as she held onto Emiliana’s thin frame. She turned her cheek against her bony collarbone, looking to the side, staring at the fire. Wednesday knew her intentions were clear when creating the potion, but…she wasn’t so sure if it would hold up or prove effective.
As Emiliana embraced her long, it seemed like…sometimes – that homespun magic was all an illusion; the potions and spells sometimes felt like nothing more than a placebo effect. Perhaps it really was, and the magic of it all was belief and pluck and –
“You are thinking over, little bird.”
“I know,” She whispered, still clutching onto her.
“You have proved, time and again – you are very strong, very powerful.”
“At a cost. I don’t think that potion will cause anyone to be hospitalized.”
Emiliana’s fingers tangled under her braids as she pulled her back to look her in the eye. Her left one was twitching like it wanted to be shut for the night. “Do not estimate under the power you have,” Emiliana warned.
Nodding – not sure how to do that, but knowing Emiliana’s misused idioms were wise, she accepted her obnoxious kisses to her cheeks before taking her backpack and the Beanie Baby blackbird and scorpion from the floor, tucking them inside, seeing all the missed messages on her phone that had caused her girlfriend and mother to have to walk over to collect her. Giving a wave to Emiliana, Wednesday accepted next her mother’s hand to her shoulder before letting Enid envelop her in a warm greeting.
“Sorry for interrupting your Beanie Baby tarot reading. That looked really fun! Did you get anything good out of it?”
Wednesday hid a dramatic sigh, contemplating on the fairly neutral cards she’d drawn that night. “Nothing life-changing, for the better or worse.”
“Well, we’ll take that, too,” Enid let go and slipped her fingers between Wednesday’s, practically skipping along the solar-powered little garden lights that illuminated the path from Emiliana’s cottage to the Addams house.
Wednesday had made a potion to give her hope that night. The irony of it was – the only reason who’d ever given her any reason to chance that sensation in the first place, despite her chipper-looking demeanor on the trail, was the very reason she needed it, and would likely be hysterical in just six hours.
Trying not to think over as they made it home, ate her usual pre-bed snack and followed her established routine with Enid, Wednesday tucked in beside her. Enid was cuddled on top of her chest like usual, obviously exhausted from her day – and had slipped to sleep in minutes.
She’d sought out Emiliana for the very same reason that her fellow Raven had spoken the quiet part out loud – when she struggled with her reading. Sometimes – the weight of the dark, even if there was no vision, no promise of horror from the universe, was simply too much. To be understood in a way that such a microscopic percentage of Outcasts had ever truly been cursed…
There was a light from the nightstand an hour and a half later as Wednesday wanted to take her mother’s sleeping potion, but also didn’t want to be too out of it when Enid woke up in short time. Reaching for her phone, she examined the picture Emiliana sent; her potion was in a small bottle, with white-dipped twine, tied around the neck, a small bird charm of promise adhered in wax. There was no text attached to it, just the picture of the potion.
It looked beautiful in the light of the still-burning candles and Wednesday sighed, putting it back, adjusting herself around Enid’s sleeping form as she rolled onto her side with a snore. She considered the poem she’d spoken in verse over the potion, willing the universe to grant her a few hours of peace before she’d be woken up to provide it to her traumatized girlfriend.
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I was wondering if you had any nsfw headcanons re: tigerfish? mostly asking cause i was thinking about the idea of nishiki doing his little hair-slick-back thing whenever he’s feeling Spicy (more dominant, regardless of position) so if/when he does that when they’re making out or whatever saejima knows what’s coming hehe
hope this isn’t too uncomfy to ask or anything! thanks for making me a fan of this tiny little ship lmao <3
not uncomfy at all! I'm always happy to talk about nsfw 😏
*as usual, even tho I talk about em as cis dudes, yall are welcome to imagine them however 😌
so prolly an uncommon take but Saejima's always sorta sat on the ace spectrum for me personally like he's into people but not in a way that's like something he'd go out and seek nor really need to be happy. not into being touchy feely with people he's just met and needs a bit of emotional bonding to let that happen *insert some joke about him making everyone he meets his kyoudai lol*. so when it comes to Nishiki, he feels a lot more comfy being openly intimate since they've gotten plenty of time to know each other in jail. Nishiki on the other hand, gives me casual guy™ vibes so he's into slapping the salmon whenever however but not in a wildin' type of way. he's into trying new things but also enjoys comfortable patterns that don't necessarily have to change anything up.
so when they're first shooting the shit about getting their freak on, I can see Nishiki being kinda surprised at first by Saejima's preferences but totally gets it too. he's used to Kiryu being a loner type who isn't exactly going out of his way for the ultimate boner experience. where they differ tho is Saejima is experienced while Kiryu just sorta bumbles through it. Saejima on the other hand, sees Nishiki who was a prominent crime boss and conventionally very pretty so he's thinking oh yeah Nishiki's prolly some kind of sex pest but is pleasantly surprised when Nishiki's more than considerate and patient.
now, Nishiki's been with people of all sorts so he knows his shit while Saejima is more like yeah I know my stuff but I ain't into it enough to really know if I'm performing up to the standards for my partner. he has a good bit of anxiety about that sorta thing and Nishiki didn't really believe him at first cuz like, just look at him. Saejima doesn't look like he'd have anxieties about anything so that's a hurdle they'd have to cross. Nishiki ends up being the lead in most cases, if anything to show the types of things he likes and to give Saejima confidence that he's doing a good job.
when Nishiki leads, he's either topping or power bottoming which defo pumps up the fish ego. but when tiger tops, it's more of a service top thing - he wants to see Nishiki pass the FUCK out lol. he wants to see toes CURL, he wants that ex patriarch to BEG for more. it makes him happy, knowing he can bring Nishiki down a peg for all the pride he's got in him. for Nishiki, it's a nice balance of leaving the work to Saejima while still being in control, even more so when he's going evil mode and gets a mad kick out of having such an imposing man at his beck and call hohohehe.
Saejima's very much not horny ever so Nishiki's gotta be the one to get him in the mood which is perfectly fine for the two of em. it's part of their foreplay, lots of talking and touching and even if it doesn't pan out to anything, they still enjoy just being around each other.
when Nishiki tops he's real sweet about it, very handsy and slick, doing everything you'd expect out of a well choreographed movie tbh. it's a very ideal time and Saejima just sorta gets lost in it, unused to being treated well and gentle. he's definitely prone to being a bit more emotional during these times and not afraid to show it which shocked Nishiki for a time until he got used to it and has come to really enjoy bringing such feelings out of him.
EVIL MODE so there's occasions where Nishiki's into the rougher stuff *insert whatever your heart desires here* and it's a lil bit embarrassing for him cuz there's been occasions with past partners where it's not exactly been the most enjoyable experience for either party, due to inexperience or going too far, etc. he's a lil too eager and too aggressive for his own good, especially back then cuz he had some aha issues to work out and ended up unintentionally taking it out on others.
so insert Saejima who proposes hey let's try out whatever the hell that maybe other people couldn't handle and Nishiki's hesitant, thinking, oh nah you already have anxieties and I can't do that to you but it's in the back of his mind like I want to tho. a big component of nsfw tigerfish to me is that they have a theme of taking time to get to things with a certain gentleness unlike my kazumaji hcs where they have a very intense, impulsiveness to them. so it takes a hot minute for Nishiki to open up this more aggressive side of him that for a long time he's suppressed cuz he felt that there's no place for it even tho it's very much a part of him.
so when Nishiki does eventually start to tip toe into his more perverse kinks, Saejima gives him comfort in that nothing really shocks him about what he wants and he's more than ready to handle it physically. with Nishiki leading, it's a good time for the two of em; Saejima can be of service while Nishiki can feel freer to explore this part of himself without judgment or so much worry.
after all that, aftercare! very important. it's usually Saejima who takes care of Nishiki, wrapping him up and massaging out the jitters. sometimes, one or both of them can experience some mixed emotions from a variety of things, performance worries, trauma, etc so they spend a lotta time just talking to each other. there's a lot of reassurances but also just a lot of wanting someone to listen.
random shit
Saejima loves some good head and body worship. he knows he's got a fine bod so complimenting him is the good shit 👌
Nishiki's all about smooches whether they be deep ones or just lil pecks here and there. ever since post y1, he's been one for enjoying simpler affections, especially when he knows his partner means it.
Saejima's a handsy drunk with people he's close to, but it's all cuddles and kissing and then passing the fuck out.
as a material girl in a material world, Nishiki gets off to gift giving lol. definitely has a praise kink but you gotta be a bit careful. be too dick sucky and he starts to feel like you're just patronizing him.
both of em are into overstimulation for different reasons: Saejima likes the intenseness and Nishiki likes inflicting it (receiving it ain't so bad either). Nishiki doesn't exactly have Saejima's stamina so they got a lotta toys just for the occasion 👀 there's been many a time where Saejima gets into it more than Nishiki can handle and he's then down for the count.
Nishiki tends to keep his prosthetic arm on and doesn't particularly like bringing attention to his disfigurement in general so when he's being intimate, he wants to be treated as if his body is like anyone else's. in that way, he's not into body worship at all, as he sort of warps it into pity he doesn't want.
Nishiki's possessive - not to the same extent Majima is @ Kiryu but it's there in the sense of like, look at this guy, he's mine.
bonus monster AU stuff 👀
as a literal tiger man, Saejima's got a lot of cat characteristics including loving pets and pats. Nishiki's learned very quickly which spots are best to get Saejima riled up and fiesty ;)
that being said, he's got a spikey dick lol. the spines aren't harmful, they more or less lock his partner to him which can end up being inconvenient if they're in a hurry.
big claws = lots of big scratches all up Nishiki's back. Saejima gets nervous he's hurting him but Nishiki think it's pretty hot to be marked up.
#I'm defo projecting my aceness onto saejima lmao so it's very much my own personal view of sex and intimacy in general#so I hope yall can enjoy my take on him#nsft#saejima taiga#nishikiyama akira#tigerfish#yakuza#my art#my hcs#ryu ga gotoku
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Gimme them Memory headcanons! Please!
Say less! o7
>headcanons under the more/reading<
(Sorry it's long & for late response, was shopping for birthday stuff)
First 1: Memory in my design has white streaks they got from Void's side! Void just dyes his hair black to hide em for unknown reasons (probably ego or smth I dunno. Voids out of my control /j)
2: They're 6'4, uses mostly It/They but also uses he. They prefer mostly the other two tho but won't get mad if he is also used. (This one's mostly based off how in canon, Memory was referred to as a thing by Sabre, and he would use It/They until switching to He. Mem was still called a thing but used he ig). Oh and ig they also used nicknamed but only like it when Void calls em them. Like Memmy/Mem/Memoy/Fancy Steve lol
3: He has light sensitivity and uses their mask to help it when outside of the void/memory dimension
4: It has heterochromia, but in a different way! His left eye doesn't have a iris/pupil, and the area that's supposed to be white is pure red like Voids. (I think it's called the sclera) and also on said left side, they have a scar on its cheek that it got during some event they doesn't like talking about
5: Memmy likes cats and owns two! One tuxedo cat named Voodoo, and the other, a black cat (Bombay I think) called Morticia! Memmys had them since they was a smol lil swirly peppermint boi, and treats them like royalty as deserved 😤
6: (this one's kinda from a quote my friend made but it's too funny to not make a Memory headcanon) If Memory got called a specific slur I'm not gonna say, he'd just be like "Yeah no duh, it's obvious. Now please tell me something I already don't know about myself, or leave please and thanks."
