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callsign-marlie · 2 years

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Hey Pretty Girl

The Five Times Jake calls you his favorite pet name + one bonus little baby taste of angst :3

pairing: jake 'hangman' seresin x f!reader genre: FLUFF warnings: unedited, light teasing and innuendos, mention of pregnancy and child birth, no y/n used a/n this is total fluff and it was just what I needed. very short in comparison to my normal things but i almost wanna do all of the young pilots with this prompt and a different quote each time, it was so wholesome ;^;

Please feel free to like, comment and reblog. Much appreciated and much love - marlie x

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The First

“Hey pretty girl, slide me a bud, will ya?”

Blonde hair and blue eyes, a coy smile. Tanned skin pinched with a glaze sunned pink at the top of his cheeks and a clean pressed khaki uniform. The cap popped off of the glass with a fizz before you slid the bottle to him. “$5.50 for the boy in brown.”

“The boy,” he scoffed. Thick fingers gripped around the neck of the brew to coat his nails in condensation. The amber liquid swirled the enclosure of glass as he placed the rim to his lips. His eyes never left yours. “Not a boy. A man, darlin’. More of a man than any one you’ve had before tonight, I can assure you that.”

“And who said I wanted you, fly boy?” Your elbows were on the bar, leaning over the mahogany top. Even with the challenge of cleavage at your disposal, he never broke away from your gaze.

“Your eyes say enough. See ya soon, gorgeous.” He scribbled his name on the merchant copy of his receipt. A wink, the shine of a grin, and away he turned.

You grabbed at the soggy slip of paper to find chicken scratch handwriting with ‘Jake’ and a phone number written on the bottom. Jake, huh?

The Second

“Hey pretty girl, that spot’s perfect. Just like me, right?”

He had bought you a bundle of sunflowers on a whim. They were gorgeous and tall, standing bright against the navy of your entry way in the antique crystal vase your mom had given you. Jake had cleaned up nicely in a crisp button down and slacks for your date to the local brewery down on the coast and had bought the bouquet for you on the ride home from a local farm stand. “Now you can think of me every time you leave the house and smile to start your day.”

You rolled your eyes, an endeared grin on your face. “You’re an ass, Seresin.”

“Maybe, but I’m your ass and that makes me the best ass around,” he chimed, jokingly hitting the back of his rump. “And this ass ain’t leavin’ for quite some time doll.”

“Then tell me, baby, what happens if the flowers die? How would I ever remember you then?” You lovingly wrap your arms around the top of his shoulders, careening up on your tiptoes to touch his nose with yours.

His fingertips brushed a strand of hair that roguishly fell into your eyes. His eyes were the color of sea grass and his gaze was softly focused on your lips. “Guess we’re just gonna have to go on more dates so I can get you more, right?”

The Third

“Hey pretty girl, may I have this dance?”

The reception was over and your feet were on fire, but you were finally home in your little shared apartment on base. Your hand, now coveted by a new diamond wedding band, sparkled under the high hat lights as Jake helped you up from the couch to the smooth sounds of John Mayer echoing in the background. Your white gown sweeped against the floor as he pulled you to his chest.

Jake, your perfectly perfect Jake, dropped a soft kiss to your forehead, to the tip of your nose, to your lips. “Mrs. Seresin,” he whispered at each pass of his lips. You let your bare feet stand atop his, still encased in his military issued loafers and let his strong legs take you on a slow rock in your living room. It was the first time today that the two of you had been just alone: where the room wasn’t vibrating with clinking glasses or loud party music.

Jake swayed with you gently even as the song changed, his hands dropped to your waist to rest on the crest of your bejeweled bum. You raised an eyebrow at your cheeky husband, who simply rolled his eyes and gave a boyish grin. “Just let me enjoy this baby.”

The Fourth

“Hey pretty girl, lemme help you, hold on.”

Jake’s large hands snuck underneath your rounded belly, lifting just enough weight to let your spine relax under the constant pressure of pregnancy. The dishes you were washing were suddenly forgotten and slipped from your fingers. A blissful sigh. “Ohhh, that’s the stuff, don’t stop.”

“Damn, all of my talent in bed and I’ve never heard you sound like THAT before,” he huffed, slowly letting your belly back down. “All I had to do was lift up peanut here and you’re putty, huh?”

You pouted at the returning strain and snatched his hands back to place. You tilted your head to the side to leave a kiss and a teasing nip on his bicep. His fingers tickled over your skin in amusement.

“Uh-uh, don’t even think about it, Seresin. You stay right there.”

The Fifth

“Hey pretty girl, I’m your daddy.”

Tears were welling up in his eyes while he held the small pink bundle in his arms. She was so sleepy after making her grand entrance, kicking and yelling the entire birth. “Oh my god, I’m your daddy!”

“She looks just like you.” You were laying in your bed, completely spent, but glowing after all of your hard work pushing your new little love into the world. “You’re gonna be a great daddy, Jake.”

“And you’re gonna be a great mommy, honey girl.” He carefully made his way over to the bed and sat on the side to let your little girl close. Her eyes were closed and soft little breaths were leaving her mouth. Jake leaned over to plant a chaste kiss into your hair, your nose, your lips. He lingered longer than normal, touching his forehead to yours.

“My pretty girls. All mine, all mine, until the day I die. I’ll never want nothing more than this.”

Bonus: The Sixth

“Hey pretty girl, I’m alright.”

You launched yourself at your husband, tears streaming down your face. He winced under your arms, but did his best to wrap himself around you through all of the wires tubing he was attached to. Safe. His smooth hands rubbed up and down your back as you sobbed into his shoulder, leaving light taps on his back. “Don’t. You. EVER. Do. That. Again.”

“What, eject? It’s either that or die, and I’m too good to die while I’m still so young and handsome. You don’t want me to leave you a widow so soon, do you?” His megawatt smile showed reassurance, but you weren’t so sure it was real. You knew Jake better than he knew himself. His eyes, blackened from his impact, held something behind them that wasn’t there before: a fear. His façade was cracking at your worry.

“You won’t lose me, pretty girl. I’ll be here. I’m not leaving.”

“Promise me?” Your eyes just wouldn’t stop tearing up. “Promise. Cross my heart and hope to die.” His fingers made an ‘x’ over his heart. “And I really, really don’t wanna die. I have my whole life with you to look forward to.”

#top gun maverick #top gun maverick ff #jake seresin #jake seresin ff #hangman top gun #hangman fanfiction #hangman x reader #jake seresin x reader #HANGMAN.#god i love this douche so much man

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kp777 · 5 months

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By Thom Hartmann

Common Dreams

Nov. 16, 2023

What baffles me is why a TV news personality who earns $2.9 million a year would go to such lengths to avoid even mentioning a solution that’s been signed onto repeatedly by virtually every Democrat in Congress for over a decade.

Why did NBC’s Kristen Welker use an incomplete frame for her question about Social Security at last week’s GOP debate, and why didn’t Lester Holt or anybody else correct her?

Here’s her question:

KRISTEN WELKER: “Americans could see their Social Security benefits drastically cut in the next decade because the program is running out of money. Former President Trump has said quote, ‘Under no circumstances should Republicans cut entitlements.’ Governor Christie, first to you, you have proposed raising the retirement age for younger Americans. What would that age be specifically, and would you consider making any other reforms to Social Security?”

The simple reality is that if a person earns $160,200 a year or less, they pay a 6.2% tax on all of their income. In other words, a person making exactly $160,200 pays $9,932.40 (6.2%) in Social Security taxes.

If you earn $12,000 a year, $56,000 a year, $98,000 a year, or anything under $160,200 a year, you also pay 6.2 cents of tax toward Social Security on every single dollar you earn. If you made $10,000 last year, you pay $620 in Social Security taxes: 6.2 percent. Like the old saying about death and taxes, you can’t avoid it.

BUT those people who make over $160,200 a year pay absolutely nothing — no tax whatsoever — to fund Social Security on every dollar they earn over that amount. After Warren Buffett or Mark Zuckerberg or Jeff Bezos pay their $9,932.40 in Social Security taxes on that first $160,200 they took home on the first day of January, every other dollar they take home for the rest of the year is completely Social Security tax-free.

If somebody makes $1,602,000, for example, it would seem fair that, like every other American, they’d pay the same 6.2% ($99,324) in Social Security taxes. But, no: they only pay the $9,932.40 and after that they get to ride tax-free.

If somebody earned $16,020,000 it would seem fair that they’d pay the same 6.2% to support Social Security as 96 percent of Americans do, but no. Instead of paying $1,004,400 in taxes, they only pay $9,932.40.

