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#the fact that they’re cowboys?
derpiedoxie · 2 years
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Ok look I don’t know why, but I fucking ADORE @castercassette’s Cowboy Sun and Moon
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Their designs are just too good not to draw!
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pennyserenade · 3 months
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never in all of my life did i think that the western genre would be where i found some of the more kindly representations of mexicans but here we are.
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ashenberry · 1 year
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I think the funny thing about dialtown, a dating sim, is that I get the impression that only one of these guys wants to date me like. romantically
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pebblezone · 1 year
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I need more haters I need violence and fighting
#talkingcore#fun fact! ​the horse was the first horse webkinz!#this is false I don’t have the confrontational skills for haters or maybe they just don’t have enough swag to be confronted by me#dude I figured out how to do animations and sounds in PowerPoint and I think it’s increased my swag by like at least 2.#finished one but fuck it man I’m making more I had more thoughts I need to solidify more thoughts#I’ll scoop back to The Beach Boys eventually (probably not)#In The Meantime Though trying to decide if seras would’ve been an animal jam kid or club penguin kid (real answer is none she’s be idk 26?#also Kenny chesney let me down man was doing so well and Bam suddenly I’m faced with wannabe Jimmy buffet cowboy Christmas album#GIRL STOP SCREAMING IN THE HALL IT’S TUESDAY YOURE SOBER GOD DAMN anyway I just wanted the sad alcoholic tunes#thinking about that dude who was like I made this drink that smells like sunscreen it’s bad But like I want it. I want to consume sunscreen#oh yeah dining hall had matzo ball soup. would I ever seek her out? no but she doesn’t taste like dog water!#happy passover! I’m not missing out on the At Home family experience because my grandpa got Covid. thought it was a cold.#refused to wear a mask. got my mom and grandma sick. and they (grandparents) haven’t tested since so I guess they aren’t hosting!#dude I want to experience a corn pit so bad they’re like the pinacle of sensory good times Fuck it people other than babies deserve corn pit
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codgod-moved · 1 year
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i’m glad it’s gonna take until next year for me to get my sheriff plushie because it gives me time to try and get a brown vest and a blue bandana so i can do a matching cosplay. unless i do like, vaguely punk sheriff. i have a torn-sleeve denim vest with studs on the shoulders and a black bandana so
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sickgraymeat · 11 months
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Do you ever think about how when BMO plays pretend, they favor nomadic/loner roles like a cowboy, a hard-boiled detective, a traveling salesperson, etc., which is pretty in line with their directive from Mo. But when they really are on their own (eg in BMO Lost) they immediately, desperately establish a family from their surroundings.
And how one of those universal struggles of people, especially in the context of growing up (including but not limited to childhood) is dependence vs. independence. Wanting a hand to hold and wanting to be able to drop it at will. And how some people need to hold that hand less often than others, and how some people really don’t want to even when they really need to.
Finn and Jake get frustrated with each other and try to solve a dungeon separately, only to be met at every turn with a challenge that they can’t face without the other. Marceline travels for a thousand years and settles down here and there and picks back up because the people around her aren’t constant so she doesn’t want to be either. PB and IK each create an entire kingdom because they’re lonely, and neither of them feel whole because, just like the quarters of Ooo in Elements, living in those kingdoms is too much like living inside their own heads.
Every episode of Distant Lands is about characters who both resent and long for the versions of themselves they used to be— the versions who needed other people, the versions who could still insist they didn’t — and have to reconcile with the fact that they never really stopped being those people, but also that they can never really be those people again.
Every major character in the series is building connections and love and safety using whatever tools they have, and distancing themselves with equal effort. So they’re all kind of just alternating between playing cowboy and playing house, figuring out how to balance both and where they fit in between.
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susiephone · 11 months
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wtf is dracula daily?
i’ve seen a couple people ask this question on my posts about it, so i thought i’d go ahead and clear it up here!
ok so, the classic horror novel “dracula” is an epistolary novel - that means it’s told via letters, diary entries, ship logs, and news articles. (technically the term “epistolary novel” refers to works told solely through letters or emails, but many have expanded it to mean any work that is told via in-universe documents, hence why diaries and logs often get included as well. “frankenstein” is another classic example; the whole framing device is robert walton is recounting the story he heard from victor to his sister via letter. a modern example would be “several people are typing,” which is told via slack messages, or “the perks of being a wallflower,” which is told via letters from charlie to his anonymous pen pal, which is functionally more like you’re reading his diary.)
because of the nature of the narrative, we actually know the exact day nearly everything in dracula happens - the letters, news articles, diary entries, etc. are all dated.
“dracula daily” is a substack project where the novel is broken up into parts, with people who are subscribed to the project getting emails every day something in dracula happens - for example, the novel opens with jonathan harker’s journal entry on may 3, so on may 3, subscribers are emailed that entry. the action of dracula takes place from may 3 - november 6, plus an epilogue set some years later. the project started in 2021 (i think), but fucking BLEW UP in 2022, and they’re doing it again this year! lots of us are very excited - especially people like me who fell behind last time.
why not just read the book?
valid! due to some parts of dracula being told out of chronological order, dracula daily does reorder some things. for example, the first section of dracula is told entirely from jonathan harker’s pov, then the second section switches the pov to mina murray. their sections have some overlap in the timeline, so dracula daily jumps back and forth between their perspectives.
if you want to read the book as bram stoker intended, dracula daily may not be for you. but for a lot of people (myself included!), it breaks up a very long text into easily digestible chunks (....mostly. there is one entry that is 10k words), and the fact that it’s a big project means there are a lot of people reading along with you.
i think there’s also something valuable about experience the slow revelation of wtf is going on along with the characters. the book which you might otherwise get through in a few days is stretched out into months of suspense and agony as you wait for the other shoe to drop, and it’s great.
plus, the whiplash between “jonathan harker’s neverending horror” vs “lucy is basically on the bachelorette” that you get in dracula daily is very very funny.
how do i sign up?
right here! and if you sign up and fall behind in the emails, no worries - the dracula daily website posts past entries so you can catch up.
what if i prefer audiobooks?
have i got great news for you!
like i mentioned before, i couldn’t keep up with the emails last year. part of it is that it is much easier for me to focus on an audiobook or keep up with a podcast than it is for me to sit down and read, especially with longer entries.
this year, there is going to be a podcast titled “re: dracula” that was inspired by dracula daily. every episode will be a dracula daily entry, with a full voice cast! (seriously, if you listen to british podcasts, you will recognize some of these names. the magnus archives and wooden overcoats girlies are WINNING.) you can find that here.
there is also a podcast called “cryptic canticles” that has an already-completed audiodrama of dracula that i’m told is also extremely good, and was also broken up by date. you can find that here.
why do i keep hearing about paprika/the boyfriend squad/lizard fashion/cowboys?
you’ll see.
oh god am i gonna hear about this nerd shit for the rest of the year
yes. sorry.
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raeofgayshine · 2 years
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You know, thinking about The Sun, The Moon, and the Stars, about the storyline but more importantly about the characters, about Ahkmenrah, Ammon, and Akil
I never finished got around to writing much in that series. I don’t even remember what happened with it. Probably just got overwhelmed with too many ideas and burnt out before I could really get started knowing me.
But! I adored those characters so much, and their relationship with one another, that the spirit of them still lives on in my novel. Ammon and Akil even have the same names. Ammon is now married to Jahi, though, and they have a young daughter named Masika Brooke.
Anyways, the point of this was that I thought about doing a little post talking about this small family, who I lifted from an old series that never got anywhere.
Also to just point out that although some things don’t always turn out the way you expect, sometimes the pieces left behind can be used to make something better.
#ravenpuff writes#beauty and the mermaid#the sun the moon and the stars#leo rivera#now they have two stars and isn’t that adorable?#i still think of the family by that name#there’s no doubt in my mind that Ammon calls Jahi his moon and Jahi calls Ammon his son#and that they both call Akil and Masika their precious stars#i should do a post about this family just for myself if nothing else I love them#but also to anyone who liked that series I hope you can appreciate them#Leo (Akil) still has his assorted group of aunts and uncles from across the world#his Uncle Larry who he used to stay with during the school year while his dads traveled#his Aunt Tilly and her boyfriend everyone just calls Laa who live in England and come to visit often.#His uncles Jed and Tavi who his dads introduced and fight like cats and dogs#they’re those teachers at school everyone assumes hate each other but they’re actually married#yes Jed wears a cowboy hat/boots still he’s very southern even after living in New York for a few years#He has an uncle Lance who is an actor that Jahi met and befriend whilst he was playing Sir Lancelot in Camelot (the musical)#you get the idea basically everyone is there but also not there#None of this probably comes up btw this is all just for me#what does almost certainly come up is the fact that Jahi and Ammon travel frequently across the world#an archeologist and antropolgist who fell in love the moment they met and now follow each other to the ends of the earth#and who… hold in their souls the belief (the truth?) that they have walked this earth with each other before#and will continue to do so over and over. hopefully now with Akil and Masika by their sides#but it’s why the two of them talk about history the way they do. know things perhaps they shouldn’t. how they know#so much about a place they have never visited in this lifetime. because once#before they had walked those streets together#anywyas I adore this family it has nothing to do with the story but I love them#Ahk never got the appreciation he deserved. But in another life Jahi gets everything and more
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perlelune · 10 months
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Tag, You’re It | Ethan Landry | ii.
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Happy, carefree college days meet their abrupt end when every guy who approaches you mysteriously turns up dead.
Warnings: NON-CON, Stalking, Bimbo!Reader, Clueless Reader, Loss of Virginity, Incel Ethan, Cheerleader Reader, Skin Carving (w/knife), Canon Typical Slashing, Voyeurism, Kidnapping
This is a dark story. Heed warnings before reading under the cut.
𝖘𝖊𝖗𝖎𝖊𝖘 𝖒𝖆𝖘𝖙𝖊𝖗𝖑𝖎𝖘𝖙
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The party’s already in full swing when you arrive at the OKB house. While getting ready, you lost track of time. Putting the finishing touches on your hair and nails took longer than you planned. 
You dodge the bodies swaying to the loud music to make your way to your friends through the swirling blue lights. 
Mindy spots you right away and waves at you. 
"Not bad, freshman," she praises as you twirl in front of her and Mindy to show off your nurse costume decorated with splashes of fake blood.  
They’re both sprawled on the couch, limbs twined. Expectedly, only Anika made the effort to don anything resembling a costume, a pumpkin-colored hat with a bloody knife poking out of it sitting atop her head. 
Mindy even bothering to come considering what happened the last time she attended a frat party is already a huge effort on her part. 
You chat for some time, sharing the latest news regarding your friends. 
 You learn that apparently Tara got into it with her sister…again.
A lot of tension has built between the two of them lately, Sam’s protectiveness clashing with Tara’s craving for independence. 
Maybe Sam’s been overdoing…but who can blame her?
Those two have been through hell and back. 
"Have you guys seen Connor?" 
While you attempt to sound casual, even tossing a shrug, Mindy sees right through you and flashes you a teasing grin. 
"One-track minded, huh?"
Your face warms. "Sorry, I just…I really looked forward to seeing him."
Anika gives your hand an encouraging squeeze. 
"It’s okay, babe. To be young and in love."
"And horny," Mindy adds, dragging a quick eye over your outfit as her smile broadens. 
Her comment sparks more heat in your cheeks. Sure, things between you and Connor are growing steamier. But you don’t want to rush anything. You like him, and you want your first time to be special, romantic.
"I’ll see you guys later."
"Have fun," Mindy says, waving her beer bottle at you.
Your search resumes and you grow nervous, pondering if Connor is even in attendance. Maybe you missed him. Downsides of running late. 
Damn you and your tendency to spend hours dolling yourself up. 
 As you wander across the room, you nearly crash into a familiar broad, muscular back.
An easy smile creeps on your face when your friend turns to face you. 
"Hi."
"Hey, looking good."
"You too, cowboy."
You’re pretty certain Chad’s never looked bad a day in his life. There’s a reason why he’s the most popular player on the team, and one of the most sought-after guys at Blackmore. Well…several, starting with the fact that his hotness is only matched by his unwavering kindness to everybody he meets. 
You suppose if you hadn’t known him for so long, you’d harbor a crush on him too. But you’re too familiar with Chad to see him in that light. You still recall when he insisted on wearing a Pokemon onesie for nearly a year. You used to watch cartoons with him and Mindy as children, play together. He’s even tried to get you into Magic: The Gathering at some point but you couldn’t understand how the game works so he gave up. He’s like the brother you never had. 
"So I hear you've met Ethan. He's cool, right?" He throws his muscular arm around Ethan’s neck affectionately. "A whole snack he is. Look at him." An endearing tinge of red decorates Ethan’s cheeks, his gaze fleeing yours. 
It draws a smile from you. You’re glad they’re getting along. 
You tilt your head, gauging his appearance. Confusion fills you.
You’re not exactly sure what Ethan’s costume is supposed to be. A knight perhaps? Either way, it’s original and it suits him.
"Hey again," you greet. 
He lifts two bashful fingers as a response, returning your smile.
"Yeah. I appreciate him helping me out."
Ethan’s chestnut gaze widens at your words. 
College’s busy enough for everyone. It’s incredible of him to offer some of his free time to help you out when it doesn’t benefit him in any way. 
Ethan opens his mouth as if he were about to say something but, before he can speak, someone taps you on the shoulder, beckoning your attention. 
You pivot in your high heels.
Your chest floods with warmth at the sight welcoming you. 
"Hey, gorgeous," Connor hums, giving you an appreciative onceover that turns your legs into jelly. His voice lowers as he approaches you. "I’ve been looking for you all night. Where have you been?"
Your heart skips a beat at his closeness, the scent of his masculine cologne and his mesmerizing blue eyes overwhelming you. 
"Just ran a bit late," you mumble. 
His hooded gaze takes you in as he suggests, "Well, you’re here now. Wanna go hang out in my car?"
Pursing your mouth, you hesitate. 
"I…I don’t know. Is that safe? Mindy says it’s always best to stay in crowded-"
He halts your explanation with a hand under your chin. Bewildered, you gawk at him. 
His pearly whites shimmer in the dusky blue and green hues saturating the room. 
"Do you trust me, gorgeous?"
You blink up at him, dazed and lost in the sea of his gaze. 
"Y-Yes, I do."
"I’ll keep you safe. I promise. Come on."
His hand engulfs yours as Connor begins to drag you toward the exit.
Chad’s deep, concerned voice interrupts the abrupt getaway. 
"Are you sure?" His forehead creases as he inches closer. "You don’t have to do anything you don’t want. You know that, right?" 
At first, you’re a bit confused. 
Then you remind yourself he’s just being protective. Both he and Mindy share that trait. In fact, her attentive eyes carve a searing dent in your skin from the other side of the room. 
Usually, you adore that about them, how caring they are. But right now, you find it a bit much. 
Connor isn’t a threat. He’s just the guy you like, not a serial killer. 
You place a placating hand on Chad’s arm. 
"It’s fine. I trust him. Catch you later, okay?"
He gives a belated nod, his jaw clenching as he stares Connor down, before letting you walk away. 
You wave Ethan goodbye but are somewhat dejected when he stares at you and doesn’t reply, his blank expression unreadable.
Both you and Connor step outside. 
Moonlight bathes the damp pavement in silvery light as you trail behind him. 
He wastes no time once you’ve reached his expensive sports car, pinning you against the hood and kissing you senseless. 
"Fuck, been dying to do this ever since I saw you in that slutty costume," he purrs against your temple. His hands begin to roam over you, impatient fingers fondling your curves. 
When he sneaks under your short dress and tugs at the waistband of your panties, you push against his chest. 
A sudden tide of discomfort swells inside you. 
"Connor…wait. This is going a little fast for me," you giggle.
Ignoring your protests, he keeps kissing you and even turns things up a notch by grabbing a fistful of your ass. You gasp. 
"Just relax. I won’t hurt you, gorgeous."
His weight presses against you, a sizzling cage of need you can’t escape. Tears prick at your eyes. 
"Connor, please…" you whimper.
Annoyance ripples in his tone as the grip on your rear gets firmer. 
"How you’re gonna be a fucking cocktease then give me blue balls, come on, gorgeous."
His tone is light but your chest is heavy. This isn’t how tonight was supposed to go. You hoped Connor would be gentle and nice. 
This isn’t nice. 
And you’re starting to feel a little scared. As the taut bulge in his crotch rubs at your front, your stomach knots.
But things don’t get to wander any further.
In fact, they hit a sudden stop as Connor stills against you. Your brows knit. 
As he chokes on his own breath, blood gushes from his mouth, painting the front of your costume crimson. 
Your eyes widen as his head lolls before he slumps to the pavement with a heavy thud. 
Time stands still when your gaze lifts. 
Your heart slams against your ribcage.
A tall figure clad in black and donning a Ghostface mask is now standing before you.
The blood rushing in your veins makes your ears ring.
The stranger cocks his head, studying you for a few seconds before pouncing on Connor’s prone form like a starved hyena. 
Horror-struck, you gawk as the stranger rains vicious stab after vicious stab upon Connor's writhing body. Each strike draws a shudder from you, more violent than the last and causing scarlet rivers to flow from every part of Connor. 
The world becomes red. 
A scream bubbles in your throat but remains trapped in it, shock striking you mute. 
When Connor's body stops moving, the sickening squish of the blade twisting out of his mangled flesh reaches you. 
With the knife in his hand still dripping blood, its crimson hue catching the moonlight, the killer rises to his feet. 
His focus travels to you. Your insides coil, deadly anticipation gripping you as tight as a fist. 
A gravelly, distorted voice rises beneath the mask. 
"This is the part where you run, princess."
Right…
It’s what happens in those horror movies Mindy had you watch with her, you think. The characters run away, fighting whatever’s chasing them with all their might. 
It’s the sensible thing to do. 
And you want to move. You should move. But you can't. 
Even breathing is toilsome, stilted whimpers and gasps spilling from your chest instead. 
All you can do is peer into the pupil-less gaze of the mask as you crumble into a quivering, sobbing heap onto the pavement. 
The killer inches closer and it's as if your heart jumps out of your chest. 
His blade kisses the trembling flesh of your throat, right above your racing pulse. 
Languid tears roll down your face as he traces your jugular. 
Cool metal slices past your collarbone, to your rapidly heaving chest. 
The song of the night yields to the symphony of fear echoing in your ears. Every scattered heartbeat. Every uneven breath. Every desperate sob.
A sharp stinging blooms in your delicate flesh as he carves oblong patterns on your breast with his knife. 
His motions are slow and focused, as if your skin’s the canvas and his blade the brush. 
Paralyzed, you don’t move. His cloaked figure bends and blurs in your misty vision, more monster than man in the scarce light provided by the street lamps.
He slants his head when he’s done, admiring his handiwork. 
This must be it, you infer, the moment all of it ends. 
Your eyes quake shut as you wait for the inevitable blow. 
You wait… An eternity it seems. 
For the blood. For the agony. For the darkness. 
Yet nothing comes. 
When you open your eyes, Ghostface is gone, the only nightmarish vision before you being that of Connor's body lying unmoving on the pavement. 
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You pay no attention to the chaos around you as you pull the thin blanket closer to your frame.
The lights of the ambulance twinkle in your hazy sight. 
Amidst the chatter of shocked students standing in the street behind the yellow tape, the whispers of reassurance of Mindy and Tara fade to white noise in your ears. 
Numb, you gawk as they drag Connor’s body away on a gurney.
For some silly reason, you keep expecting him to rise again, to not be dead.
Because this cannot be real.
This cannot have happened. 
The police ask you a barrage of questions and you give mechanical answers. None of them help and they grow frustrated with you, sparking a heated argument between your friends and the stubborn cop. 
"I’m just doing my job," he insists, raising his hands when Chad gets in his face.
If it weren’t for Detective Bailey vouching for you, you’re not entirely sure you wouldn’t be sitting in the back of a patrol car right now. 
"Can’t you see the kid’s traumatized. She doesn’t know anything," he berates one his co-worker who seemed unwilling to accept your version of events. 
The one where you froze and Ghostface somehow let you live with only a strangely shaped scar on your chest as a souvenir. The one the medic commented looked a little like a heart. 
Absently, you pat the gauze covering the healing wound. 
It's weird…but it hurts your head to ponder why this occurred. The only emotion you can process is the crippling guilt consuming you. 
