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a-b-riddle · 2 months

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A Simple (Mis) Understanding Chapter Two: Numbness & Pain

Daisy

I always used to think it was an exaggeration of how pregnancy is a constant state of exhaustion. But it was a lot of work growing a tiny human. Add in the fact that I'm still working 40 + hours a week and, of course, something is always causing some sort of discomfort or pain.

Swollen feet, back pain, nausea; I can't even find any solace in sleep. The 32 week mark felt so close, yet still so far. Another eight or so weeks of this seems like a drop in the bucket compared to how far along I am, but still. That still another two months. So far away when you want to be done, but still too short compared to everything I still have yet to do.

Another two months to set up a crib and wash her new clothes. Another two months to figure out a name and make decisions that I always envisioned making with a partner. Another two months of struggling to do things like picking up shit off the floor or staying on my feet long enough to make a decent meal.

But right now, I wasn't worried about the two months ahead of me and all the things I still have to do. Right now, I was looking forward to a three day undisturbed weekend. The pain in my feet and sciatica was becoming so bad, I had taken Friday off to see a doctor and spend the rest of the weekend doing nothing, but sitting in my modest little house and watching mind rotting television. I might even indulge in some spicy reading. Heaven knows its been too long.

Or at least, it hasn't been since them. That day in the office, but... that really didn't count. I often wrestled with myself about it. That one time erased any feelings I had for any of them. But I felt a bit pathetic how it now tainted every good memory I had with them. Kyle bringing me something to snack on when he realized I hadn't gone to the mess hall. Price always having a cup of earl grey tea cooling for me first thing in the morning. Two packs of zero calorie sweetner and a bit of honey.

Sweet like you.

I couldn't stand the smell of it now. I blamed it on the hormones. A lot of things made me queasy, but something about the smell of the bergamot, made me sick in a completely different way. A feeling not of nausea, but of... fear. Like the same way a pentagram could summon demons, earl grey could summon mine. As if John Price was somehow there any time the scent lingered in the air.

But he wasn't. None of them were. Fuck. Why did my thoughts always go back to them at some point? No. This was going to be a relaxing weekend god dammit. Fuck them.

Almost angrily, I hit the garage key fob, shutting the door and engulfing me into darkness; a thin line of light leaking through the bottom of the garage door. When I had opened my door, I could at least see a path to my mudroom. I grabbed my purse, ready to go in, when I felt it.

Hundreds of needles. Stabbing and digging into my feet. Not just the soles, but the entire fucking foot the moment I bared any weight on them. I pulled off my flats and it was then I noticed how angry they looked. Red and swollen and all but screaming at me to sit my fat ass back down. I wiggled my toes, trying to get some blood flow. Fuck. Why didn't they hurt while I was driving?

I manage to get onto my feet, using the car door as support. Steading myself until I was ready to take the first step. By the time I had managed to all but crawl inside, ten minutes had passed since my initial arrival time. I got off at 5:00, but usually didn't log off until almost 6:00. Granted, I work from home, but I had run out of a few essentials. Essentials now that were in the boot of my car.

Fuck.

10 minutes won't hurt. Not like there is any thing frozen. Speaking of which, I forgot my ice cream... dammit. I really need to start keeping a list on the fridge. It's hard to remember when pregnancy brain (or stomach) takes over and I slam a container in a single sitting.

Grabbing a pillow from the couch, I went to the kitchen. Which considering the town house, or terraced housing I suppose now, was perfect for a single and expecting Omega it was cozy. Not like the base where going from the common area to the chow hall was about a three minute stroll.

I get down and lay on my back. Carefully maneuvering so my ass rests against the cabinets before I hook the back of my heels unto the counter top so I could rest my feet a bit. Not the most sanitary, but it wasn't like I had guests. It was just me. For now.

It took a few moments to adjust. My back ached against the hardwood, but I could already feel the relief from my feet and legs. It wasn't all that shocking that I was having a hard time with them. I had gained a considerable amount of weight during my pregnancy. When I had brought it up to the OBGYN about possibly cutting back on food, her suggestion was to simply not weigh myself at home. Now when I went in for a visit they made me turn around before taking my weight.

It was hard. I've always had a problem with how I looked and now adding pregnancy then taking away the option to diet and exercise didn't exactly help.

I pulled out my phone and was preparing to open my kindle app when I saw a tiny red bar in the top right corner of my phone. Of course. I get nice and settled and my phone is on 2 fucking percent. Whatever. I tell Alexa to set an a timer for fifteen minutes and take a little nap. Maybe meditate.

