Spending my lunch break thinking about 1988 rookies to lovers to exes to teammates finding themselves thrust together again as they're The Last, struggling with everything that was between them, the team and the city, trying to reconcile how Nothing Good Lasts Forever (be it their relationship or them being on the Hawks, possibly their hockey careers). They had grown apart but now they're forced back together by circumstance much like in the beginning of their relationship, their lives too parallel to separate.

Because really, who else on the team can relate what it means, to suddenly stand before this decision and all it encompasses? Seabs and Sharpy retired as Hawks on their own terms (trades aside), Hoss and Shawzy forced out by injury, Duncs leaving for family reasons that Jonny can't begrudge. None of them have been here, at this fork, holding their destiny in their hands and yet having no choice at all.

"You good?" Pat asks, bumping his shoulder into Jonny's.

"Haven't felt good since 2019," Jonny mutters. It falls flat as a joke, even with Jonny's dry humor. "Sorry." He rubs across his eyes, pinches the bridge of his nose.

"Yeah." Pat doesn't smile, and this right here, this is why they're "Kane and Toews" again, for the last time of their careers. They haven't talked, haven't been close in forever, but suddenly Jonny wants to share a hotel room again just so he doesn't have to lie in bed alone at night, the world closing in until the room feels too small to hold an ounce of oxygen.

Sometimes even one day at a time seems too insurmountable a task.

"I'm Pat."

"Jonny." The handshake is dry but firm. "Nice to meet you."

Pat had known, of course, who Jonny was, the quiet but explosive kid from Manitoba, third overall in 2006, spent another year at UND.

"You planning to stay up?" Jonny had asked at the end of their first day of training camp, teeth white and sharp in his grin, and Pat had huffed, annoyed. Who did this guy think he was?

"Yeah." No time to show weakness, or doubt.

Jonny nodded, a short sharp jerk of his head, like he believed Pat. Like it was their decision to make. "See you there."

~

They had both stayed up, of course, Pat fueled by a desperate desire to show everyone that he could do it, that he belonged. The Hawks had picked him first overall and they hadn't picked wrong. He'd wanted to show the coaches, the staff, the reporters crowding into his stall every game asking about every turnover and mistimed pass, wanted to prove his family right and all his naysayers wrong, and maybe somewhere, a little bit, show Jonny.

~

They've got nothing left to prove to each other now. They tried to make a run of it and failed, shouting matches that somewhere turned from harmless arguments to barbs stuck deep under each other's skin, hitting where it hurts, their ammunition enough to sink each other whole until Pat had finally called it quits. Jonny had hated him then for giving up, hated himself for driving Pat away, hated everything, out of his mind with rage.

It had all gone to shit in other ways after '15, years and years of mediocrity that Jonny can't help but wonder. What if he'd been better? Nothing had clicked like 2010, all of them too dumb and young to know what they had at the time. It worked again twice after that, but ever since Panarin left keeping the team together had felt like trying to hold quicksand in his palms, Pat a million miles away and yet putting the team on his shoulders on the ice in ways that Jonny never could. He'd always been the one to hold the fort down in the room, or maybe that was Seabs really, everything worse after Seabs' hips had finally given out, maybe Jonny had just been deluding himself.

Jonny barely knows anyone in the locker room, and what's worse, he barely likes any of the guys that have come in to replace the last good pieces they had, Jonny still too bitter to give anyone a proper chance.

~

"We had a good run," Pat says, and Jonny wants to shout in his face 'no, fuck that, we didn't. We could've been so much more.'

He wants a do-over, a second chance, the last six years of his life back. And maybe then Jonny could show everyone, could show Pat that he's better than this, that there's another way.

But the truth is, he isn't. Everyone knows Pat's the superior player.

They used to be Kane and Toews.

Kane and Toews

Kane and Toews

Kane and Toews

Kane

❥ A Perfect Experiment : Wally x Reader (She/Her Pronouns, Named) ✿

Chapter Masterpost: [  ♡   ♡    ♡ ]

Chapter Nine; The Love Potion

●・○・●・○・●・○・●・○・●・○・●・○・●・○・●・○・● It had been a few days since the incident, and with the help of your dear friends, you’ve made a full recovery. It helped to have a project to work on. Made you feel like you were helping, too, if even in a small way. You’d memorised all the lines in the script at this point. It was a cute story that the two girls had written, and you were excited to be a part of it. There were only three parts; A Knight, A Princess, and a Witch. Well, four parts, if you counted the brief cameo of Howdy in a dragon costume. You were the witch, who captured the beautiful princess, wanting to marry her and take her kingdom’s magic for yourself. You thought it funny; the plot went in such a different direction than you were expecting. You wondered who was playing the other parts, but Sally was pretty tight-lipped about the whole thing. Weird, considering that the princess was probably Julie anyways. The knight, though… You bite on the end of the highlighter you’re holding, out like a light in full daydreaming mode. If it had been hard to keep him off your mind before, now it was downright impossible. A shiny knight costume, with broad shoulders… He lifts the front of his helmet to look down at you, grinning broadly… You let out a delirious giggle. Ah! Snap out of it! You shake the thoughts out of your head, and hug the script close. You need to focus! You set the duotang folder to the side, laying the highlighter on top of it, before turning back to your other project; Your costume! You had a darker dress laying around, though it was probably froofier than Sally had in mind. The real tricky part was the hat. You’d sketched up a diagram that probably would’ve worked better for building a machine than sewing a hat. Which was the real problem. You didn’t really have any idea how to sew– but it couldn’t be THAT hard. It was just string and fabric. This wasn’t going to beat you. You manage to finish with about an hour to spare, letting out a sigh of relief. You weren’t the best with this, you’d admit. You ended up forgoing the thread altogether, deciding (poorly) that staples would be much stronger anyways, getting frustrated when it (obviously) ended up absolutely hideous. It was, however, a triangle with a brim. You could work with this. You sacrificed a purple feather boa, hot glueing it around the brim, and decorating it with little foam stars you’d cut out yourself. There, like there was nothing wrong with it! After changing and gathering your props, you resign yourself to a short rest in your armchair, but a knocking at the door surprises you. Does no one in this neighbourhood know how to use a phone? Opening it up, you find Julie and Frank on your doorstep. Frank is staring down at the floor, cheeks dark, and drumming his fingers on his sides nervously. Julie… Julie looks sour. This might be the maddest you’d ever seen her. Before you can ask what's wrong, Julie shoves Frank forwards, “Daisy! Frank has something he wants to say to you!” She announces with all the authority of a grade school teacher. He gulps loudly. You tilt your head in confusion; What could Frank possibly have done wrong??? “... Daisy, I…” He takes in a deep breath, trying to calm himself. “... I am very ashamed. You see, the other day, I…” He hesitates. Julie taps her foot impatiently. “I came to visit, I was quite interested when you said I should look more into moths, you see. Your door was wide open, and I… Well, I was looking for you, and I… I found your notebook on the movement of celestial bodies. I was curious, and I didn’t think you would mind, so I borrowed it, and…” He winced. Julie has pursed her lips. “Tell her!” She demands, her tone surprising even you. “... I’m afraid I’ve lost it. I believed I was taking good care of it, and fully intended to bring it back, but it has vanished without a trace.” You frown. Honestly, Frank borrowing your stuff wasn’t the worst thing in the world, but something about that particular notebook vanishing left a nasty feeling in your stomach. You felt like you were missing something important… You look up to see Frank shuddering. Oh, right, you should probably say something. Your expression softens, and you step forwards, giving him a big hug, “It's okay, Frank. You didn’t mean to, and I understand. Curiosity is the hardest thing to ignore.” You smile against him. You couldn’t possibly be mad at him; he was the only one who understood you in your ultimate quest for science! You hear a loud gross sniffle come from him, and a relieved sigh from Julie. “Thank you for telling me. I know that was hard.” After calming Frank down from his intense emotions, You gather your things, and close your door. “Julie, I’m not sure I get it; is that your costume?” You ask. Julie is in her usual outfit, very pretty but not really screaming ‘princess’. She looks at you as if you’re crazy. You laugh nervously. You really should stop assuming things about your friends. “Oh, sorry. I just thought… Well, you’re very princessy, I thought you were…” “Nope! I was the author! The genius behind the scenes!!!” She grinned, and gave an excited wiggle, “I wanted to sit and watch my vision come to life!!! Besides, Sally found a WAY better Princess.” ●・○・●・○・●・○・●・○・●・○・●・○・●・○・●・○・● The breath escapes your lungs when you see him. Why did he even have that? The cast, plus Sally, stand backstage to prepare the last bits and give your friends some time to find their seats. Eddie has made a surprisingly robust set of armour out of cardboard, with a flippable hood and everything. It's painted light blue, with pink trim and accents, and a few stamps stuck on the chestplate for good luck. That solved one mystery, but the solution for the other left your brain melted. Wally has a sparkling circlet resting under his pompadour, his cheeks have blush carefully applied, and he strides over to the group with absolutely limitless confidence. Not that it wasn’t warranted; your jaw certainly dropped when you saw him. His gown looks expensive, with tight sleeves that landed directly at his wrists, a cold shoulder so chilly you feared winter would come early, and a train so long you were worried you would trip on it during the show. The whole thing was pulled together with delicate floral lace in a dark blue similar to the sweaters he often wore. The skirt was excruciatingly shorter in the front, and he had a pair of matching intricate pants underneath, along with a lovely pair of boots with trim similar to the dress. You grab Sally’s arm, and scurry off to the side, cheeks ablaze, “Wally? The princess is Wally??” “Well, yeah, duh! He is the prettiest person in the neighbourhood,” Sally replied bluntly. The two of you look back at him. Eddie is ooh-ing and ahh-ing over his craftsmanship, and Wally is absolutely eating up the attention. “And honestly, he really does have the legs for it; check out those boots!” “Sally, he looks amazing, that is not the issue and you know it is not the issue.” You tell her, deadly serious, gripping the straps of her overalls. “Boys can be perfectly good princesses!” “Sally. That is not. The issue.” You stare into her eyes. “The issue is, you wrote a… A….” Your face flushes. It was FINE when it was Julie playing the Princess, but with Wally…! Sally is smirking down at you. You narrow your eyes. “... Traitor.” It was far too late to back out now. The show must go on. ●・○・●・○・●・○・●・○・●・○・●・○・●・○・●・○・● “Once upon a time, in a land far away, There lived a beaaauutiful Princess!” Sally announced, and gave a bow as Wally strolled onto the stage, giving a regal wave to the audience. The group cheered, and one of them even wolf whistled. He was THRIVING. “The beautiful princess lived in his palace, overlooking his beautiful kingdom, upon which the sun shone every day!” “My kingdom is so beautiful!” Wally raised a delicate hand to his head, “But alas! It is so lonely sitting upon my throne. I have cast this spell for eternal sunshine, but my people! They have no more problems, and do not visit me anymore! Everything is just TOO perfect!” He places his arm over his eyes dramatically, flopping back onto the armchair that had been pulled into the stage area. “What the beautiful princess did not know, however, was that there was a much bigger problem approaching!!!” Sally wiggled her arms in the direction of the other half of the stage. Oh! Right, that was your cue! A couple of cardboard rainclouds hung on your side of the stage, and you stepped out, raising your broom to the sky, “The evil witch was watching the kingdom, envious of it’s sun shiny days!” “I will kidnap the princess, and bring her to my bog!” You announce stiffly, “Soon! Mark my words! We will be wed, and I will have the sun shiny magic for my own!” You raise your hands in the air for dramatic effect, emphasizing your weak villain laugh, “Mua! Ha Ha! Ha ha!” You can hear Barnaby absolutely losing his mind in the audience. Yeah, yuk it up, pup! You’re gonna be a star whether your acting skills like it or not! “The evil witch had an equally evil plan! She made a wicked brew, threatening to put the princess to sleep for a thousand years!” You loved this part. You scurried backstage, returning with a rolling table with some of your favourite flasks and beakers set up atop it. You raise a jar of blue liquid to the sky, giving it a swirl. Then, you raise a second cup, this time yellow, and let out another villain laugh. You pour the second up into the first, and Sally ‘Oooooh’s for dramatic effect. The blue liquid turns pink and sparkly in the jar, and you cap it, giving it another swirl, “With this magic potion! I, The Evil Witch, will finally get what I desire! Mua! Ha! Ha!” You give a toss of your capelet, and march the table off stage. The scene returns to Princess Wally, sitting atop his throne, boredly playing with a bit of his hair. “Beautiful Princess!” You burst out from behind the throne, and Wally lets out a surprised gasp, “Your time has come! Marry me, and give me your magic powers, or a curse I will cast upon you!” You slam the jar on the arm of the chair. There is a beat of silence. “Okay.” Wally grins at you. “... What?” “I will marry you, evil witch!” He claps his hands together cheerfully, and lets out a dreamy sigh, “It will be a spring wedding! I’ll never be lonely again!” “No! You are supposed to scream! Cry!! I am supposed to curse you!” You stomp your foot, before starting to pace the length of the stage. You approach him again, getting in his face, “I am here to kidnap you!!!” “Not while I’m around, you won't!” The heroic knight barges in. The audience cheers. He chases you the length of the stage a couple of times before you are scared off completely. “Oh, no! My guards have chased off the witch. When will I ever get a chance like that again?” Wally mused, swirling the jar with one of his hands. “At least she left this for me to remember her by!” He takes the lid off, and takes a delicate sip. His eyes shoot open wide, and he looks at it in surprise, “Oh, this is actually really good.” He breaks his character, and from backstage you blush at the compliment. He downs the rest of the jar, and then lets out a loud, dramatic wail. He falls backwards, into Eddie’s waiting arms. “The beautiful princess!!! He is cursed!” Eddie cried, and shook Wally, “Do not worry, princess!! I will avenge you!” ●・○・●・○・●・○・●・○・●・○・●・○・●・○・●・○・● The next while is a whirlwind. You and Wally watch from the sidelines as Eddie has his time to shine; going on a quest to find the Witch, and beating a dragon along the way. Sally narrates the whole thing while Eddie pantomimes, crossing deserts and jungles and lava rivers. He ends up at your witch hut… Only to find a note, saying “Out Kidnappin’”, and having to turn around to rescue the princess once more. The audience was having a blast, cheering and laughing and heckling Eddie. Finally, He returns to the castle. He finds you, wailing over the sleeping form of the princess, “Oh! Woe is me! If only I hadn’t cursed you, Princess! We would be wed by now!” You cry, and waggle the empty jar for dramatic effect. “Evil witch!” Announced Eddie, storming on to the scene. You let out a loud gasp. “You will break this curse, or face my wrath!” “Alas, I cannot! Only a kiss from one’s love can break this curse! I did not think it through very well,” You admitted, rubbing your cheek, “Perhaps a kiss from his trusted knight will be good enough?” “Me? Love the Princess?” The knight rubs the back of his neck nervously, “No, my love lies elsewhere.” “What a predicament!” Sally chimed in, and you and Eddie both adopt puzzled expressions, holding your hands under your chin. “But the two of them would find the Princess’ love where they would least expect it!” “Why don’t you try, Evil Witch?” Asked the knight. You point at yourself in confusion. He nods vigorously, “You did propose to her after all! And she did accept it!” You kneel down next to Wally. Your stomach was doing knots. Thankfully you knew how to do a stage kiss, but still… You peer down at Wally’s pretend-sleeping form. He opens one eye to look up at you, and gives your hand a short, encouraging squeeze. Okay, you can do this. The show must go on. Its just for the show. Calm down, you. You take in a deep breath, and lean down… Way too fast. Your forehead collides with Wally, and the two of you leap backwards from each other, holding your respective heads. There is a beat of silence. “Uh… The Princess has awakened! Hooray!!!” Eddie cheers. The audience follows in turn. Your head is throbbing. “With the curse broken, and the Princess and the Witch finding true love, the sun shiny kingdom lived happily ever after!” Sally announced to the world, and the applause started up from in front of you. Eddie helps the both of you to your feet, and you give a quick bow before ducking back behind the curtains to calm down. ●・○・●・○・●・○・●・○・●・○・●・○・●・○・●・○・● “What a laugh,” Wally drolled, sprawled out next to you under a tree as he watched the event wrapping up. Frank was examining Eddie’s armour heavily, testing how every joint worked with a careful eye. The rest of the group has Sally and Julie surrounded, chattering about their favourite parts, and how they can’t wait to see it again. You secretly hope that you can sit out of the next play. “I’m glad it’s over; I don’t think I ever want to kiss you again..” Your heart crinkled into a million pieces. What? You thought things were going so well! You turn away from him, trying to ignore the stinging in your eyes. Even if he were that upset about the play– he didn’t have to be so rude about it! “Haha! Yeah, who would ever want that? What a dumb idea! Ha!” Your acting is as terrible as ever, but you hope he doesn’t notice. “Sally said it would be nice, but honestly, that just hurt. I don’t understand why people do that. My head is probably going to ache for a week.” Huh? Your tears are blinked away, replaced with absolute amazement. There was no way. Absolutely no way. Did he really not…? “What? Wally, no, that wasn’t a kiss! That was… A klutz!” You exclaim, cheeks burning with resentment, “Kisses are supposed to be nice, I just…” You reach up, covering your forehead. Oh, you idiot. “Messed everything up.” Wally leaned in closer to you, peering up into your eyes. Gosh, that blush was cute on him. “If that wasn’t a kiss… Then what is?” “Ohh, Wally. A kiss… A kiss is…” You stumble over your words, trying desperately not to meet his eyes. If this was some sort of elaborate joke, you were never going to speak to him again. Well… At least it wasn’t in front of the audience. You gulp down your courage, and lean forwards, pressing a quick peck onto his cheek. His eyes are wide, watching you expectantly. “... Wait, I think I wasn’t paying enough attention. Can you do it again?” Your hands fly up to cover your face, and you groan, “Wally!!! Don’t tease me like that, its not nice!” “What?” He asks, and reaches forwards, moving your hands from your face. You get a good look at him finally. “Whos teasing? Please, Daisy?” He looks sincere… You’re trembling a little as you lean up again, giving him another, longer kiss on his cheek. He waits a beat, looking deep in thought. He leans back to close the gap, pressing one directly on to your cheek in return. Your heart leaps out of your throat. He gives you another, a little lower, then another, up on your cheekbone. This must be heaven. “Hmm… I think I’ve got it,” He mused, watching you with a smug smile on his face as you melt. “Cool show, kids!” Barnaby makes his presence known, bringing the two of you back to solid ground with it. Wally’s eyes light up, and he stands, rushing to the dogs side. “Barnaby– quick. Let me show you what Daisy just taught me.” He grabs the dog’s vest, tugging him down to be level with the puppet, and presses a kiss on to his cheek. Barnaby’s cheeks flush, and he slowly looks between you, and a very proud looking Wally. No, you take it back. This is hell. You bury your face in your hands, and Barnaby falls to the ground, wheezing out laughter at how hard you’d just been friendzoned. In a fury, you stand, grabbing your things, “I’m leaving!” You announce, and stomp off towards your home. Barnaby tries to stop you, but he can’t stop his giggles for long enough to call out to you. Wally just stares at your back in confusion, and rubs his cheek… Wondering just what he’d done wrong. ●・○・●・○・●・○・●・○・●・○・●・○・●・○・●・○・●   @elegantkidfansoul @itsyoboysparkel

A little WIP I have....

..........................

The evening air is hiding an aching cold beneath the sweet smell of rotting leaves. Davey breathes in the changing season, lets himself get lost in intoxicating rush that autumn seems to seep into him. It whispers of warm cider and hot chocolate, late nights by the dying fire with Sarah whispering secrets to each other, and snowball fights in the alleyway after school. But this year is different, this year is bound to be better. Because he’s finally himself, in most sense anyway, dressed and living as he wants.

The cold weather may cause some issues to that though. As of right now Davey only has two sets of clothes both intended for warm weather. And there is no way he can wear what he wore last winter, with his grow spurt last spring and the nausea that idea hurls up inside his gut. He knows his father will take him to the tailor soon as his father had said a week ago when he broke out his wool jacket and handed Davey his old threadbare one with a smile and promise of getting him something better. Davey won’t admit it easily but that action has been branded into his soul despite how ill-fitting and thin the jacket is. He pulls it closer around himself.

Despite his father’s thrilling promise, Davey still wants to buy something for himself. He wants to draw himself tall, look the salesperson in the eye, and hand over his money for something distinctly boyish.

This idle thought dances around his mind while his feet trace the familiar streets towards the bowery, toward his friends. The evenings are getting shorter, darker, and by the time he reaches the newsie boarding house night has settled deep into the grooves of the city. Bright lights and warmth radiate in cheerful waves from the house and Davey hurries inside. The place is crowded with kids, some laughing, some fighting, all way to ridiculously happy to see him. Embarrassment shifts inside him as a blush rises to his cheeks. Davey waves and greets them, not understanding why they like him so much. Sure, he helped when they went on strike and hasn’t gone out of his way to hurt them but…. Davey wonders if that’s enough to earn their trust and admiration.

He ends up finding Jack, Kathrine, and Crutchie at the back of the house in their usual room with the fireplace and old sofas, talking animatedly amongst themselves.

“…And that’s why I’m entirely sure all horses are out for my blood-”

“Davey!” Jack cheers from where he’s on the sofa leaning heavily against Crutchie. He’s taken to calling Davey by his name instead of ‘Mouth’ more often after the strike happened and Davey supposes Jack’s trying to adjust for Kathrine and Sarah’s presence.

“-oh Davey, how are you?” Kathrine asks, looking up at him from where she’s sprawled on the other dingy sofa, smiling and waving him over.

“Hey, I’m doing well, Les and Sarah too,” he matches her smile and slides into the seat beside her, “what’ve you done to offend horse-kind?” he asks, when he sees the intrigued expressions upon the others’ face.

“Oh-” she flips a hand dismissively, “you know how offended they can get. You happen to eat some of their grain one time-”

“you said it was three times kat-” Crutchie interjects.

“one, three, six times, who’s counting?”

“Obviously the horses are” Davey says, laughing as Kathrine scowls and angles a swift kick in his direction which he barely doges.

“Kathrine,” Jack says in a very serious tone and they all turn to stare at him, “I want’s you to know that I’m grievously offended on behalfa all the horses.”

Kathrine takes to using both hands to display very rude and very graphic gestures that Race is sure to have shown her, in Jack’s direction.

“Where’s Race at?” Davey asks, usually the boy would be laughing hysterically at Kathrine’s story or settling another bet with one of them.

Crutchie’s gleeful smile at his question doesn’t bode well for any of them.

“He’s out with Brooklyn, they’s taking him on a tour of the borough” Crutchie delightedly answers and Jack glares into the blazing fire, scowling. “Spot promised to show him all the best sellin’ spots. He probably won’t be back ‘til tomorrow since it’s so dark already.”

Jack groans and glares at the fireplace harder.

“Oh Jack, don’t be like that,” Kathrine says, sweet façade constructed in mere seconds.

Davey doesn’t entirely know how to feel about that answer. On the one hand he’s elated that Spot has let Race into that part of his life and Race is entirely unbothered by it, but he also can’t shake the slight jealousy that Jack is bound to be feeling. Race is spending more and more time in Brooklyn. It seems that Davey never gets to see him, with the boy constantly across the bridge and with school ending with the day he can’t even try and cross into Brooklyn to meet the other.

“I’m happy that Spot’s finally letting him into Brooklyn.” Davey offers after a moment.

“That’s not the only thing he’s letting Race into-” Crutchie whispers to Katherine and Davey hears Albert snicker from where he lounges in the doorway, carving a piece of wood into what is most likely going to be a weapon, with a small knife.

If the logs in the fireplace weren’t already burning Jack’s glower would have set them ablaze.

“Mouth,” Jack says, fixing Davey with his absolute attention and ignoring the way Crutchie and Kathrine are giggling. “How’s busy is Sarah? Kathrine was askin’ me if you’d said anythin’.”

Davey glances at Kathrine who’s glaring sharply at Jack and blushing fiercely.

Davey smile widens, Sarah had confessed to him one sleepless night in late august when it was too hot and sticky to even think about going to bed. They had been out on the fire escape, a blanket laid beneath them. tucked together like they had done throughout their lives. They were taking sips of a secret bottle of whiskey and sharing things they would never dare say aloud in daylight.

“How- how did you know you were- were a boy?” Sarah had whispered, hands gripping the glass bottle tightly.

“I… I don’t know it was- is, it’s something in deep in my chest, like an ache or splinter that only lessens when I’m seen as a boy. Being a girl for so long I… I always felt wrong but I could ignore the ache most days.” Davey’s confesses, lips loosened from the alcohol and starlight.

“And then I started becoming a woman and-“ Davey had swallowed the lump of emotions that formed and continued, “and I felt, everything felt, so much more. And the ache turned into a stabbing pain, but I didn’t know, for a while, what it meant. I knew I was different but I didn’t know until I really thought about everything, all the moments through my life.”

Sarah had nodded and looked away from him, worrying her lip between her teeth.

“I had- I don’t like boys.” She whispered.

“like?”

“Love, I don’t love boys,”

Davey nodded.

......................

Pretty Woman 5/11

Rating: Explicit /posted on AO3 / tagging @today-in-fic

Chapter Summary: an awkward dinner and sex on a piano… yes please!

Waldorf Astoria

Lobby

Saturday

7:45 pm

Mulder strides confidently through the lobby, a man on a singular mission.

Gentle music is playing in the background, patrons milling about. He’s been going over different dinner scenarios since he left the office. Dressed in a sharp gray suit, he makes his way to the concierge desk and asks the attendant if he has any messages. He looks around, slightly concerned that he doesn’t see Scully. He checks his watch again, making sure the time is correct.

“Excuse me, Mr. Mulder.” A voice interrupts his thoughts. Looking to the right, Mulder sees a man about his height but broad-shouldered, sporting glasses and a bald head. He picks up the phone on the counter, intending to call the room to hurry Scully along, when the bald man continues speaking. “My name is Walter Skinner, and I’m the manager of the Waldorf Astoria. I have a message for you, from your niece.” Mulder, looking vaguely confused, lowers the phone, giving the man his full attention. “The woman who is staying with you, your niece,” Skinner insists.

Mulder holds his hand up, signaling Skinner not to continue. “Mr. Skinner, I think you and I both know that she isn’t my niece. The reason I know this is because my sister never had the chance to have children.”

“Yes, sir,” Skinner relents. “Ms. Dana asked me to relay a message. She is waiting for you in the lounge.” Mulder turns to head in the direction of the lounge and hears Skinner add, “Captivating young lady, she is. Something about her…”

Nodding his head in agreement, Mulder makes his way into the lounge area, a darker room filled with soft chatter and faint music playing. He turns his head from side to side, looking for Scully, but he doesn’t see her. Thinking the message was wrong, he turns to leave but stops in the doorway to take one last, quick look around.

Scully, seated at the bartop, swivels her chair as Mulder turns back to face the bar a second time. Their eyes meet and for a moment, Mulder is too gobsmacked to speak. His mouth then curls into a smile. She is dressed in a black, off-the-shoulder cocktail dress that hugs her curves and falls to her knees. Her wine-colored hair is pinned up on one side, letting the soft curls fall loosely over her shoulder. She stands and slowly makes her way over to him.

“You’re late,” she informs him, her eyes never leaving his.

“You’re dazzling,” he replies, leaning in to kiss her cheek. She walks in front of him and his hand falls to the small of her back, escorting her out of the bar and into the night air.

The Voltaire

8:15 pm

Mulder and Scully approach an impeccably set dinner table with crisp white linens and grand china, where two men are already seated. As they near, the two gentlemen stand while the host pulls Scully’s chair out and she sits. Only then do the men take their seats. Scully regards the scene. Fancy music, elaborately dressed individuals, and divine smells wafting from other tables. She glances at the mysterious men sitting across from her, one old and one young. Unbeknownst to the reason, she shivers. She senses the older gentleman’s eyes on her, studying her with a predator’s unwavering attention. Something makes her uneasy. She snaps out of her trance at the sound of Mulder’s voice.

“Mr. Spender, it’s very nice to meet you in person.” He introduces himself to them with the same charm as he did Scully, though much less flirtation.