You’re alive while Connor's cold body is on its way to the morgue.
Your friends gather around you, their warmth chasing away the night’s chill. While Tara and Mindy sit next to you on the pavement, Chad stands protectively in front of you. 
"I-I didn’t do anything, Tara. I just let him…" Your voice cracks, withering into a sob. 
The arm around your shoulder gets tighter.
"Hey, don’t talk like that. It’s not your fault," she feverishly responds.
You open your mouth to argue but close it once it dawns on you that all the energy’s been drained from your body. There is none left in you.
Still, you can’t help but disagree. If it were Tara, her sister, or even Mindy, you bet they’d have fought tooth and nail instead of shrinking and crying like you did. 
You’re the weak link in your group. Not smart enough, or strong enough. 
The thought makes you sob harder. 
Mindy rubs circles on your back. 
You cast a quick glance around before your tearful gaze finds hers. 
"Where’s Anika?"
"She went home. She’s not great with blood. She sends her love though."
You nod at that. If you could, you’d be home too, hugging your stuffed bear and trying your best to forget this awful night ever happened. 
Chad’s irate tone startles you out of your fog. 
"Speaking of people not being here… where the hell is Ethan?" 
You blink up at him, confused as he and Mindy trade a pointed, heavy look.
You don’t get it. 
Sure, Ethan’s new to the group, and the twins are slow to give their trust. You know that. But Ethan? He’s entirely too sweet and kind to have anything to do with this…Right?
Ethan wouldn’t. You’re sure of it. 
~
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dailyadventureprompts · 5 months
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Heavy Topics: A Child's Vision of Evil
One of the first big “aha!” moments in my journey to retrofit d&d’s laughably bad lore was the realization that the way the game treated evil didn’t make much sense.  As a dungeonmaster I was asked to create dramatic stakes for my players but the out-of-the-box antagonists supplied to me were as laughably one note as the pollution loving villains in Captain Planet. Who would ever worship the demon god of killing everything that lives? Of torturing you for all eternity? Of being unpleasantly covered in slime? 
None of it really made sense until I started to understand the world and recent history through a political lens, at which point several things became clear: 
Despite how large a bogyman it played in the satan scare of the late 80s, the people who laid the foundations for the lore of d&d came from a background of conservative american christianity, and baked a lot of that ethos into the game. 
The conservative christian imagination can only see things in black and white. People who disagree with them can’t just have a different opinion, even if that opinion is objectively good, they need to be wilfully evil . In fact they must be trying as hard to be evil as the christian is trying to be good, because they’re a backwards person, a monster, a demon. 
This idea of the “Backwards Person” is the exact process that gave rise to the bloodlibel, to the witchpanics, to the redscare, and yes, the 80s fear that satanists lurk around every corner sacrificing babies and putting poison in candy because they love evil that much.  It’s the same thought that’s given rise to Q-anon and the groomer panic. “People who disagree with just can’t just have a different opinion, they must be demons.”
D&D’s classic enemies are similarly all “backwards people”, hardwired to do evil so that players always have an excuse to kill them.  While on the surface it seems harmless or even childish it leads to the default d&d world being one where peace is impossible and genocidal violence is the only correct answer.  
We can do better in our writing than a bunch of shut-ins who wanted nothing more than to play cowboys and indians while ripping off Tolkien. Whether you want to write a sweeping epic or a mindless dungeon crawler, there’s a way to reconfigure d&d lore. 
Join me below the cut for a discussion of different ways to use evil in your games.
Children cannot control their emotions nor their fear, they lack the life experience necessary to contextualize things beyond a surface level reading. If you ask a child to "imagine something bad" they're going to take something that scared them, something gross or unpleasant or threatening and imagine it blown up to cartoonish proportion. Tolkien got bit by a spider as a kid and the entire fantasy genre has never lived it down.
D&D is weird because it keeps these childish ideas about evil and drags them forward into an adult context. Those three demon gods I mentioned in the intro make a sort of sense when you realize they're fears of dying, pain, and uncleanliness made manifest. That said most of us having outgrown our childish simplicity understand that those things are neutral, Spiders might personally gross you out but we all understand that doesn't make them bad on a spiritual level. In the base d&d lore however that personal distaste is ALWAYS true: Evilness is synonymous with ugliness and monstrousness, drawing a thick crayon line between the good people and the bad things.
That's where we get our particular flavor of backwards people, because one of those fundamental (pun intended) fears d&d inherited from it's creators was xenophobia, fear of the strange, but also fear of the stranger. When the white, suburban, middle class, christian creators of d&d imagined the other they took all the bad things they had been told in their youth about people who were not them and made them into monsters: That's why the default thinking enemies of d&d are tribal primitives who squat in the ruins of greater civilizations worshipping demons while coveting the beauty and wealth of cultured people. It sounds hyperbolic, but there's a one for one parallel between between the weird sexual anxieties conservatives have about black men and orcs raiding human lands to kidnap women as breeding stock. Same fears about emasculation and race mixing and ethnic replacement, only d&d gives the good ol' boys a narrative vehicle where they can revenge themselves upon their imagined foe.
Most modern d&d is not like this, and I chalk that up to the demographic shift that's happened both because of time passing and the influx of new voices that came along with the 5e renaissance. We're all media literate enough to avoid the obvious racial pantomime... except in cases like the Hardozee when the devs port something almost word for word from an older edition and we get a thanksgiving uncle/facebook aunt screed about how the silly monkey people are really SO happy to work for the refined and civilized and white elves.
What's left behind however is that pervasive childlike worldview: Where perfectly natural things that creep us out (like rot) or frighten us (like pregnancy) are made universally villainous regardless of any themes that are going on in that specific story. Ask yourself why the creators of a piece of media made their badguys look and act like they did, rather than just accepting that it's that way because "the lore says so".
Anyway, that's my rant over, and I promised you guys some different versions of how to use Evil:
Classic demons or lovecraftian horrors make for good bossfights but are thin on character, one of the basic building blocks of story. To remedy this, pair your unremitting force of darkness and destruction with a troubled and nuanced mortal agent, someone who is trying their general best but has been forced down this low road by circumstances beyond their control. This gives your roleplaying focused players something to play off against while your combat focused ones battle a building sized monstrosity. Raw evil isn't interesting, it becomes interesting when we see what it makes morally grey people, even good people, do in reaction to it.
Extremity is one of the best ways to turn normal people into villains, a looming disaster or recent crisis that's putting the pressure on everyone and preventing anyone from thinking beyond protecting themselves and their own. Beyond the people acting rashly, you're also going to have a legion of opportunists offering to fix the problem as your higher rank of antagonists to overcome.
Similarly, if you're going to have your villain backed up by legions of faceless mooks you're going to need a reason for their loyalty. Your villain is offering them something worth dying for, which gives your heroes an alternate win condition for overcoming their numbers beyond genocide.
If you're willing to take a step into a more fanciful, cartoony universe, feel free to play with the idea of good and evil as arbitrary teams: It's the badguy's job to cause chaos and it's the goodguy's job to stop em, they're all working professionals and the dungeon is the workplace comedy. This is fun, but then lets you escalate the tension when someone doesn't play by the rules. What happens when a zealot starts executing evildoers who'd already surrendered? what happens when the villain summons something that is more interested in devastation than wacky hijinx?
Think of morality like a punnett square: There's the party, and then there's the villain who wants the opposite of what they want. THEN there's the villain who wants what the party wants, and the ally who wants the opposite of party wants. Suddenly rather than a simple binary, the party is forced to balance the interest of varying groups as well as their better judgment. This can be made even MORE complex by creating different categories of "what the party wants", which is generally how you get complex political dramas like game of thrones.
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blingblong55 · 4 months
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Cowboy like me -Philip Graves
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creds: @/vhenan_virabelesan on instagram
Based on a request:
i need more graves in my life. like southern cowboy graves who finds veteran reader one day in line for food or something and he just can’t help but talk to her until the blood rushes to his face and flushes red. need graves who never thought he would settle down or get married until he finds himself staring at rings after dating you for 8 months. philip who cherishes his fiery girl by winning stock shows and buying her a new mercedes just because. reader asking him how she can pay him back and he asks her to move in. philip who holds reader so so close to his body, never wanting to hurt her while his cock throbs into her. caressing her hair and clicking his tongue whenever she breaks eyes contact from his good he feels. philip being called away for a two month deployment all of a sudden. two months feel like two years until he can see his beloved peeing the ranch goats and chasing chickens back into their coop. philip who finally gets home and uses his rank to skip the welcome home ceremony, wanting to surprise reader at home since it’s late at night and him speeding home because they’re not going to live their lives through the phone. driving like a maniac until he feels the grind of gravel against rubber and the familiar low glow of the wooden house, until he holds onto her body like how oxygen embeds itself into his lungs. i need him so bad ---- F!Reader, fluff, some smut, boyfriend!Graves, cowboy!Graves, P-in-V, soft sex, soft!dom Graves, veteran!Reader ---- A/N: this is how I know you are a Graves lover, so please my dear..enjoy :)
You moved to the countryside, a small town and a pair of old boots. Life is calm, away from that old and rowdy one you lived as a soldier. This time around, you were told about some new small restaurant in town, decided to check it out and that's when all the stars aligned. He walks in, three days into his break from a long deployment and then, his eyes meet your frame. A small smile on him. Never did he see another woman like you in his part of town. Not as pretty or as captivating. His cowboy hat by his chest as he admired you. You, unaware, order your meal, eager to taste something new.
He walked closer, and the cashier asked for your name. "R/N," you said and he smiles. What a precious name. For days after, he returned to that small restaurant, walked around town and frequented many shops and then he stopped walking. There you were, getting what he assumed was your truck loaded with gravel and some other stuff. You were a local then. He knew the man from the shop, asked around and soon he realised you were the woman who bought a property close to his. Ain't it funny. Your herd dog ran away and into his property, what a fun time Philip would have.
"I'm sorry, he…is a bit of a runner," you chuckle as you get your dog in the truck. "No worries, hun. I'm Philip," he extends his hand and you shake it. "I'm R/N, a pleasure to meet you," you smile. "So, what is a pretty lady like you doing 'ere?" You chuckle, your hat being the perfect sunblock for this sunny day. "I own this land," you answer and he smiles more. "Ah, so that means you aren't just a pretty lady with a dog, that makes you my pretty lil neighbour," he gets closer. You couldn't deny it, he had his charm and it worked on you. "What if instead of keeping you out on this Sun, I keep you out, say Friday night at around 8 pm?" Oh that smile on him, what a dangerous game it played.
And so you accepted. You played the dangerous game with him and it turned into something so calm and beautiful. Now, instead of spending his days or weeks off work alone, he spends them with you. He got to know you, understand you and love all of you. Every day, there he was, at your front porch, wildflowers at hand from his part of the land. Every day, there you were, at the front door, ready to greet him with a kiss. It never was the fact he could buy store flowers, it was the intention, to always bring them to you, pretty or not, he took his time every day to pick them out, to think, 'She'll like them, yeah…this one is perfect,' that is the beauty of him. And, you always fell even deeper for him. That smile, the same one he saw every morning, gave him more reason to go around, plant flowers on his land and when they grow, he will cut them and hand them to you.
It's what all lovers did before him. His eyes, my my my, were they enchanting to look at. He never meant to be a husband, to come home to his pretty lady, to love. He was meant to be a soldier, a commander and to watch himself die sometime far from today, in some dangerous place. Today, he walks around, looks at rings and shakes his head anytime the lady at the jewellery place asks if he likes that ring. "No, don't think my darling would fit this, I need something more…more beautiful…something that matches her beauty, so let's keep looking." But that was a game to never be won. In his mind, no diamond would match your beauty, it just had to at least resemble your natural looks.
His friends were all teasing him for falling in love. It's not bad, they reassure, it's…new..it changed you for the better, they all admit. When he introduces you to them, they all look at each other. "Oh, it makes more sense," one says and the rest agree. You did change him, he has become someone everyone admires more, and he has more reason to do certain stuff now. You and him, it is possibly the healthiest of loves he or you had. The warm feeling in your chest, that feels right. The compliments from his mother, his father and siblings, all feel too well. And you know that maybe you are right, maybe this is love. It's love in the beautiful, the ugly, the immature things you two laugh at, the stare his friends give when they know he find his forever person. It is real…it's love for what humans know love to be.
"My dear, c'mon, calm down," his voice soft, hands on your body as you argue over something that happened at a store. "Babe, you don't get it. That man…ooh that man do I dislike him!" He chuckles, "You know what the deal was and what he said was right-" "No, no it wasn't and you know what, shame on you for backing him up." You push him. "No, don't do that, we don't do that. If I fuck up, you correct me and I do the same for you, we fix each other that way." You huff out and cross your arms. He was right, you did that and now he had to do the same. Anytime he said or did something that wasn't right, you corrected him and he listened and apologised and did better next time. Now, here you were, having to be in his situation. "Sorry…it's just…why…why would that man do that- you're right..sorry"
"It's over, let's move on," his arms wrap around you and you sigh. "I love you," he reminds you and you smile. Your arms now wrapping around him. "I love you too," you whisper and get comfortable in his arms. Slowly, this became the norm, talk it out, don't yell but talk, it's simple and it's what keeps it all comfortable.
Christmas, ten months into loving you, he buys and gifts you a car. Lavish and all for you. For what reason? No motive, he just felt the need to give it. You, being someone who can't just accept these nice acts, shove the keys back to him. "Nope, nope…Phil, you can't just give me this." He shakes his head, "I can and it's rude to deny a gift, my love," he walks to you, the smile on him again. Was he a wizard? To have you so enchanted by his smile? "But-…how can I repay this? This is too much, Phil-" A kiss, is all it took to have you calm down and let him love you more. "Move in, that's all I ask of you." He says between kisses and you smile. Of course, now that is the man you know. A mastermind for a fiance? Now that is something to have yourself get accustomed to.
By Spring, he and you married.
By Summer, he had your back arched, your body and his pressed against each other as he repeatedly made love to you. His cock, deep inside of you as your milked him for every last drop. Your hands, wrapped around his back, owning him and marking him with scratches, ones he would proudly wear. His hands caress your body as if you were some angelic creature. Your eyes close once your body starts to feel euphoric, its pleasure to the greatest it can be. Philip's kisses trail from your lips to your collarbone. Your tits bounce with each thrust he gave you, your eyes closed and then he grabs your face with force. "Don't you dare look away, my love, not now," he grunts and moans.
His fat cock stretches your tight cunt to its limit. You let our whimpers, your orgasm building up slowly. "That's it, be a good girl-" he grips your face again. "Tsk, what i say?" He kisses you and once he is done with your lips, he ensures your gaze never leaves his. Your drunken stare is the one thing that is making him last so long. Your juices leak all over him, his cum deep inside of you, making sure to leave you leaking. It was his way of saying goodbye as he went on yet another operation. Your cunt, throbbing for the abuse and love your dear husband gave you over and over. It was perfection, it is love that he makes to you on a night like this.
Your teary eyes, make him frown and apologise. "I'm sorry, I know…I know darling." he cups your face with his warm hands and kisses you all over that precious pouty face. Your tears dried by his lips. Love is an action or emotion. Right now, in this bed made up of two drunken lovers, he made sure to teach you that he was not like any of the past men you loved. He was sure of it because no other man-made you cum with a stare, a touch, or a lick of your precious and delicious cunt. He isn't most men, he is your man, your other half, the one that has you whimpering over his size. The one that has you lighting candles for when he comes back home.
After that night, he was gone for some time. Not much contact besides the small talk on texts or the quick calls from the base. It was an eternity, to not have him by your side, to not watch you fall over as you tried to feed the animals on the ranch. It was a long night when you didn't have him wrap his arms around you and whisper sweet nothings. But it was the rule, wait and I'll be back to love you more. You were his patient lover, like a woman back in the day, waiting all day for her man. And the second came with the view of the joint estates, he smiles. His pretty darling, his home and all those crazy animals, all waiting for him.
His mates at the base, all begged him to wait just a little longer but he couldn't not when he yearned to be in your arms. He didn't care, it didn't matter if they all wanted a sit-down cookout to celebrate a triumph of an operation. You mattered. You see, the thought of you, laying in bed, with an empty side, his pillow used as a teddy bear as you await for him, that was an image he couldn't let happen anymore. His truck, rushed through the night all to get a glimpse, a touch, a whisper and an 'I love you' from you.
The door, swung open as he hurried up the stairs and into the bedroom. The floor creaks under his step as he silents himself from excitement when he sees your precious face. It was a rush, it's love and glee to know he came home, came home to you. "R/N, doll..I'm home," he whispers as he gently stirs you awake. That smile of yours, oh it can melt a man as mean and cold as him. "Hi," your voice is so soft and small. "Hi," he responds and sits on the edge, watching as you crawl into his arms. "Did you miss me?" but of course, he knew that answer. You nod and bury your face on his chest. What was once an empty bed, is now a bed full of two. Two crazed people, two hearts, one home. "Oh I missed you more," he rubs your back and notices how your body relaxes. He holds you close, so close that it's as if he wants your body to become one.
His boots are under the bed as he settles in with you. Your warmth wrapped him in an embrace. This, this is all he ever needed. It wasn't some drunk one-night stand, it wasn't cheap love or cheap sex. No one could afford this. Don't think he even understood how much he had to afford this kind of love but he can and that is all that matters now.
A/N: I love cowboys....and I love cowboy Graves
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macfrog · 6 months
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heart, body, soul cowboy like me chapter thirteen
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surprise! happy friday eve. here's some cowboy to get you through it. life has been a little tough on me lately. sorry for the terribly long wait. but the end is in sight, dear readers. tighten the stampede string on your hats. we're coming in to land.
pairing: dbf!joel x fem!reader
summary: you and joel are at an impasse. you resolve it the only way you know how
warnings: age gap (reader is 23, joel is 48), cursing, alcohol consumption, mention of dr*g use, titty appreciation, face sitting, oral (f receiving), unprotected piv, creampie, major fluff, major angst
word count: 14.4k (y’all ask. mother macfrog delivers)
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You sigh. “I don’t want you…with…anyone else. I want you to…only want me.” His brows straighten. You sit in silence, staring at one another. Both daring the other to be the first to talk. But it’s his turn, and he knows it. So he swallows, and says – “I don’t want nobody else.” And that’s a thing. A great big, terrible thing.
It’s been a week since you last saw Joel. Blurred, tilting, pulling to-and-fro across your vision. A week since you last heard him; his low voice like the hum of an electric wire, tired acoustics drumming weakly through his chest into your heavy hand, laced through his own. Fingers draped softly across his swollen knuckles. You wonder if they’re still marked seven days later.
A week since you felt him. Felt your body lean towards him – gravity or dizziness or something stronger – as his weight dipped into the bed beside you. The way it has only a handful of times now, but enough to score it deep into your memory. Enough that you know the difference between him and anyone else, even with your eyes closed and your heart bleeding.
Enough to ensure that, for as long as you live, you’ll know and see each difference between him and every other person you ever meet. They won’t lower their head the way he does, or lift the corners of their mouth like him. Your name won’t sound the same, won’t sound as complete, coming from someone else’s mouth. Your body won’t magnetize to anyone, the way it does to him.
And that’s fine. The separation. The fact that he was a fleeting moment. The fact that it was over before you felt it leave, before you heard the door close behind it. It’s fucking fine.
Still, you let it hurt a while. Just a little while.
The gash on your calf has healed up, your hangover had subsided by Saturday evening. But your chest still feels tight, your hands are still restless. You lie awake staring at the ceiling, surrounded by the clothes you have of his; breathing in the ghost of his scent and breathing out pathetic, aching sighs. He’s all you smell, all you touch.
Except – he’s not anymore, is he? He saw to that well enough.
So you let it hurt. And you think you can just about make do with that.
“Hey, hon,” you dad gently calls, hanging on your doorframe. Your room is dark, drapes closed, the only light source the white light from your laptop.
“Hi,” you reply, with a break in your voice. Your eyes don’t lift from the screen. Jim just told Pam he’s in love with her, but she’s engaged to Roy. But she really loves Jim, she just won’t admit it. It’s cathartic, okay?
Dad steps into the room and awkwardly stuffs his hands into his jean pockets. “Awfully, uh…awfully quiet lately, hm? Everything okay?”
“Fine. Everything’s fine.”