Hedge fund guys who make a billion a year — yes, there are several of them — can certainly afford to pay 6.2% to keep Social Security solvent. At that rate, they’d be paying $62 million on a billion-dollar income in Social Security taxes as their fair share of maintaining America’s social contract.

But, because the tax rate is capped to “protect” the morbidly rich while sticking the rest of us with the full bill for Social Security, those titans of Wall Street pay the same $9,932.40 as the doctor who lives down the street from you and earns $160,200 a year.

This is, to use the economic technical term, nuts.

And, while every wealthy person in America knows all about this because it’s such a huge benefit to them, I’ll bet fewer than five percent of Americans know how this scam for the rich works. (I searched diligently, but couldn’t find a single survey that asked average folks if they knew about the cap.)

There is no other tax in America that works like this. Most have loopholes designed to promote specific socially desirable goals, like the deductibility of home mortgage interest or children, but no other tax is designed so that anybody earning over $160,200 is completely exempt and no longer has to pay a penny after their first nine thousand or so dollars.

And here’s where it gets really bizarre: if millionaires and billionaires paid the exact same 6.2% into Social Security that most of the rest of us do (and paid it on their investment income, which is also 100% exempt today), the program would not only be solvent for the next 75 years, but it would have so much extra cash that everybody on Social Security could get a significant raise in their monthly benefit payments.

But because America’s morbidly rich don’t want to pay their share for keeping Social Security solvent, Republicans are having a debate about how badly they can screw working class retirees.

They ask:

“Shall we cut the Social Security payments?”

“How about raising the retirement age from 67 (Reagan raised it from 65 to 67) to 70 or even 72?”

“Or maybe we should just hand the entire thing off to JPMorgan or Wells Fargo and let them run it, like we’re doing with Medicare? We could call it Social Security Advantage!”

“Or how about turning Social Security into a welfare program by ‘means testing’ it, so rich people can’t draw from it and every budget year it can become a political football for the GOP like food stamps or WIC?”

Responding to Welker’s severely incomplete question, Chris Christie hit all four:

GOVERNOR CHRISTIE: “Sure, and we have to deal with this problem. Now look, if we raise the retirement age a few years for folks that are in their thirties and forties, I have a son who’s in the audience tonight who’s 30 years old. If he can’t adjust to a few year increase in Social Security retirement age over the next 40 years, I got bigger problems with him than his Social Security payments. “And the fact is we need to be realistic about this. There are only three things that go into determining whether Social Security can be solvent or not. Retirement age, eligibility for the program in general, and taxes. That’s it. We are already overtaxed in this country and we should not raise those taxes. But on eligibility also, I don’t know if out there tonight and if you’re watching Warren, I don’t know if Warren Buffett is collecting Social Security, but if he is, shame on you. You shouldn’t be taking the money.”

Christie was the only one of the five Republicans on the stage who even dared mention taxes.

Nikki Haley said:

“So first of all, any candidate that tells you that they’re not going to take on entitlements, is not being serious. Social Security will go bankrupt in 10 years, Medicare will go bankrupt in eight.”

Neither of those assertions are even remotely true, but, of course, this was a GOP debate. She continued:

“But for like my kids in their twenties, you go and you say we’re going to change the rules, you change the retirement age for them. Instead of cost of living increases, we should go to increases based on inflation. We should limit benefits on the wealthy.”

Her other solution, apropos of nothing, was to end government responsibility for Medicare and privatize the entire program by shutting down real Medicare and throwing us all to the tender mercies of the health insurance billionaires:

“And then expand Medicare Advantage plans. Seniors love that and let’s make sure we do that so that they can have more competition. That’s how we’ll deal with entitlement reform and that’s how we’ll start to pay down this debt.”

Ramaswamy’s answer was so incoherent and off-topic I won’t repeat it here. Suffice it to say he rambled on about the cost of foreign wars (Ukraine, Israel) “that many blood-thirsty members of both parties have a hunger for.” Apparently, Vivek doesn’t realize that Social Security isn’t part of our government’s overall budget but has its own segregated funds and trust fund.

Since it’s creation in 1935, Social Security never has and never will contribute to the budget deficit or influence any other kind of government spending.

Tim Scott said we should take a cue from Reagan, Bush, and Trump and just cut billionaires’ income taxes again because that does such a great job of stimulating the economy (not) and then claw back the inflation-based raises people on Social Security have received the past three years.

“Number two, you have to cut taxes. … So what we know is that the Laffer Curve still works, for the lower the tax, the higher the revenue. And finally, if we’re going to deal with it, we have to take our annual appropriations back to pre-2020, pre-COVID levels of spending, which would save us about a half a trillion dollars in the next budget window. By doing that, we deal with Social Security and our mandatory spending.”

DeSantis was equally incoherent, also refusing to answer the question about raising the retirement age and completely avoiding any mention of the sweetheart deal his billionaire donors get on their Social Security taxes. Instead, he said we needed to get inflation under control and stop Congress from “taking money from Social Security,” something Congress has never done and legally never will be able to do.

All this incoherence aside, Republicans appear to have a plan to deal with Social Security.

House Speaker MAGA Mike Johnson has been pushing a “Catfood Commission” just like Reagan’s 1983 commission that raised the retirement age to 67, reaffirmed the cap on taxes, and made Social Security checks taxable as income. He no doubt expects his commissioners will provide “recommendations” Republicans can run with to cut benefits without raising taxes on their billionaire donors, all while blaming it on the commissioners just like Reagan did in 1983.

When Johnson said that his “top priority” was creating such a commission “immediately” and that his Republican colleagues had responded to the idea “with great enthusiasm,” Democrats on the House Ways and Means Committee responded on Xitter:

“A week into his tenure, MAGA Mike Johnson is ALREADY calling for closed-door cuts to the Social Security and Medicare benefits American workers have earned through decades of hard work.”

But back to the original question. I understand why Republicans refuse to even consider lifting the cap on Social Security taxes so their morbidly rich donors won’t have to start paying their fair share of Social Security to keep the program solvent.

I’ve been watching Kristen Welker on television for years, and she’s generally been a pretty straight shooter as a reporter. Ditto for Lester Holt, who sat right beside her. This, frankly, astonished me.

Were they afraid Republicans would exact revenge on them if they raised the question of the tax cap?

Or was it precisely because they’re making millions, just like most of the executives they answer to?

More broadly, is this why we almost never hear any discussion whatsoever in the media — populated with other news stars who also make millions a year, managed by millionaire network executives — about lifting the cap?

One hopes the answer isn’t that crass...

Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.

#social security #social security tax #social safety net #republicans #republican party #corporate media #journalism #2024 presidential election

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princessbrunette · 3 months

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since you wanted dealer JJ!!

what about dealer JJ who always lowers the price of the weed or pre rolled joints, sometimes not even letting you pay and you're all confused and wide eyed because "I can't just get this for free jayj,that would be mean of me". But he lets her pay in another way....

yk,a way that gets her on with her legs over his shoulder. Even better if they're in the car!! 😼😼

-🥞

˗ˏˋ ★ ˎˊ˗

“if you don’t mind me asking, do you sleep with all of your clients that don’t have the cash?” you blink, sat on the pull out bed inside jj’s odd little shack that he dealt from. the bed was more comfortable than it looked, his room moderately messy as you observe it— sticking out like a sore thumb in your little mini skirt and shoulder bag tucked beneath your arm.

“all my other customers are dudes so no— thank you.” he rifles around in his drawers, searching for the particular pink grinder he’d purchased to impress you, releasing a quiet ‘aha’ when he finds it, bringing it to his little work station. “look, i don’t mind if you shoot me down n’call me a perv or whatever. it kinda just slipped out, not gonna lie — cos you’re like the finest girl that’s ever wanted to buy from me and i figured we could cut ourselves a little deal you know? make eachother feel good.” he rambles as he quickly packs the blunt, expert fingers stuffing the herb into the rolling paper and folding everything over with ease, clearly doing this multiple times a day. the way he moved with such ease stirred something within you and you run your tongue lightly along your bottom lip as you watch.

you figured he’d be kind of slutty, just from his general demeanour and from the fact he’s a cute guy selling weed— surely a hit for drunk girls at house parties. also the fact that he’d opened the door to you wearing brown dickie overalls with no shirt on beneath them and a backwards cap— the whole outfit just screaming that he knew what he was doing from the start.

“i don’t know, i feel dirty.” you smile. not uncomfortable or awkward, just pensive. he licks the rolling paper, sealing everything by rolling it between his fingers before turning around to face you, presenting the joint.