7: Memory is highly skilled in swordsman ship, archery, and fighting. It's won awards in competitions they entered secretly (not because Void would be mad, but because they're Void's son. Void's like a king/God in the eyes of the other steves [of course except Nightmare LMAO] and terrifies em.) They's only lost once and that was more on its end since he didn't want to do competitions anymore, so they purposely disqualified itself by starting a fight.
8: while this one may be more of a ship that was started for funnies, it took my brain over so uh yeah. Memory is married to Faceless. The reason for why (to me) is because since Faceless doesn't have a face (no duh), he's immune to Memory's powers, even when mimicking others. And Faceless just couldn't resist a fancy boi in a suit. (I love this ship but at the same time I'm like "I want it gone from my mind its been 3 months help") ik they never met canonically but I speculate they met a tiny bit when Elemental worked for Void and El had to capture Faceless. It's a long shot but yolo I was bored
9: Memmy boi like flowers. Mostly roses or any black flower, but they'll be content with any other color if red & black are unavailable :)
10: While Memory may seem stern and cold, when you get to know them, he's really nice! Though it's usually always on guard and will unintentionally break your arm if you happen to spook them (somehow).
11: Memmys very sneaky and will smile a cheeky smile when it scares someone from behind.
12: Memory really hates cameras. Like, REALLY REALLY hates em. Whether it's off or not, they don't care and WILL throw a dagger at it. This one's more from a funny thing Sabre himself replied with in his discord when I said "I wish Memory had more screen time. He would of bee such a cool villain" with Sabre replying "maybe he did but we forgot".....I walked basically right into that joke but I love it so I'm considering it canon /hj
Uhhhh yeah anyways I think that's it other than more funny meme ones me and a friend made when I was bored and thought 'what if after the camera was off, Sabre and the steves would have a smp world together' and Memory would be the sometimes chaotic one of the server.
Ye uh I rambled alot lmao idk if this will even post but thank you so much for the ask and willingness to hear the headcanons about our silly little peppermint boi! Memory deserves so much more love that what's seen, I love him so much
Memory Steve, our beloved 'forgotten' king <3 👑
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Hi! I just read your pride fanfiction and it's so cool! I was wondering if you maybe would like to write Moreid Penemily fanfic where Morgan and Prentiss go to the florist to buy flowers for their significant ones, but they obivously had no idea about flowers while Penelope and Spencer care about it a lot.
Have a great day!
This is the sweetest ask I’ve ever received omg of course you can get that!! I love getting requests thank you so much for asking❤️
Sort of TW /// there's flashbacks to a child abduction case the team was working, also Garcia is mad at Prentiss (and Morgan is just worried about picking the wrong flowers lol)
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Flowers
———————————————————————
Morgan and Prentiss were similar, almost too similar- they were both leaders within the team, strong willed, and not scared of saying what they thought.
They were driving forces in the team, they did their jobs and they did them damn well. They were both confident in their jobs, but sadly, that’s where both of their confident aspects ended.
When it came to relationships, Emily and Derek were also too similar- they were nervous disasters. They didn’t know how to act, what to do or say- they practically had to dare each other to get themselves to ask out their respective crushes. They couldn’t bring themselves to do it without the other pushing them along, urging them to do it.
So, it should have been no shock when Derek pulled open the door to the small flower shop Spencer raved about so much- and saw Prentiss standing awkwardly to the side, scanning the example flowers splayed out on the small table next to her like she actually understood anything about floristry.
Morgan couldn’t help but shake his head; of course, Spencer was always telling Garcia about his favorite things- she probably fell in love with this flower shop, too.
“Well, well, look who we have here.” Derek joked as he walked towards Prentiss, she barely looked up at him, instead still scanning the flowers as she spoke; “I don’t wanna hear it. This is Penelope’s new favorite place, and I’m doing my girlfriend duties.”
“Funny, I’m doing the same thing myself.” Derek replied, “You’re doing girlfriend duties?” Prentiss shot back, Derek ignored her, instead turning back around, towards the front of the shop to look at the flowers they had displayed up front.
He was still standing next to her, however, so he spoke up again; “What’re you getting Garcia flowers for?” “I can’t just get her flowers?” Prentiss sniped, clearly something was putting her on edge, and now Derek had to know what.
“Pump the brakes, Em.” He told her, she looked down towards her feet, then looking at the small table, before looking back towards him.
“She’s mad at me.” Was all Emily said, before turning her back towards him, looking at the displays hanging nearby on the wall. Derek decided to leave her at that, at least for now. He knew why Garcia was mad.
~
“How long are you going to stay here for?” Reid asked Garcia curiously, sat next to her in her den of computers and fun little figurines surrounding her. Spencer had ended up burning the midnight oil yet again, and decided it was better to spend that time with Garcia, rather than be alone in the dark emptiness of the bullpen.
Penelope had finished her work hours ago, but was refusing to go back home- back to her shared apartment with Emily, because she was mad, she was fuming, she was frustrated, and she was close to being heart broken, even if that was dramatic to say; that’s how she felt.
“I don’t know.” Garcia said simply, clicking on another youtube video of kittens being adorable. She needed to focus on something simple right now, something sweet, something that didn’t make her feel like she was going to cry and hyperventilate at the same time.
Spencer stayed quiet, sitting in the desk chair next to her as he flipped through the manilla file folders in his lap. Boring case work, it could be done by anyone on the team- and it didn’t need to be done that exact day, it wasn’t due to be turned into Hotch for a while. So Spencer left it on his lap, shutting the folder as quick as he had opened.
“You know, everyone does stuff like what Emily did-“ he started up again, trying his best to reason with Penelope about the events that had transpired that day, but she wasn’t going to hear it, she was deciding to tune him out; turning the volume up on the youtube video, watching kittens chase fake mice and play with feathers on strings. It was cute, it was sweet, it wasn’t upsetting.
Reid took that as his cue to be quiet, at least for now.
~
Derek had left Prentiss to her own devices within the small flower shop, going to the other side of the store to give her some distance, and to peruse the many kinds of flowers and small knick knacks they had for sale.
It made sense why Spencer loved this shop, why he raved about it; firstly, it was small, it was quiet, it was simple. It wasn’t flashy in decor, rather letting the flowers for sale be the decorations to fill up the store. Not to mention the soft classical radio station that was playing through the small speakers by the cashiers desk- which also doubled as a bouquet making table.
It was small, it was a small slice of art that Derek could picture Spencer walking down, looking at the beautiful flowers lining the shop on small tables and hanging on the walls. Spencer loved beautiful things, and he was the most beautiful person Morgan knew.
Which is why Derek was struggling on what to get Reid, he wanted to get his boyfriend something as beautiful as him, something he would love. Morgan knew realistically that Spencer would be happy with almost any kind of gift, but Morgan wasn’t listening to his painfully boring realistic side. He was listening to his romantic side, the side that wanted to buy Reid the Smithsonian Museum, the side of himself that wanted to build his boyfriend a greenhouse; so they could finally start on that home garden Spencer wanted so badly.
Derek wanted to do something to make Spencer happy, because the case they had dealt with today ended badly- worse than normal. It had taken a toll on everyone, Garcia, Prentiss, Reid, himself, Hotch, and even J.J. and Rossi.
It was rare a case hurt them as much as this one had, but every once and a while, there needs to be a fresh cut alongside the healing and fading scars. Something to bring them back to the painful reality of life.
~
It was a child abduction case, those always hit the team the worst. Whether there was a personal connection to the team members or not, it was hard when an innocent soul gets taken away.
Thankfully, the team was able to recover the missing child, a seven year old girl named Savannah Rogers. The team was quick to figure out this was the abductors first, so there were errors, there were mistakes. There were holes in the plotline the team could poke through and reach into, to find the necessary answers.
It came at a price, though, it always did.
~
"She likes colorful things." Derek spoke under his breath as he passed by Prentiss, she didn't turn around (though she clearly heard him as her eyes darted his way for a moment), still staring at the racks of freshly made bouquets and wreaths that had yet to be bought. Derek didn't say anymore past that, instead just standing next to her, staring at the same floral arrangements.
He needed something as pretty as his boy, would Reid like roses? Or would he think that's too cliché? Derek wasn't totally sure. It had to be just right for Spencer. Maybe a mix of roses with something leafy would be best.
"You know what you're getting Reid?" Emily asked him, her voice quieter than normal. It was clear the stress of the situation was getting to her, it hurt Derek's heart to see her like that.
He shook his head simply, "Nah, I'm not sure. What about you?" Emily drew a breath in, "I don't think any amount of flowers will make her forgive me." She said, a shaky laugh coming out after, as if the humor was to make the situation normal. But none of this was normal.
"Em, you did what you had to do. She needed our help. Garcia knows that, she's just upset because she was worried sick."
Emily just nodded, a signal that meant ‘I hope you’re right’. Derek knew he was, it was just going to take Penelope a second to breathe, to calm down; to understand why Prentiss put herself in harms way. To understand why Prentiss almost got shot just a few hours earlier.
~
The specifics of a child abduction case always boil down into two ways; either the child is taken from a place of safety (school, home, etc.), or is taken while in transportation from one place to the next (walking home from school, taking the bus).
For the case of Savannah Rogers, it was the former. She was playing in her front yard with her barbies when she was seemingly snatched.
Her mother was inside on a phone call, she had just stepped away from watching Savannah for a minute to answer the phone- and when she looked back, her daughter was nowhere to be seen.
The team figured out quickly who could’ve done it, the school nurse from Savannah’s elementary school- the nurse had recently been fired due to allegations of verbal abuse from the students themselves. The fact the feds weren’t involved sooner was the most surprising thing, the nurse was a walking poster boy for someone who shouldn’t be working in a school. But somehow, he had the job for some time.
The nurses name was Daniel Blake, he was an unsub with narcissistic personality disorder- he was raised off grid by his mother who had a narcissistic personality as well, and a belief that society was doomed from the start. So, he was raised with the belief life was better away from everyone- he was raised in a cabin, then escaped away for his college career.
He was seemingly normal, until his mother died a few weeks earlier. It was common to see an unsub stable, normal- not exhibiting any terrible ideology. But then, there’s always that trigger- something that shoves them over that edge they’ve been precariously balancing on for far too long.
His mothers death reminded him of the way he was raised, he was convinced he needed to take a child and raise them the same. Savannah Rogers just happened to be the closest to where he was.
~
Spencer and Garcia were sat in silence yet again, Reid had no reason to leave and Garcia simply refused to. She didn’t want to see Emily.
“I almost lost her, Spencer.” Was all Garcia mustered up to say, before looking down from her computer monitor- instead just staring directly at her keyboard.