“My son, Jeffery,” Spender introduces after shaking Mulder’s hand. Mulder turns, introducing Scully to the men. When her slim fingers make contact with the old and wrinkled hand, she tenses ever so slightly.

Dinner proceeds as a quiet affair. The men stick to comfortable subjects: stocks, the weather, Mulder attempts to bring up sports, specifically the Knicks, but neither Spender appears interested. Scully interjects every so often, feeling the strong need to help Mulder break the ice, so to speak, but mostly she sticks to eating the robust meal in front of her, although her nerves get the better of her more often than not.

“Look, Mr. Mulder,” the elder Spender unexpectedly utters, “I know you want to buy my company, and I know I spoke with your lawyers and told them it was a done deal. However, I have changed my mind.”

His voice is casual but steady. No-nonsense, as if he were talking about the sale of a used car and not a multi-billion dollar business. Mulder sets his fork down, intent on giving his complete attention to the matter at hand.

“I knew your father,” Spender states, catching Mulder off guard. Scully sees it, the slight clenching of Mulder’s jaw.

Recovering quickly, Mulder replies, “I didn’t know.”

“I was sorry to hear he passed away. I knew him for many years. We worked together once upon a time.” Mulder gives a slight nod. Pausing before speaking again, possibly pondering something profound, Spender pulls a pack of cigarettes out of his pocket and lights one flippantly.

“I don’t think you’re allowed to do that.” Scully looks around, realizing the chastising came from her own voicebox. Spender gives a snide smile but continues puffing away.

“Your father was a hard worker when push came to shove. He mentioned you from time to time. Hinted at the fact that you and I should work together one day. I feel as though that day has finally come. You can buy my company, Mr. Mulder, but I would like you along with it.”

Jeffery clears his throat in an attempt to corral his father. Spender senior steals a sideways glance and puts him in his place with one searing look.

“Excuse me,” Jeffery says, standing. Scully watches him walk away, presumably in the direction of the restrooms.

“You and I could make an extraordinary team, Fox,” Spender tells him, using his given name. Scully thinks he’s trying to pack more of a punch. Unsure of what to do, she sits quietly, her hands folded neatly in her lap, and stares at her fingers.

“Why me?” Mulder suddenly asks. “It seems like you have a protege in your son.”

“Jeffery’s a good boy, but he doesn’t have what it takes.”

“And I do? You’re being very evasive. Is it purposeful?”

“Yes and no. I like your focus on social commerce, Fox. You’re one of the most skilled entrepreneurs in this area. I think you would be a great asset,” he insists.

“What do you want to sell–” he starts, but is cut off by Jeffery’s return to the table.

“What did I miss?” Jeffery questions.

“Mr. Mulder is going to seriously consider joining our team,” Spender senior shares before Mulder can dispute the claims.

Scully, watching the scene unfold, sits back uncomfortably and she knows the evening cannot end soon enough.

“Well, Mr. Spender, you’ve certainly given me a lot to think about. I’ll be in touch.” Mulder states, effectively ending the conversation for the moment.

Waldorf Astoria

Penthouse

Mulder sits comfortably in a chair backed up against the patio wall. Scully, removing her shoes in favor of her bare feet, calls out to him, “What are you thinking?” She’s met with silence so she pokes her head outside the door. “You’re quiet,” she observes. She joins him on the patio, hoisting herself up to sit on the ledge.

“I’m usually good at reading people,” he tells her. “I can’t get one on him.”

“I had a lot of feelings,” she tells him. She spent the entire car ride back to the hotel replaying the evening in her head. Something was off. Something about the elder Spender reeks of unease.

“You can’t trust him,” she says, flatly.

“I don’t have a reason not to,” he tells her. She casts her eyes downward and Mulder softens slightly. “I’ve been working on this deal for almost six months, Scully.”

“I get it,” she expresses after a minute. “You can’t make it personal. It’s like me and the no kissing. It’s why I have that rule; it’s too personal. When I’m with a guy I compartmentalize. I’m like a robot. I just do it,” she tells him, realizing a second too late that she had, in fact, had sex with him the previous evening. She looks down for a second, cheeks tinged with pink. Then looking up at him she corrects herself, “Well, not with you.”

Mulder smiles and waves his hand gently, stating, “Of course not.” Scully smiles back at him. Mulder, remembering the previous evening, comments, “So the whole no orgasm thing…”

Scully looks at him, slightly shocked by his brazenness. He’s waiting for her to elaborate.

“It’s simple, actually,” she explains. “Sex for men and women is different. For men it’s physical. For women, it’s emotional. They’re johns: guys I pick up who pay me. I will not, cannot, become emotionally invested.” She turns her head sideways, taking in the view.

They are both quiet for a moment. Mulder, still seated, is lost in his own thoughts when Scully suddenly announces, “I’m sorry about your dad.” Mulder looks at her, giving her a slight nod of acknowledgment. “Were you close with him?” she questions. Mulder stares past her, pondering the question.

“I hadn’t seen him in a really long time. We weren’t close. I wasn’t there when he died,” he confesses. Scully looks at him, this smart, capable, kind, and apparently sensitive man. She wants to wrap him in a hug and never let go. She understands a thing or two about pain, about losing a parent. She hops off the ledge, walks to him, and bends down so she is at eye level with him.

“How about we veg out in front of the TV tonight? Stuff our faces with ice cream and watch old movies?” she suggests. Mulder stands and moves towards the balcony door and Scully moves to follow him.

He stops, gently touching her chin, and says, “I’ll be back in a little while. We can do that tomorrow night.” He walks in from the balcony without another word.

She follows, watching him go to the front door and leave.

Hotel Lobby

3:00 am

Scully, dressed in the white terrycloth robe, face scrubbed free of makeup, exits the elevator. Her eyes roam the deserted lobby of the hotel. After Mulder left she had changed out of her dress, washed her face, and watched TV for the better part of three hours. Understanding his need to be alone, she wrestled with herself on whether to go after him or not, finally settling on tracking him down.

She hears the sound of soft piano music drifting from the ballroom. Wandering over, she pokes her head through the door and takes in the sight. The hotel staff is cleaning, organizing, and moving tables and chairs. There is a man sweeping behind the bar. Mulder is sitting at the piano, playing a song Scully doesn’t know, but she is in awe of his talent. She drifts over to him, staying out of sight behind him, not saying anything for fear he will stop. Mulder continues to play, finishing out the song. The staff around them applaud and Scully clears her throat, making herself known.

Mulder turns to see her and smiles. “I only play piano for strangers,” he informs her.

She walks around him and leans against the piano as she counters, “It was beautiful.” After a pause, she declares, “I was getting lonely.” His eyes meet hers, understanding both meanings of her words.

Mulder turns towards the employees and instructs kindly, “Gentlemen, would you please leave us.” Scully looks on as the men begin dispersing. She pushes herself away from the side of the piano. Mulder is still seated on the piano bench. She moves to stand in the small space between him and the keys.

“Do people always do what you tell them to?” she asks, though they both know it’s a rhetorical question.

Mulder reaches up and grabs her around the waist, pulling her towards him. “I guess so,” she whispers seductively.

Mulder confidently picks her up and places her on the grand piano, her feet hitting multiple keys, the sounds not nearly as pleasant as Mulder’s smooth playing. He steps into the space between her thighs, his hands on her waist and his mouth hovering over hers, tempting her to break her own rule. Their breathing speeds up.

The room is so quiet Scully swears Mulder can hear the pounding in her chest.

He parts the robe to reveal a black negligee, sliding it up to expose her belly. He leans over and kisses her stomach, and Scully lets out a breath she didn’t know she was holding. She feels herself being gently pushed down, laying against the smooth wood of the piano top. Mulder nips, licks, and glides his tongue over her toned stomach. He spends time moving his tongue in, out, and around her belly button, paying special attention to the hoop that pierces it.

Scully breathes in sharply. It has been a very long time since someone bestowed her with this type of regard.

Satisfied with her stomach for the moment, he moves his mouth lower as his hands run over her thighs, reaching around to where the back of her legs connect to her ass. Knowing where he’s headed, Scully sits up on her elbows, breathing heavily. “Mulder, you don’t need to. I’m supposed to be taking care of you,” she tells him breathlessly. It’s not that she doesn’t love having a man’s lips on her, but he is paying her, and this shouldn’t be happening.

Mulder pauses and looks up at her, his eyes pleading in a strange way. “Please let me, Scully,” he requests, almost begging. At that moment she knows she can’t deny him anything.

She gives a little nod and he moves his mouth back to the top of her panties. He breathes out, his breath hot against her sex. His fingers slide over the creases of her thighs and slip into her now-drenched panties. He gently pulls them down and off her, discarding them on the floor next to the piano. His mouth descends upon her, and at the contact, she yelps softly. He begins licking up and down her slick folds, combining his wet mouth with her slick juices. He tongues her in a rhythmic motion, up and down, occasionally slipping his tongue into her.

“Oh,” she mewls. The sounds she’s making tonight are a stark contrast to what came out of her mouth the previous evening. After a few minutes of Mulder gliding up and down and back and forth he takes her clit between his lips and sucks.

“Oh my!” she shouts unexpectedly. Needing something to do with her hands, she tries grasping downward but only makes contact with the smooth surface of the piano. Instead, she finds part of her robe and clasps it tightly. It seems like forever that he is doing this.

Up, down, side, back, suck, nip, tongue. She begins writhing under his mouth, so close to the brink, unsure if she should let herself take the plunge.

Deep down she knows that in about thirty seconds or so, she won’t have much of a choice.

“Oh Jesus, Mulder,” a needy whimper escapes her mouth. This spurs Mulder on, willing to do anything to take her over the edge. Mulder takes one hand off her thigh, lowers it, and pushes a finger into her slowly, then adds another. He roughly moves in and out of her a handful of times and suddenly she is flying, not holding back. “Holy hell, oh my god, Mulder,” she cries, shuddering.

He keeps up his motions, though he slows them considerably until she comes down from her high. He withdraws his fingers, looking her in the eye as he brings them to his lips and licks them clean. Scully’s chest is heaving, her forearm draped over her forehead. He begins kissing back up her stomach, over her chest, and to her throat, sucking desperately on her neck.

Scully’s head is swimming. She cannot believe the feelings she’s experiencing. It feels backward and selfish; she should be pleasing him. She shakes the thought from her head as Mulder does amazing things with his mouth.

Mulder, giving her a minute to catch her breath, unbuttons his shirt, leaving it on but open. He then unbuttons his pants and pulls them down slowly, watching Scully intently as he does. He pulls a condom out of his pants pocket and rolls it onto his manhood.

Mulder pulls her onto his lap as he sits on the piano bench. Scully slides down on his engorged sex and he lets out a guttural moan. Placing her hands on his shoulders, Scully starts gliding up and down, moving her head in closer to gain access to Mulder’s neck. She begins nipping and licking. Mulder, meeting her thrusts, grips her hips tightly. He so badly wants to hear Scully shout his name again. Licking his finger, he maneuvers it between their bodies, hitting the jackpot when he hears her shriek.

She turns his head so she can reach his ear. She sucks on his earlobe before insistently hissing in his ear, “Yes Mulder, yes, just like that. Make me come again.”

“Fuck, Scully,” he manages to choke out. With one more swipe over her clit, she is coming again, this time pulling at the short strands of hair at the nape of Mulder’s neck. An instant later he erupts into her, calling out her name and any god who might be listening.

Leaning into him, soaked with sweat, she smiles into his neck. He made her feel all the feelings, and it had been a long time since someone did that.

“Is it just me,” Mulder gasps, attempting to slow his breathing, “or are we exceptionally good at that?”

Scully picks her head up and lets out a laugh, shaking her head. “You know what Mulder, it’s not just you.”

“Well,” Mulder states suggestively, “what do you think about taking this party up to the room and maybe working up to round two?”

Scully gives him a flirtatious smile and replies with a wink, “I think that’s the second-best idea you’ve had all evening.”

Required Reading.

A long, rasping breath is what draws him from his slumber; sleep had filled most of his suns as for late, dipping between consciousness and not as Eir recovered from his wounds. At the very least, whoever had taken him from the infirmary had opted to leave him sprawled out on his back.

Immediately, he knows he’s in a different room.

He tests the floor with his fingertips, tracing his hands through... Sand? It caught beneath his nails to some discomfort, coarse and unpleasant and yet held some uncomfortable moisture he tried not to dwell on. Where was he now?

He reluctantly opens his eyes with a groan, previously squeezed shut with the dull thrum of pain that danced in his back. Blurred vision begins to pick out shape and shadow, the tall form of a Viera immediately widening his grin, glimmers of green and gold at his eyes.

The sound that fled Eir’s lips is an immediate scream; no moment to process or freeze in fear, he begins to retreat against the wall despite his pain as Vairg merely takes two steps forth in a heavy, plodding pace, the sound of his trademark metal boots crunching through the sand.

Eir’s back meets cold stone, and he can move no further. Flinching, eyes slammed shut and heard turned to the side, the breaths that now ragged his lungs exhaled a whimper with each one... But nothing else came.

“I haven’t even laid a finger on you.” Vairg’s words are mocking, and a clear point of pride. Eir’s hands quickly shift to his ribs in a bid to protect them, but Vairg opts for something different; to press the cold toes of his boots against Eir’s shinbone with some unnerving delicateness. A cry strangles itself in Eir’s throat, tears already ready to fall; he dare not bring them up to meet Vairg’s own, not even for a moment.

“...And i won’t. They’re frightened i might... Break you, delicate that you are. But i have other ways of finding my entertainment.”

Eir watches the shadow. Watches Vairg’s feet, as they release him and take a few steps back. The sound of paper is rustled; a wad of documents by the look of the silhouette beneath him, which is quickly tossed towards him.

“Read.”

Eir swallows the lump that had swelled in his throat, slowly reaching for the papers with a trembling hand. Managing to gather them, he brings them up close enough to his eyes to read through the blur that threatened them.

Name: X’llaya Aoki Gender: Female Race: Miqo’te / Seeker of the Sun Place of birth: Thanalan, among the X tribe. Date of birth: 7S-1AM-1560/6AE Date of retrieval: 23S-3UM-1564/6AE Age of retrieval: Four cycles old.

Eir quietly gasps, enough to still his tears for the moment. A tiny picture is clipped to the page, which he regards by gently brushing his thumb over the image. A small Miqo’te child with red hair and mismatched eyes, who lacks the joy every girl her age should have posessed.

Sayuri.

Vairg’s brows loft, head tilted in Eir’s direction as some quiet instruction for him to continue. He does.

23S-3UM-1564/6AE

X’llaya was retrieved by Z’quohn and Ketenblaet this sun. She has proven difficult to deal with both in terms of personality and aetheric instability - fighting back and wounding both retrievers during the journey back to the compound. Despite being vicious and hostile, the Boss successfully made her docile by the usage of intimidation and making a show of intending to crush her beneath his palm, allowing her to be relocated to S.C.II - which we set aside for her after X’aoki’s initial contact. 

Caution is advised when dealing with her.

N.Latoloix

Eir’s expression falls to something darker. As every ilm of hope was quickly hollowed out of his chest, it is a mute kind of suffering he allows himself to feel, though the tears had already begun to stream down his cheeks. Why didn’t they want her? He knew the answer, she’d told him herself so many Moons ago in his room, in their room. He could have never done this to Lilya. Never. His eyes trace over the next few entries, a stone of grief slowly setting in his stomach.

Throughout it all, Vairg never removes his gaze from Eir’s features, which slowly contorted with horror.

9S-6UM-1564/6AE

Solitary confinement appears to be taking its toll upon X’llaya. She is frequently found covered in ice and teary-eyed, refusing to share the reasons why. 

Assumption: Having been born in a tribe, even if largely unwanted by them, X’llaya finds comfort among larger crowds. 

Suggestion: Continue solitary confinement.

N.Latoloix

How long had she been alone? Eir felt the words in his throat, but said nothing. Tears slowly spilled down his cheeks, in some understanding. He knew she never liked to be alone, and had some indication of the reason why, but having it set out so plainly...

He glances up, to catch Vairg’s gaze, and it darts right back to the papers.

10S-1UM-1565/6AE

The Boss took it upon himself to visit X'llaya. The girl denies being afraid, despite very clearly trying to keep her distance from him with fear in her movements. X’llaya was brought to tears upon being reminded she was discarded, and is unwanted and unloved by her family. The Boss opted to strangle the girl when she demanded he went away, reminding her that he owns her and that she is merely considered property. She was given the options to submit or to continue being difficult, and be treated thereafter. She chose the latter.

With Arnkel now cleared by Eanwin, X’llaya’s punishment is scheduled to be delivered in the coming sun - where she is to be collared and whipped.

N.Latoloix

Eir’s hand holds fast to the paperwork tightly enough to crinkle it, fighting the sound he would have surely made in the pit of his throat if he were to let himself.

Unwanted. Unloved.

She was anything but, to him. That people could have ever considered her as such sets an anger that he keeps to a quiet simmer in fear of present company. He turns the page, taking another deep breath that leaves with a waver, fearful of what was to come next.

7S-1AM-1566/6AE

It is X’llaya’s nameday, she turns six cycles old. After a sennight of timidness, she has once again started becoming hostile - serving as enough of a reason to warrant a visit from the Boss. Her aether lashed out violently, to which the Boss opted to merely bat her aside and slam her into a wall. X’llaya was strangled to the point of nearly fainting, before she was released and dropped to the floor. The Boss took a moment to remind X’llaya of her place before taking his leave.

N.Latoloix

Her namesday. The realisation hits Eir with a weight he’d unexpected, a small ‘Oh..’ from his lips as Vairg’s brow lofted in quiet amusement. He wouldn’t disturb his reading, no. But at the very least, he’d slowly opted to move towards the door of the room.

Sayuri had never known her namesday, nor her age. Eir had known this; it was something he learned early, and yet still needed the occasional reminder of. A quiet moment sees him fight through the numbers, and think.

The Seventh Sun of the First Astral Moon. Sayuri is twenty-seven cycles old.

It’s a bitter thought to him, that they never celebrated. But how was he to know?

He knew now at least why she’d had such difficulty recalling her age. He’d been in here... How long, now? More than a moon? Two? After a sennight or two suns had begun to blend into eachother, and he could only imagine how disorientating it would become after cycles spent in this prison.

Against his better judgement, he continues to read. His brow slowly creases, as the handwriting becomes suddenly unfamilliar to him.

20S-3UM-1566/6AE

X’llaya has been transferred into my care, and will hereon be referred to by “Kitten” in the reports written by me.

As promised, I paid her a visit and found her cowering in a corner as far away from the door as she could possibly place herself - whimpering and trembling with fear the moment she realised it was me.

She is terrified, and won’t even imply she isn’t right now - I believe she is still in some amount of shock from yestersun.

Sorry to say for my dear Kitten.. She is yet to receive her punishment for what she did to Z’quohn.. But would it be best to let her recover a touch before I do anything, or should I begin immediately?

I will consult with Lumir to ensure I get the wanted reaction.

G.Maetisathsyn

A long inhale is given through Eir’s nose, though it does nothing to stop the tears. He can just about make out the name at the bottom, and in so doing, it brings him to a standstill.

It would get worse. Only so much worse from here.

A sob chokes through his lips, and he hangs his head, framed by bloodied and matted hair. The only comfort he found was in the departure of Vairg’s footfalls, which saw him leave the room, locking the door behind him.

And the sound of a chair being dragged to sit against the wall, where he’d surely remain to listen.

The Importance Of Visual Arts Activities In Early Childhood Development

Of all the different forms of learning, visual arts education perhaps is the most preferred and effective way for children to use and express what they understand about their world. Studies indicate that once children learn to draw, sketch and scribble they will be able to try and tell you what is happening inside their minds in a language you will be able to understand. Especially when they have difficulty finding the right words to express what they’re feeling deep within.

This is why it is critical for parents to start nurturing visual arts activities at home to trigger early childhood development in an organized manner. To begin with, the benefits realized by toddlers and preschoolers will include the strengthening of their fine & gross motor skills, accelerated neural network strengthening, acquiring problem-solving skills, and improved concentration levels.

Art classes for kids at an early age will also play a major role in laying a solid foundation in acquiring other key learning skills such as reading, writing and being able to understand their world more clearly.

In addition to helping children express, process and understand their emotions, child psychologists are of the view that visual arts education develops self-esteem and increases confidence. By creating opportunities to explore and discover, you will set children free to experience a wider range of sensory information which in turn aids in long-term development.

Children love creative play

Children are born curious and there is nothing quite like play to widen their horizons. As you are aware, even from the time they are in a cradle, babies begin to explore, observe and imitate, trying to figure out how things operate and how to control themselves and their environment around them.

This naturally unrestricted opportunity for exploration and movement helps children form real-time neural connections in their brains. As they grow and gain control of their limbs, they are up and about physically checking out everything they get to see how to interact and see how best to manage what is essentially a strange new world they are living in.

Adopting visual arts in early childhood education will help support free play by giving children the opportunities to manipulate different materials in a safe, organic and unstructured way allowing experimentation to take place. These instinctive pursuits and self-directed activities will not only be fun for children but aid all-around growth as well.

Direct benefits of painting & drawing

Realizing the importance of visual arts in education does not mean that you would be limiting your child’s future career options or are training him to be a painter, far from it. Your child will gain critical tools that will help her to unlock the many of her inherent capabilities which she might miss out on otherwise — exploring, discovering and developing skills in ways other activities just cannot do!

Tuning up motor skills

Grasping pencils, crayons, chalk and paintbrushes helps children develop their fine motor muscles. When they begin to enlarge the space they are working on and magnify their drawings, they experience movements. The physical movement of their hands, arms and feet helps your child with writing, buttoning a coat and other daily tasks that require controlled movements.

Cognitive development

Art can help children learn and practice skills like patterning and experience cause and effects (i.e., “when I press my crayon harder I can make colours darker”. While busy playing, your child will get to learn and practice critical thinking skills, making mental plans, imagine images of what they intend to create and how best to follow through with their plans.

Math skills

Children can learn, create and begin to understand concepts like size, shapes, make comparisons, and develop spatial reasoning. Visual arts centre  is perhaps the most efficient place where children will get to learn about numbers which are essential for developing a clear understanding as they come face-to-face with mathematical concepts and their application across learning areas. Visual Arts Activities inform problem-solving and the construction and design of objects in the physical and the digital world.

Language skills

Through visual arts education, children are encouraged to describe and share their artwork, as well as the processes they instinctively follow and develop language skills. Through Visual Arts Activities, you can motivate your child to develop faster by actively listening and asking open-ended questions. It is also a great opportunity for your child to learn new vocabulary words from the projects she works on.

Nurturing the five senses

We have all heard of the five senses of perception: taste, sight, touch, smell, and sound. What we may not be aware of is the presence of a sixth sense called ‘proprioception’. This sense helps a child make correct judgements on the position of an object in space, manipulate the object by controlling the movement of limbs, sense the extent of muscle force and effort required to perform a task, and most importantly, maintain a sense of physical balance.

There are many benefits your child will realize when she actively engages in art classes for kids. Here are four of the fundamentals that enable your child to function effectively and efficiently as she grows up:

Help your child develop physically

Art and craft activities at a Visual arts centre help support and develop fine &  gross motor skills and improve a child’s hand and eye coordination. Bear in mind, there children are spending more and more of their time interacting with digital devices, which means, sooner than later, your toddler’s time will be devoted to viewing screens by default!

If not corrected at an early stage, your child may have fewer opportunities to develop her hand and finger strength. This could slow her ability to complete everyday tasks on her own — dressing by herself, tying a shoelace, catching and throwing a ball, writing, brushing her teeth, bathing… the list is endless.

Help your child manage emotions

Being able to express how one feels is a big advantage when you are a little child. Doing it with clarity is difficult even for some adults. Your child may be experiencing new feelings and does not know what these feelings are. A visual arts centre allows your child to bring these feelings out into the open, and will be helping her make sense of and understand these deeply felt feelings.  This also helps build self-confidence in your child to efficiently manage her feelings and emotions.

Visual arts centre activities that help to describe different emotions and situations: role-playing, storytelling, drawing, modelling and painting.

Help your child master social skills

The fundamental understanding that other people are different from us is a big leap in learning for children. Creative art activities that your child will be involved in at a visual arts centre help demonstrate to your child that her peers will do things differently from herself, even when given the same resources. It also helps your child to reconcile quickly that it is OK to be different from others.

Play activities at a visual arts centre are a great way to help build friendships and strengthen bonds between you and your child as well as with her friends. Visual arts centre activities that help develop social skills: singing, dancing, acting, drawing, creating models, and nature walks are all great ways to help friendship and bonding.

Help your child increase IQ

Creative art activities at a visual arts centre help your child to develop many thinking skills. As stated earlier, these skills include problem-solving, developing imagination, concentration and critical thinking skills. By playing with different materials and tools, and discovering new concepts and techniques, your child will be able to comprehend basic mathematics and science concepts and develop her own ideas.

By practising these skills during the early years of her life, your child will be able to adapt and transfer these crucial skills to other curriculum areas as she gets older.

Your child’s wellbeing

Everyone is getting busier and busier these days, and a child’s life is incredibly busy too. Switching from one activity to another also puts a child under increasing pressure as she tries to cope and be good at everything.

So it will be of great help to your child if you set aside a fixed time every day. Where you decide to be led by your child, to be playful and have fun together. No goals to meet, no hidden agendas, and never a waste of your precious time.

Being in the moment, enjoying the time together and giving your child your total attention is the best way of getting to know your child, bonding with her, and cherishing those shared experiences. Wonderful memories that will stay with you forever.

The fundamental purpose of visual arts activities at a visual arts centre is to inspire, instruct and support the pursuit of knowledge and not stifle it. Hence it is worth reminding, that learning is not driven by fear but by the desire to play!

About Abrakadoodle

This is the kind of Process Art learning experience that inspire children to think different, be innovative, and devise ways that teach them interesting ways to learn and interact with things found in the real world. Changing the way they discover and imagine. Igniting their minds to think, play and learn like never before.

If you like to enrol your child in our visual art classes or participate in cognitive learning activities, give Abrakadoodle a call. Or better still, make an appointment with the head of a centre near you.

Get hands-on trial exposure to an experience that will make you see Visual Arts Activities as a way that adds value to a child’s life.

Please note: Abrakadoodle classrooms are thoroughly sanitized every day — the tables, the chairs, the children’s activity stations and everything else the child might touch is made safe and clean. They also wear a mask, wash their hands frequently, and practice social distancing.

This post originally published at Abrakadoodle Blog.

You probably know this by now, I don't know if you keep up with Whumptober, but one of the prompts this year includes "blindness". I'm not blind but based on your posts about writing blind characters, and based on how I would feel if one of my disabilities were used as a whump prompt, I'm not super comfortable with it. I was wondering what your thoughts are on blindness being a Whumptober prompt.

(unironically and with feeling) thanks, I hate it.

Yes, I’m familiar with Whumptober, but I’ve never participated myself and I haven’t seen this year’s prompts.

Edit: I later did see the prompts and check out the blog. I think it's a good set of prompts and I look forward to all the promising content, especially since some of my favorite tropes are there. To be clear before you read this, I have no problem with Whumptober2021 or whump in general. This is not the first time blindness has been included for a list of whump prompts, and it won't be the last.

This post directed at the concept of "blindness" as a whump prompt and why I think it's a bad idea. The intended audience is individual writers thinking about future projects.

The timing of this is almost too perfect because I read a fanfic earlier this week that would meet that prompt exactly. Tags included whump, blindness, and angst with a happy ending. Now whump, hurt/comfort, and angst with a happy ending are tags I enjoy reading, but blindness as whump has a specific message to it.

To explain that message, I want to discuss what whump is. Many readers are already familiar with the genre, but I think taking the specific definitions and picking apart what it means and what expectations we carry when reading whump fanfiction

Urban Dictionary defines it as: taking a character and putting them through physical and/or mental torment and is typically followed by the same character being treated for their traumas. To indicate the characters place in the situation they’d typically be called a whumpee (the character being hurt/comforted), the whumper (the character that causes harm and trauma), and the caretaker (the character designated the helping/healing/comforting the whumpee).

