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dismalzelenka · 2 years

Note

Happy holidays!! For Anders/Justice, might I offer the prompt "Are you holding back? Don't." <3

happy new year @dadrunkwriting. if you see me egregiously mixing up verb tenses, no you don't. >:]

The first time Hawke mentions he and Justice should try learning how to work together, he all but rolls his eyes. "We've tried," he says snippily. "It doesn't work. We're too tangled together."

She'd just shrugged. "Never took you for a quitter," she'd said breezily, and then she'd left him alone in the clinic to his frustrated, turbulent thoughts.

He's not a quitter. He's not. It's not quitting to avoid attempting the impossible.

The second time she mentions it, it's after a particularly harrowing trip down the Wounded Coast that ended with four dead Templars and quite a bit of collateral damage. Hawke has a fresh scar across her shoulder that definitely isn't going away anytime soon, because she'd clumsily dressed the wound herself and hidden it for an entire day. "Didn't want you to blame yourself," she'd said simply when he finally noticed the bloodstain on her shirt was, in fact, getting larger and definitely made of her blood. "Although if you guys worked together more, you might have figured out it was me sooner."

She had him there.

So here he is now, locked in the lowest level of her expansive cellar, eyeing a row of training dummies with a growing sense of trepidation in his gut. Hawke watches him shrewdly from the corner, armored up and ready for a fight at his insistence in case things go horribly wrong.

This feels like a monumentally bad idea.

He stands there for a moment rooting around for Justice in his head and feels like an absolute idiot. He doesn't know how to pull him forward on command. He's never quite figured out how to call Justice forward, and quite frankly, he doesn't even know if it's possible.

Hawke slams the side of her staff into his stomach without a shred of warning. The impact throws him onto his arse, and he stares at the ceiling in stunned confusion as he gasps air back into his lungs.

"Come on, Justice," she calls out as Anders struggles to his feet. "This will be easier if you cooperate."

"Hawke, don't," he wheezes. "It isn't going to work. We'll have to find some other way--"

Another blow lands on the side of his leg. "Hawke!" he protests. "Stop! It isn't working, and you're just going to provoke him!"

"Good. It's time we had a talk."

She's gone completely mad. He's beginning to think she hit her head on the coast.

The staff swings towards him a third time, and to his horror, he feels himself fading to the background, limbs moving at the behest of someone who definitely isn't him. He catches the staff with his hand, his grip infused with unearthly strength. "Hawke, cease this madness," he booms, except it isn't him, and the voice that falls from his lips fills the cellar with its ringing.

Her lips curl into a smile. "There you are," she says. He doesn't let go of the staff, and neither does she. "Do you have an aversion to coming when you're called?"

Justice scowls, and quite frankly, Anders can't blame him. "I am not a hound at your behest," he snarls. "This activity is demeaning and has no point."

"No, I think it does, actually," Hawke says. Completely undeterred, the lunatic. She wrenches the staff away from their hand and leans on it casually as she braces it on the floor. "I think you're a danger to yourself because the two of you refuse to help one another. Do you disagree?"

"I am helping him. We are one. I protect him."

"Yes, we know." Hawke flaps her hands dismissively, and Anders cringes in the pocket of his mind where he's now trapped, an observer in his own body, vibrating with anxiety at the exchange he's watching unfold before him. "You protect him by striking his enemies down the way a wildfire devours everything in its path. He's terrified of you, did you know that? He never knows when you're going to turn on the people he loves. Is that justice? Or is it blind retribution?"

Justice lunges at her, and she sidesteps him easily. "You might be a spirit, Justice, but you have a mortal's temper now, and if you don't learn to control it, Anders is going to get hurt, and it will be your fault. Is that really what you want?"

"I would never hurt Anders," Justice snarls. "We are one. I care for him."

"You're already hurting him." He hurls a bolt of magic at her, but she deflects it easily with her staff. Something behind him splinters into pieces, but he can't turn his head to see what he's destroyed. "You, yanking control away from him like this? It hurts him. Can't you feel it, the way he cowers in fear while you use his body against his wishes?"

"You speak as though I am a demon."

"Then stop acting like one."

Anders feels their blood run cold. He braces himself for ... well, he's not sure what he's bracing himself for exactly, but a statement like that cannot end well. He feels himself clawing at the walls of his mind, trying to wrestle his control back before something terrible happens, but to his surprise he feels the resistance weaken. Justice pauses for a moment, and then recedes back just a little. Not enough to allow Anders full control, but enough that when Anders opens his mouth to speak, his lips finally respond. "Hawke, what are you doing?"

"Trying to get you two to talk things out before you get yourselves killed." She leans casually on her staff and eyes them with those piercing hazel eyes he can't ever seem to read. "Seems like you're both paying attention now, so listen to me very carefully. I'm going to throw some weak energy bolts at you, and I would very much like it if you cooperated instead of fighting one another over who throws it back. Nod if you agree."

Anders nods tentatively and finds, to his surprise, that Justice nods in tandem. "We are in agreement," Justice says.

"Good." Hawke steps back into her stance and gathers energy to her fingertips before slinging it at them with a lopsided grin.

For a moment, Anders loses himself in the terror of not being able to move his limbs on his own, but he hears Justice in his mind, gruff but without malice.

I have you.

Anders cedes control willingly then. If Justice is controlling his limbs, he's better able to concentrate on directing their magic, and--

Oh.

He mentally reaches out for his magic -- their magic -- and finds an endless pool of mana, still and cool and ready beneath his fingertips. He broadcasts his intent to Justice with images: footwork and energy flow mapped out in his mind, a familiar dance he attempts to share.

Justice responds instantly. It's an odd sensation, feeling piloted rather than moving on his own, but he focuses on channeling magic instead, and the surge of mana that flows from their fingertips is more focused, more brilliant than it's ever been. The energy bolt hits Hawke in the chest and knocks her backwards against a support column, and Anders feels Justice recoil in horror.

They've taken two steps forward when Hawke pulls herself to her feet, panting with exertion as she offers them a cheerful thumbs up. "That's more like it!" she crows. "Are you still holding back?"

Anders stares at her. They stare at her. "Of course we are," he says, except he's not entirely sure whose voice shapes the words that fall from their lips. It's disorienting, but it's not unpleasant, and he finds the tingling warmth he can feel beneath his skin is oddly soothing when it's consensual.

Hawke laughs, her voice melodic and merry like bells as she throws her head back with mirth. "Don't," she says. Her eyes twinkle in challenge. "I want to see what you two can really do."

#da drunk writing circle #hawke #anders #justice #justhanders #sort of #well pre justhanders i guess #i know you requested justice and anders but this idea got away from me and hawke is such a good catalyst lmfao #diz writes

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magioffire · 2 years

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when ‘popular’ fae/magic/wizard blogs follow me, or like/reblog my stuff, i cant help but feel like ive made it. even tho logically they are just like me aka a weirdo who just loves magical bug people

#ooc.#im very conscientious not to form parasocial esque relationships with fellow bloggers cuz thats weird #but i still feel a little bit of pride like nice. my creations are getting traction outside my little rp circle!!#idk i guess it makes me feel like i have a chance for my writing and ideas to appeal to a broad audience/demographic #im the main demographic im writing for but you know what i mean #tbd.