It’s not a lie. You are fine. You’re so fine, you’re actually numb to it.
The problem is that for the last few weeks, you’ve been more than fine. The best you’ve felt in months – maybe even years. The most you’ve smiled, the hardest you’ve laughed. The warmest the blood has ever run through your veins.
And then you’re just – fine again. Back to nothing.
He shuffles between feet. Stares at the floor, where his shadow sprouts from his toes. “I was gonna head into town, grab a few things. You wanna come? Sit in the car with a book, maybe?”
“I’m good, Dad. Thanks.”
“Sure? Whatcha watchin’?”
“The Office.”
He nods. “Right, right. I, uh, I was thinkin’ of askin’ Joel and Sarah over for dinner tonight. You always have fun when they’re around. You and Sarah could spend some time together, y’know?”
Your heart nosedives straight from your chest into your stomach. The thought of seeing him again, this time crystal clear and not while under the influence of alcohol, drugs, or worse, sinks its sharp claws into your shoulders and sinks you deep underwater. His voice gets lost somewhere in the space between you. And when you finally come back up for air, back into the room, you gulp back whatever string of senseless words your empty chest initially offered up.
“Hm…” You pretend to consider the thought, then head straight for passive. “Whatever. Sure.”
Your dad’s mouth opens to respond, and you cut in again.
“I’m kinda tired,” you say, yawning. Trying to make him leave.
He’s not great at taking hints. “Kiddo, I am really worried about you. Weren’t you s’posed to be working this mornin’?”
“You ain’t gotta worry about me. I’m just a little tired, is all. Wasn’t feeling up to restocking tools and dealing hardwood to your buddies.”
It’s only the second truth you’ve told him since he set foot in your room. You never feel much like work, not Sal’s-fucking-Hardware-kinda work, anyway. But the thought of standing for seven hours with a bared-teeth grin plastered on your face, hands blistering from tearing open box after box of stock, shoulder slowly coming up in a bruise from the number of customers tapping on it…you figured Sal could do without you for one fucking day.
“You wanna look some more at other jobs?” Dad asks, and finally you look up. The blurry, luminous silhouette of Jim and Pam is strung in the dim air before him.
You shake your head. “Not right now. I have some bookmarked I can show you later.”
He takes a deep breath, unsure of which angle to come at you from next. Finally, with an air of resignation and defeat, he settles for, “You know where I am if you need me,” and closes your door as he leaves.
You’re staring intensely at the face of every character onscreen. The pixels burn into your eyes. You’re trying harder than anything to get him out of your head. It’s not working.
His hand through yours, his arms around you – warm, safe, protective; the way he smelled, sweet like whiskey, sharp like pine; the way he’d mumble, lips against your head, sweet nothings pressed into your hair; the feeling of his lips on yours, hungry for something only you knew how to give him. The look in his eyes, tender, knowing, loving.
And because he was the only other person fluent in your little secret language – a look, a nod, a tug at the corners of his mouth. His eyes settling on yours only for a nanosecond, one tiny moment in time laced with a thousand words that you translated as quickly as his glance moved across you. It all meant something. It all meant so fucking much.
All of it. You feel all of it as it sinks through your skin, through bone and into your brain. As it curls around your ribcage, holds tight around your heart. Every thought and feeling that flutters through on full display for him to read. And you’d let him, because it’s him. You trusted him. You – you might’ve even –
I mean, what the fuck, right? When the fuck did this happen?
Joel Miller. Joel fucking Miller.
Is this what you thought would happen that very first time you looked at him differently? Tidying up after pizza, leaning into you, telling you you’re nothin’ but trouble? Did he know then, that this was where you were headed?
Did you?
Your phone buzzes. You glance down at it through your tears.
Sarah: wtf is going on ???
You craft a reply as nonchalant as you can manage. Three little letters.
You: Wym?
Sarah: are u good??
You: Yeah lol. Why wouldn’t I be good
Sarah: idfk. weird. my dad’s on the phone to yours rn
That’s great. That’s just fucking great. He’s probably telling Joel right this second how miserable you are. That’s all you need.
You want to hold onto your pride, keep an air of casualness about you impermeable to even Sarah – but you desperately want to know what’s being said. What she’s listening to him say.
You: Yeah? What are they talking about?
Sarah: well now it’s just some andrew guy
Sarah: sounds like a loser
Sarah: we’re coming over for dinner tonight btw
You: Nice. See ya then
Sarah: u wanna come over here before? we can watch love island
You: I’m good. Gonna go for a nap
Sarah: you can nap here. come over!!!
You bury the phone under your pillow without replying. Sarah is like Joel in many ways, but her persistent nature is one avenue in which they drastically differ. Joel would – and has – give you space, let you mope; Sarah will probably text you all afternoon until she’s on your doorstep, takeout in one hand and a telling in the other.
So you drag your phone back out and put it on Do Not Disturb mode. She’s already sent two more texts since her last.
Sarah: seriously. would you come the fuck over. im only on episode 5 i gotta catch up
Sarah: even my dad is worried about you
Yeah. Good one, Joel. Fuckin’ asshole.
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They arrive at six on the dot, armed with pizza and a crate of beer. The doorbell rings once, you lean over a degree to glance down the hallway, and Sarah’s stepping over the threshold, her shadow of a father at her heels.
He’s rugged. Hair amok. He kinda looks a mess, sorta looks how you want him to after almost two weeks of no you. But he’s here. He’s right in front of you. And this time, the shape of him isn’t swimming across your glassy eyes.
Your heart swells with relief to see him again, only until it twinges from the wound that he caused, and it hurts all over again. You turn back in your stool to face the kitchen island, making some noncommittal noise when Sarah’s hand presses between your shoulder blades in greeting.
“Tyrique and Ella are kinda cute, but I don’t trust him. Dude’s gonna fuck her over for sure,” she mutters, shoving the box over the counter towards your dad, who accepts the beer from Joel with a pat on his arm.
He’s standing across the kitchen – Joel – as far as he can get from you. You’re sure his eyes haven’t lifted from the floor yet. But you scan him all over, from the loose collar of his shirt down to the cuffs, rolled halfway up his forearms; from the rough hair of his beard down to the soft tufts decorating the skin just below his clavicle.
You scan him all over. The body you know just as well with the flannel and jeans over it as you do without them. The body you’ve squeezed, and scratched, and bit and kissed – and the same one you’ve thrown curses and insults at as it follows you through his house.
If he looked you dead in the eye right now, you’re not sure you could look away. You’re not sure you could stop.
That is, until Sarah presses a chilled beer to your arm, startling you, and silently nods towards the dining table.
She sits on your right, opposite your dad’s seat. She resumes chittering about Love Island. Joel and your dad are still in the kitchen, stacking plates, cracking the caps off their drinks. And then he pushes off the counter, and slowly wanders over.
You watch his every move. Study him, like you’re about to be tested on it. Which foot he steps forward with – always his left – and which chair he’ll pick once he’s at the table – the one opposite you, ‘cause it faces the TV for when he and your dad watch baseball while eating.
Two for two.
He lifts the chair, pulls it back, and angles it to face Sarah’s. He places his beer gently on the mat. When he sits, he doesn’t pull in any closer. Doesn’t risk your legs crossing paths under the table. You pull your knees up, let your shins rest against the wooden ledge. Your dad takes Joel up in conversation.
“So, this Andrew. He’s the brains of the operation?”
The pizza is slowly pulled apart over the course of an excruciating hour-long meal. Sarah puts the next episode of Love Island on while you eat, points out her favorite couples and nudges you to ask your opinion on the girls’ outfits.
“Wouldn’t have gone with those heels,” she mutters, chewing, pointing with her pizza crust to some six-inch ankle-breakers.
You lean past her shoulder every now and then to pretend you’re as engaged as she is. Pretend you’re listening. Your left ear is tuned into the conversation happening across the table.
Your dad thinks Andrew Curtis is fucking hilarious. Hoots with laughter when Joel tells him about his untucked button up. Says, Oh, jeepers, when he hears about the way the guy tripped jumping down from his truck.
The storyteller doesn’t sound so lively opposite. Your dad’s slapping his thigh with laughter. Joel’s shoulders are jerking at best. You dare a glance at him, and he’s already facing your direction. He turns away before your eye reaches his chest.
Soon, the episode ends. The atmosphere dies arm in arm with your dad’s attempt at another conversation. There’s a thick silence between the four of you. You haven’t opened your mouth the entire meal, but even if you did, the tension would clamp its heavy hand over your lips, blocking any words from making their way out of your windpipe.
Sarah clears her throat, manages a tentative, “I –” and then the phone rings, piercing through the awkward mist like a bolt of lightning.
Your dad pushes himself up and trots over, grabbing the handset a little too hastily. “Hello? Oh, hi, Rita. Hi. Yeah. Yep, Joel’s – Sarah? She’s here, yep.”
Sarah’s head drops, hand gripping her glass frozen in mid-air. “Fuck,” she whispers, and Joel shoots her a look across the table.
“She’s – oh, yeah? Well, let me ask ‘er.” Your dad covers the bottom of the handset with a huge palm. “Rita has some…cross –”
“Cross stitch, yeah, I know,” Sarah says, and thuds her glass down. “I said I’d help her out with it. I bet she’s seen your damn truck across the street!” She jabs a furious finger at her dad.
Joel shrugs. “Ain’t my fault the woman has eyes.”
Your body jerks as if to laugh. You don’t catch it in time. He notices.
“She’s on her way over, Rita,” your dad continues, nervously smiling at Sarah as she pulls her jacket over her shoulder. “She’s – oh, sure, I’ll let her know. Alright, now. Bye, Rita, bye. You’ve to bring your glasses. ‘pparently the pattern’s pretty small. You even wear glasses?”
She huffs in response. “I’m gonna be there all damn night. I’ll just get you at home.”
Joel opens his mouth to protest, goes to warn her that she ain’t walkin’ home alone in the damn dark, but your dad holds his hand out.
“We’ll give you a ride home. You come back here once you’re done.”
She nods gratefully and struts off down the hallway. The door slams shut behind her.
Your dad lightly chuckles, sauntering back over to his seat. “And then there were three…” he says, sitting back down.
But the loss of Sarah only cranes the spotlight over to you. Only you. No one else to split it with. No one else to lend it to. You can feel your dad’s eyes on you, waiting for you to make a move, some song and dance for your company.
He lifts his beer to his lips. Nods to you. Makes a song and dance of his fucking own, when he says, “Guess who’s been lookin’ at grad jobs?”
Joel stares at him for a second, like he’s waiting for your dad to reveal who it is he means. Like it can’t possibly be the only she in the room. His thumbs tap around his own bottle. “Oh – yeah?” he stammers, and throws a haphazard glance in your direction. He seems to mean to address you.
You sit forward, choke out a, “Yeah, uh – it’s – well. Kinda.”
“Film?” he asks, and you hear the rest of the question in the tone of his voice. Somethin’ you like, ‘n not just your dad’s suggestion?
You nod, but he’s not looking. He’s studying the label of his beer.
“Film,” your dad confirms. “Shut me the hell up, didn’t she? Came downstairs with her laptop the other night. Where is it, kiddo – New York?”
Your breath catches. The answer cowers at the back of your mouth, terrified to show itself. You force it forward.
“LA.”
Joel’s eyebrows lift.
“I said she might be better goin’ back to school. Reapply for next year, right?” Dad looks to you, and your lips pull in an awkward smile. “…but she didn’t wanna wait around. Told you the other day – this place is like prison.”
He chuckles, but Joel isn’t laughing. He’s staring at his beer, his brows slowly lowering from arched and curious to dark and furrowed. And you want to reach for his hand, want to shoo your dad off and spill your guts to his best friend. Want to explain yourself, show him the webpages and application forms you’ve spent the last few days surfing through – want to justify yourself to him.
But so long as your father is sat here, bumbling to himself about the prices of college courses these days – none of that happens. You simply sit in a stalemate opposite one another – a million thoughts racing through your head, a million and one racing through Joel’s.
“…might change her mind, but who knows? She’s skittish, this one, she –”
Another bleating ringtone cuts what you’re sure would’ve been an endearing compliment short. You say a silent prayer of gratitude for whoever’s at the other end of the line. Your dad sighs and heaves himself up again, swiping the phone from the kitchen counter.
“Hello? Hi, hi, Richard. No, I’m not – well, it’s – sure, sure. What’s –?”
His head falls in much the same way Sarah’s did ten minutes ago. He sighs.
“Right. No, that’s quite alright. I can be there in ten. Yep. Alright. See you in a – hello?”
He drops the phone back into its cradle and runs a hand down the back of his neck, growling.
“Kelman?” Joel asks, jaw turning to his shoulder.
“You bet. Misplaced the damn keys for his site. You two alright if I head on over there ‘n lock up for ‘im?”
“He familiar with Andrew Curtis at all?” Joel quips, and then waves your dad off. “Go on. I’ll be outta your hair by the time you get back.”
In a frenzied blur, your dad’s tying his laces, grabbing his keys, tossing a jacket over his shoulders. He apologizes a total of four times to Joel, thanks him for dinner, promises he’ll pay him back next time he sees him. And then he’s jogging off to the front door, and taking every ounce of comfortability with him.
And then there were two.
You slouch back in your chair, listening through the silence as your dad’s car engine fades down the street. When the quiet humming disappears, Joel’s head turns back to face you.
You’re alone again. For the first time in a week. This is the closest you’ve felt him, even separated by the dining table and a fog of conversation that you have no idea how to begin clearing. There’s more weight to the silence between you than words could ever bear, you know that much. More to be communicated between your eyes than your tongues know the language of. But still, you can see him through it.
Like a lighthouse, shining bright and beckoning you to the shoreline. You can feel him again, as if there’s an electric pulse radiating off of him. And you feel drawn in, like you always do; feel that magnetic pull in your chest, only ever satiated by the meeting of Joel’s.
You shift in your seat. His eyes flit up. Your heart jumps, like it’s a sign he’s really still in there. And then they drop back to his lap, and your chest sews itself back together.
Your eyes start to burn with fast-forming tears. Your throat tightens, tightens, tightens, pushing them higher and higher until they pool across your waterline. Blinking doesn’t help, just drops them onto your cheeks, to be quickly swept away by the sleeve of your hoodie.
All you want is for him to look you in the eye, whisper, C’mere, baby, scoop you up and hold you in his arms forever. Fuck everything you said about the distance being good. That was when he was in his house, and you were in yours. He’s here, right now. He’s sat across from you. You’re finally on your own again. And he’s not fucking looking at you.
You let your legs down and sit up straight in your chair. It’s small, but it feels like a necessary step to silently tell him that you’re in the room with him. You’re here.
It lifts his eyes again. Not to you, but to your empty plate. Then, to the wet stain on your sleeve. You hope it stabs his heart a little.
From the shaky breath he sucks in, it seems to hurt just enough. He clears his throat. Pulls his gaze higher, higher, a little higher, until you’re eye to eye.
A wave of feeling, either burning hot or freezing cold – you can’t tell the difference – stretches across your body. It’s unnerving, and yet calming. It’s soothing on your wound, and irritating all the same. He’s looking at you. You wonder if he can see you.
You stare at one another for a few moments, drinking it all in. You can see him clear as day. You can almost see the shadows of his thoughts as they dance across the frosted-glass windows of his hazel eyes.
He blinks. Breathes in deep through his nose. And then speaks.
“LA, huh?”
You scoff. You don’t fucking mean to, but it’s the opposite of what you expected – and kind of wanted – him to say. Your whole body relaxes, though – finally relieved of the tension of the last seven days, even if only for a moment.
You feel lighter, like someone kicked the door down and this is the first gulp of clean air in your lungs. It’s small, insignificant even, but it does what it needs to.
Which is – it gives you the energy to answer back.
“It’s not a concrete plan. Yet.”
“Yet,” he repeats.
“I’m not running from you, if that’s what you’re thinking. Get your head out of your ass.”
He wants to laugh. He should’ve expected it.
“I didn’t say anythin’. I think…I think it sounds like a good plan. ‘n you’d be close by to Sarah, so.”
This conversation feels like you’ve been left alone for ten minutes with your dad’s buddy. Sanitized. Surgical. Which would’ve been what it was little over a month ago, but it’s not now. Now, it’s totally different. There’s more than just that one neat string between you.
You’ve held his hand. You’ve kissed him. You’ve touched him, in ways you’ve only ever touched a handful of people. And even then – none of those times have been anything like the way you’ve touched Joel. You’ve tasted him, you’ve felt him as he climaxes somewhere deep inside you. You’ve pulled him into your body, over and over; you’ve let him have you in ways nobody else has.
There exists a complicated, messy web of history and emotion, woven tight between you. The weight of it bears down on the surface of the dining table.
And he’s talking to you about fucking grad jobs.
“Could you just – stop fucking with me?” you ask, sincerely. You’re not angry, you’re not hurt. Not anymore.
Joel lifts his chin. Studies your face. “I’m not fucking with you.”
“Yes, you are. You’re talking to me about some job, like there’s nothing else to talk about. Like there ain’t nothin’ else we might have to discuss.”
His response is resigned. Bored, even. “What else do you wanna discuss?”
You narrow your eyes. “Oh, um, I don’t fucking know. Last week?”
Joel takes a swig of beer. You take it as reply enough.
“I don’t have any clue where you’re at, Joel. You pick me up from Frank’s, beat a dude up for me, put me to bed, ‘n then when I wake up, you’re gone. Oh, but you left your fuckin’ shirt. By accident? Or for me? Who the fuck am I to know?”
He holds back a smile. “I had work.”
“Right,” you nod, “Andrew Curtis.”
“That guy’s an idiot. You’d probably like ‘im.”
“I bet. I’m fond of idiots, apparently.”
This time, he can’t hold it back. A smirk spreads across his lips, soft and shy, but there. Right there. You could reach out and fucking touch it.
And then he nods. Leans back in his chair, folds his arms, and nods. The smile begins to fade.
With it, goes the breathing space between you. The fog starts to thicken again. The web tightens some more. Your chest begins to ache. Things feel normal for all of two minutes, and then they’re back to awkward air so heavy that you can feel it on your shoulders, feel it forcing you into a slump in your chair.
This whole thing is built on lies. Lies on top of lies on top of lies. The only truth there has ever been has been between the two of you. Two lonely figures, wrapped in each other’s arms in the eye of a storm. So –
Fuck it.
You sniff. “I thought – that the most we were risking was my dad. I thought the worst that could happen was him findin’ out.”
Your voice is quiet. Unsure of itself. One word carrying you to the next, not totally sure where you’re going with it.
“I didn’t know I was risking losing you, too, and now…now, you’re just gone. Like, you don’t wanna talk to me, you barely wanna look at me. I don’t…I don’t have you anymore, and it’s all fucked up. Do you know, I – I wouldn’ta done any of it if I thought you’d go?”
Joel flinches. Tightens the hold on his arms.
“I want you to come back,” you say, stronger this time. Louder. Clearer. You’re ignoring the tears sweeping across your vision. “Just come back. You don’t even – you don’t even have to touch me or nothin’. We can just hang out and talk, we don’t have to…we don’t have to do anything.”
Your voice wobbles by the end. Your lips tighten around it, shutting it off before you can say anything more to embarrass yourself.
Joel’s still quiet. He watches wordlessly as you stand, pile the plates atop one another and make for the kitchen. As you place them gently into the sink, you feel the weight of him behind you, reaching over to set the bottles alongside them.
“I ain’t gone anywhere,” he murmurs, and you twist to face him.
“Joel. This is the most we’ve touched in two weeks. Putting dishes in the sink.”
He repeats himself. Adds, “I’m still here. I still care about you.”
You shrug. “Then – show me.”
He steps back. “Show you,” he scoffs. Your expression doesn’t shift. “Show you? Like I didn’t just almost break my damn knuckles defendin’ you? Take you home in the dead a’ night, deal with all your drunk bickerin’?”
Your head tilts. He’s right. But you want more than that. More than spitting threats and leaving flannels behind. You want his hands, and his lips, and his voice. You want –
“…Lord, mighty me.”
Your dad’s voice follows the sudden jolt of the front door opening. You and Joel are already five feet apart by the time his body appears around the corner, one hand leaning on the wall, the other pinching the bridge of his nose.
“How on Earth that man has his own construction company, I have no idea. Called me halfway to the site ‘n said he found the keys in his damn pocket.”