A knock on the door quickly brings any possibility of relaxation to a pause. Margaret next door was dropping off Winnie off early to go to her book club. Margaret was a widow and a recent empty nester. She had spent her life as a mother and a homemaker. When I got custody of Winnie two months ago, she had quickly stepped up in helping me with everything from child rearing to managing my pregnancy.

"Hello, Maggie!" I greeted from the floor. "Hello, Winnie Darling." Winnie had the same sand colored hair as me and bright green eyes. Her face was a shade of red and I could smell her from the entryway. Someone would need a bath today. Fantastic.

"Oh, Dear!" Maggie fussed, setting Winnie down on her feet before coming over to me. "Are you alright?" Winnie didn't bother stopping to hug me like she normally would before making a beeline toward the potty. She usually was a creature of habit, but nature calls I suppose.

"Feet are a bit swollen." I waved off. "Just resting them a bit."

"I don't have to go tonight." She set her bag down. A deep green corduroy shoulder bag that always had just what you needed in it. A wet wipe, hand sanitizer, a spare tissue and even a stain pen when a spill happened at the most inconvenient time. "I'll stay and-"

"Maggie." I said, trying my best to sound at firm, but it was hard with her. No one told Maggie 'no'. "It's alright. Just a bit of water retention. Nothing to fret over." And it wasn't. I could already feel the pain from earlier subside.

"Really, it's no bother." She argued, bending over to unstrap one of her shoes. "It's a bloody stupid book anyway. I just go for the gossip really."

"Maggie." I tried again. "Really." "It's getting close to the due date and I don't want to burn out on me just yet." It was a lie. Even with her greying hair, a deepened laugh line, Maggie didn't burn out. She was one of the few Omegas I had met in my life and she could run circles around any of them, myself included.

The sound of flushing sounded from the bathroom followed by the faucet. She huffed before slipping her shoe back on. "If you insist."

"I do." I encouraged. As much as I loved having Maggie's help, I hated feeling like a burden. She had raised her children. It was time for her to do things for herself. "Besides, we'll see you tomorrow after my appointment tomorrow." The bathroom door clicked open, revealing my little Win with the front of her smock covered in water. Fantastic.

"Hi, Mommy." Winnie finally greeted. Her freshly washed hands dripping water droplets onto the hardwood. "What are you doing?"

"My feet hurt so I'm just letting them rest." I explained, looking up at her. Winnie was rambunctious as most four-year-olds without a sense of self preservation are, but when I explained to her how careful she had to be now that I had her sister in my belly, her nature had become more gentle.

It worried me as much as it warmed my heart.

"Why don't you sit on the couch?" She asked. Her head tilting to the side, face etched as if she were trying to figure out my reasoning.

"Because it helps when you lift your feet up high in the sky, Winnie Pooh." Maggie explained before looking back at me. "Well if you're sure-"

"I am. Go." I urged. "We'll see you tomorrow. Lunch around noon?" Spending time with Maggie didn't make me feel like such a parasite when I knew she enjoyed the company. Her children had all moved away, only one staying in the UK. She wasn't so alone, but neither was I.

"Wouldn't miss it." She gave a soft smile. The laugh lines around her face deepening. "See you tomorrow, Dearies." She said, retreating back outside. The soft sound of the door clicking behind her.

Winnie had laid down beside me. Yep. Definitely going to need a bath tonight. "How was school today?" Winnie went to a pre-school that was luckily covered under my insurance. Perks of being an Omega. I'll take it where and when I can.

She talked about going to the playground and painting. All the usual bits. Who she played with and new things she learned. Then came the question. A question she had asked before in passing. A subject I changed with ease before. 'Have you brushed your teeth? How about another episode of Bluey? Put on your trainers (because we can't just say tennis shoes anymore) and we'll go for a walk to the park. I had skirted around the question with ease.

"Why don't you have a mate if you have a baby?" Winnie was too young to get the answers to a lot of life's difficult questions. Why did Tiffany not like us? Why didn't she get to see her daddy anymore? Why did that man look at you weird on the train, mommy? I wish she would just stay this little. That she never needed or want to know the harsh truths about me, us.

"I..." I wracked my brain for an answer and just came up short. I couldn't think of a way to sugarcoat it. We almost had a mate. Mates. We almost had a pack that would have walked you to school on the mornings my feet were too sore or I was already running late. They would have loved you. "It... it's complicated, Darling." Is what I chose instead. The other worrisome fact is that Winnie was too young to understand the concept about mates. I had never broached the subject which only means she probably heard it from some little shithead at school.

Wonderful.

"I'll explain it when you're older." I promise, closing my eyes and letting her snuggle into the crook of my arm. "Do you wanna rest your eyes with me?"

"Like when I'm five?" She asks putting one of her hands underneath my shirt onto my belly. It had become a thing she had started since I told her about the baby.