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sparxwrites · 3 years

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Came from the archive (your quackbur fic to be exact) to say hello and welcome back to the world of minecraft youtube fandom. Your Lying and Kirin fics were my favorites back in the day. Though you seem more focused on Last Life right now, I thought I'd ask what POV of Dream Smp you watched? I'm assuming Quackity or Wilbur because of how well you capture their voices

hello! thank you for the compliments, and for the warm welcome. another one for the "ex-yogsfans who've come crawling out the woodwork" list; the higher the number grows, the more amused i become.

hilariously, i think at the point i'd wrote the quackbur, i'd watched like... techno's pov of the execution, a bunch of tommy's exile arc, and then the uhh. the one where wilbur goes to last nevadas for the first time, and then the "unhealthy competition" set of streams live (i.e. everyone was raiding everyone consecutively, so i watched like wilbur then quackity then tubbo and/or ranboo).

so i had watched some of them, but not really tonnes and tonnes. i think a) they're both like... very strong character archetypes, in terms of behaviour and motivation, and b) they have reasonably distinct speech patterns. and, without sounding like a conceited asshole, i'm pretty good at picking up on speech patterns with, say, a few hours of constant exposure - it's a problem irl where i often have to stop myself from copying people unconsciously, but very useful for fic.

you'd also be surprised how easy it is to make characters "sound like themselves", once you've got the trick of it; it generally only takes maybe two or three distinct "quirks" for each character that you sprinkle in to their speech to provide enough triggers for the reader's brain to start kind of... filling in the gaps wrt intonation and accent etc.

for example:

wilbur, especially when he wants something, has a habit of saying people's names twice, with a particular sort of wheedling intonation on the second one ("quackity. quackity."). he repeats himself a lot, actually; generally not verbatim, but he says the same thing in a different phrasing (or at a different point in the stream of speech) as though to hammer the point home: "my friend, my old comrade! there's no need for that, there's really no need to be so stand-offish, i'm just here for a chat. a little parlay, if you will". he's also got a very smooth sort of patter when he's speaking, and he often picks slightly formal or fancy/dramatic words, usually for one half of a repetition pair - again, especially when he wants something or he's in Speech Mode (but even when he's stressed or angry!). so there's very few 'hard cuts' or full stops, and a lot of commas and run-on sentences: "quackity. quackity. come on, there's no need to be like that, really, i'm just here for a chat. just a pleasant chat, between old friends, old buddies, you know how it is! come on. for old time's sake.".

quackity, on the other hand, is a lot twitchier. he's prone to breaking off mid sentence and stuttering (which you can do with hyphens, and commas between a repeat of the same word, or even with mid-sentence full stops if you're sparing about it), and interjecting with nervous laughter (though again, use sparingly), even if he's not really nervous: "it's- wilbur, you- haha, you can't, you can't expect me to, to just-". he often says quite a lot of words without actually saying anything, partially because of the stuttering but also because he often refuses to pin himself down and instead leaves things open to interpretation by the other person: "it's just that- well, you know how it is, when you've got a country! it's just- there's. you know. there's a lot to do. lot of things to see, people to do, you know how it is." he doesn't use long sentences, generally. when he's angry, especially; then, he drops the stuttering and becomes a lot more fluent (and swears a lot), and the sentence/clause length drops significantly (which you can do either with lots of full stops/other "hard break" punctuation, or with lots of commas but putting "and" or something else between them that makes it clear these are multiple sentences strung together): "look. wilbur. i tried playing nice with you. i tried! i really did. but you forced my hand. you forced my hand, wilbur. so i'll give you one last chance - get the fuck out of las nevadas. or i will put this fucking arrow through your goddamn eye socket, and then i'll lock you away, and it'll be fucking deep and so fucking dark that no one will ever fucking find you. do you understand me, wilbur? do you fucking understand?"

(my watching habits go under the cut, since i got carried away and the ask is now Too Long)

i've now done all of exile arc (plus doomsday and... whatever the tubbo tommy and dream fight one is called, from tommy's pov), all of wilbur's vods, a few techno vods for a fic i really need to just finish writing, and i'm currently working my way through quackity's plot-relevant/lore vods and the lore vods of some of the other las nevadans (the lovely @thequackcity put together a playlist for me). next on the list is ranboo lore vods, and then probably post-exile (i.e. prison and resurrection and beyond) & early disc war tommy vods. maybe some awesamdude and eggpire lore stuff too, we'll see. i'm accepting suggestions!

(that's actually why i'm more last life atm - i'm on early quackity pov, and as much as i love the character, the streamer is... a little bit "let's go gamers!!!" for me to stomach in large amounts, especially when i've got irl stress going on lmao. so i'm supplementing my diet with something that has better audio balancing and less constant howling hysteria. i am not dunking on quackity with this, btw, it's just not the kind of streamer persona i'd usually watch if it didn't have a cool character attached to it! i also don't know why tommy is so different, despite them having oddly similar streaming personas; maybe something to do with the mic balance, or maybe the britishness helps temper the yelling?? my brain is mysterious.)

#anonymous #ask #dream smp #sparx chats #people saying nice things #i had to like. Speak Wilbur and Speak Quackity in my head and then try to reverse engineer what the fuck i was doing #to make my mental voice sound like them #hrghghg #i do all this very automatically usually bc i'm so used to doing it #i guess it'd be a bit like asking an artist how they knew where a specific line should go or how thick it should be #but!! anyways now you too can write authentic-sounding quackity and wilbur dialogue lmao #important to note: as with everything writing-based. don't hammer too hard on these #if you try and hit All These Points with every bit of dialogue for e.g. quackity #it will sound ridiculous bc you'll have no sentence structure/length variation #you gotta switch it up a bit #but. for example. wilbur is Never gonna have that 'twenty hypens in a single sentence' style dialogue #so even if you only do that every couple of quackity lines #it's still a Distinctly Quackity thing.#idk if that makes sense lol. but the Biggest mistake i see late-beginner writers making is that they go too hard on that stuff #ex-yogs recovery circle

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thegirlwithmanynames · 2 years

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there is a crack in everything

that's how the light gets in.

or, Castiel's Greatest Hits; the life and death and emptiness and life of the angel of Thursday.

or, an angel is saved.

read on ao3

the darkness is overwhelming.

a steady pounding echoes in his head. wasn’t he supposed to be asleep? wasn’t he supposed to be dreaming?

