#or the series would have ended at the killing game
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Killing Me Softly | (Joel x teacher!f!reader)
Chap. 10 Home
Summary: How bittersweet it is to come home.
Rating: 18+ Explicit
Word Count: 8.6k
Warnings: NONE!!!! Find out for yourselves xoxo
A/N: If you made it this far, thank you. This obviously isn't the absolute END, there will be an epilogue to come... but I still want to thank each and every one of you. This series has such a special place inside my heart, and I will be forever grateful for the love and support you all have given. All the kisses and hugs and love to you all. (I also realize there are going to be a few questions left unanswered, but I promise it'll be resolved in the epilogue)
* And once again, I'm the most thankful to @loonmartell for helping me create the most beautiful story. Sending you all my love, sweet pea <3 *
Masterlist | Ko-Fi
You most definitely had a concussion—which was not ideal when you were behind the wheel of a moving vehicle. Not only were you trying to subdue the memories still filtering through your mind, but you were also trying to navigate the roads with blurred vision. Streetlights that had once been unfamiliar slowly morphed into a memorized path, leading you right back to the place you once called home. Sarah had guided you home just months ago after a soccer game, but this was different. This was a reawakening, a thousand tiny moments rising from their endless slumber. Each turn of the wheel and stopsign guided you back to the one person your heart cried out for… Joel.
If only your brain and heart could get on the same page. While your heart ached for Joel in ways you hadn’t felt in months, your mind still clung to the anger you associated with him over the last several months. You couldn’t just stop loving him, but you didn’t know how to stop hating him at the same time.
The final turn into his neighborhood was coming up fast, yet your speed came to a crawl. It hadn’t even occurred to you that he could have moved on. Half a year was enough time for Joel to move on, to find another woman, to be happy without you. You experienced the exact opposite: you couldn’t move on, didn’t find another man, and were far from happy. Seeing him again was probably a mistake, but how would you move on now that you knew everything?
The nausea was back in full force as you pulled up to Joel’s home, his truck parked crooked in the driveway. This was your home once upon a time. Yeah, you were going to be sick again. Wrenching the door open, you leaned out of your car and dry-heaved. Nothing came up, which you were thankful for. You needed a strong stomach and a clear mind for whatever would come. The ground beneath your feet became distorted as you walked the path up his front yard. You took a moment to shake away the double-vision, your mind clouding around the edges. It was not the time to lose your grip on reality.
The worn wood of Joel’s front door taunted you, your hand hovering over the center as you debated knocking. All it would take is a quick rap of your knuckles, and you’d see him again. Before you could sabotage yourself, your knuckles tapped against the door.
“Comin’!”
The sound of Joel’s voice in the distance electrified your nerves. He was right there. Any moment, he’d open the door and—.
The door cracked open, and you stared up into the familiar brown eyes that plagued every memory overlapping inside your mind. Joel stood motionless, his eyebrows slightly raised and lips parted. He looked at you as if you were a ghost. You gave him the most pathetic smile, unsure of what to do with your hands or body.
“Can I come in?” You blurted out.
“Of course,” he said softly, opening the door wider.
A simple step over the threshold, and you were home.
You took a moment to let it all settle in: nothing had changed. The varnish was worn in certain places on the floor, the same as it had been when you lived here. Joel walked the same path daily: through the front door and to the right, directly into the kitchen. Sarah’s soccer bag hung on the staircase railing, a pair of her shoes strewn across the second step.
“Is Sarah home?” You asked, your eyes still wandering around the downstairs of the house.
“No, she’s stayin’ with a friend this weekend,” he replied.
Joel shifted his weight, tearing your focus away from the house and back onto him. There was a look of confusion furrowing his brows together, and you realized you hadn’t entirely explained yourself to him yet.
“Listen, I know I’m here unannounced,” you started. “I, uh, I haven’t touched the book since you gave it back. Well, I didn’t until today. I found it again, and this slipped out.”
Digging through your purse, you pinched the Polaroid between your fingers and pulled it free. Joel hesitantly reached for it, his fingers avoiding touching yours as he held it between his hands. A small smile formed on his lips as he ran his thumb over the photo's edges.
“This was from a campin’ trip we went on with Sarah,” he sighed. “Sarah had just taken a tumble in some mud, and I remember I couldn’t stop laughin’, and you were quick with a camera and snapped this photo.”
“I know.”
“I got a photo of you, too. I still got it hangin’ up somewhere—.”
Joel’s voice trailed off, his eyes drifting up to yours. He had been so wrapped up in reminiscing that he didn’t listen to what you said.
“Do you still have the one of Sarah, too?”
Joel’s eyes grew wide, swaying in place.
“You remember?” He faltered.
“I remember everything, Joel.”
Not Mr. Miller. Joel.
Joel opened and closed his mouth at least three times before finally just shaking his head. He took a step back, letting the picture fall to the ground. You glanced down at the Polaroid lying between your feet, the photo of Joel doubling in your vision. Your body moved on its own accord, your balance teetering as you stumbled a bit to the side. Joel quickly caught your weight, his hands firm around your arm.
“Woah,” he exhaled. “Y’okay?”
“I might have a concussion,” you laughed absently. “Took a bit of a fall earlier and hit my head.”
Joel cursed under his breath and slipped an arm around your waist, guiding you toward the dining room. Sunlight bled through the window shades on the wall, and you squinted your eyes to avoid intensifying your headache. The kitchen was just as you had remembered: cluttered and homey. Piles of dishes were laid in a drying rack by the sink, the dark countertops void of dirt aside from a few crumbs from toast or a residual ring of condensation from a beer bottle.
Joel helped you into one of the dining room chairs, moving swiftly to get you a glass of water. You weren’t sure if he meant to do it, but he had sat you in your chair at the table, the one you had always chosen during any family meal with him and Sarah. You smoothed your hands over the table, digging your nails into the groves of the woodwork.
“Here,” Joel said, extending a glass to you.
You muttered a soft thank you, taking a drink as he took a seat beside you—his seat. The silence between you both was louder than the ringing in your ears, and you couldn’t stand it any longer.
“Say something,” you pleaded.
Joel leaned forward, resting his elbows on his thighs as he peered up at you through glassy eyes. You knew that look: the exhaustion, the sadness. You had worn it well the last several months, and clearly, so did Joel. The person you were six months ago would have loved seeing Joel look so disheveled, but not now. Not when the past was hanging in the balance, finally uncovered and real.
“Does Bennett know you’re here?” Joel asked, his eyes rising to yours.
“What?” You gaped. Out of all the things Joel could have said, he chose that?
“Tommy saw y’all together,” he huffed.
You wracked your brain, remembering when Tommy could have seen you and Bennett together. The only time you had seen Bennett was after the…. Oh.
“He asked to meet me after everything happened,” you explained. “He wanted to share his side of things. You left out a lot, Joel. There was so much you didn’t tell me, and I had to rely on Bennett to piece the rest back together.”
“Are you datin’ him again? ‘Cause if you are, just tell me, and I’ll—I’ll find a way to move on and let you be happy. I ain’t gonna get in the way of your happiness, even if that means it’s with him.”
There was no way to ignore the bitterness in his words, yet you stifled a laugh.
“After everything that’s happened, you actually think I'd go back to him?” You questioned.
“Christ, I don’t know,” Joel sighed, running a hand over the back of his neck.
“Bennett’s married,” you stated. “You must not have seen his wedding band when you were beating the shit out of him.”
Joel was harrowingly silent, his eyes trained on the work boots covering his feet. All you ached for was some sort of reaction—some kind of response—and he gave nothing. Your expectations had been set so high for this moment, yet nothing was going as you hoped.
“I need to ask you something, and I need you to be honest,” you said.
“Of course.”
“Why didn’t you fight for me?” You whispered. “When everyone was making decisions for me, why didn’t you step in and fight back?”
“I tried,” he lamented. “Your family decided on everythin’, and I couldn’t step in.”
“Yes, you could have,” you pressed.
You brushed your hand over the stumble on his jaw, lifting his face to meet yours. You saw it deep within the dark brown of his eyes: regret.
“That’s not a good enough answer, Joel. No one fought for me,” you pressed. “I was alone in everything, and you should have been the one person standing up to them against everything they were choosing to do. You let Bennett come back into my life when you knew he had been horrible to me in the past. Why were you so willing to just let me go?”
Joel grabbed your free hand and brought it to his lips, pressing soft kisses into the center of your palm. It wasn’t till the first tear hit your fingers that you realized he was crying. Joel looked defeated, his face framed between one hand and your other pressed against his lips. Truly and utterly defeated.
“I never wanted to let you go. Sayin’ that last goodbye to you while you were in the hospital was the hardest damn thing I’ve ever had to do, and I ain’t got no excuses for the choices I made. If I could go back and change everythin’, I would. I swear I would in a heartbeat. Losin’ you was the worst thing that’s ever happened to me, and I know I coulda done more. You deserved more. You deserved better, and I shoulda been the one there for you. Not Bennett. I know I ruined everything. Fuck, I—I really fucked it all up.”
“I hate you for what you did,” you said, lifting your hand to brush away his tears. “I hate you so much for hurting me.”
Joel only nodded, more tears streaming down his cheeks as he closed his eyes. You ran your thumb over his cheekbone, tracing the line of his beard as it dipped down to his jaw. Joel released a shaky breath, leaning into your touch.
“There ain’t enough words to describe how sorry I am,” he mumbled into your hand. “I’m so fuckin’ sorry for hurtin’you, and I’ve been livin’ with that guilt for years. I just wanted you to be happy. Even if it wasn’t with me.”
“I was happy, Joel. With you. I loved you so much. So many memories are still unraveling in my head, but in each of them, I know I loved you.”
“I’m so sorry,” he cried softly.
“I hate you, Joel. I hate you, but I can’t ignore the fact that I still love you. I love the life we built together and the memories we made with Sarah. I miss this house, and I miss this kitchen where we’d make breakfast together. I miss waking up beside you every day. I miss staying up late with you and annoying you about the books I was reading.” You took a deep breath, trying to slow yourself down. “I miss you, Joel. I don’t know how long it will take me to forgive you, but I—I really miss you.”
A choked sob escaped from Joel’s mouth, and he leaned his head back, your hands falling into your lap. You didn’t know what to do with yourself other than try not to throw up—because your body was still trying to desperately fight off the nausea rolling inside your stomach. Confessing feelings while also battling a minor concussion had not been your brightest idea, but you had braved through worse before.
So many moments of silence passed before Joel finally glanced back at you, his lips twitching as he held back another round of tears.
“Y’have no fuckin’ idea how much I miss you,” he confessed. “I’ve waited so long for the moment you’d remember everythin’. I tried to imagine what I’d do when y’got those memories back, and… fuck. I’m so sorry for everythin’ I did.”
You took his hands in yours, interlocking your fingers around his. It was your turn to start crying, and you felt the tears fall against your fingers.
“What did you do?” You asked. “When you imagined me getting my memories back, what did you do?”
“I imagined kissin’ you and tellin’ you how much I loved you,” he said.
“What’s taking you so long?”
In one fluid motion, Joel sent his chair flying backward as he dropped to his knees before you. Reaching up, he cupped your face between his large hands, his mouth hovering over yours. You weren’t sure what he was waiting for, but you gave him a simple nod, and that was enough.
The first kiss was delicate— cautionary. He wavered between losing control and reluctance, the path of his lips moving fluidly like they had always known their place against yours. It was so much different than the first kiss months ago, where then it had been about discovery and excitement, each draw of your bodies together new and profound. But now, it was a kiss to rekindle a flame that had dwindled out, a resurgence of emotions neither of you had experienced in years. Yes, those few months together had been exhilarating, but you had barely scratched the surface of where the bounds of your love lay.
You were the first to cave into the chaos, deepening the kiss until Joel’s movements determined your breathing. When his head moved, so did yours. When his tongue overlapped yours, you repeated the motion. Over and over until you lost the ability to identify where you started and he ended.
“Joel,” you panted, his lips still crushed against yours.
“Hmm?”
He was too enamored with you to respond coherently. You raked your nails over his scalp, refamiliarizing yourself with the softness of his curls. Joel groaned into your open mouth, his tongue dancing with yours once more.
“Joel,” you muttered again.
“Yeah, baby?” He exhaled, finally breaking away from your swollen lips.
You pressed your forehead against his, your eyelashes fluttering up at him. Joel looked down at you with blown pupils, the brown color in his eyes nearly black as he waited for your response.
“I think you forgot to say something,” you whispered, laughing softly.
“Don’t think I forgot at all, baby. Just wanted to savor you a minute,” Joel grinned. “I love you. God, I love you so fuckin’ much. Ain’t ever gonna stop tellin’ you how much I love you.”
“I still don’t forgive you for everything,” you reminded him. “It’ll take me some time to heal from all of this fully.”
Joel brushed his nose against yours, his lips tugging upward.
“I got all the time in the world, baby. Gonna spend every damn day provin’ myself to you. I’m already on my knees for you. Anythin’ you ask of me, I’ll give it to you.”
Breathless. You were breathless. This was the man you should have spent your life with, the man you should have married. Joel saw his faults, admitted them, and submitted himself to you out of love and dedication. Anger was still to be had, but it could wait.
“Anything?” You echoed.
He trailed his fingers up your bare legs, his hands teasing their way higher. You mindlessly decided on a dress earlier and thanked yourself for it. A shiver ran over your skin as he pushed the hem of the dress further up, his head bending down to kiss a path over your knee and up your thigh.
“God, I missed you so damn much, baby,” Joel groaned, his tongue gliding over your pebbled skin.
“Show me how much you missed me.”
Joel lay his head in your lap, his puppy dog eyes staring up at you with a glimmer of desire. You knew that look; you had seen it so many times before in his eyes. Too many memories had taken their place in your mind to ever let you forget the way Joel looked at you when he wanted you.
“Can I?” He asked, brushing his hand between your thighs.
Your body responded easily to his touch, a familiarity you once knew. The friction of your underwear against your clit was growing uncomfortable as it throbbed at the vibration of his voice. Like a moth to a flame, you were drawn to Joel in more ways than one. You craved to be touched, to be pulled apart and put back together in the ways only he knew.
Joel tugged your ass down to the edge of the chair, flicking the hem of your dress into your lap. You tried working your fingers over the band of your underwear, but Joel beat you to it with a swiftness that left you dizzy. Well, dizzier than you already were.
Joel hoisted your calves over his shoulders, settling himself between your thighs. Flashes of memories in this exact position came flooding in; this was familiar. Familiarity beyond compare and something you desperately yearned for.
“Please,” you whined.
He wasted no time giving in to your plea. Joel licked a thick stripe up your slick entrance, rewarding himself with a soft moan leaving your lips. You unknowingly lied months ago when you said no one had tasted you like this… Joel had. He thrived on giving you pleasure like this, doing this countless times before. He knew your body better than anyone else, and your body cried out for him in ways you could not control.
He devoured you like he sought to destroy the years of distance that had passed between you. Every flick of his tongue against the apex of your sex, every gravelly moan from his throat—it all revolved around that undeniable truth that you both were meant to be together. That’s how it should have always been.
“More,” you begged.
Words failed you, yet Joel knew what you needed. His tongue plunged inside of you, curling ever so slightly. The pleasure inside you burned slowly, igniting a warmth through your veins. You throbbed against his mouth, his breath hot on your skin as he latched onto your clit. You arched against him, your hand snaking down to latch onto the hair on his scalp. Joel let out a prideful moan, working his tongue faster against your aching bud.
“There… right there…” You whimpered.
Joel gave the softest nod as if to say I know, driving you closer to the edge. A hitch of your breath, another flick of his tongue, repeated motions back and forth until your orgasm was crashing against the surface. You cried out, tears springing from your eyes as you succumbed to the climax wracking through your limbs. Joel pulled away, his mouth and mustache glistening from your release.
Lowering your legs off his shoulders, Joel wordlessly hooked an arm around your waist and hauled you onto the dining table, the wood creaking under the weight. You pawed at his shirt, and Joel obliged your silent request as he yanked it over his head. You lifted yourself on your forearms, drinking in the sight of his bare chest. You glanced up at Joel to catch him smirking, amused by your silence.
“Y’can’t be lookin’ at me like that, baby,” Joel groaned, stepping between your open legs. “Not when I got you spread out and ready for me.”
“I can look at you however I want,” you smiled.
Joel leaned down to meet your lips, dragging you in for a long kiss.
“I missed you so fuckin’ much,” he chuckled.
His lips worked their way down your neck, sucking marks into your skin, while his hands worked quickly at the belt around his waist. Hooking one leg around his waist, you drew him closer, your breath hitching as he lined himself up with your entrance.
Joel drove himself deep inside you in one thrust, the tip of his cock spearing into you. You gasped as his cock filled you with its entirety, your body stretched passed comfortability. You forgot how much you loved feeling him everywhere. With his cock fully seated inside you, Joel leaned forward and pressed his forehead against yours.
“I need to hear y’say it, baby,” he begged. “Please tell me you’re mine.”
“I’m yours, Joel,” you exhaled. “I love you.”
That’s all he needed to hear—a simple admission, a coupling of words that rewrote the story lost between the both of you. You spent months trying to deny your love for him, but there was no way to deny this connection. There was always an invisible string connecting you both, and though the string had frayed and unraveled, this moment snapped it back into place.
“I love you,” Joel said. “Ain’t ever lettin’ you go.”
He pulled out slowly, only to snap his hips forward and render you speechless. You reached up to hold him against you, your nails digging crescent-shaped marks into his shoulder blades. Thrust after thrust, Joel drilled into you forcefully—brutally. You cried out every time his body slapped against yours, and your vision started to blur around the edges. Your core clenched around him, your thighs slick from your arousal that dripped between your bodies.
“Takin’ my cock so well, baby,” Joel praised. “Doin’ so good for me.”
“Yes… yes…” You chanted the word between every thrust that he assaulted you with, every caress of his fingers around your waist, another revelation of how perfect you were together.
“My perfect—fuck—perfect girl,” he gritted out.
Joel locked an arm around your back and lifted you from the table, spinning you both until your back hit the wall across from the table. The impact was enough to knock the air from your lungs and dizzy your mind, but he gave you no opportunity to recover before he was driving upwards into you, the new angle sending sparks of pleasure through your muscles. With one arm braced around your body and a hand pressed against the wall beside your head, Joel ground into you deeper…slower… your body begging for release. He could sense it, too, the way your thighs tightened around his waist and your cheeks dampened with tears.
“Yeah, I can feel it, baby,” Joel crooned. “I know you’re close. Gonna cum for me? Gonna give me what I want?”
“Please,” you cried, nodding vigorously.
Joel crushed his lips against yours, and you sobbed into his open mouth. Your body sized around him as your orgasm tore through you, stronger than the first. His thrusts stalled as your core pulsed through the aftershocks, the room spinning quicker every time another wave of release rocked through your stomach.
“That’s it, baby. That’s my good girl. Give me everythin’. I got you. Keep goin’.”
It was disastrous how obedient your body was to his commands. You entangled yourself in him, your tongue rolling over his tongue to silence his muffled words. Joel wasn’t far behind you, and soon enough, he punched out your name through clenched teeth, spilling himself into you.
You rested your head back against the wall, his body sagging into yours as you both fought for air. The slow drip of his cum down your inner thigh and the sweat clinging to your brow was the only sensation you could feel as time passed in comfortable silence.
“I love you, baby,” Joel groaned, his head falling onto your shoulder.
You carded a hand through his hair, leaning your cheek against his sweat-dampened curls. Right there, in Joel’s arms, everything made sense. The anger inside you could dissolve away—at least for a little while—and you could remind yourself that this was what love felt like. To be held. To be seen. To be cherished.
Faint sounds of sniffling traveled past the rush of blood pumping in your ears, and you tugged at his curls to pull his head off your shoulder. Joel looked up at you through blurry eyes, his thick lashes coated in fresh tears.