"Maybe six." I said, looking down at her. She gave a yawn before closing her eyes.

"I think five is better."

"Okay, Win." I said. "When you're five we'll talk about it." It was a promise I hoped she would forget. But I didn't want to negotiate with a four-year-old about something future me could deal with. I wanted just 15 minutes of this. I order Alexa to set a timer to make sure we haven't dozed too far off. Winnie still needed to shower and eat. I still needed to get the groceries out of the car. But I could spare another 15 minutes.

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cumikering · 2 months

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Neighbour Ghost x reader 6

2.7k | angst No matter how loyal, guard dogs still have their teeth (part 1) (part 7)

Simon’s steps to your door were heavy, as his heart had been since that call.

Despite his blazing wrath, he was unprepared for the waves of guilt that washed over, the shame that wrestled to drown him. He was unable to protect you from his past – he brought it upon you, even after how much too sweet you’d been, how softly you’d touched him. How could he ever look you in the eye again?

The stray never deserved any of that.

When you gave him a squeeze at the door, he didn’t return it. Still, you tugged him in with the same lovely smile, even when it wasn’t as wide.

“Fancy a cuppa?”

“No.”

Your pretty hand shouldn’t be in his filthy one. Do you even know what I do with these hands?

You sat at the dining table and Simon remained on his feet to your side, eyes fixed on the cup of pu erh before you. His fists clenched and released. You didn’t like pu erh.

At the end of the day, he was still a reaper in dress uniform - one with an unrelenting demon that lurked in the far corner. He could have fucked him up that evening at the bakery. Feel his nose crumble against his knuckles, maybe even the snap of his scrawny neck in his hands.

But no, this happened because he didn't. Like his mum said, you were good for him, of course you were. But was he for you? He was nothing but trouble.

You smiled up at him. Always so sincere, so delicate, making his stomach twist more.

“My dad’s visiting this weekend. I was wondering if you wanted to meet him? And… Um, what I should introduce you-“

Not addicted, he'd tell himself too many times, as if it didn’t sound like a bloody lie to his own ears. You were the beginning of an incurable addiction, a cliff with the bewitching view he was a step away from falling off of.

His gaze left you. “I’m going back home with my mum tomorrow.”

“Oh,” you said, your disappointment evident. “Okay, maybe next time then.”

His heart pounded in his ears as he forced the words out, nails digging into his palms. “We should stop this.”

“What… What are you saying, Simon?”

“This. Meeting you, staying over. I’ll have less time when I become captain. This isn’t going to end well,” he reasoned, but it sounded more like he was convincing himself this was the right thing.

He knew it was, even when it didn’t feel like it, like a lot of things in life. He knew one day he’d be glad he did this. One day, even when right then it felt like the worst thing he could be doing. Would someone, something, rip this decision away from his hands?

“You don't get to say that yet, not right now. I know you're going through a lot.” You reached for his hand. “But we can wait until things settle and we’ll talk-“

He pulled away from your touch. “I've made up my mind. I never meant for things to get this far.”

In the still room, his stare remained on the cup you hadn’t touched since his arrival.

“You knew this all along and you still let it happen,” you said as realisation dawned.

He looked up to meet your hardened gaze. He’d seen you sad, annoyed, angry, but this was the first time your eyes were devoid of warmth. Being the receiving end of that stare was a stab to his chest.

“I should believe people when they show me who they are.” You chuckled humourlessly. “Get out, Simon.”

The world slowed. It was hard to draw his breath as he remained unmoving, like he was chained to the floor of where his sanctuary once was. Despite the arms that ached to wrap around you and never let go, he forced himself to walk away as his blood ran cold.

The door slammed behind him. He didn’t expect a positive response, of course, but it was definitely not the shatter of his own heart.

Still, it didn’t hurt as much as it would have had he waited until you inevitably left him for one reason or another. At least he’d never have to worry about being like his dad, about hurting you, betraying you, if you weren’t there to begin with. Like he’d always known, you deserved better, someone as lovely as you – unlike this stray who would never be enough.

It’s the right thing.

He could give his mum his undivided attention now. She would never leave nor kick him out the door. If he was not wanted, he had to be endlessly needed, used dry until he was nothing but a ghost.

“Who the fuck broke my bloody door!”

Simon and his mum had been waiting for his dad’s return to the house that had turned into a complete mess. Meanwhile, she’d packed as much of her belongings as she could, her luggage in the living room.

“Sign the bloody papers before I make sure you never can anymore,” Simon barked, standing tall next to his sitting mum.