“then you can totally forget i said anything, fine by me. just uh— take this one, on the house. yeah?”

“i’ll get you the money.” you refuse with a bashful smile, rolling your eyes as you stand, taking the joint from his coarse fingers and letting him walk you towards his rickety front door.

“aaaand i’ll tell you that you can keep it.” he retorts, making you turn around and face him on his porch with a hand on your hip.

“you’re a dealer. this is your job.”

he shrugs, pressing his lips together in a determined smile and you soften, swaying on the spot for a moment as you stare at him. god, he was really cute.

“did you really mean what you said about letting me have anything for free if i let you ‘take a peek’”you quote his boyish words. it didn’t creep you out, the two of you having gained a real trust and friendship over the course of your visits, and plus he’d been around when you were growing up. he gets visibly embarrassed, sliding his cap off his head with a tight, dimpled smile and looking away from your big doe eyes that seemed to be glued to him.

“honestly, it was just a dumb ass joke i let slip and i thought you’d just tell me to shut up or something but instead you started considering it so i figured i’d just… see where it goes cos… you’re— well, it’s not like i’d turn you down i mean damn… a-anyway the point is— just ignore me. i’m a guy and i say stupid shit all the time. i’m sorry.” he’s off like a motor, barely stopping to draw in breath or lick his rubied lips, for someone who was apparently a stoner he really did speak fast.

you blink, taking in all of his words for a moment — letting your brain catch up. the sun was going down beside you, casting a beautiful warmth to your face that made this conversation all the more harder for him. he cringes during the silence, squinting into the sunset because he’d rather look at that than face your judgement.

“what if i wanna?” its barely a whisper, but it sucks his gaze right back in.

“you— like you wanna—”

“i’ll still get you the money… but… it’s not like i haven’t thought about it before.”

he’s dumbfounded, but once he’s gotten over the initial shock, it’s not long before the suns gone down and you’re back in his bedroom, pull out bed creaking and mattress springs popping whilst he rocks into you— already surprisingly and skilfully having made you cum around his fingers first.

“theeere you go. there you go now, you— you feelin’ good? wanna make you feel so fucking good.” he pants, rolling his hips as you mewl, a fistful of his blonde knotted locks.

“mm— mhm, never wanna see anyone else jj, feels so good.”

“you better not, oh this pussies mine now.”

˗ˏˋ ★ ˎˊ˗

#🥞 anon #jj maybank prompt #dealer!jj

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petermorwood · 7 months

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Microwave Sponge Cake (eventually)

Long ago, @dduane and I had a Whirlpool combi microwave - micro, grill, fan oven - and It Was Great, big enough to use as a proper oven when what needed cooked in a proper oven was small enough that powering up the big proper oven in the cooker was a bit much.

Still with me...?

IIRC it was one of those Christmas presents where Mum, ever-practical, told us; "get yourselves something really useful but not too expensive (I did say practical!) and I'll go halves."

In 2016, after something like 15 years of pretty-well daily use for one thing and another, the old thing expired by stages, micro first, grill second, oven last - it made great bread up until the end - and went to recycling heaven.

*****

We couldn't find a one-for-one replacement (we needed a free-standing counter-top appliance, everyone was selling built-in), so until once was available (optimism) we bought an ordinary microwave.

NB, this and its successors were only used for ordinary microwave things like reheating, defrosting and dealing with freeze-cook stuff. They got nothing like the amount of use of the old combi, mostly because of being incapable of doing a lot of it. As things turned out, this didn't help much.

About eighteen months later, we had to buy another. If a microwave's enamel interior develops a crack (to this day I don't know how), moisture gets in, rust begins and the enamel pulls off the bare metal. That's when you get "sparking".

This demo is deliberate; believe me, when it's unexpected it's even worse.

youtube

A private welder show or lightning storm at the end of the kitchen counter when all you want is a hot cuppa is distinctly unsettling. Also, it's only going to get worse, and we could imagine - boy, could we - what "Much Worse" might look like.

To the recycle dump!

(NB, micros with stainless steel interiors don't seem to do this, probably because they're already tuned to deal with the bare metal.)

The replacement, another ordinary micro, Just Up And Died after eighteen months and, guess what, the quote for a check-up and replacements-if-required was as much as the price of a new one.

(Inkjet printers seem to operate on this principal too.)

To the recycle dump again!

We got a third new one (which BTW is still running just fine, because it's been downgraded to Extra, read on), totalled up what we'd spent on ordinary microwaves, said a few well-chosen words about planned obsolescence and the "Vimes 'Boots' Theory of Economic Inequality" and got ourselves a pre-pay credit card whose top-ups were dedicated to Get A Combi Again.

We didn't bother with GACA baseball caps.

That would have been silly.

I don't know if these cards exist in the USA; we treat them as the modern version of a piggy-bank...

...except that to get at the money you need two people acting in accord.

*****

And in 2021 we got one.

Okay, this next bit is going to read like an ad.

It isn't, because the appliance is discontinued. (Whirlpool FINALLY do something similar but not identical.) It's just enthusiastic users discovering there's even more to a gadget than expected.

*****

The New One even bigger than the old one, which had 28 litres capacity; the new one was 33 L (was .99 ft³, is now 1.16 ft³). In non-tech terms, wow, More Room To Cook In.

Reading the figures was no help (to me, anyway) in visualising what a maw the thing had, but opening the door did that and no mistake.

I said something to DD about "bite radius"...

...and she instantly responded with "anyway, we delivered the bomb".

We're a quotesy household. ;->

BTW, The New One does a very good job on seafood, too...

*****

Since we got this, almost exactly two years ago, we've used it from reheating tea to roasting meat to making chilli / goulash / stew / curry (you can run the oven / grill separately or add simultaneous zaps of microwave for much less cooking time) to baking bread.

One of the best things about it is that when the set cooking time is done, the appliance switches off automatically. No risk of busyness, absent-mindedness or out-in-the-garden-ness ending in clouds of smoke, ruined food and possibly even worse.

As for breadmaking, it has a dough-rise setting which is a Time Machine, reducing a two-hour "doubled in size" rise time to about 35-45 minutes...

It also has the most reliable Defrost Butter setting either of us have ever encountered, turning a rock-solid butter brick from the freezer into something spreadable while never - to date - doing the "never mind a butter-knife, give me a spoon or a paintbrush" thing.

*****

However...

There's also a "Chef Setting" where there are some simple recipes. Here's the pastry page.

Basically, you assemble and mix the ingredients, input the correct settings and the machine does all the timing, heating and cooking.

We'd never used this until yesterday, when DD said, "Let's try the sponge cake..."

Yes, this post was entitled "Microwave Sponge Cake (eventually)..." and here we are...

We did all the measuring correctly and checked it by pouring the mixture into a baking container while on the scale, wondering betimes why the recipe says 900g, the ingredients total 925 and what actually poured into the container reads 906... Weird. Really weird.

Then we put the container into the oven, entered the correct code, and let things do what they were going to do.

A little later we discovered something else about the recipe besides a weight anomaly.

It didn't mention the required size of the container. Or or how much the mixture was likely to rise.

It rose...

Let's say more than we expected...

The fluted ceramic container used for baking this one makes it look like a Vesuvius cupcake; not quite a pyroclastic flow, but a lot of flow regardless.

Once it cooled we separated the sponge-cake from the escaped sponge in the same way as sculptors work with wood or marble - "Chip away everything that doesn't look like a cake" - and found that despite its misshapen looks, it tasted pretty good.

So today DD made another, this time using a larger container.

...and this time it stayed put until removed using the cunning base-and-lifting-straps of baking parchment.

It's not the loftiest or best-risen sponge cake either of us have ever seen (a smaller-diameter higher-sided container would probably deal with that) BUT if there's something needing sponge cake in a hurry - this went from cupboard ingredients to done and cooling in less than 55 minutes - that treatment seems to fit the bill.

We're now wondering what other secrets lurk in the simple recipe pages; falafel, quiche Lorraine, stuffed peppers, even Flammkuchen* from scratch.

(*Though I have my own views about Flammkuchen, mostly involving a plane flight...)

And we'll be paying a lot more attention to what size of dish we put them in. :->

#food and drink #kitchen appliances #combi microwaves #sponge cake #anecdotage #GNU Terry Pratchett #Youtube

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marleyybluu · 5 months

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Thinkin’ Bout You

Spooky Diaz x fem!reader

Word count: 1.2k

Content warning: 18+, gets a little hot at the end, overall fluff and mush, everyone’s in love and high, reader smokes weed, reader described to have thick thighs (of course tf), pretty sure I'm missing some sorry

A/N: I took a break from my break to post this lol I was gonna leave this as a stand-alone(it can still be read as such) but honestly? it’s giving two and counting lore… so I’ll put it as a part of that series.