“Always the scatterbrains,” Joel says, leaning casually against the counter.
“Sure is. You ‘n me oughta start our own, show ‘em all how it’s done. Anyways. What’d I miss?”
Before you can answer, Joel’s speaking again. He sounds in a hurry. “Just tidyin’ up. We were talkin’ about graduate programs, actually. You know what,” he turns to you, “I’m sure Sarah has some old brochures from UCLA. Might have some stuff worth checkin’ out. You wanna come get ‘em?”
It takes a second for you to realize he’s talking to you. His eyebrows are arched, his thumb pointing over his shoulder. He came up with the lie so damn quick, you have whiplash.
“I – yeah, sure. Yeah.”
Your dad runs his tongue between his teeth. “UCLA. Huh. Well, don’t keep Joel too late.”
“I w…I won’t,” you reply, following at the heels of the swaggering figure towards the door. You dodge his eye contact and dip your head behind Joel’s shoulder, thankful for his protective stance in front of you.
Your dad doesn’t say anything more – instead, he stands back and lets Joel lead you out. You steal a glance back at him as you slip through the door. His face unreadable, his eyes stick on Joel; locked tight on the flannel wandering down the driveway ahead of you. The word loops in your head as though the phone’s ringing again. Guilty guilty guilty guilty guilt–
But then the night breeze is dancing across your cheeks, and you’re following at the heels of Joel again, and you feel light as air in the wake of him. You climb into the passenger side of the truck and watch as he settles alongside you with a sigh. He pulls out of the drive, and his right hand sits idly on his thigh. You think to take it. Joel reads your mind.
He sits it on the armrest between you, palm facing up. You stare straight ahead and let your fingers slip through his. He knots your bodies together, thumb rubbing gently on your knuckle.
Another pound of weight lifts from your shoulders.
----------
Joel drives for twenty minutes before pulling up in an empty parking lot across from a church. It’s pitch-black and deserted. There’s a single streetlight over by the corner, illuminating a trashcan and not much else. You’re shrouded in darkness, save for the soft glow from the lights on the dash.
He switches the engine off and sits back in his seat. Your hands are separated. The distance between you slowly starts to grow again.
“LA,” he says, for the second time tonight, staring at the ceiling of the cabin.
“LA,” you echo, staring at him.
He looks down to you. Smiles. There’s something behind it. You can’t tell what.
“It’s not a grad job,” you say, forcing something up. Your fingers are twisting around the drawstring of your hoodie. “I was lookin’ at grad stuff, but there wasn’t anything I was into. The LA thing is a six-month temp job I saw.”
Joel nods. “What’s that look like?”
“Production assistant. Lots of behind-the-scenes stuff.”
“Mhm. Sounds like your thing.”
Your brows jump as you pull the tie around your finger. The tip turns white. “Might be. Job ad closes on Monday.”
He sucks in a breath. “Better get applyin’, then.”
Your head cocks. “So eager for me to go?”
“Eager for you to do somethin’ you love,” he corrects.
“But it would get me outta your hair.”
“I don’t want you outta my hair.”
A smirk sneaks its way across your lips. You nod to the view from the windshield. “Why are we way the hell out here?”
“Because your dad bombed our conversation, ‘n I figured we weren’t done.”
“Then talk.”
He licks his lips. Folds his arms, settles deeper into his seat. He turns a little more to face you. The single light from outside catches in his iris, like that same lighthouse beacon you could see earlier. Distant, far off, but there. Still there.
“I owe you an apology,” he says. “I…I thought what we were doin’…What I was doin’…I thought I was causing you more hurt ‘n harm than good. I was scared it’d gone too far. Scared it wasn’t okay anymore.”
“Was it ever okay?”
He shifts again, uncomfortably. In the dim light, you see his face pull. He squints, wobbles his head in consideration. “No. It wasn’t. But we did it anyways, you ‘n me. We made that decision together.”
“Right. And then you went and made the complete opposite decision, alone.”
He’s nodding. He knows. And you think you know, too. It fucking sucked, losing him – but you get it. What was the big plan? How far were you going to let it go? Someone had to pull the plug at some point. Someone had to cut the thing loose.
You lean closer to him. “I just…I wish you’d let me fight back a little. Wish you’d heard me out more. I know what we’ve done isn’t right. I know that. But I – I fucking –”
You sigh. It leaves your mouth shaky and unsure of itself.
There’s something more. Something at the back of your tongue, itching to separate into the dense space between you. Bigger. Stronger. Heavier.
“I missed you,” you concede, shaking your head. “That’s all.”
Joel’s eyes fall shut with a wince when you say it, like it physically hurts to hear the words come out of your mouth. But he’s clearer, now – the fog is slowly shrinking away. The words behind his eyes seem to light them in a warm glow. Missed you too, baby.
His hand opens up on the armrest again. Yours falls into it instantly.
He clears his throat then, and says, “Also owe you an apology for – for the Lois thing. I know I should’ve explained a lot sooner, ‘n I’m sorry I had you thinkin’ what you were thinkin’. I didn’t – I didn’t know it was such a big deal to you. Thought you’d know I wouldn’t…do that.”
“I think I did,” you tell him. Your nails run up and down his fingers. “Deep down. Wasn’t so much about her as it was about me.”
“About you?”
You shrug. “Yeah. Me, us, this. It was more of a, Why wouldn’t he want someone like her?, y’know? No lying, no secrets. And she’s old, like you.”
“Easy.”
You smile. “She’s nice. I know she is. My dad went on for five whole minutes about how good you’d be together when I asked ‘im. So – why wouldn’t you wanna be with her, right?”
It’s rhetorical. Joel knows. But he answers it anyways.
“She is nice,” he agrees, “but I ain’t interested. To tell you the truth, darlin’, I was a little preoccupied worrying my ass off about you to even look twice at the woman.”
You freeze for a second. Stare at the outline of his jaw, the jagged bristles of his beard; the soft sweep of hair silhouetted by the moonlight outside. He’s still Joel – even in the darkness, even in the fog. Even when you can’t see, hear, or touch him – he’s still there. Thinking about you. Worrying about you.
“Well,” you sniff, “you don’t gotta worry anymore. I just…I didn’t like the thought of it.”
His head tilts. Beckons you to continue.
You sigh. “I don’t want you…with…anyone else. I want you to…only want me.”
His brows straighten. You sit in silence, staring at one another. Both daring the other to be the first to talk. But it’s his turn, and he knows it. So he swallows, and says –
“I don’t want nobody else.”
And that’s a thing. A great big, terrible thing.
“But,” he continues, almost immediately, “this has gotta be – I’ve gotta do right by you. Gotta be honest, now –”
“Wait,” you interrupt, “can you just – stop acting like it’s all you?”
Joel falls quiet. His brows knit together.
“Stop saying things that make it sound like you’re the only one in this. I’m in it, too. I want it. I want you.”
“Baby, it’s not as simple as –”
“Joel,” you take his arms and pull yourself closer to him, legs propped against the center console, “I want you. This. I want us. All of it, I want all –”
Your body is being tugged closer to him, lifted nearer, and his chin bumps against yours, and his eyelashes almost brush against yours when your foreheads link, and his breath sweeps hot and needy across yours, and he – he kisses you.
You stop breathing. You don’t care whether or not it ever comes back. Oxygen replaced by him. Everything replaced by him.
His tongue slips past your lips, his hand glides across your hair to cup the back of your head. He locks you into his body, lets you rest your arms across his shoulders. Your lips find a rhythm against one another; warm, wet, tender.
His free hand cups your cheek, holds your mouth to his just a second longer, before he pulls away, and gives you one last kiss. Softest of them all. Seals the fucking deal.
“We okay?” he mumbles, and you lift your head from his palm. You sit frozen for a second, just looking at him. Looking and looking and looking.
“We’re good.”
He smiles then. A genuine smile. “I thought,” he whispers, glancing around the quiet parking lot, “I could take you on a date.”
So that’s why he brought you out here.
“A date?”
“Mhm. Never been on one, have we?”
“Never could.”
He nods in agreement. “Just ice cream. For now. Thought I’d show you some of my moves.”
“You got moves?” you snicker.
“I’m a catch, darlin’. The ladies swoon for me.”
“Alright, never say that to me again.”
Joel laughs. “There’s a place right around the corner. ‘s go.”
He climbs out of the truck and wanders off towards the sidewalk, and you follow. He looks down at you as you walk. His cheeks swell with the smile on his face, dimples at the edges of his lips.
It’s quiet; quieter than you’d expect, not that you’re complaining. With the sun almost set, you’re doused in light only when you wander under a streetlight. So, it’s no surprise when Joel’s eyes quickly scan the street up ahead, and his hand reaches down for yours.
Your stomach flips. You’re doing everything you can not to let him feel your pulse in your wrist, but you’re pretty sure you can, because he leans his shoulder against yours and asks if you’re okay.
“Good,” you choke out, relieved to have just passed a streetlight that might give away the blush on your cheeks.
Approaching on the right is a sickly-sweet, pastel-painted store front; fairy lights decorating the window, wireframe tables and chairs dotted outside. A bell dings when Joel pushes the door open, holding it open for you to step inside.
It’s…dainty. Sweet. Everything is either teal or pink or white. There’s a giant ice cream cone stood in the corner. There’s a gumball machine opposite it. The lighting is a little garish – kind of reminds you of sitting in the dentist chair, eyes squinting up at the bright white light overhead.
You’re fucking surprised to be stood in here with Joel Miller, of all people. He sticks out like a sore thumb; his worn jeans and crumpled flannel against the minty gleam of the parlor like an earthy tree sprouting in the middle of that same dentist’s office. It makes you giggle, as he leads you over to the counter.
A boy with a teal uniform meets him over a glass case full of different ice cream flavors. His name badge reads Ben. “What can I get you?” he asks, scoop in hand. Your lips press against one another to stop your laugh from escaping.
Joel turns to look at you. He nudges you with his elbow when you don’t return his glance, too focused on Ben’s pink baseball cap, the logo of the shop printed on top.
“Uh,” you consider, glancing down, “I’m good with any.”
Joel sighs, lips thinning. “Am I gonna pick a flavor, ‘n then you decide you don’t like it?”
“Nope. Promise.” You smile innocently, and he turns back to the server.
“I’ll take one scoop of the cookie dough, and, uh…one of the coffee, please.”
When Ben dips to scoop the order into two little tubs, you mock gasp at Joel.
“What?”
“Coffee?”
He shrugs.
“I took you for a vanilla man.”
Ben stands straight and punches some numbers into the cash register. Joel hands him a ten.
“What about me makes you think I’m into vanilla?” he asks in a low voice.
You bat your eyelashes at him. A dark thought crosses your mind, but you think better of voicing it and save Ben the embarrassment of potentially hearing you.
Joel thanks him and takes both tubs in one hand. You make for a booth by the window, but his hand quickly slinks around your waist, diverting you back to the door.
“Nuh-uh.”
“What?” you ask, spinning around.
Joel continues walking, backing you out of the shop. “I am not sittin’ in here. Got a fuckin’ headache already from five minutes in the place.”
“But it’s so cute,” you protest, giggling. “You don’t want your picture taken with the giant cone?”
“Get the hell out,” he mumbles, shoving you across the tiled floor back out to the sidewalk. He can’t mask his own grin, spilling out behind you, taking your hand in his.
You snort as he drags you back along the street. “Maybe I should forget about LA and get a job in there. Drive myself insane.”
“Maybe you should,” Joel agrees. “Least then you’d have an excuse for it.”
You slap his chest. “Where are we goin’?”
“’s just go back to the truck. Quieter. Less fluorescent lights.”
He unlocks it a few paces away, but you stroll past your door.
“What are you doin’?” Joel asks when you pull yourself up into the bed.
“C’mon,” you call back, settling against the back window, “it’s a nice night. Who are we hiding from?”
He tosses it over in his head and cocks one eyebrow. Fair enough. He climbs up and passes you the ice cream, shrugging his shirt from his shoulders. He throws it over your bare legs and sits down beside you, grunting as he does.
You smirk when he rests back.
“I’m almost fifty, darlin’,” he warns, reaching for his tub.
Your lips curve and you nod, digging the little plastic spoon into your dessert. You stretch your legs out and cross your ankles, watching in quiet contentment as the cars roll by, squealing to a halt at the traffic lights. Lights are coming on in windows, curtains are being drawn. Joel’s legs lie against yours, joined at the hip, shoulders brushing off one another.
This is the most peace you’ve had in a fortnight. Sat in the back of his truck, no eyes on you, watching the comings and goings of some back street in the city. You talk about nothing, for the first time in what’s felt like forever. You talk about films, and music, and all the stuff that seemed so unimportant before. Now, it all feels imperative. Feels like a life-or-death thing. What’s your favorite movie? You know my favorite movie, baby. But tell me again. Just so I know for sure. Just so that – if anything happens.
You listen when he answers. You watch his mouth as he says the words. For all the times you took it for granted before. For all the times you thought it was insignificant. It’s all significant, now. It all means something. It’s just more strings to the web between you, each one knotting you closer and closer together.
And you talk about what you’ve missed. The two weeks you’ve spent apart. You catch him up as if he was only gone on vacation. As if he was always meant to come back in the end.
“The guy with the weed – same guy you punched – he was –” gulp, “– what was his name again? Knicks? No –”
Joel snorts, spoon scraping around the edge the tiny pot in his huge hand. “Knicks?”
You close your eyes, waving your hand like it’ll urge him to remember the name of a guy he took no time getting to know before he floored him. “No, it wasn’t Kn…Knox! It was Knox, and he –”
“Kind of a fuckin’ name is Knox? Knox?”
“Are you gonna let me talk, or what?” you quip, and Joel brings his wrist up to his mouth to mask his laugh.
“Sorry, sorry, sweetheart. Go ahead. Knox had the weed.”
“Knox had the weed, and…he…Fuck, I can’t even remember where I was goin’ with that.” You shake your head and lean it back against the windowpane.
He laughs. For real. A Joel laugh. His shoulders jerk with the force of it. “You were gonna tell me about his friends, I think. Somethin’ about his friends.”
It sparks back up in your brain – the memory. “Right! Right. His friends – that dude with the glasses? That was Zack.”
Joel stares at you blankly, tongue in his cheek. “Zack?”
“Big guy, red face. Buck teeth. From Costco?”
His jaw slackens. He remembers. “I fuckin’ – I knew I’d seen that kid’s face before. That was him?”
You nod. Uhuh.
“Damn.” He chuckles. “He looked at me like I was a wild bear.”
You toss your head, roll your eyes. “Well.”
He laughs again. Knocks your legs with his own.
“Good call, by the way,” your lips mumble around the shape of your spoon, “cookie dough. it’s nice.”
“Wanna try mine?”
“Really?” Your face contorts, eyes screwing. “Coffee?”
“’s good. Here.”
He holds out a spoonful.
“Yeah, nice to you, who drinks, like, thirty of ‘em a day.”
Joel responds by pushing the spoon to your lips and you oblige, opening up and letting him feed you the ice cream.
It’s not bad. It’s ice cream, it can’t be bad. But it definitely isn’t good, and the way your lips purse and your neck jerks lets Joel know exactly how you feel about it. He scoffs, wiping a little from your lips with his thumb and sucking it clean.
“You don’t like it?”
“Why is it…bitter? Eugh.”
He laughs to himself as he loads up another spoonful. “It’s an acquired taste.”
“Well, I am not interested in acquirin’ it. You want some of the cookie dough?”
He shakes his head. “You enjoy.”
You both turn back to the street ahead. Joel’s arm is warm at the side of yours, his shoulder right there for you to lean your head on.
He places a kiss to your head when you do.
“What do you think he’d do if he found out?”
You’re not sure where it comes from. Neither is Joel, apparently, from the way he clears his throat and squirms ever so slightly. He knows exactly who you mean.
“I, uh…I don’t like to imagine.”
“It scare you?”
He takes a deep breath. “Naw. I just got better things to do with my imagination, is all.” He prods your arm with his. Picturin’ you.
“Ha. You reckon he’d kill you?”
“Probably.”
“He couldn’t kill you. Wild bear.”
“Well, I reckon he might try.”
“I think he’d call the cops.”
Joel’s head lifts from yours and falls back against the truck with a laugh.
“Help, Officer,” you mimic your dad’s twang,“my grown adult daughter is sleeping with someone!”
Joel’s shoulders slowly stop moving.
“Is that all we’re doin’?” he asks.
“Huh?” You lift your head and look at him. His dark eyes reflect the city lights in the distance.
“Is that all we’re doin’? Sleepin’ together?” His voice is gentle, honest. Genuinely asking, seeking out what you think.
You consider it, tryna sound casual. You know what he’s getting at.
“That’s all we’ve been doin’. Help, Officer, my daughter’s grabbing ice cream with someone? Better?”
He hums. Looks down at the empty tub in his hands. Looks back up to your lips. Draws nearer to you, holds your chin with one finger, looks you dead in the eye, and whispers,
“How about, Help, Officer, my daughter made someone fall in love with her?”
Your breath catches. Your hands fall limp into your lap. You blink away tears.
“You – No, that’s – You gotta say it. You gotta actually tell me, ‘cause I’m not – I don’t wanna misinterpret – We haven’t –”
You’re buffering. Your brain malfunctioning. Your tongue can’t decide which of the words at the back of your throat, all desperate to escape, to let through first.
Joel’s just smiling, watching you stutter and stammer your way through a sentence that leads you nowhere, desperately trying to compute what he’s just said because he’s finally fucking admitted it. He’s finally letting you know, giving you access to a part of him he’s been keeping from you for who knows how long.
Even though all this time it’s been the one thought running through your head that hasn’t passed your lips, it reverberates around your ears like it’s the last thing you ever expected him to say.
Joel’s hand moves to your neck, just below your ear. “Baby,” his thumb rubs your skin, “you know I love you.”
A gasp flees from your lips. Your ice cream is thrown to the truck bed, probably spilling over, and you don’t care. You leap into his lap, arms around his neck, and kiss him all over.
Joel’s laughing, returning what kisses he can, squeezing you with his big hands.
“I love you,” he says again when you come up for air, and it’s the most beautiful thing you’ve ever heard in your life. You sit your forehead against his, whispering breathlessly,
“Fuck, I love you, too.”
You two stare at each other, eyes scanning every part of the other’s face, mapping every mark, line, scar, like it’s the first time you’ve ever seen each other.
Guess it is, right?
This is the first time you’re looking at the man you love and you’re not afraid of it. The first time your chest swells and you don’t gulp it back, the first time you let him feel your heart pounding against the wall of your chest.
It’s the first time you look into his eyes, dark eyelashes and fine lines decorating deep warm brown, and think those three words…and know you can say them. Know neither of you will be spooked, neither of you will try to push them back down where they came from.
I love you. That’s all there is between you now. Your cards are flat on the table, Joel’s, too. Game over. You know everything there is to know about each other. You know each other.
You’ve sunk down his body, turned so your back curves into his chest, his chin resting on your head. Safely encased in his body, sat between his thighs. His hand runs up and down your thigh, lighting drawing lines and circles and writing words you don’t care to guess, ‘cause you probably already know ‘em.
Love hums between the two of you, keeping you warm; your bodies pressed together, hearts beating just inches apart. You blink your eyes open and the single streetlight sails back into your vision – bright as the moon, stirring you from your tranquil bliss.
“Do you,” you turn, and Joel fixes your hair, presses his lips to your forehead, “do you tell all the girls that on the first date? Was that just one of your moves?”
He snorts, and answers by pulling you in to give you a tender kiss.
No. Just you.
“You ready to go?” he asks when your lips part.
“Mhm. Take me home, cowboy.”
----------
His house is dark against the dusky sky. The headlights illuminate the garage door as he pulls up in the drive, squeezing your hand once as the truck comes to a halt.
“And then…” Joel says, holding a finger up to you. Wait right here.
He gets out of the driver’s side and you watch the shadow of him jog around the truck, stopping at your door. He opens it, and holds a hand out for you to take.
You choke on a laugh. “That is…”
“That is what?”
“…so cheesy. You really do that?”
“Uhuh. C’mon.”
Your fingers lace through his and you hop out of the truck. Joel shuts the door behind you and extends his elbow, and you link your arm through his. His hand warmly rests on top of yours.