His dad rounded the corner and Simon’s jaw ticked thinking of what he did to you. He let out a weak sigh at the sight of his wife and son at the dining table, a sight he hadn’t seen in over a decade. His eyes softened.

“I don’t want anything from you, James. Please sign them and we’ll be out of here.”

He pulled out the chair across the table and propped his elbows up, face in his hands as he took a deep breath.

“I need to apologise, Melanie,” he began. “I’ve made your life hell, and I know there’s nothing I can do to change that now. I was my fault.”

“She didn’t ask,” Simon said through gritted teeth. He shoved the papers closer when he ached to break the filthy table with his dad’s skull.

“I’m sorry about your last night here. It was unforgiveable, what I did.”

Simon slammed his fist onto the table. He had watched the grand performance too many times. “You’re not fooling anybody with your tricks. Sign the bloody papers. I swear this is the last time I’m asking.”

His mum patted his hand, and he reluctantly took the seat next to her.

“I want you to have the house, Mel. You’ve always kept it too beautiful for a man like me. It’s the least I can give you after everything.” He let out a steady breath, flipping open the document. “I hope one day you can find it in your heart to forgive me for how much I’ve hurt you,” he added quietly.

Was that remorse that settled in his hollow eyes?

His mum bit her lip as a tear slipped. When Simon wrapped an arm around her, she sobbed into his chest.

No words were exchanged as his dad went through the papers, and it remained so until Simon wheeled his mum’s luggage out the door behind her.

“Goodbye, James.” She didn’t spare him another look.

“Simon?” he called in a small voice. “I’m sorry I’m not the father you deserve.”

The lieutenant threw the door shut.

Simon spent the next few days with his mum, Tommy, his wife and son. Since his last visit, Tommy’s got a new job and seemed to be spoiling his son rotten with plenty of new toys, including the shiny red bike outside. Unfortunately, even after over a year, he and Beth still hadn’t had much luck trying for a second child.

Joseph was a brilliant kid with a toothy smile, just like Tommy was, and it always surprised Simon how big his nephew got between each visit. It was a shame he only got to meet his family twice or thrice each year.

“Joe, you’ve been sitting on your uncle’s shoulders all day,” Beth said with an amused smile. “Give him a break.”

“It’s the best seat ever!” His little arms wrapped tighter around Simon’s head, eyes glued onto the cartoon on the telly.

“You need to do your homework.”

“I’ll do it here.” He poked the top of Simon’s head.

He laughed. “I don’t mind.”

She shook her head. “Come on now. Dinner will be ready in an hour. You don’t want to be late.”

“Okay…” he huffed before dragging his feet to his room.

While he flicked through the channels, Beth went back to the kitchen where his mum was. He wasn’t one to watch the telly apart from football, but his thumb hovered over the button when the Great British Bake Off came on.

He remembered the episode. He’d watched it with you, the only person he ever watched the show with. It was yours, like a secret only the both of you knew.

It’s the right thing.

Faintly, his mum chuckled at something her daughter-in-law said, and his mind couldn’t help but drift to all the times it was you and her in his flat instead. Sharing stories, laughing, while he smiled at the sight from afar.

It’s the right thing, Riley, I promise.

He turned the telly off and went for a walk instead.

At dinner, the table admired little Joe’s drawings he’d done at school – he always saved them for when his daddy came home. With his precious family beaming, it seemed like the life Simon should have had, the one he always imagined was supposed to be like. But even without the devil trailing behind like an ellipsis, this, somehow, didn’t feel right either.

Despite his smile, his chest was heavy with the rotting carcass of the heart he didn't know he still had until weeks ago.

It’s the right thing, it’s the right thing, it’s the right thing.

Later that night, Simon’s head tilted when he entered the guestroom his mum occupied.

“Have you not packed yet? We’re leaving tomorrow. I’ve still got training on Monday.”

On the bed, she lowered her book and frowned. “I’m not leaving. Manchester is my home, Si.”

“Home is where you’re safe, mum, and you’re not here.”

She sighed, the sympathetic kind, before putting her book away. “My well-being and happiness aren’t your responsibility.”

He scoffed. “‘course they are.”

“I can’t thank you enough for thinking about me, but what’s happened, happened. I’m trying to start over, and that includes not being a baggage to you.”

He blinked. “Mum, what are you on about?” he asked carefully as he sat next to her.

“You need to live your life. You push good things away, Si.”

What… “I don’t. You’re all I’ve got.”

“Always so stubborn.” She shook her head. “Don’t make the same mistake I did, Si. My first love… Your granddad didn’t want us together, and I ended up with your dad. I grew to love him, but it wasn’t what I wanted. I chose easy over real. Sometimes I wonder if I’d been less afraid, what life would be like now.