his hand aches from the memory of a blade piercing through flesh, from feeling life leaving the body – bodies – so many under him, from hearing “no, Cas – don’t –” bounce around the walls of the empty warehouse – full of him, full of his corpse on the floor, empty of life, empty of his smile, his laugh, his faith, empty, empty –

but he wasn’t crumpled on the ground anymore. now he was standing in the doorway, looking back at him in betrayal, his face lit in holy flame, so different from how they had first met and yet they would always be back here, the disappointment, the anger, the destruction, eyes empty of kindness, of trust, empty –

silhouetted in Bobby Singer’s living room, sigils surrounding them, pressing in, claustrophobic, the two of them so close and yet a canyon’s worth of space yawning open between them, echoes of their first hushed conversation in Bobby’s kitchen but shattered into infinitesimal pieces, like his heart, broken, empty – echoing forward, standing across a table in a dimly lit war room, hurt and anger and betrayal forming themselves into daggers shaped by his full lips, “why does that something always seem to be you” –

a thousand mistakes, a thousand wrongs. he supposes he was owed this for his happiness. he would have done it again, a thousand times. he supposes this is dreaming, now. it isn’t so different from when he was briefly human. it is impossible to tell whether he is numb from feeling too much or feeling nothing at all, but then again, that was something he had always had difficulty with.

(you know what every other version of you did after “gripping him tight and raising him from perdition”? they did what they were told.)

it would have been easier had he remained unquestioning. had he kept his head down and been a good soldier as he should have. if he, as an angel, as an agent of fate, hadn’t turned around and told fate to shove it where the sun didn’t shine.

but would it have been real? would it have felt even half as good? would it have been as holy as experience, as love, as faith in his family? would it have been as holy as Claire’s righteous anger and her loving absolution, as holy as Jack’s unconditional acceptance and childlike warmth, as holy as Sam’s continual understanding and forgiveness, as holy as Dean’s faith and Dean’s trust, as holy as Dean’s mistakes and errors in judgment and efforts to do better, as holy as the kindness and the love in Dean’s actions, in his eyes, in his hands, in his gentle touch, in his body painstakingly crafted, rebuilt in his own image because there was no one else with the capacity to love like he had, like Dean, holy as Dean Winchester –

(just too stupid, too stubborn, too broken)

no. all that was worth shouldering the aches, the pain, the pounding, the breaking, the empty –

he is alone here. hasn’t he always been? broken, wrong, lost. castiel, the self-hating angel of thursday. the one who came off the line with a crack in his chassis.

what was real, in the end? was it the inherent free will of humanity, or was it the firm guidance of god? when adam ate the forbidden fruit, was his action borne of love for eve or rebellion against an absent father? when cain took abel’s life, was it out of pride or desperation? should noah have built the ark or simply drowned, drowned under the weight of the responsibility, of the fear, of the anger, of the actions of a temperamental and judgmental father who would not listen, would not care, would not take responsibility?

who was he to question? who was he to make choices, to think he knew better, to argue, to fight?

who was he? leader of an angelic garrison, tasked with retrieving the michael sword from perdition. a failure in following any order since.

who was he? follower, faithful, loving, ruthless, strong, broken, cracked, lost, empty –

who was he? shield of god.

Cas.

there is warmth on his face.

he wakes up to the gentle scratching of grass on his cheeks, the sun shining down, the air fresh and clear in his lungs. the dirt is solid beneath his fingernails, and a windmill churns the air rhythmically, turning onward and onward like the steady progression of life itself.

there is warmth in his hands.

he cradles his son’s face between his palms, feeling his skin stretch beneath them as he smiles up at his father, trusting, safe, unconditionally loving. tears prickle his eyes, but he does not feel despair, not even the slightest trace of sadness. his son’s arms wrap tightly around his midsection, and the warmth spreads in a beautiful, slow explosion through his limbs.

there is warmth in a hand.

it is not his own. its warmth is as scorching as the sun, beating down and burning the cells in his skin in assertion of its unchanging, unforgiving presence.

there is warmth in a hand clapped onto his shoulder, an arm slung around his neck, the laughter of his closest friend in his ear, drunk not only on liquor but on the happiness that comes with nothing going as planned but at least you have good company, at least you have each other, at least that’s all that really matters –

there is a light. though he cannot see through it, it does not burn when he opens his eyes. the light is gentle, warm, loving, ferociously determined, burning with the heat of a thousand flames and eternal in a way their fathers’ love never was.

Cas, it’s me. You’re good, man, you’re with me. You gotta follow me, okay, buddy?

Cas, I’m here, man. I’m not leaving without you.

Cas.

the warmth spreads through his heart.

Dean.

Though the world outside may not understand the unseasonable warmth gracing the city of Lebanon, Kansas that day, nor ordinary humans understand the gentle, happy ache of their hearts as they look up to the skies and celebrate the warm weather, the message is received clear as a bell regardless.

Cas is saved.

Cas is here.

Cas is home.

Like the sun rising and setting with a gentle kiss; like the buzzing of honeybees on their daily visits to the burgeoning buds in the spring; like the regenerating force of a warm, tight embrace after a long absence, the bone-shattering relief in it, like unspoken love echoing deep in every fibre of your body just in simply being held; life can begin anew.

#destiel #deancas #november 5th #Supernatural #fuckin. HERE WE ARE I GUESS #my writing #I don't remember what any of my tags are I just blacked out and wrote this because I'm emotional #who am I........24601.........#time is a flat circle etc etc we all end up here #big thanks to Taylor for dragging me into this mess both back in the superwholock days and in the now times #posts this and vanishes into the ether

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babbling-bee · 3 years

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suffering in this word document tonite

#ughhhhhhhhh #so many in my folder i haven't posted yet bc i want to finish first but u know #frustration is a circle #writing #writing problems #fanfic writing #original writing #adhd #ao3 #fanfics #idk what to tag things #don't know how to title things either really what is that #i'll use working titles but then they don't end up fitting and i'm like...i got nothing #song lyric? single word? a terse poetic phrase? got nothing #executive dysfunction #i guess #my post #ugh

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humanransome-note · 3 years

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okay so, angst. dont know why the first kind of, if not one of the first kind’s of fic I write when I write for something new always ends up being angst, like legit this made me cry.

i read a fic with a similar premise this morning and the thought wouldnt leave my head, so in one sitting, on my phone, i wrote this. (I thought I saved the fic, but I did not, so if anyone knows which one im talking about hit me up)

but since i hate unresolved angst, i gave this a not sad ending, AND I gave whiskey a therapist, like he needs.

anyway

Agent Whiskey/Jack Daniels x GN!Reader (I wrote it out and read it over twice and it sounded pretty gender-neutral to me, but if im wrong point it out.)

rated T, swearing, mentions of sex but no real scenes of it, references to the Valentine incident from the first move, but no details given

uhh 4220 words

and im tagging @scribbledghost cause shes the first person to come to mind with agent Whiskey and I have no idea what the people who follow me follow me for, but it’s probably not this.

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

Of course it was too good to be true.