“It’s okay,” you hushed.
“It’s not, though,” he argued. “I shoulda came back sooner. I shouldn’t have waited. There’s so much time we can’t get back, baby. S’all my fault.”
“We’ve got time,” you said softly. “I don’t want to be anywhere but here with you, Joel.”
“Promise?” He asked.
“I promise.”
The evening grew late, and both you and Joel had settled into bed. It surprised you when you cried at seeing his room again, realizing nothing about it had changed. The fan was still humming softly in the corner as it always had, the soft breeze floating over the bedsheets as you climbed under the covers. Miscellaneous items were scattered on his dresser, and worn clothes littered the floor beside his hamper. Joel mumbled a slew of apologies at the sight of the mess, but it only made you cry harder. You didn’t care if it was messy. You only cared that you were finally home. Even without the memories resurfacing, your house never felt this way. It had never been a home because Joel wasn’t there to make it a home.
“How’re y’feelin’, baby?” Joel asked, his hand drawing circles into your back as you leaned against his naked body.
“Like I could spend the rest of the night throwing up,” you said, half-jokingly.
Your headache was splintering into a full-blown migraine, and your body had yet to recover from the fall earlier in the day. You had no regrets about being fucked against the wall, but it definitely proved to have done some damage to your fragile state.
“If I had known y’needed a good hit to the head to get all these memories back, I woulda tripped you myself,” Joel teased.
You attempted to laugh, only to have the nausea rising in your throat silence your efforts.
“Don’t make me laugh right now,” you groaned, curling yourself tighter around his body.
“S’only kiddin’, baby. I’m just way too damn happy to have you in my arms again. I spent the last few months tryna figure out how I’d go on livin’ without you.”
“It wasn’t easy for me either,” you sighed. “I hardly recognize myself most days.”
“I won’t lie, seein’ you at parent-teacher conferences nearly broke me,” Joel admitted.
“It broke me, too.”
Silence slipped over you, and the fan turned into the only noise inside the bedroom. Joel’s chest rose and fell softly under your head, his heart pounding echoing through your ear as you pressed yourself further into his embrace.
“I’m sorry,” he finally spoke. “I wish I had a better word to describe how sorry I am. It wasn’t right of me to lie to you, and I shouldn’t have ever let your family make that decision.”
“I haven’t talked to them in months,” you muttered. “I don’t know how to forgive them for what they did.”
“Y’don’t need to forgive them until you’re ready. I just hope y’know they love you, baby.”
“I do know they love me, and that’s why it’s so hard. How can they love me yet still hurt me so much?”
Joel pressed a soft kiss against the crown of your head, his fingers squeezing around your shoulder.
“I don’t want to be angry anymore,” you said, your voice cracking. “But I don’t know how to feel anything but anger towards them. Especially toward Beth. The things she’s said to me in the past…How do I forgive her?”
“I ain’t gonna take sides,” he cautioned. “But I think the accident affected her the hardest. She was so angry at your family's plan, and I think she took out a lot of that anger on you when y’didn’t deserve it.”
“It’s not fair,” you cried. “It’s not fair that she gets to be angry when she wasn’t the one that lost everything.”
“You were her everythin’, baby,” Joel whispered. “She lost you.”
“You’re taking her side,” you grumbled.
“I’m just tryna show you the other side of things,” Joel offered.
“I know you are.”
Joel sunk further into the pillows, dragging you down beside him. You nestled into his arms, your limbs twisting around him like they had a hundred times before. It’s odd what your body remembers, but your brain forgets; it is a simple gesture of an embrace that can never be entirely forgotten. You understood why things always felt so right when you met him again last year; your soul knew he was the missing piece that had been lost.
Joel spoke your name softly, the syllables more beautiful than ever when they rolled through his accent. You hummed in response, gazing up at him through tired eyes.
“I woulda waited an eternity for you, baby,” he confessed. “I woulda gone to my grave waitin’ to have you back in my arms like this again.”
You blinked away the tears welling in your eyes, failing miserably to hide the quiver of your lips. Joel didn’t wait for your response, nor could you verbalize anything to match the poetry of his words. You only nodded and said, " I love you, " before your eyes drifted shut. Home. You were home.
Joel was softly snoring when you woke up. In the quiet light of the morning, you took the time to admire every softened feature of his face. The worried creases between his brows had smoothed overnight, yet you still found yourself brushing a finger over the spot they usually were. Brushing your hand down his face, you traced the outline of his lips, slightly parted and pouty, the soft kiss more kissable now than ever. Kissing him could wait; you wanted to savor this moment.
You drew a path down his neck and chest, the spattering of hair across his torso tickling your fingertips. Joel stirred above you, his head rolling to the other side of the pillow. His eyes never opened, though, and you took the opportunity to crawl under the sheets.
Joel’s cock lay heavy against his lower abdomen, precum leaking onto the soft skin of his stomach. You ran your hands over his hips, settling yourself lower until you were comfortable between his legs. His cock twitched as you wrapped a hand around his length, stroking him slowly and deliberately. Leaning your head down, you kissed up the shaft of his cock, dragging your tongue up the length and around the head. Joel’s body tensed up, yet he still didn’t wake. You took him into your mouth, the salty taste and musky scent overwhelming your senses. You hadn’t pleasured him like this in so long, and you had forgotten how much you loved it.
Taking him deeper, you flattened your tongue, teasing the base of his cock with the tip of your tongue. You faintly heard a moan slip from Joel’s mouth, his cock twitching against your tongue.
“Baby?” He groaned.
You hummed softly, pulling him from your mouth. With your saliva coating the entirety of his cock, you pumped him quicker, feeling his body seize up under your touch.
“Fuck,” he grunted, bucking his hips upward.
You rewarded him with another swirl of your tongue over the head of his cock, your mouth and hand working in tandem. He was close; you could feel it.
“Just like that, baby. Forgot—fuck—forgot how good your mouth feels.”
You took him deeper, the tip of his cock tapping against the back of your throat. You sputtered around him, drool rolling down the corners of your mouth, yet you didn’t stop. Hollowing your cheeks, you heard Joel choke out a gasp. The warmth of his release flooded your mouth, coating the back of your throat and tongue. You drank down every drop, pulling off of him with a soft pop.
“Jesus Christ,” he sighed, slumping into the pillows. “Get your ass up here, baby.”
You crawled over his body, your legs straddling his waist. Joel grinned up at you, his tired eyes still barely open as he drank in your naked body.
“C’mere,” he yawned, reaching up to grab the back of your neck.
His soft lips met yours, and you molded your body to him, letting him guide your mouth however he pleased. There was still a pang of anger tucked into the darkest corner of your heart, but you knew with time, it might fade away, and all you wanted was to bask in Joel’s love as long as possible. Things would take time, but you were willing to work on it.
“I missed wakin’ up to you,” Joel muttered, his lips working down your jaw.
You could feel him growing hard against your core as you ground your hips down on him. It was impossible to hide the fact you were slick with arousal between your thighs, your body terribly responsive to every touch he placed on your body.
“You’re drenchin’ me, baby,” he groaned. “Need to feel your pussy now.”
“I’m all yours.”
“Damn fuckin’ right you are.”
You lifted your hips, notching his cock at your entrance. Inch by inch, you sunk onto him, both of you exhaling a shaky moan as he stretched you open. Leaning forward, you laced your fingers through Joel���s, holding him firm in your grasp. All you ached for was the tenderness he could provide, the slow synchronicity that flowed through his body and into yours.
A gentle rub of his thumb over the back of your hand, the slow rise and fall of your hips against his cock… it was the lazy movements that spoke louder than words. It was the recognition that you were his just as he was yours. Soft moans fell off your lips as Joel guided you against his cock, little reassuring grunts leaving his mouth with each roll of your body.
“S’fuckin’ beautiful, baby,” Joel exhaled.
The sun seeping through the blinds lit the amber flecks around his pupils, the morning light painting his naked body golden. The veins beneath his thick neck strained as he lifted his head to watch you, his lips parted in awe as you sucked him further inside your slicken sex.
“Touch yourself, baby,” he demanded. “Let me feel you fall apart around me.”
Your fingers slipped away from his hand, brushing down his flexed stomach as you made a path to your throbbing clit. The feather-like touch immediately sparked pleasure through your core. You clenched around his cock, whimpering with each circle of your fingertips.
“I feel it, baby. I know you’re close.”
“Mhmm,” you whined.
Joel raised his body to press into your chest, one hand cradling your heavy breast, the other kneading the flesh of your ass. With his weight against your body, your hand pressed harder against your clit, the arousal pooling between where your bodies connect.
Your head fell onto his shoulder, teeth sinking into his sweat-covered skin. Joel groaned at the sensation, only grounding you down harder onto his cock. You needed every atom of your being injected with Joel; every one of your senses evaded with his taste, touch, and scent.
“Joel,” you mumbled, nestling your face into the crook of his neck. “I’m so close… so close.”
“I got you, baby. Gonna fall apart right here with you.”
He barely finished speaking by the time your orgasm ignited in your stomach, your body shuddering within his embrace. Joel spoke your name in broken syllables, his release pouring into you only moments later.
Neither of you broke apart once your spasms subsided. Joel tangled a hand into the hair resting at the nape of your neck, urging your lips to his. Slotting your mouth over his, you slipped your tongue over his bottom lip, a starved search for a deeper connection. Joel fulfilled your need, devouring the soft sounds you exhaled.
Slowly—reluctantly—you tore from his lips, gasping for air to fill your lungs. Joel’s swollen lips formed into a crooked smile, his brown eyes softening the longer he gazed at you. Somewhere inside your chest, you felt that pain reawaken, a haunting reminder that you could have had this all along. Had the lies never been told… Joel would have always been yours.
How did he survive the years of pain? How did he allow himself to let you go, knowing you’d never be satisfied with another?
A tear slipped down your cheek, and you turned your head to hide the emotions cresting over your face. Nothing went unnoticed with Joel, and he gently pinched your chin to bring your eyes back to his. With furrowed brows, Joel studied your features, the realization striking home for him, too.
“I know you’re scared, baby,” he whispered. “And I know there’s a lot I gotta fix between us, but I swear to you that I ain’t ever gonna leave again. I made that mistake once, and I’ll never do it again.”
“I want to trust you, Joel. I’m trying. But I don’t know how to forget what you’ve done… what everyone has done. There’s so much pain inside me. It’s unbearable.”
Joel cradled your face in his hands, leveling you with a gaze you couldn’t discern. So many emotions swirled within his eyes, an endless expanse of grief that weighed him down.
“Give me your pain. Give me all your anger and everything inside you, and I swear I’ll keep you safe. Y’ain’t ever gonna be alone again. Not while I’m still breathin’, baby. It’s you and me. Forever.”
“Forever,” you echoed.
“Yes, forever. I don’t want another moment of my life without you in it. I can’t lose you again.”
“I can’t lose you, either,” you cried. “I never wanted to lose you in the first place, so please don’t leave.”
Joel’s eyes clouded with tears, and he shook his head.
“I love you too much ever to leave you,” he said, his voice cracking. “I’m keepin’ you so long as y’let me.”
Eventually, you both made it out of the bed. Joel grumbled at your wishes to leave, keeping you in his arms and peppering your skin with kisses. It wasn’t long before your dizziness set back in, and you were demanding water and painkillers.
As Joel poured you a glass of water, you found yourself swaying against the cold tile floors of the kitchen, the corners of your vision blurring. Your nails scratched at the kitchen countertop as you tried to suppress the lightheaded feeling creeping in. You just needed to sit…that’s all you needed.
You called out Joel’s name the moment your knees buckled beneath you. His body moved in a foggy haze as you tried to keep consciousness, yet you were being pulled beneath the surface of your headache. Strong hands tucked themselves under your armpits, and Joel lowered you to the ground.
“Baby?” His voice was frantic—strained.
You mumbled a few incoherent words as your body sagged into his arms. Christ, your head ached. You hadn’t experienced a fainting spell since the accident, and you forgot how terrifying it was.
Joel choked out your name, his hand snaking around your jaw to wag your head back and forth. You could see his silhouette over you, the shadow molding into the spots within your field of vision, but nothing else registered. Slipping. Drowning. You weren’t strong enough to fight it. Fear set your nerves alight; what if you lost it all again? What if everything melted away into the darkness consuming you? You clawed tooth and nail as your body plunged deeper into unconsciousness.
It was no use.
**
Joel paced the hallway outside your hospital room like a madman. The moment you went limp in his arms, he knew something was wrong. He should have taken your injury more seriously and urged you to the hospital yesterday. But he had you in his arms again, and the world would have had to fall apart before he even considered letting you go. Every admission from your lips weighed down on Joel’s shoulders, another swell of guilt growing inside him. He anticipated your anger, your grief, your heartbreak; he willingly listened without argument. His own struggles were nothing compared to what you endured, and he’d be damned if you ever felt those emotions again. Chewing at his nails, Joel glanced back at the open blinds of your hospital room. The doctors assured him you’d be okay; it was only a concussion, and there’d be no complications. That wasn’t enough for him. He needed to be absolutely sure you’d recover.
The door cracked open, and Joel rushed toward the neurologist leaving your room.
“How is she, doc?” Joel asked. “She’s gonna be okay, right?”
The neurologist, Dr. Oliver, nodded with a soft smile. The smile alone settled the rapid heartbeat banging against Joel's ribcage.
“Miss Smith is going to be just fine,” Dr. Oliver reassured. “There’s going to be a long road to recovery, but I don’t see any long-term effects. I suggest you bring her in for check-ins with me every few months just to monitor her progress.”
“Yeah. Yeah, of course,” Joel nodded.
“What I need you to do, Mr. Miller, is to help her. She may be a bit forgetful occasionally, so leaving lists around the house or notes will help keep her on track. You do live together, I assume?”
Joel rubbed the back of his neck, a nervous tick he had yet to learn how to shake.
“We don’t, but if y’recommend it…”
“I recommend it, but only because she’ll need someone looking over for her. At least, until she regains enough cognitive strength to keep her memory at full capacity,” Dr. Oliver explained.
“I can do that, Doc. All I want is for her to be okay.”
Dr. Oliver clapped a hand on Joel’s shoulder, his lips curving into a grin. Joel could finally breathe; you’d be okay.
“You’re a good man, Mr. Miller. She’s lucky to have you here to care for her.”
“Thank you, Doc.”
“Give her some time to rest, and she’ll be clear to go home tomorrow.”
Dr. Oliver said his goodbyes to Joel and bounded down the hallway to other patients. Joel glanced at the open door, your sleeping frame tucked into the bed among the cords and beeping monitors. He entered quietly, his footsteps soft against the floor so he wouldn’t wake you. Sitting on the edge of the bed, Joel took your hand in his, cautious to avoid the IV tube taped onto your skin. Smoothing lines over the inside of your wrist, Joel watched you with weary eyes.
“I love you, baby. I’m gonna be right here when y’wake up,” he vowed. “Like it always shoulda been.”
Leaning over your body, Joel pressed his lips against your forehead, inhaling your sweet scent as he pulled away.
You’d be okay, and you’d forever be his.
**
The harsh light above you reflected behind your eyelids. You groaned as you stirred awake, your eyes squinting to adjust to the layers of white surrounding you. Curling your fingers into the scratchy blanket, you found a familiar body sagged into a chair beside the bed. Joel slept peacefully, yet the worry lines creased between his brows. Extending your hand over the edge of the bed, you brushed your palm over his knee.
“Joel,” you whispered.
His body jolted upright as he scrubbed a hand down his face. Big, brown puppy dog eyes met yours, the concern in his face dissolving away once his eyes settled on yours. He made no effort to contain the smile breaking across his face.
“Hey, handsome,” you croaked.
“Baby,” Joel sighed, crouching beside the bed. “How’re y’feelin’?”
“A little fatigued, but I think I’ll live.”
“You better,” he chuckled.
With your arms outstretched, you ushered Joel into an embrace. Joel’s lips crashed against yours the second he wrapped his arms around you, his touch soft and cautious. Beautiful melancholy emotions wracked your body; this was the moment you ached for from the start. To be held in your vulnerability, to be cherished, to be loved. Joel didn’t leave. He’d always be here, now.
“There’s someone here to see you, baby,” Joel muttered against your mouth.
You pulled away, confusion scrunching your eyebrows together. God, don’t let it be your family.
“I know that look. Don’t worry, baby, I’ll be right back. I promise you’ll be happy,” Joel reassured.
Joel disappeared from the room, and you sat up, settling back into the pillows. You glanced at the monitor beeping beside your bed, the steady line of your heart rate cruising along the screen. Footsteps sounded outside your room, and your eyes flicked back toward the door, a small silhouette hiding behind Joel’s large frame.
Sarah.
Her bright eyes looked between you and Joel, her stare quizzical–skeptic. You gave her a small wave, ushering her into the room.
“Hi, Sarah,” you faltered. The tears were already forming on your waterline.
“Hi, Miss Smith,” she said wearily.
You patted the bed, scooting over to make room for her. Her steps were slow as she neared the bedside, her eyes glancing back at Joel. He gave her an encouraging nod, a knowing grin on his lips.
“You don’t have to call me that,” you laughed softly.
Sarah settled onto the bed, her tennis shoes swinging over the floor as she fidgeted with her curls. Joel leaned against the doorframe, his arms crossed over his chest and a smile glued to his face.
“But you’re my teacher,” she muttered.
You tucked a loose strand behind her ear, the same hair you had braided and brushed years ago. She wasn’t yours, not by birth. But she was yours just as much as Joel was; she was your home. They weren’t just photos captured in time; they were real. They were real, and they were yours.
“Do you remember when I used to read you bedtime stories?” You wondered aloud. “You would always ask for the same one over and over.”
There it was. The light sparkled in the gold flecks of Sarah’s eyes, the same gold that sat deep within Joel’s.
“You and Dad would read The Kissing Hand every night,” she nodded.
“I know you’re a lot older now, but do you remember what we would do before you fell asleep?”
You reached for Sarah’s hand, lifting it to your lips. With a soft kiss on her palm, you guided her hand to her cheek. Sarah’s eyes filled with tears as she leaned into your touch, the simple caress of your hand against her face enough to bring you both to the brink of crying.
“I missed you, kiddo,” you cried softly.
Sarah threw her arms around your neck, muffling her sobs into your hospital gown as you squeezed your arms tighter around her body. You missed so many milestones and moments of her life because of the accident, so many memories that were never made. Every family meal, every soccer game…you lost them all.
You lifted your eyes, catching the moment Joel swiped away a tear from his cheek. Beckoning him over with a quick motion of your hand, he crossed the room in two quick strides and wrapped his large arms around you and Sarah. You rested your chin on Sarah’s shoulder, hugging her closer. Joel kissed the crown of Sarah’s head, then placed one on your forehead.
“Wait,” Sarah blurted out, forcing you all to break apart.
“What is it, sweetheart?” Joel asked, craning his head to look at her.
“Does that mean you’re coming back home?” She asked.
You looked at Joel for guidance, trying to find the answers within his gentle gaze. He waited in silence, giving you room to decide. There wasn’t a shadow of a doubt about your answer, not when you had everything you needed right here.
“Only if you promise never to make pancakes again,” you smiled, pinching her cheek.
She buried herself into your arms again, her head resting against your heart. You looked up at Joel, your mouth forming three little words.
I love you.
~ Two weeks later ~
Joel refused any help as he unloaded the last of your boxes from the back of his truck. When you got home from the hospital, you patched up the holes in the wall—with Joel’s help, of course—and got the house ready to sell. It barely lasted a week on the market before the offers came in, making it easy to start packing. That house was filled with memories you didn’t want to remember, memories that you no longer wanted to revisit. It wasn’t home to you anymore.