You both wander over to his porch where he stops, letting you walk up the steps alone. When you reach the top one, only just taller than him on the path, hands still interlinked, you look down.
“Then I say, Thank you for a lovely evenin’, and,” he lifts your hand, pressing his lips to your knuckles, “then…” Joel holds his arms out. Voila. Just like that.
“Wow. I feel…honored.”
“You should.”
“Not even a proper kiss?”
“I just kissed your hand, baby. You didn’t like that?”
“You don’t ask to come inside?”
He scoffs. “Nope. What would I want to come inside for?”
You grin. Shrug your shoulders. Start walking backward to his door.
“Well, I am exhausted after our date, Mr. Miller. I do think,” yawn, “I should be gettin’ ready for bed.”
Joel lowers his head, eyes trained on you, smirk growing on his lips. “Is that so?”
You nod.
He starts to climb the steps.
“I’m sure I’ll be expectin’ a call from you,” you mewl, exaggerated Southern accent crooning to him. Your back bumps against the front door. Joel’s on the porch now. You bite your lip.
“Oh, I’m sure you will,” he returns, his shadow creeping over you. He reaches your body and his arms come to rest on the frame right above your head.
You hook your hands around his shoulders.
“You really don’t wanna come in?” you whisper, and his jaw ticks.
“I wouldn’t want to be ungentlemanly.”
Leaning in, lips against his ear, you whisper soft enough to shake the breath as it falls from his lips.
“And what if I asked you, nicely, to take me inside and fuck me good ‘n hard until I can’t walk?”
Joel’s eyes pool black when you lean away, head resting back on his door. Your gaze is heavy with lust, eyelashes batting slowly.
“Hm,” he grumbles, body beginning to press against yours. His head cocks. “You don’t wanna be treated like a lady?”
“Nope.” You smirk, hand falling down to cup the bulge quickly forming below his belt.
“Want to be treated like a fuckin’ whore, do ya?”
Chest heaving, you nod, massaging him.
“So dirty, darlin’, feelin’ your date up on the porch,” he tells you, dipping his jaw to run his lips along your neck. “What ‘m I gonna do with you?”
You shrug again, and your fingers find the door handle at your hip. You push, and the wood behind you falls inward.
As you plunge into the dark house, Joel’s rough hands clamp down on your waist, taking you in his tight grip and throwing you against the wall. His lips find your neck, teeth scraping the sensitive skin, tongue caressing tenderly as he sucks a bruise into you. Heat spreads across your core. You clench your thighs around the feeling.
“Joel,” you whine, hands surfing through his hair. “Fuck, take me upstairs.”
He hums. He’s going to. He’s just not doing it quick enough.
You lift your leg to his hip, and his left hand scoops under your ass. He pulls your center flat against the swelling in his jeans, ruts slowly against your body. You hear a deep groan from his throat.
“Upstairs,” you say again, growing impatient, and he growls, taking you with both hands and lifting you two steps at a time towards his bedroom.
He kicks the door open, loosening his grip on you as he walks over to the bed. Light streams across the room in splinters, peering through the shades from the streetlights outside. Your legs drop and you dance along on your toes, turning him midway until his calves hit the bottom of his mattress.
Your lips part for mere seconds, allowing one reflected expression between you, before you’re pushing him by the chest onto the bed. His body springs when he hits the sheets, staring back up at yours between his legs. His breath courses from his mouth, thick with want and need.
You lay him flat on the mattress, knees either side of his waist, hands curved over his shoulders. His own find your waist, holding on tight as you straddle him, playing with the tie of your shorts when you settle.
You dip your head and brush your lips against his. One long, sweet kiss, and his hands are at the hem of your hoodie, pulling it free, lifting it over your head. You groan as it separates your bodies, let your tongue find his again as quickly as it was pulled apart from it.
“Let me see,” he whispers against your lips, hands slipping beneath the fabric of your shorts to rub circles into your hipbones.
You smile as you straighten, fingers dancing along the hem of your tee.
“Let me – see,” Joel grunts, when your core grinds into his.
You peel the tight fabric from your stomach, higher, higher, until it lifts your breasts, catching on the curve of them, and as you whip it over your head, they bounce back down. Joel groans from below, staring at the perfect peaked shape. He lifts one hand to cup your tit, runs his thumb over the quickly-hardening nipple.
“So fuckin’ pretty, baby.”
“I know,” you tell him, watching as his thumbpad circles the delicate skin. Your back arches into his touch.
And then his hands sink into the mattress either side of his body, pushing himself closer to you. He wraps a strong arm around your back and pulls your chest to his mouth, lips pressing wet kisses to the valley between your breasts. His teeth graze across the round shape up towards your nipple again.
His tongue slips over the hard bud, swirling and soaking all over it. Your head falls back, fingers grip onto his hair. Your mouth falls open, but no sound comes. Joel sucks harder.
“S– fuck,” you whisper, nearly voiceless. His tongue is flicking now, lips pulling more of your body into his mouth. “Fuckfuckfuck, I need you, I need you,” you whimper.
He releases your sweet skin, lips shining with saliva. “Tell me where.”
You writhe on top of him, hands pushing your shorts down over your hips. “You know where.”
Joel holds your body steady. “Tell me.”
You whine, trying to rock against him. He doesn’t let up. “Joel, fuck. Betw– between my – fuck.”
“Between your legs?” he taunts, pushing you harder against the hard folds of denim below his belt. “That where you need me? Between those pretty legs, babygirl?”
Your fists ball around the fabric of his shirt, clinging on to him. “Ye-ah,” you whimper, and his weight falls from your grasp.
You feel your shorts tug over the crests of bone by your hips. “Step out of ‘em, baby,” he instructs, and your knee lifts.
He pulls the cotton down one leg at a time, telling you to shift your weight as he curls a finger around the lace of your panties and tugs them down after. Before you can think about it, you’re naked, soaked cunt making a mess over the crotch of his jeans.
He looks up at you expectantly.
“What–?”
He flicks his fingers in a beckoning motion, a Come here, either side of your thighs. You hesitate.
“Darlin’. Up.”
“Joel.”
“Up.”
You take his open hands and shuffle up the mattress, knees pushing into the soft sheets either side of his head. You glance down at him.
“I don’t know –”
“’m not gonna tell you again.”
And he doesn’t have to. You steady yourself, locking your fingers through his behind your ass, and slowly lower yourself down to him. His jaw lifts to meet you, and you think about pausing again, telling him he doesn’t have to do this, asking instead to do something else, something he’ll enjoy as much, something you can both –
But then his lips open around the sweetest part of your body, and your lungs freeze. His tongue slips between, daring where you need him most, and your body sighs in equal parts relief and pleasure.
You’re so fucking wet. You can feel it, leaking onto his lips, spreading around your own as he kisses you, licks you, takes in every drop of you. Your back curls, lips fall open to the ceiling, breath comes in short wisps.
It’s been almost two weeks since the two of you felt like this. Hot, wet, needy. Two weeks of waiting for the other to come back, two weeks of reaching for the phone and deciding against it once the number’s dialed, two weeks of nothing.
And now – everything. Everywhere. Every part of your body ignited for him. You feel him fucking everywhere.
You lean all of your weight onto the palm of your hands, pushing all of it into Joel’s. He’s steady, strong, letting you rock and swirl your hips as he laps at your core.
“Right there,” you whisper, head rolling back. “Keep – keep – oh, fuck, Joel. What the f–?”
He slowly lowers his hands, letting you untangle your fingers and place them on the bed. His own come to hook around your thighs, clamping you as close against him as you can possibly be.
Two weeks of nothing. And now, five minutes of everything. The shards of light from outside blur across your vision; heat starts to prickle up your spine, tickling the back of your neck. You’re smiling, filthy and desperate.
“I’m gonna –” you breathe, and Joel hums. “’m gonna c– come.”
You can hear his response, though he doesn’t say a word. Then, come.
Your hips motion forward. Tighten. Clamp. Inhale. Joel’s tongue slips between your folds, warm on the inside of your cunt. And you rock back. Unwind. Unfurl. Exhale. His bottom lip puckers against your clit.
“J-oel. Joel, I’m – you’re – fuck.”
He moans against your sex. His hips shift behind you. Buck upwards, carefully.
Tighten. Clamp. Inhale. Tighten – inhale. Unwind. Unf-url. Ex-hale. Tighten. Inh– clamp. Fuck. I’m there. Unwind. Warm. Wet. Tongue. Exhale. Tongue. Tighten. Clamp. Inhale. Joel –
Your fingers curl around his bedsheets, nails dig into the cotton. Your orgasm sends a flood of hot pleasure across your cunt, rains down over Joel’s lips, and sets fireworks off through your body which explode into the dark room in the form of a throaty moan.
You’re not sure when you come to. You’re not sure your arms can bear the weight of your body. But when your eyes blink open, he’s kissing the inside of your thighs.
His mouth is glistening. Moustache and beard covered in you. Soft lips pearlescent with your spend. Your body feels heavy, unbearable. You lift your leg and tumble onto the mattress by his side, pussy throbbing when you land.
“I love you,” you whisper, and not for any particular reason. Not because of what he just did. Not because you’re naked in his bed.
But maybe because it feels like this is what you were made to do. To love and to be loved – by him. It feels like this entire thing has been, from its genesis, an exchange. An understanding. Immediate and certain. Here are all the parts of me. You know what to do.
As if there needed no further explanation. No instruction, no tutorial. You just knew.
He pushes himself up, leans over your frame. His jaw lowers, and he licks into your mouth tenderly.
“Gotta be inside you, baby,” he says, and at the same time, your fingers find the buttons of his shirt. “Gotta feel you again.”
You nod against him. Fuck me fuck me fuck me.
Joel’s hands are on his belt, pulling it through the loops, dropping it to the floor. Your help him tug his jeans off when he undoes the button. The material of his underwear rubs against your sex; your creamy arousal smears all over the black fabric. You can feel the weight of his stiff cock beneath. It dizzies your head.
He lets your fingers sneak below the elastic, lowering it until he springs free, slapping against the bottom of his tummy. You could fucking drool at the sight of him – the pink tip, beaded with precum; the thick vein on the underside of the shaft; his balls below it, heavy and waiting. Your hands wrap around him and pump slowly as he drags his boxers down, kicking them off at the foot of the bed.
He groans, hips thrusting gently into your palms as you squeeze him. Your fingers slip between your folds, collecting your own slick, coating him in it as you fist him.
“So good, babygirl,” Joel breathes, leaning down to kiss you. “You gonna take it all?”
“Mhm,” you reply, tongue slipping against his.
“Yeah,” he says, “my girl can take it.”
You let his hand shadow over yours, the two of you guiding his cock towards your entrance together. It glides between your dripping folds, the head sifting effortlessly from your clit to your tight hole and back again. Joel laughs, teeth clashing with yours, as he dips in and out, teasing you.
Your ass lifts from the mattress, any movement to draw him nearer. “Stop,” you gasp.
Joel pauses. “Stop?”
“No,” you bleat, “don’t stop. Just – fucking do it.”
“Do what, darlin’?”
“Fuck me.”
And he sinks in.
You’d be lying if you said all you’d done for the last two weeks was cry, mope, and stare at the ceiling. That’d be discrediting everything that this little affair was built on. It’s impossible to forget how the thing fucking started – your hands between your legs, Joel watching from the doorway.
In the moments you didn’t feel the mind-numbing tsunami of heartache overcome you – you felt something else. Memories of his hands on you, the trail of his tongue between your legs, the swell of his cock deep inside you. You tried to replicate it a handful of times with your hands. But nothing – not your fingers, not two, three, or four – nothing stands a chance against him.
He pushes in slow at first, drawing out when he’s halfway, and then in again as he covers himself in the wet his tongue left behind. When he’s soaked, glistening and gleaming, he thrusts. Hard. His tip catches on your cervix, and your back arches in a mix of pain and delight.
Something throbs deep inside as he bottoms out. You feel your opening stretch around his base. You feel your legs widen as if by instinct, accommodating the size of him, the width of him, the pace of him.
You throw an arm over his shoulder, elbow hanging on the nape of his neck. His sweaty forehead sticks to yours, and your hand cups his cheek.
“Harder,” you tell him, and he listens.
“Fuck, baby,” he pants, “fuck, you’re so tight. Oh, my – I ain’t gonna last.”
“Don’t – want you – to,” you cry, body jumping as he fucks you quicker, quicker, harder, deeper. “Want to – come – together.”
Your head tips back against the bed, and Joel’s lips attach to your neck. He’s moaning into your skin, teeth biting down, breath hot and quick. He’s not gonna last he’s not gonna last he’s not –
“F-u-ck, Joel,” you sob, your walls starting to close in around him, “feels so – f-fucking good, oh!”
“I know, darlin’, I know. C’mere.”
He takes your cheek and pulls your face back to his, lines his lips with yours and kisses you. It’s messy, haggard, fucking all over the place as your bodies bounce together, but he tastes like sweat, and sex, and you, and him.
“Missed this so fuckin’ much,” he grunts, hips pounding. “Missed bein’ inside you. You know how bad I needed you?”
“Tell me,” you slur, echoing his own words back to him.
He smirks. “Best fucking pussy I ever had, sweetheart. Best – I ever – had.”
“Don’t pull out,” you hum against his lips, and his jaw pulls back a fraction. “Don’t.”
“Baby,” he says, strained, and your head tilts.
“Need it,” you tell him. “Please. Need you.”
He nods, leaning back into you, letting you connect your mouths again. His lips shudder when you pull away, the thought translated clear as day from your mouth to his. And he knows, and he drives in harder, and he fucks the image from your mind. Who the fuck is Lois, when you’re under him and he’s this deep between your legs?
You look up into his eyes, and you find your answer. She’s nobody. There’s only you.
Your body feels liquid, your mind like fog. You pull him into your body, deeper and deeper, until you’re sure you’re one, and there is no place where he ends and you begin, and you’re sure this is what it feels like, this is what those words feel like, not just the sound of them, not just the way his lips move around them, but the shape of them on and in and around your body. Something deafening, something blinding, something screaming from the pits of your lungs as you come all around him, and you feel him come all around you.
His warmth spurts deep inside you, filling you up, dripping down your walls as he collapses into your shoulder, a loud moan drilling into your collarbone. He slows, thrusts in and out gently, pushing his spend deeper and mixing it with yours.
It's everywhere. The feeling. The pulsing, the humming, the singing. He’s everywhere. Him. In your brain and in your lungs and in your body and in your cunt. And you want to keep him there, hold him there, keep your bodies together for five more minutes, just five more minutes.
But then he’s panting into your skin, pressing kisses into that little dip between your collarbone and your chest, and he slowly slips out, come dripping from where he leaves.
He presses his palm deep into the sheets by your head, lifts off of you – but your arm is still around his neck, and you lean with him. Tilted on his mattress, holding onto him, letting him kiss your head; letting his hand move across the surface of your stomach, mapping the gentle slope over your belly button and scaling the tiny mountains of your hipbones. Kneading softly into the skin over which his seed sits, warm and snug, deep inside you. It’s new. You think you love it.
And he’s whispering, “Good girl, did so good for me,” and he nuzzles his nose into your hair, and he tilts your chin back until he can see your face, see your expression, and he smiles with relief when he clocks your doe eyes, your blissful smile, the sweet tinge of red on your cheeks.
“I love you,” he tells you, and you’re staring at his lips.
“Again.”
“I love you.”
You look up to his eyes. “Again.”
“I love you.”
You smile. It breaks into a laugh. “Again,” you whisper, and he kisses you.
Slowly, only once you pull away from him and your breath steadies, Joel takes your body and carefully shifts. He turns onto his back, settles you on his chest, your hips between his thighs. He runs a gentle hand over your hair and you lie against his sweat-shining chest, his heartbeat whispering sweet nothings into your ear.
Love and sex, as far as you knew, were always two different things. Separate. One, you weren’t even sure existed. The other, nothing more than a need to be satisfied. Something deep within you, something no one had ever managed to touch. And then Joel. And his lips, and his tongue, and his hands and his cock.
And suddenly the two – love and sex – begin to blur, their edges touch frantically. They bleed into one another, until there are no longer two distinct forms; instead, one big shape which has the curve of your hips and the cut of his jaw.
You love him. And he loves you. You’ve heard it translated between your minds longer than you care to admit, and now – you’ve felt it. Transferred between your bodies. You love him. Jesus, you love him.
It’s as terrifying as it is thrilling. Enamoring, and yet dangerous.
“So,” you sigh, “what’s next?”
He glances down, lifts his eyebrows and gives his head a shake. His hand lifts off of your shoulder with a shrug.
“Like, your next move. What happened with the other eight?”
“The other eight?”
“Mhm. Me, Sarah’s mom, makes two. There are eight others, right? What’d you do afterward?”
“Kicked ‘em out.”
You lift a heavy hand and slap his chest. He shudders with laughter.
“I dunno, baby. Wasn’t all like this.”
Your brows knit. “Like what?”
He takes a deep breath. Your head rises as his lungs fill. “Lyin’ in bed afterward. Talkin’.”
“Oh, fuck off.”
“What?” he asks, smirking.
“Who even were they? I wanna know.”
“Why?”
“Just do. I wanna hear about ‘em. When was the last one, before me?”
Joel’s eyes drift off to the ceiling above you, thinking. “May.”
“M–?” You jump up, pushing yourself off of his body. “May?” you repeat, eyes wide. “That’s…so recent.”
“Recent?” He chokes back a laugh. “When’s your last?”
You furrow your brows, dropping his gaze. “We’re not talking about me,” you mumble, thumbs twiddling.
Your last had been two nights before you flew home. You’d gone out with your roommates and dragged home Matteo, an exchange student who you’d worked with on a group project for your screenwriting class. He was three inches shorter than you. He bent you over your kitchen counter and fucked you until he came. Then he made himself some cereal, ate half of it, and left.
Joel doesn’t really need to hear about him, you think.
“Do I know any of them?” you ask in attempt to change the subject.
Joel pulls a face. His lips tighten, teeth clench. His eyes narrow to a thin line, looking at you through his eyelashes. He nods tentatively.
“Shut the fuck up. Who is it? Who?”
“I dunno if you know her, but she knows you.”
“What’s her name?”
“Your dad gave us a ride home from the bar. She ‘n him got to talkin’, and he said he had a daughter –”
Your fist lightly drops onto his chest. “Joel, if you don’t fucking tell me who it is, I –”
“She’s an elementary teacher. Long, dark hair. Good few years older ‘n you. Think she said her little sister went to your school.”
“Who – was – it?”
He makes the face again. This time his eyes close over, waiting for the penny to drop. His head shakes lightly.
“You –? No, Joel. Come on. Please don’t…Are you fucking serious? You don’t remember her name?”
“It was a long night, alright?”
“How did you forget her damn name?”
He shrugs. “I don’t fuckin’ know. I was drunk, baby.”
“Elementary teacher? I don’t know anybody whose sister teaches elementary.”
“Guess we’ll never know.” Joel shrugs, and you shake your head at him.
You’re picturing Joel stumbling out of Frank’s, arm in arm with a brunette, heavy feet dragging along the sidewalk while your dad chitters in his ear about the Rangers, or about some rude bartender, or about…you. The brunette turns, and her face is yours. Your features, your smile. Your hand linked through Joel’s. C’mon, baby. ‘s go home.
You chase the image away. It slips from your mind like dust cleared from a countertop. Would never. Could never. Should never.
You replace it with something lighter. Something to make you forget about the dust.
“Does…Does my dad ever go home with anyone?”
“What?”
You don’t answer. He heard you.
“That’s…No. I ain’t answerin’ that.”
“Oh, come on. If you’re takin’ women home left, right, and center, he’s gotta be seein’ that. Does he?”
“I was not takin’ home women left, right, and – No, darlin’, no. It’s inappropriate.”
“Yeah, you’re right. And I’m known for my appropriate behavior, y’know,” you gesture between your naked bodies, “I’m known for the good life choices I make.”
“This,” Joel hooks his hands under your arms and drags you up until your chin meets his, “is a good life choice.”
“Yeah?” you ask through a giggle, your nose bumping his.
Joel smiles softly, runs a hand over the back of your head. Looks between your eyes, a twinkle in his. Yes.
Your lips crash together like waves on the rocks. You’re the sea; he’s the stone. Two different worlds, suddenly married in some unforeseen twist of nature. And when you pour over him, your body lighting him in a twinkling glow of ocean, it’s as though you never existed apart from one another. It’s as natural as the waves on the shore.