Spencer didn’t react right away, he wasn’t sure what to say. He took a deep breath in before speaking, “Morgan and I argue about this too.”
Garcia looked up from her keyboard to shoot Reid a sideways glance, her way of saying ‘go on’. So, he did.
“We don’t argue about you and Emily,” he stuttered over that obvious clarification, “but we argue when the other shoves themselves in the way of danger. Him and I have almost died too many times, every time we go out into the field I do have a part of myself that asks; ‘what if this is the last time I’ll see him?’. And it scares me.” Spencer paused, swallowing some of his rambling down, not all of what he was feeling and sharing was helpful. He was just vocalizing his fear.
He continued on after a second, “I don’t want to lose him- he’s my everything you know, he’s-“ Spencer’s voice started to crack in the way that only cracks when you’re close to expelling your emotions way too publicly. He took a breath again, deciding to redirect where his story was going.
“But I also know that, he’ll always be okay. I trust him to do his job, and that’s the difference between being boyfriends and co-workers. I have to trust my co-worker, Derek, to do his job right. And I have to trust my boyfriend, Derek, to come home every night like he promised he would. And he trusts me to do the same.”
Reid stopped talking after that, going back down to staring at the manilla file folders on his lap.
~
The team had cornered Daniel Blake in a warehouse set to be demolished towards the outskirts of town, Savannah was with him, locked in a giant crate meant for a large dog. His whole plan wasn’t well thought out, was he going to raise this little girl in a warehouse? It didn’t matter in the end.
The team got to him, like they always did with unsubs. The one thing the team wasn’t aware of was that he had a pistol in his inner jacket pocket- and while Prentiss moved towards the dog crate to get Savannah out, Daniel made a move.
He grabbed out his pistol and was trying to aim at the dog crate that Savannah was in- if he couldn’t have her, he didn’t want anyone to. The only thing stopping Savannah Rogers from being dead right then and there was the fact J.J. had shouted out at Emily to cover the crate, which she did instinctively.
The bullet missed the crate, but it hit Prentiss in the bullet proof vest, right in between her shoulder blades. If she wasn’t wearing the vest, she’d be dead.
After that, Derek tackled him to the ground and made sure he had no other weapons. Savannah was then returned to her family, and the team made their way back to the police station. Case closed, almost.
Penelope was in the teams ear, monitoring the whole ordeal when she heard J.J. yell at Emily to cover, and the gunfire going off. Then she couldn’t hear anything, her heartbeat was drowning out any words that were being said. She was petrified.
~
EMTs checked out Savannah and Prentiss, Savannah was in shock and had a few minor injuries, but nothing too stressful. Thankfully the same could also be said for Emily, she felt the bullet push through the fabric of the vest when she was shot, the bullet barely stopped before slowly pushing up against the more inner layers of the vest.
It was a sharp pain, it would leave a bruise, it knocked the wind out of her for a second. But she was alive, she was okay.
That’s what Morgan told Garcia through the earpiece as soon as he got Daniel Blake in the back of a cop car. He just kept saying it, “Garcia, she’s okay. EMTs are looking at her now, she’s okay.”
Whether Penelope fully heard him by that point, he wasn’t sure.
~
“It’s just hard. I feel like I’m the odd one out, I’m not at the scene with you guys. I’m a million miles away.” Garcia spoke through a shaky breath to Spencer.
“I can’t see what happens, unless you strap a camera to your face and send me live feed. I’m scared every time you guys go out there, that something bad is gonna happen. And I’ll be the only one left.” She said, her voice hushed and shaky still.
Spencer stayed quiet for a moment, the only thing heard in the office was the kitten videos still playing on Garcia’s monitor, and the distant clicking of the clock on the wall.
“You’re never going to be alone. I know our line of work is a lot, and it is. But we can handle it. We’re as prepared as can be, and the truth is we could get hurt just the same walking down the road. We could get hit by a tornado, or a drive by-“ Reid kept going on, Garcia looked down at her keyboard before looking at Reid.
“Bad things can happen to us anywhere.” Spencer stated simply, watching Garcia’s tired, bloodshot, and teary eyes staring at him. “But we’re never alone out there. We protect each other. And you- you protect us!” Spencer spoke with a tone of energy. He had a strong point coming and he knew it, but Garcia didn’t. She scoffed, blinked, and didn’t say anything more. A cue that Spencer can continue.
“You protect us just as much as we protect each other, you get us the information we need, you contact everyone we can possibly need for a case. We’re nothing without you. It doesn’t matter how far away you are, you have our backs, too.”
Penelope sniffled, a small smile tugging on her lips.
“Thank you,” she said, her voice cracking. Spencer nodded, he could tell she was tired, as was he.
~
The shop was closing soon, Prentiss knew it, Morgan knew it, and the old woman sat up behind the counter, reading a thick old dusty book knew it too.
“Are you two stuck on what to get?” The old woman asked, looking over the top of her book to give Morgan and Prentiss a glance.
“Just a bit,” Derek admitted suavely to her, he knew Emily wasn’t really in the mood to talk so he took lead on this conversation. “I’m getting a gift for my boyfriend.” boyfriend, boyfriend, Spencer was his boyfriend. No matter how many times Derek got to call him his, he still never got over it. He never got over the excitement, the happiness, the rush of ‘oh my god, I get to date him?’. It was an amazing feeling every time.
The old woman nodded, “Do you know what kind of flowers he likes?” She asked, setting her thick book down on the table in front of her. Derek thought back for a moment, every time he’s seen Spencer bring flowers home from the shop they weren’t big bouquets. There was a lot of greenery, a lot of whites and yellows, natural earthy tones. Nothing flashy or bright.
“He always has a lot of green in the bouquets he gets,” the woman nodded as she listened, hopping off of her stool and going around the cashier counter to Morgan to show him the collection of flowers she thought would match that.
“I’m also thinking roses, though. Is that cliche?” He asked her, she smiled happily, “Not at all, dear. Roses symbolize love. Are you thinking the standard red, or would you like to look at our other colors?”
Derek nodded yes, excitedly, he felt like he was finally figuring out what to get his pretty boy, and it was going to be just as pretty as him. The woman whisked off to the back room to get the freshest roses they had, assuring him and Emily that she’d be right back.
Emily had stayed silent through the entire interaction, staring at the wreaths lining the wall. Derek noticed, it was his job to notice.
“Prentiss, I know you’re dealing with a lot. But one thing at a time, alright? Slow your mind down, all you can do right now is get her flowers.” Emily nodded, she understood that. She knew that was true, she was just nervous and tired and frustrated. She wanted to do the right thing, and she had. It just came at a price.
“I know,” she nodded again, “I know.” “So, what flowers are you thinking for Penelope?” Derek asked her, trying to move her forward.
“I might have to follow your lead and see about the roses.” Emily replied, a small (not entirely truthful) smile forming on her face. She decided to follow Morgan’s lead. Flowers first, everything else later.
~
Spencer and Garcia left the bureau building together, “You want a ride home?” Spencer asked her as he dug his car keys out of his messenger bag, Penelope nodded. “I’d like that.”
~
So, they drove in amicable silence, the radio in Reid’s car was switched to a pop station for Garcia, and she appreciated that. She hummed lowly to the songs playing through. But past that, no words were said.
Spencer rolled his vehicle to a stop outside of Garcia and Emily’s shared apartment, “Do you want me to walk you up?” He asked her, already reaching to undo his seatbelt. Penelope shook her head, causing Reid to stop.
“No, thank you though. What you said meant a lot. I love ya, Spencer.” She said, reaching forward over the center console to embrace him in a hug, Spencer smiled and did the same, hugging her back tightly.
“Of course. It’s gonna be okay. You just have to talk to her.” Spencer told her, they were still in a tight embrace, and Garcia nodded. “I know. I won’t be scared.” She mumbled, pulling back from the hug after a moment.
Spencer smiled, “That’s good, you shouldn’t be. You love her, that’s all that matters.” Penelope smiled softly back, thinking back to Prentiss, how much she loved her- how much she loved being with her, kissing her, talking to her. Just being with her. She loved it. She knew Spencer was right.
All Garcia did was say a final ‘thank you’ before unbuckling, grabbing her purse and exiting the car, shutting the passenger door behind her. Reid waited until she disappeared into her apartment building to drive away, and then he started his journey home.
~
Spencer hadn’t thought much of the day, other than the obligatory obvious that the child abduction case had put everyone on edge- Garcia and Prentiss especially, and for good reason.
Spencer was a bit foggy in his mind as he pulled into the drive way of Derek and his’ home. The fog in his mind was for a few factors, the post stress feeling of finishing a high stakes case, and also that it was just late and he was so, utterly exhausted. He let out a small yawn as he put the car in park, he noted that Derek’s car was already parked in his usual spot- hopefully his boyfriend hadn’t been waiting up for him, he’d feel terrible depriving him of his sleep. He knew Morgan was just as tired as him.
Spencer exited his car, locking it quickly and walking up the front stoop, fumbling with his keys to get the right one to unlock the front door. He got the right key after a moment, slid it into the lock, and opened the door. He pushed it open, shutting it quickly behind him. He tried to shut the door as quietly as he could, but the hinges squeaked at a volume a bit too loud for Reid’s taste. Spencer cringed at the noise, hoping it wouldn’t wake Derek up.
The hallway lights were on in their home, not an uncommon occurrence, as their work schedules were always so bizarre that they usually ended up working late nights; at home or in a hotel somewhere across the nation.
Spencer made his way inside, setting his messenger bag down on the kitchen table, and stood in a moment of silence. God, today was a lot. And Penelope being so worried about Emily, it reminded him of his anxieties, his fears, his worries about himself and Derek. He knew they couldn’t catch every unsub always. He knew some unsubs would shoot their way out of dealing with cops. He knew people got hurt in their line of work.
He was terrified that it would catch up to him and his boyfriend one day. And that the happiness and love and hope they shared would be smashed. Spencer let out a deep sigh, he couldn’t keep thinking about this all and run his mind in circles. Spencer walked over to the cupboard where their glasses were stored, opening it and grabbing a glass, then going to the tap and filling it with water.
It was then that he heard footsteps, coming from down the hall to the kitchen.
“Pretty boy?” Derek’s voice called out, before he turned into the kitchen. He was still in his work clothes, and smiling excitedly as he had his hands behind his back, as if he was hiding something.
Spencer smiled softly at him, taking a sip of his water, “Hey,” he took note of Derek’s preppy demeanor this late in the evening, he immediately knew his boyfriend had been up to something. “What’s going on?” He asked curiously.
“Close your eyes.” Derek said, his grin somehow splitting even wider as he spoke. Seeing his boyfriend somehow so full of joy, this late in the day, after all the bad they had seen; it made Spencer smile. So Spencer nodded, setting his glass down next to him on the counter, putting his hands over his eyes.
Reid heard his boyfriend stepping closer, and some kind of rustling he couldn’t correctly identify.
“Open your eyes, baby.” Derek said, Reid put his hands down, blinking his eyes open to see what was in front of him.