You knew it that first night he asked you to dinner. You knew it every time he took you to bed. You knew it when he asked you to move in.

He was tall, he was handsome, he had a thick Kentucky twang that made you weak in the knees, and, he’d been so kind, and sweet, and he made you feel wanted.

You had never realized how little space you actually took up until you started packing. How your clothes took up less than a quarter of the walk-in closet, how few decorations were just yours.

They’ll pull the “we were right” card when you show up back home with a duffle and barely three boxes of your things.

God, he probably laughs about how easy you were, another notch in his bedpost, a guaranteed fuck if he couldn’t get into someone’s bed.

How many times were “late flights” really him sneaking back in. How many times did he come home and immediately head for you because someone else turned him down.

You can’t hold back the choked off sob that comes out of you as the heavy blanket you’d made for Christmas falls from the upper shelf as you tear down the last of your clothes.

You can’t touch it, you can barely look at it, he’ll have to deal with it when he finds it. Will he even notice you’re gone before that?

As you toss your last set of shirts into your bag you hear the jangle of keys. You’d hoped to be at least thirty minutes gone by the time he came home, but you’d hoped for a lot of things.

“Darlin’ you home?”

Your throat tightens around your reflexive reply.

You hear his keys as they fall into the bowl by the door, the soft pad of his bare feet, the opening of the fridge.

Has he noticed that you haven’t said anything? Does he even care?

“Honeybee?”

Your stomach lurches and suddenly you’re running to the bathroom to dry heave.

He takes the stairs two at a time, and you gag on nothing as he makes it to the bedroom.

He steps closer and you can feel his hand as it gets closer to your back, “Sugar-“

“Don’t you fucking touch me.”

The venom in your voice shocks even you, good, he needs to know there’s rage fueling these tears.

Your stomach finally settles and you look up to the piece of shit that strung you along for nearly two and a half years.

“Baby-“

“Don’t,” you clench your teeth to hold back the pathetic noise that’s desperate to follow.

The confused furrow in his brow makes the anger in your chest flare.

You slap him.

The crack is nowhere near as satisfying as you hoped it would be, and the shock and confusion that takes over his face is barely a consolation.

He holds a hand to his cheek, “What’s wrong? Please talk to me.”

The sarcastic huff of laughter just seems to make him more worried.

You push yourself up onto shaky legs, trying to maintain what few scraps of dignity you have left.

“I think I would have been fine if you’d asked.”

He slowly rises from his crouched position, the confusion only deepening his brow.

You look into his eyes, and you remember all the times he’d looked at you, were those sparks of apparent adoration just you projecting, or was he just that good of an actor?

Pushing past him, you can see his arms head for you before stopping and hovering in mid air, good he’s realizing you’re mad at him.

You head to your duffle as he stands in the doorway from the bathroom.

The zipper fills the air with a sound of finality.

“Baby, what did I do?”

Fuck, your first instinct is to comfort him, you’re pathetic.

“Here’s a better question, who did you do?”

You turn towards him and see the shock on his face. Maybe he thought you’d let it slide? Did he think you were that desperate?

“I don’t know-“

“You’ve lied to me for the past two and half years Jack, please just be honest for once.”

He opens and closes his mouth like a fish, and all the rage that’s been fueling you seems to suddenly explode, truly boiling over.

“You weren’t picking up, you said it’d be a few hours, max,” his mouth clicks shut, it seems he’s figured it out.

“Expect my surprise when I make it to the Statesman building and Lawrence at the front desk asked me what took me so long.”

He seems to try and shrink into himself, make himself smaller.

“Now I’m confused, but he lets me in, and I head to your office floor, and as the elevator door opens I hear moaning.”

“First I figure, ‘maybe he’s watching porn’ I know I still do from time to time, but then there’s a slam and a crash that is way too loud to be porn.”

He opens his mouth to say something but you keep talking.

“But STILL I gave you the benefit of the doubt, ‘maybe some interns are getting frisky’”

Your jaw clenches as you remember cracking the door open, and seeing Jack Daniels, the man you were so certain was the love of your life, rutting away inside a woman on his desk.

A woman who wasn’t you.

You were frozen, and there was a brief second where you swear you made eye contact with the woman who had the misfortune of being there as your world fell apart.

Then you left.

Your voice cracks into a sad humorless laugh, “God I’m pathetic,” you grab the strap of your duffle and the stack of boxes.

“It was right in front of me, and still, it took making eye contact with the lucky lady to make it hit home.”

“Sugar, it was a mistake.”

You close your eyes and take a breath.

“Yes, this was.”

He has the wherewithal to not follow you, to not beg for you to stop as he pulls excuses from his ass.

But still, before you leave, there’s something you need to know.

“Was any of this real?”

He’s standing in the kitchen, beer on the island as he leans against it.

He says nothing, and that’s all the answer you need.

You remove the house key from your keychain, and place it on the bar.

“You could have just said so, said this whole thing wasn’t working for you, I wouldn’t have been mad.”

The key blurs as tears flood your eyes, “Goodbye Jack,” you swallow and wipe at your eyes, “at least now you can bring your conquest home, give them the decency of an actual bed.”

With that final barb, you turn around and walk out.

———

Your phone won’t stop ringing. It hasn’t stopped since this morning, and no matter how many times you block the number he just keeps calling.

The ring cycle ends and about a minute later your phone pings with a new voicemail.

Then silence.

The silence is almost twice as unbearable.

You should delete it, not even listen to it, let the man suffer as you don’t pick up.

You continue down the highway for another hour. Trying to ignore the phone as it sits silently in the cup holder. But your resolve finally cracks when you nearly rear-end someone in the exit lane.

You turn off at the exit, you need a break, for both yours and other’s safety.

There’s a gas station that you pull into, park in the far corner, and turn off the engine.

The phone mocks you.

“I need to get this over with.”

Picking up the phone you look at the notifications.

The amount of missed calls has hit the double digits and the missed text have hit triple.

You sigh and unlock your phone. You met with a close up of you and Jack squished together, smiling faces filling up the screen.

Your chest seizes and a small burn comes to the back of your eyes, but no tears fall, good, that’s good.

You open your phone app and are met with a wall of missed calls, all from slightly different numbers. He must have found a way to route the calls out through the other phones in his office.

You shake your head and open your voicemail.

1:10.

One minute ten seconds. One minute and ten seconds is how much more time you’ll give this man, nothing more.

You hit play.

“Hi, um-“

You pause it.

It’s a woman’s voice and for a vicious heart wrenching second, you think it’s her calling you.

You swallow the sick feeling and hit play again.

“You probably don’t know me, but everyone calls me Ginger, I work IT at the Statesman building.”

She’s probably how Jack rerouted his number, hopefully she’s calling to apologize.

“I don’t know what happened between you and Whis- Mr. Daniels,” his name comes out with a hint of disdain, “but he’s been a mess all day and it’s started to get on Champ’s, our boss’s, nerves,”

You roll your eyes, why is he still trying?