Fanlore has a page for whump that explains it in depth, including where it started in fanfiction, examples of whump, and even a list of “popular targets” in different fandoms. (Warning: you might find yourself called out on the popular targets list)

“The term whump (or whumping) generally refers to a form of Hurt/Comfort that is heavy on the hurt and is often found in gen stories. The exact definition varies and has evolved over time. Essentially, whump involves taking a canon character, and placing them in physically painful or psychologically-damaging scenarios. Often this character is a fan favorite…”

To add to that, I think an important detail is the distinction Fanlore makes between hurt/comfort and whump:

“While some communities and fandoms may use whump as a synonym for hurt/comfort, there is still a recognition that whump refers to darker and more extreme scenarios. And there are still whump fics been written that have very little, or no comfort at the end of the story.”

The big appeal of hurt/comfort is getting to both explore the darker sides of pain and then experience the catharsis of being taken care of, of being supported by your loved ones as you recover from the trauma. The character is the proxy for experiencing those highs and lows while you yourself are safe at home.

I personally don’t read much/any whump without some h/c involved, but I’m happy there are stories out there for people who do enjoy it. I’m not here to judge what you like reading or what you do to your characters.

What I want is to express how blindness, my disability, used as a whump prompt personally makes me feel and what message it sends to me, to others, and how that message affects my daily life.

Whump undeniably involves watching a character suffer through something painful and traumatic.

My use of the word “suffer” is what I want you to focus on.

Vision loss can be painful and traumatic. I personally developed an anxiety disorder in response to vision loss. Others experience depression. For some it might result in relapsing into old, maladaptive coping mechanisms like drug use, self harm, or eating disorders.

A big part of my anxiety was how people reacted to my vision loss. It was a cause of their stress. They were worried because they genuinely believed I would never live a happy life without normal vision, and that my life would only be struggle and pain.

I recently saw an old friend who hadn’t heard about my vision loss. The conversation was awkward, but the worst part was how they reacted as though I had experienced an insurmountable tragedy. And even when I assured them I’m happy with my life, they clearly didn’t believe me. They acted like I was just lying or in denial.

I love that people want to empathize with my situation and ask themselves what they would do in my situation, but I hate when the conclusion they come to is something along the lines of “I could never do that, I’d be too miserable thinking about everything I lost, I’d never be able to do anything I enjoyed ever again.” But I did go blind. And I’m not miserable, I’m actually happy with the direction my life is going, and I still enjoy my hobbies, even if I engage with them differently.

I’m not suffering. My life didn’t end with vision loss. It’s not ruined, broken, or worthless.

I read a fanfic that was tagged with whump, blindness, and angst with a happy ending. A general synopsis of the plot: the whumpee had gone blind due to a curse. It was true love’s kiss that broke the curse. Even from the summary I knew it was going to end with whumpee being cured somehow and that I’d leave that fanfic vaguely dissatisfied no matter how good the rest of the fanfic was.

I can say this for the fanfic: the whumpee had already accepted that they would likely be blind for the rest of their life, but everyone around them was treating it as a tragedy that needed to be fixed, working tirelessly for a cure despite the whumpee’s protests that they didn’t have to.

It actually hit home to my personal experience.

I still left it dissatisfied with the ending. I might love curse fics in that fandom, and I love the “true love’s kiss” trope, but it wasn’t enough to distract me from the fact that: an actual person out in the world thought the best happy ending, maybe the only happy ending, would be if the character got their sight back.

(note: I clicked kudos and exited out of the story's page because no fanfic writer deserves unsolicited critique or hate, especially for content I consumed for free and at my own volition.)

Why read a story I knew would disappoint me?

Because blindness representation is so damn rare that I feel like I’m wandering in a desert, dying from thirst and desperate for that oasis. But sometimes that oasis is a mirage and the author is unintentionally telling you that your life is actually awful and you’ll never be fully happy like this. And that is a shit mentality to walk through life with.

I don’t appreciate blindness being a whump plot. I hate it. Hundreds (thousands?) of fanfictions featuring blind characters are about to enter the internet and the overall message is going to be “You poor thing! You must be in so much pain, you must be miserable! Who’s going to save you? Who’s going to comfort you? Wouldn’t it be terrible if there was no one in your life to take care of you? You poor helpless thing!”

And I feel objectified. I feel trivialized. The mirage in the desert is going to become a starch, empty room filled with dozens of water bottles, almost all of them poisoned. My representation is going to hurt me personally, and it’s going to reinforce that idea strangers have about how awful my life must be.

(I returned to school this past month, and every day I’m hesitant to tell someone I’m visually impaired because I don’t want to be treated differently. If I’ve managed to pass as sighted this whole time and then suddenly reveal “oh yeah, I’m visually impaired” I feel this instant silence, this pause of awkwardness as people suddenly question how they’re supposed to treat me. They treated me like a person, and now I’m something strange and unfamiliar.)

I’ve worked so hard to improve representation for blind people, to give internet strangers the exposure to a blind person they need to normalize blindness because I hope that if they’re ever so lucky as to meet a blind person, they’ll treat that person with respect. That hope that another person in the blind community will find a friend they feel comfortable and accepted with. I hope that I’ll meet people who accept my blindness as just another aspect of me (like being bisexual or gender fluid or a writer or a cat lover).

Please don’t turn me and my community into a caricature. Don’t erase everything I’ve worked for with this blog.

To be clear, this is not just me saying "I hate the cure trope" again. This is me saying "the purpose of whump is to painfully hurt your favorite character, and I hate that your idea of pain and suffering is my daily (wonderful) life."

sun in the shadows (08)

word count; 12,516

summary; noah does his best to fit in, and it doesn’t quite go as planned, but that’s okay.

notes; it’s finally happening.

warnings; noah is a bit of a jerk, but it’s over pretty quickly.

The sun was out again, the grass was filled with people, and it seems that they had gained the good luck you had missed. This sun was bringing warmth, a radical change from only a  week ago, as your sundress today was entirely fitting. With hair clipped back away from your shoulders to keep cool and sunscreen on your bare skin to stop yourself from burning, you were soaking up the rays.

The group you were gathered with had been lucky enough to snag a table to sit out at, blankets laid out and pinned down in the light breeze by picnic blankets, shoes and rocks for those who hadn't made it to a table in time, and you didn’t envy them at all. Despite the warmth, the grass was still a little damp, mud still tar-like as it moved toward drying out, and yet the space was still heaving. It mildly resembled that of a festival or a beach on the Fourth of July.

Leaning back a little, your face tipped up to the sky, the chatter of your friends surrounding you drowning out as warmth washed over your face, lids closed but barely doing anything to block out the light, and you smiled. You loved the summer, always had, it was your favourite season. Something about the warmth, the longer nights and the smoky smell that came with barbecues or the salt of the ocean at the beach. As you sat, face directed to the sky, the sun was suddenly blocked, a cooler air falling over you, and your frowned, cracking your eyes open to see what had happened.

“Noah, hi.” You beamed, sitting up properly to turn around, and the man nodding his head, a hint of a smile on his face. A pair of dark black sunglasses were sitting on his nose, a pretty contrast to dark hair and darker denim jeans, a charcoal t-shirt on his shoulders, but there was no jacket. His bag was slung over one shoulder, and as his presence was made known, several others around the table greeted him, too. He seemed to have a warmer reaction to them, a wonderful smile as he offered his greetings, and your brows furrowed a little.

You ignored the action, despite its unfamiliarity with you. He was treating you once again like he had done months ago, when first getting to know you, a time when there was no trust built between you both. Taking a seat beside you at the table, you only just had a chance to move your skirt out of the way before he was sitting down. Swinging his bag over to the side, you waited for him to say anything else, his hands sitting atop the table as his forearms leaned on the wood, and your frown was only deepening.

Running a finger along his forearm, his face turned to you, brows rising up from behind the glasses, and a smirk on his face.

“You okay, there?” He teased, your eyes narrowing on him just a little, and his arm flexed slightly under your touch, before he was pulling his arm away from you, and the smirk on his face widened. “What? There’s something going on up there, so you might as well spill it.”

“Nothing, I guess.” Your words were mumbled out, and he only nodded, not bothering to wait for a second longer, before he was turning back to the conversation. Something within your stomach twisted. Confusion at his behaviour, uncertainty whether it was something you had done, or whether this was simply who he was when he didn’t let his anxiety get in the way. “I just thought I wasn’t seeing you until later, is all?”

“I thought I’d join you for lunch. Is that so bad?” He was grinning again, a more cocky smile than you were used to seeing from him, and on the few occasions you had seen it, it was never in a setting like this. “I thought you wanted me to get out there, make friends. Is it because I’m not all yours anymore?”

A couple of the other boys around the tables chuckled, various girlfriends and partners slapping at their arms in retaliation for the joke about being controlling, and your lips pursed into a thin line. “No. I just wasn’t expecting you, is all.”

He seemed a little taken aback by your shorter tone with him, one of your brows raising slightly in a challenge to his behaviour. Taking his glasses from the tip of his nose, he folded them in the middle, tucking them into his shirt, to rest on his colour. Sweet brown eyes were searching your own, and you shrugged a little. His smirk lessened, becoming a slight frown, and for a moment, you thought he was going to leave behind whatever it was that was wrong and let you in, but then, he was stolen away into a conversation.

Just a brief mention of his name was all that it took, and his focus was moving away from you entirely. You were glad that he had made more friends, you really were. You’d been working hard to try and introduce him to new people in a way that wouldn't spark his anxiety. Run-ins on walks the two of you shared, people you bumped into while out getting coffee or simply introducing him to someone you knew that you thought he’d get along with.

You’d seen Noah every single day for the last week, there hadn't been a moment that wen toast that the two of you hadn't been in contact, whether in person or via text. For as many days as you could count now, he was the last person you’d spoken to before going to bed, and the first person you had spoken to when waking up in the morning. He was the person who made you laugh when you were stressed, and the man who sent you recipes when you didn’t know what to cook. He was the person who sat by your side doodling on the tops of your work pages while you tried to get some studying done, before eventually distracting you enough to give up.

You couldn’t place anything you’d done wrong. The last time you’d seen him had been the afternoon before, when you’d gotten a coffee together and walked around campus, and you’d spoken to him only an hour or so ago. His behaviour made no sense to you, it was unprompted and without reason, and it was leaving the feeling of a put welling in your stomach.

The thought of it being some kind of reverse attempt at soothing his anxiety flittered over your mind, and so in an attempt to test the theory, you leaned over. Shuffling up close to his side, your arm looped through his, and he paused his speech for just a second. He’d been talking to the boy across from you both, telling them all about the renovation work he’d spent a summer doing with his dad on the house, and he turned to look at you.

You weren’t sure what you were expecting. Maybe for his arm to tighten around yours, to pull you in a little closer. A smile, a kiss to your forehead, something softer than the look you got with an arrogant smirk that made you feel like you were locked out from him, and when he turned back to continue the conversation without any of the options that had run through your head, your discomfort only increased.

Your arm sagged against his, his arm flexing for a second a spike of hope raced through you. But, he was simply shifting, his arm moving away from yours in a way that made you shuffle backwards. Reaching into his pocket, he produced his phone, laughing slightly at a joke that you hadn't caught from someone else around the table, and you pulled your hand back into your lap instead of placing it back through his arm.

Everything about it made you uncomfortable. The wondering, the insecurity, the fear of having done something wrong and forced him back into his shell with you. It was enough to make you feel sick to your stomach, and despite your lingering gaze on him for minutes now, he never turned to you. Checking your phone, the afternoon was tickling on. Your lunch was passed finished, your afternoon wide open with nothing else to do, as it seemed all plans with Noah seemed to have fallen through with his new personality.

You weren’t sure what had gotten into him, the new attitude was like that of half of your exes, or your friends and the people who were around you. You didn’t mind it so much on them, of course, it would the attitude that they would greet you with, because there was nothing deeper between you with them. Every friendship you had was teasing, there was nothing that merited anymore more. With them, your physical contact was limited to that of greetings and goodbyes, hugs and the occasional kiss to the cheek.

With Noah, though, you’d felt like something was different.

You’d felt like perhaps there was something more between you both, something a little beyond simple friendship. Something flirty, the kind of sweet-like-honey feeling that made you get butterflies and have your cheeks ache from smiling, or your eyes sore from staying up late, staring at a screen in the dark just to talk to him.

Clearly, that wasn’t how he felt, too.

You tried to join the conversation, to talk to the girls around you as the men were all sucked into a chat that you evidently weren’t intended to be a part of. You could keep up for a while offering your input on everything they talked about. You liked that about the girls you were friends with, they were easy to skip between topics, moving from one thing to another with ease, and sharing gossip that they had heard.

For a while, it made you feel better, a little more comforted and a little less alone, but despite his presence right next to your side, the warmth from his body and the brief brushes of his shoulder with yours when he moved, but it only made you feel more lonely. You felt shut out, as though the cold wall that you had spent so long breaking down had shot right back up, twice as thick. You couldn't take it anymore.

Packing away your books into your bag, you stood from the table, several pairs of eyes moving to you as you stood, and you offered them all the best smile that you could muster at that moment. Once they were all sealed away, you placed your bag up on your shoulder, and your hands met the wood. Leaning over slightly, the conversation went quiet as you became the centre of attention.

“Sorry to break this up, but I got to go.” Several soft complaints came, attempts to convince you to stay, and you smiled at the effort that at least some of your friends were making. “If anything exciting happens, text me.”

“You sure you don’t want to stay? I was just thinking we should go and get some coffee, or something.”

Laurel was staring up at you expectantly, her eyes a little wider and you sighed, shaking your head. As much as you’d loved to, the bad mood you had gained from Noah’s new attitude was bringing down your social battery, and you weren’t sure how much longer you’d last. “I would, but I have some studying to do, and a couple of other things. I’ll catch up with you later, though, alright?”

There were some goodbyes, and even a hug from the girl beside you, before you were beginning to trail away from them. The chatter around the table was quickly replaced by the groups you began to weave through, a polite smile on your face to everyone you passed by as you tried not to encourage any more conversations. By the time you were reaching the edge of the grass and moving to the concrete, the heavy footfalls of another person moving slightly faster than you were catching you up.

A hand on your shoulder, pulling you lightly to a stop, and as you turned around, you yes scanned up to find the face of a man you were familiar with as your instinct kicked in, accustomed to his height by now. “Where you goin’?” He questioned, panting a little from the effort he’d exerted to catch up with you, and you tried not to scowl at him as he stared.

His face was softer now, instead of the cheeky look he’d been holding all afternoon, it was something much more genuine and earnest, the kind of look you were used to from him. It was throwing you through a loop just trying to keep up with him. “Home. I have some work to do.”

You moved again, walking away from him, and he let out a confused grunt, boots scuffling on the tarmac of the parking lot as he caught back up to you. “Wait, wait, wait. I thought we were supposed to be going to the garage? I’m working on your car tonight, I brought new bulbs for your headlights because they’re kinda’ dimmed, and I don’t want you getting into an accident or anything.”

You frowned, eyes narrowing on him for a second, and your shoulders slumped under his gaze.

“What’s wrong?” His hand reached out, trailing down along your arm towards your hand, and he had the audacity to let a hurt look flicker across his face when you pulled back from him by just a fraction. It was enough, though. Enough for his hand to fall away, his fingertips brushing over your arm, before it fell back to his side, dismay evident on his face.

“What is with this hot and cold act you have going on?” His jaw dropped, no words coming out, and heat crawled up along his cheeks slightly while he gaped at you. Instead, you took the initiative, shaking your head a little at him, and he only sank in on himself a little further. “You were so sweet this morning. The Noah I’ve come to know, and then suddenly at lunch, you’re this different person. Kinda’ a jerk, actually. Now, you’re all gentlemanly again. I don’t get you, but I don’t want to hang out with someone who’s gonna’ pick me up and drop me like a yo-yo.”

His eyes flicked over your face, lips pursing closed in a tight line, and you waited a moment longer. As the silence grew, you moved away from him, taking steps again a little further, and it was a few more seconds before he moved again. He was slower, long strides falling him into step beside you, and he didn’t try to stop you, but his head hung a little, and he cleared his throat. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s fine, alright? But when the other Noah shows back up, let me know.”

He chuckled, dry and hollow, before he was rounding in front of you, giving you only a second to stop before you were colliding with him, and there were mere inches between your bodies. Staring up at him, your brows shot up again, and he tried to offer a gentle smile to you. “I just thought that if I acted the way your other friends acted, I’d fit in a little better, and you’d like me more.”

“You were trying to get me to like you more? By acting like a dick, and making me feel weird about ‘us’?”

“Reverse psychology?” He whispered, and he relaxed when the smile on your face came out.

“I’m the psychology major, leave that to me.” You teased, and he nodded his head. Leaning down, his nose brushed over your forehead, lips pressing to your skin in a soft kiss, the act you were used to, and you sighed as he did. “There he is.”

His hands smoothed over your sides, pulling you in closer and your hand came up to rest on his cheek. Stroking the skin across his cheekbone gently with your thumb, his head tipped into your hand.

“I don’t want you to be anyone else, okay? I like you plenty enough just the way you are.”

“You’ll still come hang out with me, then? Because it gets lonely when you don’t keep me company at the garage, now. I’ve become accustomed to having company.” He reached out again, his hand smoothing along your arm, and you didn’t pull away this time. Rather, you let his hands find yours, fingers weaving together until your palms were pressed up to one another. He smiled, something bashful and dopey, and it was an adorable kind of expression. The cold of the band he had wrapped around his thumb today was rubbing against your finger, and you squeezed at his hand. “I’m gonna’ take that as a ‘yes’.”

“‘Kay, I forgive you. Don’t get weird again, though.” He nodded his head, making you grin as he tugged you in a new direction, a ninety-degree angle to head towards the bike. He made his promise, making you grin when he held out a tattooed finger for you to link your own with, sealing the promise together.

Opening up the back-box on the bike, and pulling out your helmet. Letting you settle your things inside, he placed the helmet down on your head, pulling your hair back and out of the way. Leaning in, his lips brushed over your nose, breath panted lightly over your lips, something heavier settling over the both of you, and you couldn’t help the breathy giggle you let out.

You reached for his helmet, having learned where the catch underneath the seat was, and you opened it up to select the protection from inside. Lifting it, he ducked his head to let you place the helmet on his head, brushing back the longer strands of chocolate-brown hair to settle it there. Smoothing your fingers down along his jaw, you fastened up the catch under his chin, his head tipping up to let you do so. Before his head moved down, you shifted upward, pressing a kiss to the underside of his jaw, and he was beaming when his head came back down.

His finger spinach the tip of your nose, between his thumb and his index, your face screwing up with a soft laugh when he did. “You’re cute, you know that?”

“I’ve been told.” Swinging your leg over the bike, you settle down first, your hands landing on the steering, a dangerous look portrayed him as you smirked. “In a summer dresses and lollipops kind of way, right?”

“Mhm.” He teased, fastening your helmet up and tipping it to sit properly on your head as he stood before you. Moving his eyes further down, his sights scanned over you “You look good on my bike.”

“You should let me drive. I think I’ve got it, now. I would be awesome at this.”

He chuckled, shaking his head as you shuffled back to make space for him. With every catch done up and the boxes sealed, his leg swung over the bike, settling himself down on the leather. With the impact of him sitting, you slid down the seat, the insides of your thighs pressing to the outsides of his own, and your front was pressed to his back. His hand came out, circling behind his body to find your wrists, and he pulled your arms around his body. “If you drove, how would I get you to hold onto me like this? I like the attention, what can I say?”

“You could just ask.”

“Oh, yeah?” He twisted the keys in the ignition, the bike sparking to life underneath you, and your hands tightened a little more around him. Revving the bike slightly, he kicked off the latch that kept it secured to the ground, balancing it between his own feet as you tucked yours away. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

“You should.” You mumbled, chin tucked over his shoulder to whisper the words near his ear, and you could see the smile stretch on his face. Pulling back, your forehead rested between his shoulder blades, squeezing him once in signal to let him know you were ready, and then he took off.

You’d grown used to it now, the slight grind of the tyres on the concrete as he took off and then the streets whizzing by. You like the sights, the way the lights seemed to become like a blur when you moved, The tips and tilts, the way the bike bounced when you went through potholes or over the bumps in the road, it had all started to feel natural. It was the same when you were with him.

Noah had been a stranger to you, but he was a constant in your life now. He was by your side more than he wasn’t now, and you couldn't deny the bond that you’d formed with him It was like nothing you’d ever experienced before. He didn’t force you to be anything you weren’t, he didn’t make you feel insecure, or less worthy, or like you had to constantly be the best version of yourself to impress him. He didn’t drain you down like others did, he didn’t make you feel less, or like you couldn't be yourself. You loved who you were around him, and how being with him made you feel.

Twisting your head, your eyes closed, cheek resting against his back as he moved. He was going slower than usual today, the journey taking a little longer, and while the quiet was filling the space between you both, it was comfortable. Everything with Noah seemed to be that way, now. The two of you were seemingly opposites, everything about you felt like something that would clash but there was just something between the two of you that worked. Like magnets drawn together, or opposing puzzle pieces, you fit together perfectly.

He forced you out of your comfort zone, to do things like ride a motorbike while you forced him to approach the people he’d seemingly decided hate him, only to discover he was capable of making friends. Each of your downfalls, he seemed to lift up. One by one, he was raising you up, making you a better person, and giving back to you just as much as you gave to him. It was effortless to be around him, something that had happened both slowly and at light speed. Winning his trust had turned into so much more, once the door had been opened, it was like the two of you had moved past acquaintances and friends, to hover on the verge of something else.

He was constantly on your mind, and when he wasn’t, it didn’t take long before you saw something that reminded you of him, a joke or a comment online, even just the way someone would walk across campus or the outfit they’d wear, it all seemed to come back to him.

When the pair of you had finally pulled up to the edge of his garage, he was cruising slowly between the sheds. More doors than usual were open today, the crowds were a little busier, but with the sunny weather, you weren’t so surprised. The tones of different music melded together, more students willing to come and spend prolonged periods of time outside when the weather was warm, and the days lasted longer.

Setting up the stand on the bike, your feet reached the floor, trembling a little still from the vibrations of the engine. The sounds went dead as he pulled the keys from the machine, but neither of you moved, his hands dropping down to find your own for just a second, and you lifted one hand. Your fingers weaved with his, before he was pulling your hand up, kissing the back of your hand gently, and the feeling made something explode within you. Butterflies, a tidal wave, something crushing and exhilarating and racing all in one, your heart beating erratically as he lowered your hand back down. “I’m sorry about before. I just wanted to be more like other people you hang out with, other people you’re friends with, or you’ve dated, or whatever. I didn’t want to be a freak.”

Standing up from the bike, you undid the catch on your helmet, putting it down on the seat as he copied your actions, going from looking up at you to once again looking down as he stood taller than you. “You know, when I’m with you, I feel so much better than I do when I’m with them.”

“I just want to be the right guy, you know? Be someone everyone likes, be someone who can fit in. Stiles does it so effortlessly, I can’t be like that.”

“You shouldn’t have to, because I think you’re great the way you are.” You tapped the tip of his nose, the same way he had done to you, and his face screwed up with ticklish responses exactly the same way that you had. “It’s a good thing you cut that out, though, because I got you something.”

“A gift?” He whispered, and you only nodded. Opening the box on the back of the bike, you swapped the helmet in your hand for your bag, laying it out onto the seat so that you had access to it. Opening up the bag and digging through it, you searched until your fingers brushed the silky material, and you could grasp the small item.

“It’s just something small.” You mumbled, beginning to untangle it from the contents inside, and hoping it hadn't gotten creased. Producing the item, his eyes dropped down from your face to the item in your hands, a neutral expression taking over as he considered it. “I like to put decals on my laptop, and all the ones I had were getting old and peeling. I was ordering some new ones, and I saw this one. It made me think of you.”

“It's a daisy.” He took it from you, thumb stroking across the shining plastic, and you nodded.

“Yeah, from the day that you and I sat in the field, and you let me put daisies in your hair.” You reached up, brushing your fingers through his hair lightly, and fluffing it back up from where it had fallen flat. “I figure you could put it on your laptop, or bedpost, or maybe don’t stick it to anything. You could put it on your pinboard in your room, or use it as a bookmark. I don’t know.”

“I love it.”

“You do?” Your heart had been racing, the uncertain expression he had that you couldn't possibly decipher became something like the sun, a wide smile as his chewed-down thumbnail picked at the edges. Peeling the plastic backing away from the transparent and inked design, your brows raised. He moved, pressing the edge of the plastic onto his bike, and sealing it down firmly, your eyes widening. “Noah! That’s your bike!”

“I know. I’ve never had a decal on it before.”

“But, what if it ruins your paint job, or something? I didn’t expect you to stick it on your bike, of all things!” He smirked, his hands coming up to cup your cheeks as you rambled to him. Your eyes moved to the sticker, your face cupped by warm palms as your finger smoothed over it, the white and yellow standing out prominently against the black. “What if you decide you don’t like it, or you hate where it’s positioned, or-”

Your breath was held in your lungs as he dipped down closer than he’d ever been as his nose bumped against yours. Your lips brushed, his tongue poking out to wet his lips slowly, and you let out a shaky groan as he did. Your eyes closed, lashes tickling against his as he lingered there The tension was palpable, the split second that he lingered there felt like a thousand dragging on, before his lips met your own.

Soft and warm, his lips pressed tentatively against yours at first, a second becoming two that was filled with hesitation. It was simply his pressed to your own, nothing happened for a second, before it did. His lips moved, fingers digging a little more firmly into your jaw, and his palms slid down. His hand was sitting over your neck, feeling the pounding of your pulse under his hand no doubt, and your mind finally seemed to catch up.

Your lips twisted, a smile making itself evident, and your giggle was muffled against his lips as you sagged a little in his hold. His grip loosened a little, his kisses stopped, pulling back enough to press his forehead to your own, taking a breath, before he was pulling away. “That’s not the reaction I was hoping for.”

There was gravel in his voice, and he swallowed thickly to clear it away, pupils wider than you’d ever seen them when he looked back to you. “I’m sorry, I’m not laughing at you. I was just caught off-guard.”

“Couldn’t have been that off-guard, I’ve not really been subtle, lately.”

“I just figured I’d have to make the first move.” You teased, his eyes rolling, and one hand lowered further. Smoothing over your side, his hand found your hip, rubbing soothing circles through the material and your whole body felt lost. Like you were floating in the clouds, but weights were tied to your fingertips, arms heavy as you raised them to loop around his neck. “Kiss me again. I won’t laugh this time, I swear.”

“If you do, I’m never kissing you again.” He mumbled, dipping down to brush a pout over your lips, and you scoffed slightly, head pushing up to meet him.

“Liar.” Your words were lost, mouth meeting his in a sweet kiss, and he sighed through his nose as you connected with him. This time, you were ready. Your lips moved back with his, a soft and slow kiss that nothing like you’d ever experienced before.

It was like fireworks, every place he touched as the hand on your waist flexed, and the one from your neck smoothed down along your bag to pull him closer. Your fingertips were tingling, one hand slipping to the back of his neck to hold him close as his mouth worked with yours in a way that emptied your mind. You were clinging to him, one hand down over his chest, feeling his heart racing through his shirt, and as he pulled away, one of his hands came up to hold onto your own on his chest.

You didn’t say anything, and neither did he. You didn’t know what to say, and neither did he. In fact, you were both completely speechless, a few more stolen pecks and bumps of your noses, before there was a grin cracking on your cheeks that you couldn’t contain, and he stood tall again, a kiss on your forehead before he was tucking you under his chin and close to his body.

“I’ve been thinking about doing that for a while. I didn’t know it would feel like that, though.” He whispered, hands taking yours on both sides, linking your fingers together as you rested against his, and you could only nod in agreement.

“Why didn’t you do it sooner?”

“I didn’t know you wanted me back.” He shrugged, and you pulled away, shock written on your face when he peered down to see you.

“I’ve not really been subtle, lately.” You threw his own words back at him, slightly pinker lips than usual showing off white teeth in a smile, and you rolled your eyes at him. “Wanna’ fix my car and talk mechanic to me and I’ll pretend I know what you’re saying?”