It was Derek holding a bouquet out in front of him, it had daisy’s, white and yellow roses, a bit of baby’s breath, as well as lots of greenery and leaves.
“Derek, is- is this for me?” Reid asked, he already knew the answer as Derek wordlessly handed him the bouquet, and Spencer started examining it further.
“I wanted to get you something special,” Derek started explaining bashfully, “you mentioned that flower shop around the corner, so I checked it out and I got some help from the old lady behind the counter. I wasn’t sure what to get you, do you like it?”
Spencer couldn’t stop smiling, he mentioned that flower shop in passing to his boyfriend once or twice, and Morgan remembered. And it was a perfect bouquet, some people would’ve disliked the amount of leaves or usage of daisy’s or whatever the hell else- but to Spencer, it was perfect. It was beautiful.
“I-“ Reid’s voice cracked in a way he hadn’t meant it to. He was feeling overwhelmed, overemotional. “I love it. I love you.” He said, he felt tears prickling at the corners of his eyes as he looked up to meet Derek’s gaze.
“Baby, are you alright?” Morgan asked him carefully, stepping forward. Reid nodded, “I was just with Garcia- she was so nervous about Emily. It just got me thinking, about us and our work.” Derek nodded wordlessly, taking the bouquet from Spencer and setting it down on the counter, before pulling his boyfriend into a soft embrace. Spencer melted into the feeling.
“It’s never going to be easy. But it’s worth it to me, I love you and our work, baby. I love you so much.” Morgan said, emphasizing his words by giving Reid a small squeeze. Spencer smiled softly, pulling back to make eye contact with Morgan again before leaning forward, giving him a small kiss on the lips.
Spencer stepped back out of the hug, picking the bouquet off the counter. He couldn’t stop staring at it.
“This is beautiful.” Spencer said absentmindedly as he looked around for a vase to put the flowers into.
“Not as beautiful as you,” Morgan complimented, Spencer felt the heat rush to his cheeks as he smiled. He located a vase in a nearby cupboard, moving back over to the sink to fill it up with some water.
“I was sat in that flower shop for, like, an hour. Baby I kept running around in circles.” Derek continued on, “I knew you’d like anything I got you, but-“ he smiled awkwardly. Spencer had this way of getting Derek stupidly romantic, he just wanted to do everything he could to make Reid as happy as possible. He couldn’t get over how damn lucky he was to have this genius in his life.
Spencer eyed him as he unwrapped the flowers from the wrapping, setting them up in the vase. Derek continued; “I wanted to get something as pretty and as perfect as you, Spencer.”
Spencer melted at that, he knew Morgan was usually so confident in his choices. The thought of his boyfriend confusedly wandering around the flower shop, looking for just the right flowers for him, to express his love; it made Spencer feel blessed.
“Just knowing you went out of your way to do this, it’s…” Spencer smiled softly, looking back and forth between the bouquet and his incredible partner.
“It’s amazing.”
~
Penelope had gotten up to her apartment, entering quickly and locking the door behind her. A majority of the lights in the apartment were still off, indicating that Prentiss was still out, wherever she was.
Garcia went through the apartment, turning on their lamps and lighting a few candles to help her de-stress from the days events. She decided to clear her mind by taking a shower, heading into the shared bedroom and grabbing clothes out of her dresser, before heading down the hall to the bathroom.
She shut the door softly, turning on the shower and undressing slowly as she waited for it to heat up.
After she showered, she was going to wait for Emily to get home so they could talk.
~
Prentiss entered their apartment not long after Penelope had, Emily had stopped from the flower shop to get a box of chocolates for her girlfriend before finally heading home. Prentiss heard the water running in the bathroom, and figured Garcia was in there showering.
She decided to wait in their bedroom, chocolates and flowers sitting in her lap as she waited, sitting on the edge of the bed eagerly. She felt terrible, she hadn’t meant to worry her girlfriend so much, but she knew she hadn’t had the foresight to think of Penelope when she made her choice to stand in between the little girl and the bullet.
It was noble, sure. But it was incredibly stupid.
~
Garcia finished showering quickly, she stepped out of the shower and changed into the clothes she had brought with her into the bathroom.
It was a matching pajama set, that ironically enough was a gift from Emily. It was covered in small hearts with arrows through them. It was a Valentine’s Day surprise, and the other part of the surprise was that Prentiss had an identical set. Emily usually wasn’t one for showy displays of affection, she was a private and simple person. She would joke and tease to show her love, but she knew Garcia wasn’t like that and enjoyed honest, sentimental gifts.
Penelope smiled at the pajamas, thinking back to the gift and how much it meant to her- how much it still means to her.
Penelope stepped out of the bathroom, towel still wrapped around her hair to help it dry as she made her way back to the bedroom.
~
The bedroom door opened, Prentiss watched as Garcia entered- but Garcia didn’t see Emily right away, instead making her way to the small closet and putting the clothes she was wearing into her hamper.
Garcia then turned around, and that’s when she saw Emily, and it was a surprise, as Garcia almost practically jumped.
“You- Oh! Emily! God.” she sighed, clearly taken off guard.
“Sorry! I didn’t mean to scare you, I,” Emily started, taking the chocolates and flowers out of her lap and setting them down on the bed next to her as she got up to be closer to Garcia.
“I’m sorry love, I didn’t mean to scare you.” She repeated, Garcia huffed and crossed her arms over her chest. “Well, you did.” She said with a small pout on her face.
“Can we- can we talk?” Emily asked carefully. Last she had seen Garcia, she was mad, couldn’t even look at her. She didn’t want to end up sleeping on the couch tonight, she wanted to work this out. To her surprise, Penelope nodded slowly.
“I’m sorry, Pen..” Garcia said nothing as she stood and listened to Emily, Prentiss gestured for her to take a seat on the bed next to her. Garcia obliged and sat down.
“I know it’s scary when we go into the field, because anything can happen. And I hate myself for not thinking ahead and my actions hurting you, that’s the last thing I want to do. You matter so, so much to me.”
Silence sat over them both for a moment. Emily wanted to reach forward and hold Penelope’s hand, but she didn’t want to push it. Garcia sniffed, the sound breaking through the silence.
“I know you didn’t intend to hurt me, Em. I know a little girl’s life was on the line. I just- it is scary, it just is!” She said, exasperatedly. Not sure what else to say or how else to phrase her thoughts.
Emily decided to push it, reaching forward to hold her girlfriends hand between her own. “This job is hard. It’s bad at times. But it’s where I met you, and it’s where we fell in love. It’s the one job we know we’re good at.” Prentiss spoke softly.
Garcia nodded as she look down, putting her other hand on top of Emily’s. She smiled softly. “I’m sorry. I’m not mad, I get scared is all… you know with my family, they just were gone one day and-“
Garcia’s voice cracked a little, the emotions were still incredibly raw. “I just don’t want to lose you.” Emily nodded. She didn’t want to lose her either.
“I will always come back to you, in this life- in the next. I will fight anyone who stands between us, I love you, and I hope you know that. I would do anything to see you and be with you.” Prentiss said as she squeezed Penelope’s hands tightly. Garcia knew she wasn’t messing around with what she said. Emily was fiercely loyal, she stood by every word she ever spoke.
Penelope smiled, “You saved a little girl’s life today,” she looked up to meet Emily’s gaze.
“I’m really proud of you.”
~
The chocolates and flowers quickly became an afterthought for Emily, as her and Garcia relieved each other of their anxieties and reminded the other how much they loved each other. It was only when Penelope stood up from the bed to take the towel off of her hair that she saw them on the other side of the bed.
“Oh- are those, are those for me?” Emily looked back, remembering the gifts and grabbing them.
“Yes! They are! I- I know that flower shop you like so much… I had some help getting these, I wasn’t sure what you’d like.” Prentiss explained, offering the flowers to Garcia first so she could look them over.
Penelope smiled excitedly as she took them from her, looking them over, there were white and red roses, baby’s breath, and some blue bells. It was gorgeous.
“Do you… like it?” Emily asked apprehensively as she stood up. She knew it was dumb, but her and Morgan really were out of their elements in that flower shop. And as much as the kind older woman helping them reassured them that their partners would love it, she was scared. This gift had to be perfect for Penelope. And she knew Derek shared a similar thought for Spencer.
Penelope couldn’t stop her beaming smile, “Love, they’re perfect.” She set them down on the dresser next to her and leaned in to give Emily a sweet kiss on the lips. Emily smiled, grateful that she was able to help mend this wound between her and Garcia. She couldn’t survive if she didn’t have her in her life, Penelope was everything.
Prentiss wrapped her arms around Garcia, holding her in a loose hug for a while. Penelope didn’t mind as she rested her head on Emily’s shoulder, sighing contently.
“Thank you.”
———————————————————————
#cm#criminal minds#Spencer Specific Fics#Oneshot#fanfic#mlm#wlw#derek morgan#emily prentiss#dr. spencer reid#spencer reid#moreid#moreid oneshot#penelope garcia#bau#garcia x prentiss#flowers#angst#Penemily#Penemily oneshot
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who are your art inspirations?
Oh gosh, a lot of people. All of my artist friends and mutuals inspire me pretty much every day, but I can't list em all, so ,,, here's some less obvious answers!
I'd say it's mainly comic artists who can consistently do super loose and fun sequential art that feels fresh everytime, with the occasional illustrative piece. Artists with fun interesting shading styles or somehow no shading at all, yet still managing to make absolutely captivating pieces that feel rendered in comic form, while not looking like "too much" or too polished.
^^ First artist that comes to mind when I'm asked about inspirations is the visual mastermind behind Saga, Fiona Staples, her stuff just itches my brain SO right because it feels really… real? Despite the stuff she draws being absolutely crazy shit, the expressions and looseness of it and just the raw feelings is so cool… I appreciate how her illustrations still look like her sequential stuff, it's always very "in the moment" ykno. It's hard for me to read Saga in a single focused sitting because I just end up distracted with art inspo the whole time HAHA-
^^ As far as art styles go, I'm well aware of how much I've taken and learned from IncaseArt, which is kinda.. Funny. Don't look him up if you're a minor lol. If you recognize this No You Don't. Regardless I absolutely love how he draws diverse people and faces, the way he renders skin, hair, backgrounds,,EVERYTHING,,,, There's a lot of nuance to his style that I've subconsciously started using in my own the past few years. I don't know how he does it man x.x He understands colors SO well ahghghghg
^^ Feel obligated, but reluctant, to say SarahDraws, she's had some crazy bad controversies !!!!WHICH I AM BRINGING ATTENTION TO HERE SO DON'T GET MAD AT ME!!!! but I'm still absolutely enamored with her art. Gotta give credit where credit is due, man u.u But, seriously, even though lineart is my favorite part of the process, I envy how amazing she can make any piece look with her insane sketchy lines, I genuinely don't even know if she does a sketch beforehand or just cleans it up--it looks so beautiful either way. Love her dark goth imagery paired with a super bright accent color WAAAGHG
^^ Growing up I know I was inspired by a lot of...erhm ... Traumacore and guro artists DollieGuts and ReinaGoth, but how much their style ended up sticking to mine,,,I dunno! You can kinda see it I guess? I was pretty innocently into artists of this scene but ultimately shied away due to a phobia of mine LMAO. Still love their work though! I know DollieGuts is the reason I line with such a crunchy brush, considering I used their brushes on Sai for a few years straight 🥴 (also love how much they've been playing around with their style lately...mwah. love to see an artist breaking out of their comfort zone)
^^ It goes without saying I get inspiration from a lot of fandom artists, too, Wilddaggers and Nenanugget definitely come to mind,, I feel like they both use super satisfying colors and a lot going on despite not having full shading, which I hope to achieve so badly.