You and Sarah sat on the front porch, popsicles in hand, watching as he huffed an exasperated breath once the box hit the steps. Joel straightened out, running sweaty hands down the sides of his jeans, glancing back at the empty truck bed.
“Well, I think that’s the last of it,” Joel sighed. “Y’sure we ain’t miss anythin’?”
“I think I’ve got all I need right here,” you grinned, nudging Sarah with your shoulder.
Joel plopped beside you on the porch, leaning over to lick up the sticky residue of the popsicle that had fallen down your arm. You gave him a warning look, shifting your eyes toward Sarah as if to say: Behave. He only shrugged, sticking out his tongue again to tickle your skin.
“You hungry?” He asked, quirking a brow.
“Starving!” Sarah declared, rising to her feet.
You laughed, knowing Joel wasn’t asking her. Nonetheless, you and Joel followed her into the house hand in hand. Over the last couple of weeks, he had decorated the house in countless sticky notes: ones in the bathroom, the bedroom, the kitchen. Each said something important. The one in the bathroom was stuck on the medicine cabinet, reminding you which toothbrush was yours—the purple one. Joel stuck one by the front door with Sarah’s soccer schedule—snack duty included. There were a few scattered around the kitchen: one telling you where to find the coffee mugs, another one with a list of groceries to buy over the weekend. Three photos hung beside the list, sitting in perfect harmony as they always should have been. But your favorite was stuck to the cover of Romeo and Juliet, Joel’s messy handwriting scribbled across the yellow paper. It was only a few words but the only reminder you needed.
Welcome home, baby.
I love you.
#joel miller x f!reader#joel x reader#joel miller x reader#joel x teacher!f!reader#joel miller#tlou#pre outbreak!joel#joel miller fic#tlou fic#fluff and angst and smut
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Hi!! I’m wondering if you know where in the book(s) do Louistat reunited and if there are books/chapters of books that focus on their interactions and dynamics after they reunited? Thank you!!
Hi,
So, Louis and Lestat officially reunite in the books towards the end of the second book in the series The Vampire Lestat -- in October of 1985, in San Fransisco. The night before Lestat's first (and only) rock concert.
Now, there is a reunion scene between them in Interview with the Vampire but subsequent books in the series, particularly Tale of the Body Thief, have Lestat flat-out saying the reunion scene in that book never happened. So . . . 🤷🏾♀️
Anyway, their reunion in the book The Vampire Lestat is actually quite lovely IMO:
I felt the lump come up in my throat. I was trembling. I tried to remember what was important, even in this moment, that I must scan the night for others, must be careful. Danger. But none of that mattered now. I knew. I shut my eyes for a second. It did not help anything, make anything easier.
[ . . . ]
And I forgot all the stiff surly things I had planned to say and I just took him in my arms.
We embraced the way we never had in the past. We held each other the way Gabrielle and I used to do. And then I ran my hands over his hair and his face, just letting myself really see him, as if he belonged to me. And he did the same. Seems we were talking and not talking. True silent voices that didn't have any words. Nodding a little. And I could feel him brimming with affection and a feverish satisfaction that seemed almost as strong as my own.
But he was quiet suddenly, and his face became a little drawn.
"I thought you were dead and gone, you know," he said. It was barely audible.
"How did you find me here?" I asked.
"You wanted me to," he answered. Flash of innocent confusion. He gave a slow shrug of the shoulders.
Everything he did was magnetizing me just the way it had over a century ago. Fingers so long and delicate, yet hands so strong.
"You let me see you and you let me follow you," he said. "You drove up and down Divisadero Street looking for me."
"And you were still there?"
"The safest place in the world for me," he said. "I never left it. They came looking for me and they didn't find me and then they went away. And now I move among them whenever I want and they don't know me. They never knew what I looked like, really."
"And they'd try to destroy you if they knew," I said.
"Yes," he answered. "But they've been trying to do that since the Theater of the Vampires and the things that happened there. Of course Interview with the Vampire gave them some new reasons. And they do need reasons to play their little games. They need the impetus, the excitement. They feed upon it like blood." His voice sounded labored for a second.
He took a deep breath. Hard to talk about all this. I wanted to put my arms around him again but I didn't.
"But at the moment," he said, "I think you are the one that they want to destroy. And they do know what you look like." Little smile. "Everybody knows now what you look like. Monsieur Le Rock Star."
He let his smile broaden. But the voice was polite and low as it had always been. And the face suffused with feeling. There had been not the slightest change there yet. Maybe there never would be.
I slipped my arm around his shoulder and we walked together away from the lights of the house. We walked past the great gray hulk of the copter and into the dry sunbaked field and towards the hills.
I think to be this happy is to be miserable, to feel this much satisfaction is to burn.
That isn't the whole of the reunion scene, just the first main part of it.
After this, Louis and Lestat don't really part in the same way -- at least not for as long as they did after Lestat was "killed" and Louis and Claudia fled to Europe. Louis and Lestat are just kind of on-again, off-again in the books after they reunite again in The Vampire Lestat, but I wouldn't say there are major scenes that focus on them coming back together again while they are in their on-again, off-again phase -- at least as far as the books I've read, which only goes up to Blackwood Farm.
I'm still reading Prince Lestat for the first time right now (up to Chapter 14 so far), but I do know that Prince Lestat is the book where Louis and Lestat come back together and, this time, stay together for good once they do (meaning no more on-again, off-again). @nalyra-dreaming, @virginiaisforvampires, or anyone else who's finished that book please feel free to chime in with the scene of info from that book regarding their reunion if you can or feel up to it 🙂.
As to books or chapters of books that focus on their dynamic after they reunite. . . that isn't really something that can be noted or listed in some general way IMO. Because, quite honestly, none of the books focus on them and their relationship alone after Interview with the Vampire. What you see of their relationship in the books following the first one are just character things and moments that are interwoven into whatever larger plot is going on in each book at the time. Honestly, there are some books in which Louis barely appears at all (such as Memnoch the Devil).
So yeah, quite honestly, the first book is the only one that really focuses on their relationship. After that, their relationship together is just part of the character dynamics going on within other stories and plots. So it would be way too hard to list every single interaction and dynamic they have in each book because of that, sorry.
Anyway, I hope this answers your question. 🙂
#Loustat#Louis de Pointe du Lac#Lestat de Lioncourt#Interview with the Vampire#The Vampire Lestat#vc book quotes#vampire chronicles#the vampire chronicles#amc iwtv#iwtv#ask#ask and answer#Loustat Reunion#iwtv book spoilers#iwtv spoilers
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man i just got past equinox and apparently one of the writers was PISSED and i can see why. like janeway takes a flying fucking leap off the deep end for NO apparent reason, endangering her crew and ignoring every other option of how to resolve the situation, fucking? essentially torturing a dude for information? and then she just… turns on a dime when captain sexual harassment is like pwease ms janeway i’m weawwy sowwy 🥺👉👈, like girl WHAT? and then NOTHING HAPPENS, she isn’t confronted w the consequences of her actions, she doesn’t even have to decide if she’s gonna keep her word and turn the equinox over bc he essentially does it for her. she gets everything she wants and afterward she’s just like well let’s just move on and put all that past us, chakotay, and they have the most on the fucking nose metaphor for picking up voyager’s plaque and putting it back where it belonged - but that would require admitting that her actions were unacceptable and lessened her as a person, and the show just. didn’t.
i was also upset w how they treated the doctor. like he’s had a full six seasons of developing beyond his original programming, then they flip ONE switch and suddenly he’s ready to lobotomize seven?? what sense does that even make?? that felt like it would have been the perfect time for him to prove he didn’t even need ethical subroutines to be a good person but i guess they couldn’t resist the allure of strapping a woman down on a table and menacing her. BLECH.
also if i had a nickel for each time i’ve seen an evil doppelgänger replace a starfleet medical officer and no one noticed, i’d have two nickels. which isn’t a lot, but it’s weird it’s happened twice.
#this is not to be confused w an evil consciousness taking over a starfleet doctor and trying to flee#which i have ALSO seen twice#anyhow good thing the hirogen didn’t know about that little trick#or the series would have ended at the killing game#they should have had the doctor just PRETEND to go along w things after his ethics subroutines were turned off#and then conspire with seven on an escape plan or even just how they’re buying time#like that was SUCH an obvious story direction i kept expecting it to happen and it never did!#BLEUGH
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genuinely shocked at the amount of people that think character death = good story. In most circumstances, character deaths seem like an easy way out for shock value rather than meaningful development (Signora for example). Some of the best character arcs are those where the writers had to figure out how to develop the character in the arc of the story rather than just killing them and moving on
#genshin impact#genshin impact spoilers#xiao#la signora#criticism#hyv has done good jobs when a character had to die and it was a satisfying end to their arcs (himeko or otto more recently)#and they flubbed it before with signora#the whole point of the quest was for xiao to shake this mindset of a warrior's death and that he has to be alone and die alone#that is exactly why yelan was there to challenge that point since she hates the idea of self sacrifice and being the only one to survive#both suffered survivor's guilt and had two completely different ways they went about coping#and the end of that quest was genuinely one of the only times xiao did not degrade himself as a slaughterer#and he was proud to be a yaksha#because his duty was to protect the people#so why set all that up for him to die#it would have been sadder but after a while you'd think 'that made no sense'#ffs he didn't want to die either he tried to bring a rock to make bosacius' shrine#idk i guess getting older just made me see how much harder it is for writers to write development than killing the character off#and another series did initially kill their character off and it was not satisfying#so when they redux their game and had that character finish their arc what do you know they had one of the best character arcs
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The group confronts Kagha about her connection to the Shadow Druids. Sage is almost glad when the fighting starts; having to listen to Kagha defending her choices is grating on their nerves.
The fight ends predictably: with Kagha, the Shadow Druids and whoever else joined her side dead. Rath isn't happy and neither are most of the other druids. Sage doesn't particularly care at that point. The tieflings won't have to worry about getting kicked out before Sage and the others manage to take out the goblin threat anymore. The kids are somewhat safe for now.
When they leave the grove again, Wyll speaks up: "I have to say, I'm a tad surprised you didn't try talking her out of it. You've been surprisingly successful so far whenever you do."
Sage looks back at him, then past him at the gate receding in the distance. They shrug. "Even if I had convinced her, it probably wouldn't have changed the beliefs of the others there. And besides, she was trying to get a child killed. If we hadn't intervened that first time, Arabella would probably be dead. I don't forgive that. A better person might be glad if she changed her ways but I don't care."
They turn back, leaving the grove further behind them.
"I suppose you could be right," Wyll says, voice trailing off.
Sage shrugs again.
For everyone's sake, they hope Halsin will be alive and actually able to bring the druids back to their senses.
For some reason, Sage had always assumed druids were kinder people than most. The whole connection to nature thing and all that. Of course, that assumption had been quickly proven wrong. We don't allow drow in here this, foulbloods and outsiders and parasites that. They scoff. "Let's hope this Halsin is a better guy than most of the druids we've met so far."
On that point at least, they can all agree.
#oops what's this#another sage snippet?#was not planning on this#was thinking all day about the conclusion to their personal story in act 3 (there will be pain :3 and very deserved murder >:3)#but I played this and for the first time didn't even try convincing kagha#because sage wouldn't#they really really wouldn't#and it's a lot easier for me to roleplay now that I've finished the game twice and seen act 1 many more times#easier to let go of the compulsive 'I have to be the best possible person' thing#and tbh#in the end#it was kind of gratifying to kill the other two druids that fight alongside kagha and the shadow druids#especially that elf guy#can't stand him#glad he's dead lol#also#I'm thinking about putting these snippets on ao3 but I'm unsure if it would be better as one work with multiple chapters or a series#technically they're not chapters that build on each other but just random scenes that all revolve around sage#but posting many individual short works feels also kinda unnecessary and spammy#bg3#bg3 tav sage#my writing
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i finished pokemon violet! And i have some thoughts to share on it!
1)-
#i have lots of thoughts#obv a lot of cons#but the story…the personality and life given to these characters……..wonderful#disclaimer: i was given this game#otherwise i would not have played this at all lmao i had no intent of spending money on this game#but it was surprisingly enjoyable#i wouldnt recommend anyone buy the game but if u can *insert pirate yell* it#then u should take the time to play it; its a massive improvement from swsh#gameplay wise#graphically; not so much#the characters are fun and interesting#new lore for the series overall#(we EAT pokemon here; if u kill it well fry it )#(gym leaders are just people who work per diem for challengers but they have their own real jobs somewhere else)#the friends u make are so good bc the pacing for their stories are good#arven…sweetie….#also ENDGAME SPOILERS#the ending was so bittersweet it got me thinking of fix it scenarios#this game put a bit more emphasis on lost dreams and goals#and i think its just lovely#pokemon is all about finding ur dream or ur treasure so to speak#and to have so many people in this game say ‘i couldnt make it; it didnt work out for me’ just felt really refreshing#grusha injuring himself gravely and being unable to ski professionally#ms tyme retiring from being a leader bc she wanted to focus more on teaching#the professor chasing paradise for so long and with such drive#to abandon their son for this dream#and die before it could be realized bc of their own greed#like waow….#do u think the professor realized their dream was unreachable as they bled out alone in the station#to sacrifice so much just to have nothing to show for it anymore
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It's such a tiny innocuous thing that really doesn't matter, but I feel like calling duel monsters a children's card game (when it's fundamentally baked into everyday life, and your social existence is judged by what you play and how you play it so very intensely, for everyone in-universe) is an absolute injustice to what it is for that universe of people.
#marwospeaking#The following tags are a rant. please skip if you are not interested in reading a whole rant#to be clear. actual real life ygo sure. you can call that a children's card game (even if card game is just easier anyway)#but. in universe you Would Not call it a children's card game. not even sure you'd call it a game at that point#ygo worldbuilding fascinates on different levels. and to be honest this thought came to be via the abridged Shun compilation video#because he does mention children's card game (paraphrased) often earlier on in reference to in-universe duel monsters#but. for some people it literally defines if you die or not (Shun Was/Is In A War). for others it's your ticket to not go to jail because#you're too powerful to not be let off the hook (survival of the fittest kinda stuff really)#if you even dare not show up to a match. with crowds Equal To A Football/Soccer Championship. your family is in social ruins (Yusho)#these cards house spirits. and can be used for so many varied things between ending the world. starting the world. and coldblooded murder#and treating all of that as though its below a character. not because they're untouchable. but because of an age demographic#I feel misses a point about Arc V that I'm not sure I can quite articulate without sounding fully manic#in other series too! Synchro causes the world to end because it attracts some giant anti-synchro bois (meklords)#Numbers can either possess or take the form of someone's personal desires and feelings (Titanic Moth and Hope Harbinger are the same card)#(just different monsters because two different people used the exact card)#The God cards. the sacred beasts. the whole of GX's dimensional shenanigans and most definitely Yubel and Winged Kuriboh#Even in Vrains. which is very mild compared to the previous 3 installments. its still baked in their society. Its just aggregated#into cyberspace. That's not mentioning the Tortures that revolved around duelling to train AIs on children's brains so you could have..#.. cyber immortality. and then you choose to kill the AIs that you see as like children to you - mentioned directly to your biological son#ANYWAY. tldr. Having an in-universe character calling Duel Monsters a children's card game outside of DM specifically is a fundamental..#.. misunderstanding of how important it socially is in-universe. and it'd be much more understandable for someone whose life isn't dictated#by how well he can play it to say anything along the lines of 'its beneath me!!' than fuckign Kurosaki Shun are you kidding me.#We won't make an actual point at how the social lives of people don't seem to be solved by talking as much as duelling. no. we'll say..#.. its for children so we can point and laugh at how weird it is!! Buddy I Have Fallen Asleep.#in other news exploring the navigation of a world where talking out problems would be weird without a duel to communicate should be..#.. done way more often. This world is as anti-talk no jutsu as much as it is very pro-punch no jutsu.#arc v#< because part of this was inspired off of some of Shun's abridged lines early on
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im gonna go ahead and say it if your death game arc isnt about how the character(s) navigate such an environment it might as well just be a random brawl on the streets
#this is about jjk#i have so little patience for this series but damn it i wanna see how it ends#to me its on the same level as bleach#which i never finished cause it got on my nerves so much#i hear gojo is out of his box or smth? he better do something interesting#ok back to whining about the jjk death game arc#who the fuck cares about the points#might as well be about shiny stones or smth#any mcguffin would do#why a death game#the only one who gamed at all was that scorpion girl who tried to sceme a little but no one told her its a meathead manga#which isnt wrong#but how on earth do you make a death game boring#why are we following that guy who died in the begining of the series who cares#itadoris fight had something going on but it lost it as soon as his opponent surrendered#omgggg girl pls why#oh thats a sad backstory guess the other 20 people i killed all lead a happy life#why are you so surprised that a possessed guy feels guilty about the actions hes taken while under possession???#to the point of surrender??#you dont even know him???#shouldnt he be having that convo with his friends#im soooo mad#im hate-reading at this point
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Homemade
Pairing: dbf!Joel x Reader
Summary: While your dad’s watching a movie downstairs, you and his best friend decide to make one of your own.
Warnings: 18+. Sneaky sex tape fun with dbf!Joel ;-) Unprotected p-in-v. Age gap. Daddy kink. Facefucking. Joel being the world’s worst cameraman. Shower sex. Overstimulation via adjustable shower head. Dirty talk. Screaming ‘daddy’ too loud, and your father shows up.
Translations: In Chile, pico is slang for penis. Joel’s is big.
Part of the Waiting Game series
“If this ever ends up on PornHub, I’ll kill you, Miller.”
Joel knew you meant it, too.
The only reason you’d agreed to make this dumb little ‘home video’ at all was because you were headed back to college tomorrow and wouldn’t see him again until May. Doing long distance was tough, but doing long distance while simultaneously trying to keep a risqué, torrid, and totally-not-age-appropriate love affair with your father’s best friend under wraps was infinitely more difficult. This was the safest way to keep desire alive in the meantime.
Immortalized on a Sony CCD-TR70—because neither one of you trusted iCloud to keep a sex tape secret.
It had also been the only video camera you could find in the closet before your dad had plopped down on the couch just outside your room and announced he would be watching Oppenheimer for the third time. You’d had to scurry off fast before he could invite you to join him.
“I’ll be damned—this thing’s gotta be as old as I am,” Joel mused as he stood at the foot of the bed, camcorder pointed at your semi-nude form.
“I didn’t know they had cameras back in the Stone Age.”
Your smirk didn't flinch, even when Joel flipped you off.
You were lying on your side, head propped up on one hand while the other picked at a few loose strings from the comforter. The lacy, pastel pink bustier holding your tits in place was currently making breathing feel like a chore, and your skin was on fire from the warmth of the room, but you tried not to show it. Joel twisted a dial.
“Alright, now...flash ‘em for daddy,” he grinned as soon as the lens focused in where he wanted: your cleavage.
You rolled your eyes.
“A little closer, please,” you said, patting the space in front of you.
Joel didn’t need to be told twice. With one hand still cradling the camera, he clambered over the bed so fast he nearly tripped and took a nosedive in the headboard. You had to cover your mouth to contain a shriek of laughter—and terror—as his frame barreled into yours.
“JOEL!”
Fortunately, your cameraman was quick to recollect himself, planting a knee on either side of your chest once he’d knocked you onto your back. Then, from above, he angled the grey-black hunk of metal just a foot away:
“Anything you’d like to say to the folks watching at home, ma’am?” Joel inquired, suddenly assuming all the poise and matter-of-fact elocution of a news reporter.
You stuck your tongue out at the camera and blew the wettest, fattest raspberry you could muster in response.
Joel hummed, zoomed in on your lips, and nodded.
“Fascinating,” he said, pretending to make sense of the fart noise you’d just made with your mouth, “Have you ever given thought to maybe...sucking cock on camera?”