(not mine, got it off pinterest but awooogaa!)

Friday. What a glorious day to be off work. You slept in, hell you'd say you deserved putting up all those work hours at the hospital, and after finally crawling out of bed you rolled a small joint for the morning, and smoked it on the balcony outside your bedroom. The neighbourhood was quiet, the air was crisp and a bit cold but it's nothing one of Spooky's sweaters couldn't fix. You wrap your arms around you, the sweater is warm and it smelt like his cologne, you close your eyes and smile at just the mere thought of him. You always think about him it was crazy how one man consumed your entire being but you were so glad it was him.

You wished he was home, wished he was here to smoke with you but he got called into work earlier than usual, you didn't even get a goodbye kiss which you were missing right now, the vacancy of those lips— soft as a cloud and always on top of yours so delicately— depending on the context of course.

Without him here the day seemed to pass on slower, you checked the time what seemed like every ten minutes which also didn't help. To distract yourself you clean and cook, call your mom until she is ready to, quote, "Go and do her own thing." And hung up on you.

You lay upside down on the couch, feet crossed as they hang over the back of the couch and your head hangs off the seat cushions, Living Single reruns consumed your screen. You were well distracted until you heard a car door slam and various keys jingling together, you sat up and gripped the back of the couch for dear life.

The lock turns. The door opens. And there he is. You scream with excitement. "Hi, babyyyyy."

He chuckles, not even ten seconds inside and you already had him smiling. "Hola mi corazón."

You roll off the sofa and run over to your man, leaping and wrapping your arms around his neck and your legs around his waist. He squeezes you so tightly you swear he'd crack a few bones but in the name of love, you wouldn't care. You pepper his face with kisses before you finally land on his lips and you mould into him, his hands firmly grasping your ass that barely fits in your shorts.

He smiles in the middle of your kiss and it's an instant chain reaction. "Missed me that much?"

"You have no idea."

He gives you another small kiss before he puts you down and you fight the urge to pout and demand to be picked back up, you just want to live in his skin 24/7, but you let him catch his breath. Let him put away his things, grab a Corona while you ogle him and the way his enormous arms flexed when he twisted the cap off and the foaming bubbles sliding their way to the top... almost spilling over... but then he saves it with tongue. You lick your bottom lip and zoom in on the involuntarily sexual act, oh, and the way his Adam's apple bobbed with every sip... fuck.

"Bebita," He calls. You slowly nod, still in your love-stricken daze. "You're droolin' a little bit ma."

You rub your chin and frown at him, there is no drool. He winks at you and you turn your face to the side to avoid any more butterflies in your stomach. "You smoke already?"

You nod. "Wanna smoke again or you good?" He sat his blunt, which magically appeared from his jeans, between his lips and nodded to the back door. "Nah, I'll smoke with you."

"Good, vamos."

••••• Your head lays in his lap, his hand cupped your cheek and his thumb caressed your skin. After you two smoked, you ate and had a blissfully shared shower, now you were sprawled out on the sofa still high as fuck watching Bridget Jones's Diary, he remembered you uttered something about wanting to watch a rom-com for once. You were in the mood to watch a love story, "or something."

But you were hardly paying attention to the screen, so lost in your own world of love, you pinch his chin aiming his at an angle so he'd look down at you. Make eye contact.

"Do you think about me?" A question asked so innocently. "Course I do, baby."

You run your finger down the column of his neck, over the lump of his Adam's apple. "What do you think about?"

He pauses the movie and focuses on you. "What's this about?"

"Nothing."

"You pregnant?"

You hit him. "Spooky! No!" He was obsessed with the idea of a baby. "Just answer my question."

He sighs, nostrils flair, he hated telling his deepest feelings but, "I think about you... and me, and what our life could be like. We could get married, could have a couple of kids. I always thought about gettin' like a summer house or something. Hit it every summer with them."

You smiled. "You think about all that?"

"Fuck yeah. I see us dropping them off on their tío, he watches them... we still get to have some us time, dates, trips...whatever you want."

You swear he makes you fall in love with him all over again at least once a week. "You think I haven't pictured the wedding? I know what I'll say in my vows already."

"Liar," You teased.

"Mi amor, the day I saw you-"

You quickly cover his mouth it'd be like spoiling a movie you hadn't seen yet. He licked your palm but you were quick to wipe it on his face. "Puta." He muttered. "Bastardo." You retaliated. "So how many kids do we have?" You sit up and adjust yourself so that you are now sitting with your back against the support of the couch and drape your legs over his thighs, the cold metal of his rings hits your hot skin when his hand contacts your leg. "Five."

"Are you out of your fucking mind?" You exclaim. "I've seen childbirth live and I think we can have one and a dog." He rolls his eyes. "Fine, whatever."

He leans over to kiss your forehead. "You think about me?"

"Once in a while." You joke, his jaw drops. "Once in a while!? That's how you feel? Ay, cariño, you're breaking mi corazón."

You place your hand over his and offer him a side smile before you kiss his cheek. "The way I jumped on you when you came home isn't proof enough."

He pulls you on top of him, your legs now sitting on each side of him with his hands gleefully squeezing every pound of flesh that makes up your thunder thighs that spread every time you sit and it makes him call them pancakes sometimes. "I might need a refresher."

"Oh, getting short-term memory already, Diaz?" You hum pressing your lips to his. "Just a little bit." He answers. Your hands fumble with the bottom of his shirt, he raises his arms and you break the kiss for just a second before you're back with tongues in each others throats and you're making out as if you're life depended on it, as if he's being shipped off to war and you don't know if he's coming back. Now it was your turn to pull back in need of some air. His smile is shaky, almost like a shy expression.

"Still kinda hazy."

You rid yourself of your top, with nothing under it.

"Oh don't worry," You lean in. "I'm about to make it real clear."

Not tagging anyone in this, I'm just testing something. if you liked this fic, feel free to like this fic, reblogs and comments are appreciated. peace and love, see you in the next one🤙🏾

#on my block #spooky fanfic #fluff #on my block fanfic #marleywrites #marleysfanfictions #spooky #spooky fanfiction #spooky x reader

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fictionalmenxyn · 1 year

Text

Incorrect quotes

—

Y/n: *watches sad movie with the boys* *sobbing quietly to themself*

Soap: Y/n are you crying?

*everyone looks at Y/n*

Y/n: what? Uh… no

Gaz: what’s that falling from your eye then?

Y/n: idk?? Sweat??

Ghost: eyes don’t sweat?

Y/n: I’m not crying you are!

Price: do you want a hug?

Y/n: *nods* that’d be nice.. thank you

—

Y/n: hold this

Gaz: no it’s going to be rubbish cause your too lazy

Y/n: no it’s not just hold this for me

Gaz: fine

Y/n: *places hand on his*

Gaz: you wanted me to hold your hand?

Y/n: maybe..

Gaz: why didn’t you ask?

Y/n: do you want me to stop? Cause I will if you want?

Gaz: no, never said that did I? Let’s go get some snacks and watch a movie

Y/n: *dies inside* okie

—

Y/n: *casually drawing in the break room*

Random solider: look at her drawing what is she five?

All the boys: *stands in front of the table your sat on*

Ghost: wanna repeat that?

*the random solider and his mates stay quiet*

Ghost: I suggest you all go some place else before things get out of hand

*the boys leave*

*all of your team looks at you*

*you look up*

Y/n: yeah?

Gaz: you alright?

Y/n: wait did something happen?

The boys: *confused*

Y/n: you know I was listen to music right?

Ghost: we’ll keep doing whatever if you need us let us know

Y/n: *smiles cutely* ok

(Love when people write about how y/n has ‘scary dog privileges’ with the boys)

—

Y/n: *rolls down car window* What seems to be the problem sir?

Price: your in my car and trying to drive off when you don’t have a license?!

Y/n: don’t think that’s the problem officer I think it’s the fact your a grumpy pants this afternoon

Y/n: GAZ! What did you do to Cap?!

—

Soap: What does this say?

Y/n: ‘this is war, time can go on but the war stays forever’

Ghost: you can’t read Greek?

Gaz: you can fucking read?!

Y/n:… bold of you to assume I couldn’t fucking read…

—

Hope you have a good day/night! :D

Request box is open feel free to ask just know I won’t post straight away! I will do it asap tho! :D

#task force 141 #task force 141 x y/n #cod x reader #cod mw2 #cod headcanons #platonic task force 141 x y/n #task force 141 x y/n memes #cod modern warfare #gaz x reader

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user-needs-new-hyperfixation · 2 years

Text

I am absolutely filled with adoration for people who leave comments on fanfic.