“Anyway, can you call him? Or if not him, me? Just hit redial and it’ll route to my line, we just want to know what happened so we can figure out what to do.”

You sigh again, head hitting the steering wheel as she finishes off the message with a slightly awkward goodbye.

The only reason you’re calling back is because other people are suffering due to Jack’s actions.

The phone rings twice before the same voice picks up.

“Hello?”

You sigh again, “Is this Ginger?”

She confirms that she is and you tell her who you are.

“Oh,”

That single sound brings a burning up the back of your throat. Does she know who you are, did she know what he was doing? God, that stupid fucking cowboy made you blind.

There’s an uncomfortable silence, you have to break it.

“I left,” and that seems to break a dam.

“I packed my stuff and left, should have done that two years ago, should have never moved in with that piece of shit-!” Your voice wavers and cracks.

You slam your hand against the wheel.

“I would have been fine if he just wanted to get his dick wet, if he said upfront that he was interested in someone else, or that he just wasn’t interested in me.”

You pant, and she starts to say something, but you aren’t done.

“I moved for him, did you know that? I mean, sure, I’d wanted to leave home for ages but he was that last push.”

You press your hand to your forehead.

“Two and half years, Ginger.” You don’t know when the tears started falling but now they won’t stop.

“I gave that man two and half years of my life, and none of it meant a damn thing to him!”

You hit your steering wheel again, making a short honk emit from you car.

She doesn’t say anything, and you wait until your breathing is even again before talking. “I’m sorry, I’ve been alone since yesterday, haven’t had anyone to talk to.”

“It’s okay.” She sounds genuine, but you’ve been a terrible judge before, for the past two years in fact.

“Do you want me to mess up his tech? I can make his computer crash all day.”

That makes you smile.

“I won’t ask, but I won’t stop you either.”

She lets out a small chuckle.

There’s another bout of silence, much less awkward than the first two.

“Thanks for listening, I know it’s probably not what you were expecting.”

“It’s alright, it sounded like you needed it.”

You lean back in your seat, “Yeah,” you look blankly at the dome light in the middle of the ceiling. “That tell you what you needed to know?”

“Yes, it did.”

You hum.

“I hope you find someone better.”

You let out another sigh, it’s becoming too common an action.

“Me too, Ginge, me too.”

The line goes dead, and you’re suddenly very, very tired.

You think you saw a motel earlier, you’ll see if they have any vacancies.

———

His phone stopped making calls over an hour ago, it’s taking them just fine, but he can’t call out.

There’s a knock on his door, and it opens without him saying anything.

“Ginger. D’ya block off my phone or somethin’?” He knows she probably did, but he’s not a child and he won’t take being treated like one.

She doesn’t respond, she just strides across the room, stops in front of his desk, looks at him like he’s a piece of gum on her heel, and slaps him.

“The fuck was that for!?”

“How you’ve made it this far in life is astounding.” Her voice is cold.

“What-“

She slams a file onto his desk, and out slides a photo.

A photo of you.

“Where’d you-?”

“Yes I blocked off your phone, you were routing out calls through the whole building, other people work here too you know.”

He swallows.

“Two and a half years Jack,”

He flinches, but then he realizes, “you talked to ‘em?”

“I had to know who you were calling and why, for security reasons if nothing else.”

She flips open the file, revealing a few more pictures of you. Along with stills from the security cameras, showing both, you at the front desk with a take out bag, and him kissing an intern in the corner of a hallway.

“None of us knew, none of us could even fathom you in a steady relationship, with all the skirts you chased.”

He has the decency to look ashamed.

“Lawrence at the front desk thought they were a semi-regular booty call, he stopped letting them up so often because he didn’t want them getting attached.”

He remembers coming home, and you asking him how meetings went, even if he didn’t tell you about one, or if they were unplanned.

He’d always figured he had some kind of tell.

“They told me none of it mattered to you-“

“That ain’t true!”

“Well it’s certainly easy to believe.” She looks pointedly at the photos.

He can’t.

“Did you at least respect them enough to let them have you to themself for a while before you went around sticking your dick in any available hole? Or did you go and celebrate them moving in with someone else?”

He looks out of the window.

“Fucking Christ Jack, I knew you were a douchebag but that’s low, even for you.”

He bites his lip and thinks, not for an excuse, but an explanation at least.

Ginger knows what she’s going to say next will be a truly low blow, but with everything that she’s learned in the past half hour she wants him to hurt.

“Did you cheat on your wife too, or is being a piece of shit a recent development?”

His head snaps to her, he stands and slams his fists onto the table.

“Don’t you bring her into this!”

Ginger holds her ground.

His sudden flare of rage dies as quickly as it came, “No, I didn’t.”

“So you do know how to keep it in your pants,”

“It was a mistake.”

“No Jack, a mistake is buying the wrong kind of juice at the grocery store, a mistake is accidentally throwing out important papers, a mistake is misspelling someone’s name. You made choices and now you're experiencing the consequences of your actions.”

He falls back into his chair.

“I have to tell Champ what happened, it cut into your productivity and was a possible security risk.”

Jack doesn’t respond, and Ginger leaves.

———

It’s been exactly three years, four months, two weeks and four days since you left Jack Daniels, and you hate that you know that.

Your mother was the only one who didn’t say “I told you so” when you showed up on her doorstep, eyes puffy and nose runny.

She’d just apologized for you’re inheriting her terrible taste in men.

You gave yourself two weeks to wallow in your childhood bedroom before you started job hunting.

You still technically had your old job, data entry and management can be done anywhere with an internet connection, but you needed to be nearby for things like presentations and troubleshooting.

They cut your hours to part time, and you put in your resignation when you got a steady job.

Now it’s just back and forth between work and home, and occasionally the grocery store.

It’s a Friday, you don’t have work tomorrow, and you’ve been feeling shitty, well shittier, lately. You plan on trying to find the solution to your problems at the bottom of a bottle and a pint of Ben and Jerry’s.

But it seems the universe won’t let you rest yet, because in your driveway is a very familiar truck, and leaning against the side is a very familiar frame, topped off with a very familiar Stetson.

You breathe in and steel yourself, he might have come here without warning, but he will not catch you wrong footed.

You pull up onto the sidewalk so he can leave as soon as you’re done with him.

The force you put behind slamming the door is a little concerning, and the already shoddy window drops half an inch when it slams.

Your shoulders drop, you’re tired, but you need to tear off this band-aid.

“What do you want Jack?”

“Can we talk?”

He sounds scared, and you hate the urge to comfort him that never truly left.

“It’s been three years, what do you want to talk about?”

He puts a hand over his mouth and drags it down, you see a few new small nicks on his hands, and as you look at his face you see a circular scar at his temple.

“I, I’ve been seein’ someone,”

“And you wanted to what? Rub it in? Tell me everything they have that I don’t?”