The swiftness with which he was able to dodge your kick was remarkable. He swayed the camera just out of reach before you could shove it away and say, ‘Joel, quit being GROSS’ and he promptly replied, ‘Ain’t that the whole point of a sex tape, sweet pea? Bein’ a little bit gross?’ And you playfully tried to kick him again, only this time, he caught your foot and yanked you closer to him. He turned the camcorder back to your face and grinned.
“That’s my little pornstar,” he murmured with affection. Then, zooming in again, this time to find your panty line, “Riiiiight there.”
You knew giving Joel Miller recording privileges for an occasion as momentous as this was a bad idea. At the rate you were going now, you’d be seeing the sunrise through the window before you ever got a glimpse of his dick. You needed to take matters into your own hands.
Literally.
You crawled on all fours to get to Joel across the bed.
The man, kneeling with the camera pointed in your direction, looked up to cock a brow at you.
“Sweetheart, hey, can ya do that one more—”
“Hush,” you muttered, closing in on his crotch.
Your head was lowered so you could undo the front of his jeans. Because of this, your back was arched, and your ass was pointed up just the slightest bit. For a second, Joel seemed torn between tilting the lens to your lower half or your face, which was inching ever closer to the bulge in his trousers. In time, he landed on the latter.
He swallowed. That sight never got old—and seeing it displayed on the camcorder’s semi-grainy screen only made it that much hotter. Joel shifted on his knees while you worked him out of his boxers, watching the nimble movements of your fingers as you wrestled the fabric.
“Wanna—” Glancing to the side of the bed, “—maybe—”
“Yup.”
Both of you liked it better on the floor: you on your knees in front of Joel, chin tilted up to see his reactions as you sucked him off. You loved to sink between his legs and then see and feel nothing but him, brain going blank the moment his cock filled your mouth. Joel slid a pillow under your knees before widening his stance some.
“Is it on?” Your hand was wrapped firmly around the base of his cock and your lips were hovering an inch from the tip. You resisted the urge to lick the precum off just yet.
“Darlin’, it’s been on ever since you stepped outta the bathroom in that— that—” Joel seemed to be searching for a word when the head of his cock was enveloped in a kiss. You dragged your tongue across the slit of him and collected the hot, salty beads with a muffled moan.
Then you pulled off.
“Teddy,” you said, reminding him of the name for that pretty little tulle and lace getup you currently had on.
“Teddy,” Joel echoed, his mind a million miles away from any lingerie jargon at the moment. He held the camera tighter as you took him back into your mouth and sank deeper on his cock. He struggled to keep it steady.
It was strange, watching Joel and the rounded glass of the lens as you did this dirty thing that was only meant to be shared between you and him. Knowing it would be recorded, saved for future viewing, displayed on some dimly lit screen in Joel’s bedroom maybe one, twice, or more likely than not, several dozen times over the next three months. You wondered how you might look from this new point of view; though, you weren’t so sure you needed to know what sight Joel was made privy to while you sucked and hollowed your cheeks around his cock.
As it turned out, that uncertainty wasn’t meant to last you very long, because Joel flipped the camera’s screen around two seconds later. Some sepia-tinted, pixelated rendition of your face, framed by the date and time and a bright red flashing dot beside the word ‘REC’ were the first to greet you. You flinched back just a little.
“Joel,” you said, almost bashful, “Flip it back.”
Joel just grinned. Then he laced his fingers through your hair and tugged you closer to him, thumb stroking over your scalp, “C’mon, darlin’, don’t ya wanna see how goddamn pretty ya look on your knees for me?”
You didn’t think you looked pretty at all. In fact, you reckoned your features looked something more like an alien utility funnel than a real, human face as you tilted your chin inward and seemed to be nothing but eyes and a hollowed-out expression, but you let Joel guide you back onto him all the same. You heard a low rumble of pleasure take shape in his chest as your lips slid over his shaft. Your gaze remained glued to the screen as you did.
Wet with saliva and a few faint traces of precum, you continued to bob your head up and down. Joel’s groans grew louder, and your drive to take him further and further surged as well. By the time his hand was tightening into a white-knuckled fist in your hair, you’d nearly taken him all the way to the back of your throat, and your nose was no more than an inch from the soft tufts of hair on his belly. Joel let out a shuttering breath.
“Fuck me,” he heaved. You might’ve smiled if your lips weren’t otherwise occupied. Then he clenched his hand even harder and murmured, “Can you— can I, please—”
Again, you didn’t need him to finish the rest of the question to know what he wanted. You moved your head back just slightly to nod, a low, ‘Mhmm’ reverberating down the length of his dick as you gave him permission. Joel swallowed and set the camera aside immediately.
He placed it on the nightstand, perfectly level with your head, to the side. Then he rotated the device just a bit, took one glance at the screen, and shortly returned to where you were watching him with wide, glossy eyes.
“Ready?” he asked. His right hand now joined the left at the back of your head, but not before thumbing a quick touch over your cheek to get a feel for your approval.
You hummed once more. You watched Joel’s hips move forward, hands secure around your scalp all the while, and you felt a gentle nudge at the back of your throat. Then another. You couldn’t help the impulse to gag, but thankfully, it was short-lived. Joel peered down at you, eyes searching yours for any plea to stop or slow down, but he found nothing. He sheathed himself deeper until your lips were brushing the base of his dick. He groaned.
“That’s a good…fuckin’ girl,” he managed, voice strained, “Takin’ my cock so deep.”
He shifted his hips to move an inch or two out, then slid his cock forward again, bumping that spot at the top of your throat. This time, you were better adjusted to take him and felt your muscles expand and contract around him without activating your gag reflex. Your eyes stayed trained on his face while he dragged his cock back again.
“My pretty girl and her—” Joel stabbed back into you, somehow tender in the way he did it, “—pretty fuckin’ mouth…Sweet thing likes gettin’ facefucked, does she?”
With the increased pace of his thrusts and the grip he had on the sides of your head, you couldn’t quite answer, but Joel could tell from the glint in your eye that you loved when he manhandled and fucked your throat like this. Watched the light sear gently behind those irises as you swallowed every inch of his cock, back and forth, and let your brain break down to little more than a happy, mindless mush. Joel was always keen to oblige you on that front—aroused to no end at the sight of all your thoughts being fucked straight out of your head—and within the next few thrusts, his gut was giving a familiar clench. He pulled halfway out of your mouth, paused, felt the pinch again, then withdrew from your lips fully.
“Get on the bed.”
You straightened back up and made it over to the mattress, quickly. Before you could assume the position you’d been hoping to take on all fours, you felt yourself flipped on your back. Joel yanked your hips to the edge of the bed and kneeled down between your legs. Hooked his fingers under the waistband of your panties and had them shuffled down your thighs and past your ankles in no time at all. Then, when he lowered his lips to your wet, aching core, you pressed a touch to the crown of his head.
“Joel, wait,” you said. All of a sudden your chest felt tight.
In spite of the fact that your airways were open and completely free from any obstruction—namely, Joel’s big ol’ pico—you still found it difficult to inhale. Some murky, amorphous sense of anxiety weighed over your chest.
When your hand didn’t move from his head and instead pushed him further, Joel furrowed his brows, perplexed.
“What’s’a matter, darlin’?”
You shook your head, more to yourself than to him.
“I haven’t…just— haven’t washed down there today…o-or shaved,” you stammered, “Don’t want you to taste it.”
That was largely a lie. You’d bathed, shaved, and prepared for this just fine, but really were more concerned about the novel optics that loomed overhead. Being filmed in such a singularly vulnerable state without knowing how to act. You were fine when the attention was focused on Joel and his pleasure, but something about having your every whimper and moan laid bare before you on film felt daunting. Unnerving, in a way.
Joel frowned while rubbing your thigh. His brow pinched inward again, as if he were considering something.
Then he moved across your body, and your muscles eased with relief at the thought that he’d just let it go and get to fucking you exactly how you wanted. You reached for him, ready to wrap your legs around his waist, when a yelp clawed out of your throat. You found that you didn’t get to touch his chest, or his cheeks, or his big, broad, beefy shoulders, as you were promptly thrown over the latter of the three body parts and lifted when Joel stood up from the bed. He started carrying you across the room, heedless of the startled, ‘What the FUCK, Miller?’ you’d cried the second he took one step.
Hardwood floors transformed to tile before your eyes, and shortly, you realized you were being brought into your bathroom.
You heard the squeak of some metal knob being turned, then a brief sputter, then a spray of water raining down on your shower floor. You were still being held hostage over Joel’s shoulder, try as you might to bite at his lower back or smack his ass in an attempt to break loose.
He set you down a second later, seemingly unfazed.
“Get in.” He nodded toward the shower.
Before you had a chance to respond, he left. You stood back in disbelief—refusing to go into the shower and let Joel have his win—but just as you opened your mouth to call out and tell him as much, his form slipped back in through the door. Naked, now, and wielding that stupid, goddamned camcorder with a devious glint in his eye.
“Will you—” You held out a defensive hand in front of you, cheeks already heating, “—stop with that?!”
Secretly, the corners of your lips were fighting a smile as Joel drew closer with the camera held up to your face.
“There she is, folks,” he announced, as though speaking to a crowd, or else reading off of a script from the world’s most cheesy porno, “My dirty, dirty girl says she needs a shower—don’t ya, sweet pea?”
It sounded so ridiculous and dumb that neither one of you could keep from laughing. Even as you lifted your middle finger in response, Joel grinned and smacked your ass. Steadied the camera out in front, nudged you closer to the shower, and watched you somewhat begrudgingly obey his orders. Once you’d stripped what little remained on your body, you stepped into the tub.
Add to ‘ridiculous and dumb’ just wildly unsexy as well—who the hell needed a soapy interlude to a sex tape?
Joel Miller, apparently. He constricted his grip on the camera and followed you in, tongue already skimming the backs of his teeth in anticipation. You turned away to step under the shower’s stream, and he wasted no time getting a shot of your derrière. You leaned forward and sighed.
The water worked wonders to get your muscles to loosen some, but still, you were nervous. You could clean up now, stall a little longer, maybe even offer to give Joel head again—but what if he really wanted to eat you out on camera? You couldn’t put off the conversation forever.
Or another minute, it seemed.
You let out a shriek when you felt Joel’s fingers sneak up between your thighs. You hardly knew what he was doing, just folding limply when he spun you around to press your back against the shower wall. Your eyes widened to see him descending your body once more.
“I lied,” Joel said, smirk painted clear across his features, “You’re not dirty—I just wanted to eat your pussy in the shower ‘s’all.”
Chivalry was evidently alive and well in Austin, Texas.
No truer words could have been spoken, and yet, you felt wildly uncomfortable the second Joel’s head dipped between your legs and that big, dumb, handsome face started licking stripes up your sensitive core. You cast a glance to the side and saw the camcorder perched on the sink—just through the open slit in the shower curtain, you could see it pointed directly at you.
You shivered and started to push Joel away.
“Can we maybe just—”
“Sweetie?!”
Joel’s lips tore out of your cunt quicker than a sneeze through a screen door. His eyes were wide.
“Y-Yeah, dad?” you squeaked, tone almost fearful.
“Everything okay in here? I heard ya scream,” your dad returned shortly.
You could only imagine the expression of confusion and distress painting his every lineament in that moment. Probably just barely sticking his head through the crack in the door and blinking anxiously through the steam.
Your dad was caring like that.
He just never knew the right times to show up.
No, there were very few times where you would’ve liked to see him less—apart from that one time you’d sucked Joel’s dick under the table at your dad’s birthday dinner. Your heart was thudding a wild, erratic beat in your chest, and you could only imagine how Joel was feeling. Probably seeing visions of a Size 11 boot being shoved up his ass if his friend happened to slide the shower curtain to the side and see him nose-deep in his daughter’s box.
That would be bad. So very, very bad and probably ten times worse than when Tommy had caught you blowing his brother at the aforementioned birthday party. You just couldn’t seem to catch a break these days.
You sucked in a breath and answered anyway.
“I thought I saw a spider.”
“Really?” You could already sense the embittered tinge to your dad’s voice, harking back to the war he’d once declared on all wolf spiders in the home, “Want me to kill it?”
The next thing you heard was two boots thud on the bathroom floor outside the shower, and you could’ve sworn you saw Joel’s whole soul leap from his body. He shot a frantic look around him, spotted a window above, and seemed to wonder for half a second if he might be able to shimmy his 188-pound frame through a space that probably wasn’t big enough to fit a fat raccoon. He slumped his weight against the shower wall and winced.
“No! I— It wasn’t even a spider. Just a…roach.”
Shortly, Joel’s eyes widened even more and met yours, as if to ask, ‘Why the FUCK would you say that?’
“A roach?!” your dad cried simultaneously.
Apparently, you’d forgotten that any derivative of the word ‘cockroach’ was like a sleeper agent activation phrase for middle-aged fathers who wanted to keep their homes free of all household pests. The look on Joel’s haggard, world-weary face communicated as much to you, and for a second, you remembered that he, too, was built the same way as any other semi-old dude you knew.
Just bigger and beefier and…harder below the belt than you would’ve expected most men around his age to be.
You quickly chided yourself for ogling Joel’s dick at a time like this and replied to your father, shrill, “No!”
Then, slightly more composed, “No, no— I already took it out with some hairspray and told it to fuck off to hell.”
An attempt at humor was the last leg you had to stand on. Fortunately, it worked.
Outside the shower, your dad chuckled, and his footsteps started to shuffle off toward the door.
“Ah. Atta girl,” he beamed, ever the advocate for brutal cockroach killings, “If you see another, just holler, okay?”
“Okay.”
You heard the sound of the bathroom door closing, and you almost fell to the floor. Joel probably would’ve been facedown just as well—fear seeping out of his body along with every last ounce of willpower to stand—had he not made a dive for you as soon as your dad had left.
The force of his push sent you straight into the wall, legs forced to wrap around his waist as he buried his face in your neck.
“Thank fuck,” he breathed.
“You’re welcome,” you murmured, swiping the water out of your eyes with a grimace.
Then, just as you were about to request that Joel lower you back down to the floor and out of the shower’s spray, you felt a nudge between your legs. Luckily not a tongue this time—just Joel, or the tip of his leaking cock. The man below you grinned, and for the first time in a long time, you felt a wash of relief. Could it be?
“I’ll still eat you out if y’want,” he started, though speaking with a little less conviction this time around, “But after all that I, uh—kinda jus’ wanna fuck ya stupid.”
Well thank fuck for fake spiders and cockroaches, too; you’d just averted a dreaded tonguefuck, thanks to that detour.
You’d worry about your pornstar moans and on-camera charisma another time—now you could just sit back and let Joel do all the work while he took you against the wall.
Really, there was no need to concern yourself with anything at all from that point forward. Once you’d given Joel the green light, he was sinking you onto his cock with a grunt and making sure you felt nothing but him. His hands found your hips and held you firmly in place as he rutted into you from below, your own fingers latching onto his shoulders for some much-needed support. Both of you knew that you needed to be extra quiet now—seeing how sound seemed to carry in that tight, tiled space—so Joel snagged your lips in his for a kiss.
He was practically panting in your mouth by the time you started meeting his thrusts. His fingertips slid some and must’ve seared ten perfect crescents into the flesh of your ass as he fucked you into the wall.
“Look so pretty like this,” he whispered in between kisses and short, shallow breaths. His cock parted your insides with an excruciating welt of pleasure, and he hardly even seemed to realize it, “Look so damn pretty takin’ cock.”
Then, lips kicking up in a smile when it seemed he’d remembered something, he added, “Can’t wait to play this tape back home and watch us fuck all over again.”
Again. Again. And again. Shit, you could just see it now.
Your eyes traversed the compact shower space once more to find the video camera—still perched, still live, still perfectly implacable and silent atop the sink as it recorded your every grunt, groan, and shuddering moan. You were nearly as curious to know what Joel’s bare ass looked like rutting into you like this as you were to hear yourself getting railed against the shower wall. Maybe you’d beat this fear of secondhand embarrassment after all.
Maybe.
Joel’s teeth snagged your bottom lip and bit it, lightly.
“Every chance I get, you can bet I’ll be thinkin’ ‘bout this…sweet pussy while you’re away,” he said, voice low and occasionally punctured by a groan, “Say one more thing f’me and I’ll…cum every time I watch this part.”
The kinks at the corners of his lips were endearing. You would’ve liked to supply them with just about anything they could’ve wanted, so when they leaned into your ear and murmured just what it was they needed to hear, you only hesitated a second.
Or maybe two or three, because, well…it was risky.
Moaning ‘daddy’ out loud at a time like this? It might get Joel off quick, but it might send your real dad running even faster. You weren’t crazy about the thought of anything that might draw the man’s attention again.
Joel seemed a little less risk-averse than you, notwithstanding the window-leaping fear he’d felt when your dad had rushed in before. Leave it to a criminally horny man to have the memory of a goldfish, though.
At present, Joel was blinking and gawking a bit like one, too, waiting for you to enunciate that one magic word.
You couldn’t deny he made a damn cute desperate sex fiend when he wanted to be. And you needed to cum.
You figured you could cut a deal with him just this once.
“Alright,” you mumbled against the top of his stubbled lip, “Make me cum and I’ll say anything you want, Miller.”
You weren’t sure if it was a chuckle or a strangled moan that jumped up in his throat when Joel squeezed your sides tighter. All you knew was that he was lowering you to the floor in the next instant, spinning you around, and walking you forward, swiftly and with purpose, toward the opposite end of the shower. Right where the crack in the curtain made you most visible to the camcorder.
Joel’s hand snaked around your front and gently eased between your legs. Then, pressing his chest to your back and nudging you to bend just slightly at the waist, he tipped your bodies closer to the camera’s line of vision and stilled. From the LED screen, you could see the ghost of a smile crossing his lips as he shifted his head beside your own. Next, they were kissing across your shoulder, your neck, that sensitive spot behind your ear, and finally the shell of it, brown eyes trained on the camera lens as he murmured to you, “Stay real still.”
You didn’t know if you could. But you tried. And you damn near cried when his fingers started working circles over your clit. Your body was raised on tip-toes, and your hand was bracing the wall as Joel fucked you from behind and made a mess of your wet, writhing body. In no more than three or four strokes, your fears of looking or sounding stupid on camera trickled away with all the rest of the silent, sizzling liquids circling the drain below. Your cheek pressed against Joel’s rougher one, and with the push of each new thrust, you came more unraveled.
When Joel’s hand closed over the front of your throat, you didn’t flinch. Didn’t move—couldn’t move, as the man was holding you still in such a taut, rigid grip.
“What do we say when we get fucked this nice, baby?” Joel whispered in your ear, words almost entirely masked by the sounds from the shower. You still heard it, though.
“T-Thank you,” you stuttered, cockdrunk and faint.
“Thank you, what?”
Your eyes were fluttering closed, but you could feel the smug expression just over your shoulder. You clenched around him and felt him snap his hips ahead even harder.
“Thank you, daddy,” you whimpered.
“Say it again.”
“Thank you, daddy!” you whined, still scared to be too loud.
Joel wasn’t scared. His hand ascended the column of your neck to pinch your chin between his fingers, jerking your head to the right.
To the crack in the curtain. To the camera.
You could’ve cried with how fast he was fucking you now. You opened your eyes and cast a pathetic look to the recorder. Joel made sure you maintained that gaze, too.
“Who’s makin’ ya feel this good?” he seethed, shaking your whole frame with the breakneck pace of his hips.
“You, daddy.”
“Who’s fuckin’ this sweet cunt like no one ever has?”
“You, daddy.”
Joel seemed sated and somehow not fully satisfied at all. Like he was pleased to see you falling apart for him like this, but needed to hear more. Feel more.
He withdrew from you, and you nearly collapsed with the absence of his arms holding you straight.