“I’ll simplify it for you.” He teased, letting go of your hands after one final squeeze to retrieve his belongings. Zipping up your bag and slinging it over one shoulder, he swapped his helmet for his backpack, tucking his keys into the front pocket, and you followed him around to the front of the building. Putting in the code on the padlock, he undid the lock at the bottom, the rickety metal shutter rolling up higher and higher until the whole doorway was exposed.

Your car lay inside, the hood already popped open and the engine was taken apart. Pieces were on the floor and the counters, like some kind of mechanic gore scene, and you jumped a little as he threw the heavy padlock onto the wooden table. Your bag followed, his was dumped by the side of the car, and he pulled it open, producing four boxes of lightbulbs for your car, shaking each one for a second to ensure they hadn't broken. He seemed pleased with what he heard, laying the boxes along the roof of the car.

It was propped up now, sitting on an angle as it was elevated into the air, and the board that he used to slide under it was still on the floor, indicating that it had been recently used. Taking your phone from your bag, you grabbed for the speaker, hidden in the same place you’d put it on your latest session with him, and began to untangle the wire. Once it was set up, pulled out as far from the wall as it would go, you set your phone down, plugging the device in.

The light on the base changed from red to green, signalling that it had connected, and the speaker let out a crackling sound to confirm the volume. Adjusting the dial a little, and being aware of Noah’s neighbours surrounding you, you turned it down a fraction. As you scrolled through the first couple of sounds, beginning to choose a set to start queuing up, a warm body was meeting your back, and hand smoothing around your waist to sit over your stomach, and once again, your mind was going blank.

His chin hooked onto your shoulder, your heart racing in your chest and a flush covered your entire body, somehow managing to feel like you were on fire in your own skin while also shivering a little, goosebumps rising along your exposed arms. He leaned down, pressing a kiss to the skin of your shoulder just to the left of your dress strap, and you leaned back into him a little.

Physical contact was nothing new between the two of you, and had he taken these actions only a day or so ago, you probably would have had a calmer reaction than you did now, but there was something more hanging over it now. A line crossed, a new page in the book, something entirely different that made it that much more exhilarating.

You continue your scrolling, the soft melodies of ‘Brandy’ playing across the air, and the man behind you hummed approvingly. “I forgot that this song even existed. It’s a good choice.”

“It’s my favourite song.” You mumbled, your body beginning to sway side to side with his own in a very simple dance. The tune took up, and you sang lightly under your breath to yourself, Noah humming along behind you as you continued to add songs. Occasionally, he would join you, his finger coming out to tap or point at the screen, a silent suggestion on which ones to add, and within a few minutes, the songs were collected. Enough for an hour, at least, possibly even two, and then you could reconsider what to play when the music ran out.

“Your car should be up and running soon, I’ve been making some pretty good progress on it.”

You turned to face him, sitting down backwards on the spinning stool with the wooden top, and he was walking back toward the car, the toolbox on the opposite workbench already open. His back was to you, grey shirt stretched across broad shoulders, the muscles in his back evident when he leaned over and you let your eyes linger a little longer than usual. The blush you got every time you realised you were checking him out was still present, but it didn’t feel as taboo as it had previously.

“There’s something rattling in your engine and I can’t figure out what, I’ve taken out everything he could be, so I’m starting to think it’s something underneath.”

“That why this place looks like a car’s worst nightmare?” You teased, eyes moving across the pieces of removed engine, and he chuckled, sifting through the tools inside.

“Pretty much. I’ll put it all back together, though, don’t worry. I’ll feel better knowing you’re out on the road in something safe.” You cooed a little at him, his sweet gesture making your chest flood with adoration, bursting from the inside out, and he only rolled his eyes at you, glancing back over his shoulder for a split second. “I’m not sure what we’re going to do once it’s fixed, or where we’ll hang out.”

“Oh, I’m sure we’ll figure something out.” Your tone was coy, and he chuckled, turning back to look at you. He had chosen what he was looking for, something that looked like a short and blunt tool. You weren’t sure what the folded end would be used for, but he was straight into action, leaning over your engine and reaching inside. Twisting in your seat, you reached for your bag, pulling out all of your books. Flicking through your notebook to find the latest empty page, your bag sat open. You’d gathered more than enough information from the pair to be able to start making your conclusions now, but you still felt behind.

Stiles was much further ahead, he had started forming his conclusions and searching for holes in his evidence almost three weeks ago, and he was beginning to redraft his final presentations as he produced a first copy. You were still a while off of being at that stage, becoming progressively more distracted by Noah and the puzzle he presented as you deciphered him, but you couldn't help it.

He was rattling around behind you, a sound that had distracted you for a while at first but had become background noise just like the music had, fading into something that helped your mind to work better than the silence ever did. Your notes seemed like they were blurring on the page, your mind far too busy thinking about recent events than the notes you’d taken on the two.

The songs ticked by, the tinkering behind you fading away and starts and ends of your engineer turning on and off, rattling slightly and making the air around you vibrate for just a second. Your pen scribbled song your paper comparing answers and beginning to draw what information you could and in the times that your mind wandered, you doodled borders around the notes that were just for you to see. The notebook that had once been fresh and crisply pressed was now ragged around the edges, worn pages from constant flicking back and forth, filled with ink and your thoughts as you tried to get them all down.

Occasionally, Noah would come over to join you, a half-drunk bottle of water that he was getting through as he leaned don the unit beside you. His notes had joined your one, his thoughts written down onto the paper, sometimes a joke, something with a sarcastic comment about what you had written, and sometimes it was just his one doodles to join yours.

The work was progressively getting done, and while it wasn’t nearly proceeding at the rate you would get it done alone, you preferred working slower and having his company than racing through it but being all alone. It was more enjoyable, especially when he began to relax more, the deeper rasp of his voice like a security blanket that forced your body to relax once he let go enough to start singing along lowly to the songs.

By the fourth one he had sung, you realised you hadn't written anything in almost ten minutes, pen hovering over the page, and it was beginning to feel hopeless. The sweltering heat was beginning to settle over you like a thick blanket on a too-hot summer’s night. As the afternoon moved on, the breeze was dying down, and the once temperate heat was becoming stifling as it sat stagnantly.

Closing your book and folding your pen inside, you called it a day, deeming it a good day’s work as you put your notebook into your bag, zipping it up, and a soft sound of something dropping beside you caught your attention. Turning around, a slightly damp pile of grey sat beside you, and upon picking it up for further inspection, you released it was a t-shirt.

Turning to the car, the man you were with had disappeared underneath, melodic voice bouncing from the metal on the underside of your car, but the happy trail of dark hairs along the bottom of a toned stomach was still visible, and your mouth rapidly dried at the sight. You turned away, feeling wrong for staring, but like a magnet, your gaze was drawn back to him.

Folding the material you still held neatly as something to simply busy yourself, the chair squeaked as you twisted to place it back down on top of your bag, no longer in a crumpled heap, before turning back to the vehicle. With elbows braced on the edge of the wooden counter, your eyes moved along it. Still covered in a layer of dirt and dust, it needed a good wash, but you’d hadn't bothered to venture as far as the carwash in a long time, trying to save the little life it had left for important travel. As soon as it was back in your possession, however, that would be one of your first priorities.

Moving a little further along, your eyes reached the back wheels, new tyres having been one of the first things Noah had done for you the grip on the other’s fading away, and you vaguely remembered him telling you all about the brake-pads at some point. His chatter about mechanics always became a mess in your mind, much like you were sure your psychology chatter became for him, but you listened intently and tried to keep up, just as he did for you. Simply hearing him talk so passionately was a treasure in itself.

“Oh, my God, you got that dent out.” Your eyes honed in on the spot, and while it wasn’t exactly perfect, it was considerably better than it had been. The wheels of the board scraped along the ground, sliding his body out from under the vehicle.

“Yeah, I noticed it when swapping out your tyres.” You turned back up him, the wide beam on your face dimming a little in shock, because you’d managed to forget his shirtless state for just a second, but now, it was crashing over you all in a sudden rush. His hands were stained with oil, and he stood up the folded muscles from his hunched position going taut as he stood, and he grabbed the nearest scrap of fabric he had, trying to wipe down his hands as best as he could. “It wasn’t too hard, I just had to hammer it out and smooth it over.”

“That was there since I got the car, I thought I’d never get it out!”

Your voice was a little shaky, and as he made his way over, your eyes were drawn to the tattoos on his chest. You’d seen him shirtless twice before, but you’d never had the chance to observe the designs up close. Slightly distorted by sweat and the grease from the underside of the car, you couldn't make them all out, and your fingers itched to reach up and trace the drawings that you had yet to discover.

He took the bottle from by your bag, undoing the cap with ease and raising it to take a gulp of the liquid, and every muscle he had seemed to shift and flex under his skin with the simple action. He wasn’t even trying, tired and dirty and sweaty and he was putting no effort in, but you were sure that you hadn't had a coherent thought for hours now. The song playing came to an end, the music fading out into silence, and you waited for the next one to come, but it never did. That was the second loop you’d put the music on, the hours having flown by, and the sun was shining in to leave longer shadows across the floor as it moved across the sky.

“You’re bored, aren’t you?”

“Little bit.” You grinned, holding up two fingers but making sure they were very close together, just to show a small amount, and he chuckled. Wiping the back of a hand over his mouth, he cleared excess water from there, before he was holding the bottle out to you. Taking it gratefully, your mouth had been dry and desperate for a drink since the moment he’d pulled away from you after that first kiss, leaving you dried out and thirsty ever since.

Taking a sip, he stepped away from you, moving to grab your car keys from the side unit and moved to the driver’s seat. The door was already open, and rounding it to the other side, he twisted the key to start the car up. The engine came to life almost immediately, no spluttering or grinding of parts, no multiple attempts needed, and it purred happily as it rotated inside itself, as though it was a brand new vehicle. It wasn’t loud or clunking, and there was no unusual sound being made. Clearly, Noah was just as happy with that result, because he cheered a little to himself.

Shifting inside, he checked various options, everything from the indicators to the headlights and the fog lights. The new bulbs were lighting up perfectly and brightly, clear and start white as opposed to the faded yellow they had been beginning to gather with age. “I am so impressed. Like, awestricken, really.”

“Thanks, kitten.'' Just when you thought you’d managed to put a cap on it, and get your head in a reasonable place, he had thrown a petname in your direction. Once again, you were speechless, thoughtless, and senseless, unable to control the dreamy sigh that was almost a breathy giggle at the sound, trying not to fawn too obviously over the new treatment he was giving you. “I think that pretty much does it.”

“So, when do I get to take her home?”

He was beaming, tapping the roof of the car and killing the engine, before nodding his head at himself. “You can drive her home right now, if you just give me a second to unhook and lower it back to the ground at the back.”

“We’re leaving?”

“You’re bored, and we’re pretty much done here.” You frowned, not having intended to bring your time to an end, as though he could read your mind, he continued on with what he had to say. “Doesn’t mean we have to say goodbye just yet. We can find something else to do.” He rounded the car, hooking a finger under your chin to tip your head up to meet his gaze. He was looking down on you with a sweet smile, nothing but peace and serenity written on his face. “You’re sure you really like me? We’re, like, total opposites.”

“Opposites attract.” You teased, his eyes rolling, and he stepped a little closer to you. The chair made you feel too low, his hair falling into his face as he leaned over you, and you stood to meet him, his gaze following you as he did.

“I thought you were just going to be a burden, you know. I thought that doing this study was gonna’ suck, and I was going to be miserable, but getting to know you has been so different so what I expected.”

Lifting his hand, his palm smoothed over your cheek, letting you tip into his touch. “Yeah, well, first impressions can be misleading. I can be pretty cool.”

“You’re the coolest person I know.” He whispered, gaze dropping down to linger on your lips for a second, and you smiled softly, his face mimicking the notion.

He stared for a second longer, before dipping down. He hesitated for just a second, a laugh carried on his breath that you barely caught, and you leaned up too. Your nose brushed his, nervous breaths shared in the hardly-existent space between you both as your lips continued to brush lightly. He dipped down, his lips pressing lightly to your own as the tension finally came to an end, and there was a smile on his lips as he did. It made it hard, the smiles that neither of you could contain, and your hand roe up to cup his cheek.

Timid pecks, delicate laughs between broken kisses as your noses bumped and lips puckered, trying to contain yourselves. Your heart was racing, he was just as nervous as you were, the new boundary as a friendship turned to a relationship, and it would take a little longer to get used. When he pulled back, a final and longer kiss pressed to your lips, that same sweetly dopey expression was on his face, warm cheeks and sparkling eyes.

“I like that.”

“I got oil on your face.” He mumbled, picking up his shirt from beside you both, shaking it out from its folded position. Hooking the edge of it over his thumb, he wiped at the smear on your face, leaning down to press a kiss to the spot once it was cleared, and your cheeks were almost aching for your smile.

He stepped back from you, lips rolling together to contain his smile, and as he walked, he was pulling his shirt up and over his head. Beginning to pump at the jack behind the car with his foot, your car was lowered back to the ground the back wheels finally touching against the concrete again. With a screeching sound against the concrete, he dragged away the piece of equipment, metal scraping on the stonework floor, and he left it abandoned in the back of the shed.

Reaching for the keys at the edge of your car, he threw them to you, barely giving you a second to catch them before he was snickering to himself at your fumbling, the keys jingling in your touch. “C’mon then. You must be excited to get back in your car.”

You nodded, slinging your bag from the side into the passenger seat, and he was holding your car door open for you, letting you settle inside. Closing it up carefully, you reached for the lever under your seat, adjusting it back to how you liked it. He’d clearly been inside, the distance between the pedals and the seat of legs much longer than yours, and as you adjusted yourself, his arms folded against the edge of the door. Plugging in the key and switching on the engine. As it tumbled to life, you were able to roll the window down, finding it much cleaner and smoother in its movements than it had been.

He leaned in more, bent at the waist as he peered inside, and your fingers flexed on the wheel. “How’s it feel to be back in your car?”

“I feel independent again.” you turned to him, the car still rumbling underneath you. “Thanks to you.”

“Well, try your air-con.” He pointed to the nozzle, all wiped down and polished inside, and you did as told. Instead of sputtering and squeaking, they came on quietly, warm air from the engine turning to cold a second later, and it was a refreshing relief compared to the heat of the day as the sun dared to meet the horizon. “Better, right?”

“Incredible.” You mumbled, daring to mess with the other controls. Your wipers didn’t scrape at the glass, but moved quietly and conveniently, and the windscreen wash was even functional, a little burst of water covering the glass and being quickly wiped away. The gear stick wasn’t so sticky and the pedals were easy to press on once again, just the right amount of pressure underneath. There were no unusual noises coming from your engine. “Almost feels surreal.”

“Yeah, well, the only thing I didn’t do is put gas in the tank, so you’re gonna’ have to do that on your way back.”

“Back to where?” You turned to him, a cheeky look on your face and he smirked, matching you, and settling a little lower until your eyes were level.

“Stiles isn’t home. We can play video games in the main room, and I can do more of this-” He leaned in, pulling you in with a thumb and forefinger on your chin. The smirk he wore became a pout, his lips pressing to your own, and there was more confidence behind it now. All of your kisses so far had been shy and scared, testing the waters and adjusting to how it felt, but now, he was a little more sure of himself. His lips teased over yours, more enveloping than a simple kiss, and you were melting into him. Leaning closer toward the door of the car, your hand was coming to brace yourself against it, finding his arm on the edge of the rolled-down window.

“I like that plan.”

“I’ll meet you there, then.” He stood up, hands patting the edge of the car, before stepping backwards. With a wave before leaving, you undid the clutch, shifting it into first gear, and creeping forwards. Weaving through the boxes carefully, you were unfamiliar with the pathways, making your way towards the road as Noah walked alongside you guiding you to the main quarter. As soon as you knew your way, he was pausing, waving at you in your rearview mirrors and walking back towards his garage shed.

The drive was much easier, a car you felt like you could rely on as you went along, and you were barely along the road before the warning light on your dashboard was flicking on to warn you of a petrol depletion. It seemed that you had only just missed the rush-hour traffic, the roads starting to clear out a thin down, and you were almost disappointed by it. It meant that you didn’t get a chance to test out all your gears and brakes, with how seamless your journey went, but the last thing you wanted was for the car to overheat as you drove along, breaking again already.

Dangling from your mirror as you checked behind, you became aware of the little tree hanging there. A small piece of green felt, the pine smell filling the cabin as you drove becoming less of a mystery, and you lifted your hand to it. Running your fingers lightly over the surface, the cupboards underneath was sturdy, the tree spinning on its string when you let it go.

It was such a small gesture, and yet something so sweet about it as it hung there. Like a permanent reminder of him, something you’d see every time you drove, whether he was with you that day or not. Pulling up into the gas station, your car came to a stop, easy and simple without a lot of stuttering and jerking motions. It was like a miracle. Hopping out, the air-con that had been inside had grown comfortable, the warm air outside was suddenly prickling along your skin, like an itch that you couldn’t get to.

Rounding to the side and beginning to start the pump, your eyes moved over the station. There was only one other car, a mother with two children in car seats in the back, who both seemed to be hyperactive. They were screaming at the top of their lungs, giggling and smacking their hands against the window, and as her eyes met your own, she gave you a tried smile. You offered a little wave, the two small children inside the car reciprocating it too, and only a moment later, her husband was appearing from inside the shop. The bell overhead jingled as he exited, jogging slightly as he put his wallet back into his pocket.

They were pulling out as you finished, letting the nozzle drip clean for a second before you were putting it back on the hook. Locking up the car and making your way inside, there was a swift breeze of air conditioning over the doorway, the air inside chilled, and it was almost a little too cold. Rows full of treats and food for road trips and hungry children, or simply just bored snacking were laid out, multicoloured wrappers that were eye-catching.

Wandering through the aisles, you built an armful of the treats, unable to resist temptations as you bought a range of everything from pretzels and chips to candy and chocolate. The cashier behind the counter was chewing gum, a bored look on his face and you thought that he couldn't possibly be older than Junior year in high school as he rang it up. Packing it all into a bag and adding your tab from the lot outside, your card was pressed into the reader. Punching your PIN in to follow it, the out of date machine took a few extra seconds to go through, before your payment was confirmed.

A full tank and a bag of snacks, and you were back in the car, tucking the recent purchases down into the shadowed footwell and out of the way of the sun that was just beginning to brush the horizon. The clock on your dash told you the veering was rolling in, the night going to be uncomfortably hot and your car started back up with ease. The display flashed for a second as the engine restarted, and then, you were on the road.

Parking up beside Stiles’ building, windows rolled up and your snacks hidden in your backpack, you swung it onto your shoulder. Three flights of stairs, one long corridor, and two knocks on hardwood, and you waited. It was nostalgic to be here waiting for him, but the nerves you’d had months ago when waiting for a boy you barely knew were entirely washed away. Swinging it open, Noah filled the doorway, a smile so bright you wanted to cover your eyes on his face as he greeted you.

“Wow, what a surprise. Fancy seeing you here.”

“Oh, were you expecting someone?” You played along, and he let you inside, closing the door behind you as you toed off your shoes to leave beside the doorway.

“You know, I was. I have a super cute girl coming over soon, so you’re gonna’ have to make this quick.” He shrugged, his hands coming to find your waist and pull you a little closer as soon as you’d put your bag down on the couch. “Oh, wow, super cute girl alert. Hi.”

You’re secretly a total dork, huh?” Leaning up, you pressed a kiss to his cheek, hand sliding down over his chest, and there was the sticky printing of a patch under your skin. Looking down to his shirt, it was navy blue now, a logo for a band you didn’t recognise beginning to fade on the front. “You changed.”

“I was sweaty and oily.” He took your hand, dragging you over to the couch, and pushing you to sit down with the other hand on your shoulder. He moved away, switching on the televisions and the console, two drinks of soda laid out before you, and he slumped down into the couch by your side. Your legs folded underneath yourself, taking the bag from the cushion it lay on, and dropping it into his lap. “A school bag. Thanks so much, just what I wanted, how’d you know?”

“Look inside.” Your eyes rolled involuntarily despite your grin, and he did as told, nimbly undoing the zip on it, and opening the bag up. Pulling out the folded brown pair, he indeed the top, peering inside at the contents.

“Oh, you brought snacks.” He stared in at them, before he was turning to you, a playfully accusatory look on his face as his eyes narrowed. “What did you do? Did you break that car already?”

“No.” You frowned, his finger coming up to poke and smooth at the wrinkled forming o your forehead. “Why do you think I did something?”

“Because all the previous times you’ve brought me food, it’s because you did something.” You scoffed, smacking at his arm and pretending it was an accident as you picked up a candy bar out of the bag, peeling the wrapper down.

“What the hell do you mean ‘all’?” You bit a chunk off of it, and he shook a bag of chips, distributing the flavour inside, before tearing it open. He crunched loudly as he placed one of the triangular chips into his mouth, twisting to face you some more.

“Okay, first time; You bought my coffee after ambushing me in my home and insulting me-”

“I did not insult you, you jumped to conclusions!” He pressed a finger to your lips, silencing your words, and grinning cheekily.

“It’s rude to interrupt people, you know.” He placed another chip into his mouth, chewing happily, and lowering his hand from your mouth. “Second time, you brought pizza after ambushing me on my lunch break.” Your jaw dropped, but you remained quiet, a huff and a scowl on your lips at his words. “Third time, you brought lasagne after ambushing me at the coffee cart.”

“I don’t like the way that you portray me.”

“Fourth time, you forced me to go out to a restaurant, which you technically didn’t bring food to, but it was still overwhelming.” You sighed, taking a bite of your chocolate, and he wiggled his fingers a little as he rode his thumb to create a fifth finger. “Fifth time, you said you were planning to bring me food but didn’t have any after the first time you ambushed me at my garage.”

“Why do you keep saying ambushed?” You scowled, his hand coming down to rest on his knee, and you pushed it away. That only made him laugh, his hand coming back, leaning down to grip just above your ankle at your calf a little more firmly, and lifting your leg up.

“Because that’s exactly what you did.” He pulled you closer, your legs slinging across his lap as he dragged you across the couch, and he looked overly proud of himself for the shocked noise you elicited as he did so. “But, somewhere between the third and fourth times, I stopped being irritated by it, and your continued persistence and unwavering enthusiasm because kinda’ cute.”

His hand came up to brush through his hair, he broke the silence with the loud crunching of another potato chip. “Can I ask you a question, though?”

“Only if you promise to kiss me afterwards.”

“Deal.” You teased, shuffling a little closer to him, and he moved the bag of snacks from leaning on his stomach to sitting beside the both of you. “You know that first time I came to see you here, when I asked you about the study? You said some really mean things about yourself, like ‘criminal’ and ‘lowlife’, what did you mean?”

His lower lip dragged through his teeth, eyes leaving yours for a second, and the sweet and joyful moment between you both came crashing down into something much heavier. “Well, if it makes you feel any better, I’m not actually a criminal. People just started that because one night I was at a bar on the edge of town that seems a little sketchy, and a bar fight broke out, The cops showed up, and a guy got stabbed. I was actually out the back smoking at the time, so, I didn't even see all the excitement.”

“I’m sorry that the rumour started, though.” Your hand sank to his cheek, thumb stroking over his skin slowly.

“Stiles got really mad when he heard that rumour, and he cleared it up on his podcast, but the damage was done. Yet another reason why nobody wanted to be my friend.” You leaned in, kissing his forehead like he tended to do for you, and he tipped up, nose bumping yours in a silent ‘thank you’ for the comfort. “I just saw myself as a low-life. I let the rumours travel, I wasn’t even trying to make friends. I let my whole college experience slip away because I wanted to avoid confrontation or stress. You might have ambushed me, and forced me out of my comfort zone, but I think someday, I’m gonna’ look back on that and be grateful.”

You grinned, forehead resting on his as your hand slipped down, finding his shoulder instead, and his head tipped a little further upwards.

“Now, make good on that promise.”

“Oh, I plan to..” You whispered, lips brushing against his teasingly. You stayed where you were, though, letting him lean in a little closer until he almost had his lips pressed to yours, before you were shifting. He huffed, chasing you again, and you repeated the action, making him groan at the brief teasing. You chuckled, his hand flexing around your ankle, before his hand was sliding up to your knee, and you laughed a little more at the needy action.

“You’re being cruel.” He whined, and you were ready to give in, fingertips pressing into the flesh of his shoulder through the new shirt, before there was muffled shouting from the corridor. Loud, and angry, only getting clearer as the voice moved closer to the apartment, and it wasn’t until there was a set of keys in the lock and the door was opening.

You pulled back, sitting up a little further as Stiles came in, but the man didn’t seem to notice the two of you yet. He was yelling, a series of curse words to whoever was in the corridor behind him, and you recognised the equally angry voice of Derek, before the door was slamming shut. He paused, letting out a loud scream of anger at himself as he stared at the closed door, and you twisted on the couch, kneeling on it with your arms braced along the back to look at him.

Hanging up his jacket, Stiles turned to you both, jumping as he saw you there. The anger remained for only a second, before it was melting away into guilt, quickly followed by sadness. His shoulders slumped, scowl becoming a heavy frown as the wrinkles loosened into something sad, and he was frowning at you both.

“Sorry for all the yelling.” He started at you both for a second longer, his lower lip practically wobbling with his sadness as his hands came up to clutch together in front of himself.

“Is this a best friend or a brother moment? I can’t tell, what did Derek do?” You tried to keep your voice low. Shifting your bag to the floor with a sweep of your hand to make space for Stiles, and shuffling up so that he could sit in the middle of you both.

“If it’s a sex thing, it’s definitely a best friend thing.” Noah added, and you turned to stare at him, incredulous above all, but Stiles let out a weak and watery laugh.

“It’s really nice to have you both here.” He came over, staring at the snacks that were laid out, and your bag on the floor, shoulders only slumping further. “I’m sorry for interrupting whatever the two of you were doing.”

“We weren’t doing much. Yet.” Noah sighed, and you twisted to him, glaring for his joke, and he shrugged, biting the inside of his cheek and trying to keep a serious face. “Okay, fine, I’m sorry. You wanna’ watch movies, or something?”

“Yeah. That sounds nice.” He kicked off his shoes, leaving them abandoned by the coffee table, and he settled down between you both. Placing a cushion on your lap, you patted it, and he shot you a thankful look before moving to lay down. Resting his head against the cushion, his feet landed in his brother's lap. “Will you stay?”

“If you want me to.” You mumbled, nails scraping in feather-light patterns along his hairline.

As you stroked his hair gently, he began to relax a little further, and once he did, he began to spill. He was steady long enough to select a film, one of the Star Trek movies, surprisingly, and he sat silently, eating the snacks that you had purchased, for almost twenty minutes. After the food was finished, though, he broke.

The volume on the television was turned down and he was dominating the conversation, spilling everything that was weighing on his mind and heart. The problems came back to Derek, and the future between the two of them concerning the end of college. Derek had set plans that he’d always been planning on, and Stiles wanted to be more flexible, but neither was willing to budge. The conversation had never come up before, and now, with only a couple of short months left until the decision had to be made.

He admitted how nice it was to have you both here, the three of you sitting in companionable silence to follow his confessions about his relationship, and Noah stretched his arm out along the back of the couch towards you. It wasn’t the night that either of you had expected, and it wasn’t the most exciting, but it was enough. Your fingers wove with Noah’s sitting along the back of the cushion, and Stiles was mouthing along with the words on the screen as the movie came to an end.

It was cooler now, the sun having passed beyond the horizon, and you’d texted Lydia to let her know where you were as dusk was setting in. By the time that the credits were rolling, the man with his head in your lap had fallen asleep, snoozing softly with snores that were barely audible. Noah’s thumb was stroking over your hand, and he leaned over, empty wrappers crinkling as he moved, before the television was being switched off.

“So, that didn’t exactly go as planned.”

“It’s okay. Stiles needed us.” You shrugged, fingers weaving through the sleeping boy’s hair again, and his face had finally gone back to relaxed as he rested. “I should get going, though. It’s getting late. We can just rearrange.”

You yawned, covering your mouth as you did. Using the edges of the pillow, you lifted Stiles' head, enough to slip out from underneath him and you stood up. Your head had gone numb a while back, the pins and needles having passed and you shook your leg to try and wake it back up. Your butt was aching, making you wobble with each step you took, and Noah grinned as he followed your actions.