Thank you so much for the ask, and sorry the late reply ❣❣
#oh hell naw snelly did not just point out 3 problematic people and say ''art inspo''#idk if ill delete this or not. i feel like im just reposting ppls art..#dont reblog#ask#junes1#blood#gore#long post
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Corals Monthly Update #3
HOHOHO!! FIRST BLOG POST OF 2023 AND I’M NEARLY 2 WEEKS LATE!!!
Super sorry about the long wait! I’ve had tests recently and only got off of school like a few days ago haha!
So! Welcome back to my monthly update on what I get up to in my life! Now, before we get into January, I, for the final time, have to tap back into the previous month. Curse past me for thinking the 21st was a good day to start doing these!!!
ANYHOW! The rest of December and early January were a BLAST! But lemmie talk about what happened after I made the last update. CHRISTMAS!! I had a great time with my family and I got a bunch of fluffy things cuz that’s apparently the easiest thing to get me now. We also had dinner on Christmas day with my Grandparents like every year. Over-all that day was very fun! I even got drunk playing Minecraft which was funny for everyone in VC. The next few days weren’t anything exciting, however my brother Finn had a bunch of his friends over for his birthday which was chaotic. But the excitement picks back up on the 28th! BECAUSE SKYE AND VI CAME OVER FOR NEW YEARS!! We’ve been planning this since like, June, so it was awesome seeing them again!
We did all kinds of stuff from shopping to playing some awesome games! (I am now chronically addicted to Ultra Kill thanks guys)
We even did some baking! Here is our glorious creation I dubbed, “The Jimothy”.
Overall the rest of December was awesome! I’m glad I got to celebrate New Years with my besties! Overall, I’ll give it a 10/10! Best way to end 2022 >:D
Here’s a few more misc photos hehehhehe
NOW! FOR JANUARY!!
January started off still vibing with the guys. However they would then go home on the 4th which sucks. But before that, both Skye and I spent a lot of money on consoles that are almost as old as ourselves. They bought a fucking PS Vita and I got a motherfucking Wii. We both had fun with em and I even helped Skye homebrew their Vita since I wanted to put PebbleCD on it (I failed but shut uuup)
But yea, sadly the guys had to go and it sucked! But I still had a great time.
There’s a bit of a gap here right up until the 12th, where finally, the big event happened. CAREY IN THE HOUSE WENT LIVE!! I had finished it a few days prior but figured I’d build up hype by posting it on that Friday. AND IT SURE WORKED! The video blew up faster than any of my videos before it! I am so happy the response has been overwhelmingly positive. I also love how the only main complaint that was common amongst people was that Careys exaggerated accent was annoying which, yea can’t argue against.
For anyone wishing for more CITH content, I did a behind the scenes mega thread over on my twitter if you wanna have a deeper look into the production!
I’ll even link it here:
https://twitter.com/Carey_Black_/status/1619731723352444928
Now, to move onto why it took me forever to make an update. My mock exams..
BUT BEFORE THAT!! THERE’S ALSO THE FACT THAT MR WULF AND I WERE ABLE TO ARCHIVE THE ORIGINAL EDDSWORLD BANG BOOM SPLAT PROJECT FILE!!
This all started because Wulf wanted to edit the credits for his arcade BBS build since I was helping him out and since I said SWF modding is hard he just casually asked Psycosis and after seeing his WIP cabinet, gave Wulf the FLA! So a current “BBS arcade version” is in the works by yours truly thanks to both the generosity of Psycosis and the fact that Mr Wulf is a fucking mad man who could stop global warming in a month if he wanted to LOL!
Here’s Wulfs finished Cabinet btw!:
https://twitter.com/MrWulfOfficial/status/1622295302685315073
But yea, for real. My mock exams were a pain!
For those outside of Ireland or have a different name for em, Mock exams are, well, exams that act like a practice run for your finals. They’re always harder than the actual finals and are usually graded stricter too! Why? Who knows! The Irish education system is a joke. I feel like I did somewhat ok in them anyway? Some were definitely worse than others but overall it was more of an inconvenience. I did get this really cool art piece out of it however.
Exams would later spill over into February and like I said at the start, I finished and got off school a few days ago.
Overall, this month was about a 7/10. It was pretty good, especially in the Eddsworld department, but mocks and other personal tid bits I didn’t mention here dragged it down for me.
Since February seems to be mostly me being off school, I hope this month will be better haha! Only time will tell!
Thank you for reading! And I hope to see you next month!! (Hopefully on time too haha!)
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supernatural s12e21 there's something about mary (w. brad buckner, eugenie ross-leming)
....they just killed eileen off like that? that's... disappointing. make us connect with her through a really good monster of the week in s11, but then also bring her back in s12, have her and sam have a little flirty vibe, she accidentally kills some asshole bmol so she and sam can have an emotional beat. and a handful of episodes later she gets killed unceremoniously by ketch and, apparently, a trained hellhound. because that makes sense. no more things going bump in the night! except for the ones i use for killing people 😌
spn s12e21 (2017) / the magicians s3e8 six short stories about magic (w. sera gamble, david reed - 2018)
i appreciated sort of her brief chase scene from her pov through her hearing loss. the magicians did something similar (article for details with showrunners) with marlee maitlan's role - but much, much longer. it was 9 minutes. (took a snippet with felicia day in it too, rip charlie)
DEAN
Seven monster-related deaths. I mean, what, did all the things out there suddenly start working together?
SAM
Dean, monsters and demons don't team up. Seven Hunters are gone. We can't grab a signal from Mom's phone. Cass has Kelly Kline who knows where. Mick has slipped off the grid. Ketch is lying to us. I-I… I wanna punch something in the face.
kudos to padalecki because as always he can really bring those emotions and he seemed to really be hurting over eileen but it's bang boom all part of this bigger picture and oh they're all monster related deaths and hey let's clean house on any side characters we wanna off for the drama. her character deserved a better sendoff than this (or hey let her live), if they were gonna have her come back, in my ever so humble opinion.
TONI
I have sources, Mary. Everywhere. After you died, your beloved John was a man slowly going mad, searching for revenge. What? Your boys didn't tell you? The drunken rages? The weeks of abandonment? Child abuse, really. It's no wonder they're damaged.
grain of salt obviously what with the brainwashing etc but canonically what's been established before was surely neglect at the least. hence why i can't let it go
CROWLEY
Good afternoon. Dr. Hess. Stunningly beautiful as ever.
well. if nothing else, this is a slightly more seamless way of trying to retcon the bmol existing and operating offscreen for all these seasons prior, having crowley establish some background with the bad lady
DR. HESS
Crowley, one more thing.
CROWLEY
What?
DR. HESS
Your relationship with the Winchesters. It's a bit cozy for my taste. I hope you don't expect me to spare your friends.
i do think that's what keeps crowley more interesting than he might be if he was just plain beholden to the winchesters (more like cas tends to be [caveat he's not also always beholden to them but when he's not he's usually making the Worst decisions]), he's out there still killing people, aiding the bad people in killing people we like and care about like eileen. but we can also pretty much count on him coming through to work things such that dean and sam will be okay in the end. he contains multitudes
CROWLEY
So… Dagon dead. Kelly's now in the clutches of the Winchesters' love slave, Castiel, who's no doubt dragging her to a gruesome death.
lol
LUCIFER
Mm. As opposed to the fun-packed death you have planned.
laughed again! these two, love em
ok let me guess brainwashed to kill sam and dean, is that on the menu?
thanks for the little tidbit of them having a po box in lebanon
good lord why are they killing time at the end of the season with this random drama moment between mr ketchup and torturer lady
MR. KETCH
I don't know you, Mary. Not really. You certainly don't know me. You… wouldn't want to.
oh my god and the little kid music box spooky music starts playing in the background, mr ketchup is just a hurt little boy 😢 the snort i snorted!
real deal mary just tried to kill herself, pulled the trigger and only saved by ketch pulling it away to deflect the shot what the fuck. that is way too dark and serious for this show. that was awful. samantha smith is doing good with the scene and on her knees begging to be killed we get the mushy music.
how did her hair not move from upright to this position. now i'm just being nitpicky because i'm pissed off, but if we're plowing into the gritty dark realism of her torturing/brainwashing, her hair should be gross and acting like dirty sweaty hair.
so i'll rant about the music too then. so like, this scene on the setup / assassination trap thing dean and sam luring bmol to, it's way edgier and interesting and weirder than his score usually is. sometimes it's completely bland, or misses the tone, or is mega cliched, and then it'll be Good! for a brief moment and then the tone changes and the vibe is back to boring blah nothing or actively obnoxious. i feel vaguely bad about ranting about the score all the time, but i think it's honestly the biggest failing in the show over the entire run. i have plenty of issues with other things, but the music has consistently been subpar and pulled the quality of the show down with it, in my opinion. the foley though - i love it.
also mark pellegrino as lucifer, love. so good. so creepy! ugh. and i really don't want him having thrall over crowley, because he is so creepy. so i am getting concerned
well. not sure where this is going since crowley didn't do the dead-demon-zappy thing after the angel blade stabbing, even though lucifer just walked away like it was done
nice little exchange to highlight how they fight together with silently communication, and pretty cool action sequence. don't see them in these kind of shootouts often and they gave both Js some slick action hero moves
MR. KETCH
Your bunker is an excellent fortress. An even better tomb. So we've rejiggered the locks, we've shut off the water, and once we leave, the pumps that bring in the air shall reverse. Your oxygen should be gone in two days, maybe three. You dying in here, it's almost poetic, hmm? Come along, Mary.
hokay. cliche villain killing them slowly enough to give them ample time to figure it out or have someone save them
LOL while talking to robomary we get mushy music but Creepy Version. discordant
ah, is crowley in the rat? is that why he didn't zap?
literally had the thought process of wait are we in one of those parody old spice commercials?? literally wheezing from laughing
he looks great but this choice was SO. HOKEY. (with music to match, you'll be shocked to hear me say) and the visuals look fake without looking like... really obviously fake? but it's also clearly fake? because the lighting is so mismatched and earth doesn't really look like That out of the box? lol
#supernatural#spnwatch#spn 12x21#the magicians#six short stories about magic#marlee matlin#eileen leahy#spnwhinge#spn clip#spn mushy music#spn mushy music variation#spn musical score#brad buckner#eugenie ross leming#jay gruska
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Am I doing a WIP Wednesday? You betcha!