“I'm by no means regretful, because I got to have my two perfect sons, but you had to pay for my mistakes too, and for that I’m yet to forgive myself. I’m supposed to give you a good life, but I didn't. The least I can do now is not hold you back.

Her hands clasped over his. “So live for me, Si. Don't worry about me. Wherever you go, whatever you do, I will always be your mum. I can’t stop loving you even if I tried. I just need to see you happy, that’s all I need from you.”

His gaze dropped to the ground. “I’m not good enough for her,” he muttered.

“That’s not for you to decide.”

“Isn't it too late?”

“Never.”

“You make it sound so easy.”

“You make it sound harder than it is.” She cupped his cheek. “It won’t be painless, but if she’s the one, it will be worth it.”

Against his mum’s shoulder, he wished his tears would stop flowing, but with the way she rubbed his back, Simon was once more just a little blond boy with the scraped knee.

From the front porch in the chill night, it was shameless how he called you at that hour, when he didn’t even say goodbye when he left. It was shameless how even after you rejected his calls, he still called for the 5th time, or 10th – he’d lost count. But at last, the line connected.

“Luv,” he said breathlessly, palm pressing against his eyes that had barely dried.

“Please stop calling me.”

“No, wait. Please, listen. Don’t-”

“You’ve made up your mind. Begging only reduces me to nothing, so I didn’t try to change it. I owe you nothing, Simon.”

And the line clicked off.

Still sat on the steps, he blinked at the phone in his hand, deciding if he was going to worsen the situation if he called again. It was shameless that he did anyway, but it went straight to voicemail.

Simon might not have had plenty of dating experience, it was shameless really, but he knew he still had a chance if you were mad.

You’d listen when he showed up at your door, still hauling his backpack.

“Luv, please. Please, listen.”

He thought his heart was about to explode when your footsteps approached. The door opened halfway.

“Hi,” you said, not meeting his eyes.

His breath hitched, and he was near to tears. Despite his resolve, he couldn’t get the words out.

“I've thought about it. You're right. I thought I knew what I was getting into, but it was always so hard to see you leave, and I realised it’s only going to get harder.”

No, no, no...

“Thank you for being honest and saving us from further heartache. I know I didn’t have to block you, but I hope you understand my decision to not be in contact anymore.”

“Luv, no. I wanted- I want to try. I don’t care how hard it gets.“

“I care. I want stability, maybe even a family, and I see now we’re not heading in the same direction.” You looked up at him with glassy eyes and a pained smile. “I wish you all the wonderful things, Simon. Truly, I'm so thankful I got to know you.”

He barely made out the words tumbling out of your lips, wishing he was hallucinating.

“Goodnight, Simon,” you whispered as you closed the door.

Even then, you didn’t give him a foul look for his audacity to show his face after biting the hand that fed him. It was the last time you were going to see him, why did you still have to treat him with respect?

He wished you’d have said something mean, even sick. You should have called him names, tell him he was the most ungrateful man there was, that he was just like his dad, so he had something to hate, so the fire could flare up high once more and he’d be safe behind it like he always was.

But it was you. You could stab him in the chest, and he wasn’t sure it would have been enough to hate you. To overwrite how wonderful you’d been to the wounded stray.

His gaze cast down, unmoving at your door. He did this to himself. It was his fault for dropping his cold stare, for smiling, for looking when you weren’t, cracking his jokes, touching your hand and kissing you, for lying down and baring his belly. It wasn’t your fault you didn’t want him anymore after what he’d done.

If he closed his eyes, he could still see the vivid curve of your lips, your soft laugh, the caress of your fingers. The ache for you morphed into an itch that made him want to claw at his skin, to replace the sweetness with bright, searing pain.

Would you please do the humane thing and shoot him so he didn’t have to drown in the storm that brewed in him?

It was for the best, he told himself. It was what he wanted after all, to keep his problems away from you, to keep you happy, even when he wasn’t in the picture. Leaving you was his repayment for being a thankless beast.

“Just because I go, doesn’t mean my heart follows,” he whispered.

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freedomfireflies · 1 year

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So I’m a cheerleader.. and I was thinking Stiles being with a cheerleader reader and he gets all hot and bothered seeing her walk around the school in uniform because it hugs her figure perfectly, so he pulls her into an empty classroom and you know 😉😉 and he tells her how short her skirt is and how it’s “easy access”

Stiles Stilinski is not subtle.

Especially when it comes to his staring, which was made very clear to you the day you first joined the team, before later showing up at his house in your new cheerleading uniform.

And his eyes had nearly bugged out of his head.

And he drooled.

Literally drooled.

All down his chin.