Grabbing the stray wrappers and putting them back into the paper bag, he reached for one of the spare blankets, tucking it over his brother and making sure he was secure.

“Why don’t we have breakfast together tomorrow morning?”

“I’d like that.” Your arms looped his waist, and his circled your shoulders, pulling you a little closer. “Where?”

“Here, if you stay over?” You studied him for a second, and his eyes widened, a pink colour coating his cheekbones. “Not with me. Not, y’know, I mean-” His blush only deepened, and you chuckled at him. “I just meant that you can stay in Stiles’ room. He won’t wake up until the morning now, anyway, and you’re tired. It’s dark and you shouldn't have to go home alone.”

You smiled, leaving him hanging in the suspense for a second longer, before putting him out of the suspenseful misery. “I think that would work just fine for me.”

“Good.” He smiled, lips brushing over your forehead, before he was straightening up. “Can you get the lights and the locks, I’ll go grab you something to wear.”

He stepped back, letting you do as told, as you moved around the room. Checking the door first, you flicked the catch on the door and double-checked it, before beginning to turn off all of the lamps. Stiles was snoring to himself and rolled over, facing the back of the cushions and clutching the blankets up to his chin. Pressing a kiss to the tips of two fingers, you smoothed it over your best friend’s forehead, mentally wishing him a quick recovery from his broken heart, before turning out the final light.

Noah was waiting in the hallway when you arrived, a pair of sweats, a t-shirt and a jumper in his hands, with a ball of socks on top, and he presented them to you, a shy smile on his face.

“I don’t think I’ll need all of that. It’s the summer.”

“Well, you know, I didn’t want you to get cold in the night, or anything. Now you have options.” You took them from him, tucking them under your arm, his hands went into his pockets. You were both lingering, the darkness only illuminating you both from the light on in his room that was spilling out around him. “Okay, well, goodnight then.”

“Goodnight, Noah.” Despite the words being spoken, neither of you moved, brown eyes with wide pupils sealed on you, searching you for some kind of reaction, and he swallowed thickly. His mouth opened, more words to come, before his jaw was snapping shut again, and his brows furrowed.

“Goodnight. Again, I guess.”

“Goodnight, Noah.” You smiled, humour in your voice again, and he took a minuscule step back from you before pausing again. Taking a step with him, your hand came up, the one not clutching clothes found his shoulder, and you pressed your lips against his in a simple peck. He let out a sound that made your heart flutter, leaning in to return the affection and he kissed you back slowly, before letting you sink to the ground and step away towards Stiles’ room. He watched you go, never moving until you were giving him a final smile, and closing Stiles’ bedroom door.

Resting your back against it once you were inside, you heard his bedroom door close too, and your heart was beating so fast you could feel it all the way to your fingertips. The day had been nothing like what you’d expected, a whirlwind adventure from start to finish, but you didn’t regret a thing.

happier

synopsis: in which mark was happier with you.

pairing: mark x reader (i attempted to write the mc as gender neutral, so lmk if there are any tips on how to be more considerate! i wanna be able to write as inclusively as possible heh)

genre/category: angst, exes!au

word count: 2.4k

a/n: i have an assignment due in like 20 minutes (so i did not get a chance to proofread!!) but i got distracted thinking about mark while listening to my 2017 simp playlist :D so here's a mini-fic (that was supposed to be a drabble) based on this song!

I saw you walk inside a bar.

When Mark looked up from the almost-empty bottle sitting in front of him, he didn’t expect to be greeted by the sight of you. But what caught him even more off guard was that you were entering the bar hand in hand with someone new.

You, not yet noticing your past lover's hunched figure, walk towards a set of empty bar stools, another man's arms wrapped around your waist like possessive belt. Mark began to stare then. He stared at what used to be his reason. What used to be the one who'd wake him up in the morning, who used to be his reason for coming home when the days were too long, yet somehow eventually bled into nights. He continued to stare at what had been his true source of happiness.

In his eyes, you still were. You were his only radiating source of light that made him feel warm. You were his comfort, like a warm blanket during a rainy day, or an iced tea when the weather was too hot to do anything else but lounge around the house with all fans on full blast.

He said something to make you laugh.

Mark noticed how the one that accompanied you looked at you with a small spark in his eyes as you cover your mouth in attempts to shield your erupting laughter. That was a cute habit of yours when you laughed, and he used to stare at you the same way; he was staring at you almost identically as he's sat across the bar at that moment. The only difference now was that Mark stopped being the reason for your bright smiles and warm laughter.

I noticed how both your smiles were twice as wide as ours.

The first encounter between the two of you would forever be engraved in the mind of Mark Lee.

He was walking around a lake during a camping trip with a few of his friends, mindlessly swinging his arms around to cool off. Mid swing, though, he made contact with something he later found out was your face. He apologized so many times that you had almost busted a lung laughing at the poor boy's terrified features.

Soon, Mark joined you, laughing in harmony because apparently being smacked in the face by someone was the funniest thing to the both of you. Mark proceeded to awkwardly ask for your contact information, hoping to make up for the mishap, and you complied because the man was so darn cute.

One meet-up (he never specified it as a date) turned into two, which turned into three, and soon, you were seeing each other everyday in a small cafe hidden within the corners of your shared campus.

The two of you attended the same university, but due to being in different departments, there was never really a chance to come across one another while running to your next classes, but this cafe was the one spot you two had in common.

The cafe meetings soon turned into cafe dates (he clarified this time that they were in fact, dates), and soon enough, you were both head over heels in love, moving in together as you approached your final years of college.

Mark and your's relationship wasn't perfect, but it was always so much fun. Mark was always able to make you laugh because of how awkward he was, and one time you to left him behind on a trip to the grocery store because he was so embarrassing, making stupid puns at the poor worker just trying to stock the shelves of the cereal aisle. That day, you bought a watermelon the size of both your heads combined to make up for leaving him behind.

Mark bitterly smiled at his recollection. That was one of the last times he and you were able to smile together.

You looked happier.

The last time Mark saw you, it was on a sunny, Saturday afternoon. You were on your way back from a trip to your local convenience store, bags of chips, a tub of ice cream, and boxes of candy spilling out of the watermelon themed reusable bag he had left behind after moving out. You were still wearing his hoodie, then. He left that behind for you too.

It made him smile, knowing that you kept it.

Ain't nobody hurt you like I hurt you.

You felt as though you couldn't breathe. When you entered Mark and your shared apartment, you sensed that something was wrong; that something was missing from your normally warm environment. Mark and you have been arguing more frequently recently, and the night before, it was the worst it had been in years.

Mark had been going out later into the night, sleeping on couches of friend's houses more than in his own bed. Your shared bed. You more often than not woke up to nothing, the radiating warmth missing from your side.

You'd had enough of it, and confronted the man when he walked into the apartment at 2 am. Words spewed from either side, along the lines of "I'm sick of this" and "What is there to be sick of?" Mark ended up sleeping on the couch that night while you cried yourself to sleep, clutching Mark's pillow and attempting to hold onto what used to be the warm, delightful love of your life.

The next day when you woke up, he was gone. He texted you saying he had to leave early for work and that you should go ahead and start your day without him, and you did. You began planning ways to talk things out, to fix things with Mark over a nice dinner.

You set your plan to action and made your way to the local market. When you returned home and stepped foot into the kitchen, though, your eyes landed on a small note placed right in the center of the dining table. Written on that note in Mark's sloppy handwriting were the words, "I'm sorry, but I need to clear my head."

You dropped the note and ran into your bedroom, only to see that Mark had taken almost half of his belongings from the cramped space, along with one of the suitcases the two of you placed behind the closet when you first moved in. He was gone.

But ain't nobody love you like I do.

He'd been gone for about 10 days when you receive a call from Donghyuck. The brown-haired boy informed you that Mark has been sleeping on his couch for over a week and would be stopping by within the next few days to take up all of his friend's belongings he'd left behind.

You hummed, almost numbly, and before hanging up, you mustered up the courage to ask Donghyuck if Mark was currently there with him. He hummed in response, and you mumbled a good before dropping the line completely, falling to your knees and sobbing until you no longer had tears to let fall.

You were broken, and it was all because of Mark, yet a piece of you continuously hoped and prayed that he was safe. That he was living in a proper home with a place to sleep, and that he wasn't too cold because he often got cold very easily.

Mark, on the other end of the line, was silently holding in his cries as his best friend hung up the phone, disconnecting him from his one true love. Mark never intended to hurt you the way that he did, but in his mind, because he loved you so much, too much, he had to let you go.

He was noticing how much he was holding you back, from job opportunities to your social life, he believed he was the reason. He was the reason you declined the job offer in the neighboring city because that meant you'd have to either move out or drag Mark with you, and you chose on neither and stayed. He was the reason you never left the house on weekends because only then was he ever home. He was the reason you had bags under your eyes, he soon realized.

You'd been staying up night after night, waiting for him to come home. You'd been crying because he would come home with bags darker than yours. You'd been losing sleep because you spent too much of your time worrying about him.

He was holding you back by loving you.

So he decided to let you go.

Promise that I will not take it personal, baby.

A few months have passed and Mark's finally settled down in a new place in the town you had rejected the job offer from all those months ago. A part of him wished that moving away would offer you closure, knowing that Donghyuck explained his side of the story to you. Mark wanted so badly to be the one who spoke to you that day, but he was afraid of the confrontation. He was scared he'd break and hold you into his arms and promise to never let you go, bringing himself and you back into the endless loop.

So he left. He moved away and had Donghyuck clean up the mess he'd made. Mark owes him one.

The other part of him, though, hoped that you contacted the agency that offered you the job all those months ago. The selfish part of him prayed that the agency granted your request and offered you the job you passed up on in this new city. He hoped that you and him could start over in a different setting, and maybe a few years from now, run into each other again. You'd be in better places in your lives and the two of you could start over.

He knew he was hoping for too much, but oh a man can dream.

If you're moving on with someone new.

Mark was brought back to the present when he hears a loud shattering of glass. He averted his eyes towards the source of the ruckus and landed his eyes on you. He noticed how your eyes grew into large saucers when he displayed similar shocked features.

Shit.

He quickly and clumsily packed up his belongings as he waved down one of the waiters, asking for the tab. Noticing Mark's shaken composure accompanied by the glares being sent in his direction from the other side of the bar, the waiter sympathetically printed out the bill as fast as he could and didn't let out a peep when Mark underpaid about 10 bucks.

Mark rushed out of the bar, only to be caught by the sound of your voice calling out to him.

"Don't you dare run away." The voice was cold.

"Not again, Mark." It was almost shaking.

You caught up to the man. He turned around, slowly, wishing that this was all just a messed up dream, and the alcohol was only playing tricks with his mind.

Indeed, though, this was his reality. Mark remained silent, only staring at his feet as you approached him.

"Look at me," your voice was softer now, but he noticed the stern edge laced within your words. You were never one to raise your voice, not even when Mark would spew incredulous things at you during an argument. You were always calm.

Mark shifted his gaze from the ground towards your face and noticed you looked wiser. He noticed how your soft features were now more sharp. He noticed how you wore your hair differently. He noticed how you'd ditched your casual jeans and a shirt for something more business-casual. He noticed how your aura had changed into something more serious. He noticed every little change about you.

He also noticed how, beneath all the physical changes, you were still you. You still had the same stars in your eyes. You still had his favorite scent. You still had the same quip in your lip when you spoke. You still had the same smile.

You were smiling at him.

Mark finally managed to meet your eyes, and as you opened your mouth to speak, he cut you off before you could get a sound out.

"You look happier."

Your smile dropped a bit at his observation. He was right, you were happier than you were after the breakup. But you were happier when you were with him. Using other men to distract yourself from Mark worked for a while, but it was never the same.

It's been over a year, and you still missed him. You missed everything about Mark; his smile, his laugh, his posture when he was furiously typing away at his keyboard because he had an essay due in 10 minutes. You missed the way he'd sing to you at night when you woke up from a nightmare, and the way he'd pet down your hair when the two of you wake up in each other's arms after a nap.

And although you missed him, a part of you was still angry at him. Angry that he left without an explanation, and had Donghyuck be the bearer of bad news that he wanted you to be happier. That he wanted you to have a life not revolving around him and his actions.

A part of you hated how he was so selfish, and how he never looked to you for his decision. Yet the other, wiser, part of you was thankful. Thankful that he cared about you enough to let you go, cared about you enough to put your priorities above his own feelings for once. Most importantly, you were thankful that he was your first heartbreak.

Before he was the boy who broke your heart, he was a friend.

You tilt your head a bit sideways, plastered another smile and nodded in response.

"It's a process."

He smiled back, toothy grin warming your heart. "I'm glad you're doing okay."

Maybe it was the universe finally hearing Mark's wishes of starting over, or maybe it was just a mere coincidence that you ran into each other that day. But nonetheless, the encounter made him realize one thing.

"I was happier with you."

Old Times All Over (Part 1 of 2)

A very special thank you to @sequinsmile-x for the beta!

Exactly six months pass before he can’t stand it anymore.

Aaron takes a risk and goes to Emily while she's undercover in Paris.

Rating: M

Exactly six months pass before he can’t stand it anymore. The weight of her absence is unbearable; it follows him around as if lingering in hidden shadows and settling deep in his soul, an indelible stain that doesn’t fade as the days pass by. He bears the team’s grief, shoulders it and doesn’t let himself handle his own. It feels wrong to mourn her as if she were actually dead when in reality she lingers somewhere very different, another kind of hellish existence. He often finds himself wondering what she’d say about all of it. Emily would have scoffed at the ornate casket, rolled her eyes at the formality of the Catholic service the Ambassador insisted upon. He’d been the one to make the call on the flight back to DC. Elizabeth knew right away why he was calling, and the detached coldness in her tone was merely a coping mechanism, for the older woman’s grief seeped through the phone as he relayed the news. Aaron could scarcely reach her eyes as he offered condolences in person, the words heavy and thick on his tongue. Elizabeth’s questions were answered with the vague formalities that were constructed as part of a grand lie, held together with threads that ran the risk of being unraveled with the slightest misstep.

Read the rest below the cut or on Ao3

Emily’s life depended on the sanctity of those lies, as did his own.

No one can ever find out about this, JJ had whispered to Aaron and Clyde behind a firmly closed door in the depths of that hospital in Boston. It was eerily dark, their heads bent together in near silence as initial plans were laid. For her safety, and all of ours. It felt oddly conspiratorial to plan her disappearance as she laid just feet away, oblivious to it all and very much alive. But Doyle escaped into the night like a ghost, and that meant Emily had to go too whether they liked it or not. It didn’t matter that they hunted monsters like him every day. They knew the moment her heart started again, that she would pull through, that she’d never be free. He’ll never stop looking for her. Clyde’s voice was like rubbing salt in a wound that burned through his skin.The tension between them was thick, laden with the unspoken tension of a tentative truce and a keen awareness of the pain that coursed within each of them. He will go to the ends of the earth to find her.

Aaron disliked Clyde Easter from the moment he laid eyes on the man. Perhaps it was his closeness to Emily - she trusted him, more so than she did Aaron, as was being made abundantly clear. It still stung - that she’d gone to him in her moment of need without even once considering just maybe the team could have helped. Maybe it was the way Clyde knew her so intimately, almost as well as a lover would - a delicate balance of adoration and indignance, a fierce desire to protect the oaths they’d sworn years ago, loyalty and trust woven from years of brushes with peril only to do it all over again. But it was more than that; he knew from the moment Clyde sat before him in an interrogation room in Boston his loathing ran deep. Only later would Aaron realize they both paid a similar price for loving the same woman.

The idea to go to her comes to him once Dave has finally disappeared for the night and the bottle of scotch is empty once again. It’s a ritual they share now, unspoken yet expected, an attempt at burying the worst of their grief. It never quite hits the mark, because Dave doesn’t know the truth. His words are wise and well intended, but he speaks of loss in terms of death, and it’s one thing Aaron can’t think about for too long. But it’s some of the only company he has once the building quiets down, so whenever he shows up at the door, he doesn’t object. Most nights they leave together after a round. The echo of their shoes striking the marble floors is the only noise between them when they pass the framed photos of agents long gone on the walls, now with Emily among them. He wants to shake someone, tell them she doesn’t belong there. “Don’t look,” Dave tells him every time. “It won’t bring her back.”

He always looks.

Tonight Aaron lingers, the idea now an intrusive thought reverberating through his weary mind. It’s dangerous - violates every rule of her disappearance - and puts anyone who knows at risk. He shuffles the files on his desk only to do it once more, rearranges the pens in the cup and flips through a few reports that still require his signature. His phone rings; he doesn’t have to turn it over to know it’s Jessica asking where he is, that Jack is asking for him. He was supposed to have been home a few hours ago. Instead of answering that phone, he digs for a different one. This one has stayed hidden in his desk since the night they returned from Boston. Clyde had pushed it into his hand at the last possible moment before he boarded a flight, his face stony and solemn. “If you ever need to reach me, use this.” It might be the closest thing to a friendship they’ll ever have, a twisted kind of bond that comes along with a shared secret they very well might take to the grave.

“I was wondering when you would call,” comes the lilting British accent on the other end when the line connects. “I thought for sure it would be sooner.” Clyde’s voice is haunting; it takes Aaron right back to Boston when it was just the two of them in that interrogation room, piercing blue eyes up against his darker ones as the pieces fell into place. If you want to stop that man, you have to put a bullet between his eyes yourself. He barely recognizes his own voice; it strains when he explains exactly why he’s calling, once the doors of his office are firmly shut. Even then, it’s a near whisper.

“You do realize what you’re asking of me?” Clyde demands. He’s not exactly surprised by the request, though. After all, he and Aaron had a few things in common. “The risks of all of this?” He’s whispering, the hiss of his voice biting even from thousands of miles away, wherever the hell he might be. “I thought you did things by the book at the BAU.”

“Can you make it work or not?” Aaron’s terseness matches Clyde’s hostility, a thinly veiled shield for his grief that consumes him.

There’s a pause on the other end, followed by a contemplative inhale as if he’s considering his answer, like he holds the power in his hands himself. “You should have more faith in me, Agent Hotchner.”

...

It’s all a little too easy to coordinate once the initial call is made, much to his surprise. For two weeks, things continue as normal, or as close to normal as possible, a period of limbo-like freefall. A case takes them to Portland, another to Providence. While the team is across the country, Clyde takes care of the multiple identities and aliases Aaron will use in Europe, along with a reservation at a nondescript hotel and God only knows what else. He’s barely back in Virginia for an hour when a text message on the burner phone reveals a series of coordinates, a meeting location.

“A direct flight to Charles de Gaulle might seem suspect,” Clyde whispers, nestled amongst the shadows along the Potomac River three nights before Aaron slated to leave. “There’s a flight from Regan to Heathrow, then to Paris. You’ll have a different identity for each, so best not to get confused.”

Aaron bristles at the snarkiness in his tone. “And my cover story?”

Clyde scoffs, as if disgusted by the question. “You’ll tell your team you’re being called to London to consult with Scotland Yard as a favor to a friend. I’ve already taken care of those details as well - a fake case report. Familiarize yourself with them so they don’t suspect anything.” He passes over the thick envelope, holding onto it for just a moment too long.

“How will I find her? Once I’m there?”

“Leave that up to me, Aaron. She’ll be waiting for you.”

“Thank you,” is all Aaron can say once he holds the weight of it in his hands. “I know you took a huge risk to do this.”

Clyde stuffs his hands in his jacket pockets and shuffles his feet awkwardly. “I love her too, you know.” It’s certainly the most honest he’s ever been, something that looks like hurt flooding his features. But he stiffens a few seconds later with an authoritative clearing of his throat. “Bloody hell, Aaron, for all of our sakes, I hope you know what you’re doing.”

...

Aaron drops Jack off at Jessica’s. He relays the same details he told the team a few hours before with the same feigned degree of calm assurance and mock annoyance - just a few days away, work related. No one suspects a thing. In fact, the rest of them seem almost happy for him to go. “A change of scenery might be nice,” Dave says as they walk out of the BAU.

It’s risky, inherently a bad idea and yet, it isn’t enough to deter him. There’s an element of betrayal he feels for lying to the team, for they’re still reeling from their collective loss. They miss her just as much as he does; none of this is fair. He drowns it out with a pair of headphones and a stiff drink as the plane roars to life and lifts into the sky as the sun sets.

He wakes up hours later in London with a headache and an all too familiar ache in his chest.

…

It’s another few hours of travel before he actually lands in Paris. He’s completely focused, determined as he collects his luggage and leaves the airport. He destroys the first passport moments after the plane touches solid ground and tucks the next one in his jacket pocket for easy access, the others will stay safely in his travel bag. Aaron calls Clyde on a new burner phone, one of several included in the envelope of documents that was passed over in a shadowy spot by the Potomac. He answers on the first ring, doesn’t even bother with a greeting. Instead he rattles off an address Aaron commits to memory and adds, “she’ll be waiting for you,” before the line goes dead. The address, he soon finds, is a small cafe in the fifth Arrondissement, the Latin Quarter. At first it seems risky, to meet in public, but it’s probably safer than somehow having a record of her address.

The woman at the small table in the back of the cafe is inconspicuous, but he spots her immediately upon opening the door. She could be anyone; she fits right in. One slender leg crossed over the other, a chic knee-length boot peeking out under the table. A simple raincoat, hair cut just below her chin. It’s lighter than it was the last time he saw her but still a rich shade of brown.The only giveaway is the state of the nails on her right hand - not manicured, bit down and ragged. It’s her, exactly where Clyde said she would be. He doesn’t make a big show, just simply sits in the empty seat across from her, his heart pounding in his chest when he sees her face for the first time in months. Emily’s hand is unsteady as her fingers wrap around the espresso on the table. “I’ve been waiting.” It sounds formal; she makes no move to shake his hand or hug him, or display any bit of emotion, but her lips tremble and her eyes well up a little.

“I got a little lost along the way,” Aaron shrugs a little, keeping his tone light for any ears privy to their conversation. She smiles, probably picturing him lost on the maze-like streets of Paris, the streets that still don’t feel like home to her either. “I’m here now.” It carries more weight than it ever would; all he wants to do is touch her to prove to himself this isn’t just part of the fucking nightmare he’s lived since March, one he’ll wake from wrapped in sheets damp with sweat and a pounding heart. She’s very much real, very much alive in front of him, but what the Emily he sees isn’t the Emily he remembers. Paris might be beautiful but it hasn’t been kind to her. She’s thinner and paler, shades of exhaustion on her face. Over the years Aaron has seen her sleep deprived more times than he could count - the toll of back to back cases added up - but this is something else entirely. It’s the culmination of fear from constantly looking over her shoulder, the toll of the unknown. Would Doyle ever stop looking for her, or would the rest of her days be spent on the run, alone, days that blend into weeks into months and years? Would she ever come home, to the only family she’s really ever had?

Emily studies him too, undoubtedly shocked at what she sees. Time hasn’t been kind to him, either. He’s a shell of what he used to be. A subtle shadow on his face that’s new, he’s weary eyed and tense. She knows it’s not because of the better part of a day he’s spent traveling - it’s much more than that. It’s a haunting look, with the memory of how quickly things spiraled out of control. He’d been helpless to stop any of it; Emily knows the blame he places on himself. If their hurried goodbye in the hospital was any indicator of the torment of what he’s been through the last six months, then she knows it’s been hell for him. Just like it’s been for her. She pushes another espresso, this one untouched, in his direction. “How much time do you have?” English feels foreign on her tongue. It’s been weeks, months maybe, since she’s had a real conversation not in French. It’s an act. This is all an act, but one her life depends on. Every minute she spends walking the arrondissements is a risk. The fear curls around her spine a little too tightly. She glances around the coffee shop, eyes scanning through without spending too long on any one thing. It can’t look obvious, only effortless.

“Not nearly enough.” Aaron wonders how much she knows about this, just what Clyde told her about the logistics of his visit. “We have about forty eight hours.”

He doesn’t miss the longing, wistful look in her eyes when she nods, the slightest tip of her head. It’s not enough time, it never will be. But it’s all they have, all they might ever have. They speak in short sentences, vague and cryptic, as they sip the espresso. It’s stronger than he expected, she seems immune to its effects. She doesn’t call him Aaron, and he’s careful not to call her Emily. He doesn’t know her new name, either. Not even Clyde could give him that information - it was probably better that way. They make superficial conversation - the rain here and the heat there, the bakery on the corner with chocolate croissants and the headlines on the newspaper that sits on the table. He plays along as she explains, as if he fits into this world she’s had no other choice but to assimilate into. To anyone in the cafe, they could be old friends, lovers even, with years of history between them, a casual intimacy spun like a web. The ease of lulls in conversation, a subtle glance every so often, the comfort of the proximity of someone else.

And hidden somewhere in their conversation, behind a facade of lies, is something else. What no one knows, what they haven’t quite managed to forget themselves, is something happened between them once before.

...

It was spring, after the dust had settled from Foyet and the world started to turn again, albeit slowly. Only when things settled into a new kind of normal - the humble experience of single parenting, relying on Jessica like he never had before - did Aaron realize something had changed between them. Perhaps it was the unwavering way Emily stood by him even when he wouldn’t admit to needing it, or how she picked up his loose ends without making him feel like his life was unraveling before his eyes. It was the way she mourned Haley’s death, a steadfast presence at her funeral, and her attentiveness to Jack in the months after.

He’d been divorced for more than a year, separated for at least two. Aaron no longer mourned his marriage, but the loss of his son’s mother, the woman he’d shared more than half of his life with. But someone else started to preoccupy his mind - dark hair, a blinding grin, a wicked sense of humor. It was becoming harder to ignore; she was everywhere. So a few months later in the spring, when he found Emily, nursing a drink at the hotel bar that had clearly seen better days, after a particularly brutal case in Scranton, he knew exactly how the night would end. It would cross a line - railroad through any professional boundary they still maintained. But an unsub had walked free earlier that night, a child was dead, and while it wasn’t her fault, he watched any trace of composure vanish from her face when they got back to the hotel as she retreated into herself.

It shouldn’t have happened that way - definitely not how he imagined it would. But Emily was desperate in her need to forget, he was desperate to help her do so. It was frantic, the clash of her teeth against his an ironic reminder that this was the first time he ever kissed her. Aaron pressed her back against the wall, sucked a bruise into her neck, and buried himself inside of her with one smooth push. He swallowed her moans with his mouth, the snap of his hips brutal and sharp. She reveled in it, her need for him and this, legs hitched over his hips as she clenched around him.

“Wanted you for so long,” he growled as she came around him. Her fingers were like vices around his shoulders, clinging to him as he fucked her through it, unrelenting. “Thought about you, about this.”

“Me too,” Emily gasped, the simple admission triggering his own release until he came apart and took her with him one more time.

Aaron had to carry her to the bed in the middle of his hotel room. It was the most gentle he’d been all evening, gingerly placing her in the center of it, following her down and pulling her into his arms. She was bruised and sore, he wore the scratches of her nails on his back and shoulders. Emily curled into him like she’d been doing it forever, snuggling into his chest. “I still can’t feel my legs.”

“We should have done that a long time ago,” he mused into the darkness, dragging his fingertips down her spine, listening to her slow, even breaths. It’s an admission more than an observation, and the low laugh that comes from her is all the confirmation he needs to know she thinks the same thing.

It happened again hours later, in the middle of the night, this time softer, slow and unhurried. He made her come twice with his mouth, coaxing her through each one. Aaron took his time, marveling at her and whispering praises into her skin. She beamed under his touch, besotted under his gaze. He studied the sharpness of her ribs, the curve of her waist, the length of her legs. And then he held her hands in his own above her head, rocking into her, metronomic and even. He kissed her like a lover should, his lips still wet with her slick, her legs pressed tightly wrapped around his waist as she crested against him. He collapsed against her shortly after, grappling for her hands, leaving kisses along her collarbones - anything to be as close to her as he possibly could.

But it was over after that.