Bless you for your all-caps screaming and your keysmashing, I can spend days smiling like a goober in public places at the memory of it.

Bless you for your entirely needless apologies over commenting in a second language. I am so impressed by you! The most I know in any language besides English is how to introduce myself and maybe ask for the bathroom! You are so cool!

Bless you for coming out of your shell to comment when you’re nervous about doing so! Fanfic authors are a voracious species, but not a picky one. Even the smallest one-sentence comment is good food!

Bless you for quoting your favourite lines, or sharing some insight you gained into a character through the fic. It makes it so clear that you really read and absorbed all the little bits!

Bless you for noticing small details around world-building and setting and whatnot! It makes the googling worth it!

Bless you for commenting your own headcanons and ideas! They help me expand my own understanding of the setting and characters!

Bless you for writing your own fics! Get out there and put those characters in Situations™!

Aaagh I just...I love fandom so much, I really really do.

#fic writing #fanfiction #ao3 #fanfic comments

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sgiandubh · 6 months

Text

This is not a political post

One more time, in caps and bold: THIS IS NOT A POLITICAL POST. But if I can, as a diplomat and a historian, bring some extra context and try and understand what happened today in S's world, so be it. Enough said about me.

I am fumbling with a ton of thoughts since this morning, when this link was shared with me by one of the closest people in my platoon:

In a nutshell: S signed that (in)famous letter, an initiative of APUK (Artists for Palestine UK), a network that's been operating since 2015. You can read it in full if you open the link and I suggest you do. You will soon find out that the letter, while correctly pointing out the atrocious gesture of bombing a civilian hospital in Gaza, asked the world's governments to 'end their military and political support for Israel’s actions'. Nowhere in that letter did the word Hamas appear, which would immediately point out as supporting what is a terrorist movement that is, alas, also part and parcel of the Palestinian government, under Mahmoud Abbas's weak, irrelevant aegis. The man is an old PLO/Fatah crone: fishy, ineffective and fairly corrupted. His position on the Holocaust is, to be elegant, a study in ambiguity. Enough said.

It is pointless and absurd to try and explain the whole situation in detail. I would have to go back at least to the Balfour Declaration (1919) or the no less infamous end of the British/LoN/UN Palestine Mandate (1948), if I wanted to simply scratch the surface of a subject that is everywhere these days. With an intensity of absolutely legitimate emotions that can simply not be measured by any counter on this planet, as we speak.

But the facts are here, and naïve S had no damn idea: 500 civilians were killed, Tuesday night, in the bombing of the al-Ahli Baptist/Arab Hospital in Gaza City. Hullaballoo ensued on a cataclysmic scale: first, Hananya Naftali, a digital aide to Benjamin Netanyahu recklessly wrote on X that the "Israeli army [Tsahal] bombed a Hamas terrorist base inside a hospital in Gaza". Then erased the tweet. Several video collages released by the Tsahal, the first of which was heavily contested by a NYT journalist (and former Bellingcat researcher) Aric Toler, point out towards the PIJ (Palestinian Islamic Jihad)'s forces being responsible for the strike.

These quotes from an Al Jazeera paper sum up the ensuing scandal better than I ever could - selected by me, but you can and probably should read it all (https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/10/18/what-is-israels-narrative-on-the-gaza-hospital-explosion):

No craters mean no airstrike and most probably a rocket failure. The uneasiness remained, that being said, at the highest level. And the planned US-Egypt-Jordan- Palestine talks hosted by Amman were abruptly called off hours before Biden landed in Tel Aviv.

To cut the story short: the letter is right to point out that you just don't bomb hospitals when you are at war, as per the terms of the Fourth 1949 Geneva Convention, dealing with the protection of civilians in times of war. Both Israel (signed in 1949/ratified in 1951) and Palestine (2014) are, as parties and signatories, legally bound by it, in the eyes of International Law. The only problem with it is that it purposefully omits to put things into context (whodunnit) and forgets the cynical truth: Hamas keeps hundreds of innocent Israelis and two millions of innocent Gaza civilians as its hostages.

Article 18 is at the core of the matter:

The last thing S should have done is to sign that fucking treacherous letter, without getting a second (third, fourth...) opinion.

S is a good man, we all know and love this about him. He is also one of the most naïve people I have ever seen in this lifetime. This is why his final reaction really, really moved this cynic, here:

I am taking this home and keep it. It deeply moved me (yes, me):

" I don't know nearly enough and trying to educate myself on the conflicts in the Middle East. I feel helpless and wish I could help in some way.'

I am sure 'someone nice' called and 'nicely asked", maybe even offered some scarce and biased details, to prompt an impulse signature. I am also sure S didn't read the letter himself. There is no harm saying you were wrong. He did it with dignity and grace - no, it was not easy.

This is a man of worth speaking. Bravo!

But for the love of all that's holy, Sir: don't you ever step into this kind of shit again. These things are far more complex than you could ever fathom and it's a very cynical world out there. Leave it to us, we are handsomely paid for it by our governments. I hear you and I am completely supporting this more than welcome withdrawal. It's not worth much, for sure. But it is an honest POV.

Also, John 8:7:

So when they continued asking him, he lifted up himself, and said unto them, He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her.

Kindly refrain from politics in your comments. Let's not drag trash where it should not be, ever. Thank you all.

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zzoguri · 3 months

Text

safe haven (how much longer do we have?) ➵ jacob bae

jacob bae x reader, slight lee hyunjae x reader

you can only hope for more tomorrows with jacob.

genre/warnings ➵ strangers to lovers, heavy angst with a happy ending, touch of fluff, afab reader (no-gendered terms), lowercase intended, apocalypse au, hurt/comfort (both physical and emotional), depictions of grief, descriptions of gore/blood, use of guns, allusions and discussions of suicide, minor character deaths, hyunjae is your ex, changmin and kevin appearance :'), elements of the last of us (don't support neil druckmann!), mostly written in past tense (because u're remembering!)

word count ➵ 6.2k words

inspired by ➵ “anaheim” by niki, “are you happy?” by @wavesmp3, “love wins all” by iu, episode three of hbo's the last of us, and “you’re gonna carry that weight” quote from cowboy bebop

a/n ➵ my life changed forever reading shawna's piece. thank you for letting me write a piece based on your work (if you haven't read it, go check it out!) just like you, i am a sucker for apocalypse aus :')) hope i did justice to your beautiful work. anyway, love wins all coming out yesterday was a miracle because it's definitely made for this fic </3 thank you to @heemingyu and @deobienthusiast for betareading a bit of this! if you enjoyed reading, please do reblog and leave feedback!

want to be part of my taglist? send me an ask! masterlist

time was the one thing that occupied everyone’s minds. it held value, something that shouldn’t be wasted, and people revolved their lives around it.

questions flew around with every tick and tock—what day is it today? when’s your next doctor’s appointment? how long has it been since you’ve last seen your friends from high school? until when does this meeting last?

as the hands of the clock continue to rotate, the calendar pages would flip along. birthdays were celebrated with every revolution as candles on cakes were lit up, awaiting the puff of celebrants as they wished for their desires. holidays were ones to look forward to; people dressed up to celebrate periods of the year that mattered to them while others slept in until noon. and days were spent counting down until graduations, where caps with tassels would fly to the expanse of blue and orange as cheers and sobs sound throughout.

but now, no one keeps track of time. clocks stopped moving and calendars weren’t produced annually. once the surge of the infected took over, grabbing on humans, taking them away from the lives they’ve lived, everyone ran like they were running out of time. with every second that passes, people are ridden with possibilities of how they might bid farewell to life itself—would it be through the hands of the infected or their own?

now, only one question echoes within their minds: how long do we have?

yet, the clock continues—tick, tock, tick, tock. it keeps going, and going, and going, like how everyone expects it. while everyone seemed to let time go, you still kept track of it all: birthdays, holidays, a graduation you never had.

the outbreak hit two years ago on the day of hyunjae’s graduation. cheers turned into screams. white togas and diplomas were splattered with red. the lively became lifeless.

you remember hyunjae’s hand in yours, fingers gripping you as if you were his life, as you charged out of the gymnasium, legs keeping up with the speed of his. you darted off to nowhere as images of the infected tearing people apart took up every block, all the way from skin to bone.

and while it was a rush of tragedies, hyunjae was the only hope you had.