You pressed a shaky palm to the wall and almost moaned for him to get his ass back over here, you weren’t done, when Joel returned in a second. To your relief, his muscly arms found their way around your front once more, and his clock plunged back inside you, too—only this time, you sensed you were missing something else.
Water.
It wasn’t on your back anymore.
It was fanning between your legs.
Blasting the full force of its stream toward your most sensitive parts as Joel held the shower head up between your thighs. You would’ve jumped back and screamed were it not for his hand clamping tight over your mouth before you could, his lips grazing over your ear again.
“Try it one more time.”
You released a hoarse, muffled squeal into his palm when he lifted the stainless steel to your clit and started rolling his hips. The strokes themselves were relatively gentle, but paired with the ruthless spate of the water, your eyes were nearly rolling to the back of your head at the pulse.
You couldn’t breathe, much less speak. Joel hummed almost apologetically into your hair but didn’t seem sorry at all as he lowered his hand back down to your throat and squeezed. He continued rocking his hips into yours.
“You’ve said it dozens of times before—what’s’a matter?”
Joel Miller knew what the fuck was the matter. He just liked to see you desperate, fucked-out, and teetering on the brink of going feral before he let you reach your peak.
“D-D-D—”
Damn, you sounded stupid.
“D-D-Do you wanna cum? Is that it?” Joel said, mocking your struggle to articulate words as he fucked you.
In spite of your normal no-bullshit attitude toward him, you weren’t in quite the right frame of mind to be talking back to him. You just nodded and moaned, movements constricted by the grip of his fingers on your neck.
“Use those big girl words for me, honey. I know ya can.”
Again, you parted your lips and started to speak, but the oscillation of the water, the brush of his cock, the patently deprecating lilt in Joel’s string of praises, made it nearly impossible. You ended up sputtering again,
“D-D-ah-fuuuckfuckfuck.”
“That ain’t the word I’m looking for.”
But, just as you ventured to say it once more, he cut in,
“Here. Lemme help ya find it.”
Before you could blink, Joel was pistoning his hips against your ass like he had before, only this time, he held the shower head stationary between your legs as you seized and nearly fell to the floor with the force of all the pleasure coursing through you. Your body seemed to act of its own accord, head dropping to Joel’s shoulder and stomach giving an alarmingly fitful pinch as an orgasm tore through you. You couldn’t control how it came or where it went—or how your tongue jumped up and cried,
“Daddy!”
Joel nodded, fucking you through each violent spasm with all the composure and aplomb of a seasoned pro. While your eyes cycled back in the throes of delirium, he held firm and didn’t slow his hips—or the shower head.
You probably could’ve torn a hole through a cinder block if you’d happened to have one between your teeth just then. That was how fervid and merciless the aftershocks of your climax were pulsing through you, exacerbated to the nth degree by the continuity of Joel’s movements. You managed to grab the forearm that was holding the metal nozzle and plead a wild, slightly stifled, “JOEL!”
In truth, you didn’t really want him to stop. It felt too good. You could tell that Joel sensed this, too, because in the instant after that, his lips were sponging kisses to your shoulder, cock working steadily between your walls.
“One more, sweet pea.”
“Joel—”
“And say it louder this time.”
Were you in your right mind, you probably would’ve chided him for being so reckless and stupid about it all. How the fuck could he expect you to scream out loud when your dad was lounging right outside of your room? Did he really think the drone of Cillian Murphy’s smooth, American-ized tone would mask your unbridled moans? Honestly, you couldn’t be sure—and more importantly, you couldn’t be stopped to consider for much longer. With one last trembling vibration from the shower head and a thrust from Joel, you were cumming all over again.
Squeezing his arm, sinking into his sturdy frame, clenching over his cock in what felt like a hundred convulsions, and casting caution aside, you screamed:
“DADDY!”
You might’ve blacked out for a second or two.
Even a minute, as it was, because the next intelligible thing that reached your ears was the thunder of footfalls. And the thrum of Joel’s own hammering heart as he yanked you into his chest and stilled frozen inside you.
The door swung open on its hinges so hard it hit the wall.
“What is it, sweetie?!” your dad yelped.
“I—”
“Are you hurt?”
Just fucked raw by your best friend and shaking, Pops.
You sucked in a breath when Joel nudged your head with his nose and slowly pulled the shower curtain closed to move you out of view of the camera. But it was still there.
Your dad was still there.
The shower walls seemed to be closing in on you, but somehow, you managed, “No, dad, I’m fine! Just…coulda sworn I saw another spider in here, but it was nothing.”
“Are you sure?”
Your dad sounded unconvinced, pacing closer. You could’ve screamed, but Joel was likely holding you too tight to make any such sounds possible in that moment. The two of you recoiled, still stuck chest-to-back, away from the edge of the plastic shower liner when a boot thudded just outside the crack between curtain and wall.
You swallowed. Joel squeezed. Neither of you breathed.
“If it’s another roach, I gotta call the extermin—”
“No! No, it wasn’t a roach. I’m just seein’ things, I think.”
That didn’t seem to make your father feel any better, because he didn’t retreat like he had before. A tense moment fell over the compact, fog-infested room, like the man was chewing away at some thought in his head.
Then he sighed.
“Alright.”
Blissful footsteps away from the shower. You smiled.
Unfortunately, the grin was destined to be short-lived, because in the next instant, you heard boots screech to a halt on the tile. Pivoted, then paused where they stood.
Another gut-wrenching dozen seconds passed, and for one short, chilling moment, you could’ve sworn you felt your father’s gaze sear through the curtain and see you.
But he didn’t see you. Or Joel. Or anyone.
Instead, his gaze was fixed someplace else.
Suddenly, his voice rose above all the awful noises of clamor and panic in your brain, and broke out, loudly,
“What’s my camera doin’ in here?”
#TO THE CREATIVE MINDS WHO BROUGHT THIS MAN’S BUSH TO TELEVISION…..I OWE Y’ALL MY LIFE#it took COURAGE and TENACITY to decide that showing the happy trail was essential to the narrative#joel miller#joel miller tlou#joel miller smut#joel miller imagine#joel miller one shot#joel miller x reader#joel miller fanfiction#the last of us#tlou#the last of us fic#joel miller x you#dbf!joel#dbf!joel miller
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geyser
series masterlist
pairing: luke castellan x daughter of poseidon!reader
summary: percy learns about the first girl luke castellan ever loved.
a/n: this is a lil sad. sorry about that. but i really like it and it came out of nowhere in like 2 days so i hope you enjoy despite the sadness. title from the mitski song
wc: 6.5k
warning(s): major character death; not shown but hangs over the whole fic. angst made angstier by fluffy flashbacks. mostly told through percy’s pov but includes luke, annabeth, and reader povs
also if you saw this before on another account DONT WORRY... that account was also me. im just doing some stuff behind the scenes right now as i figure stuff out lol i promise no plagiarism is going on
Percy thought that his head might explode.
He didn’t know how he was still walking, honestly. His mom died, he killed a— no, the— Minotaur, all the Greek myths were real and his dad was one of them, and now he had to deal with that freak accident with Clarisse and the toilets.
At least he would be ready next time she tried to beat him up. Percy had been the new kid enough to know there would be a next time.
All he could do was stare at the Minotaur horn in his hands, the only sign that what happened outside the border was real. The horn in his hands and the hole in his heart.
Percy swallowed the lump in his throat. He’d been thrown into the deep end, and the only thing on his mind was when he would start to drown.
“Hey.” Percy looked up to see the counselor he’d met earlier with Annabeth—Luke. He tossed a ziploc bag at him and he caught it, taking a moment to look at what was in it.
“I stole you some toiletries from the camp store,” he explained. “Thought it might make you feel more at home.”
“…Thanks.” He didn’t know if Luke was joking, but the damage had already been done. And it was the nicest thing someone had done for him so far. He set it down next to his Minotaur shoebox. “Is this the best that it gets?”
Luke’s lips quirked up in a slight smile. “For now. We’re a little crowded, if you couldn’t tell.”
“Just a little bit.” Percy stood up from his sleeping bag and worked out the knot in his shoulder. “Where’s your bed? Assuming you have one.”
“I couldn’t wrangle all these cats without some back support,” he said, and he pointed to a bed in the corner. It was the only one on its own without a bunk, and he had a fair amount of decorations. Counselor privileges, he figured. Percy walked over, Luke trailing behind him.
“Nice place,” he said. Percy picked up the Yankee’s cap on his bedside table and nodded as he looked back at him. “Nice taste.”
“It’s for Annabeth,” Luke said. “She wanted us to match.”
Percy nodded again in approval. “Good taste for both of you.”
Luke had various other things around — an alarm clock knocked over next to the baseball cap, a huskie sticker on the wall half-scraped off, a poster for an album he didn’t recognize.
But the thing that caught his eye was a polaroid hanging on the wall, surrounded by a smattering of others varying in size.
The first one had to be an old picture—Luke didn’t have his scar, and the biggest smile stretched across his face. He had a girl close with an arm slung around her waist, and she might’ve been smiling even more than Luke. A bright energy emanated around her, something that must have transferred through the picture, because Percy found himself feeling a little better just looking at her. He wondered if she was a camper.
His eyes flicked to the next picture, which was another one of Luke and that girl. They were both laughing as she tried to put a blue hat on Luke’s head, and he protested with a hand on her wrist. They were in the forefront of a baseball game, Percy noticed.
There were other pictures, too—Luke, a girl dressed all punk, and what looked like a young version of Annabeth, most notably—but a majority of them were either Luke and that girl, or the girl all on her own. In every single one, she beamed brighter than the sun.
Percy pointed at the picture of Luke and the girl at the baseball game, his curiosity getting the better of him. “Who’s that?”
That seemed to catch Luke off-guard, his lips parting for a moment as if he wanted to say something. It barely took him any time to get back on track, but Percy found himself frowning.
“That’s…” Luke cleared his throat, wet his lips, shook his head. “A friend. A very good friend.”
“Does she go here?” Percy asked.
“She did.”
He frowned. “Where is she, then?”
“Percy—” Luke’s voice was strained, but he didn’t really notice as he went on.
“I didn’t see her around,” he continued, “and you look pretty close.”
Luke blinked a couple times, and Percy swore he could see the telltale glimmer of tears starting in his eyes. A muscle worked in his jaw, and suddenly Percy was worried that he’d said something horribly wrong. He had a talent for that, it seemed.
Fortunately, he was saved by the bell—conch shell?—and something like relief flooded through Luke’s expression. Tension still coiled in his body.
“Come on,” he said, that camp counselor smile coming back as he put his hand on Percy’s shoulder and guided him away from the enclave. “That means dinner’s about to start.”
Percy’s frown deepened as curiosity won out again. “Was she your—”
“You don’t wanna be late,” Luke continued, ignoring his attempt. “I assume you’re pretty hungry after two days spent out?”
Well, that only made him want to push harder. But Percy figured he wouldn’t get anything out of him—especially not now.
“…Yeah,” Percy said. “Starving.”
An odd look flickered across his face, but again, it only lasted for a second before he was back to normal. He cupped his hands around his mouth and yelled, “Eleven! Fall in!”
Percy was at the back of the line by virtue of him being the new kid, and he found himself looking back at that picture of Luke and the girl. He didn’t know why, but something drew him to her. Before Percy could think about it more, the line was moving and his growling stomach drew his attention away.
He would have plenty of time to ask Luke about it later.
Or rather, ask him and piss off the only person who’d tried to be his friend so far.
…Gods.
Maybe he was going to drown sooner than he thought.
-
“Luke—”
“No!”
“Luke, please!”
“Annabeth will kill me if she knows—”
“She won’t know!”
“Alright, alright— stay still, you two!”
Your mother laughed from behind the camera as you and Luke fought with each other, you trying your damnedest to get your Red Sox cap on his head as he tried his damnedest to stop you. The frantic laughter on both sides made it a little difficult for either of you to succeed in your quest, but eventually, you got the rock up the hill and the hat on his head.
“Take the picture, Mom!” you exclaimed, pulling Luke even closer by his arms so he couldn’t get it off. “I need the proof!”
“I knew this was a bad idea,” Luke groaned, staring at the camera as you wrapped your arm around his side and leaned into him. He could already imagine your victorious smile, brighter than the sun beating down on them in the stadium, and just the thought of it made one of his own flit across his lips.
“Oh, shut up, Castellan,” you said. “You chose to come to this game. Everyone’s gonna know you’re a Red Sox fan now.”
“You said you wouldn’t tell her!” Luke defended, wrenching his arms free of your control to take the hat off his head. “I don’t even care about baseball!”
“You care so much about it,” you said cloyingly, “and you’re ride or die for the Boston Red Sox.”
“If you say a single word—”
“Okay, kids!” Your mother pointed at the seats next to her. “The game’s about to start—you can keep arguing, but only if you sit down so I can see.”
“Sorry, Mom.” You grinned at her as you pulled Luke over to your seats—they were a step up from nosebleeds, but they were the ones closest to the balcony so you could at least peer over the railing down to the diamond.
“It’s alright, sweetheart.” She glanced at Luke with a smile, and he could really see where you got it from. “We’ve gotta make him a fan somehow.”
“I guess I can live with the brand.” Luke set the cap back on your head once you were seated, purposefully pulling the brim a little over your eyes, and he smiled at you. “Even though it looks better on you, anyways.”
“You just don’t have what it takes to be a Red Sox fan in the heart of Yank territory,” you mused, pushing the hat back up so you could see. “It’s fine.”
Luke rolled his eyes, but he could hardly bite back his smile.
“I am glad you came, though,” you said, glancing back at him. “I’m glad you came with me in the first place. This is gonna be the best semester.”
“Thanks for having me,” Luke said. “It’s… it’s been a while since I’ve left camp.”
“Fingers crossed for no monster attacks, eh?” You held up your hand. “At least, not during the game. I could live with it happening any other time.”
“Don’t speak it into existence,” your mom said. “We’re going to have a monster-free school year.”
To humor her, you made a claw over your heart and pushed out. She hummed in satisfaction, and you looked over at Luke. “It’s gonna be fine.”
“Yeah,” he said. “Because two kids like us aren’t gonna draw any attention.”
“Oh, I know we will,” you said. “But I know it’ll be fine.”
Luke frowned. “How can you be so sure?”
You shrugged with a smile. “I’ve got you.”
And in that moment, he was thankful for the freakish heat that honestly made no sense in the spring—at least it covered up any sign of what your words did to him.
Luke thought you were joking when you asked him if he wanted to come back home with you for the school year. He didn’t know why you wanted to go back in the first place, being a Big Three kid that apparently had a death wish, but the thought of him leaving camp was almost inconceivable.
Even after you assured him you weren’t joking, he still wasn’t sure. He was on the run with you for three years, then…
Well, he couldn’t think about it for too long. But Luke had been on the outskirts of regular society for so long, doing nothing but fighting for his life, that he didn’t know if he could actually function at a normal school.
But it felt right for you two to get some normal time together after you were separated for so long. It took him a semester to decide, but one day during your usual Iris message conversations, he told you he’d love to spend the rest of the year in Boston with you. Luke still remembered the grin you wore, your disbelieving but victorious cheers, the apology you yelled back at your mother for your noise.
Luke watched you as you talked with your mom, discussing Boston’s chances and player statistics and baseball jargon he didn’t think he’d ever understand, and he knew he would sit through a thousand Red Sox games if it meant he would get to keep seeing your smile.
You must have felt his eyes on you, because you glanced over at him. “Are you okay?”
Luke smiled. Gods, he was so glad you were here.
“Never better.”
-
“That one nearly got me,” Luke said.
Percy huffed as he picked up his sword from the ground—he was pretty sure he would officially lose his mind if Luke disarmed him with that stupid move one more time. One benefit to the Hermes cabin being too scared to associate with him after getting claimed was that he wasn’t making a fool out of himself in front of other people.
“Maybe I can only beat you when I pour water on myself,” he said.
Luke chuckled as he took a bottle from the cooler on the side and held it up. “Wanna try?”
He shook his head. “I think my arms will fall off if I keep going with you.”
He tipped his shoulder. “Fair.”
Percy stared at the ground as Luke gathered himself, trying to put the free range thoughts roaming around his head in order. It didn’t help that he’d gained a million questions after Poseidon claimed him, and it didn’t help that there’s been a newest addition to his dream last night.
He still felt strange asking Luke about it, but he had to know more about her. Percy didn’t know why it felt like his mission to find out who this mysterious girl was, or why he felt that strange connection to her. Maybe it was the way Luke acted whenever he brought her up, maybe it was that she’d popped up in his dream next to him at the very end, maybe it was just plain old curiosity.
“I’m not supposed to be alive,” Percy said, breaking the silence. “I could die at any time in a bunch of different horrible ways. So will you tell me more about that girl on your wall?”
Again, Luke seemed to be caught off guard by it. Percy heard the crunch of plastic as his hand clenched ever so slightly around the bottle, and he tried to cover it up with an arched eyebrow. “Why do you want to know so badly?”
He shrugged. What was he supposed to say?
“I’m curious,” he decided.
Luke huffed a dry laugh before he took a sip of water, and he stared off into the distance for a while. He did a lot of staring whenever this girl was brought up. They looked like they were best friends in those pictures, but maybe whatever they had ended badly. And if she was a demigod too…
Well, it would make sense why he didn’t want to talk about her.
“You know that phrase about curiosity?” Luke asked.
“And how it killed the cat?”
He nodded, drinking some more. “It goes double for demigods.”
“Everything else wants to kill me,” Percy said. “So curiosity’s gonna have to get in line.”
Luke’s laugh was a little more genuine this time, and he shook his head. “I guess I can tell you a little about her. You actually probably have a right to know.”
“Is she a half-blood?” Percy asked immediately.
He nodded. “Yeah.”
“Who’s her parent?”
Luke capped his water bottle and looked at Percy for a good, long moment. His face glowed in the warm afternoon sun, his scar cast in a softer light than usual. The scar used to unnerve him, but he’d gotten used to it after weeks staring at it during sword fighting.
“She was a child of Poseidon, Percy,” he said. “Just like you.”
Percy felt short of breath, like Luke had just knocked his sword out of his hand and shoved him to the ground. But he stood on his own two legs that somehow still worked, and Luke hadn’t moved.
He had a sister?
“I have a sister?”
“…Had,” Luke corrected. “She… she died a few years back.”
A vice latched onto Percy’s heart. He was still having a hard time breathing. No wonder Luke always used past tense when he was talking about her.
He had a sister, he wasn’t alone, but he was because she was dead. And if Luke was one of her friends, that meant she died young.
Gods.
“What about their oath?” Percy asked, trying to ignore the aching in his chest. “I’m already on thin ice for my whole existing thing. How did Poseidon get away with two kids so close to each other?”
Luke shrugged. “I’ve never known why gods do things. Her mother was a great woman, though—I could see what drew Poseidon to her against the oath.”
One half of Percy wanted to ask every question that kept popping into his head. The other side of him wanted to break down and cry.
“How did you meet her?”
“We ran into each other when we were both young,” he said. “Both child runaways, both demigods, both New Englanders—we decided to rough it out on the road together. Couldn’t be any worse than doing it on our own.”
Percy tried to imagine it. A young Luke and a younger version of that girl—maybe Percy’s age—living together in the wilderness and fighting monsters. Surviving off of nothing but their wit and skill, facing death each day before they’d even reached middle school.
“It… it didn’t happen then, did it?” he asked hesitantly.
Luke shook his head. “Couple years later. All we did was watch each other’s backs out there.”
Percy couldn’t help himself. “What happened to her?”
“The same thing that happens to everyone,” Luke said flatly. “There’s a reason I’m the oldest one here.”
“That doesn’t make it better,” Percy insisted. “It— it makes it worse, Luke. You see that, right?”