He shakes his head, “I meant I’m seein’ a therapist.”

“Congratulations, working on your commitment issues?” You mean it to be an insult, but he actually nods.

“Yeah, actually, which is kinda why I’m here.”

It’s good to know that he’s got some good surprises for you for once.

“First, I’m sorry,” he crosses his arms, which means he wants to fidget, “I was a complete ass, an’ a piece a’ shit, and I understand if you don’t care for what I have to say, but I need to get it off my chest and I need ya to know.”

You put your hand on your hip and wait.

“I love you.”

Your eyes widen and your arm is already swinging before you really know what’s going on.

He catches your fist before it hits, “Please let me finish, then you can beat the shit outta me.”

You jerk your hand back, “You have two guarantied minutes.”

“Thank you.”

He sighs, shifts his weight, and seems to be thinking of what to say.

“Clock’s ticking.”

“I told ya what happened to my wife, yeah?”

You nod.

“Well, I never really got a handle on it,” his hand circles in the air.

“I started drinkin’, fightin’, uhh, fuckin’.” He glances away at the last word.

“Anything to make me feel somethin’ besides the the gappin’ hole in my chest and the guilt in my gut.”

He takes off his hat for a second and runs a hand through his hair, he’s got a few more prominent grays.

“I got a job offer at Statesman, got a handle on the drinkin’, and found a better outlet for the fightin’,”

“But you kept fucking.”

He nods, “Yeah, an’ that’s how I worked for a while, one night stands, and short term flings,” you snort at the ‘short term’.

“Then I met you.”

You rhythmically clench your fist, you can’t punch him yet.

“You were smart, an’ funny, and ya’ made the hole in my chest not hurt as much, and I was scared. And selfish.”

“Selfish I understand,” he flinches a bit, “but scared?”

“My therapist said it was probably a mix of survivor’s guilt an’ fear of losing someone I care about again.”

Your eyes narrow.

“I still blamed myself for her death, and I felt like I didn’ deserve anythin’ good, but I also didn’t wanna hurt anymore.”

“You made me happier than I had been in years, and that scared the shit outta me darlin’,” he cuts himself off for a second, thinking he probably shouldn’t use pet names right now, “so I tried to make myself not care.”

He scuffs his boot against your driveway.

“But like I said, I was selfish, an’ I didn’t want to let you go.”

“You wanted your cake and to eat it too.”

He nods, “Yeah,” his hands fidget, “sometimes I’d hope that you’d catch me, make the decision for me, cause Lord knows I couldn’t bring myself to end things.”

“Then you did an’ I spiraled.” He lets out a sad sounding huff of air.

“Ginger gave me the riot act, slapped me an’ everythin’.“

You let out a small huff of laughter, you can’t help it.

A small smile shows up on his own face and you school your features, you can’t let him think he has a foothold.

“I threw myself into work, wasn’t takin’ care a’ myself, no sleepin’ barely eatin’,” he shrugs. “Almost died when that thing with the phone cards or whatever they were happened.”

You swallow as you remember that, there was a short shriek over the speaker a phone was connected to, and then...

You were lucky you were so close to your gran’s paper trimmer, everyone else at the reunion, not so much.

You shake your head to clear it.

“Tried takin’ care of myself, slept more but not enough, ate more but nothin good,” he pats the soft swell of his belly.

“Then this shit with Poppy happened,” he waves to the side of his head with the scar. What does that have to do with this?

“I, uh, I pushed all my anger onto the concept of drug users an’ actually tried to do what I could to stop the cure for the poison gettin’ out.”

“I didn’t obviously,” he sounds a tad frantic, “and then I realized how long it had been, and how much I still wanted you in my life, and, and now I’m here.” He finishes lamely with a shrug and wave of his hands.

What he’s not saying is that when he came to and Ginger showed him a picture of his late wife, nothing happened.

He was confused, and she was cute, but she was saying all this stuff about a woman he didn’t recognize and in a fit of desperation, she slapped him.

His head flashed with images of you, eyes red, curled up next to the toilet dry heaving.

“Don’t you fucking touch me.”

It rang through his head and he fell to the floor. It was like the first time they revived him all over again, but worse because it really was his fault, no haze of survivor’s guilt coming up with what if’s, and I should’ve’s.

It was all him, all his fault.

You don’t respond immediately, thinking over everything he’s said, and the fact that you still miss him, and how even against your better judgement you want him back in your life.

You rub your eyes.

“We can’t just pick up from the good times, you know that right?”

He nods, “I wasn’t expectin’ that to happen.”

You look at him, taking in his shifting weight, his fidgeting hands, the tension in his shoulders and fear in his eyes.

You sigh.

“You are on thin fucking ice Jack Daniels.”

He tilts his head.

“Probation,” you start fishing for your keys, “against my better judgement and the advice I’d usually give to someone else in this situation, I’m giving you a chance.”

He perks up.

“But if even one hair,” you point at him, “gets out of line that’s it, d’ya understand?”

His face breaks out into a grin, “Sure do sugar.”

“Alright,” you nod as you get your keys, “you got an overnight bag or somethin’?”

“What for?”

“I’ve got a spare room, unless you wanna stay at a motel six or a la Quinta inn.”

“You want me to stay here?” He sounds genuinely shocked and confused.

“Do you not want to?”

“Just seems fast, is all.”

“You did hear me when I said ‘spare room’ right?”

He nods, “Just wanna make sure.”

“Grab your stuff then, I got two pints of Ben and Jerry’s in the trunk.”

You go to grab your stuff, and you’re done before he is, so you get a good look at him bent at the waist digging for something.

“So none of it went to your ass huh?”

He looks over his shoulder and wiggles his hips.

“Thought you liked my butt, used to say-“

“Tiny but mighty.”

He chuckles as he gets out from the backseat.

“There something you wanna watch? Eat?” He shakes his head as he follows you to your front door.

“Nah darlin’ I already got everythin’ I need.”

#kingsman the golden circle #agent whiskey x reader #reader insert #kingsman #kingsmen golden circle #kingsmen #can you guess where I got the 'tiny but mighty' bit?#nicky writes

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novelconcepts · 3 years

Text

There is just something about finding yourself at capacity with stress when you know that stress isn’t going to alleviate for, at best, a couple of months yet. Like my brain has been sitting at 99% CPU usage for weeks now, and it impacts...everything. How I sleep (or don’t). What kinds of dreams I have. My ability to remember any kind of conversational detail. The energy I possess for reading. The energy I possess for creation. My head is brimming over with this new stress, and I know it’s ultimately going to be productive--we’ve been wanting to do these things since at least 2019, and I’m proud of us for finally doing them--but there’s just something about it. Waking up at 6 am to work, staring at the docs open on my screen, knowing what happens next, and just being too maxed out to write a word. I know this is the time to be kindest to myself, but...every message I don’t answer, every chore I can’t make myself accomplish, every typo I make in a chat, every nap I take that feels like time burnt just. Man, does it pile up fast.