I got tagged on post day by @pchberrytea, and @trashkingnyx. Later on, I got tagged by @wishing4nuclearwinter so thank you guys for tagging me! Let’s also include @adventuresofmeghatron and @electricshoebox for the fun!
Chapter 22 is coming along well. I think I finally found somewhat of a balance at home where I’m not on the couch being sad, or running around like a madwoman trying to clean the place up. I’d do a few things for chores if I don’t have work, and then let myself relax! I can only predict this will last a little while before I forget lol.
Here’s a small interaction on how Mac reassures and calms Em after getting spooked (sort of) and then scared because Mac got really mad after they walked in on something.
She looked up at him, and assumed he saw how scared she looked. He sighed, and seemed to drop the chip he had picked up on their short walk to the table. MacCready turned his chair more towards her, and held his hand out to her. He gestured for her to take it, and gently closed his fingers around her hand when she softly laid it in his. His thumb brushed over her knuckles a couple of times. Em let out a shaky breath she didn’t know she held, and her hand steadied itself in his. Why her fear was popping up again, she didn’t know. She knew she could trust him, but the anger… she couldn’t shake when men were mad at her.
“I didn’t mean to scare you, or make you feel you did something wrong,” he said, his tone quiet and tender. “Because you didn’t. You didn’t do anything wrong.”
“I just.. I froze. I d-didn’t know what I was seeing at first, and then.. What do you even do?!”
“Exactly what I did. Just close the door and walk away.”
“You promise you aren’t mad?”
“I promise.” He offered her a small smirk, and while she didn’t smile back, she did feel better. “I’m actually mad at Hancock. He shouldn’t have called out to you.. us.. whatever.”
“Why are you mad at him? I don’t think he actually saw us. Not that I would really know, I think I was still in shock.”
She watched him look away for a moment, then back to her. “I think it’s because I don’t want you to end up in a situation you don’t deserve to be in. I’ve traveled with you for a while, longer than really any boss I’ve worked for. Got to know you on a level I didn’t really think possible. You…” he laughed a little, noticeably more nervous to her. “You’re a sweet girl, Em. Let’s just say I’ve gotten a little protective of you, and… and you deserve everything good.”
Have a wonderful rest of the day!
#stimpaks and sniper rounds#WIP Wednesday#fallout 4#fallout4#em and mac take the commonwealth#rj maccready#maccready#Robert Joseph MacCready#my writing
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Hello my dear!! Since you were stuck between 2 for my TP ship, i thought I'd put in for Round 2 please haha 🤭 You already have my description! I'm so excited to see what you come up with!! 💖
Tysm for all the hard work & time you put in!! 🫶🏼
Yes thank you for your request again lovely!!! 💗
I ship you with….
Eugene Sledge!
song recommendation: Beautiful- Bazzi
- Okay I Think we all kinda saw this coming tbh 😭like you guys just make so much sense together, it would almost be wrong NOT to ship you with him LOL
- i’m sensing a bestfriends to lovers trope for sureeee
- you guys would probably meet each other through mutually friends, like his friends are friends with yours and one day out you guys end up all meeting up and hanging out, when he met you though, his jaw would be to the actual floor, he would think you are so beautiful and angelic, like an angel almost “Hi, I’m Eugene” with the biggest doe eyes everrrr, he would be so nice and cute that whole day, like if you need anything ever he would be at your beckon call
- by the end of the day when you guys parted ways, Sid would be teasing him like “Genes gotta crush” and he wouldn’t even try and protest against it, because, well, he does in fact have a huge crush on you, and to sid, genes silence said a lot about how much he really liked you, “why didn’t you ask her out then if you really liked her?”
- After a little conspiring between the two boys, they both came up with the conclusion that he would ask you out the next time all of you guys hung out, and sid would be his official hype man (ofc)
- When the time came and it was time for him to ask you out, he completely froze, like he couldn’t say anything, the fear of you rejecting him completely held him back from saying anything to you, at the end of the night you’d ask him, “Are you mad at me? Did I do something? You haven’t talked to me all night”
- And that’s when he knew he really fucked up, that last thing he ever ever wanted was for you to think he was mad at you, “no, no never, i j-just-” and that’s when you finally shut him up with a kiss, funny thing is, sid had already told you prior about Genes crush on you and the plan to ask you out, “If he gets nervous just kiss em or something!” and so that’s exactly what you did
- actually the cutest couple ever, you guys would be so good for each other, and both of you even the other one out so well, like yin and yang, you both teach each other how to be better people and those kinda relationships are always so healthy!
- let’s also talk about how good of a bf he is to you, like he’s so secure and warm, whenever you’re having a bad day, you can always go to him, plus he can definitely understand when you have bad anxiety sometimes or really just all of the bad things that do come with ptsd, you guys would be each others rock in moments like those
- Gene is the walking definition of, “ If he wanted to, he would” because this man never fails to try and make you feel like a queen everyday you’re with him, yk how some bfs will start to get “comfy” after awhile and completely forget to bring flowers, or open doors, or any of the little things like that? yeah gene will ALWAYS do those things for you, he proves that chivalry is not dead yet 😭
- Dude we all know gene doesn’t really like fighting, like bar fights are overrated as hell to him, but say you guys are out at a bar or something, and snafu makes a comment abt you that makes you extremely uncomfortable, Gene is literally gonna beat the shit outta him, like no one talks about his bae ever, even if they might not expect it, he will get ACTIVE for his girl 👏🏼
- it might not be super visible, but gene is sooo passionate for you, like he would honestly do anything for you, he would take a bullet for you if he had too, his love for you runs DEEP and he shows that to you everyday in so many different ways
- you make this man NERVOUS, like you are so sexy and fun, you give him a full on fever sometimes, and he is constantly wondering to himself how he landed such a pretty girl like you
- and don’t even get me started on when you are dancing around him, or wearing some sort of revealing clothing, his whole heart literally stops, no words can come out of his mouth, The expression on his face is pure awe, his face would get as red as his hair, and he would suddenly get so shy, like he would be starstruck seeing you like that
- you guys would be a dog family, it would be so cute, just like you guys settling down on the country side, with a bunch of animals, maybe even a few kids, y’all’s family would be so nice and warm to be around, everyone in the whole community would like you guys
- some nights, it’s hard for him to sleep, his ptsd really comes in unsteady motions, and some of those times are at night, right before he goes to bed, and when that happens you guys usually stay up together and talk about all sorts of things, just to take both of your minds somewhere else and maybe on some nights you guys will even go out for a drive, and just enjoy the nice night breeze
- both of you are always willing to stand up for what’s right, that’s why you guys are such a good couple, if someone is being mistreated and one of you see it, one of you is gonna say something, while the other is going to be backing them up 100%
- canon: okay imagine you and gene have a kid, and that kid comes home with a black eye or something, and they tell you and gene that they’ve been getting bullied at their school, you and gene will IMMEDIATELY go up to that school looking for that kid 😭 Gene will be the one trying to talk to the faculty, like cussing them out, while you’re trying to find the little shit that punched your kid LOL
- okay, so here me out, but i think you would introduce him to true crime, and true crime series and stuff like that, and he would enjoy it so much, on each others free time both of you could watch a whole season of a true crime series if y’all’d wanted to
- canon: one night, while you guys are out at a bar, you are just dancing, having a ball, but for Gene, he hasn’t danced ONCE, all bc he is a little mortified to embarrass himself and doesn’t want you to think he’s weird, you would say something like later into the night “Why aren’t you dancing with me?” and he would be like “I don’t really know how to” and you would be teaching him all the fun dances and dance moves, and by the end of the night he’d thank you for helping him get out of his comfort zone
- on special occasions, or even on random days, he would write you a small romantic poem, it would be so nicely written and heartfelt, that’s one of the little special thing he does for you, because you are so special to him, this man loves you with his whole heart and would do anything to see your beautiful self happy
Thank you again for your request lovely!! I hope you enjoy!! 💛
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Rewatching Dream a Little Dream of Me
Welcome to “Perchance to Dream!Dean: A Supernatural Rewatch Blog” with Lor and Mace!
Up today, s3e10: Dream a Little Dream of Me
After Bobby falls into a coma that seems to have no medical explanation, Sam and Dean work to recreate the case he was working on. Turns out Bobby is stuck inside his own mind, being tormented by nightmares controlled by Jeremy, the man he was hunting. The boys go in after him and are able to get him to wake up, but they still have to contend with the troubled young man who doesn’t want them to take away his ability to invade people’s dreams. Dean gets stuck in his own nightmare where he fights back against a version of himself who claims it’s Dean’s destiny to become a demon, and Sam finally dispatches Jeremy as parallels between Jeremy’s abusive father and John pile up. In the end, Dean brokenly admits to Sam that he doesn’t want to die or go to hell. Sam promises that they will find a way to save him.
Below is a log of our real-time reactions as we watched. Remember that there may be spoilers for any part of SPN’s 15-season run here. Note also that the nature of our conversation is adult and thus it may contain adult language and themes.
[and we begin:]
Lor:
oooooh is this the one where Dean finally admits that he doesn't want to go to hell?
Mace:
maybe?
Lor:
tentative bounce
Mace:
poor Bobby
Lor:
yeah
he sure does get stuck in his head a lot
Mace:
SNORK
Lor:
"you're drinking whiskey" "I drink whisky all the time" "no you don't"
oh Sammy
Mace:
RIGHT?!
poor SAM
Lor:
"how can you care so little about yourself"
JOHN
the answer is JOHN
Mace:
“what’s wrong with you?”
HAHAHA YES
Lor:
FRECKLES
Mace:
YES
Lor:
"extremely lame vacation" lololol
Mace:
“some sort of sign of…something”
Lor:
poor Pittsburgh
Mace:
right?
Lor:
aw Dean. putting it behind the clothes in the closet is not really peak covering up his tracks
Mace:
SNORK
Lor:
he's a loyal little bean
Mace:
he is
Lor:
if Dean Winchester comes round asking me questions, I am angling to spend as much time with him as possible, not trying to blow him off
Mace:
DEAN
RIGHT?!
Lor:
"permanent record" HAAAAHAHAHAHA
Mace:
“look officer, I can tell you what I know, but it’ll need to be over burgers and shakes later tonight…”
Lor:
YES CORRECT
is he lowering his voice while he's doing his interrogating?
Mace:
HA! Possibly
Lor:
ooooof Dean at Bobby's bedside
Mace:
yeah
Lor:
omg a hacky sack reference
Mace:
YES
Lor:
serious flashback to the soccer team boys wearing Dave Matthews Band shirts and kicking those around. they got SO MAD if you walked through their little circle
Mace:
HAHAHAHA OMG
“how bad could it be?”
oh Dean
Lor:
RIGHT?
he's a HUNTER, Dean
CHIASMUS
Mace:
“crap. Bella?” “Bella? crap."
YAAAAASSSS
Lor:
YES
I was just gonna say she always looks like she's not wearing anything under her coat HAAAAAHAHAHAHA
Mace:
SNORK
HAHAHA OMG SAMMY
WHAT NO ONE NOTHING
Lor:
LOLOLOLOLOL
"Brad Pitt?"
he always goes there
Mace:
oh DEAN WINCHESTER
YEP I WONDER WHY
Lor:
Right? WHAT could be THE REASON?