“keep your eyes on me,” he glanced at you, eyes off the path as he met your gaze. “don’t look at them. only look at me.”

it was impossible to ignore the wails that filled your ears, but you would repeat his words—his soft-spoken voice—to drown them out.

by nightfall, you and hyunjae found yourselves in a motel room, skin cleaned from blood splatters and dressed in clothes that engulfed your figures, and in each other’s arms on a twin-sized bed. the duvet that wrapped around you two is thin, not at all keeping you warm for the night, but the warmth of hyunjae was enough to provide you a sense of security—stability amidst the ever-changing world.

he whispered into the crown of your head, words meant to dispel your fears, all while you sobbed into his shirt. there was nothing that he could do but stay strong for you.

and for a few days, that room acted as your safe haven. the time spent within those four walls is the life you imagined your future with hyunjae. it would’ve been in a two-story house with a garden where a singular orange tree stands, lounging on the couch as you played movies to fall asleep to, but all you had was an old room with a carpeted floor with unrecognizable stains and a bathroom unable to fit two.

yet, you would choose this over anything. even if it meant eating instant noodles for every meal or sleeping on a mattress that ruins your backs, you would choose this if it meant hyunjae would be with you.

still, time continues to move. hyunjae knew that you both couldn’t stay in that room or else the infected may reach you. so when you both went to bed on that last night, you outlined his features from the space between his eyebrows all the way to his lips, and you spent that time memorizing his warmth to carry with you for the rest of your life. you could only hope that he stays with you until the end.

after a month passed, you and hyunjae met changmin, an injured boy who only wanted to live. at first, hyunjae was hesitant to take the stranger in, but you wouldn’t allow yourself to live with the idea of abandoning someone in need. in a world where the infected have taken over, it only seemed right to help out others, save them from a fate they’re not ready to meet.

what started off as a pair turned into a trio. you’ve learned more about what it takes to survive in this life. long gone is the need for money to buy necessities; you need to scavenge if you want to live in an infected-ridden world. thanks to changmin, you and hyunjae got to learn about how to find supplies in every building that you pass on the journey.

but it’s not enough to know where to find food and bullets. hyunjae decided that it was only right to teach you how to use a gun. with every morning that came, you two spent hours learning how to hold, reload, and fire.

“don’t worry,” he told you as his chin hovered over your shoulder. you both stared at the tin can situated on a stack of boxes only a few meters away. “you won’t have to worry about fighting alone. i’ll be here with you.” as you exhaled, your eyes zeroed in on the target. “now, shoot.”

six months have passed, and you were happy that you were still a trio. changmin became your best friend over that time. his laughs were enough to shine glimmers of hope onto you. you were glad that you decided to help him off the ground and tend his bullet wound that day.

until you found yourselves retreating from the horde of infected.

time moves at a constant speed but it can become swift if it decides to. when you and changmin reached the doors leading to safety, you remember seeing hyunjae fighting off those who were once like you, bullets firing at their heads. you remember your screams, telling him to run to you—go to where it’s safe—so that you can keep having tomorrows with him.

yet, hyunjae glanced at changmin, nodding at him before his eyes met yours. you watched how his mouth moves, a soundless three-word phrase leaving him before the doors shut before you. you would’ve pried them open but changmin kept his arms around you, holding you back from letting the infected reach you, from letting hyunjae come back to you.

the wails that left you are enough to attract the infected. if only the infected were to burst through the doors, grab onto you and bring you to hyunjae, then maybe you would stop crying. yet, changmin dragged you away. you never saw him as your best friend after that.

a month passed, and you still refused to talk to him. the boy tried to strike up a conversation with you, trying to earn your laugh like he used to, but he was only met with a cold shoulder. with every brick he put, you smashed your sledgehammer against it, dispelling any hope he had in rekindling his friendship with you.

the two of you learned to live in silence, fighting for survival while dealing with the loss of the one who would always bring you both to safety.

until you came across another boy who pointed his gun toward you. his defensive demeanor reminded you of hyunjae, and you wondered if this was his doing—his reincarnation. but before he could pull the trigger, changmin saved you from meeting your fate.

somehow, the duo had turned into a trio once more. you still refused to talk to changmin, but would eavesdrop on the conversations he shared with the stranger. you learned that the new addition is named jacob.

but even the stranger wasn’t enough to fill the void that hyunjae left. with every nightfall, when the soft snores of the two boys filled your ears, tears streamed down your face as sobs threatened to spill out of your mouth. the palm of your hand wasn’t enough to muffle your weeps. behind your eyelids, hyunjae’s last words to you play on repeat—the ones he failed to say, the ones you’ll never hear again.

maybe if you didn’t leave that motel room then he would’ve still been with you, arms finding their place around your waist as he trails kisses all over you. if the outbreak didn’t happen, then maybe you would be living in that two-story house with him. maybe you would wake up to a glass of freshly squeezed orange juice by the bedside table and the warmth of his lips on your forehead. and maybe you could finally tell him yes before he slips the silver band on your finger—you could’ve grown with him until your hair turns grey.

the weight you carry never got lighter with time. the void continued to consume you whole with the goal of ripping you apart. as another month passed, another life was lost—not to the infected but to the raiders.

“changmin, you have to stay with me.” those were the first words you told him since hyunjae’s death. crimson continued to spill out of his abdomen through the gaps between your fingertips in the same way tears flow out. “jacob! find gauze, betadine, anything!” you never glanced at the stranger, keeping your gaze on your best friend whose eyes continued to droop.

still, changmin caressed your face, thumb wiping teardrops. as he slowly entered territories that you both knew he would never escape, he grinned at you one last time. “i missed hearing you. i’m glad you’ll be the last thing i hear.”

but you tried to tell him that you couldn’t be the last voice he heard. it should’ve been with someone he can imagine his future with, maybe in a two-story house or a cramped flat in an apartment complex. he deserves more tomorrows in the same way hyunjae did.

but time continues to move. it took him away from you in a matter of minutes, slithering away without a second thought and no regard for the value of life, and all you were left with was his temple—still, lifeless. as you sobbed into his shirt, still holding the wound, the warmth of jacob’s hand stayed on your back, moving along with your wails.

now, you carry the loss of two. it never got easier with time.

jacob still sticks with you. it only seemed right. stay strong in numbers as you wander off to nowhere, grasping at the loose ends of survival.

two weeks have passed. you and jacob got used to the new dynamic; while he goes hunting and you’re tasked with scavenging, you both played your roles in combat, ready for any raid or horde. when night would come, you both took shifts, keeping watch while the other got some shut-eye.

until that one evening.

you recall the sounds of wood crackling from the fire. it stood strong against the breeze—burning, shining—surrounded by greens that latch on browns. hues of amber cascaded over your skin, painting you with warmth—it’ll never compare to the one you craved. your eyes drifted to jacob who sat across from you, his eyes trained on the fire as he rubbed his palms together. perhaps he craved the same type of warmth you longed for.

“we used to be three.” his eyes snapped towards yours. “before you came, we used to be three—changmin, me, and—” it rose in you like bile, wanting to escape but never leaving. “we were three then.”

you glanced at the fire that continued to burn. “we met changmin a month after the outbreak, spent six months together until—” the claws of the void struck against your throat, holding you back from sharing with the stranger what your life was before he came. while you never found the right words to say, jacob never pushed, letting you say what you wanted to share while filling in the blanks on his own.

“i resented changmin after what happened.” you moved your gaze to jacob whose eyes never left you. “refused to talk to him. refused to forgive.” and you remember how you hesitated, taking a deep breath in before sputtering out the next sentence. “refused to accept.”

nine months ago, the outbreak didn’t happen. nine months ago, you were attending hyunjae’s graduation. nine months ago, you two were imagining your tomorrows—together, for eternity.

and those nine months fractured all hopes and dreams; the glass is now littered with cracks, ready to burst into shards.

“but i think about the last time we saw changmin,” the image of him sitting in front of you all frail, treading the line between life and death, flashed in front of you; it’s quick but strong to remind you of what’s lost. “and i wish i could’ve learned how to forgive during those two months.”

but it was an impossible request. how could you ever forgive a boy you’ve known for only six months for taking your future away? how could you forgive a world that took him away? how could you forgive and live?

and still, you did.

you left it at that. they were enough. so when you told jacob that you’ll take over tonight’s shift, he never asked to hear more. instead, he laid near the campfire as you keep an eye out.

and once enough hours have passed, you allowed yourself to sob like other nights. the breeze that passed through branches reminded you of changmin; rustling leaves imitated the giggles of the boy you’ve only known during the apocalypse.

the wind that grazed against your skin should’ve been a nuisance, but the warmth of the fire wrapped you up like the duvet in that motel room. and you don’t complain—it’s the only part of hyunjae you have left.

the heat was enough to last you the night, but the chill of reality sent you back to the void.

that night, jacob listened to your sobs. not one of you got enough rest for the journey.

another two weeks went by. you two got into a better groove of the routine; instead of hunting and scavenging in silence, you and jacob found yourselves talking more about your lives before the outbreak. you learned that he was born the same year as hyunjae, and he shared that he had plans to pursue music.