Timing once again failed them. Not because they didn’t have the chance, but because they were both afraid something would change, whatever friendship they built over time, and they wouldn’t be able to take it back. They never talked about it, never even acknowledged anything had happened in that hotel room in Scranton once it was over. It lingered between them, the awareness of it sometimes all-consuming if she got too close or they somehow ended up sitting beside one another on the jet. But things happened - JJ’s untimely departure, coupled with Seaver’s arrival, the grueling toll of case after case. It was buried, hidden behind the burden of their jobs and the baggage they carried, both too stubborn to admit what was right in front of them.

And then she slipped away, shortly after a case in Montana. Emily’s typical professionalism, her unmatched level of skill was marred by uncharacteristic lateness and a short fuse, as if something had settled into her mind that she couldn’t shake. She was secretive and jumpy, slowly withdrawing from them all before his own eyes. And he’d been too caught up in what they weren’t saying, what they were hiding from, to even ask what was wrong.

Aaron never saw it coming. Until it was too late.

…

The cafe suddenly feels suffocating, the four walls trapping them in. What started as an alluring scent of coffee beans and freshly baked pastries now feels cloying, overwhelming. It’s just a little too loud as their conversation fades into silence. After all, there’s only so much small talk that can be made when he only has one question. Why? Across from him Emily shifts in her chair yet still wears her pleasant smile, still playing the act she’s perfected over the last several months. But she’s tearing at her fingernails, a sure sign that she’s nervous. He knows her tells by now, all of them. “What do we do now?” She asks, her voice barely audible. Whether it’s intentional or not he isn’t sure,

He leans in, takes her hand in his own. “Let’s get out of here.”

A Different Smile

Pairing: Fred Weasley x Reader

Description: After causing you trouble by setting off a dungbomb, you surprise Fred when you instantly tell him apart from his twin. After that, he can't keep his mind off you.

Warnings: None

If you had been smart, you would have finished your potions essay a week ago. You’d even planned time in the library every day to get it done, yet every time you opened your book, the sky outside the window seemed to get more interesting. You hadn’t purposely planned all of your time to match with the gryffindor’s quidditch practice. It had been a coincidence, but how could you make yourself focus on antidotes for the shrinking solution when you could watch your team practice for the house cup. Especially when a few of the guys had taken off their robes from the heat.

Thankfully, you’d managed to hide from Madame Pince when she’d cleared the students out this evening and had the last hour to finish your essay in peace. It was eleven before you finally switched the lamp off and started stacking your books together .

You leaned back and stretched, bringing some life back into your limbs, then flung your bag over your shoulder, resenting that you had volunteered to tutor tomorrow - forcing you to get your paper done tonight. Nothing like spending a Saturday night on homework. There was nothing particularly wrong with doing homework, considering you loved to learn, but you still wanted to relax every now and then.

With a small sigh, you trudged to the front of the library, already imagining your soft bed and the back of your eyelids waiting on you.

Glancing both ways for any signs of adults or felines before you turned the next corner, you slipped down the corridor. How some people snuck around the castle at all hours was beyond you. The thought of getting in trouble was enough to keep you in the common room by curfew for the most part, only straying when it came to course work. And you wouldn’t have even chanced it tonight if it weren’t for Madame Prince's demand that the potion books you were using not be taken out of the library.

You were halfway back to the dorm when the eerie sound of Peeve’s mischievous giggle echoed down the hall. Your heart dropped into your stomach with dread. There was no way you could get past Peeves without alerting Filch, or worse, McGonagall. Whirling around, you backtracked the way you’d come, set on taking the long way when you collided with something hard and were knocked backward onto the hard stone.

“Ow.” You winced at the pain radiating through your backside, still oblivious to your surroundings.

Two hands tucked under your arms and lifted you back to your feet. ““Merlin, I’m sorry! I didn’t expect to meet anyone.”

Brushing the dust off your sweater, you glanced up to meet big brown eyes watching you, a mop of bright red hair on top of their head. Of course a Weasley would be out causing trouble on a Saturday evening.

“Fred, what are you doing here?” you hissed. “It doesn’t matter, we’ve got to go. Peeves is heading straight for us.” You pushed against his chest, ignoring the tensed plaine of muscles, trying to escape from the annoying poltergeist, but his body stayed fixed in place.

“We can’t go that way, I just set off a dungbomb. Filch and Mrs. Norris will probably be right on my tail.” Now you could make out the sound of Filch muttering obscenities and Mrs. Norris yowling.

“Are you kidding me? I can’t get caught, Weasley! I’m not going to waste an evening in detention because you can’t follow the rules.”

“I’m not the only one out of bed after hours, need I remind you. What exactly are

doing out of bed?” He whispered angrily, a scowl on his face. This was the first time you’d spoken to the boy and it clearly wasn’t going well.

“I was in the library working on my potions essay.” You snapped at his accusatory tone.

“Blimey, you were working on homework?! It’s the weekend! That’s what you do in your spare time?”

All you could do was whimper in response, absolute panic setting in. You had never been in trouble and you didn’t want to break that record now. Frowning, he grabbed your hand and started running toward the direction Peeves was in. “What about Peeves-”

“Just trust me, okay.”

You clamped your mouth shut and ran after Fred, having to take two steps just to meet his long stride. The heavy fall of your footsteps against the stone seemed quiet compared to the thumping in your chest the closer you were to Peeves, you’d just have to turn the corner and you may just run right through him. You gulped, preparing to grovel at McGonagall’s feet, when Fred yanked you behind a statue revealing a passage way before slipping in behind you.

Your back thudded against the cool stone wall, Fred leaned his arm against the wall next to your head, the length of his body pressed against yours to hide you in the shadows, on instinct, your hands balled into fists and rested against his chest. Both of you took deep breaths, trying to get your breath back quietly, his breath brushed against your face and the smell of cool mint floated around you.

After a few moments, you started to speak, only to be cut off by Fred’s hand clamping over your mouth.

“Is someone here, my precious?” Filch’s jarring voice cut through the silence right outside the statue. “Maybe a nasty Weasley.”

Your eyes widened at Fred but he ignored your stare. The only recognition that he felt your gaze was his jaw clenching. Oh god, you were about to be caught and even worse, you’d been hiding with a Weasley twin. Maybe Filch would tell McGonagall that you set off the dungbomb. It’d be on your permanent record. You’d have detention for months.

“We’ll get them this time.” His voice was high-pitched, the sound of joy ringing out, “come out, little Weasley. I’ll only string you up by your toes in the courtyard.”

You gulped, your hands tightened on Fred’s shirt at the sound of Filch’s steps getting closer and closer. You were positive that he was only a step away from entering the hidden passage.

A crash down the hall distracted you from your thoughts.

Outside the statue, Filch squealed like a pig, “Peeves! You rotten scum. I’ll catch you this time.” And then the sound of his footsteps running down the corridor until they disappeared.

Fred held eye contact with you and you could see the wheels turning in his mind. You’d never realized how handsome he was. Being this close to him, you could see the deepness of his chocolate brown eyes had swirls of caramel in them, the way his jaw kept clenching with tension, the freckles speckled against his nose. You swallowed thickly, forcing yourself to think about anything other than the feeling of Fred’s heartbeat beneath your hands, how soft his lips looked, or how easy it would be to wrap your arms around his neck.

It had been eerily silent for a few minutes when you mumbled, “Fred,” your mouth still covered by his hand. Like he’d just remembered he was still holding you, he shook his head and dropped his hand back to his side.

“Yeah?” He whispered.

“Your hand smells like a dungbomb.”

At this, Fred let out a breathy chuckle. “Right, that can happen to a lad now and again.”

“You might want to see a healer if it occurs more than three times a week.” You teased before glancing to the exit, missing the curious look Fred gave you. “Do you think it’s safe now? I really don’t want Mrs. Norris or Filch to come back.”

“That sounded like a suit of armor that Peeves dropped, Filch will be distracted by that for hours. We should be fine to get back to the dorms. Which house are you in?”

A frown flashed on your face before you recovered. “Um, Gryffindor.”

He cocked his head in surprise. You, however, weren’t surprised that he didn’t know you even if you knew exactly who he was. He was a year older than you, half of the popular duo and champion beater for the quidditch team, and you mostly stuck to yourself. It wasn’t often that someone other than the professors noticed you.

Giving him a loose shrug, you side-stepped to let him pass. You followed Fred as he slipped out from the statue and started leading you back to Gryffindor. You looked around to find you were still a few floors away to safety. It was silent between you two, your ears sharp for any sound of footsteps that may be coming to find you.

“Can I ask you a question?” Fred broke the silence. You peeked at him from the corner of your eye and nodded. “How did you know I was Fred?”

A smile twitched at the corner of your lip. “Isn’t it obvious? You look completely different than George.”

He gapped at you, “you don’t think we look alike?”

“No. Not at all.” Your face was blank but the longer he stared, the harder it was to keep in your smile.

Fred narrowed his eyes, “you’re taking the piss out of me, aren’t you?”

A giggle bubbled out of you and you couldn’t hold it back. “Of course you look alike, dork, you’re identical twins.”

“Well you’re very convincing. I almost doubted our resemblance for a minute.” He snorted, running his hand through his messy hair.

“Sorry, you just made it way too easy.” You said, laughing a little more until it fell silent again.

“So how’d you know?”

“You have different smiles, yours turns down just a bit at the corner like you have a secret. Your eyes are darker than his. George has a tiny bump on his nose. Both of you speak differently.” You shut your mouth quickly, realizing how creepy that could sound. “That sounded way more weird than I’d intended. It’s not like I’ve noticed you in particular or anything, you just tend to notice things when you’re by yourself. Which I am a lot. Not because I can’t make friends, it’s just that I like to read a lot and I don’t want to get bad grades or fail so I go to the library most days. But you and George can get pretty loud sometimes in the common room so I can’t help from hearing...”

He’d been unusually quiet since you started talking and you didn’t want to wait around for him to call you a freak. There was a breath of relief that you could stop rambling as you approached the Fat Lady. Fred gave her the password and she gave you a stern glare before reluctantly swinging open.

Scrambling through the painting, you dashed toward the stairs, ready to put this whole night to rest.

“Wait!”

Your foot hovered over the third step as Fred called after you. Grudgingly, you shifted to face him, still shorter than him on the second step.

“Yes, Fred?”

“I’m sorry if I caused you any trouble tonight...uh, actually, I don’t think I caught your name.”

You pursed your lips. “It’s alright, I shouldn’t have been out after hours anyways. Thanks for getting me back safely though. Besides, it was worth it to hear Mrs. Norris screeching like she’d been dunked in a bathtub.” Fred smiled at that. Turning back around, you kept walking to your dorm.

“Hey, you still didn’t tell me your name.”

Without stopping, you called over your shoulder, “Goodnight, Weasley.”

Why bother? By morning he’ll have forgotten the whole incident and be back to pulling pranks with George and Lee Jordan.

Fred stood frozen at the bottom of the stairs in shock.

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

Two weeks had passed in a blur with exams looming over the school like the plague. Students everywhere were starting to freak out, the stench of panic settling in. Last Wednesday, Lucy Slitworm had passed out in Charms as Professor Flitwick had started the review of subjects. When she came too, she’d burst into tears and had to be sent to the nurse. Luckily, you’d managed to avoid that level of stress by practically living in the library.

You’d studied in the common room a few times, but the sound of Ron and Harry moaning that Hermione wasn’t helping them was more distracting than anything. You’d also found your eyes straying over to a certain red-head more than your books so you’d reluctantly rearranged your schedule to accommodate the walk to the library.

It was no shock that Fred had ignored your presence since that evening, although it did sting a bit to know that you had made that little of an impression on him when he’d made such an imprint on your mind.

More often than you’d like now, you found your mind wandering to Fred. You kept replaying the feeling of his hand in yours, of his breath on your skin, the curious look he’d given you when you’d teased him, or worse, the way it had felt so right with his body against yours.

Obviously, you’d noticed him before that night. It was hard not to when he and his brother were shouting over a game of exploding snap, or when he was teasing Ron for something, or even when he was flirting with the girls in the common room. After that night, you couldn’t help searching for the boy when you walked into the Great Hall, or wonder what prank he might be pulling.

The truth was, you’d missed every time he looked at you. You missed how he would scan any room he walked into, hoping to catch a glimpse of you. You missed when he’d asked George about you the very next morning and the surprise on his face when George actually knew your name. How thick headed could he have been to ignore you all these years?

Of course he hadn’t told George the story when he’d prodded. It was something that he’d wanted to keep to himself, the memory of that terrified look on your face at the possibility of getting in trouble, you leaning against the wall in front of him, the feeling of your soft breath on his chest.

From where he sat, it seemed like you hadn’t spared him one thought or look and it was killing him. How were you so utterly unphased by what had happened? That night had been a wakeup call for him, that for six years, he had missed out on getting to know this beautiful, playful, intelligent girl. Yet you hadn’t even wanted to tell him your name, you’d raced up the stairs to get away from him - everything pointed to the fact that you just didn’t seem interested in him. So why had you known who he was, down to the shape of his smile?

He’d racked his brain for a way to talk to you, something that didn’t make him seem desperate or ridiculous, but the days kept passing and he still hadn’t said one word to you. Every time he had taken a step in your direction or started to pass you a note in the common room, this overwhelming feeling of fear had stopped him. He’d never felt a fear like this. He was a Weasley for god sakes, nothing scared him or stopped him from taking a leap.

Except you.

On Saturday morning, a week after the incident, he finally relented that he might have to ask his twin for help. Most likely, George would have a plan immediately and he’d be kicking his own butt for not asking sooner.

He explained the whole situation to George, leaving out the detail of how your body felt so warm or that you fit perfectly against him. Then he’d spent a good twenty minutes chasing George around while George teased him mercilessly. After he’d gotten out a few rounds of “sitting in a tree”, Fred whalloped him on the head and they’d calmed down.

“Okay, what’s so special about this bird, Freddie? You’ve never had trouble talking to girls before.” George asked, settling down in his chair.

Fred stared out the window for a while before answering. “She knew who I was. Not just in the way that she knew that I was one of the twins. Not in the way that she had to really think about it. She took one look at me and knew that I was Fred.” George raised an eyebrow at this. “We don’t get that very often, never in fact. Bloody hell, even mum can’t tell us apart on a good day. People look at us and see what they want - two halves of a whole. I don’t mind, usually, I really don't. But something about her seeing me for me-”

“It makes you feel special. I get it.” George patted Fred’s knee once. “Let’s do some recon and figure out how to win you your girl.”

As soon as Harry came down from the dorm, George had asked to borrow back the Marauders map for a while, then they set off for Hogsmead to scheme.

For the next week, outside of Fred’s constant planning, George took his own liberties by running into you as often as possible. He was determined to see if you could really tell the twins apart or if it had been a coincidence.

“There you are! How have you been?” He’d asked you in some variation or another.

Never had George or Fred willingly said hello to you, and now it was becoming a daily occurrence. Each time, you’d looked at him with equal parts confusion and amusement. “I’m fine, George, and how are you?”

And each time, he’d give you an offended look and reply, “I’m not George, I’m Fred. Thought you were supposed to know me.”

“No, you’re George. Just as you were George yesterday and the day before.” You’d reply, a little more annoyed each time you had to say it. George would shrug and then turn tail in the other direction.

On Friday morning, George slipped into the seat next to you in the Great Hall. Your spoon was midair, full of oatmeal, when you stopped to look up at him. You raised an eyebrow when you saw he was smiling at you.

“Uh, good morning, George.”

His smile faded, a quizzical expression on his face, “you really can tell the difference between us, interesting.” Then he turned to get up, pausing when you grabbed his wrist and tugged him back down, a bit roughly.

“You don’t get to leave that easily. George, I’ve known you for six years. I know that you’re George. And I know that that was Fred up in the common room arguing with Ron about skiving snackboxes. I know that you’ve been the one saying hello to me every day, not Fred. The only thing I can’t figure out is why you’re trying to confuse me, especially when it’s clear it’s not going to work.

George didn’t speak, a grin spreading across his face the longer you talked. When you were done, you let out a small sigh and went back to your oatmeal, positive that he would get up and leave. He was quiet for a few more seconds before he snickered.

“Man, you really can talk once you get started, huh?” He stood up swiftly and leaned back over your shoulder. “See ya around, troublemaker.” Then he was gone before you could blink.

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

The next day, you were still in the library cramming for the start of your exams on Monday. You’d begged Madame Pince for extra time and cushioned it with three weeks of volunteering to reshelf books for her to give you thirty additional minutes after closing.

You’d tried to focus on your workbooks but your mind kept wandering back to the strange interactions from George. He’d never really spoke to you before unless it was necessary, and what really confused you, was that Fred had seemed completely unaffected. It seemed that things had gone back to normal, you were invisible to Fred Weasley.

All too quickly, your extra time disappeared, and you were no further than you were when you started. The moment the clock hit thirty minutes past, Madame Pince was ushering you out of the library and slamming the doors behind you.

You rolled your eyes and continued on your way to the common room. As you rounded the corner, the stench of a dungbomb wafted to your nose and you instantly cringed. That was the scent of trouble that you wanted no part of. Spinning on a heel, you headed for the next closest route. Even though you’d had permission from Madam Pince to stay out late, Filch wasn’t one to care for acceptions.

You’d been walking for five minutes when the familiar smell of another dungbomb surrounded you. You stopped dead in your tracks, a frown growing on your face. The universe had to be playing some kind of cosmic joke on you.

With a huff, you turned down another hallway with the plan to go through a few of the classrooms that could get you to the other side of the castle. It wasn’t the most efficient but it would work in a pinch.

Tiptoeing out of the charms classroom, you rounded the corner and almost smacked into the fog of a dungbomb.

“You’ve got to be freakin kidding me?” You murmured angrily.

The sounds of Filch’s voice floated from behind you and your stomach jumped to your throat. You’d tried so hard for so long to avoid trouble and now it felt like it was following you. Letting out a terrified groan, you spun around and sprinted down the closest hallway, regardless of if it would get you back to the common room. The voices were getting closer and you were starting to really panic.

You felt like you were stuck in one of those bad dreams where you were running but you weren’t getting any farther. Filch’s voice was looming over you and you still had half the length of the hall to go.

Suddenly, a hand reached out and snagged you by the arm, dragging you behind the statue of the one-eyed witch. You struggled in the arms of your assailant, kicking and flailing to get away, then you opened your mouth to screech but a hand was covering your mouth quickly.

“Bloody hell, stop worming around, woman. You want him to catch us?” A voice whispered in your ear, sending a shiver down your spine. You knew that voice. Instantly, you relaxed against his chest and his hand dropped from your mouth to your collarbone. Closing your eyes, you tried to ignore how good he smelled and how natural it felt to be in his arms.

The puffs of Filch’s ragged breathing echoed into the passage and you instinctively pushed closer to Fred, his arms tightening around you as he moved you backwards deeper into the tunnel.

It felt like deja vu to be in this situation with Fred as you were waiting for Filch to discover you both at the scene of a crime. Maybe this was the only way you’d get to spend any time with him - when he was causing trouble and you were caught in the crossfire.

Your heart was racing, waiting for Filch or Mrs. Norris to leap around and shout ‘GOTCHA!’ but it never came. Instead, you heard a growl of frustration and Filch yell, “another one?! I’ll catch the little brat setting these off!” and then his shouts slowly fading.

A full minute passed before you let out the shaky breath you’d been holding. Fred’s arm was still wrapped around you, his thumb rubbing gently across the bare skin of your neck, and his chin was resting on the top of your head. Every time he took a breath, his chest pushed against your back and you relished in the feeling.

Abruptly, the realization of what just happened sunk in. Whirling around, you pushed Fred’s chest, his eyes bulging out with surprise at the sudden movement. “You scared me, Fred Weasley!”

“What, you wanted me to just let you get caught?” He snapped in astonishment.

“You could have at least warned me before snatching me mid-stride.”

“What would you have preferred? I stand at the entrance of a

passageway with a giant white flag. Might have given us away!”

“Well, why do you have to go around causing trouble in the first place? It’s absolutely ridiculous. I was doing just fine without you setting off four dungbombs around the castle.”

“Don’t yell at me, woman! I had to do something to get your attention.” Fred said a little harshly.

You stared at him, your brain struggling to comprehend what he’d said. “Wait, what?”

Fred scuffed his foot on the ground, “Nothing, just forget it. This whole thing was stupid.”

You stepped forward and put a hand on his bicep, “no, tell me.”

Fred sighed and watched you before stepping back into your space, towering over you so that you had to tilt your head to look at him. “I said, I had to do something to get your attention.”

“So you set off dungbombs so that I would get in trouble?” You whispered nervously.

“No, I had George set off dungbombs so that I could

you from getting in trouble.” His voice faded away at the end.

“And why would you want to do that?”

“I don’t know...” Fred tried to pull away from you but you tightened your hold so he wouldn’t move, “I just thought if I could save you from being in trouble again, that you would talk to me again.”

“Why didn’t you just talk to me then?”

Fred didn’t respond at first, instead, he tucked a piece of your hair behind your ear. Finally, he said, “Because you ran away from me last time we talked. You didn’t even want to tell me your name. I just figured you wouldn’t want to speak to me. And then you haven’t even looked at me since that night.”

Your gaze fell to your shoes, “I’m sorry, Fred. I only ran away because I was nervous and...”

“And?” He tilted your chin back up so he could see your face, his gaze lingering on your lips.

“And I felt like you wouldn’t care who I was. You didn’t even know I was in Gryffindor until two weeks ago so what would be so different about now.”

“Are you crazy? I haven’t been able to get you out of my head. It’s been driving George nuts, how much I’ve been talking about you.”

Butterflies erupted in your stomach at his words. “Why me? You never noticed me before.”

Fred leaned closer to you, making your head spin with his closeness. “I’m not afraid to admit I was thick-headed. I’ve never had to look outside of my own world and that caused me to look over certain people. But in my whole life, I’ve never had someone recognize me as an individual. You knew, in an instant, who I was, and even tonight, you knew it was me just by my voice. I guess what I’m saying is, you amaze me. And I regret not taking the time to get to know you sooner.”

Your jaw dropped slightly at the confession, making Fred grin down at you. Not giving yourself the opportunity to second guess, you lifted up on your tiptoes and pressed your lips against his. Fred’s free arm snaked around your waist and pulled you tight against his body as he deepened the kiss.

Sooner than you wanted, he pulled away with a huge smile on his face. Softly, he placed small kisses on your nose and your cheeks, making you giggle at the sensation, before he rested his forehead against yours. You couldn’t help smiling the longer you looked into his eyes.

“You’re wrong, by the way.” You said in a low voice, not wanting to break the moment. Fred’s brow furrowed in confusion at your statement. “I’ve looked your way every single day and I was hoping that you would talk to me. Instead, I had George harassing me every time I turned around.”

Fred snorted, “he’s a bloody idiot. He didn’t think you could really tell us apart so he wanted to test you.”

“I assumed it was something like that, it was just very annoying.”

“He still thinks it’s a trick but he can’t figure out how you’re doing it.” Fred chuckled.

Looping your arms around Fred’s neck, you drew him in closer. “The trick is that I know who I’m attracted to and that person is you.” You said, pecking his lips once more.

“That, and we look nothing alike, right?” Fred teased, making you laugh again.

“Exactly, polar opposites.” You joked back easily.

heyy!! i love ur blog so much! could i request joshua (seventeen) x sub/bottom reader smut with some degradation and humiliation? you can go wild with everything else 🥰

yes.

my get out of jail free card (m)

joshua x (female reader)

warnings: dom josh, humiliation, degradation, spitting, spanking, cream pie, unprotected sex, pet names, doggy style, “dudes being dudes🙄” lmao, mentions of drinking and marijuana.

lmk if i miss anything (not proof read)

a/n: this turned out to be longer than i thought sorry lmao i got carried away

5:33 pm

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josh always thought you were naturally sexy, you always being able to make him shift in his seat uncomfortably when he watches you do daily tasks, or just anything in general (you were just that sexy). sometimes you liked to use that information to your advantage by either dressing up in something a little more revealing for fun and walking around the apartment to tease him, or maybe buying a sexy lingerie to surprise him spontaneously.

but before it was different.

josh used to despise you. you thought it was ironic, because he was all over you now, but back then, he couldn’t even look at you without getting uncomfortable. you were polar opposites and you were on the more rebellious end.

josh used to like to finish his homework early, he liked to stay in on a friday night with his small group of friends and play bored games (pun intended).

he refused to partake in the consumption and use of narcotics and alcohol, and couldn’t stand the idea of premarital sex. and then he fell in love with you, your personality and your body, practically leaving the idea of premarital sex behind and risking the idea of ending up in a forever hell all for you and his temptations. and now, you had the advantage of surprising and teasing him in this flimsy set to get him to bang the shit out if your just for the sake of it.

you now reside in your shared bedroom, checking yourself out in the head to toe mirror, clad in the set you mentioned before. you think you’re cute, and you pose to see all angles. you giggle tp yourself as you bubble with excitement, preparing to surprise josh.

you turn around, looking at yourself one more time before struting out of the room towards where your boyfriend is seated in the living room. you enter the warm room and you see him spread out of the couch that sits in the middle of the room, phone in his hand and a random show playing in the background.

“babe.” you gently call from behind him to get his attention on your figure.

“yeah.” he lazily replies, not moving his original position and keeping his eyes trained on his phone, probably texting a member or looking through social media.

you roll your eyes in irritation and attempt to complete your mission as you try again, “josh~.” you say singsongingly, and he exhales and replies again,

“what.” he says a little bit more seriously, probably getting annoyed that your bothering him while he’s busy on his phone, or because you won’t go in front of him to actually get his attention.

“joshua.” you say sternly, trying to get his attention still, and succeeding when he angrily turns around saying, “what y/n-,” angrily and he stops mid sentence, gulping, looking at you from head to toe, examining the material that sits on your body.

“oh, holy shit.” he swears and you giggle, teasingly walking towards him, swaying your hips slightly. “you shouldn’t use that tone with me like that.” you say as he completely turns his torso towards you, as his attention is completely on you now. “sorry babe, i didn’t mean to sound mean like that.” he apologizes and reaches his closer hand out to you and caresses your ass. you couldn’t tell if his hand on your ass was just a sexual gesture, if he just wanted his hand on you just for the sake of it, or if he was using his touch to apologize to you; you couldn’t tell, so you roll your eyes again over the fact that he’s completely changed his attitude now that you stand infront of him, half naked.

he blinks at you for a second and you smirk at him, and he begins speaking again, “please accept my apology baby.” he says sweetly, also lightly squeezing your ass while looking at you with the cutest eyes you can’t resist.

“ok,” you trail off and swing your hair from one side of your shoulder to the other, barely listening to his response. “but on one condition, i’ll accept your apology.” you say, pulling his hand off your backside as his face contorts in confusion due to the sentence you had just put out. “what is it?” he asks, getting out of his spot, rounding the couch to you so he can directly stand in front of you.

“you have to fuck the absolute shit out of me.” you reply, watching as his face drops in of disbelief; those words went straight to his sick to be honest.

how did he manage to snatch up a girl like you?, he thinks to himself and you shift in your spot, biting your lip, smiling and looking up at him. his eyes visibly get darker and bhs bites his lip, instinctively moving closer to you.

“go to the bedroom now.” he instructs for you to do and you follow his orders as you turn around in the direction of the room, walking away teasingly, swaying your hips again. he slaps your ass and shamelessly watches your ass as you walk away.

a lot of his band mates also used to tease him about the way he would respectfully look away from you when you were naked or changing and etcetera. they later explained to him that it’s ok to check her if you guys are dating, (if she allows it that is). he later completely understood it after years of avoiding your body and now you’re like his personal playboy magazine.

——————————————————

you had finally made your way to your shared room, comfortably positioning yourself on your bed, waiting for him to come into the room.

your heart began to pound a little when you watch him walk through the doo. he runs his hands through his hair as he continues his stride over to you. “it’s almost like using a get out of jail free card whenever you do this.” he says coming to a stop in front of the bottom edge of the bed to stare at where you’re seated on the middle of the bed.

you giggle at his joke as you shift towards him on your knees, coming up in front of him and reaching your hands out to the bottom of his shirt and playing with it to get him a little riled up.