And it's for this very reason that you've decided to wear the dangerous outfit to school today, just to make sure he gets a really good look.

Technically, practice isn’t until after school, and most of the other girls prefer to change in the locker room just before.

And that’s normally how you prefer it, too. After all, this skirt leaves little to the imagination but even more so…it lets in a draft.

And it’s February. And very cold, and very brisk, and your legs are very bare.

But it’ll be worth it to watch the line of drool dribble from Stiles’ mouth as you swing your hips by his desk.

And you’re rewarded with exactly that as you saunter your way from one side of the classroom to the other, pretending to be oblivious to your charm, and to his presence, as you call a greeting to your friend.

You keep your back to him because you know if you catch a glimpse of his face, you’ll smirk. And if he knows you know what you’re doing, then he’ll make sure to make you regret it.

…which, you suppose wouldn’t be the worst thing.

Still, you keep him behind you and begin a conversation with one of the other girls on the team. You exchange stories about how your weekend was and what you’re looking forward to during practice.

But you don’t miss the sound of his throat clearing. You don’t miss the sound of his chair scraping across the floor, or the sound of his footsteps parading after you.

And you smile.

“What, no hello for me?” comes the familiar, soft taunt, slipping just over your shoulder.

You pull your bottom lip between your teeth and glance to the side. “Hm? Oh, yeah. Hey, Stiles.”

He swallows a scoff. “Oh, I think you can do better than that.”

Your eyes roll as he steps in front of you and leans back against your desk, forcing your attention on him.

Then, he grins. “So…do better.”

Still, you keep your playfully annoyed expression firm on your face as you shrug and let out a heavy sigh. “Fine. Hello, Stiles. Is that good enough for you?”

“Mm-mm.” His head shakes. “Try again.”

Your arms cross in front of your chest. “Well, it’s just gonna have to be, because class is about to start, and I don’t have time for this.”

With that, you reach out to lightly shove him to the side and out of your way so you can slip by and take your seat.

But you hadn’t anticipated the contact to be so…electrifying. You suppose it makes sense. After all, you and Stiles haven’t really had a lot of…quality time together recently. Both so busy with extracurriculars, homework, and friends.

You hadn’t meant to go two weeks without, and truthfully, you thought you’d been doing fine. Sure, once in a while, you’d find yourself lying in bed with your fingers between your thighs. But Stiles was always on the other side of that phone call, talking you through it, telling you how much he missed it, and how pleased he was to hear you fuck yourself to the sound of his voice.

Now, as you wrestle him out of your way, you feel his fingers brush the outside of your thigh as you pass by, and your breath catches in your throat as your mind suddenly goes fuzzy.

You both seem to still, now abundently aware of how badly you need each other.

You look up at him.

He looks back.

You swallow.

He smiles.

“Uh…Mr. Clark?” he’s suddenly calling, turning toward the man now taking his place near the front of the classroom.

Mr. Clark looks up. “Yes?”

“I’m…I’m not feeling so hot,” Stiles says, voice labored and thick as if in great pain. “I need to go see the nurse.”

Mr. Clark sighs as he waves his hand through the air dismissively. “Fine but be quick about it, please. We have a lot to cover.”

“Yes, Sir,” Stiles replies, taking a step back before stumbling rather dramatically as his hands reach out to grasp onto you. “Oh. Oh, gosh. I…I don’t think I can make it there on my own, I feel…I feel so weak and dizzy.”

Mr. Clark’s expression drops into an unamused frown. “Is that so?”

Stiles nods, blinking innocently. “Yeah, I…I sure hope I don’t pass out on the way there. That would just be…so bad. I could seriously get hurt. But…no. No, I’ll be fine. Don’t worry about me, I’ll…I’ll just hold onto the wall and hope I remember how to walk—”

“My god, just take him,” Mr. Clark interrupts, now nodding his chin at you. “It’s fine. Just take him, and hurry back.”

Doing your best not to laugh, you chew on the inside of your cheek and loop your arm under Stiles’ shoulder to help guide him toward the door.

He pretends to be faint, swaying from side to side as you do your best to keep him walking in a straight line.

And because this is Stiles, he makes this as difficult as possible, resting almost all of his weight on you as work to keep yourself upright.

Once you’re in the hall, you expect him to drop the act, but he doesn’t. Not until you’ve passed the few straggling students and teachers.

You also expect that he wants to actually head to the nurse’s office. His favorite place to have you because it's quiet, secluded, and it has a bed.

But this theory of yours is also proven wrong when he suddenly skids to a stop in the middle of the hallway, grabs onto your wrist, and yanks you through what seems to be a random door.

Once you’re both safely inside, you peer around the dark space, and piece together that he’s brought you into one of the empty study rooms.