“if the world finds a cure to this mess, you have to promise me that you’ll get me front-row tickets to your first show.” it was a joke. in what world could there be a cure for the infected? but the wishful thinking of what could be—what could’ve been—is all you had left.

still, jacob promised you that.

that night, you two stayed in the living room of an abandoned house. instead of lighting the fireplace, candles were placed on the coffee table. they shined in the middle of you two, you who stayed on the couch and jacob who sat on the mattress lying on the floor.

“where were you?” his eyes met yours. “on the day of the outbreak, i mean.”

he leaned back, hands resting on the mattress before he looked once more at the wax that continued to melt. “it was my graduation.” it hit you like a sudden downpour on a sunny day. “i was next in line to go up on the stage until the infected came.”

and when you said the name of the university, his gaze met yours as his shoulders stiffened. “m—my hyunjae.” it’s the first time you spoke of his name, and the sight of jacob’s eyes widening over it was enough to speak for himself.

“i—i didn’t know,” he whispered, but his words were loud enough to shatter glass. “i only spoke to him a few times. he spoke of you with so much love.”

your heart skipped beats; it should’ve been enough to send you off into the same territories where hyunjae and changmin now stay. your mouth turned dry as jacob’s voice morphed into radio silence.

before you knew it, the two of you left the information to hang in the air as you tried to drift into slumber. the clock continues to tick. minutes turned into hours; time moves like it usually does once more.

yet, you were stuck in the same gymnasium, fixing hyunjae’s toga as you scolded him about how wrinkled it’s become—hey! you’ll go up on stage soon. we can’t take pictures of you like this. despite your words, he smiled at you before grazing his lips on your temple—his silent way of telling you the three-word phrase.

in a split second, you were off the couch. you barged out of the house, clutching your chest as the knot constricted your throat, and your feet dragged you off to nowhere. every sound has turned into a buzz—only the voice of hyunjae being the one clear thing amidst the hysteria.

before you knew it, you stood before a horizon of green. it takes only one step into the woods, alone with no protection, for you to meet your demise. you would’ve charged into it in the same way you would’ve charged out to save hyunjae that day.

all it takes is one step, and—

“what are you doing?!” a pair of hands gripped your shoulders, spinning you around until you were face-to-face with the last form of life that you know of. his breaths were short as his fingers dug into your arms. “you can’t just rush out in the middle of the night! i woke up worried sick.” his eyebrows knitted in frustration. confusion. distress.

the voice was caught in your throat. how does one begin to unpack the baggage they’ve learned to carry? when the items they bring are revolting, rotten, repugnant, how does someone not feel shame about showing all the tattered-up objects? how do you learn to open up to someone you’ve only known for three months?

your hands trembled; you’ve carried the weight of it all for too long.

in that split second, your nose met the juncture between his chin and shoulder. the material of his shirt against your cheek allowed you to bathe in what you miss—the hand of changmin that once caressed your face, the lips of hyunjae that lingered with every kiss. all the moments that you hoped time would freeze just for you lives in the boy you stick with for survival.

all it took were jacob’s hands to rest on the lower side of your back for the tears to begin their stream. the sobs spill out. for once, they weren’t muffled like those other nights. they sounded throughout the space that surrounded you two. you allowed yourself to drop the baggage only for a few minutes.

jacob took you back to the house that night, allowing you to sob about all that you’ve kept under the wraps. when sunrise came, you found your legs mixed with his as his arms remained wrapped around you, and your ear pressed against his chest. the sound of his breathing is the one reminder of what a safe haven is.

half a year went by. jacob still stays by your side. the baggage got lighter.

it should’ve been the same routine; jacob goes off to hunt while you scavenge, and you’ll take turns on the night shifts. but that night shifted something between you two—stolen glances, quiet giggles, linked fingers.

two months have gone by. the moon shined through the trees, their shadows cascading on an abandoned cabin that you and jacob decided to stay in for that night.

it should’ve been the same set-up as other nights spent in abandoned houses; you’ll sleep on the couch while he sleeps on a dragged-out mattress. instead, he sat with you on the couch, your back resting on his chest along with his hand staying on your arm.

a lit candle rested on the table; its amber tones painted the jacob’s skin—close to the fruit tree that stands in your lost future.

“what would you do if there is a cure to this?” you watched how his fingers danced across your skin, calloused from plucking guitar strings or wielding a gun.

jacob’s chest rumbled against your back as he hummed. “what would you do?”

a giggle left you as you looked at the boy. “i was the one who asked you first!”

he shot you a grin as his hand slipped into yours. the candle continued to burn; it did a poor job of giving you light and warmth that night. but he did it all—one smile. one exhale. one indication to show that he lives.

“travel, maybe? or i’ll go back to writing music.” you nodded at his plans before looking back at the light source. “what about you?”

“i don’t know.”

there was no point in going back to university after such a catastrophe. if anything, the year spent surrounded by the infected, fighting for survival, has shown you that there’s more to life than the perpetual cycle of working a nine-to-five.

so…

“i would settle down if i could.” the wax continued to melt. “i think i’ve seen enough of the world. for once, i just want to stay home, indulge in my hobbies, live the life that i want.”

his breath grazed the top of your head. “with someone?” and suddenly, you became aware of it all—the heat that emitted from his palm, the movement of his chest against your back, the gravity of his question.

the words get caught in your throat. your heartbeat rang in your ears. for the first time since hyunjae’s death, you considered it.

“with someone.”

before you knew it, his hand caressed your cheek. you were forced to meet his eyes—they glistened with devotion. he leaned forward, his breath grazing your skin while you held in yours. you didn’t miss how his gaze flickered to your lips before he met your eyes once more.

then, he held back. it’s a choice, one only you can make. but when your eyes shut, it’s a quiet plea—a silent yes.

his lips met yours.

the warmth that blossomed in your chest wasn’t like the one in that motel room. not like the embrace of the one you’ve lost. it was one of all seasons—changing with the weather, bringing comfort throughout the everchanging times.

it’s a perpetual cycle of fighting for survival. you’ll endure through it all.

a month passed by, and you came across another boy on the journey. he’s named kevin, and he told you of a safe haven located in the town that you and jacob grew up in.

for a moment, it was an internal debate—should you go back to where the downfall started? can you go to where the memory of hyunjae still lives?

but one glance at jacob was enough to settle it. the three of you embarked on your journey.

you remember that day. it was a walk with the goal of finding a car to make the journey back an easy one. the heat of the sun prickled against your skin, but you still kept your arms crossed.

“are you two together?” kevin asked, causing you to whip your head towards him. your eyes met jacob’s for a split second—confusion, dejection—before they landed back at the stranger who kept his eyes on the path you took.

“no, we aren’t.”

for the rest of the journey, it was quiet.

sundown came, and you found yourselves in a convenience store for that night’s shelter. jacob was in charge of taking the night shift, allowing you and kevin to rest up. when the stranger went off to sleep on the makeshift bed, you were left alone with jacob.

you watched how he cleaned his gun with a rag stained with dark splotches. the moon gleamed through the window—it cannot compare to how jacob shines.

you needed to get some sleep is what you tell yourself. with one spin, you were about to make your way to where you’d sleep for that night.

“are we really not?” you halted in your tracks. you couldn’t look at him. “did it mean nothing?”

not a single answer left your mouth. your eyes remained straightforward, refusing to meet his gaze.

the warmth vanished with a lack of an answer. instead, it was replaced once more with the cold—the void—that attempted to consume you whole.

and when a scornful chuckle left jacob, you knew that you’d burnt the bridge. you walked away, leaving him to do his job, bidding farewell to the closest form of a safe haven.

two weeks went by, and another goodbye had to be done. kevin stood in front of you two, a grin on his lips while tears streamed down his face. his arm was out, revealing a bite mark. the veins near the wound had already turned black. he would’ve turned in a few hours.