“Alright, darlin’,” Joel mumbles against your skin. “Speakin’ of inappropriate. I gotta get you home.”
“Why can’t I just stay the night?” you complain. “Like last time. Tell ‘im we’re watchin’ a movie again…”
Joel’s head rests on your arm. “He’s worried sick about you. Ain’t no way he’ll let you spend the night here. You know that. Plus, Sarah’ll be long done with Rita’s cross stitch by now.”
He sits up and you roll into his lap, head resting on the soft skin of his belly. He looks down at you, head tilted, eyes glowing hazel.
You stare right back. The dimples in his cheeks dig deeper when you whisper, “Kickin’ me out right after we finally make up. I see how it is, Miller.”
Joel’s shoulders hunch. “Happens to all of ‘em. Warned ya.”
He shifts off the bed and begins gathering his clothes. You sit up and watch as he pulls his boxers snug over his hips, swipes his tee from the carpet at his feet. As he drapes it over his scruffy chest, your half-naked form meets his at the foot of the bed.
His fingers knot in your hair. You lean into his arms, legs giving as he kisses you gently, breathing you in, stealing any more words of protest from your tongue.
“I love you,” he whispers when he pulls away, tip of his nose brushing off yours. “You know that?”
“Somebody told me somethin’ to do with that, yeah.”
He smiles. “Get dressed.”
You pull the rest of your clothes back on in silence, tossing socks and jeans across the room to one another, giggling like a pair of kids. After all you just did, the palpable pleasure you just sent hammering through one another – this is the part you wish you could bottle. The laughter, the love. The attempts to keep holding onto him, even as he tries to pull his arm through the sleeve of his shirt, even as he links his belt back through his jeans, as he bends to tie his boots.
The fun of it. The hope of it.
The foolish, foolish hope.
“Hoodie.” Joel flings it up towards you, crouched as he tightens his laces.
You pull it on over your bra. Flatten your flyaway hairs, stand straight before him.
“Ready?”
“Ready.”
“You got your phone?”
Your hands instinctively pat your body down. “Oh, nah,” you realize, “musta left it at home.”
Joel nods and heads into the hallway, you at his heel. At the bottom of the stairs, you glance around his house, like it’s the first and last time you’ll see it wrapped into one. It looks different; two weeks of absence and you notice things you hadn’t before.
His coat hanging by the door, probably untouched since early spring. The bowl on the side table where his and Sarah’s keys live. The guitar in the corner of the room, the books in the shelves above it. All him. Every little piece of it. He’s reflected in every object in the room. He’s reflected in you.
You drive back to your dad’s place in silence. Comfortable, sweet silence. Your fingers ghost across his palm the entire time, watching out the window as the dark neighborhood soars by in a blur of porch lights and mailboxes. All too quickly, you’re back in front of your own house.
“What do we do now?” you ask, and through the darkness you see Joel’s smile fall.
After a moment’s silence, heavy and contemplative, he looks back up. Softens when his eyes land on you.
“We’ll be alright,” he tells you, and you believe him.
You lean forward and press a quick but tender kiss to his lips, and your fingers latch around the door handle. Joel’s hand finds the back of your head, keeping your mouth on his.
“Gotta – let me – go,” you mumble between kisses, and he hums a laugh in response. “Joel.”
“I know,” he whispers, finally pulling back. “I know.”
You smile, head tilting into his palm. “I’ll text you.”
He nods once. “See you, babygirl.”
You slip out of the truck and wander past to your front door, twirling as you click the handle. Joel laughs, and the truck reverses back onto the street. You wait for it to disappear before closing the door, and step into the unlit hallway.
The TV lights the living room at the opposite end. You stop by the kitchen, feeling the grumpy rumble of your stomach. Your dad’s armchair is sat facing the screen. You lean over to double check he’s not sat in it, fast asleep while Rangers highlights play on loop before his eyelids.
When you swivel the plaid pattern towards your knees, its only occupant is the remote. You flick the TV off and pad back over to the kitchen, filling a bowl with some chips. You’re hunched over at the refrigerator when his footsteps clunk slowly down the stairs, and he materializes like a specter around the doorway.
“Hey.”
You straighten up, lit in a nervous blue hue from the fridge. “Hey, yourself.”
“Joel gone?”
“’bout ten minutes ago. Where’ve you been? You left the TV on.”
“Just…y’know. You get those brochures?”
Fuck. You were at Joel’s under the premise of picking up fucking UCLA pamphlets – and you’ve come home empty-handed. The lie doesn’t form on your tongue as quickly as Joel’s did earlier. Something else on your mind.
“…sure. Some…interesting stuff.”
Your dad nods. “Good. Good, I’m glad. We can take a look in the mornin’.”
Your eyebrows flinch. “Yeah. That’d be – yeah. I’m…gonna head to bed, alright?”
“Sure,” he says, nodding.
With a can of soda under your arm and your bowl of chips in the other, you nod and cautiously shuffle towards him. His lips are a thin line. You duck by him and trot upstairs, and make it as far as the landing before he’s calling out again.
“Oh, hey.” He holds a hand out, and disappears in a jog towards the living room. You drop back down a couple steps, watching him swipe something from the dining table and pace back over. “You left your phone.”
He’s presenting it like a jeweler shows a Rolex – or maybe more like an investigator handles evidence. Holding it out in almost trembling fingers, afraid to mark it with his fingerprints. Your eyes flit from the phone to his, unsure which of the two frightens you more.
That’s not where I fucking left it.
You lean over and take it from his palm. “Thanks…”
“I think maybe you got a text, just then. It was lit up. Maybe I’m seein’ things.”
You force the corners of your mouth upward. Your cheeks inflate with nerves and shame. “Thanks,” you repeat, and then: “Everything okay, Dad?”
“Everything’s fine, kiddo. Sleep well.” He makes back for the living room.
As you turn, you unlock your screen.
Joel: Left your shirt here, and your bikini from last week. This mean I get to be the one wearing your clothes now?
Panic spills over your head, a wave of freezing cold washing over you when you read his words. Did Dad read them, too?
You continue walking, feeling the weight of your dad’s strange voice on your back as your feet drag you one by one up the stairs. When you make it back to the landing, your cool flees you, and you take the rest of them two at a time until you’re leaning against your bedroom door, panting.
You: Problem. I think my dad saw that text
Joel: How so?
You: When I got home my phone was next to his chair, and he’s being so weird
You: Joel I think he knows something
Joel: I’m sure he doesn’t. He wouldn’t read your phone baby.
He’s trying to reassure you, telling you he wouldn’t even know what it means, maybe he’ll think you spilled something on it, but no matter how many ideas Joel comes up with, none of them slow your heart rate.
You sit down on the edge of your bed, and the anxiety bubbling in your stomach forces you straight back up. Pacing doesn’t help, knowing your dad is directly below you probably hearing the floorboards creak with every step you take.
Your head dizzies with doubts, fears, worries, all frantically throwing themselves against the walls of your skull. You lean your forehead against the cold glass of your window, eyes screwing shut, stars in your vision. Nothing is calming you down.
Joel takes too long to reply back, whether he’s running out of explanations or just fucking forty-eight with an iPhone, but every time your phone buzzes with a new attempt at comfort from him, it only convinces you even more that – no, it wasn’t a stain, it wasn’t a joke, Joel has your top because you took it off for him an hour ago, and then let him fuck you in his bed.
And your dad fucking knows it.
859 notes · View notes
shuadotcom · 5 months
Text
Room with a View (M)
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🩸Pairing: Vampire!Kim Mingyu x Human fem!Reader x Vampire!Jeon Jungkook
🩸Summary: “Yes, they clearly want in your pants, but at least Mingyu wasn’t lying about a much better view.”
🩸Genres & AUs: Smut, supernatural au, vampire au, pwp
🩸Rating: 18+ (MINORS & AGELESS BLOGS DNI. YOU WILL BE BLOCKED)
🩸Words: 6.3k
🩸Warnings: Mention of alcohol, profanity, mentions of blood, shameless Mean Girls references
🩸Smut warnings: Threesome, vampire kink ig, oral (f & m receiving), semi-public sex, window sex, fingering, anal fingering (f receiving), biting, marking, dirty talk, pet names (baby, little mouse), unprotected sex (vampires can’t impregnate humans in this world bc i said so!) rough sex, double penetration, using cum as lube
🩸Note: For @kpopsblackcreatorsociety 's Blood & Bane event! Vampire Prompt: “Did you just fucking bite me?!”
This AMAZING banner is by my bby @playmetheclassics / @classicscreations and beta’d by my other bby @the-boy-meets-evil! A million smooches for you both!! 😙❤️ Oh and tagging the lovely @gyuwoncheol ❤️
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“I’m a mouse, duh!” You’ve had to clarify that at least ten times tonight, much to your displeasure. You assumed that the black nightie, silver calf-high boots, and mouse ears would make your costume obvious, but so far, it’s seemed that everyone you’ve run into at this party either has never seen Mean Girls or doesn’t remember it. It’s a tragedy, truly.
It doesn’t help that most of your time at this party has been spent with just you by yourself. When only one of the four parts of a group costume is together, the whole idea doesn’t make the same impact. But, Jihyo and Jeongyeon, the Regina George and Grethen Wieners of your quartet in that order, disappeared together fifteen minutes after arriving. They’re likely hooking up in a room somewhere, still trying to hide from you and Sana that they’re dating. That’s added to the fact that Sana, the Cady Heron of the group, is spending time with the busy boyfriend she hasn’t seen in weeks. They had offered to let you hang out with them, but the last thing you wanted to be was a third-wheel.
That leaves just you, lingering by the back door with the same wine cooler you’ve been nursing for the last hour. 
You don’t know many people here except for the host, Dongmin, and a few of your co-workers you’ve recognized, but aren’t close with. He’s the sweet, wealthy vice president at the new company you work at who always goes out of his way to greet you when he sees you in the office.
You’ve only spoken to him a handful of times at the few company events you’ve been to and during shared elevator rides, so you were surprised when he invited you to his annual Halloween party, but you wouldn’t dream of turning him down. You also knew he had a good amount of money, what with the company doing so well, but you had no idea he was this well-off. 
His house has two floors and all of the rooms are spacious, bustling with people in Halloween costumes, dancing, talking, and knocking back drinks. Once you look past all of the partygoers, the view from the backdoor looks out at the city, all the lights in the distance looking magical from where the house sits on a hill in the nice, suburban part of town.
The view is honestly the most interesting part about tonight. You typically love Halloween, but this is the first party you’ve been to in a few years, plus you’re not friends with anyone else other than the three girls you came with. So far, this Halloween has been extremely uneventful.
“Karen Smith from Mean Girls, right? You’re a mouse?” A male voice you don’t recognize catches you off guard as you spin to see who it is.
To say you’re breathless at the sheer presence of the two men you come face-to-face with would be an understatement. They’re both tall and buff-looking - buff in the way that has your stomach doing flips. They’re clad in all denim outfits, their white shirts hugging each muscle underneath the cotton. Cowboy hats and boots complete their costumes, so you can easily deduce what they’re supposed to be. The man who you assume is the one who speaks is closest to you, smiling at you, pretty lips decorated with double lip rings.
They’re beautiful in the most stunning of ways that makes them not even seem real.
When you finally get a grip on yourself, you clear your throat, plastering on a smile. “Finally, someone at this party with taste! You’d be surprised how many people here have never seen Mean Girls.”
“A lot of people at this party aren’t much fun so that makes sense,” The other man speaks, rolling his eyes before fixing you with a look that appears as what you can only describe as hungry. “Speaking of, we haven’t seen you at one of Dongmin’s parties before.”
“Oh, yeah this is my friends and my first time here. Dongmin and I have worked at the same company for a few months. He invited me and as many people as I wanted to bring.”
“Remind us to thank Dongmin for that when we see him next,” Liprings smiles at you again, eyes sweeping over you from head to toe and you can feel the hairs on your arm stand on end under his appraisal. “I’m Jungkook, by the way.”
“And I’m Mingyu,” Both men reach for your hands, each of them placing a kiss on them. The gesture is cheesy, but it still makes your skin heat up, cheeks burning as they gently let your hands go.
“I-I’m Y/n.” Forcing out a nervous laugh, you glance at their hat and boots and attempt to pivot the conversation. It’s not as though you didn’t want the attention they’re so clearly giving you, but you’ve never had men that looked this good so blatantly ogling you. Especially not two at the same time. You’re one more flirtatious look away from giggling like a schoolgirl in front of them.
“You know, just putting on cowboy boots and hats doesn’t make you cowboys.”
“And just wearing a headband doesn’t make you a mouse.” Jungkook fires back, grinning at you. Touché.
“You said you and your friends - where are they?” Mingyu asks, eyes sweeping the room. 
“They’re all with their significant others.” You shrug, not trying to sound bitter. You’re happy for your friends, truly you are - you’re just reminded of how alone you are right now.
“Aw, well we’ll keep you company, little mouse,” Mingyu winks at you and the way you feel your thighs clench together at his words is utterly embarrassing. You’re almost mortified with yourself when you watch as both he and Jungkook glance down at your exposed thighs, noticing the gesture. That mortification is quickly washed away when Jungkook bites his lip and Mingyu’s smile grows. 
All of a sudden, you’re acutely aware that it’s just you and two of the most handsome men you’ve ever been around. Face to face. There are plenty of people buzzing around you, but none of them are paying your trio any mind. Your heart races at this thought, glancing back out the window at the view into the backyard again.
“Everything okay, Y/n?” Jungkook’s voice is closer than you expect as he sidles up to your left, Mingyu moving to stand to your right.
“Yeah, of course, why do you ask?”
“You just seem nervous is all.”
“Nervous? I’m not nervous. I’m just…distracted. The, uh, the view of the city! It’s just so pretty. I’ve been admiring it all night.”
“Hmm. This is a really nice view,” Jungkook agrees.
“I know where you can see an even better view,” Mingyu adds, drawing both your and Jungkook’s attention to him.
“You do?”
“Yeah. We’re super close to Dongmin and we’ve been here a million times. He has a room upstairs that faces out to the backyard, but it’s a much better view than this. Wanna go check it out?”
You’d have to be an idiot not to guess where this was going and what else he intended with his words. He waits patiently, smiling at you and letting you think it over. A glance over your shoulder at Jungkook shows that he’s also waiting, eyes shifting to gaze outside while you think. Two hot guys basically tell you that they want to take you upstairs and hook up with you. It’s not the exact type of excitement you were looking for on Halloween, but it’s excitement nonetheless. 
“Sure, let’s go. I’ll text my friends.”
“Perfect.” They wait for you to send a quick text to the group chat, letting the girls know who you’re going upstairs with and you see someone sends back a winky face emoji before you slip your phone in the clutch on your wrist. 
Mingyu has you follow him out of the kitchen and through the crowd to the stairs with Jungkook behind you, his hand hovering over your lower back as he follows. When you reach the top of the stairs, Mingyu leads you to the left, down a hallway, and into a room at the end of the hall.
As soon as you step in, you see the wrap-around windows spanning the length of the wall in front of you. The curtains are all drawn and the expanse of the starry night is laid out so clearly. This room is in the corner of the house, but still faces the back, so you can see into the backyard and well across to the city skyline.
Yes, they clearly want in your pants, but at least Mingyu wasn’t lying about a much better view.
As if reading your mind the man in question chuckles, gesturing to the view. “I was right, wasn’t I?”
“Yeah, yeah you were,” you wave at him, feeling flirty and brave enough to throw him a wink as you beeline straight for the window. The glass is clean enough that you can just make out your reflection. 
“Why are you so attached to looking outside?” Jungkook questions from your left. When you turn to find him, he’s lounging in a plush chair that sits near the foot of the luxurious bed.
“I can just appreciate a good view is all.”
“So can I,” Jungkook’s voice is so confident when he says it. He’s likely used that same line a million times before and it’s worked.
You refuse to admit it works on you too. 
“Smooth,” you still can’t help but roll your eyes. “This view is honestly just the most interesting thing I’ve looked at all night.” 
A big, firm, body presses into your back, your breath catching in surprise. You hadn’t even heard Mingyu approach.
“Oh yeah? That’s the most interesting thing you’ve seen all night?” His voice is low as he speaks against your ear, this close to making your knees weak.
“Mmhmm. Haven’t really been given much else to look at,” you hope neither of them can hear how your voice trembles as Mingyu runs his hands down your arms, pressing his body against you more. He has you so close to the glass you need to raise your hands to stop yourself from becoming flush against it. 
“Is that so?” Mingyu’s hands are soft as he brushes the edge of your lingerie, his fingertips grazing your bare thighs that the hem hangs above. His hands are colder than you thought they’d be, but the chill is welcome on your blazing skin.
“I guess I need something more interesting to look at.” Your eyes shift up in an attempt to meet his in the reflection of the glass but…all you see is yourself and nothing else? “Mingy-oh!,” your last word is clipped when Mingyu steps back and takes hold of your hips to pull you a little ways away from the window. Immediately after, he pushes you forward to bend at the waist. Your hands press against the glass again, this time to keep you from toppling forward onto your face.
“Be careful, baby.”
“Wh - sh-shit!” Your question dies on your lips when you feel Mingyu spread your plush thighs and presses his face against your exposed pussy, his tongue prodding at the fabric of your panties to push both into your wet hole.
“You can look at your reflection while I eat you out. I’m sure the face you make when you cum all over my tongue will be interesting enough.”
“Oh, or how about all those partygoers outside in the backyard? Isn’t it just so interesting how if anyone looked up and stared long enough, they’d see you bent over with your tits falling out?” Jungkook’s tone is so aggravatingly teasing, but he’s right. 
There are quite a few people stationed and talking around the yard. If someone truly wanted to, it would be pretty easy to see what’s going on in the room. The thought sends fear and another wave of arousal throughout you. 
“Mm, I think she likes that thought, JK. She got so much wetter.” 
“So dirty, little mouse.” 
“I - fuck!” It’s frustrating how Mingyu keeps touching you in all the right ways, his movements constantly scrambling your brain and derailing your train of thought.
His fingers push your panties to the side and his mouth immediately latches onto your clit, sucking a few times before his tongue eases into your entrance, the intrusion pushing out an unabashed moan from your chest.
Your fingers scramble to grip the glass, only to slide with a squeak as Mingyu laps at you as far as his tongue can reach. Your hips begin rolling against his face as he works at you, the need to cum dangling dangerously close. 
There have been plenty of other times you’ve let someone eat you out, but nothing can compare to the way this beautiful stranger plunges his tongue into your dripping hole, the obscene slurping sounds he makes are the only sound ringing in your ears other than your desperate whines.
“God, you look so good like this, little mouse. Your legs are trembling.” Jungkook’s voice cuts through the haze clouding your brain. “Can’t wait to get my hands on you.”
“What are you w-waiting for, then?” You attempt to sound confident and sexy, but your words are more whiny than anything. Even so, you hear Jungkook chuckle before the sound of him getting out of the chair and making his way over you catches your attention. He’s taken his denim jacket off at some point and you practically drool at the sight of his fitting white t-shirt and tattoo-decorated arm on display. 
He raises one of his hands, trailing it over your back and down to your ass. Mingyu already pushed your nightie up enough to get access to you, but Jungkook bunches it up all the way, the delicate fabric resting above your ass to give him access. He brings his hand down once, landing a spank on one of your cheeks.
Electricity surges through your body at the sting and you jump. Your hips respond by pushing back, obviously begging both men for more.
From behind you, Mingyu grunts, and, as if answering your wordless request, you feel his finger ease into your entrance, replacing his tongue. He’s still cold and you let out a yelp at the temperature, but you easily melt into him as his digit plunges into your heat.
Jungkook is still standing next to you, chuckling at the way you writhe, even bending over a little more.
“Asking to be spanked again, baby?” He hums, cold hand caressing your ass. 
“Yes, please!” Your knees are so, so close to giving out as you can feel your orgasm creeping up closer and closer. Mingyu’s finger keeps working at you and he soon adds a second. Heart hammering against your chest, you rest your forehead against the cold glass, nearly ready to collapse at the pleasure.
“Alright, well now you gotta share, Gyu,” Jungkook’s voice reminds his friend before he grabs at you to stand you upright. 
Mingyu, still on the floor, makes a displeased sound, frowning up at his friend.