Luke stared at his empty water bottle then tossed it back into the cooler. When his gaze met Percy’s, he was shocked by how… tired he looked. Beyond exhausted—bone-weary. Percy wanted to say more, but he didn’t get the chance.
“This isn’t good conversation,” Luke said, “and it’s getting late. You should hit the showers before dinner.”
The sun still beat down on them, bright and angry in the sky, but Percy provided no argument. He had a lot to think about.
Before they went their separate ways, Percy stopped and looked back at him. “I’m sorry she’s gone, Luke.”
Luke’s gaze went unfocused for a moment, his eyes growing glossy. “So am I.”
-
Percy sat on the floor of the Hermes cabin in the corner that used to be his, staring at his meager belongings. He had to decide what to take on his quest, which was made easier by the fact that he hardly had anything to his name. Things could always be worse, though. At least he would have a change of clothes.
He should’ve been doing this in his own cabin, but it felt too empty, too suffocating in its silence. Eleven was still more familiar. He heard the door open and saw Luke walk in, and his eyes lit up when he saw Percy.
“Hey,” he said. “I wanted to see you before you left. How’re you feeling pre-quest?”
“Like the world’s about to end,” he said.
Luke’s lips twitched into a smile as he sat on the bed across from Percy. “Understandable. It kinda is.”
“It’s just overwhelming.” Percy shoved the unfolded clothes into his backpack. “I have to clear mine and my dad’s names and get Zeus’s bolt back, or else war will start. No pressure at all.”
“You were chosen for a reason,” Luke said. “You may not see it, Percy, but you’ve improved a lot since you got here. If anyone can do this, I think it’s you.”
Percy looked up at him, and he was reminded of the way their last conversation went. He was asking before he could really stop himself.
“I could die on this quest and never see you again,” Percy said. “So could you tell me more about my sister before I go?”
Luke smiled wistfully and sighed. “You really won’t let this go, will you?”
“It’s not really something you just let go,” he said. “Besides, I… I saw her in my dream last night.”
Luke’s smile faded. “You did?”
Percy nodded. “For a split second, but I know it was her. I felt the same way I did whenever I looked at her pictures. And… it’s the second time she’s shown up.”
He let out a long sigh and shook his head, his gaze trailing off to the wall. He always looked so much older when he talked about this girl, like he was a war veteran reminiscing on his lost love. And from what he’d gathered, it might not have been too far off.
“I told you we ran together when we were young,” he said, and Percy nodded. “We were both nine, and it should’ve been terrible, but she had a way of making everything better. Always found the bright side of things, was always able to make me laugh.”
“She was from Massachusetts—right in the middle of Boston.” Luke chuckled as he looked at Percy. “Huge Red Sox fan.”
Percy grimaced. “We all make mistakes.”
Luke smiled, though it faded a bit. “We got separated for a while, but we found each other again when I got to camp. Things were more peaceful than they are now, so she’d been claimed at camp pretty quickly. I figure Poseidon wanted her to have the protection of him openly standing behind her after what happened.”
He frowned. “What do you mean, ‘what happened’?”
Luke shook his head. “That would be an awful story to send you off on.”
Percy wanted to protest, but he didn’t. Luke was probably right—Percy didn’t want to make him relive it and then have to go on a death quest right after.
“A happier part, then,” he suggested.
“She ran away from home as a kid to protect her mom, but now that she had an idea of what she was doing, she started going back to school. She invited me to stay with her during the school year one year, and I accepted. That—” Luke’s throat bobbed, and the other hand clenched into a fist— “that was when she died.”
In his stunned silence, Luke got up and went over to his alcove. He pulled the drawer open on his bedside table and pulled out a neatly folded piece of paper. It must’ve been folded and crumpled a million other times in messier ways by all the creases he could see, but when Luke opened it, he could see handwriting all over the front.
A letter.
“We Iris messaged each other constantly while she was at school,” he said, “and we wrote back and forth when we couldn’t. This was the last letter she sent me.”
Percy’s first instinct was to say he wouldn’t be able to read it, but he realized that he didn’t really care. These were words that his sister wrote—he would sit here the rest of the day forcing sentences to make sense if that was what it took.
So he took the letter when Luke offered it.
To the one and only Luke Castellan,
My mom said yes! After a very long interrogation (she now knows basically everything about you) and a million promises that you would be as careful as possible and that you were good enough at sword fighting to take down anything that could come after us, she said you can spend the year here. We spent a couple hours every day making my mom’s study into a guest room, so you have a place to stay.
I’m an idiot that didn’t bring enough drachmas so that’s why I have to send this letter—hopefully it gets to you soon enough, because we’re gonna come get you a week before my winter break is over. Mom is letting me drive down because she says I have to get my permit soon. It makes sense that my first big test is getting to you. If we don’t make it, it’s because we died in a fiery crash.
Just kidding. I’m a great driver. But tell me some of your favorite songs when you reply and I’ll burn a CD for the ride—I figured out how to use LimeWire. Oh, and throw in a couple drachmas with the envelope so I can Iris message you next time. I miss your face and your voice, and my hand is cramping up writing all of this.
But this is so exciting! I can’t wait to introduce you to all my friends at school, and show you my favorite places in the city, and make you into a Red Sox fan. And you can come to my soccer games— I’m the greatest forward there is.
Jokes aside, I’m going to make sure you have the best time. We’ll spend every second together, Luke. We’re gonna make up for the time we lost.
I can’t wait to see you again.
Your hurricane.
It took Percy a long time to get through it with the words swimming all over, and it didn’t help that his vision had grown blurry.
Tears, he realized as he blinked, and he did it again to make sure they wouldn’t fall. He couldn’t cry in front of Luke, not over a girl he didn’t even know—even if she was his sister. But maybe he was grieving that—the fact that he would never get to know her.
“God, man. I— I’m sorry.” Percy couldn’t think of anything else to say. “She sounds like she was great.”
Luke couldn’t even manage a smile this time as he stared at the wall. Percy was surprised he could even talk to him about it.
“She was,” he murmured. “You would’ve liked her. And gods,” this time, a bit of a smile broke through despite it all, “she would have loved a little brother.”
“I’m gonna make her proud on this quest,” Percy vowed. “I’m gonna clear our dad’s name for her.”
Something in Luke’s gaze had changed—sadness, almost regret. “You’re a good kid, Percy. I hope your quest doesn’t change that.”
I hope I come back alive, he wanted to say. But given the topic matter, he didn’t. Percy carefully folded the letter back up and handed it to Luke.
“Thank you for telling me about her, man,” Percy said. “I… I know it can’t be easy.”
Luke let out a shuddering breath as he stared at the closed letter—Percy wondered how many times he must have sat in this same position, reading her words. “No better way to honor her memory than helping her brother.” He glanced at Percy. “I see a lot of her in you.”
He’d been wondering if he had anything in common with her. Percy felt a sudden flare of anger shoot through him—it wasn’t fair that she was dead. Poseidon was a god, and she was a teenager. He should have saved her.
Percy’s mouth was drier than a desert. A part of him wanted to curl up in a ball and sob over the sister he never got the chance to know, but the other part of him knew—from what little Luke had told him about her—that she wouldn’t want him to.
“I should get going,” Percy said, standing up from the floor. “We have to leave for the quest soon, and Annabeth and Grover are probably wondering where I am, and…”
Percy trailed off, and Luke nodded in understanding. He turned around and took one of the photos off the wall—one of you alone in the middle of a park, wearing a bucket hat and absolutely beaming.
“You deserve to have a part of her with you,” he said. “For good luck.”
He felt himself choking up, and he pushed it down as he accepted the photo. “Thanks, man. It means a lot.”
“Good luck, Percy,” Luke said. “You’ve got a lot of people rooting for you.”
Percy found himself studying the picture of you once he made it outside, trying to memorize your face. With your wide, infectious smile that emanated pure sunlight, he could have mistaken you for an Apollo kid. But when he looked at you, he got that same warmth that he felt every time he imagined his father.
“I won’t let you down,” he murmured. “I promise.”
-
After sleeping in his train seat for half the day, Percy vowed to never complain about his bed in Cabin Three again. He was gonna be going down to the Underworld with permanent cricks in his neck.
Grover was still sound asleep—Percy envied him for how easily it came to him in the worst conditions—but thankfully, Annabeth wasn’t. Her gaze was focused on the view as their train chugged along.
Percy cleared his throat in a flawless attempt at getting her attention, and it worked.
“You’re awake,” she said.
“Unfortunately.” Percy sighed. “How much longer do you think it’ll be?”
“Another day, at least,” she said. “And we’ve got a layover in St. Louis.”
“St. Louis,” he hummed. “Nice.”
They sat in silence for a while—there wasn’t much to talk about when they were coming off of two— or was it three, now?—near-death experiences. But eventually, Annabeth cleared her throat, taking a page from his book, and it worked again.
“There— there’s probably something you should know,” Annabeth said, and that worked even better than clearing her throat. “You’re not the only Big Three kid to come through Camp Half-blood lately.”
“I know,” he said. “Grover and Luke explained it.”
Her eyes widened slightly and she leaned forward in her seat. “Luke did?”
“…Yeah. You all already told me about Thalia.” Percy glanced away, suddenly feeling a chill in the train car. “Luke told me about my sister.”
Annabeth went silent.
“It’s okay,” he said. “I kind of annoyed Luke until he told me. Doesn’t really seem like a subject people at camp like to talk about.”
“I’m just surprised he did,” she murmured. “They were… they were close, Percy. Her death destroyed him—Thalia and your sister. All of it’s complicated.”
“Yeah,” he sighed, “I got some of that.”
“I only knew her for a year at camp, but everyone loved her,” she said. “She was nice. Popular. Always helped when she could, always had the biggest, most infectious smile on her face.” Annabeth looked down at her hands. “She didn’t deserve the fate she got.”
Percy didn’t think he’d ever grieved so much for someone he never knew. “But her and Luke—were they…?”
“Yeah,” Annabeth said, “they were a thing, later on.”
That seemed to be all she wanted to say on the matter. Percy decided not to push.
“How did you meet her?” he asked.
Annabeth’s lips pressed into a thin line. “I met her on the day I thought I would die.”
-
For the first time in her life, Annabeth Chase couldn’t think.
It had all happened so fast. One second she was running with Luke and Thalia and Grover, praying to her mother and any other gods that would listen to make the horde of monsters let up even a centimeter.
The next, she’d collapsed on the ground, never so grateful to have grass and dirt and dust in her face. But she could hear Luke yelling, barely able to make it out in her delirious state—she didn’t know when she’d last had a sip of water, and they’d been running for at least three miles—but he sounded hysterical.
She remembered her last clear thought: they weren’t going to make it.
But they had. They had, so why was Luke losing his mind?
Annabeth pulled herself up from the ground—how long had she been bleeding out of those slashes on her arm?—and looked for the rest of her friends. Luke wasn’t yelling anymore, instead arguing with someone she didn’t recognize in a bright orange shirt. Grover’s furry legs trembled as he stared down the hill they’d just gotten up, completely silent, and Thalia—
Where was Thalia?
Annabeth tried to get up but her legs gave out almost immediately, and steady arms caught her before she could fall to the ground again. Kind eyes served to ease some of her panic—she was older than Annabeth, maybe around Luke or Thalia’s age.
Thalia—
“Hey, you’re okay,” the voice said, and Annabeth’s attention was drawn back to you. “I’ve got you.”
“Where’s Thalia?” she blurted out, because now she couldn’t think of anything else.
Your brows creased and you glanced back down the hill—Annabeth did too, and she saw Grover and Luke arguing with each other. Or rather, Luke was yelling at him as Grover anxiously hooked his hands through his hair.
“I don’t know,” you said, “but right now, I need to make sure you’re okay. Are you hurt?”
Annabeth absentmindedly held up her arm, but she was only focused on her friends. Why wasn’t Thalia with them? Why was Luke so upset?
You cursed under your breath in Ancient Greek as you cradled her arm, and you looked back down the hill. Annabeth could see at least half a dozen other kids.
“We’ve got two half-bloods and a satyr, one injured!” you yelled back. “Get Molly and Brayden!”
“Three,” Annabeth found herself saying. “There’s three half-bloods—”
“Annabeth!”
Her head shot up at the sound of Luke calling her name as he bounded over, and her eyes widened at the blood steadily spidering across the fabric of his shirt.
“Luke, you’re hurt—”
“I’m fine,” he insisted. “It’s fine.”
“We have Apollo kids coming,” you said, looking up at him, still cradling Annabeth’s arm. “We’ll get y—”
Your sentence stuck in your throat, and Annabeth could see tears welling in your eyes as your brows furrowed. She thought Luke’s eyes might burst out of his skull as he stared at you, his lips parted but nothing coming out. Neither of you were able to form words.
When he finally did get something out, it was a single name. One Annabeth knew by heart, one that he’d mourned for years.
“Luke?” you whispered.
Before he had the chance to do anything, two teenagers got over the hill and called out your name, the same one Luke used. He always said you were dead, but you clearly weren’t dead, because you were here and you had her arm in your grasp and while your hands were cold, they weren’t cold enough to be dead—
“Molly’s gonna take care of you,” you said, looking back at Annabeth and cutting off her inner dialogue. “She’ll get you to the infirmary and heal you up, okay?”
“My friends—”
“They’re gonna be okay too,” you said. “I promise.”
Annabeth looked up at Luke, and he nodded. “We’ll be with you soon, Annabeth. We— we have to talk about some things.”
So she went with Molly down the hill, and Annabeth put pressure on her bleeding wound when she told her to—it had started to sting like hell now that her adrenaline was fading.
She looked back just in time to see you and Luke share the tightest hug ever.
The hug of two people who realized they weren’t seeing ghosts, Annabeth thought.
-
You bolted up in bed, eyes wide and your chest heaving as you rapidly sucked in air. Your fingers found purchase in your bedsheets, desperate for something familiar—it took a second for you to recognize your surroundings, that you weren’t in an endless void, but your childhood bedroom offered little comfort.
You ran a hand over your forehead, damp with sweat, as you tried to calm down. Your breathing slowed, but you couldn’t shake that awful feeling that hung over you in your sleep.
Your nightmares were getting worse, you knew that much. That raspy, demented voice used to be a rarity, and now it appeared every night. You could usually deal with your nightmares, but the sense of absolute dread that voice and the pit fostered in you was too much. You hadn’t managed to sleep through the night once since you came home for the school year.
You could deal with the monsters—to you, this was the worst part of your godly blood.
A knock rattled on the door out of nowhere, and you nearly jumped out of your skin. The only thing that calmed you down was the thought that monsters didn’t knock.
“Come in,” you croaked, your throat drier than a desert.
Thankfully, a monster hadn’t come to make your night even more miserable. Luke stood in the doorway, his eyebrows creased in concern, messy curls hanging just above his eyes. He wore the Red Sox t-shirt you’d bought for him at the game you dragged him to, and in your addled state, you didn’t even think to tease him about it.
“Are you okay?” He should’ve been as disoriented as you, but his alerted eyes told a different story.
You could only think of one thing. “How did you know?”
Luke’s lips parted for a moment, as if he hadn’t even considered it. “I could just feel it.”
You managed a smile despite every atom in your body screaming at you. “I think that means you can come in.”
He closed the door behind him, and you shifted over in your bed to make room for him. There wasn’t much in a twin, but you made it work. Luke’s weight pressed into the mattress, making you adjust your position, and it was more comforting than any amount of blankets.
“You’re so cold,” he murmured, laying the back of his hand against your arm. “How do you live like that?”
“Blame my dad,” you said. “I’ve got water in my blood.”
“I think that’s probably a bad thing,” Luke said, and you knocked your shoulder into his with a huff.
“You know what I mean.”
Luke let his hand fall back in his lap, and as you brought your knees up to your chest, you pulled the covers with them.
“So,” Luke said, glancing at you, “what’s got you awake at the witching hour?”
“The usual,” you mumbled.
“Nightmares that might be prophetic?” he asked.
You made a lazy gesture with your hand. “Bingo.”
“The worst sense of dread imaginable?”
“Bullseye.”
“I’m sorry,” he said.
You shrugged. “It’s nothing I can’t deal with.”
“You don’t always have to put on a front, y’know,” Luke said. You felt his eyes on you. “You don’t always have to be strong.”
“I’m naturally strong,” you said with mock austerity. “Comes with the god for a dad.”
Luke chuckled and shook his head. “You know what I mean.”
“Yeah,” you murmured.
You leaned into his side, fitting your head into the crook of his neck. Luke wrapped his arm around you, pulling you closer, and you let out a contented sigh.
That voice in your nightmares seemed so small when you had Luke.
“Can you stay?” you asked softly.
He didn’t hesitate. “Of course.”
“Just like old times,” you whispered.
“Just like old times,” he agreed.
Luke ran hot, and you’d never been more thankful for it as you fully settled into his side. Icy blood ran through your veins, and you let out a shaky sigh. You could hear his steady breathing, feel his heartbeat through his chest, and the anxiety from earlier began to steadily fade. You never felt safer than when you were with Luke.
There was something between you—you weren’t that stupid—but you hadn’t talked about it. With you and Luke, it was just… you and Luke. You didn’t have to put a label to it.
How could you put a label to your relationship, when you’d spent your first few years together fighting for each day, and then the next few thinking the other was dead?
Maybe someday, you would talk about it. But for now, this was more than enough.
“Don’t worry,” Luke murmured in your ear as your eyes began to droop. “I’m not gonna let anything happen to you.”
And by the gods, you believed him.
#reader is the mara of she ra the mikey berzatto of the bear the nellie crain of hill house DO YOU UNDERSTAND ME#luke castellan x reader#luke castellan fic#luke castellan angst#percy jackson and the olympians x reader#pjo x reader#x reader#daughter of poseidon#child of poseidon#sadie writes
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elliiii the theme hello! i saw my yue and first thought was . pretty <3. also the colour scheme is lovely. do u mayhaps wanna. say something about yue .
hiii ty!!! <33 and yess one thing about me is that I am sooo normal about yue. dead on arrival doomed by the narrative tragedy icon literal moon goddess but above all. my babygirl <3333
#she’s my forever girl my bestie my sweet cheese etc etc#elli replies#ask#erin tag#it’s just. she’s tragic bc she succumbs to her role. to what was expected of her#in contrast with for example the gaang who break free of what the war & the patriarchy (depends on the character) demand of them!!#I am not wording that well but just. ugh#also like. it’s not just that her death is an injustice (which it is!) but also how inevitable it was based on the circumstances & her#personality. she’s so self-sacrificial and has such a great sense of duty that even if zhao hadn’t killed tui#she would have died for her people sooner or later#and also how her death is somewhat of a turning point in the series#her death is the first shown casualty on the good side. it makes the sacrifice of war so much more tanglible#it’s very important for both sokka’s and aang’s character development#sokka who loses someone he loves and whom he was supposed to protect and aang taking the war more seriously after that#<- that aang part is not worded well but you know what I mean. it’s not that he was seeing it as a game or anything up until then#but he just takes it More seriously after the shock of her death y’know?#etc etc sorry I always end up rambling in the tags way more sjfkfjsk#also about the succumb to her role thing I think comradekatara made a post about that?#anyway ty for the ask <333#yue#<- so I can find this post again#yueposting
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౨ৎ˚₊✩‧₊ Cherry’s Cevans Series Rec List
thought i’d make a list of all the best cevans (characters) series i have read!! i have lots more to add and will continue to update this list🫶🏻 i will also create a one shot fic rec list in the near future💖💘💞
Preying On You Tonight - @evansbby
“Steve is the cocky, brash and domineering alpha who makes your life at university a living hell every day. You’re the complete opposite - quiet, meek and reserved. You’re convinced Steve hates you, but what happens when he finds out you have a boyfriend? (a/b/o dynamics)”
Wicked Games - @evansbby
Ari is the campus fuckboy and you’re his little plaything. But he’s telling the truth when he says he’s going to make you his girlfriend soon, right?