“go out.” those were jacob’s first words to you since that night in the convenience store.

you remember the last thing you told kevin before you left the room—you’ll get to your safe haven. the sobs that spilled out of him are ones you’ll never forget. and when you shut the door behind you, it took 20 seconds until you heard a gunshot.

the weight got heavier once more.

another two weeks went by, and you and jacob found yourselves standing in front of the remains of a safe haven. the fences were torn down. streaks of dark red littered over pavements. not a single sight of a soul lived.

still, you two trudged your way through the town, all the way until you reached jacob’s house. like others, his was abandoned. the cream walls were littered with red strokes and vines. when you both entered, you didn’t miss how jacob’s eyes lingered on a photo hung on the wall—a picture of him, his brother, and his parents.

you gave him all the time he needed to explore, to sit with the mess, while you stayed in the living room. as you sat on the couch that had gathered dust, you caught sight of a bowl of plastic produce that rested on the coffee table. it held a variety of fruits whose paint had chipped: watermelon, chestnut, and fig.

but amidst the crowd of old, torn-down, plastic fruits, a pear and an orange leaned against each other as grime collected on them. once your hands reached out to the fruits, you pulled them apart—a mess of green and orange stained the two.

he came back to you in 30 minutes, eyes glistening with tears. yet, he only gave you a nod, and you two went to another house.

you then stood in front of your old house with jacob by your side. weeds grew in the front yard, and the wooden exterior has turned a few shades darker. silence settled between you two.

to be back in a place you grew up in, where all your memories live, is a process—a grieving one. being face-to-face with the damage brought by the infected can only remind you of what you had and could’ve had.

and once you made your way to your childhood room, you were reminded of all your hopes and dreams before the outbreak. dust rested on top of books. the laptop on your desk had no charge. potted plants have withered.

when you approached the picture frames found on your table, your hand darted out to a photograph of you and hyunjae. there was no occasion when that picture was taken—the fact that you two were together was enough for it to be remembered. memorialized.

as you made your way back down the stairs, you saw jacob crouched in front of the console table with eyes. trained on photographs. “was this your high school graduation?” you approached him and saw the picture he was referring to, you who stood beside hyunjae with a big grin as his lips were on your temple.

“yeah,” you said as you crouched beside jacob. “we knew each other back when i was a freshman.” your fingers trailed on the wooden frame, gathering the dust before flicking it away. despite your efforts, it was still covered in grime, but you didn’t mind.

“and you stayed together since?” all you did was hum. “did you find anything up there?”

for the first time since you entered your old house, you looked at jacob and he met your gaze. your eyes trailed his features. the eyes that speak of a thousand words. the lips that once kissed yours.

and it hit you like the gunshot that filled your ears, the breeze that rustled the leaves that one night, the doors that shut close. it was 20 months since the outbreak happened, 13 months since you lost hyunjae, and 11 months since changmin told you his last words—but it was also 13 months spent with jacob, choosing to survive with him.

“yeah.”

you found a lot of things within those four walls. there were books you once read growing up, stuffed toys you slept with, and the one picture of you and hyunjae; they’re the remaining pieces you have left of a life that was good.

you would’ve kept it all, rebuilt the life that was ripped away by the hands of the infected—

“but nothing to hold on to.”

they’re memories, ones you’ll carry with you, but ones worth moving on from.

“oh,” he said as his eyes still held your gaze. “okay.”

and with one exhale, you said, “let’s rebuild it, just a place for us two.”

it was a whirlwind of emotions in jacob’s eyes, ones you can’t identify. for a moment, you thought he’d say no. maybe he decided that 13 months was enough. one more day with you would be too much, and—

“okay.” when his hand reached out for yours, linking fingers with you like all other times, you gave him a small smile.

when you and jacob stood up, you made your way out of the house, off to find a place just for you two—a safe haven to last you many tomorrows with him.

a month passed. the safe haven was rebuilt; the fences stood strong with electrical wires and barbed wires, and the town was cleaned of all remnants of grime and blood. the two of you took up different tasks ranging from cleaning, cooking, building, and maintaining the haven.

but while you were okay with a knife, accidents did happen. “fuck!”

“what happened?” you remember how jacob came rushing in, only to see you pressing on the skin around the cut on your finger.

before you knew it, you were sitting down with him as he wrapped gauze around the wound. “jacob, it’s just a cut. i’ll be fine.”

“still, i don’t want you getting hurt.” you watched how his eyes were focused on treating your finger. “i’ll be in charge of cooking now.”

you shook your head. “no, i like to cook. i want to cook for us.” his gaze then met yours, his filled with worry while yours filled with determination. they flickered back to your finger, and his hands busied themselves with covering it up.

once he was done, his hand continued to hold yours. you remember the heat of his thumb as it drew patterns on your hand. he’s etched himself onto you.

his eyes met yours once more, and he said, “okay, just let me help out.” all you gave him was a nod.

another month went by, and you woke up to the sound of gunshots. you remember how hazy your vision was that night, fresh from sleep but panic coursing through your veins. and when you looked beside you to only see an empty spot, you didn’t think twice about rushing out of bed.

when you exited the house, you saw jacob holding his gun, firing at the people who attempted to tear down the haven’s fences. “jacob!” when he looked back at you, you caught sight of the crimson that poured out of his abdomen.

another gunshot was fired, grazing jacob’s leg, and he fell to his knees. you ran to him, reaching out to rest your hand on the wound as you began to sob. “fuck! you have to stay with me.” with his arm resting around your shoulders, you dragged him back to the house.

you set him on the table and moved his hand to hold where he was shot. “hold it.” you rushed to where the medical supplies were stored and gathered whatever you could hold. when you got back, you saw how blood continued to spill out.

you got to work, focused on trying to patch him up—making sure he stays. “you can’t go. i won’t let it happen.” and while your hands busied themselves with treating the injury, you remember how jacob’s hand caressed your cheek, thumb wiping away the spilled tears.

“in the basement, there’s a piece of paper that has all the codes. if you ever—”

“no, you’ll be okay.”

still, he continued to talk. “if you ever forget the codes, you can always look at the paper. don’t forget that you need to always check the water system every two days, and—”

“jacob!” you croaked out his name in between sobs. “you’ll be okay. you have to, okay?” the more he went on about what to keep in mind, the baggage got heavier. “i can’t do this without you. i won’t allow it.”

because 15 months ago, you would’ve bid farewell to the mayhem. 13 months ago, you hoped for time to drag you away. 12 months ago, you would’ve walked into the forest. but it’s been 22 months, and you were still walking on this earth, choosing to live amidst the chaos—so long as jacob was with you.

and when you leaned your forehead on his, eyes closed, you felt his breath graze against your lips. “i need you.”

all it took were three words from you. “okay.”

it’s been two months since that happened. the safe haven was rebuilt once more. you and jacob fortified the defense system, hoping they’ll be enough to keep any infected and raiders out. all that matters is that you two were protected—safe—from the chaos.

now, you sit on a couch as you flip through the pages of a book you didn’t have time to read before the outbreak. when all responsibilities vanished, you were able to find enough time to do things you couldn’t do then.

you were ready to get yourself sucked into the world of the novel, but jacob came into the living room with his hands behind his back and a small smile on his lips. “do you remember what you made me promise you before?”

you frown at him, confused, until he shows you an acoustic guitar. “oh my god, you found one?” you put the book on the coffee table.

he takes a seat beside you, body facing towards you as he rests the instrument on his lap. “here, first-row tickets to my first show.” you almost laughed because this is no stadium or club, but a home—one you built with him.

it takes only one smile from him for you to hold it back.

“any song requests?” he strums on the guitar strings, perfectly in tune. it’s almost as if he tuned it before coming to you.

a hum leaves you as you rest your head on your hand propped on the couch. “whatever you want to show me.”

it takes him a few seconds, fingers fiddling with the strings, until he figures out what to play. when he sings out the words—dearest, darling, my universe—you melt like the candles you lit up those nights. as he continues to play a song of a world in hysteria but a love that endures, that’s when you realize what you’ve had all this time.

time is the one thing that occupies your mind. it holds value, something that shouldn’t be wasted, and you learned to revolve your life around it.

it takes you two years to figure out that life doesn’t end after the outbreak—and 17 months to realize that your safe haven is not a two-story house with an orange tree in the garden but the boy in front of you.

when you lean closer to him, his fingers falter, messing up the chords. your hand reaches out to caress his face as your eyes flicker to his lips. you don’t miss how jacob holds his breath, how he stops playing the guitar, how his eyes look back at yours—it’s a slurry of warmth, tenderness.

“i love you.”

all it took was a three-word phrase from you for him to close the distance.

the warmth that spreads within you is like the one you experience in the abandoned cabin. but now, you’re full of hope—a reason to stay—in an infected-ridden world.

now, only one question echoes within your mind: how much longer do we have?

an eternity is what you hope.

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