“Yeah, yeah. You can still eat her out, but I want her mouth. Is that alright with you, little mouse?”
“Hell yes, it is,” you breathe out, still trying to right yourself after Mingyu’s assault on your pussy.
Jungkook smiles at you, and it takes your breath away in another way. How the fuck were you so lucky to end up here like this with men who looked this good?
With his hand holding yours, he leads you to the bed, Mingyu trailing behind as his fingers graze any part of your skin he can reach. Once you reach the bed, both men work together in lifting your nightie over your head and slowly peeling away your bra and panties, leaving kisses over your newly exposed skin. 
The three of you are a flurry of hands as you tug on the hem of Jungkook’s shirt with one hand while reaching behind your back to find the button on Mingyu’s jeans. 
When you’re finally naked, (save for your mouse ears which both men beg you to leave on), Mingyu spins you around and leans down to pull you into a kiss. His lips are impossibly soft as you melt into him, his tongue poking out to brush against your bottom lip a few times. You open for him immediately, allowing the man to wrap his tongue around yours before sucking the muscle into his mouth. 
Tiny mewls slip out of you, getting swallowed by Mingyu as he kisses you hard enough to bruise you, letting you taste yourself on him. Jungkook’s hands skate over your hips, your stomach, and up to your breasts. He rolls your nipples between his fingers, tugging on the buds as his teeth graze your shoulders and neck. Mingyu continues to muffle every sound you make, and one hand, the one not currently cradling the back of your head, snakes down, down, down until he dips a finger between your thighs. He’s met with your wetness, already coating the tops of your inner thighs. 
Your eyelids flutter as both sets of hands hold you, your arousal building with every tweak and every poke.
A different kind of poke on your neck makes you yelp though, flinching your head back from Mingyu to try and get a look at Jungkook.
“Did you just fucking bite me?!”
The tattooed man chuckles and cocks his head at you, amused at your reaction.
“Sorry, I guess I should’ve asked if you’re into that?”
“I am, I was just surprised. Your teeth are sharp.” You don’t mind marking and being bitten, but it’s never been almost painful when past partners have done it. 
Although truth be told, you didn’t mind one bit that it hurt.
He pouts at you, apologizing but still asking if you’re sure you’re okay with it. You promise you are and that’s all Jungkook needs to spin you around and crash his lips into yours. The chill of his lip rings is as cold as his lips, but just like every other chilled part of both him and Mingyu, you don’t mind at all.
Jungkook’s kisses are messier than Mingyu’s, his tongue immediately diving into your mouth to lap at every part of you. He alternates between making out with you as if his life depended on it and nibbling at your bottom lip, his teeth catching on the swollen skin now and again. It’s Mingyu’s turn to lavish your shoulders and neck with attention as he too sucks and nips at your skin, his teeth pricking your hot skin as he goes.
He leaves you panting when he finally lets you up for air and you can practically feel your arousal dripping down your thighs from the dual sensations.
“Your lips are fucking amazing,” Jungkook grumbles, dark eyes fixing you with a look that has you swooning. “I wanna feel them on my dick now,” 
You nod eagerly, likely resembling a bobblehead, and he and Mingyu both laugh at your eagerness. They help you get comfortable on the bed, having you kneel across it on all fours. Jungkook takes his position in front of you, his cock hard and already leaking precum. Mingyu shuffles on the bed behind you, running his hands over your ass, and you instinctively arch for him.
“Such a pretty pussy,” he hums, swiping his finger through your wetness and you hear him suck it into his mouth behind you. “And you taste even better.”
“Hey, you need to share, remember? I wanna taste,” Jungkook pouts at Mingyu over your shoulder and you feel Mingyu’s hand between your thighs again, gathering more of you, and this time, he reaches forward and offers his finger to Jungkook. The man in front of you cranes his neck forward to suck his friend's finger into his mouth, hollowing his cheeks for a moment before letting go with a ‘pop.’ 
Jungkook flashes a sly smile, licking his lips as he looks down at you. “Gyu is right. You’re absolutely delectable, little mouse. I’ll have to taste it straight from the source some other time.” 
The gears in your brain work overtime, registering that he’s alluded to there being a next time for the three of you. 
Mingyu’s tongue is diving into your cunt again which derails any other train of thought. Your mouth hangs open, a moan tumbling out in response. Jungkook uses that opportunity to tap the head of his cock against your bottom lip.
“This okay, baby?” He asks. When you let out an affirmative noise, he eases it into your mouth and you eagerly wrap your lips around it.
Jungkook’s cock isn’t extraordinarily long, but it’s thick, the girth stretching out the corners of your mouth the more he pushes in. When you almost get all of him in, he takes a moment, giving you time. When he feels you relax your jaw and sees you look up at him through your lashes, he starts to move his hips, helping you bob your head over his dick. 
His fingers weave into your hair, making sure not to disturb your mouse ears, gripping the strands at the base as he slowly rolls his hips into your face. You close your eyes, both to concentrate on taking him and to relish in the frantic way that Mingyu laps at your folds. He grunts into you with each swipe of his tongue and you can feel each deep vibration that slips out. 
You can feel your earlier orgasm creeping up again with each flick of Mingyu’s tongue. When he reaches under you to run his finger over your clit, the heat in the pit of your stomach gets hotter, bubbling up and spreading through your veins.
Unable to help yourself, you push your hips back into his face chasing your high. Jungkook’s cock is heavy and your tongue, his pace quickening too. His fingers tug at your hair harder than when he started. Each time he surges forward, the tip of his dick just barely hits the back of your throat, but it’s still enough to have you choking.
Drool starts to pool in the corners of your mouth as you cry out around his length, finally toppling over the edge as you cum. Your words are garbled and you have to anchor yourself to not fall fast forward into Jungkook’s crotch.
“Shit, yes baby like that. Cum all over Gyu’s face and take my cock. So good,” Jungkook’s words sound far away. Your brain is foggy, but you still clench around Mingyu’s enthusiastic tongue as he cleans you up.
When Mingyu finally pulls back you’re still whimpering around Jungkook and he’s switched to shallow thrusts, his cock dragging almost lazily against your tongue.
“Fuck, little mouse. I think I might be addicted to your delicious little cunt now.” Mingyu punctuated his words with a light smack to your still throbbing pussy, making you jolt. 
“Her mouth is a fucking dream too. She looks so pretty with it full. We’re so lucky to have found you, baby.”
“So lucky,” Mingyu agrees. You attempt to nod, trying your best to agree with them because you also feel incredibly lucky tonight. You’d gone from lamenting about being a third wheel in the awkward, almost lonely ways, to being the third wheel in a threesome with two beautiful men. Lucky indeed.
“Gonna let us get even luckier, baby?” Jungkook’s finger settles under your chin, tilting your head up just a bit to look down at you. “Gonna let us fuck you?”
This time you pull away, letting his cock fall out and giving you a chance to rest your jaw.
“God yes. I need more,” your voice is a little scratchy but still needy.
“Good girl. Who do you want first?” Mingyu rasps in your ear, his lips brushing over the shell of your ear.
“Both of you.” 
“Oh? You hear that, Gyu? She wants us both.”
“Fuck, you’re so goddamn dirty, baby. Sure you can take us both?” Mingyu presses his length against your asscheeks, letting you feel just how big he is.
“I can do it. Just prep me real good?” Casting a look over your shoulder, you meet Mingyu’s eyes, batting your lashes at him, wearing your best pleading face.
His expression darkens, smirking at you as his eyes sweep over your back, fixing on your ass before meeting your eyes again. “I’ll take care of you, little mouse, don’t worry.”
Mingyu peppers your cheeks with kisses while his finger swipes through your wetness again. He slowly spreads your cheeks, and a glob of spit hits your puckered hole followed by the tip of his finger prodding you. 
You wince when he slips in, moving oh so slowly until he’s one knuckle deep. Jungkook’s hand still under your chin turns your head to face forward and redirects your attention back to him. 
“Lemme distract you,” he taps the tip of his dick against your lips and you open immediately, almost greedy to take him in again. It’s easy for him to set a pace; each push of his hips forward pushes you back against Mingyu’s finger. They easily find a rhythm and Jungkook tugs on your hair, moaning loudly above you. 
Listening to his melodic voice making these breathy exhales for you - because of you - serves to make you wet all over again and determined to make him cum. He’s still guiding your head, but you curve your tongue, letting it wrap under his cock, gliding along a thick vein on the underside. 
“Fuck, Y/n. Keep doing that,”
So you do, hollowing your cheeks for good measure to make the inside of your mouth feel tighter around him. You’re moaning around his length as Mingyu slips a second finger into you, scissoring his fingers as he gets both digits in you.
“Look at you, little mouse. Taking my fingers and Jungkookie’s cock so well. I just know you’ll take both of us so good when we fill you up,” Mingyu’s words make you clench around nothing, but he feels the way your body tenses up and he chuckles at you. He lands a sharp smack on your ass, pushing a muffled shriek out of you. 
You get lost in the slide of Jungkook’s dick down your throat and the stretch of Mingyu’s fingers in you. It isn’t very long until you’re fucking back against his fingers. Jungkook’s grunts are getting more high-pitched and frantic, curses falling from his lips.
“Yeah, yeah, fuck. I’m - fuck!” Jungkook pulls his cock from your mouth, leaning back and gliding his hand over his length at light speed. 
When he cums he makes sure he’s angled towards him, so the sticky liquid spurts onto his chest and hand. You watch in awe as he tugs at himself a few times. His eyes are closed as he swipes his fingers through the mess on his skin and rubs it over his still-hard dick, sighing as squelching echoes in your ears.
“You doing okay, little mouse?” Mingyu’s voice cuts through to you and you finally manage to nod.
“Good. Come’re,” Mingyu’s fingers slip out of you and his hands wrap around your ankles and slide you down the bed, flipping you onto your back in one swift motion. “Legs and arms, wrap them around me.” He helps you loop your arms around his neck and you do your best to lock your legs around his waist. 
You expect to stay splayed out on your back, but he has other ideas as he picks you up with ease, as if you weigh absolutely nothing and you’ll be damned if it isn’t one of the hottest things that’s happened tonight.
Mingyu’s mouth is on yours again as his hands grip your ass, keeping you up and close to his body. He moves you both across the room, his back leaning against one of the large windows. One of your hands grips his shoulder while the other cards through his dark locks.
A second set of hands ghosts over your shoulders and back followed by Jungkook’s lips, his teeth grazing your skin between kisses. 
“Gonna let us fuck you at the same time, little mouse?” Jungkook speaks next to your ear, biting your lobe.
“I would if you’d hurry up,” you mumble, now laying your head back on Jungkook’s shoulder as Mingyu licks up the column of your throat, biting your collarbone hard enough to make you yelp. 
“So impatient, baby,” he murmurs against your skin. “But I guess we should give her what she wants, JK.”
“Guess so, Gyu,” 
Mingyu leaves a final kiss on the mark he’s left on your collarbone and adjusts you in his hold. He lifts you a little, quite effortlessly at that, and begins sliding you down in his length. Mingyu’s cock is long - long and thick enough that you feel full before he’s even halfway in, but you take it, gnawing at your lip as he enters you inch by inch.
Once he’s completely sheathed inside of you, you two lock eyes, the dark glint unmistakable. He gives a few shallow thrusts, already making you pant in his grasp.
“My turn, baby,” Jungkook says, reminding you that you’re only halfway done.
You crane your neck to the side to look down, and you watch Jungkook stroke himself a few times, using his cum to get himself as slick as possible for you, spitting into his hand for extra help. Mingyu tips you forward, your head resting on his shoulder as he spreads your cheeks for Jungkook. 
You ignore the fact that when you look at your reflection in the window, yours is the only one you see, clinging naked around seemingly nothing.
The nudge of Jungkook’s thick cockhead against your rim makes you gasp. He slides in much slower than Mingyu, letting your walls accommodate him at a much gentler pace. When he finally bottoms out, your head is spinning at the sensation of being packed to the absolute brim. Neither men say anything as you get used to them, using the opportunity to litter any skin they can reach with their mouths with bites, sucking more marks into you. 
When you’re finally ready, you wriggle in Mingyu’s hold, attempting to pivot your hip to get them to move.
“Mm, you ready, baby?” Mingyu whispers, running his tongue along your jaw.
“Yes, please. Fuck me,” 
“Since you asked so nicely…” Jungkook laughs, his hands now holding onto your ass while Mingyu wraps his arms around your waist.
Both men take a millisecond to adjust and that’s truly all they need before they both thrust into you, drawing a long, gasp of breath out of you. Mingyu snaps his hips forward, using the window behind him as momentum to fuck into you. It pushes you back down into Jungkook who’s glued to your back. 
They fuck you roughly, see-sawing you back and forth on their cocks, their grips on your flesh never loosening. You cry out each time, babbling out what sounds to you like their names surrounded by nonsense.
Mingyu’s gaze stays locked on your face, occasionally trailing over the rest of you, practically growling with each powerful thrust. 
“Look at you. Taking two cocks so well. You’re so good for us, little mouse.” Each word is punctuated with even more power behind his movements, drawing a whimper out of you each time.
“So good. Letting me into this tight little ass. Fuck you’re squeezing me so much, baby.” Jungkook’s comments are also followed by thrusts that take your breath away, his balls slapping against the back of your thighs each time.
You feel a million miles away from your body as these beautiful men with their big dicks stuff you full. You can feel every vein and every ridge battering and rubbing against your spongy walls and you clench with each thrust in, your second orgasm rushing to the forefront.
At some point, you think you black out, but that could just be the pleasure. The only thing you see is Mingyu smiling salaciously at you, sharp teeth on display, and half-lidded eyes drinking you in. The only thing you hear is Jungkook growling in your ear, praising how good you are for them and how fucking amazing you are. 
The only thing you feel - well you feel everything. The way they stretch you out, the way their fingers and blunt nails press bruises and half-moon marks into your skin. You feel the scrape of their teeth when they bite at you and it’d be a lie to say you didn’t want them to bite you a little harder.
“Look at our little mouse, JK. She’s so pretty and so fucked out.” Mingyu moves a hand up to grip your chin and tilts your head back to rest on Jungkook’s shoulder.
“Shit, look at you, baby. So cockdrunk for us. You gonna cum?” You think you say words, but maybe it’s more of affirmative sounding noises.
Somehow, someone’s hand - you’re not sure who - reaches between your legs to rub your clit. You’re so fucking full and so fucking wet that it only takes a few rubs at your bundle of nerves to have you cumming with a scream that sounds much too loud to your ears.
Every inch of you is red hot and in flames as your throat dries up and your eyelids sag and that’s when you feel it: the sharp, piercing feeling of being bitten. Hard. One on your shoulder from behind and one on the opposite side of your neck. Your eyes fly open and all you see is Mingyu's dark head of hair. Somewhere in the room, along with the wet, slapping, sounds of them drilling into you, you hear slurping. The slurping of your blood in the mouths of these men that you now know for sure are not just men.
They’re drinking your fucking blood.
And that realization alone has you falling apart again, your mouth falling open in a silent scream, body twitching in their holds.
“Fuck - fuck! Gonna stuff you so fucking full, baby!” Mingyu removes his mouth from your neck, shooting his load into you first, the sensation making you groan out, albeit weakly. 
Jungkook tumbles over the edge right after him, his sticky seed coating your insides, dripping out, and sliding down your cheeks.
You’re still reeling from what is likely the most powerful orgasm you’ve ever experienced, body sagging, feeling completely boneless.
“Did you cum again after we drank from you?” Jungkook mumbles as they slide out of you, still keeping you in their arms.
“Mmhmm,” is all you can manage, eyelids fluttering, fighting to stay open.
“Fuck. You really are perfect, baby. We gotta keep her, Gyu.” 
Mingyu chuckles, finally setting you on the bed, and letting you flop onto the comforter. 
“Yeah, I think we might have to. Would you like that, little mouse? Wanna be ours?” 
“Mmhmm…” You think you have something else to say, but instead, you finally lose the battle to exhaustion, your eyes sliding closed and sleep taking hold of you.
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“Y/n? Hey, Y/n?” 
The sound of your name jerks you awake, and your eyes shoot open to take in your surroundings. 
Sana’s face is peering down at you when you finally focus, concern etched into her features.
“Huh?”
“You’re up! We were getting a little worried, you’ve been sleeping for a while. Feeling okay?”
You sit up slowly, your head feeling groggy as you take in your surroundings. You’re on your couch in your apartment. You can see Jihyo in the kitchen staring at you looking concerned too. In the distance a toilet flushes and you assume it’s Jeongyeon.
“I’m fine,” you finally say. “Why are we at my apartment?”
“Well, your boyfriends texted us that we should take you home because you were so exhausted you passed out. They carried you out to the car and everything. Very gentlemanly.”
“By the looks of those marks, I think they treated you the opposite of gentlemanly in the bedroom?” Jeongyeon eyes your neck as she enters the room wiggling her eyebrows.
When you glance down, you see what she means. Your chest and what you see of your shoulders are covered in bruises. When you touch your neck you feel two small punctures in the skin and you flush from head to toe. You had almost wondered if you dreamt about the whole encounter with Mingyu and Jungkook, but you hadn’t.
“Oh, yeah. They definitely weren’t gentle,” you can’t but help giggle at the memory of the night you’ve had. The ache between your legs and your cheeks is also a stark reminder.
Your friends don’t say anything about where either Mingyu or Jungkook went when they left you in their care, but they wouldn’t just disappear, right? They said they wanted to keep you which means something, you’d like to think.
Lucky for you, it’s not something you have to ponder for long. As you’re settling into bed for the night, your phone vibrates with a text from an unknown number. 
When you go to your messages you see a group chat with you and two other people. Opening it rewards you with an image - two familiar-looking mouths smiling widely. You can only see from their noses down to their chins, but both grins show off very pointy canines, one mouth decorated with two lip rings. 
You’re trying to rack your brain as to what to respond with - it’s not like you could have anticipated that being bitten by actual fucking vampires would be so damn hot.
A text from the other number comes in a minute after the picture.
Good night, little mouse. Let us know when and where we can see you again. 😉
You start to type, then erase the message three times, unsure of how desperate you want to sound. 
Then you decide, fuck it. It’s obvious they want you just as much as you want them, so who cares if you sound desperate? 
So, you keep it short and sweet.
Whenever and wherever you want. Duh.
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Net tags: @kflixnet @kbookshelf
I’ve wanted to write a Mingyu/Jungkook threesome since they did that live together that one time. And then the 3D challenge happened and my brain said NOWNOWNOW so here we are!
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I’ve been thinking a lot about the song titles for ttpd and how collectively different they seem from anything Taylor’s done before and what that will mean for the album.
stay with me here ik this is a long post .. 😵‍💫 soooo finally this morning I got the idea that perhaps all these songs - the black dog, the albatross, the manuscript, and so on will tell a story about their titular namesake - a dog, a bird, a manuscript -just like poets do - but also just like in poetry … this will all be the top, literal layer to the story, and the secondary story that she’s actually trying to convey will be written in the symbolism of the literal one. 2 stories at once.
So ‘daddy I can fix him’ may tell the story of a little mermaidesque girl, as many of us have guessed, but the underlying story there could be the one that’s infused with Taylor’s experience, thematically. The ‘fresh out the slammer’ may tell the story of someone newly released from prison reintegrating back into society and adjusting to freedom (not her obv) but underneath that, an experience personal to her. And so on.
And if this is correct, it’s a pretty safe way to write too because .. what’s fiction, for the sake of the literal story ? What’s directly reflective of her experience ? The lines wouldn’t be clear, at least not to 100% certainty, and I’m thinking that would help ease the feeling of launching a “cannon of clickbait” and creates a little safety net. Like this would be combining her love of storytelling with use of symbolism in a way that is more for symbolic meaning than for imagery alone
On top of that, relating to the poets theme … It’s super common (I’d say almost the norm) for poets - especially the most famous ones - to adopt this style of writing where their purpose of the poem is not obtained literally (altho the literal story is often beautiful in and of itself) but through the derived symbolic meaning, whether they’re offering commentary on war or politics or the human condition, and Taylor’s done this before a handful of times during folkmore. RWYLM and cowboy like me are examples where she takes on the voice of someone else and tells a story that in and of itself is fiction, but bears a symbolic meaning to something or a feeling she’s experienced. Most of folkmore actually fell in an inbetween space, with made up elements but yet was also personal, but most songs were not quite telling two stories at once.