#personal #working my normal 40 hr week feels like when i was regularly putting in 75-80 #i can eek out a few words if i trick myself into it--bring my laptop down while the wife is showering or something--but i can't do anything #if i'm at my actual keyboard #i keep catching myself repeating the same word four times in a single sentence #or starting to pick up a book and just feeling too heavy to open it #friendships i started cultivating have gone completely dormant because i'm too drained to even think about how to approach social anxiety #and it's...temporary. i know it is. i know it's even a good kind of temporary #but oh boy stacking all of this on top of my pre-existing mental illness is a wild way to close out the summer #i just want to come out the other side of this where we want to be. and able to make things again. and not...#just second-guess every decision for a while #anyway. off to...pace in circles until i figure out what to pack next i guess. fingers crossed for a productive weekend #*eke out i am not going back to edit all of those tags but AHOY A TYPO GO FIGURE #you also start to just feel like you’re not…here? after a while?#like I’m in the world. I can feel myself interacting with it. but nothing quite matters right now #pack a box? doesn’t make a dent. write a story? did you really? work your 8 hrs? tomorrow is identical.#lists just keep inflating. exhaustion just rises higher. every answer leads to six more questions.#I am. tired. and small. and feel very much like I do not exist. and I do not have time for derealization right now #which…doesn’t make it go away unfortunately

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widevibratobitch · 2 years

Text

4 am. been writing and studying maps of spain and 16th century europe and trying to make sense of whatever bullshit schiller came up with and also trying to somehow connect the play canon and opera canon for the last 4 hours. i REFUSE to reread those 3000 stupid nonsensical clumps of letters that are now sitting in my google doc. it makes no sense. i cant read i cant write im gonna go climb a tree and stay there.

#so carlos was supposed to get on a ship in cadiz. schiller could choose literally any other port city in spain and he chose the one #that is literally THE furthest away from madrid. sure. why not.#oh also researching how fast one can ride on a horse is hell.#i might just throw it all away. throw all that useless knowledge into a dumpster and set it on fire #because it is literally of no importance to that fic in the first place #its just background. just exposition. it DOESNT matter.#anyway i have all the dialogue written already. had it for like. half a year already.#but writing around that is the nine circle of hell.#anyway. carlos cries a lot in this one lol #oh also #im getting my don carlo tattoo in two days. or tomorrow actually cuz its already tuesday now #its gonna hurt like a motherfucker. and then the next day im getting my wisdom teeth removed #this week is a festival of pain #anyway i could go to sleep now. BUT.#theres no guarantee that ill wake up early enough and i have to be in wroclaw by 2 pm so i gotta catch the train early enough #so yeah. guess SOMEONE will stay up all night writing fanfiction and feeling like shit and hopefully make it in time for class #in a city 200km away

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dreadfutures · 3 years

Note

For DADWC: “No one has a heart of stone" for Ixchel and Dirthamen?

Thanks, gen!!! For @dadrunkwriting

Dirth and Ixchel (Arlathan AU) in the Vir Dirthara, pouring over memories...

Rating: PG

-:-:-:-

She has a headache.

She has been pouring over these archived memories for so long that it feels her head is full of thoughts that are not her own. Voices, whispers, images fill her, and she closes her eyes, digs the heels of her palms into them and groans.

Her companion stirs from his meditations. “Something troubling you, da’len?”

“It is unnatural to watch so many deaths, so vividly, and know that these witnesses felt nothing,” Ixchel tells him under her breath. Even here in the private sections of the library, she hesitates to admit how foreign the Elvhen could be. “No horror, no fear, no longing or hatred even, as life upon life is snuffed out.”

Dirthamen’s golden eyes are dark beneath the thick curtain of his lashes. He tilts his head as he considers her words, traces the lines of frustration as they dapple her face. “It hurts you personally, to think that these deaths went unmourned,” he observes, “or that death is an unmarked, unemotional thing for immortal creatures.”

Ixchel nods slowly. “Shouldn’t it be all the more awful?” She poses the question to him, somewhat accusingly, as she does when he adopts too-clinical an air for her liking. “That lives with such infinite potential are cut short?”

“Of course,” he murmurs.

He reaches across to cover her hand in his own, and with that touch bids her look at him. Their eyes meet, and his are aglow with magic. It is as subtle as it always is with Dirthamen, barely a whisper that curls somewhere between her ears, warm and rich like his voice--but utterly silent. The last memory she had been perusing resurfaces, but it has been changed.

Unlocked.

Colors are more vibrant. Sounds are louder, harsher. She can smell the blood in the air, mixed with earth and lyrium.

And she can hear the screams most of all.

Her heart races, and a dread, a horror at the prospect that she might be about to meet her doom--it grips her by the throat and won’t let go--

She can feel the memory’s owner’s fear like it’s her own, and their visceral hatred for the Evanuris and their warmongering. She can taste the soldier’s tears in her own throat as their comrades fall all around them. And when the dragon comes screaming down through the sky--

Dirth is very close.

He has come to crouch beside her, never once releasing her hands, and he looks up at her through a fringe of messy curls. “No one has a heart of stone,” he says quietly. “No one, no matter how dearly they try to hide it.”

“What happened to them?” she asks, then coughs against the acrid taste of blood and smoke in the back of her mouth. “This heretic?”

The God of Secrets is silent for a moment. She wonders, as she stares into his face, how dearly he is trying to hide what lies in his own heart. Those soldiers had worn his own colors; the dragon, his sister’s. She hopes, but she does not know, if the one who had given this memory over to the great Library yet lives--and has been spared for their traitorous thoughts. She hopes that Dirthamen would respect their freedom to hate, and to be afraid. But she does not know.

Dirth releases her hand. He does not stand, however, and he does not release her from his gaze. “What heretic?” he asks softly.

Ixchel does not know.

#da drunk writing circle #dadrunkwritingcircle #ixchel lavellan #dirthamen #ixchel x dirthamen #dirthamen x lavellan #arlathan au #i guess i'm in present tense mode tonight #sunbird

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pcrushinnerd · 3 years

Text

Home Now

Warnings: None I can think of.

A/N: This is purely self-indulgent tripe fluff written largely for my own comfort and enjoyment. This is also my first time tackling this character so.... ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ We're also going to pretend that little character arc in the movie didn't happen.... #fuckcanon

You looked forward to simple things. Cool, crisp sheets. The fan on, pointed at your legs. The smell of your diffuser dispersing one of favorite oils. But most of all, quiet.

You'd had another trying day, but then there hadn't really been any easy days or what you used to consider easy for a while at your job, so maybe you had to accept that this was how things were for the moment.

You'd already had to do that in another part of your life.

He'd told you pretty quickly who and what he was, after realizing how he'd felt. He'd thought long and hard about it: the image that kept coming unbidden into his mind was of your waiting forever for him to come home from a "business" trip that he'd never return from, and you would never know why.