However, you aren’t afforded an opportunity to discover much more than that because just as you’re starting to get comfortable, you feel his hands.

One is on your hip, and the other is nudging between your thighs to pry you open. And as he does, he guides you back toward one of the desks and places you on top before placing himself between your legs.

Your palms meet the cold, hard surface behind you as you brace yourself and stumble over a gasp. “What…what—”

“This?” he murmurs under his breath, fisting at the fabric of your cheerleading skirt with contempt. “This is fucking cruel.”

Your lashes flutter but you can’t deny the flush of your cheeks at his approval. “What do you mean?”

He makes a noise deep in the back of his throat as he guides the fabric up your lap, eying it—and you—closely. “You know exactly what I mean, sugar. Know you do. Know you wore this just to hurt me. Know you wanted me to see just how easy it would be to have you. Right then. Right there. In front of everybody.”

You stay silent because he’s right, and you just hope he plans to do something about it.

“It does, you know,” he continues softly, long fingers caressing the soft, tender skin of your inner thigh. “It does hurt me. Every inch of you hurts me. Not having you hurts me. Not being with you hurts me—”

He stops, and your heart just about drops to your ass as he ghosts his lips above yours and hooks his thumb under the lace of your underwear.

You both still.

“—do you wanna hurt me, sugar?” he asks, and you immediately shake your head. “Good. S’good. So…what do you want?”

He won’t go further than this until you say the words, and while you appreciate the sentiment, your tongue doesn’t seem to want to work right now.

“You,” you breathe. “Always you, Stiles, please.”

You watch his entire face light up as he finally concedes and kisses you. God, he kisses you with so much love and lust and adoration that your head spins and your lungs just about give out.

“Yeah?” he whispers.

You nod.

“Good. Then let’s do something about it.”

~ Full Masterlist

~ Other Dylan Blurbs

#dylan #dylan o'brien #dylan o'brien imagine #dylan obrien #dylan o'brien one shot #stiles stilinksi #stiles #stiles stilinksi imagine #stiles stilinski smut #stiles stilinksi fanfiction #stiles stilinksi x reader #stiles stilinski x you #stiles stilinski blurb #stiles stilinski request #blurb #request

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shadowtriovibes · 1 year

Text

dance in a storm in my best dress

Pairing: Sebastian Sallow x f!MC

Rating: PG-13

Word Count: 3K

Summary: by request: "I have a fun idea! How about Sebastian and f!mc are "just friends" until one day she asks him to help her try on/give his opinion on some new dresses, and desire and spice ensue??"

"Go on and change back into your robes, Mister Sallow," the shopkeeper says. "I suspect we’ll be inquiring about your opinion shortly." While Sebastian returns to the back, Mr. Hill summons a modesty screen around the rack of dresses you’d pulled and waits patiently while you slip out of your school robes and wrestle your way into that first dress – the periwinkle blue. There are so many layers that it takes you at least ten minutes to even put on your crinoline, which Mr. Hill assures you he’ll let you keep on for all three options. "Have you even put one on yet?" you hear Sebastian call out when he returns. "Merlin's beard, you’ll take on a den of trolls by yourself but you’re bested by today’s fashion trends!"

“Thank you for coming with me,” you say softly, shyly tucking your face a bit deeper into your oversized scarf as you avoid snow swirling around you.

It’s not an intense blizzard by any means, but nevertheless you appreciate that Sebastian had agreed to trudge down to Hogsmeade with you that afternoon when he could have spent the day with a dreadfully boring book by the fire in his common room, which is typically how he spends any free time he has as a seventh-year N.E.W.T.s student.

“Of course,” he says easily. “It’s about time I came up for air, so to speak.”

Despite the ongoing pressure of your final year of school, it had felt like all of Hogwarts had been abuzz about the upcoming holiday ball for what felt like weeks. Even you and your treasured trio of Slytherins had made plans to go together, and your daydreams of twirling across an enchanted dance floor in a fabulous gown had helped get you through some of the most arduous study sessions you’ve ever experienced.

With your end-of-term exams having concluded the day before, there was now only one thing standing in the way of you blowing off some steam at the ball with your best friend.

You need a dress.

Poppy had been the one to inform you that Mr. Hill had specially ordered some lovely fabrics from London as soon as he’d caught wind of an upcoming formal occasion. While it’s certainly too late to have anything custom made, you hoped you’d be able to find something in his shop that would suit you with a few minor alterations.

You’d invited Sebastian to join you on your shopping trip primarily for moral support, as the two of you were going to the ball together as friends.

(Anne had been quick to claim Ominis as her date so that she wouldn’t have to take her own brother, and you and Sebastian had been equally loath to bother asking anyone else.)