I’m so excited to see if this is in fact the direction of the poets department album!! Because it would make it fascinating (and genius) from a writing perspective! And explain why the titles are SO different from an album like midnights or lover or 1989!
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absandersongf · 5 months
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gf!abby headcanons
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cw: use of pet names instead of y/n | fem!reader | nsfw content | daddy!kink (abby’s called ‘daddy’) | use of strap (r!receiving, it’s called abby’s cock) | mention of cigarette | fingering (r!receiving) | squirting (from reader) | red: abby ; orange: reader
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sfw :)
she takes care of you at anytime, even if you didn’t go on patrol or something, she’ll always make sure you’re safe.
OBVIOUSLY abby always carries you to bed.
she NEEDS you to take care of her when she fights with some random WLF soldier men.
abs, stop fighting for stupid reasons! i can’t do this every fucking night!
yes, you can ‘cause you love me so so much… oh! that hurts, baby.
sorry love, i didn’t want this alcohol to hurt you, you’re okay?
she tells you the most random facts abt anything.
always tells her friends what a great girlfriend you are and how good you make her feel.
abby caresses every single part of your body everytime she has the chance.
mmmh, you have a very soft skin my love.
ALSO, she leaves kisses in each part of your body. you fucking love that.
she helps you in the kitchen (with kisses and hugs🤭).
her jokes are so fucking dirty.
she ALWAYS !! notices when you’re staring at her arms.
baby? heeey! you’re staring doll
w-what? obviously not!
i know you love staring at these arms my dear, don’t lie…
loves admiring you and your body, always giving you compliments that make you blush.
YOU’RE BLUSHING WHAT?
NO, I’M NOT, SHUT UP.
oh my love, i love when i make you blush with my compliments.
i’m not blushing, shut the fuck up abigail.
especially when it's cold, she hugs you in the bed, puts you on top of her and press you to her chest.
abby kisses you sooo slow and with so much love while she holds your face in between her big hands.
loves when you caress/kiss/bite her arms.
oh my god baby, you love them too much.
honestly, who wouldn’t love these big arms? they’re so perfect and comfortable.
frequently asks you to join her when she’s going to take a shower after gym.
always makes you laugh with every single thing she does.
she listens to you everytime.
she always tries (and succeeds) to be the best girlfriend and make you the happiest girl in the world.
nsfw !!
abs can be very dirty whenever she wants. you two could be at some dinner with abby's friends and she is capable of caress your leg with her hand until she reaches your pussy.
loves fucking you with her strap, she prefers that instead of scissoring, and you love it.
loses her mind when you call the strap as 'her cock' and when you call her 'daddy', she fucks you even harder than ever.
oh my god, c'mon daddy please, i wanna feel your cock deep inside me.
yeah my love, don't worry, i'll make you feel so good, you just have to be a good girl for daddy, okay?.
she spends about an hour between your legs and eating you out until you're cumming.
SHE LOVES ass humping, just having you in doggy position with your ass bouncing on her pelvis makes her so fucking horny.
abby is a very trash mouth in bed and you love that.
loves making you beg for her.
but obviously she cares about you when you two are having sex.
honey, did it hurt? sorry i went to fast, i promise i’ll take it slower :).
she goes down your body until she reaches your wet pussy, she starts running her thumb over your clit and then put two fingers inside you, and then three and finally, FOUR !!
you shudder at any act she does.
when you’re riding her cock, she puts on your head a cowboy hat that she bought especially for these moments, she’s very kinky.
presses your back to her chest while she’s fucking you with her strap and touch every part of your body, especially your tits, she loves caressing them and making you moan.
she loves seeing your tits bouncing and she’ll remind it to you.
she fingers you so hard that can make you squirt, she fucking loves that shit.
oh my god, honey i love you, you taste so fucking good my dear.
after sex, she helps you to clean yourself and when you two go to bed (naked🤭), abby hugs you in a way that you have your head in her chest and kisses you sooo slow.
then, abby grabs a cigarette and lights it to smoke it together.
finally you fall asleep in abby’s chest while she’s looking at you and thinking about how special you are in her life and that she wants to be with you forever.
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dividers creds here
hellooo!!! i hope you liked it, i’m still very bad at writing this but anyways, please send me reqs so i can inspire more lol
don’t forget to follow me and reblog!!!
love you🫶🏻
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sunlightmurdock · 6 months
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Like This Forever | 0.1 | J. Seresin
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masterlist | next chapter
You’re thinking of the past, right as the future is about to change forever.
Warnings: accidental pregnancy, childhood friends to lovers, country singer!Jake, smut, pining, blissful ignorance, other warnings to follow. wc: 3k (18+ minors do not interact)
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A U G U S T 1 9 7 4 / F E B R U A R Y 1 9 9 1
Driftwood — small town southwestern Texas, situated in Lockheart County. Springs, stony hills, and steep canyons. It’s good land, occupying a tiny patch of earth in the middle of the Edwards Plateu. That’s what they all say: good land, good soil. Large acreages of wheat for miles around, grown annually for harvest and winter through spring livestock grazing. The remaining two-thirds of the region is rangeland devoted to cattle ranching. Ranches in this region often seem older than the landscape itself. Lockheart County’s livestock industry is nationally appreciated, it was, even back then. Ranches here are huge, they’ve been there for generations. The town of Driftwood, itself, sits in a valley. It holds on to the people who settle there just like it holds onto the weight of that thick, summer heat all through the day. So hot that even the trees bend and furl like they’re seeking shade too.
Back then, Driftwood was even smaller than it is now. Post Office, Church, two schools, a fleet of locally owned stores on Main Street and a few other buildings for the fathers who weren’t ranchers or ranch hands to work.
On that day in early August, most of Driftwood’s thousand person population were nestled amongst the pews of St. Augustine’s Church, just outside of town. It’s a mile and a half from Main Street, and a mile and a half from the furthest fence on the Seresin Ranch. Their house is a sprawling thing that Bill’s grandfather had built — they haven’t got that kind of money now, and they didn’t on that morning in August. They’ve got three boys, who were squirming around the front pew, melting into the aged wood below them in their smart white button ups. They’ve got another boy too, standing behind Pastor James, holding a processional candle.
Jake’s their youngest. He was nine back then. Small for his age, especially when you stood him next to his brothers and their broad shoulders and long legs. His hair was beyond blond, lightened from the sun. His cheeks dusted with brown freckles and his eyes always narrowed into a type of John Wayne kind of squint. Jake loved John Wayne back then. He loved the cowboys on his bed sheets, and the fact he could see the cattle from his bedroom window. All he wanted back then was a pistol on his hip and a one-way ticket to El Dorado.
Mary-Lynn Seresin grew up in Driftwood, just like her husband had. She had known Bill since she was a little girl, and she had always known that she would marry him one day. Her nails were polished pink that day, sitting pretty atop the procession card as she fans herself with it. Two pews behind, you could still see a droplet of sweat bead from her neat blonde hairline and trail into the collar of her blue polka-dotted Sunday dress.
On that particular Sunday, the fans had packed up and stopped working. So, all six hundred of you who could make it out to St. Augustine’s we’re trapped in there — not just with Pastor James’ storytelling, but with the thick heat pressing down on the entire valley feeling like it had all been shut in this one room with the rest of you.
At the front, Jake Seresin’s cheeks were red, his hair was beading with sweat and his scarecrow, twig-like arms were trembling around the cross. He struggled with its weight and you had watched his green eyes flash out towards the crowd, briefly landing on his mother. Mary-Lynn gave him a proud nod. Bill was staring at the stagnant ceiling fans above their heads. You, were staring right at Jake.
Eight years old yourself, just eight weeks younger than Jake is, you have known that little grass-stain your entire life. In fact, Mary-Lynn and your mother found out that they were expecting just days apart. They had been in the same high school grade as girls, had married men who were good friends, and back then your mother had worked in the town’s hair salon five days a week. They grew very close through their pregnancies. Your mother was the first one to send flowers when Mary-Lynn went into labour a month and a half early.
Jake’s John-Wayne-Squint deepened through the heavy air, watching you like you were both about to draw pistols and settle this like men — right in the middle of Pastor James’ final verse. Your pigtails and your white Sunday dress weren’t fooling him. His robes and the heavy cross in his hand weren’t fooling you. Clearly following his brother’s gaze, Daniel Seresin turns and peers at you over his shoulder. He’s the closest in age to Jake, but he’s still five years older. Thirteen then and too grown up for childish squabbles like those, he just turned back to the front and shook his head.
The first three of the Seresin boys were all born within three consecutive years. Matthew, Noah and Daniel. They’re each tall like their mother, blonde like her too, and have inherited their father’s linebacker shoulders. Noah was fourteen and about to be a freshman in high school. After he fixed the chain on your bike at the beginning of summer, you were full-blown head-over-heels in love with him back then. You thought you were anyway.
Jake, however, had been in your class since Kindergarten and you had been forced to share your toys with him for even longer than that.
His arms trembled before you and your mouth had twitched. Neither one of you was listening to the service. It was almost over. Just a few more minutes until Pastor James wrapped up and the people of Driftwood and poured out of this sauna and out into the dry, morning sun.
Quickly, you shot a look at your mother sitting at your side. She was listening intently, staring right ahead with her neatly steamed clothes and her hair-sprayed hair. You’ll always remember the heavy smell of her rose-scented perfume. Every time you inhale it, you’re sitting at the foot of her bed, watching her fix her face in her vanity. Then, you looked to your father on the other side of you. Exactly the same. Pleased, you turn your attention back to the youngest Seresin boy.
Scrunching your nose, you had sat forwards just slightly and stuck your tongue out at him. Quite the diss back then. Jake’s green eyes had widened, sweat beading down his back under his white shirt and his service robes.
Driftwood is a safe place. It’s a fantastic town to raise children. The schools aren’t overcrowded and cars don’t speed through the centre of town. Country roads are a different story. But no one bats an eyelid, especially not back then, when their children are out of sight.
Mary-Lynn was busily detailing the events of her dinner party that coming Saturday to a group of women that are invited. She’s quite the hostess still. Your mother stood amongst them. Neither one of them were concerned about where their children were in the slightest. Until, that is, the sounds of muffled screaming filled their ears. The mothers of Driftwood rush to the commotion in their kitten heels and pretty dresses. Your mother was the first around the corner. She would recognise the sound of her baby’s screaming anywhere. But you weren’t the one in trouble. As usual, you had been causing it.
Your white dress grass-stained and muddy, dirt under your fingernails and covering your formerly white, frilled socks. You were kneeling. You haven’t yet noticed the crowd of women rushing in your direction. You’ve got Mary-Lynn Seresin’s youngest son pressed into the dirt, kneeling on his back and twisting his arm uncomfortably behind him.
“Say Uncle!” You demanded.
“You’re so dead! Get off!” Jake struggled under you, screaming with all the force that his growing lungs would allow. His voice must have been audible across the entire valley with how he was hollering. Freckled cheek pressed into the dirt, his white shirt was destroyed and he was in the middle of ruining his shoes with how he was scrambling for purchase in the dried dirt.
Quickly, your mother had grabbed you under your arms and hauled you off of the boy, spinning you to face her.
“What do you think you’re doing young lady?”
“He started it! — He said my dress was ugly!”
“It is ugly, you look like a girl!” Jake huffed from behind you as he had stumbled onto his feet and taken a look down at his church clothes. Slowly, he had lifted his gaze to look at his mother. Sullen and worried looking, he began to pout. It wasn’t working. Mary-Lynn had raised three boys by then, she knew when they were trying to play innocent.
The thing about growing up so close together, is that approaching double digits was a confusing time. It was around that age that your mother began to put her foot down when it came to all of those tom-boy activities. Girls might roughhouse and come home with holes in their jeans and mud on their faces, but young ladies didn’t. The dress was her idea.
Jake’s comment had been passing, just a whisper as his family had headed into church ahead of yours, but he was right — you did look like a girl. Back then, that wasn’t a compliment coming from him. So, you had cornered him outside and pummeled him into the dirt. Fair is fair.
“Mary-Lynn, I am so sorry about her — send me the dry-cleaning bill. I’m sorry, we should go.” Your mother had sighed in a hurry, frowning down at your ruined clothes, then looking towards Jake’s. You’ll always remember the smile on Mary-Lynn’s face after. Not pity, because she knew you were in a lot of trouble for this. Just fondness. She had gently patted your mother’s forearm and shaken her head.
“Let’s finish our chat. They’re already filthy. Let them play.”
Looking up at her, you hadn’t understood why she was siding with you back then. You had just almost broken her son’s arm for sport. As you grew, Mary-Lynn Seresin was always on your side. In her kitten heels and dresses, she remembered being a dirt-covered little girl once too. No one was telling her son that it was time yet, to be a man. There’s no harm in letting you be young a little longer.
Your mother had looked uncertain, but people in Driftwood always looked to Mary-Lynn for advice. She had somehow managed to keep four boys in line perfectly, her parenting expertise was studied by those around her. Finally, she had given you a brief nod.
You remember spinning on the delicate almost-heel of your church shoes, rounding on Jake, ready to brawl. You have no clue where the stick came from, but he was armed when you had turned around — but Jake always fought fair. He tossed you a stick of your own and took aim. Green eyes narrowed, he was trying to look down his freckled nose at you, but you were taller then.
“She’s gonna marry that boy someday.” Mary-Lynn Seresin had huffed with a wistful smile, watching the mud-caked children tear off through the field once again. This time, with sticks in hands and violent intent plastered across their dirty faces.
You’re not eight anymore. Jake’s not nine. This time of the year, you both happen to be twenty-six. You aren’t trying to kill him with a stick anymore either. You’re sitting at your favourite bar in Driftwood — there are four now — watching your best friend up on stage. He’s always confident. He has been since he hit that growth spurt when he was twelve. Since then, Jake has been unstoppable. But on stage is when he really shines.
The Dark Star feels like an old bar. It’s packed every Friday night. It smells like malt and smoke and Jake’s been playing here every Saturday since he was seventeen. This is the last time that it will ever be like this, and you don’t even know it yet. Jake’s in the middle of an original. People around here know him, they know his music. They might not get all the words right, but he always gets people singing.
Jake isn’t small for his age now. He grew into his nose, and he inherited those big shoulders, his skin’s tanned from his days out at the ranch. He’s strong and funny and kind. Sometimes it catches you off guard, when you turn your head and find a man in place of the little boy you once knew.
You’re in a booth, talking numbers. It turns out that you had inherited your mother’s knack for business strategy, and Jake’s way with words had rubbed off on you long ago.
You don’t look like the little girl Jake had once known either. If he was concerned about you looking like a girl before, then you can only imagine how dismayed he must be when he looks at you now. Breasts and everything.
“It’s more than potential, Stu — you saw how crazy people were for him when he was opening for The Ashford Band.” You tell him, fingers curled around a brown glass bottle. This is already settled, the deal is already done. You knew from the second that he walked in that you had Stu Adler suckered.
This is a deal that you’ve been mulling over for a couple of months now. Getting Jake on his first headline tour. His debut album came out last week and it’s doing well, but the record label is tiny and the publicity deal is even smaller. Jake’s making pennies compared to other people in his genre, but you’re about to change all of that.
“Six months is a long time on the road. It’s a different lifestyle,” Stu’s dishwater grey eyes flicker briefly up from the plunging neckline of your top to meet your gaze. He’s an older man, with a once successful career in Los Angeles. Now, he spends his time scrounging small towns for talent. He’s just a stepping stone in your plans for Jake. “You’re sure he can handle it?”
Stretching your legs out, you scoff incredulously at the accusation as Jake’s last song dwindles behind you. The beer bottle is cool against your lips. Stu swallows, watching your lips purse around the rim to drink. You know he’d die for the chance to get his wrinkly, old dick in your mouth — it’s why Jake’s about to get the best deal of his life.
“Jake? — Of course.”
“Can you?” Stu asks. The light on you for once makes you cringe. Even so, your poker face doesn’t falter. Calmly staring across the table at him, a small smile on your face. “Y’know, he’s going to need a manager that I can rely on. I.e. — one that he won’t dump, sweetheart.”
This only makes your smile grow. “Jake is like a brother to me. You don’t have to worry about a thing.”
It’s that lie that secures the deal. Six months, a hundred and sixty dates across the US. Mostly small venues, but it’s his first headline tour — and it’s all because of you. Because of that one little white lie. Letting Stu think that he’s got a chance with you. Letting him think that you’ve never fucked Jake.
You have. Twice, already by this point. Once, after senior prom. Your date was an asshole and his was cruel. You’d parked his truck out in the west pasture of the Seresin ranch and got a little too drunk under the stars, and wound up with your legs hiked up over his shoulders. The second time was Thanksgiving two years ago. Your family joined his. All of his brothers have fiancés or wives now. Sharing Jake’s bed in his childhood home that night, neither one of you was drunk. You were just lonely, and maybe bored.
Tonight, there are a couple of different factors at play. Sure, by the time that you and Jake collapse down onto that red, velvet couch in the Dark Star’s ‘dressing room’, you’ve had plenty to drink. You’re not quite as lonely as you were that thanksgiving, though.
You turn your head and he’s grinning at the ceiling, chest heaving from the energetic final song. His arms stretch along the backs of the couch, his eyes closed for a moment. You watch him silently.
“You’re incredible.” Jake’s half-cut on an unhealthy mix of tequila and vodka, but smiling, eyes still shut, chin still pointed towards the sky. He gives his head a small shake. “A hundred and sixty dates.”
A smile plasters itself across your lips. As drunk as you are, it’s nice to be complimented for your hard work. “Yeah, we’ll see if you still think I’m so incredible when you’re living off of burgers and beer and still have eighty shows to go.”
The smell of cigarettes lives within the fibre of this room. Part of the furniture, nestled amongst the cracks in the red painted walls. There’s the couch that you’re sitting on, and an illuminated vanity against the far wall, and then a coat stand. It’s not much of a dressing room, but it’s fine.
You just wish it would stop spinning.
“I mean it.” His fingers rest atop your denim clad thigh, patting platonically. You hear him sigh from beside you. He squeezes at the supple skin under his hand. “Thank you.”
“Jake… since when do you have manners?” You ask him. Both of you are sitting with your eyes shut on this old, probably dirty, velvet couch. It’s five in the morning. The two of you might have gone a little overboard with celebrating. Wayne Mayhew, the owner of the Dark Star might have threatened to kick you both out of his bar if you didn’t finally get off of his damn stage ten minutes ago.
But there’s a high buzzing between the two of you that feels electric. Wordlessly, you know Jake feels it too. That this is the last night. Here, in this shitty hometown bar. Everything is about to change. After this tour, nothing will ever be the same again — for either of you.
Jake’s thumb trails back and forth in just one small pattern, reminding you that it’s there on your thigh.
It’s been on your mind all day, for no reason at all. That Sunday in August in 1974. Your ruined church dress and the fat bruise on Jake’s cheek the next day when you had seen him at the market. The start of it all.
Those late night drives and all the evenings you studied together. Jake’s football games and his band practices — back when he had thought he wanted to be in a band. Him drying your tears and making you laugh. Growing up together, talking for hours and hours about all of the possibilities. This was everything Jake had ever wanted, and he’s thanking you.
Your eyelids weigh double what they normally do — heavy as you blink open your eyes and turn your head. This time, he’s looking across at you. The tips of his fingers brush the inseam of your blue, low-rise jeans. His face is calm, he isn’t saying anything and he’s far from doing anything either.
Scrunching your nose, you poke your tongue out at him. Across the couch, Jake lifts his brows. The corner of his mouth twitches. He’s got stubble now. Stubble, and chest hair and an Adam’s apple. But that look, that glint in his eye that’s just daring you to try him has always been the same.
Jake’s fingers twitch, pressing into the soft flesh of your inner thigh. Dim lighting, fifteen year old red paint on each of the four walls, and that perpetual cigarette smell — it’s hardly a romantic fantasy. And this is far from a good idea.
But it’s Jake. Confident, loud Jake who gets shy when he’s around someone he really likes. Funny, smart-mouthed Jake who under it all is a great listener. Goofy, habitual Jake who has the nighttime routines of a fifty year old housewife.
Strong-willed, handsome, Jake, your best friend — who’s looking at you like you’re his next meal.
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