He knew what it felt like to have someone never come home.

He'd told you, and warned you. It would be like dating someone in the service: there would be long periods of absence, he wouldn't be there at times when you needed him most, and there was a chance he would never step through your front door again, but you would know why, at least, he'd rationalized.

"Jellybean, I'd understand if you'd never want to see hide nor hair of me again."

You'd wrapped your arms around him, and tipped his cowboy hat back. "I want to see as much of you as possible, whenever, wherever."

Despite Jack's...reputation, he'd been an absolute sweetheart and gentleman to you. Treated you better than anyone else in your life--which sadly wasn't a very high bar, but one he more than well cleared constantly. There were early morning, whispered conversations about turning it into something more, but you each were hesitant for your own reasons. Besides, you were marked down as next of kin with his employer, in case something did happen, even though you weren't married.

You never doubted your commitment, never reconsidered whether you should try to find something more stable, predictable, "safe." You were in it for the long haul.

Still, it wasn't as if your times alone weren't rough. Due to the nature of his work, you couldn't even share that you were dating him at all, so the other women at work would murmur little words of pity or curious derision at the girl who always just go home after work, at the girl who would turn down any offers of dates that would come your way from the men at work. They speculated and imagined and contrived a story where you were already a widow or a jilted lover, you just didn't care to share your misery with others.

You did have friends with whom you'd complain and crack jokes about work and other hassles of adult life, but also being responsible adults, they were often busy, and you understood. You really did.

So that left you with focusing on the small things. Things like sheets and fans and your favorite essential oils because small pleasures like these were usually always readily available.

You sagged against the front door of your apartment after closing it behind you, letting your bags fall to the floor except for your sleeved laptop, which you set down on a side table.

Even though you didn't usually imbibe, wine sounded like an excellent idea right now.

As you were headed toward your kitchen and at the same time trying to kick off your tortuous heels, you heard a low, familiar hum.

"That place keeping you late again? Thinkin' maybe I should stop by there and give 'em a piece of my mind."

Hearing that voice when you least expected it caught you off guard. You were sure you were staring at him with saucer eyes at first. But the next thing you knew, Jack was standing up from your easy chair just in time to catch you as you ran at him.

He chuckled, before turning to kiss your cheek. "I missed you too jellybean." You felt yourself melt into him as his fingers combed through your hair and he rubbed circles into your back with his other hand.

"You aright jellybean? You look exhausted," he said as he pulled back and studied you at arms' length.

You let out a laugh. "Me? What about you, Mr. Secret Agent Man?" Your eyes roamed over him, looking for any missing limbs, casts, bruises, black eyes, bleeding--

A soft chuckle. "I'm finer than frog hair split four ways, jellybean. Mission went well," he added, already seeing the question on the tip of your tongue. "Just took a spell." He squeezed your arms. "I'm more worried about you."

You shook your head. "Just the usual work shit bearing down again. Nothing new or interesting...."

He rubbed your arms. "Aww c'mon now, I can tell when somethin's botherin' ya. How about I pour some fine Statesman Reserve I brought and you can tell me about it?"

Your shoulders slumped as you sighed, and smiled, in resignation.

You felt guilty and a little silly unloading all your pedestrian office drama onto this man who doubtless experienced more stress and danger than you'd ever know in your lifetime. You had offered multiple times early in the relationship to listen to any stories, any venting he needed to do. But, he assured you, even if he was allowed to talk about his work, he didn't feel the need to rehash things. Would rather forget everything in your embrace, in and out of bed. And if something was really bothering him, his employer had staff psychologists for that sort of thing.

So you went on at some length about your mercurial boss and your direct supervisor for whom none of your efforts were ever good enough and complaining customers and the latest piece of gossip running through the rumor mill....

"Oh, I almost forgot." You sat up from one of the barstools lined up against the half wall/kitchen counter in your apartment. You moved around where your boyfriend was leaning forward on the counter--and stole a glance at his nice, jean-clad ass--on the way to the cabinet where you kept them.

"Ta-da!" you said, as you hauled out an extra large bag of Jelly Belly jellybeans and plopped it in front of him.

A big smile broke out on his face. "Well aren't you sweeter than a peach...." The vari-flavored little candies were his favorite, were part of the reason the two of you had met in the first place, and the origin of his favorite pet name for you. You always had a bag or two waiting when he would return.

He brought you in to a sideways embrace after he ripped open the bag and pulled out a few to munch on. “Love you jellybean,” he spoke into your hair.

You moved in closer, nuzzling into his neck. “Love you, cowboy.” You reached back and gave that pert ass of his a good smack. "Don't surprise me like that again, though. My heart about jumped through my throat."

That wicked grin of his, as he raised up his glass of whiskey. "With everything you put up with, thought ya could use a nice surprise for once."

You sighed. "I appreciate your thinking in terms of that...but my woman-who-lives-alone-in-the-city instincts definitely went into overdrive though, a second before I realized it was you."

Jack hugged you closer. "Ya know ya could retire those instincts...if you moved in with me."

That was another discussion you'd had several times before. Living together to test the waters. But you loved your little apartment and the freedom it afforded you, even if it didn't have the state of the art security system and breathtaking views of the city that Jack's penthouse had.

You took a drink of your whiskey. "How did you get into my apartment, anyway?"

"You're changin' the subject, jellybean."

You rolled your eyes, before they scanned the small living space before you, mulling over the idea.

"Think of it, jellybean: if we were both home now, I could be fixin' you a nice, juicy steak and my mawmaw's famous taters, and you would have your pick of any of the fine spirits or wine in my collection...." He was lightly tickling your arm around your elbow.

"That sure sounds tempting...." You started to play with one of your dish towels. You remember picking it out, along with the decor in your home. Your mother hated everything you picked, which probably made you love all of it that much more.

He covered your hand with his. "Hell, you can redecorate the whole lot of it anyway you like. Have your own room where you can work on your projects. Anything you'd like jellybean. As long you're home with me."

You glanced up at him. Locked your eyes with his deep brown ones; you could see the hope and longing and bit of fear in them.

"Yes."

"Yes??"

You nodded, as a smile spread over your face. "Let's do it. I think it's time."

Jack brought you into both of his arms as he lifted you up off the floor. You giggled as he let out a happy whoop that your now soon-to-be-former-neighbors doubtless heard.

He let you down, a moment before bringing you in for a heated kiss.

"Just one condition."

You looked at him questioningly.

"The jellybeans remain well stocked." He booped you--actually booped you--on the nose.

You you laughed. "Of course, cowboy."

#agent whiskey x reader #agent whiskey x you #agent whiskey x female reader #jack whiskey daniels #jack daniels #jack daniels x you #kingsman the golden circle #this fic is sort of a song fic #but one so obscure probably no one will get it #no I won't tell you which one #you have to guess #n'eeeeh!#gifs never mine unless otherwise stated #Mel writes I guess

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