What A World - @onsunnyside
S.H.I.E.L.D. had a lot of secrets, you just never expected one of them to be an actual person—a blue-eyed giant, wild manbeast at that. [tarzan!Steve Rogers x doctor!reader, nomad!steve, size difference]
Just Because I Won’t Die For You, Doesn’t Mean I Won’t Kill For You - @dbnightingale24
Lloyd Hansen is just another job for you. Your last job. However, when he decides that he wants to take you for a ride and have a good time, well...how’s a girl supposed to say no?
Closer To Heaven And Closer To You - @georgiapeach30513
When your boyfriend, Ransom wants to take a trip back home to the ranch to meet your family, you are unsure. Knowing that a rodeo is in town could only mean your ex, Frank Adler, was most likely riding for eight seconds, still trying to beat his best friend, Steve Rogers. All you wanted was a nice time, not old memories bothering your brain.
Just Like The Caged Bird - @georgiapeach30513
You are a widow who moves back to her husband's hometown after selling your in Georgia home. Moving in above your brother in law's garage. Sharing the space with his friend Bucky Barnes, but your other brother-in-law Andy causes problems, along with your overprotective brothers.
Pretty Petals - @darkficsyouneveraskedfor
You go on a self-improvement retreat, but not all is as it seems. (multi-character)
His Koala Bear - @kinanabinks
you and steve have been best friends since you were 5. for the longest time, he has wanted so much more from you. and it's getting harder for him to stop himself from taking it.
Belong Here - @angrythingstarlight
Steve has been looking for his perfect girl and suddenly there you are stuck in this dingy restaurant. You don't belong here, you belong with him.
Finding Home - @navybrat817
Steve finds a home with you. (lumberjack Au)
Their Doll - @kaiparker-avengerssmut
y/n Stark, all records of her non existent, and yet Hydra still find her. When she is kidnapped by a certain super-soldier and no one believes her, she finds herself searching for unexpected familiarity in her not-so-distant past.
No Better Than Beast’s - @lokislastlove
You’re an animal rights activist who sets out to put an end to animal testing… but it’s a risky mission. (Dark!Steve Rogers)
Doppelgänger - @boxofbonesfic
Your husband’s twin brother has always made you uncomfortable, and after two years of marriage, you finally find out why. (Dark!Ransom Drysdale + Dark!Lloyd Hansen)
Million Dollar Man - @chrisevansgoodgirl
your relationship with ransom and his insane family.
Brooklyn’s Sweetheart - @spacesnail3000
Bucky and Steve had always been meant to keep her safe and happy. As far as anyone else was concerned, that was their sole reason for being alive. Unfortunately, the things that kept her safe were not always the things that kept her happy. Lately, she was making it pretty damn hard for them to compromise.
Let It Snow - @spacesnail3000
She was his Omega, and Steve had a plan. She would love him. He knew she would.
Sweet Renegade - @cevansbrat0007
A new arrival in town leads to an unexpected complication in the form of a sexy as sin Bounty Hunter named Ari Levinson.
Evergreen, Evermore - @babyjakes
loving husbands jake and ari had always believed they were all each other could ever want or need. but one unusual summer, when their world is turned upside-down by an uncanny girl from down the street, they find that having someone to love, nurture, and care for together is the missing piece that finally completes their perfect family and lives.
A Huckleberry Is Nothing Without His Hummingbird - @dbnightingale24
Lloyd and Y/N have been amicably(ish) divorced for four years. However, when earth shattering trauma come their way, will they lean into what they truly want, or will the flames from past traumas still burn too bright?
Civil war- Brooklyn - @saiyanprincessswanie
Ten years ago the Readers world was turned upside down when her father was killed by Hydras Brock Rumlow. She believes the loves of her life Steve Rogers and James “Bucky” Barnes were also killed while trying to avenge her fathers death. Reader is now working for the FBI on a task force that is meant to take down Hydra. She volunteers to go undercover to take down Hydra. In doing so she not only puts herself in the cross hairs with Rumlow but she gets to meet the mystery men causing Hydra issues. Who are the Captain and Winter Soldier? What lengths will you go through to uncover the truth and seek revenge?
The Boston Brute - @time-for-a-lullaby
When you graduated from Northeastern University, you had your sights set on the West Coast. And then you were offered a position with the Boston Bruins Athletic Training Department. And then you met Chris. A 6′3″, ruggedly handsome hockey player dead set on making your life a living hell by pushing every button and getting on every nerve. Despite your obvious disdain for each other and the ‘No Fraternization’ clause in your employee contract, you’re drawn together in a passionate, fiery love affair that seems to burn everything in its wake.
Planet Evans Universe - @astranva
In which Chris was a nervous mess when he met his A+ list celebrity crush, highest-paid, and the most iconic actress, you, at Vanity Fair’s 2014 after party. (Following the life of overprotective!dad!Chris x wife!actress!reader!)
Don’t Speak - @darkficsyouneveraskedfor
Reader is a reclusive loner who ventures down to the library on a simple mission. Her task is complicated by the man she meets there. (Dark!Andy Barber)
Cat and Mouse - @queen-of-the-avengers
You’re called the Vixen because you were HYDRA’s favorite creation. You’re very hard to catch, and once you are, it’s even harder to keep you.
Let’s Ride - @starryevermore
You’re a single mom and have just moved into a new town. You have no interest in looking for love, but the funny thing about love is, it waits for no one. (Biker!Ari Levinson)
Out Of The Darkness - @sunshinexsin
Sienna Jons has lived in Boston for three years now after graduating and is running her own salon in the city. With a small group of friends sticking by her side, she's content with her life. Enter Chris Evans, a known and feared mob boss in Boston’s underground crime world. Coming out of a long relationship ended in a bitter divorce, Chris isn’t looking for anything serious until Sienna crosses his path. Trying to win her over proves difficult for the man who seemingly has it all and Sienna is not willing to be with someone who causes such destruction in his own hometown. Sienna soon finds herself entangled in the crazy, violent world of the mob and struggles to find a way to either live with the hardened man Chris has always been or get away from him before her own life spirals out of control.
Murder He Wrote - @wiypt-writes
You’re sent by your asshole boss to do a review of a Celebrity Host Haunted Mansion, hosted by none-other than the arrogant, wild-eye browed actor Lucas Lee, but you’re worried you’ve missed the boat…that is, until at the last minute, an email arrives to say they can let you in on the last admission that night, which just happens to be Halloween. (Dark!Ransom Drysdale)
Poison Paradise - @the-iceni-bitch
Robert Pronge was sure he could settle for a fake domestic life as long as he could go on killing. Little did he know that you could give him everything he needed.
A Bun In The Oven - @witchywithwhiskey
the leaves are changing—green fading into golden yellow, burnt orange and radiant red—and the days are getting shorter and colder as autumn settles in. it's the perfect time of year for baked goods, fall foliage, book stores, and to curl up next to (and get under) our favorite man with a plan, steve rogers
Wilford’s Demands - @sweater-daddiesdumbdork
Wilford places you in Curtis’ care so he can impregnate you.
In The Balance - @goodgirlofglory
One unsuspecting evening, the stranger Steve Rogers appears bloodied and in need of aid at your doorstep. You immediately catch his eye, and he forces himself upon you within the hour. Several months of repeated visits from him results in your pregnancy, and the night you find out, Steve intereceps you on your way to an abortion clinic and kidnaps you to his mansion. Will you carry the child to term? Will you buckle under the pressure of capitivity? Will you escape the grasp Steve has on you, or will you submit to it and your own, conflicted desires?
Drowning Siren - @rogerswifesblog
The Avengers found an old abandoned HYDRA base, that had been cleared after HYDRAs existence had been exposed. At least they thought it was cleared. It was the biggest experimental lab they had ever seen, the closest base to the ocean, full with creatures-dead creatures. Some of them laid still on tables, stripped with metal cuffs, open and already rotting. It was an awful smell. But then they heard something beautiful. A melody, a beautiful voice singing unbelievably gentle sounds. Walking into the building full with ocean creatures, they had no idea their life was about to change.
Vampire Kings Religion - @marvelcriminalhoe
In a world where fantasy beings roam every corner, the humans are on the bottom. Looked at as weak and disgraceful. The vampires are the opposite. They rule the land, and all of the creatures that take part of it. the current ruler, King Steven, has ruled for more than 150 years, alone. After many nights, and long talks with his most trusted hands, he comes to the long awaited decision that he will finally, take a wife. All female creatures, are to be evaluated, so he can find his perfect match. Of course, no one expects for him to choose a human. Especially not one from the church. Especially not the daughter, of the leader, of the church. The same church that detests the mythical creatures, wishing for nothing more than for them to perish in fire. How could this union possibly end well?
Ride And Prejudice - @pagesoflauren
A take on Pride & Prejudice, certain circumstances in your life have led you to take refuge and work in a farm village, particularly on the ranch owned by Steve Rogers. He doesn’t take kindly to you, having bad perceptions about city folk. Your only reaction to that is the one you deem acceptable: get annoyed at every little thing he does whilst doing your best to annoy him and still keep your job.
Love On The Brain - @howardpotts
You’re just a student, living her normal daily life in New York. One night changes everything, without you even knowing. Steve Rogers slowly introduces you to his world full of money, drugs and voilence. But are you able to handle what he has to offer? (MobBoss!Steve Rogers)
Flamingo King - @onsunnyside
The sun is brutal this summer, especially in Flamingo Trailer Park, the land of big hearts and cheap tricks, you’ve been here for years unlike your “new” neighbour, Ari. He’s older, bigger, and intimidating, the local rockstar, and you, well, aren’t you just the sweetest girl in the whole damn city?
Make It A December To Remember - @imyourbratzdoll
AGE AND SIZE DIFFERENCE IS ADDED TO ALL! SANTA AND THE GRINCH ARE LARGER THAN THE READER! THE ELVES ARE THE SIZE OF HER PALM! (a chris evans xmas universe)
This Love Is Bad - @wildestdreamsblog
You were just trying to escape your past, and Ari was trying to chase his future.
Nowhere To Run - @sagechanoafterdark
On the last day that Steve spent in your small town before heading off to basic training for the army, he made sure it was one you wouldn’t ever forget. Years later when he appears in your town he seems like a changed man in more ways than one, but you’re ready to show him that you’ve never forgotten that day. (Dark!Steve Rogers+ Bucky Barnes)
Nice To Be Kneaded - @rogersideup
Almost every news station in the country was covering the chase for the missing superheroes post-raft-escape following the Civil War. Steve Rogers face had been plastered on the cover of every news paper, fliers stapled to street lamps, posted on bulletin boards in what felt like every coffee shop in the country. It had been just a few long months shy of a year, just long enough to grow out his hair and beard to make himself as unrecognizable as he could manage. Though he was still the poster boy of disorder within the states, he found himself in the scanty town of Greenwood in the house right next to yours.
Forever And Ever More - @syntheticavenger
Ransom Drysdale may be Boston’s most eligible Alpha who has his eyes set on you. With his inheritance hanging in the balance, he won’t take no for an answer, whether you like him or not.
Hackers Heart - @bakugousaysdie
steve rogers has always been america’s golden boy, leading earth’s mightiest heroes and serving his country. you have always been bad with boundaries, a little too curious, and an absolute disruption. you are an absolute menace,so it’s only right you fell in love with the most adored man in the country.
Arranged - @time-for-a-lullaby
Living in this life, you’ve never gotten to have much say in anything. What you wear, who you hang out with, and now, who you marry and you’re dreading your arranged marriage to the Italian mob boss, Chris Evans. Expecting to suffer through a life of abuse while being kept under lock and key, you’re pleasantly surprised when Chris is nothing like you expected. He’s the most feared man on the East Coast, only brought to his knees by one thing and one thing only. You.
#chxrrys fic recs#chxrrys masterlist#chris evans#chris evans smut#chris evans x reader#steve rogers#ransom drysdale#lloyd hansen#andy barber#ari levinson#chris evans fic recs#steve rogers fic recs
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actually re: fromsoftware politics. i do think it's very interesting that the anti-colonialist RLF, ostensibly considered the 'good guys' of the game, were initially explicitly called the communist faction. armored core always has been a series critical of oligarchies and hyper-capitalism, but it's... very interesting to see just how blatant that is in ac6 specifically
you'd think that fromsoftware would eventually drop the ball on the "the ruling class will kill you and cannibalise itself in order to stay alive" considering that they're considered elite AAA devs rn, but thinking about elden ring and ac6's narratives, they've really only gotten more obvious about it - the horrors of colonialism and genocide and the sympathy given to the rage of its victims is something that's actually insane to see, to me, from such a big studio - fromsoft doesn't even attempt to be centrist about it.
for example, the frenzy flame ending. the only thing melina can tell you to dissuade you from pursuing it, ie literally destroying the world forever, is that there's still beauty in the world, apart from the suffering the golden order had caused. at no point however is the sheer despair of the people that the flame represents villanized. if anything, it's portrayed as a self-fulfilling prophecy, it is a tragedy. the only villain is the order who slaughtered all of these people, the flame of despair is something that emerged in them as they were buried alive. and the flame isn't even intended as a revenge upon the world, it's simply a means to end the pain they feel for being subjected to this.
their grief isn't something for the player to judge, it isn't something they're forced to overcome, it's simply a physical manifestation of the reality that was forced upon them. and these people, the merchants, are still kind to us, even knowing the order that we pursue. (in fact, the true, considered best ending of elden ring, is literally just sacrificing yourself in order to achieve complete anarchism. and getting a cool wife to endure the loneliness of space along the way)
in ac6 then, ayre is so terribly forgiving towards us, knowing what we are, knowing what made us, knowing what we participate in. some of this undoubtedly is because of her narrative role, she has to be a sympathetic character. but we do get to see her rage at the end, her grief for her species being seen as nothing more than a resource to be exploited or burned fully vocalized. but the RLF is sympathetic too as resistance fighters who want their home back. the only criticism the game ever leverages towards the RLF is that they're actually not radical enough in their pursuit of freedom, and that criticism is made by a villain.
it's so... i almost want to say optimistic? other games would have tried to pull a "ooh but what if the good guys did bad things (poor attempt at moral grayness)" but no, the RLF is justified at every step of the way. idk it makes me feel things. i dont particularly want to portray fromsoftware as these bastions of political correctness or sth - they're not perfect and i don't expect that ever lmao, but it's so fucking weird that their games are this progressive and have been for a long ass time.
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“ ࣭⸰ ★ THE MOON SAYS HELLO. . .
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀呪術廻船; geto suguru x fem reader
⠀ ꒰ . . part one of three ꒱ . . . word count; 3.6k
⊹ ⠀⠀despite his insistence on never falling in love, suguru fails to stop himself from becoming smitten with his best friend’s beloved. you’ve become a flicker of hope in his darkness— though you’re someone who can never and will never be his to have and to hold.
series contains; if gojo didn’t kill geto n geto was given a chance to redeem himself, redemption arc!geto, human caretaker!reader, kind of e2l but also not really, love triangle, gojo x reader, fluff, major angst, heartbreak, wedding at the end, swearing probably, geto refers to humans as monkeys per usual
author's note; rewritten fic, will be 3 parts in total (i'm half done pls be patient w me im a slow writer...)
YEAR ONE, DAY ONE
His face is sore. So sore. It’s red, swollen, and sore after he’s spent the last three hours screaming in frustration with his current predicament. This is absurd, Satoru should’ve just killed him when he had the chance. Geto’s lost count of how many times his palms have slapped his own face; over and over again with wishes that he can wake up from this hellish nightmare the higher ups call ‘rehabilitation’— though he can somewhat still recall the first slap that he’d given himself around the half-hour mark. He’s got a pretty good memory…that doesn’t stop him from hoping his veins aren’t too noticeable as they angrily protrude from his forehead in crimson currents.
He’d rather be dead than imprisoned like this…like an animal…like one of those damn useless monkeys.
The intensity of his wails continue to bounce off of the barren walls— barren aside from the dark mark he’d punched in earlier— and echo like a party of lost ghouls in the bottom of an empty well. Geto feels like a mad man.
He’s only just begun his isolation and he’s already growing mad with boredom.
A huff escapes his lips as he plops himself down onto the twin-sized bed that’s nestled in the corner of his so-called ‘suite’. With linen sheets and a dark maroon comforter, it’s almost a cozy living situation; in another life, Geto could imagine himself cuddling beneath the covers with his favorite book and a soft record playing in the background for some ambience. That world is far far away now. Even if he asked for a record player, he doubts the higher ups would grant him one. He’s their most valuable prisoner, and they’re sure to keep him as miserable as possible until he’s one-hundred-percent pure hearted once more. However, despite their reluctance to grant him the things he wants, these aren’t the worst living arrangements he’s ever encountered and he knows that Gojo did his best to give him the best commodities he could to…well…a highly dangerous criminal.
This is the only path to forgiveness, he reminds himself, constantly trying to be optimistic about the utter absurdity of it all.
Optimism hasn’t been his specialty in a long time; anyone with a working pair of eyes would be able to deduce that, and he despises it. He’s quite rusty with the characteristic and has looked on the darker side for a while now— but wishes that he could be as reckless as he once was as a teenager. He can vividly remember how loud his laughter was with Gojo and Shoko, laughing as they chased each other throughout the school yard and using each other's cursed energy to their advantage in games of tag— but that would be near impossible now. His two best friends can barely look him in the eyes after the treason he’s committed. Gojo views him as a ticking time bomb and Shoko’s healed too many people to count that he’s harmed.
If he stepped one foot out of this room, he believes he’d be smothered on sight.
The Jujutsu Society fears Geto Suguru..
…and Geto Suguru fears himself.
In all fairness, he deserves everything that’s come to him. What he did was awful; mass murdering humans…trying to murder even more humans…harming innocent students…starting a war during the holiday season…the whole gist. There are obviously bad actions from the past that continue to haunt Geto to this day and will continue haunting him so long as he breathes— but that’s all it is now…the past. He wants redemption. He needs redemption. If Gojo managed to reach clarity within Geto’s awful decisions, then maybe he can too.
Geto wants to get better, to be better…not only for Gojo…but for himself.
This is exactly why he and his best friend has devised a plan, one that will hopefully help lead Geto on a better path— a five-year path that will only be completed if he truly wants it to, and a half a decade seems like quite a bit of time to most; but for Geto, he doesn’t know if it will be enough.
For Satoru…do it for Satoru…
He wraps his arms around himself in an attempt to comfort his heart that beats with fear every second of every day. It’s been so long since he’s been hugged by another, and he doubts he’ll ever feel that love and comfort from someone in his life. It’s the first time in a long time that he’s been alone with his thoughts with no one else to turn to; and if he’s being honest, there’s nothing in the entire world that scares him more than his own mind.
“Geto Suguru?”
He doesn’t recognize that voice.
The soft sound comes from seemingly nowhere, startling Geto with a slight jump. Whomever it is sounds frail and weak, obviously intimidated by whom they’re going to be in the presence of in mere minutes; and Geto already finds nothing but annoyance at his new companion. Of course they’re going to have prior judgment. He bets you already hate him for the rumors and stories. He doesn’t really have a choice whether or not you come in, though. Gojo insisted on a caretaker— someone to talk to so he doesn’t go insane by himself— and Geto will do anything to make his best friend happy. So, he stands up and dusts his pants off, making sure to look more presentable, and stalks towards the entryway. His hand meets the knob, yanking it open, and ready to meet the stranger on the other side.