“yeah? and why is that?” your curiosity causes a smile to break out on his face. “i don’t even have to try to get into your pants.” he answers truthfully, leaning into you to kiss you roughly.

the kiss is demanding and causes you to fight for dominance between the two of you. he obviously wins when he shoves his tongue into your mouth and you comply, allowing him to explore your mouth.

he suddenly pulls away and begins, “babe.” he now sternly looks in your eyes with only lust. it immediately grabs your attention and you clench around nothing, feeling yourself pulse in excitement. “yes?” you say biting your lip and looking back at him. you try to hold a smile back as he grips your hips and pulls your entire body right against his. “what do you want?” he asks, his tone now darker as he moves his hands down to your ass and strokes slightly. “you.” you sigh out, wrapping your arms around his neck,

“well i would hope that you would want me.” he jokes, pinching your ass and you laugh at his joke for a second and press yourself even closer to him, now feeling his friend completely hard down against your thigh.

“seriously babe, what do you want, my fingers? my mouth?” he asks again, stroking your hips and legs. you smile to yourself as you speak out, “i want you to eat me out, and then i want you to fuck the shit out of me.” you say as you reach down to palm him and he grunts, gripping your backside tightly.

“yeah, i can do that.” he breathlessly says, grabbing your thighs to wrap your legs around his hips so he can move you two more easily on the bed.

once he situates you at the pile of pillows at the the top of the bed, you begin to make out again. the both of you are fighting for dominance again and it’s messy, spit begins to dribble between your mouths on your chin. you moan into his mouth and he grips your thighs to place it over his shoulders to position himself comfortably against you. he moves his left hand beside your head for balance while wrapping his right around your neck, lightly asphyxiating you. he shoves his tongue into your mouth again and you moan against him as he also starts to grind against your core. “josh.” you both let go of the kiss and a string of saliva stays between the two of you as you part. “what?” he asks as you grip the arm that is wrapped around your neck with both of your hands.

he’s in awe when he looks down to see the full sight of his hand wrapped around your neck as your smaller hands grip his large, veiny arm for leverage.

you look at him with pleading eyes, the friction of him grinding against you not being enough to stimulate your core. “please.” he breathes out at the sound of your voice, it now changing into a lighter tone due to your submissive position now.

he laughs at your sudden weakness and pushes on. “y/n, you have to use your words.” he says, stopping the movements against your hips, ceasing all pleasure now. your eyes begin to tear up as anger boils in your chest. you know he knows what you want, but he won’t give in, he likes to tease you and break you until your confidence has completely vanished.

“please go down there.” you attempt to speak out, voice hoarse due to his grip around your neck. “what’s down there baby? you tell me.” he continues as he leans down to your ear. “m-my pussy.” you say, voice just above a whisper, too ashamed to say it out loud. “you can be louder than that, come on slut.” the nickname goes straight to your center as he pressures you and you give in, “my pussy,” you respond louder. he laughs at you again and you close your eyes to avoid his gaze, cheeks hearing in embarrassment.

he thinks it’s entertaining how bold you were a few moments ago, you now falling into sub space as you impatiently wait for him to pleasure you.

“yeah? and what do you want me to do to your pussy again?” he continues to push on, now right into your ear. you feel his heavy breath against your skin and you tingle all over.

“i...” you exhale, squeezing your eyes shut as he begins to place light kisses against your sweet spot on your neck. “i want you to eat me out.” you finish, a tear falling down your face in anticipation. his chest pushes off of your as he lifts himself off if you to look into your eyes deeply.

“that’s pathetic.” he spits out, hand still on your neck, occasionally squeezing it still. you frown and open your eyes to see what he’s doing and when you do, hes just staring.

“are you gonna take it like a good girl?” he questions, moving his left hand from it original position to stroke your side. he inches closer to your boob and when he reaches them, he lets go of his grip around his neck and completely leans back on his knees. he pushes the material of the bra over your boobs to let them fall out of it confines.

your boobs sit out in the open air and your nipples begin to harden under the slightly cool air. he brings both his hands to your chest and begins massaging them, pulling your nipples occasionally. you moan at his ministrations and he tenses in his pants in anticipation for you.

he reaches around your body, impressively undoing the bra and it easily falls off your chest and he throws it to the side of the bed. he leans back in again and admires your body. he continues with your underwear and pulls them down your legs and throws them across the room somewhere. he gives short kisses down your torso towards your center, leaving deep purple marks in his wake.

———————————————————

your back arches as he hits the specific spot inside you while he is knuckle deep with his fingers moving strategically inside you. your moans are so beautiful to him as he eats you out strategically. youre roughly gripping at his hair out of pleasure, face contorting from the pleasure he offers you.

“fuck josh.” you spit out, throwing your head back against the pillows and smirks at your reactions and begins sucking on your clit again, trying to bring you to your edge. “does it feel good?” he questions, letting go of your bundle of nerves and you exhale a breath you didn’t know you were holding. you nod furiously, too caught up in the pleasure to properly respond. he chuckles at your answer and continues with his ministrations.

his fingers keep their same pace as his mouth alternates between liking, biting, sucking, and the odd time, spitting. “fucking slut.” he says, creating a glob of spit in his mouth as he backs away from your core, still fingering you. he spits the glob on you and you sit up to lean on your elbows to get a better view of him deliciously eating you out.

“you like it when i eat you like this, finger fucking your tight pussy open, right?” he questions and your face contorts out of pleasure when he hits the spot again.

“fuck-, yes, it feels so good, i love it.” you quickly reply as you continue to watch him with your mouth falling open slowly. he hums as he begins to suck around you again, feeling the pleasure build up inside you. “i’m close.” you breathlessly let out to tell him before it’s too late. he continues and your legs shake as you get closer to your edge. “are you?” you nod and your eyes begin to roll back into your head. he looks up at you and feels like he’ll almost cum in his pants just by the way you look alone.

your elbows give in and you end up with your back flat on the mattress with josh laughing between your legs, which added to the sensations which also made the coil snap and caused you to begin arching your back in the air. you moan out and grip his hair tighter and tighter, biting your lip and slumping on the mattress, heart pounding as your orgasm washes over you.

“look at you, such a cum slut, right princess?” he ask, moving up from between your legs. you open your mouth to respond but soon close it not trusting what sound could come out of your mouth. he grips your arms that lay lifelessly on your side and he pulls you up and flips you on your stomach. everything happens so fast and you have to think about it after you were manhandled by him.

“ass up babe.” he demands and you listen, quickly getting into the position. he grabs your arms again and pinning them behind your back. your head was planted onto the sheets so you try to move your head down so you can get a good look at the man behind you. when you successfully shift your head, he immediately makes eye contact with you. he gives you a side smile in response to the way you look at him desperately, still biting your lips to hold in your needy moans.

“josh please.” you whine lightly, trying to entice him to place his member inside of you, or even just taking his clothes off in the first place would be just as good. he leans down to your face again and roughly grips your hair in his hand and pulls your head to make you look at him directly. you moan out at his sudden roughness and he begins, “what do you want me to do, slut?” he questions, slightly gripping your hair rougher to make you pay attention. “i want you to pound my pussy.” you sob, a shaky hand going to his hand in your hair.

he finally gives in when he lets go of your hair and begins stripping himself. he grabs the bottom of his shirt and pulls it over his head; you watch him intently, tears beginning to fall down your face again slightly, your body overwhelmed from the aftershocks of your orgasm. he throws the shirt somewhere in the room and then begins unbuttoning the pants. you close your eyes as he pulls his pants down.

another tear slips from your eyes as you squeeze them closed, also simultaneously squeezing your thighs together to get friction on your core to ease the pulse.

when he’s done taking his pants off, he toses them on the floor and watches you desperately rub your legs together.

“fucking slut, can’t even wait for me to touch you again.” he comments, placing his wet tip to your dripping pussy and rubbing it through the folds. you moan out and grip the sheets, waiting for him to put it in.

“please put it in josh.” you whine out, red eyes opening and looking at him straight in the eyes again, and when you guys make eye contact, he grabs your hair and turns your head on your chin and arches your back further with a hand on your lower back as well.

with the hand on the lower back, he grabs his dick again and pushes it into you perfectly. his dick slides in and be immediately begins pounding into you from behind. he lets go of your hair and comfortably positions himself to get a better grip for fucking you rougher.

he continues to roughly fuck you with the same hard pace, which makes you moan out loudly. “f-fuck please.” your voice comes out in a bizarre pattern with the noise of his hips slapping against you and you listen to it and enjoy his breathless pants behind you as well.

“please what babe?” he breathlessly asks, spanking you roughly and you moan out in response to the action and he rubs the area soothingly to ease your pain slightly. “please make me cum again.” you weakly answer, eyes fluttering shut when you feel his tip brush against the spot.

he scoffs in disbelief, “one orgasm wasn’t enough?” you internally groan, just wanting him to make you cum. you decide to move your hand down to your core to try and rub yourself to release. he notices that and grips your arm tightly and pulls it out from underneath you. he roughly spanks you and you yelp, free hand living to your side to grip the sheets.

“i didn't fucking say you could touch yourself.” he grunts out, pace quickening slightly. you moan out, mouth dropping open as you furrow your brows. you move your head onto it’s side again to situate yourself in a better position. his pace is relentless, causing the wind to be knocked out if your lungs now.

“josh~.” you whine at him breathlessly, the force of his thrust pushing you up the best.

he takes his free and and wraps it around your stomach to find your core and begins to roughly rub your spot perfectly, causing you to arch further into the bed. he groans out at your reaction and continues his movements, bringing you to your edge quickly.

his hands are both occupied, one roughly rubbing your core and the other that managed to travel back up to your hair again. his hand grips your hair even more tighter, making you yelp and squeeze your eyes shut.

you clench tightly around him in response to the pleasure you’re both feeling as you feel your end approaching as you let go of your grip around him, walls fluttering after your legs shake and quiver around his hand.

you begin to give out when your head falls to the side on the bed again and feel the coil in your gut snap and your orgasm washes over you. you let out a long loud moan, then slumping into the mattress, letting him fuck you like a toy so he can reach his high.

“you got what you wanted slut.” he says as he removes his hand from your center and begins another pace to bring himself to the edge. you keep your eyes closed as he uses you, letting him do whatever he wants.

“fuck yes” he expresses one last time, his hips stuttering against you, letting out a deep groan and cumming deep inside of you.

he lets go of your hair and whatever else he was gripping and leans over you and slumps. he relaxes his heavy body above you and both stay like that for a few minutes to catch your breaths.

“you ok?” he questions, pulling himself out of you and watching his cum drop out of you. you sigh and he pushes himself up off of above you so you can move freely from your uncomfortable position. you move your hands to beside your head and push yourself up and turn yourself to sit face to face to him. “i’m good.” you smile at him and he smiles back, leaning in and placing his hand on your neck, giving you a sloppy but sweet kiss.

“did you enjoy it?” he lets go of the kiss and asks sweetly, his dominant gone and replaced with his usual soft demeanor.

“yea i did, thank you for that.” you say, climbing into his arms and straddling him lap again and he gladly lets you sit comfortably on him.

“no, thank you babe, i kinda needed that.” he replies, kissing you again and placing his hands on your hips again. you smile against his lips and you pull away for a second to speak again. “how about a shower?” you ask and he smiles at though of a nice warm shower featuring your naked body at the moment. “yeah let’s have a shower.” he retorts and kisses you again.

Lost Then Found - Bofur

Requested By: @prestongoodplayisbabey​

Could I have a Bofur x reader where the reader gets lost (she’s part of the company) and when Bofur and the rest find her she’s eating a bear she caught with her own hands? I loved ur fic for @iwazoomingouttahere 💕

It’s probably a little different to what you were expecting but who doesn’t love a surprise amiright?! Also, I’m really glad that you liked the other fic so much that you wanted to request something for yourself so I hope that you like it

Warnings: A lil bit sad, wouldn’t say angsty though. Fluff. Mentions of death (animal). Mentions of blood. Mentions Bofur without his hat lmao. I think that’s it, don’t quote me on that.

Words: 2,713

Pairings: Bofur x Reader (female reader)

_______________

It was definitely NOT your fault when you had become separated from the company. Everyone takes a wrong turn occasionally and loses the entire group they were travelling with. Right? It’s not like you heard a strange noise a bit away and went to investigate and when you returned, you found that they pressed on without you. If anything, it’s THEIR fault you were now separated from you. The big knuckleheads are completely oblivious sometimes. Anywho, that isn’t the point. It most certainly, definitely, absolutely WASN’T your fault.

Honestly, you actually had no clue in which direction they took off in but nevertheless, you followed your gut. They’re quite the noisy bunch so it shouldn’t be too hard to find them if you were on the right track. So, when you hear no rowdy group of 13 dwarves, a hobbit and a wizard, you deducted that you either went the wrong way of they finally learnt the meaning of the word silence.

_______________

You huffed as you sat down on the damp ground as you were surrounded by forestry. The towering trees and shrubbery provided great cover for when you slept alone at night. You brought your knapsack that contained your bedroll over to your side where you rested against the mossy tree. You wrestle your bedroll from its confinement within your sack and roll it out, ready for when you rest when it gets darker.

As you finish up sorting your sleeping arrangement, you turned and looked at the slight clearing which you’ve chosen to set up camp before groaning slightly and setting out ready to find whatever you could for kindling the fire you plan to build. You set out slightly away from where you’ve set up your bedroll and knapsack and begin searching the ground for anything that isn’t to damp and will burn.

All you can think about as you collect fuel for your campfire is of the company, more specifically, a certain dwarf who had captured your heart with his whittling, singing and goofy hat that never leaves his head. You sigh, wondering if he even cared that you had disappeared, if any of them cared really. You had been separated for almost a week, surely, they noticed at least.

You shake your head. ‘Of course, they care.’ You groaned as you realised you practically came to a standstill as your mind wandered instead of doing what you intended on doing so. You look at the singular stick within your hand and huff. “It’s gonna be a long night…”

_______________

Bofur’s mood had been off lately, everyone could tell, especially his brother and cousin. They all dearly missed Y/N and were concerned about where she is now and whether she is safe, but it’s Bofur who’s losing his mind over his missing One.

Bofur knew the moment he first laid on the girl that she was his One, he almost instantly confided in his brother and cousin about the subject. He even asked Balins’ ear off over what he should do. He loved how Y/N’s smile always happened to brighten up his day, or how her laugh could lure any man for it was easily mistakable for a sirens call.

He even loved how she was the only person to truly make him flush a deep red. She matched him perfectly when it came to humour, making him flush when a sarcastic, dirty joke passed her lips.

The dwarf sighed as he sat himself down on a log beside his cousin and the young princes’. The three all shared a concerned look towards each other then turned their gaze towards the love stricken, hat wearing whittler.

“Don’t worry Bofur, we’ll find her.” Fíli spoke, placing a comforting hand atop his companions’ shoulder, offering a sympathetic smile.

“Yeah. She’s probably right on our ass knowing her.” Kíli joked, attempting to lighten the mood. Bofur could only offer a solemn shrug and a smile that couldn’t meet his eyes. The brothers turned to Bifur, hoping he would know what to say.

Bifur shook his head and shrugged his shoulders ever so slightly before looking towards his cousin and offering him the most comforting of smiles he could muster up. “We will find her soon. I promise cousin. We will find your One.”

Bofurs’ smile a tad bit more genuine at his cousins’ words. He sat up that little bit straighter before standing and facing towards Bombur who stood near the campfire. “I’m gonna see if Bombur needs help lads, thanks.” And with that, he slugged his way over, looking down towards the ground and sighing out deeply.

“Where the bloody hell are ya, lass…”

_______________

You head away from your camp and towards the deeper parts of the woods, ready to hunt for your meal. Crouching low to the ground, you spot small tracks, a rabbit most likely. You slowly and quietly followed the small tracks, hoping to come across meat for your food.

A small crackle within the bushes before you forced you to snap your head up. You smiled victoriously as you raised your bow and arrow, steadying your breathing, bringing your elbow back past your ear, forcing you to stare down the length of the piercing wood with a steel pointed head. ‘Got you, ya bastard.’

Just before you released your arrow to send the arrow piercing through the air, the small rabbit emerged from behind the bush, standing on its hind legs, revealing itself as not a small rabbit like you intended to find but a large, burly bear covered in a dark, fur coat.

You fell backwards from your crouched position on to your behind, clamping a hand over your mouth, your breathing becoming increasingly heavier, almost hyperventilating. Your eyes were wide with fear as the bear raised its snout into the air and sniffs, almost as if it were searching for you. You slowly crawled away backwards, putting some distance between you and the beast.

Your efforts had practically been futile.

The bear whipped its head towards you in a flash, staring at you for moment, a moment where you could only hold your breath and pray to whatever God could hear you. The beast released a loud, ground shaking roar, a heavy growl underlining it before it burst out into a run towards you. You scrambled to stand quickly and take lengthy steps back as you drew your sword, unsheathing it from its position at your hip, your bow and arrow long forgotten on the dirt ground.

It lunges towards you and you let a piercing scream tear its way through your throat. You drove your sword up into the chest cavity of the beast as it fell down from the force of its attack, impaling the beast on to your weapon.

It bawled out and whimpered in pain as it laid dying atop of your smaller form. You struggled to worm yourself out from underneath the beast and laid yourself beside it, sprawled out like a starfish and chest heaving heavily as your tried to catch your breath. “I’m sorry…” you whispered to the bear, a tear escaping from the corner of your eye.

You rolled on to your side and slowly came to a stand. You retrieved your dagger from your belt and stepped closer to the corpse. Embedding the blade into the bear, you began to skin and salvage any possible meat from the beast, your body quickly being covered in the luke-warm crimson liquid.

“I’m so, so sorry…”

_______________

The company had sat around the fire, eating whatever Bombur had been able to form into an appetising broth when they heard the loud roar of a beast. They all momentarily paused, all either halting their chewing or stilling the movement of the spoon coming closer to their mouths.

Their eyes travelled along each other as they sat a few moments in silence, some slowly lowering their bowls down, cautious if any over the few decibels they were making would draw whatever it was to them. But once they heard the feminine scream moments after, they jumped up and raced towards whatever they hoped to find.

Everyone was hopeful that it was their missing lass, all the while they wished it weren’t. The scream could never be a good sign. Bofur was the first to spring to action and burst through the treelines to head deeper into the woodland. All he could think is that his One could be in danger and he isn’t with her to protect her.

The others followed suit, rushing towards whatever it was. They dodged and weaved through trees and climbed over and under branched and roots. They ran and ran until they came across the carcass of a bear, a large one at that. It was partially missing some fur along with most of the meat that once encased its bones.

They searched the area, high and low. As Kíli crouched low towards the ground, he noticed the strange disturbances the ground had gone through. He assumed it was that of someone shuffling backwards in a vulnerable state. He brought the scuffle evident in the dirt to Thorins’ and the companies attention.

They backtracked the marks in the dirt and found where they had started, near a bush. They continued to search but one discovery had sent everyone into a state of panic and fear. Your bow and a singular arrow.

“She must’ve been here. You cannot deny it is hers!”

Finding your own tracks that came from your boots hadn’t been difficult to do. So, with that, they hastily followed your footprints, double and triple checking they were on the right track. A million thoughts whirled through their heads. What had happened? Were you alright? Had you been injured?

Bofur felt an array of emotions as he tailed the company, perplexed about what he had hoped to find. He so desperately hoped it was you, but what if they found you in a condition they so desperately didn’t want to come across. What he didn’t want to come across. He would never forgive himself if you had been injured or worse, never forgiving himself for not being able to protect you. His woman, his One.

He prayed to Mahal all throughout their search for you and soon, he found his prayer answered. There you were, sat beside a small campfire atop a thick coat of black fur, turning large chunks of meat over the fire, roasting it for your meal, all the while you were still covered nearly head to toe in nearly crisp dry blood.

Bofur dropped his weapon to the floor and rushed over to you, causing you to jump near enough a foot off the ground. “Mahal, Y/N, I’ve been worried sick!” He enveloped you in a bone crushing hug, dis-concerned about the blood, your shocked face and the other members who watched on. He pulled back ever so slightly and cup your face in between his hands, staring at you intensely. “Where did you run off to?!”

You swallowed down the dry lump that had formed into your throat and looked into his eyes, the other members of the company momentarily forgotten. “I uh-I heard a noise, so I went to check it out and when I came back, you guys weren’t there…” you trailed off, tears forming in your (E/C) orbs, threatening to spill at a moments notice. “I…I thought you guys didn’t care…”

The dam had broken and you now openly sobbed, tears had begun to stream down your face like salty waterfalls. Bofur had reacted quickly, bringing you into yet another hug, seeming more desperate than the last. You clung on to him like a scared child would cling on to their mother as you wept and wept into his chest. The other members all watched with saddened eyes, their hearts breaking the slightest at the thought of you thinking they hadn’t cared that you had disappeared.

“We’re right here lass, I’m right here. It’s okay, I’ve got you.” Bofur whispered sweet, soothing words in your ear as he laid a gentle kiss upon your forehead. “I ain’t ever letting you out of my sight ever again, ya hear?” You sniffled and even released the faintest of giggles as you lifted your head up to look Bofur in the eye. He smiled down at you and you could do nothing but return it with a tiny one of your own. “Aye, there’s my lass and that beautiful smile. Not as beautiful as mine though.” He spoke to you with such love and care.

You had laughed once more, always thankful for Bofur and his attempt at making others smile. “I missed you.” You whispered, leaning your forehead against his own.

He beamed towards you as the words passed your lips. “I missed you more, amrálíme.” He spoke not even a decibel louder than you before planting his lips firmly against your own. You froze, shocked by what was happening, but before you knew it, you melted into the kiss and matched his passion and love, raising your arms to wrap loosely around his neck.

The company all had smiles etched across their faces, some of them cheering and realising high pitched wolf whistles. You two broke the kiss as if remembering you were surrounded by others. You flushed a deep red whilst Bofur only seemed to beam towards you once more.

“I would like it if you would allow me to court ya and braid your hair, lass.” He spoke with such confidence that it almost made you neglect the pink tint his cheeks adorned. All you could do was nod and smile sheepishly as your blush intensified. He grinned from ear to ear and kissed you once more, one you happily returned.

Parting, he stood and extended his hand down towards you. You placed your smaller hand into his own before his encased yours and pulled you gently to stand beside him. As soon as you gained your balance, Bombur had rushed towards you and crushed you in his own embrace, him clearly missing you a lot just like his brother. You chuckled as you hugged him back, the company also finding Bomburs affection amusing. It even elicited a deep, throaty chuckle from the ever-brooding Thorin.

You all headed back towards the camp the company had set up, not without grabbing your belonging along with the meat and fur you obtained for the bear you had the misfortune of running into. Bofur had a protective arm around you the entire time, not even removing himself from your side once you had reached the camp.

Bombur and Bifur had taken it upon themselves to cook yet another meal for the company, seeing as you had salvaged much meat from the beast. You all sat and ate, they barraged you with questions about the week you had been separated from them. They even asked about the bear you had taken down and how you lugged so much its meat back towards your makeshift sleeping area.

As you talked and talked with the company on how you had no clue if you were even heading in the right direction towards them, Bofur stared at you lovingly, afraid that if he were to blink, you would become separated once again.

He thanked Mahal a million times over in his head, thankful that they had found you again, that he had found you again. He smiled, removing his hat which he then proceeded to place atop of yours. It fell past your eye, obstructing your vision, causing you to push it up whilst you giggled.

Bofur released a chuckled of his own as he brough you further into his side and rest his head on top of yours. “Amrálíme?”

You smiled as you hear his hushed use of the affectionate name. “Yes Bofur?”

“I love you.”

You turned and looked up at him through your eyelashes, that hat of his threatening to fall over your eyes once again and smiled. “I love you.” You snuggled further into his warm, loving embrace and you both sighed in happiness and contentment.

He’ll be damned if he ever got separated from his One ever again. And Mahal help whoever stands in his way.

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First fic uploaded in 2021, lets gooooo!

It’s a little different to what the requester probably envisioned but the overall plot is still there so all I can hope is that they like it

BRO I HATED THAT I HAD TO WRITE ABOUT KILLING A BEAR, THAT SHIT SAD BRUH lmao

I hope you all enjoy

As always, constructive criticism and requests are welcomed and greatly appreciated :D

“...pretty sure I’m most of the way out of Vargas brainspace...”

Well, huh. Second verse, same as the first!

Was thinking quite a lot about their “first kiss” from Parent-Teacher Night - I realized afterwards that Edgar would almost certainly be wearing something much more suited to the occasion! If it’s going to be perfect, it’s gotta be ✨Perfect✨ 

Oh yeah, he can just do that. I actually had a lot of Hunchback-themed doodles, spanning probably a full page between my main and alt. notebook. I only realized very very recently looking back that I initially set it up to be a movie they see After but then doodled a bunch of stuff as if they could still share dreams, that’s not how that works at all!

I’ve gotten surprisingly good at drawing him just with my index finger lol. Sometimes a bad mood is best channeled through a judgmental Scriabin

I wanted to try out a bunch of different sitting and laying poses on the couch and made this for a base. They’ve got such long legs, it’d be all too easy to squish the other if one of them decided to stretch out hehe

Another Pearlcatcher Scriabin, as a test for my new notebook. Notebook did not make the grade, but he did turn out cute ♥ What a polite sit, folded wings and all. Wonder what element he’d breathe, hmm

More paper testing, ended up with a couple Edgar comparisons. I miss my old paper!! It’s hard to tell since I drew in the upper margin for the tests lol, false unlined

I might finish the present exchange minicomic yet, but if I don’t I’d hate to just leave it hanging! This is how I make doodle notes lol, the order is a bit all over the place. Edgar’s gift was a double scarf! It actually unbuttons into two matching scarves but it’s not immediately obvious so it just looks like a super-long scarf, made to be shared whether separate or together :) Plus a couple bonuses of Scriabin wearing his very terrible mask and the two of them sharing the scarf :D

Ambidextrous practice and an older idea of Scriabin being able to pronounce keysmashes lol, it’s good letter practice! Edgar is very disturbed, how are you making those noises with your mouth

King Edgar! Was feeling a bit saccharine, but could just as easily be about competing royalty, guess he won the battle for the crown. For now...

Pot calling the kettle black, there. Unjustified egoism? Unheard of!

The original-original sketch of this WIP, I don’t need a lot to go on for my brain to remember what I meant lol. I actually still rather like how the skeleton of his fingers are shaped, it’s a nice wide, stressed expression

I edit out most of my notes ‘cause they’re either this or memery lol. Puffed out cheeks are too cute!

I like Lady!Edgar quite a lot, obviously lol. I wanted to draw her in the cardigan because Edgar was cute in it and wouldn’t you know, that carries over! Edgar’s cute throughout his iterations haha. I feel the same about Lady!Scriabin as well, in one of my sketches I described her as “puckish” lol

Playful closeness, Edgar is not interested lol. I was mostly thinking about hip posing at the time, like meeting at one point and separating out from there. Tied at the hip!

Back to what I was doing before, nbd. The amount of unfinished kiss doodles I have....look, okay- I also think it’s funny that with unfinished blushes their faces end up darker than their hair lol

Speaking of - back when I was first practicing drawing kisses, the alignment was probably the hardest part. Convincingly making it look like the lips meet is hard! But then the reality of the situation occurred to me, Edgar’s not particularly practiced at kissing so maybe the combination our inexperiences would result in such a situation lol

Probably my favourite frame from Where are you now, he looks so intense even though he’s immediately going to pop into panic, ahh the contrast. I also originally used hard-edge vectors at a much smaller scale, but I intended soft and shined eyes from the beginning

Just pick him up and carry him like a teddy bear lol. Just wait til he kicks out his leg and they fall on each other lol

Spacefiller fluffy Scriabin. I keep wanting to draw flowers but I keep forgetting about flower crowns! I just like pinned back hair too much I guess

Oh no not a hug trap! Insidious, however will he escape

Someone gently touching Edgar’s face - I ended up liking how the sketch looked too much to want to finish it lol. Who could it be?