Mace:
omg SAMMY
Lor:
lololol SAM. she's wearing clothes, hon
Mace:
a boy can hope
Lor:
omg Sam
Mace:
YAS
Lor:
and interesting that given their chemistry, it isn't Dean dreaming about her
it's polyjuice potion!
Mace:
ESSENCE OF GOYLE
HAHAHAHA OMG LOR
Lor:
HAAAAAHAHAHAHA MACE
DON'T SEPARATE
Mace:
RIGHT?!
Lor:
why are they dumb?
if this were me, I'd be holding hands
Mace:
well that goes without saying
Lor:
LOL
YES
daaaaw passed out boys
Mace:
YAS
did they never wonder how Bobby became a hunter?
Lor:
admires the quick, effective way of establishing what we're seeing is in a dream after the commercial break
no
Mace:
oooh yes!
Lor:
he's their dad. they haven't thought about him as a person he existed before them yet
Mace:
Very true
Lor:
mmmm pocket doors
love em
Mace:
my parents have those
Lor:
my grandparents had them in their house
"everybody got into hunting somehow"
Mace:
oh Bobby
Lor:
YES
and Dean acknowledging the heartfelt thanks in the least way possible
he looks like JOHN, Sam
Mace:
omg Dean’s FACE
YES
Lor:
"aw, I dunno, it wasn't that dumb"
YES
"I was thirsty!"
"you seem a little caffeinated"
Mace:
HAHAHAHA
Lor:
"don't yell at me, boy!"
Mace:
SNORK
Lor:
Dean's emotional dysregulation gets bad when he's sleep deprived, poor thing
Mace:
Same, Dean. Same.
Lor:
RIGHT?
Mace:
oh you chuckleheads
Lor:
"cause I don't want you digging around in my head" oh Dean
the way he looks at Sam
"stop looking at me like that"
Mace:
so the writers think pretty women inviting them to picnics is the be all and end all, then?
YES
Lor:
it's so DOMESTIC
Mace:
YEP
Lor:
LOL I guess
I mean, I buy it for Dean
Sam not so much
Mace:
yeah
Lor:
dreams on TV are never anything like real dreams. mine anyway. like they don't WORK the same
Mace:
correct
oh damn. this scene.
Lor:
"aren't you a handsome son of a gun"
YES
Lor:
"how worthless you feel"
OOOOOOF
Mace:
RIGHT
Lor:
omg he keeps trying with the fingers
adorable
Mace:
YES
Lor:
oooo Dean thought dream!Dean was Jeremy and Sam thought Jeremy was Dean
Mace:
OOOOOOH
Lor:
I'm not sure you can survive that, actually? not dreaming for 15 years?
Mace:
yeah I’m pretty sure you can't
there’s an actual disorder like this but the people die way before that
Lor:
yeah, that's what I thought
I mean, on that TNG ep they all went unsurvivably insane in like 72 hours or something
"look after your little brother, boy!"
Mace:
HAHAHA
oooof yeah
Lor:
"Daddy's blunt little instrument"
Mace:
“daddy’s blunt little instrument"
Lor:
YES DEAN
Mace:
yoicks
Lor:
Speak this truth about John
Mace:
YAAS DEAN
oh DEAN
Lor:
"I didn't deserve what he put on me and I don't deserve to go to hell!"
good, Dean, good! holds him
"this is what you're going to become!"
Mace:
yes, but he’s still beating himself to a pulp
Lor:
ooooooof
YEP
"you answer me when I'm talking to you, boy!"
Mace:
oooof
Lor:
I could write a short paper on the use of the word "boy" in this ep
Mace:
oh poor Dean
Lor:
it's GOT to be intentionally paralleling what dream!Dean says John said to him
yeah
Mace:
oh yeah
Lor:
I love how Bobby brings things up with the boys but doesn't badger them about it
Mace:
YEP
NOT LITERALLY
Lor:
"you boys better check your pockets" "not literally" haaaaahahahaha
Mace:
HAHAHAHA
“dammit boys"
Lor:
YES
Mace:
that’s Bobby’s side of the show right there
Lor:
YES
oh Dean
why would we share anything with people who love us
Mace:
DEAN WINCHESTER YOUR PANTS ARE ON FIRE
Lor:
RIGHT
"I've been doing some thinking. I don't wanna die. I don't wanna go to hell"
"okay, good" HIS VOICE
Mace:
oh DEAN
oh honey
Lor:
THE SNAP AS THE FINAL SHOT
Mace:
YEP
Lor:
holds him
#watchingspnagain#watchingspnagain 3x10#spn#supernatural#spn meta#spn spoilers#spn 3x10#watchingspnagain dean jokes#watchingspnagain dean's responsible for sam#watchingspnagain doppelganger attack#watchingspnagain john#watchingspnagain mirrors
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Lmao np <33 I always enjoy drawing Yandere's as pathetic lil meow meows hehe (funfact: I actually drew Rory first but after I finished his lineart I was like, wait shit I don't have a full color reference- and then I hyperfocused on drawing jay instead lol)
Also, you 🤝 me: jayce + jack o' lanterns = stonks ✅ ✅ ✅
Also also, ngl if Darling were self-aware she'd def hate me, because I always try to speedrun the Bad ending first lmaooo
Also^3, every time I hear baggy pants, I can't help but remember the boys I went to school with a few years ago, who wore the most ugly, most a t r o c i o u s pairs of baggy pants I have ever seen 💀💀
For Reference: https://imgur.com/a/fZsHsF7
This is what I'm talking about^^ like pls,, just sTO P-
About the blue reference, the paragraph I meant was the one about how I only liked EJ so much because of his BLUE mask 😔 young me truly set the bar too low (maybe it's because of him that I'm attracted to most fictional mad scientists/doctors with no morals now, damn this bastard 😒)
Oh, and the OG mikey myers Movie is the 1978 one! ^^
And finally about the Christian Gang /hj (every holiday Yandere of yours has/used to have strong Christian influences but these three are still considered extra Christian to me so I'm just gonna start calling em that lolololol)
Gonna be honest, when you revealed that one of them was gonna be Christmas, I immediately headcanoned him as just some guy in Christmas elf costume- thank god that's not the case though (I say, even though I know damn well that I'm still gonna draw him in that costume the nanosecond you drop a ref for him, because he's a lil skrimblo who needs to get a reality check via me shitposting him into humility)
Also ofc the twins are ginger 😒🙄 /derogatory /j okay but fr, whenever I see a fictional ginger online I'm like ....Ed Sheeran??? 😱😱 (coughcoughchildecough)
-Ren'py anon
OKAY OKAY I'LL DROP A SMIDGE OF RORY SPRITES SO U CAN COLOR IT BBG
He only wears shades outside lol
HEHEHE YES JACK O'LANTERN STONKS GO UP IN THE BRAIN CELL ACTIVITY
Eh, I mean, its always fun to get the bad ending first though. Just to see then get all angry and violent 😍 good shit tbh
MC would def hate you, but I feel like it would take a bit to get the bad bad ending yk? I don't have the obvious, good/neutral/bad choices most of the time (although there are some choices that will obviously lead to negative consequences lol)
JAYCE ONLY WEARS THE ONES IN STYLE RN NOT THOSE LMAOOOO
Though they can look good if done right, those boys at school were definitely not doing it right 💀
Now I understand the blue reference! Ugh how did I MISS IT SO BAD 😭 gosh you were going crazy abt him and the color blueeeeee
I understand how that all kick started ur obsession with fucked up men. We are one in the same 😎
Hehehe thank you for the confirmation! I will be watching Myers stand there menacingly as I look up fics of him 😍
It's so funny that you call them the Christan gang, but it's not gonna have all the significant original values and whatnot. It's just a global holiday thingy that everybody does regardless of religious background (Though I'm glad you still see their origins and acknowledge their important purpose to many other people!)
GOD HELP WHY? I ONLY WATCHED LIKE 10 MINUTES IF THAT ELF MOVIE WHEN I WAS IN 6TH GRADE DURING LUNCH? WHY WERE THEY PLAYING IT DURING LUNCH YOU ASK? BC OF CHRISTMAS OR SMTH IDK, BUT IT WAS OKAY IG
It would be very funny to see him as an elf that works at the mall as a side 😇 He needs it anyway
Regarding the Twin's, THEY HATE IT WHEN PEOPLE MAKE GINGER JOKES, SO BAD. THE MINUTE SOMEONE SAYS ANYTHING ABT ED SHEERAN AROUND THEM, THEY EITHER ZIP OUT OF THERE OR FIGHT. NO IN BETWEEN.
Typical gingers 🙄 so sensitive dude
Childe is one of the only gingers I can tolerate. If these two didnt have a life and played Genshin, they would favor Childe so much.
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I LOVE LOVE LOVEE the reunion between Rhaenyra and Babey. It’s so cute and heartwarming when they communicate. When Babey said
“talk to me. Stop shutting me out. I can handle it, I’m old enough now–”
It really holds very true to their particular brand of sisterhood. I’m not a younger sister so I can’t relate specifically but the line still hit me.
Babey really knows her Daddy Daemon, each chapter you reiterate how they’re such a perfect match honestly. Babey is his good influence 😂
Mmm Daemon unlocked a new kink haha ✅🍼 I feel like this has been long awaited by many of your readers hehehe 👀
Thank you for answering all my questions in the last ask lol. In the next season I hope the give us more dragon scenes, more fighting and fire breathing scenes specifically 🥺🥺🙏 It’s called House of the Dragon HBO. As much as I love watching unhinged individuals I want more dragonsss. Although it must cost a lot in cgi
Surprisingly Babey’s cravings don’t seem gross, they’re pretty tame and actually sound kinda good? Like I’d eat them all except for the full pot of honey. I thought she’d be asking for way crazier food combos.
Uni update: I’m on Easter break but I’m still getting emails about grades cause my profs are just mean like that lol. I was 0.5 points away from an A on an essay and the prof didn’t round up so I’m mad at them.
Random question: What’s your take on why some fans of HOTD strive to make their faves seem “good” or excuse their actions as “oh they had some trauma”? What’s the obsession with “defending faves”, UR FAVE IS A GASLIGHTING CRIMINAL AND YOU SHOULD BE PROUD OF THEM. Accept that everyone is morally grey/complex and interesting except Larys, fucking hate him and just enjoy the drama and derangement. It’s a fiction show at the end of the day. This is mostly based on tiktok discourse but I do sometimes see it on tumblr too
Always remember to put yourself first and take some rest and relaxation! Thank you so much for the chapter! You deserve all the good karma and positive interactions 🫶🏻💖💖💖
-💎
AAAAAAH, hello, 💎!!!!! I hope you're doing well!
I'm thrilled you enjoyed the Rhaenyra-Babey reunion scene! I wanted there to be a work-through that wasn't aggro but still packed the punch it needed to, so I hope that works out how I intended.