Standing before him is you, a woman around his age. You can’t possibly be older than twenty-six, but perhaps you’re a few years younger. In your hands are various sweets and snacks that Gojo knows Geto loves, balancing on a silver tray that shines more light in the room than he’d care for. The reflections dazzle straight into his eyes, blinding him briefly with a scowl on his face. Of course Gojo would know to send you in with his favorites. He’s so predictable. His best friend is less surprising than he thinks, causing Geto to roll his eyes to the top of his head; though he appreciates the kind gesture. It’s far past dinner, though. Gojo must’ve struggled to convince the others to allow him a proper meal.
“Don’t just stand there, monkey.” Geto commands whilst gesturing to the small dining table in the center of his confined space. “Come inside.”
The instant you stepped into his presence, it was horribly noticeable that you have no cursed energy. Zero. Not a lick of it…and he struggles to hide the disgust with his body language. He can’t help but be annoyed that a monkey such as yourself is going to be in his company for the next five years.
With his distaste for you clear as day, he pulls out a chair for himself and disregards the kind option of pulling out yours prior; expectantly looking towards you with the expectation that you’re going to serve him his meal like a servant.
“Well, monkey…” he trails off disinterested, “I’m waiting.”
You hustle towards him, quickly and efficiently placing the special grade sorcerer’s meal on the placemat before him and taking the empty seat opposite. There’s a small breath you’re holding in, Geto can see it in your throat— it’s suffocating you with fear for your life as your fingers lightly tap the dark wood in a nervous fit.
You’re completely pathetic. As if a monkey would ever have the courage to speak to him. This is ridiculous.
His hands slam against the table with a loud bang. “What are you doing?” he questions, heavily interrogating you as you cower in your seat like a meak mouse. “Does Satoru expect you to monitor my meals?”
He really is nothing but a prisoner, isn’t he?
“What damage could I possibly do with this slob that’s been served to me by the scum of the earth? Start a food fight in the halls? Overthrow the Jujutsu world with a biscuit?” (If that is the case, in your defense, the biscuits are quite hard. There must be a new kitchen hand in training who based them.) This is a horrible day.
As Geto impatiently awaits your answer, a deep breath escapes your lips— perhaps a way to soothe your heartbeat into something less than a record-breaking speed— and you attempt to focus your stress and fear into a fleeting moment of zen. Your large eyes shut for a total of three seconds; one, two, three…before opening again. This time, as his own eyes make contact with yours, they’re shining with slightly more confidence than before as you swallow hard and settle your gaze on Geto— the look in your eyes evolving from that of anxiety to empathy.
“Actually,” your lips rise into a thin smile, “Gojo Satoru didn’t send me here, the higher ups did.”
Your eyes search Geto’s for any signs of discomfort or inner rage that could be boiling beneath the surface of his poker face. It appears that he’s grown even stronger at hiding his true emotions towards humans; however, you can see through the veil. Yes, it’s thick and difficult to brush past, but there’s a slight opening in the center that you peek inside— and what you can see in his heart is a man who simply wants to finally do what’s right.
“The higher ups are aware that Gojo Satoru has a soft spot for you— hell, everyone who knows your name is aware that when it comes to you, he has no reason. He has no right of mind. I’m only here to monitor and report your progress in an honest manner. That’s it. That’s all. I promise I won’t intrude on your life more than necessary.”
Shit.
“I’m sorry, Geto Suguru…but you’re stuck with me.”
It’s as if his left and right sides are arguing between themselves. His good conscience says that he should give you a chance, perhaps you could be different than the monstrous humans that attempted to kill his beloved Mimiko and Nanako; while his bad conscience tells him to let out one of his cursed spirits to devour you where you stand. Listening to his right side would definitely get him his best case scenario…a chance to see his girls again…but the left side would be so much more enjoyable. Oh well. At least the higher ups sent someone somewhat his age and not an ancient and decaying corpse like themselves. That’s a disgusting thought. He’d rather be hugged by a hundred humans than be forced to befriend a higher up. A shiver runs through Geto’s spine as a newfound appreciation for you is birthed within him.
“Do you have a name?” Geto taunts as he begins to pick at his meal, slightly disgusted with the stale quality of some of the snacks but nevertheless thankful that he at least has something to subside his aching hunger. “Or should I just call you ‘monkey’ as I do with the rest of your kind?”
That sound?
You’re laughing?
Your giggles are surprisingly pleasant to Geto’s ears as they harmonize into a song that he can imagine himself listening to each morning. Why did you find that funny? He was quite literally insulting your entire existence. Geto is dumbfounded by the strange humor you seem to have, considering that he was being entirely serious with his question. Humans are so strange. He’s never really been able to understand how your peoples’ minds work, but perhaps he could begin to learn the basics. It’s not like he has anything better to do, and some entertainment would be nice.
He’ll keep you around…it wouldn’t hurt and you can be his companion kind of like a pet.
Pets are cute…
…your smile is cute too.
You smile once more, answering his question with a blush on your face. “Please,” your cheeks redden, “Call me by my name, Suguru.”
YEAR ONE, DAY NINETY-FOUR
“You’re late.” Geto crosses his arms over his chest, exhaling a large breath of air in a loud and annoyed huff as he attempts to seem seriously angered by his new friend’s awful timing.
It’s nearly twenty minutes past the time that you were supposed to be here; emphasis on supposed. He’s been waiting with his eyes staring at the clock, watching it tick and tick as the time passed by with no you knocking on his door. That’s twenty whole minutes of time in which he was forced to entertain himself rather than listen to your rambles and rants about whatever the latest scandal is in the outside world. You love that pop culture gossip stuff that social media and magazines rave about, and in a weird way, you somewhat remind him of his daughters— personality-wise…not attraction wise…that would be weird.
Over the past few months, Geto’s grown severely accustomed to the daily routine that you’ve developed, becoming so fond of you that he strangely pictures your smile and recalls your laughter when you aren’t even here. Friendship is a funny thing. He doesn’t think he’s ever had a friend like yourself; yes, Satoru will always be his closest confidant…but his relationship with you is different in a way that he can’t quite put his finger on. He’s never considered anyone else the highlight of his every day like he does you. Your company is the kind of presence that he overwhelmingly enjoys; with such a positive and warm nature exuding comfort to Geto’s loneliness, and your judgment-free outlook on life rivaling his pessimism in a perfect mixture of negativity and optimism. He wishes he’d met you sooner, perhaps when he was a child— and if he had, maybe he wouldn’t have turned out the way he did.
It’s too bad you would’ve only been an awful human to him back then…he would’ve called you his infamous nickname without batting an eye…a monkey…
…a mere monkey whom he never ever thought he’d develop unwanted feelings for.
For his entire life, Geto always told himself not to fall in love. That love isn’t real. It isn’t obtainable, not when there are people like Satoru in the world— people that you can’t help but love— and then people like him; people who you can’t help but hate. With that being said, he’s never necessarily been looking forward to any potential love matches in his future.
…no matter who he was involved with…
…until he met you.
“Sorry about that, Suguru!” you hustle through the doorway, your appearance a tangled mess with dusty dirt particles littered with gravel.
There’s a large scratch on your right cheek, not deep or in danger of infection in any way, but noticeable enough that he’s able to see it from a distance. Knowing you, it’s most likely accidentally self-inflicted in some sort of way; you being notorious for tripping or snagging your skin on the sharp end of a table. How do you always manage to be so uncoordinated? Geto can’t help but let out a short laugh, his eyes scrolling up and down your body and taking in your entire appearance, dirt and all. You even manage to make dirt look good. What the fuck? He hates this.
Your voice carries on as you approach him. “I was running on time, but then I saw this adorable shop downtown and I just had to make a stop.” The overexaggerated tone you hold is amusing as your hands wave through the air in a physical storytelling of your experience. The skin of your cheeks is flushed red from your sprint through the city, looking beautiful in resemblance to that of a blooming rose.
Geto can feel his own face heating up at the sight of you, choosing to shrug nonchalantly in an attempt to seem as if he doesn’t care at all about your dilemma…
…as if he doesn’t care about every second of your everyday…
…as if your overall excitement isn’t the only thing that truly keeps him going nowadays.
“You tell me these things as if what you do outside of this room matters to me.” He hopes his words mask his rising blush. (Spoiler alert: They don’t.)
Flawlessly, you brush off Geto’s phony disinterest without the slightest acknowledgement. It’s as if the phrase had never even left his lips, with no evidence and proof of insult. This isn’t an uncommon occurrence when the topic of what you do when you’re not with him comes up in conversation, as the prisoner typically tries to ignore his interest in your daily shenanigans— and you can’t deny that it hurts. Most of the time, it feels as if Geto never actually listens to anything you say, and you were able to quickly realize that in the early weeks of your arrangement when the pain began to torment your heart; ripping and shredding it to bits with every eye roll and mocking scoff. You don’t seem to matter in Geto’s point of view. He doesn’t care…at least that’s what you believe.
In contrast to Geto, you’re an emotional spirit— you crave love.Love is all you’ve ever wanted, needed, and desired. In your time with him, you’ve developed inklings of feelings as well. However, you’ve chosen to let your feelings grow and blossom out of the dirtied patch of grass they were planted in— ignoring the warnings every single person in your life has given you in advance. Despite that, Geto continues to stomp on your budding flowers. He takes a heavy watering can, filled to the brim with hose water, and drowns your garden in the tears that you shed in the privacy of your bedroom. Those tears that are a never ending waterfall due to the fact that you know it isn’t your job to fall in love with your client. Your duty to Jujutsu Society is to help Geto learn to love humans and sorcerers as one in the same and to gain the trust of his community once more— not to love you.
“Okay, before you judge me, at least give me a chance to explain myself.” Stumbling towards Geto, you accidentally trip over your own feet in embarrassment, and proceed to hold out a single flower not yet in bloom. “It’s freshly cut. I saw a bouquet in the window and it caught my eye, because it reminded me of you; but I knew you’d hate a flashy bunch of them so I just bought the one.”
It reminded you of him?
Taking the gift into his own hands, Geto studies it intensely. The rose is a dark shade of red, crimson, or scarlet depending on your vocabulary. The petals are a brighter color while the plushness near the stem turns dark, more sinister as it approaches the thorns lining the sides. Just by looking at the rose, he can understand why it made you think of him. It’s gorgeous, but practically untouchable figuratively and literally. There’s only one angle that he can hold the stem at that doesn’t prick his fingers. Ouch. And he just did the very thing he was being so careful of avoiding.
All his life, he’s never been the kind of person who longed for gifts or compliments, but when coming from the right person…perhaps he is.
Whilst he struggles to come up with a reply— a simple ‘thank you’ or ‘i appreciate this’— you mentally applaud yourself as you’ve finally found a way to make him speechless…
…but your praise for yourself is short-lived.
He can’t be weak. Not even for you.“I guess it’s not terrible.” Geto throws the flower to the ground and lightly kicks it away with his right foot. As one of the beautiful petals drifts away from the lonely flower, he turns away, not being able to endure the heartbroken look on your face and the offended rose on the floor. Why does he have to be like this? “I’m sure that garbage is all a monkey like you can afford anyways.” Why is he so cruel?
His eyes clench shut as he hears the door begin to close. You’re so gentle even when upset. He admires that about you— you’re the calm to his ever-raging storm, the sailor to his tsunami, and the lifeboat to his wreckage— you’re the most pure-hearted person he knows, and you don’t deserve this awful anger he holds within him.
Is he…crying?
As tears begin to drip down his cheeks, Geto collapses against the wall with his knees buckling beneath him and his weight crumbling down to a pile of patheticness. He’s just a shell of a man undeserving of someone like you. Soft sobs escape his lips and silent cries fill the hollow room, absent of your joy, crying out until he notices the faint outline of the young rose beside him. With the flick of his hand, he snatches the flower off the ground and lifts the thorny plant with careful hands— finally and truly understanding your meaning behind the gift. This is how you see him? He’s dreadful and hurtful to others on the outside, prickling kind people away with his thorns…but when encouraged and supported, he has the potential to become something beautiful.
Someone that could one day be compared to the beauty that is of a blooming rose.
With the budding rose in his grasp, Geto sits alone. He realizes that he’s only able to become that person with the help of you. You’re the only person that has even come close to seeing him for who he truly is; aside from Satoru you’re the only person who would think of giving such a gift to the number one enemy of the Jujutsu world. You’re the only person who he’s ever come to feel true and honest romantic love towards.
Geto has to become better. Not only for himself and Satoru…but now, for you.
⋆⋆⋆⠀ ⠀thank you for reading! reblogs are greatly appreciated!
⋆⋆⋆⠀ ⠀i promise i'll post the next 2 parts soon pls be patient :3
#geto x reader#geto angst#geto fluff#geto suguru x reader#geto x you#suguru geto x reader#suguru x reader#geto fanfiction#geto fanfic#geto ff#geto hc#geto hcs#geto oneshot#geto suguru fanfiction#geto suguru fanfic#geto suguru x you#suguru geto fanfiction#suguru geto fanfic#suguru geto ff#suguru geto angst#suguru geto fluff#jjk x reader#jjk x you#jjk x y/n#geto x y/n#jjk fanfiction#jjk fanfic#jjk ff#jujutsu kaisen x reader#jujutsu kaisen fanfiction
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[...] More specifically, the cycle of violence in The Last of Us Part II appears to be largely modeled after the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. I suspect that some players, if they consciously clock the parallels at all, will think The Last of Us Part II is taking a balanced and fair perspective on that conflict, humanizing and exposing flaws in both sides of its in-game analogues. But as someone who grew up in Israel, I recognized a familiar, firmly Israeli way of seeing and explaining the conflict which tries to appear evenhanded and even enlightened, but in practice marginalizes Palestinian experience in a manner that perpetuates a horrific status quo.
The game's co-director and co-writer Neil Druckmann, an Israeli who was born and raised in the [occupied] West Bank before his family moved to the U.S., told the Washington Post that the game's themes of revenge can be traced back to the 2000 killing of two Israeli soldiers by a mob in Ramallah. Some of the gruesome details of the incident were captured on video, which Druckmann viewed. In his interview, he recounted the anger and desire for vengeance he felt when he saw the video—and how he later reconsidered and regretted those impulses, saying they made him feel “gross and guilty.” But it gave him the kernel of a story.
“I landed on this emotional idea of, can we, over the course of the game, make you feel this intense hate that is universal in the same way that unconditional love is universal?” Druckmann told the Post. “This hate that people feel has the same kind of universality. You hate someone so much that you want them to suffer in the way they’ve made someone you love suffer.”
Druckmann drew parallels between The Last of Us and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict again on the official The Last of Us podcast. When discussing the first time Joel kills another man to protect his daughter and the extraordinary measures people will take to protect the ones they love, Druckmann said he follows "a lot of Israeli politics," and compared the incident to Israel's release of hundreds of Palestinians prisoners in exchange for the captured Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit in 2011. He said that his father thought that the exchange was overall bad for Israel, but that his father would release every prisoner in every prison to free his own son.
"That's what this story is about, do the ends justify the means, and it's so much about perspective. If it was to save a strange kid maybe Joel would have made a very different decision, but when it was his tribe, his daughter, there was no question about what he was going to do," Druckmann said.
And continuing, on the security structures featured in the The Last of Us Part II:
Besides the familiar zombie fiction aesthetics of an overgrown and decomposing metropolis, The Last of Us Part II's main setting of Seattle is visually and functionally defined by a series of checkpoints, security walls, and barriers. There are many ways to build and depict structures that separate and keep people out. Just Google "U.S.-Mexico border wall" to see the variety of structures on the southern border of the United States alone. The Last of Us Part II's Seattle doesn't look like any of these. Instead, it looks almost exactly like the tall, precast concrete barriers and watch towers Israel started building through the West Bank in 2000.
Illustrations, from the article:
The first barrier Ellie and Dina encounter when arriving in Seattle / West Bank barrier.
. . . article continues on Vice (July 15 2020)
Backup -> archive.today link /archive.org link
#free palestine#palestine#israel#gaza#the last of us#tlou#tlou2#zionism#i know this article has made the rounds here before but i wanted it archived in case vice goes down
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C 👏 S 👏 LEWIS 👏 WAS 👏 NOT 👏 MISOGYNISTIC
IM SO SICK OF THIS TAKE
“But he said girls shouldn’t fight in battles—" No, actually. What he said was “Battles are ugly when women fight.” Which literally translates to “in a war where women are required to fight to help win it, it means the war itself is really bad.” And this literally just means that the war has gotten so bad that women have to fight, not that women shouldn’t fight. Just that they shouldn’t be forced to. Anyway, remember Lucy?? Lucy who rode to battle in The Horse and His Boy?? Lucy who fought as an archer?? “But Susan didn’t—" Yeah. Because she didn’t want to. No one was forcing her not to fight. She had free will to fight or to not fight, and she chose not to because she didn’t want to, not because a man made her stay home.
“He punished Susan for growing up—" S i g h. This is the one I see the most often. “He did Susan dirty” “he made her suffer because she liked lipstick” “etc etc blah blah blah” First of all Narnia is a children’s book series. For CS Lewis to delve into why Susan forgot Narnia, talk about her dealing with the death of her entire family, discuss her grief, and write about her eventual return to Narnia (more on that in a second), it would’ve made for a pretty dark and heavy children’s book, and Lewis said that he didn’t think that was something he wanted to write. But he also encouraged people to finish Susan’s story themselves, and said she might eventually make her own way back to Narnia. Not only this, but Susan’s name means lily, and the waters around Aslan’s country are covered in lilies. Coincidence? I think not. I think it symbolizes she was going to go back. (Especially considering I think Lewis was very careful in choosing each of the Pevensie’s names, since they all relate to their character).
Also, Lewis did not condemn Susan simply for growing up and liking makeup and clothing and boys. If so why would he have written about Aravis and Shasta/Cor, or Caspian and Liliandil? Why would he have written about Susan and Lucy being beautiful and having many suitors? So no, he wasn’t condemning her for that, and in fact he wasn’t condemning her at all. It’s extremely probable that her family’s death would have brought Susan back to her senses. Because here’s the thing: she forgot. She threw herself so much into the world and approval and convinced herself that her life as a queen and her acquaintance with Aslan was all a silly game they played as children, that it wasn’t real. But, she very well could remember again, and I 1000% believe she did.
“All his female characters were weak and did nothing—" My friend. Lucy Pevensie was a female. She discovered Narnia. It was because of her. Her siblings would never have found it without her. Lucy is one of THE most important characters in the entire series. And her title? The Valiant. Lucy’s very title as queen denoted her bravery and fortitude without one even knowing her. As for Susan, she was not any weaker for being “The Gentle.” I would say gentleness is honestly one of the strongest traits a person can have, because it takes a lot to live and be gentle. Also remember Aravis? A major character in The Horse and His Boy and future wife of Shasta, Aravis literally nearly killed herself to escape an arranged marriage. She was not someone to be dictated to; she made her own choices and escaped rather than submitting. And in the end, she’s still fiery, just a little more humble and with less of a chip on her shoulder. Then there’s Polly, who is the more logical person in The Magician’s Nephew and tries to stop Digory from ringing the bell that wakes the White Witch. A boy causes her to awaken, not a girl. It was Digory’s fault she woke up, not Polly’s!!
Also, Peter and Edmund do not ignore their sisters because they’re girls. They listen to what they have to say and speak to them as equals. They don’t forbid them from fighting; Susan chooses not to, but Lucy goes straight into the heart of the battle with them! So don’t even say Lewis made his female characters weak. They were the backbone of much of the series and without them much of the plot would never have happened!!
So don’t you ever say to me that CS Lewis was misogynistic because it’s the furthest thing from the truth
#I REALIZED I ACCIDENTALLY TYPED JILL INSTEAD OF POLLY#IF YOU SEE THAT PRETEND IT SAYS POLLY#cs Lewis#narnia#lucy pevensie#susan pevensie#Polly plummer#aravis tarkheena#the chronicles of narnia#I could’ve mentioned Jill but it was long enough#ramblings from the void
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