Brief return to the TGWDLM crossover, it hits randomly. I never drew the Apotheosis meeting Edgar, and it’s still not exactly how I’d imagine it happening (or what I’ve written) but I thought it was interesting anyway. Edgar’s always gotta be crying, that’s a requirement

A!Edgar is so cloyingggg, it’s never not weird

Definitely not

Fighting over symbolism. It took me a while to think it over fully, but I think the scariest part about Apotheosized!Edgar is that he’s not afraid to hurt Scriabin at first. He’s much closer to a stranger with Edgar’s face, but that’s kind of a big deal lol

Finally a lack of glasses that makes sense lol. Easier to just grab his face than point him in the right direction and hope he sees

Some Convalescence Scriabin mouth shape practice for funsies. My mouth expressions tend to be rather subdued and since he was both already on my mind and more prone to big expressions, he seemed perfect for it. I really like “E” lol, he looks so proud

Eye, or lack thereof practice, a bit torn at the outer edge. Kinda reminds me of Invader ZiM in a bad way lol, I might return to the spiral-looking socket instead if I draw them again, I like the weird smooth texture but it’s hard for me to pin down with pencils

A silly little idea of Scriabin flying into him and falling over lol. “Hey Ron. Hey Billy” lol. Edgar’s just given up entirely

So that’s September through mid February! I honestly didn’t expect to still be doodling them so often lol

I would certainly be interested in reading the unofficial version of Damsell in Distress if it's not a problem. - Elsie

Ask and ye shall receive! It starts immediately after Maddie tells Godzilla that her dad was kidnapped and includes the beginning of the original ending. It's also incomplete, as I stopped writing the murdery part maybe 2/3 of the way through.

Please be warned, what happens isn't nice. If KiaRL was too much for you, maybe skip this one. It's similar to what Godzilla did to those kidnappers, but it's from one of their POVs, so, like, there's a bit of detail in some places. I wouldn't say it's overly graphic, but... yeah. Exercise caution.

• • •

Kidnapping, when done right and with fellow professionals, was a lucrative business. Blake Curtis knew that well.

It was with well-earned confidence that he and the other seven members of their homegrown operation relaxed in the nice office space they’d rented out for this particular venture. The building was decently far from the mark’s—no pun intended—place of residence, but not so far from the location of the organization he belonged to.

You didn’t want the fingers to start rotting in the mail, after all. And sending them in anything other than a padded envelope was bound to be memorable to the wrong people.

Being forgettable was, in all ways, the name of their game.

Blake and every last one of his associates were plain. Not a one of them was particularly attractive, or had stand-out features, or had public interactions outside of the most basic, scripted conversations. And for that reason, no one every gave them a second look. No one ever remembered them more than a few minutes after an encounter—and they certainly wouldn’t have been able to describe them.

It was an art form, and a well-paying one, at that.

Completely unconscious in one of the other rooms in the office was their newest target, a man reportedly high in the rankings of Monarch. Mark Russell: divorced—the ex was dead—father of two children—one of whom was also dead—and living with his young daughter out in the middle of nowhere. Important enough to his peers to be worth a ransom, but not so important to have a bodyguard.

They couldn’t have asked for a better setup.

With the target secured and unable to cause any problems, it was just a matter of waiting. Four of his associates had broken out a pack of cards and were coming up with increasingly ridiculous ways to cheat at their game. Alice, his cousin, was reading Pride and Prejudice by the window, sipping at some fruity drink she’d made for herself.

Ryan was napping on the couch, his hat covering his face, and good ole Winnie, the leader of their group, was typing away at her laptop.

Blake sighed, content, and leaned back in his comfortable office chair. He took a drag of his cigarette and let his eyes drift half-closed. The toe of his shoe absently slid along the ground, lazily spinning him back and forth.

A faint tremble went through his chair.

Off to his side, Alice made a dreamy noise. A burst of laughter rose up from the card players.

Another tremble, slightly stronger than the first, had him peeking his eyes open. An earthquake, perhaps? They didn’t have any neighbors in the building—they’d made sure of that—but no one else seemed to be noticing the shudders passing through the structure.

They began to increase in intensity, and the time between them grew shorter.

Snorting awake when a mug rattled on the coffee table, Ryan pushed his hat up and raised his head. “What’s doin’ that?” he asked groggily.

Alice and Winnie looked over at him. Blake stood, keeping his stance wide as the tremors grew worse.

“I don’t think this is how earthquakes work,” Alice said, sliding a ribbon into her well-worn book.

The four playing cards, who Blake now saw were sharing a couple bottles of alcohol between them, set their game aside, still giggling.

“A train?” Blake suggested. “Helicopters?”

The windows rattled, and outside, someone screamed.

“Yeah, I don’t think so,” Omar said, stumbling up from his seat. He took a swig from one of the bottles. “I rem’ber this scene.” He stared into the narrow opening with one eye squinted shut.

“What are you doing?” Eli asked, less drunk-looking than the other three.

“Lookin’ for ripples. That’s how you know a t-rex is coming.”

“It won’t work if you’re holding the bottle, moron,” Dennis, which was wonderfully ironic, said. Blake didn’t pay them any attention, though, as he went over to one of the windows.

He could hear more people screaming, and despite a poor vantage point, he was just able to make out a number of people running frantically down the road. A car swerved wildly around the fleeing populace, crashing into a light pole. The driver climbed out, appearing to be muttering in a panic to himself, and took off at a sprint.

“Something’s happening out there,” he said to Alice as she joined him.

Sandy chuckled. “Maybe it’s a monster attack.” She stood and cracked her back.

An enormous crash jolted the building so badly, everyone standing found themselves grasping desperately for something to hold on to. Ryan tumbled off the couch with a yelp. Omar lost his footing entirely and fell with a strained chuckle. The glass bottle hit the edge of the table and shattered.

While Omar complained about getting bits of glass in his hands, Blake, closely followed by Alice and Winnie, ran to the roof access the office space came with.

“Maybe something crashed,” he huffed out. “A plane, or a huge pile-up—”

“If only we could be so lucky,” Winnie said, and then they were bursting out onto the roof.

He heard his cousin whisper a curse in another language, his own jaw going slack as his mind went blank with an instinctual fear.

Not a few blocks away, Godzilla stood between high-rises. He moved slowly, almost carefully—if you were willing to personify such a monster—but every few footfalls, he seemed to step particularly hard, shaking the earth.

The three of them remained frozen, watching with wide eyes, as Godzilla growled, periodically swinging his head around. Like he’s looking for something, Blake thought.

He—like most of the world—had seen footage from at least one of the past incidents involving the Titans. Godzilla in San Francisco had been all anyone could talk about for a few weeks, and the clip of him leaving the city always seemed to be playing on one news channel or another. A sensational tragedy.

It didn’t do the real thing justice. Such a massive creature—he hadn’t comprehended before now just how large Godzilla truly was. And it was different to see him with his own two eyes, where the possibility of an internet hoax couldn’t explain a thing.

“Whatever he’s doing here can’t be good,” Winnie finally said. “We should leave before any other Titans show up.”

She vanished back into the office, leaving Blake and his cousin to stare at the monster towering over them.

A disbelieving huff left Alice. “That’s not something you see everyday, huh?”

“Are we supposed to run away?” Blake asked. “Or is it like a tornado drill?”

“If Winnie says we’re leaving, then we’re leaving.” She paused as Godzilla leaned forward to sniff at a skyscraper. A few more steps, and he’d be walking entirely away from them. As it was, Blake figured someone with a better throwing arm could probably hit the Titan from where they were standing. Alice shook her head and turned toward the roof access. “C’mon, we gotta grab Russell. We’ll have to figure something else out if the drop-off gets changed.”

Since her back was facing Godzilla, Blake was the only one who say the way the monster’s head turned in their direction. His spines pulsed blue, sending a shock of fear down Blake’s own spine, and he took two thunderous steps closer to their high rise.

Blake stumbled back, suddenly unable to breath. His focus narrowed down to those inhuman, burning eyes, suddenly centered on him. His reaction must have caught Alice’s attention, because he distantly heard her scream out behind him.

For some reason, hearing her scream like that was what made Blake snap out of his daze, just in time to see Godzilla’s claw-tipped hand-paw thing closing in on their roof.

The building shook when he made contact, a web of cracks spiraling out from Godzilla’s palm. Blake lost his balance entirely, landing painfully on his tailbone. Even then, he couldn’t completely shake himself out of his stupor enough to stand, much less run.

After sniffing again, Godzilla started growling, low and dangerous. The sound of it nearly paralyzed Blake.

He managed to pull himself backward in an awkward crab-walk until his back hit the short raised ledge surrounding the roof. Through it all, he couldn’t look away from Godzilla’s eyes.

Could an animal really feel as much fury as Blake thought he could see in them?

A commotion below finally ripped away his attention. Ryan had emerged, stumbling for the soccer-mom-style van they had parked across the street. He was emitting a constant stream of panicked gibberish. Sandy was standing at the base of the building, hollering at him to hurry up and stop tripping over himself.

“Hey!”

Blake whipped around. Dennis was standing in the doorway with an impatient look on his face. “Didn’t you hear Winnie? We’re leaving!”

An odd buzzing interrupted his attempt to answer, and both men looked up in surprise. Godzilla, was above them, leaning on the roof. He had blue eyes now, Blake realized.

Dennis made a strangled sound. “What the hell—”

Godzilla’s mouth opened as the buzzing seemed to reach its peak, and a bright blue beam of light shot out from between his razor sharp teeth. Blake cried out and curled up into a ball. The heat from being so close to the beam was painfully intense.

Dennis was huddled in the stairwell when Blake managed to look over at him, ears ringing and spots popping in his vision. His jeans were darker on the insides of his thighs. Blake couldn’t even blame him.

As his hearing returned after a few seconds, he became aware of a terrible shrieking. Leaning up to look over the ledge at the ground, he stared uncomprehending for a moment before the reality of what he was seeing hit him. He turned and heaved, throwing up his lunch beside him.

He caught sight of Dennis rushing over, but he wasn’t able to warn him away fast enough, and after a moment, his colleague was vomiting over the edge of the roof.

The road below was nothing more than a scorched crater, their van reduced to a smoldering mound of metal. Ryan was completely gone, just vaporized in the heat of the laser-like beam Godzilla had shot.

But that wasn’t the worst of it.

Having been close to the beam himself, Blake’s skin felt tight, like after getting a bad sunburn. What little of his skin he could see was reddened, but not blistering.

Sandy, who’d been down there with Ryan, hadn’t been as lucky.

She must have just ventured away from the building when Godzilla fired, not close enough to share Ryan’s fate, but closer than Blake.

What he’d seen would haunt his nightmares for years to come, he suspected. The writhing mass of flesh, with bubbling sores, all melted in on herself, was unlike anything he’d ever seen. The roof was too high for him to have seen details, but he’d gotten the impression that Sandy’s face was nothing more than a smooth plane, her open mouth the only remaining orifice.

Dennis was babbling as he remained hunched against the ledge, but Blake couldn’t make himself understand any of the words.

Gagging over the sour taste lingering on his tongue, Blake shrunk back as he looked up at Godzilla, just in time to see the monster huff with his eyes half-lidded. It was an expression of satisfaction if he’d ever seen one.

“Wha’s goin’ on?” Blake heard Omar say.

Godzilla’s hand lifted from the roof, just as the man drunkenly stumbled through the door.

“Someone’s screamin’ down there,” he told them, rather pointlessly. “Winnie’s all worked up ’bout it.” He kept walking, apparently somehow missing the giant lizard monster looming right over them.

Blake saw it coming a moment too late. “Omar—!” he cried, reaching out as if he could shove the man to safety.

But he couldn’t, so he watched helplessly as Omar squinted in confusion as Godzilla’s hand slammed back down, squishing the man with disturbing ease.

He'd seen a snake, once, flattened on the roadside. Like a flat drawing. Omar was reduced to that, to a thin, bloody pile of viscera. His jeans were still visible, bunched up on themselves. Empty. Leaking.

Dennis groaned and threw up again, this time, on their side of the ledge. While he was distracted, Godzilla’s blood-dripping hand swept upward, on a collision course for the both of them. Blake yelled wordlessly and dove forward, ducking.

With a meaty thwack, Dennis was swatted up into the air. He shrieked as he fell, and the abrupt silence made Blake gasp out a terrified sob.

Why is this happening? he wondered hysterically, scrabbling at the rough concrete to try and put some distance between himself and the monster. But there was no safety to be found.

Godzilla once more returned his bloody hand to the rooftop, and Blake heard the way the building began to crumbled beneath the pressure. A large hole broke through the top floor’s ceiling with a grating crash, Godzilla’s hand mercilessly sinking into the building.

It was then that Blake heard the Alice’s screams.

(a few more deaths that I never wrote happen here. Blake is the only one left alive)

For a second, Blake thought he was about to witness Godzilla swallow a man down whole. That Mark Russell—who should be glad to still be unconscious—would disappear behind those teeth and never be seen again.

Instead, Godzilla made a rumbling noise so very different from his growls, and turned his back on the building. There was a mind-boggling gentleness in that blood-stained jaw, holding a human as if he were aware of how delicate the man’s body was.

It scared him, the possibility that Godzilla could be aware like that. Intelligent.

Blake slumped bonelessly against the rooftop beside the large hole and breathed a shaky sigh of relief. The blue sky was suddenly blocked by something gray, casting him in a shadow, and his last thought was of realization—that Godzilla’s tail was about two seconds away from demolishing the building and him with it.

He didn’t even have time to close his eyes.

• • •

Only a few hours after Maddie’s brief interaction with Godzilla, reports of the King entering a decently sized city reached Castle Bravo. He didn’t seem to be moving with aggression, or in response to a threat, so G-team was left largely on standby.

Everything changed quickly. There were suddenly alarms going off, people shouting, and panic spread like wildfire through the halls.

Maddie watched with a dull sense of bewilderment as Castle Bravo employees ran in and out of the control room, frantic and jittery. Having grown tired of sitting numbly on the floor, Maddie pushed to her feet and carefully wandered through the chaos.

Unwilling to interrupt anyone, she merely listened in, and through her unsubtle eavesdropping, learned Godzilla had apparently gone berserk on some humans in an office building. Just straight up murdered eight people.

No one seemed to know why—whether he’d been provoked somehow, or whether he’d simply gone into a city with the intent to kill.

Griffin suddenly appeared at Maddie’s shoulder, startling her. “C’mon, kid, we’re getting you out of here, all right?” She gently but firmly wrapped her fingers around Maddie’s upper arm and smoothly guided her out of the room.

“You’re not going after him?” she asked, hurrying to keep up.

“We will, but only after we get the handful of civilians back to the mainland.” She cast Maddie an apologetic glance. “Emergency protocols, kid. Ilene’ll join you soon to stay with you until we get things figured out.”

An Osprey being piloted by Griffin and another G-teamer took off a few minutes later, carrying seven civilians who had all been at Castle Bravo for different reasons. Maddie recognized two of them from the investigators for her dad’s kidnapping, and she tightly gripped the edge of her seat. If Godzilla’s totally uncharacteristic attack got her dad killed or something because Monarch had to set the case aside, she’d be having words with him.

Even with aircraft as fast as the Ospreys, the flight still took over an hour. Long enough for Maddie to slip in and out of a doze, never quite falling all the way asleep. It left her feeling even more tired by the time they landed.

They literally couldn’t have made the journey shorter, since the Osprey dropped them off within throwing distance of the ocean. A Monarch warehouse sat in a large industrial park, complete with an impressive pier jutting out into the water.

While the other civilians went inside, Maddie wandered out to the end of the enormous dock, where she sat down and dangled her feet off the side. It was high enough up that she couldn’t have touched the water even if she hung off the edge completely.

She lowered herself to her back and tried to keep her mind nice and empty. No thoughts were better than bad ones.

She wasn’t sure how long she stayed like that, though it couldn’t have been too long, when she heard the splashing of something moving through the water.

Maddie sat up, instantly surprised to see Godzilla approaching the pier, his head held oddly above the surface. She’d never seen him swim like that.

He rumbled at her as he got closer. Squinting, Maddie saw that he had something in his mouth, held careful between his teeth. She couldn’t tell what it was.

An animal of some sort, maybe? Regardless, she quickly stood and backed up, since Godzilla seemed to be aiming to deposit his cargo where she’d been sitting. He leaned up, the rumble only growing in strength, and carefully spit out the thing in his mouth. She had only a moment to appreciate how hilariously smug he looked with himself as he sank back to a comfortable depth, and then she was looking at the creature he’d presented her with.

She couldn’t have been more shocked if she’d been hit by a bolt of lightning. Maddie darted forward and collapsed painfully to her knees with a strangled little yelp.

“Dad!” she cried, frantically tugging and pushing at him. “Dad, please!

He was definitely breathing, which almost made her burst into tears on its own, but then his eyes sluggishly opened at her call, and Maddie gracelessly collapsed against him. Hugging someone who was half-unconscious and entirely restrained was awkward at best, but it was still one of the top five hugs she’d ever participated in in her life.

She heard him slur something back, quiet and raspy and still very out of it, but she was pretty sure it was her name.

“I should go get someone,” Maddie realized. It felt like she’d been dropped into a world that moved twice as fast as she did, or like she’d been trapped in slow motion since her dad had been kidnapped.

Luckily—because she wasn’t sure she could have pried herself away from her dad—someone seemed to have taken notice of Godzilla’s appearance, and a crew of people were already running out to them.

Before they could reach her, Maddie turned to Godzilla with a lump in her throat. “Thank you,” she said, trying to inject every ounce of her sincerity, and then some, into those two, utterly inadequate words.

Some, okay a lot, of pre-mid season (tri? season) finale thoughts.  As if you actually asked for them, lol.

And no, I haven’t actually watched the last episode yet.  I’ve been putting it off all morning.  For reasons.  Reasons that I felt the inexplicable need to put on paper, er, screen.  

If you care at all to read the purging of my fatigued TWD fangirl mind, please look beneath the cut.  Fair warning.  It’s long so pull up a chair maybe, lol.  

I’ll admit it.  The spoilers indicating a significant lack of Carol/Melissa content has dampened much of my enthusiasm and there wasn’t all that much to start with.  

Let me tell you why--

The season, so far, has been woefully unbalanced in favor of the Reaper storyline and the Maggie/Negan conflict (which ties back to the Reaper storyline by the flimsiest of strings) and I’m just not invested.  

Why?  

Well, it’s multifold.  

#1 reason why?  Having a third of the last season ever of TWD devoted to going inside “the lions’ den” of villains I have no emotional connection to or curiosity about is a big fat fail.  

You might say “but there’s the Daryl double agent” aspect and I say “so fucking what” because it was so poorly conceived and has felt like such a WTF set of fraying puppet strings for this plot Angela was apparently jonesing to tell from the GO, damn the torpedoes she had to know where inevitably coming her way.  

Seriously.  I had talked myself into accepting that which I could not change, citing Daryl’s emotional brokenness after Rick.  Convincing myself he’d lost his anchor to goodness and hope and fulfillment in his years of self-imposed exile from Carol and what was left of his family and to a certain extent?  I can still by that explanation.  But really.  It’s the Leah of it all.  

Let me attempt to explain.  

To do that, maybe I should detail how I’ve always perceived Daryl.  

Daryl, IMHO, began this journey with us and the rest of Team Family with a figurative fortress erected around his true, core self.  

He was prickly.  Defensive to any overtures of kindness because he inherently did not trust them.  Loathe to form any real connection to anyone other than Merle, his blood.  

Daryl balked at the possibility of emotional connection and flinched in learned fear from physical touch.  

He did not recognize or accept affection or respect at face value because it was something rarely shown to him before.  

Anybody else remember that childhood abuse book from Consumed?  You know.  One of those first times the showrunners/writers dumped a character nugget in our laps and left it to us to do all the backstory in our own imaginations so they didn’t have to enrich their own characters beyond the scratch and sniff, wham bam this is who they are work?  

Anyway.  We were left to extrapolate from that what most of us h ad already suspected--that Daryl’s formative years were already a living hell before the ZA ever happened.  

So he was standoffish.  He didn’t form emotional connections lightly and physical intimacy was something light years out of his comfort zone.  

Until Carol.  

Daryl’s defenses started to crumble from the very start with Carol because she piqued his interest.  He looked at her, watched her withstand Ed’s abuse, and recognized something of himself.  

Against his will, Daryl started to care and when Carol lost the one good thing that had come out of her miserable life with Ed--Sophia--Daryl’s core identity started to be revealed to us and probably?  To himself after burying it so deep for so long.  

Long story short?  Daryl connected with Carol pretty quickly on a base level through the trauma of Sophia’s loss.  

The real connection, the emotional work it too to peel all those protective layers away took more like--like planting a flower from seed and tending it to help it survive and flourish.  

Simply said?  The work was put in and Daryl bloomed with Carol’s (and Team Family’s) care.  They all put in varying degrees of work but Carol planted the seed of his “belonging.”  

And the thing about Daryl?  Once he bloomed?  He grew strong.  He stretched toward the sun.  

He and Carol essentially bloomed and fought their way toward the sunlight together.  

And little by little, Daryl learned to accept the kindness, trust, and love he always deserved.  

From that newly confident man emerged a Daryl not so fearful of forming connections and none have ever been more powerful than his connection to Carol.  

I’ll spare ya’ll the paragraphs of how Daryl and Carol gravitated toward each other like magnets no matter the means of separation.  

I’ll just spell it out like this:  their bond supersedes all others, even Daryl’s bond with Rick.  And with Daryl only accepting affection from those he trusts implicitly, Carol and Daryl have been the only potential “romantic” pairing that has ever fully made sense for his established character.  

At least the character before Angela launched the grenade of Leah into the mix.  

Leah was a fail from the start.  

And you know what?  I’m thinking that was largely intended (for various reasons) but I still think they could have shown Daryl as receptive to having a “romantic” relationship to those willfully blind to the possibility that he’s actually been in a “romantic” relationship with Carol since Season 2.  Never mind that Carol and Daryl haven’t (yet) crossed certain physical boundaries yet.  Emotionally? They are already there even if neither is able to admit it out loud with the actual words yet.  But I digress.  The people that never wanted to “see” Carol and Daryl as “romantic” because they couldn’t fathom Daryl as seeing Carol in that light had already deemed that Daryl just didn’t feel that way about her, that maybe he didn’t feel that way about anybody (if they couldn’t have their way and have him feel that way about their preferred choice for him, they preferred him alone), and Angela wanted to show them differently.  To show them the light.  

That said, if Angela was so hellbent on doing Leah?  There were a multitude of better ways.  

Here.  I’ll give you one of them.  

Daryl isolates himself from his family after Rick’s “death” same as he did in Angela’s version.  

Carol’s been being pulled more and more to the Kingdom because Henry’s needing a mother figure is like catnip to her hurting natural-born, hurting Mama’s heart.  So Daryl’s anchor to the man he’d matured into, the one with all these earned emotional attachments, is reeled back in, little by little, leaving him unmoored.  

Dog literally runs into him just as before.  It hardly makes sense given how young and floppy and uncoordinated puppies are and thus vulnerable to danger, but this is the least of things we need to worry about suspending disbelief for right?  ;)

Dog and Daryl continue to have these run ins until Daryl decides to retrace the puppy’s clumsy trail and viola!  He finds Leah’s cabin and Leah inside.  She levels the same shotgun at him, they have a standoff, until---

Leah suddenly lowers the gun and incredulously says Daryl’s name.  

That’s right.  One simple change and Daryl and Leah have an undefined past already.  

Daryl doesn’t completely let his guard down because he’s Daryl, but he relaxes enough that we see he doesn’t immediately regard Leah as dangerious to his own well-being.  

From that point on, instead of tying Daryl up and threatening him, we could have been told the story of how they knew each other from before.  

My version goes a little something like this--

Daryl met Leah through Merle.  Merle, in turn, met Leah through the military before he got discharged.  He and Leah had an ongoing “I scratch your itch if you scratch mine” thing and Leah?  Well, she always had a bit of a soft spot/interest in Daryl that Daryl never really returned.  

The thing is, though?  With losing the chosen brother that filled the hole left behind by his lost blood brother Merle and losing Carol to her chasing after a chance of a new family (because she feels Daryl’s out of her reach too, our too blind and stupidly, silently in love idiots)?  Daryl finds himself embracing the shared memories however minimal of that brief past and his grief and loneliness leave him receptive to Leah’s eventual advances in ways he never was before.  

We’re still given hints of their unfolding relationship and we still don’t like it, but it makes more sense for Daryl to cling to the past when he feels he’s lost his future.  

Leah still gives her ultimatum (there’s a reason she gravitated toward Merle in perhaps his most toxic state, she’s more than a little fucked up too) and it’s not as much of a hard sell that Daryl might be pulled in Leah’s direction when he feels Carol is all but lost to him.  

Hell.  They could have even explicitly discussed Carol.  But wait!  Angela would have never allowed that because she doesn’t want to shatter all the crackship dreams in one fell swoop.  

But the story from that point on could have continued just as it has and probably I still wouldn’t have liked it but I could have at least bought it somewhat and understood it.  

Obviously, it didn’t. 

I don’t buy the Leah of it all.  Angela built that “relationship” with monopoly money and it shows.  

Because I don’t buy Leah period.  I don’t buy Daryl giving even giving a shit about trying to or feeling like there’s a snowball’s chance to redeem her so I’m not engaged whatsoever with this Daryl double agent story and him even givign her crumbs about his real family.  

That part rings false.  

So that’s a big problem right there and we haven’t even gotten to the other part I don’t buy.  

You know what else I don’t buy?  

#2?  

Why the hell are the Reapers so bloodthirsty for Maggie’s departure from this mortal coil?  

Without giving better reasoning than they’re just cray-cray, the entire faceplants and considering it’s taken up about 70% of 11A’s focus?  I’m pissed.  

Because, IMHO, they should go big or go home on this to give it any entertainment value because it’s all stale, recycled air if not.  

Maggie’s been established as a much darker character this season.  Which led me to believer the Reapers probably had a legit beef against her, but it seems Angela is reluctant to go all that way down the rabbit hole and doesn’t want to commit to what could be a more entertaining and potentially fascinating story than just Maggie’s in the right, the Reapers are just evil.  

Maggie is right about Negan, IMHO, but she’s also wrong in not listening to him when what he’s saying reeks of simple common sense.  Ignoring sage advice makes her seem more like an angry toddler stamping her feet in defiance than the leader they are so bound and determined to tell us she is.  

You know what?  The window for me to give more than the half a fuck I’m giving right now as they beat this dead horse to dust closed when Maggie decided letting Negan rot in the ASZ jail cell was enough and spared him when she finally had her best chance to end him once and for all.  

Maybe if they stopped having the same damn conversation and they didn’t take up 20% of the screen time left after the boring Reapers/Leah shit, I would be less resentful but I’m not and again, I’ll tell you why.  

BECAUSE.  We are in the last season of the OG TWD ever and this show has chosen to waste screen time on stories nobody cares about to the exclusion of the ones we’re yearning for more of.  

Like ASZ.  We’ve barely seen more than an hour of the eight hours devoted to Carol, Aaron, Rosita, Lydia, Judith, Kelly, Jerry and Co. in total.  Especially since they’ve been trying to establish the Commonwealth on the side, too.  

I mean, I never really expected to dig the Commonwealth so my expectations for it were lower than low so they’ve been exceeded at a miniscule level.  But I expected and hoped for ASZ and those characters we’ve cared the most about to receive much more emphasis and the fact that they haven’t in this last season so far has been the biggest FAIL.  

And okay.  Selfishly, I want more Carol.  She’s like salt.  She makes almost everything go down better.  

But really. Give me more of all the characters we actually care about, please.  The Reapers and the offshoots from that story wheel aren’t it.  I love Daryl but I hate this retread story for him.  Leah is a weak point that pressed upon?  Makes this weak ass arc collapse.  Maggie and Negan are giving us nothing new.  They are the definition of the word STALEMATE and that’s not what you want or need on the finale season of a show.  

Yes, I have enjoyed the majority of the episodes overall, but that was because the moments I loved I weighted more than the ones I didn’t and know they have the most impact on the show down the road.  

Probably 11A will fare better when all is said and done and the show can be binged but standalone?  It’s been an overall disappointment and that saddens me more than I can say.  

Anyway.  I’m going to stop rambling now and try to psyche myself up for episode 8.  I’ll be back with thoughts on it later, maybe.  

Sorry for the word vomit, but I felt maybe I could in someway give voice to some of the feelings floating around out there and let you know that you are not alone.  

Until later, lovelies.