DAEMON IS GROTTY and we all love that for him, tbh. He's a horny ol' peepaw. I stan.
I NEED MORE DRAGONS, I swear. Not even just from a writing point, because it makes it fucking hard to write interactions with dragons with limited source material, HBO!!!! But I wanna see what the dragons can do, manoeuvre-wise. I imagine we're about to get a good look at warfare on dragonback, or I hope we will. Come OOOON, guys, GIMME DRAGONS!!!!
Babey's gonna escalate to something a little weirder in terms of cravings next chapter, haha. But mostly - thank gosh - she's not completely gross. Maybe I'll revisit this in another pregnancy - just truly heinous cravings, and Daemon's all "what the fuck evil spawn is in you????"
Ugh, your professor's a grade-B BITCH. You tell 'em I told you that. They ain't grade-A because apparently they don't know what an A is, so HA! B-grade. I am sure your essay was a work of fucking art, so they can suck my fat dick. (Um, my encouragement is a bit... aggressive. You got this, booski.)
To answer your question: short form, people suck, lol. I think there's a stunning lack of critical thinking among the general population, probably because of inconsistent schooling. There's a conversation to be had about standardisation globally insofar as this is possible (i.e. language barriers), because the disparity between nations can be whack. (I'm not exactly endorsing standardisation as that has its own pitfalls, but like - there needs to be some sort of benchmark, for fuck sake.) People don't know how to rationalise liking a character that is deeply flawed because they lack the ability to separate that from their own moral code; they think liking a 'bad' character makes them 'bad', very loosely. Also, people just generally suck and like to start fights because it's in our nature to be anarchist fuckwads, etc. Lol, my faith in humanity is shining through!
I am doing EXCELLENT, 💎, never fear. The next chapter is coming out very soon! Thank you so so so much for your support, it means the WORLD TO MEEEEE!
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December 10, 2022
Thinking about how I had the weirdest, most emotionally-draining weekend a year ago. I had a mild anxiety attack over being asked out, I lost the solo I’d worked so hard on (they cut the song out of the repertoire (every time I go to an event where this one specific girl who was involved in that decision is also there, I learn a little bit more about that situation and I think she just feels really really bad about it but apparently most of the sections were struggling with it and it just wasn’t coming together)), and then there was a covid outbreak the following week that postponed the concerts altogether. Hmph. Memories. And lots of journaling this week.
I finished Crooked Kingdom last night!!! Loved it!!! Thought the.. shocking event near the end was kind of glossed over to the point where I felt insulted for that character, but whatever. GAH it’s got to be one of my favorite YA series. Now I have to figure out what to read next... OH! That book about Jean Luc Picard, of course!
Also I’ve seen two spiders in my room in less than a week??? That is unacceptable! The main downside to winter is that all the big buggos decide to stay inside more as well and I hate them for it! If I could have one superpower it would be the ability to maintain a 20 foot radius of no bugs (secondarily, I’d like kinetic energy manipulation, like Quake :D).
Anyway, you know what time it is. I’m overly ambitious and I’ve got six weeks of no school and I wanna use ‘em, so it’s time for... Winter! Break! Goals!!! We all know the rules to this game, but for any newcomers, allow me to elucidate. There’s a bunch of stuff that I plan to do whenever I’m home from school, and I consider a long break to be successful if I can finish three of them. So let’s begin the list, shall we?
Input all the dna sequence data for my research and get back on that grind (and also just organize my data a bunch more)
Read up a bunch of archaeology and geology papers, also for research purposes
Teach my dancer-friend how to read music so she can audition for choir (if she still wants)
Maybe go to the zoo? (this is less of a goal but there’s a lil zoo near my campus that I’ve never been to)
Stretch three times a week (to prepare for ballet in the spring)
Just do one alteration/mend, just one is all I ask
Maybe make that one dope jumpsuit from Mood Patterns
Make a mockup of that ulster coat for my dad (and also maybe find the fabric for it)
Make the cropped jacket from Charm Patterns, or at least a good draft of it
Make/find a petticoat or slip or something that will allow me to wear long circle skirts without them sliding between my legs
Maybe go ice skating
Make more of my off-brand jerk spice mix
Finish that Paradise arrangement
Find people for my One More Soul arrangement
Find a dress for the orchestra’s spring formal
This winter will be an interesting one because I have to fit in some of my goals while also being a TA for the first time which I’m really looking forward to. It’s a subject that I could probably (and would love the opportunity to) talk about for sixty hours straight.
Today I’m thankful for the fact that my blackened salmon turned out really really well??? It’s my first time making salmon myself, and I was afraid of overcooking/drying it out but it went really well!! I think next time, I might try marinading it beforehand to see if the spice flavors can seep deeper into the flesh, but it was absurdly quick to make and I’ll get four dinners out of it. The only problem is that salmon ain’t cheap lol.
I’m really looking forward to the concerts tomorrow (even if the twelve-hour day drives me to madness! (though I’ll be able to test how much time I’ll actually need to get from my apartment to my “early” class next semester at the performing arts building in the mornings and what that’ll mean for my wake-up time))! I’m also looking forward to them being over so I can focus on other things (like getting some sleep <3 (and also my apps and essays lol))!
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Things that made me insane during criminal minds evolution:
Written while I watched so enjoy my bumbling mess. Spoiler alert of course.
Episode 9:
Ahhhhh. Here we go. Preview I scared.
Krystal death 😭😭 my poor little baby please don't cry.
Emily holding him I never realized could hurt me so much.
ROSSI get the fuck out please.
Holy fuck he read his book
Dave knows ahhhhh.
They know his name!!!!!
No one better end up in witness protection this time.
HOLY FUCK HE WALKED INTO THE FBI THST COCKY SON OF A BITCH.
I know this season hasny been the best but I personally like the story line and enjoy that it's only one main case. We will see if that's still the case at tge end of this episode.
Rossi looks pisseddddd.
May 2022...
Tara oooh Rebecca.
Tara watching her is so cute oh thier moment
Tara lewis opening up ahhh I love themmmmm. I hate this it hurts.
They fucking better open up the case.
Rebecca thank youuu.
Darling 😭😭
That's not good writing like come on are we just suppose to be cool after that?
I hate but love the fact Ellias knows how to plays. But fuck baby you read his boookssss ahhhh.
Rossi is hot he knows. And ellias your practically telling him who you are your not dumb your doing it on purpose ughhh.
Holy shit my watch was going on because apparently my heart had dropped really low haha opps.
Constantly battle thoes two it's making my daddy and brother issues go off.
Don't Dave him.
I always go the distance Elias. *Rossi signature smirk 🥵😍)
Penelope that's okay and everyone stares. Ughh baby don't look so excited.
Okay but um Luke smile at how excite Penelope is...it hurts.
Ewwww Tyler gross. I don't want to talk about it but ugh the way Garcia look at him and the way he smirked at her ugh.
Okay but Will hello. I know it's er wrong but he looking mighty fine today sir.
JJ goes straight to Will side.
NO NO NO. OKAY NO. like I'm so excited the Will is working with the team but um...I SWEAR IF THEY KILL HIM OFF IMMA FUCK UP A BITCH.
Tyler Green what the hell. Ugh.
Luke looks so angry tho huh.
Tyler what are you hiding.
Garcia what are you up to.
Tyler your an ass.
Garcia you desever better.
Ellias ugh your an asshole okay.
Um huh the voice message.
Dave that's weird text her please.
FUCK YOU TYLER GREEN.
2006 aww. Tyler we get it but fuck you for using my girl.
Sydney your a mood.
Daveeee. Why am I attracted to old rich men that kill. I need therapy.
I love Dave.
I fuckin hate Ellias.
Emily stands by her team.
Fuck you Ellias.
I feel like somethings bad gonna happen.
I wonder what season 17 Is gonna be like.
Luke... I'm nevours for this.
Luke knows!!!
HIS REACTION IS THE BESTTTTT.
okay PENELOPE SHUT UP!! PLEASE. Not in front of Luke.
You sure know how to pick em...ouch.
Ughhh. I was hoping with the messy comment we were getting into thier love life.
Luke tho is mood. Like I don't know how to explain but thos scene is great. *cough* would of been better if Luke shut her up with a "we would of been better" or even a kiss *cough*
I'm mad at Garcia like alot.
Rossi please don't be stupid.
Rossi do not fall for it. Rossi don't do .
Haha he knows. The way he said shit was hot. I love that man.
The look he gave him when he talked about the podcast I can't not breath 😂😂
The thick swallow on killing them
Okayyyu but why did Dave say "oooh that's a yess" that's the way he use to only speak to his team.
Devolution. Evolution.
UNSUB DAVE UNSUB DAVE UNSUB DAVE. PLEASEEE.
I can not watch this. Don't hurt my lover.
Fuck you Voit.
You don't desever happiness dickhead.
Mm I wanna tie Dave up to.
Stop hurting my baby.
Tyler you better turn up.
Oh shit um hi lol.
At least the team is on thier way.
Oh shit Prentiss is pissed.
Ooh DC metro okay.
Okay Rossi calm it 😂😂 your a dumbass and you need therapy.
Why you want to help 😂 yes yes I do please.
Criminal minds is fucked.
Will is going to die ain't he... or JJ
Ugh Penelope pity party I get is cos toxic men I akwaysvfall for them. But um Luke's hand on her shoulder. This really is like he's trying to replace Morgan this episode it's weird.
JJ and Will tho awww.
Spit on me.
Okay I looked away from the screen for TWO SECONDS and all I saw was green and legit though Elle greenway had show up and was like woah plot twist.
Tyler Green is here. Yay.
Rossi is terrifed oh my heart.....
SHOOT HIM TYLER.
Nooo Tyler
Rossi ahhhhhhhh
I screamed IM SCREAMING SCREAMING. HOLY SHIT. DINNER DINNER DINNER DATE FUCKKKKK. GUYSSS ITS HAPPENING!!!!!!!!!
The nevours, they both looks so cute and young and nevours.
The way she looks at him.
Thoes two omg haha.
Thoes two opening up, my heart is mot sure how to react at all.
Ugh wow I wanted all season for them to break my heart...please they so have chemisty.
I will respect it while I hold my cat and hope they realsie they are both madly in love thank you.
Just stay with me. Oh my heart.
Penelope desever to be happy even if it's not with Luke. But it'd not with Tyler I'm sorry but no.
Rebecca took Tara hand AWWWW.
Stop hurting my love.
Ughh hands off.
Dave called him Lee. And I oopps.
Nooo don't kill my lover. I will cry.
Go kill your own family not mine, dumbass.
Live stream...oh shit..
Okay him screaming for help aboustley and utterly FUCKING hurts.
Dave....
#criminal minds#so who is paying for my fucking therapy#david rossi#emily prentiss#jennifer jareau#jj#luke alvez#tara lewis#will lamontagne#penelope garcia#tyler green#criminal minds has completely fucked me up#criminal minds evolution trauma#will or rossi is gonna die#or its gonns be JJ and that shit is gonna hurt like a bitch#if JJ dies they better bring back the three OG boys for the funeral thanks
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