However, you suspect you may also need some help physically donning the dresses. You may not know much about what’s in fashion these days, but hearing some of your classmates boast about precisely how many garment layers they’d be wearing had nearly made your head spin.

“Do you have your dress robes?” you press him skeptically. “Anne said you were procrastinating.”

“Yes, nosy,” he laughs. “Ominis made me pick some out last weekend, and Mr. Hill should have them in for me by now.”

“Good,” you say primly. “You’ll have to try them on while we’re there and make sure they fit.”

“This is now my second trek into Hogsmeade for this silly ball,” he points out with a cheeky grin. “I hope it’s going to be as enjoyable as you lot are saying it’ll be.”

“It will,” you insist. “We all need something like this, something that’s just… joyful, I suppose.”

Sebastian glances sidelong at you with a tender smile.

“Fair point,” he agrees. “Right as usual, you are.”

“You’re still surprised after all this time?” you tease him, bumping your shoulder against his while he laughs.

When the two of you walk into Gladrags, Augustus Hill perks up excitedly and slips out from behind the ornate counter.

“Ah! Just the young witch and wizard I was hoping to see today,” he crows. “Come in, come in! I dare say, it’s awfully frigid today.”

You hang up your cloaks while Mr. Hill rustles up a tray of tea for the both of you. Ever since that troll encounter years ago, the Gladrags shopkeeper has always had a soft spot for you and Sebastian, which often results in the two of you feeling downright spoiled every time you visit him.

“Thank you, Mr. Hill,” you say as you accept the warm mug he offers.

“Mister Sallow,” he says as he hands Sebastian his tea. “Your dress robes came in just this morning! Why don’t I send you off with young Otto to try it on and mark up any alterations?”

You glance warily at Sebastian, reluctant to split from him as you do your shopping.

As though he’d read your mind, Mr. Hill laughs and insists, “He won’t be kept long, my dear! Fitting a young man’s dress robes is a much simpler task than that which you have on your hands, I should expect.”

“Why don’t you just pick out some things to try while Otto works his magic?” Sebastian teases. “I’ll be back before you know it.”

Once you agree, Mr. Hill sends Sebastian to the backroom while you sip your tea and discuss some of your preferences with the kindly shopkeeper. You admit to not being very knowledgeable about fashion, but you have some colors in mind that you think may suit you – as well as very strict expectations on how much range of motion you want to maintain.

“I need to be able to breathe,” you insist, glancing hesitantly at some of the impossibly small corsets in the window display.

Peering over his spectacles with a wise smile, he answers, “I think that can be arranged.”

He then begins to show you the collection of remaining dresses he has in stock. As the premier clothier for the majority of your fellow witches at Hogwarts, he doesn’t have an unlimited supply this close to the ball, but his selections don’t disappoint.

“This blue color is quite pretty,” you sigh, gingerly inspecting the sleeve of one of the dresses he offers.

“I suspected you might like that one,” he says brightly. “Let us pull it for now and select a few more for you to try on, hmm?”

You end up also selecting a red gown with a smart-looking cape that would show off your house colors brilliantly and a crisply white evening dress with delicate golden embroidery around the bottom of the skirt.

“This should do for a start,” Mr. Hill says.

“Really? No green?” Sebastian asks from behind you.

When you turn to remind him pointlessly that you aren’t actually a Slytherin, your words fail you.

He looked utterly dashing in his dress robes. At first glance, he appeared to be wearing what looked like a Muggle tuxedo, but the extra-long tails and high collar gave away that it was most certainly wizarding apparel. His jacket and pants were both inky black – so dark that they appeared to even darken the room around him, or maybe you had just lost focus of everything that wasn’t him.

Of course, having been expertly fitted by Otto, Sebastian’s robes seem to cling to every inch of him. The waistcoat makes his waist look exceptionally narrow, or perhaps it’s that his chest looks so broad. His shoulders appear to be broader as well underneath his jacket, and while the long tails might appear to shorten other men, on Sebastian they merely elevate the length of his legs.

He slips on a pair of white gloves that Otto hands him and you bite down hard on the inside of your cheek. He looks like a proper gentleman dressed like this, you think – not at all like the haphazardly-robed young man you’re used to seeing.

“Ah! Excellent,” Mr. Hill says with a clap, breaking your trance. “A perfect fit.”

“How do I look?” Sebastian asks you teasingly.

“B-brilliant,” you stammer. “It, um. Fits. You’re fit – I mean, it fits very well.”

“Of course, we’ll charm the waistcoat to whatever color you’d like to match your dress, once you’ve made your selection,” Mr. Hill explains as he gestures to the garment. “Or simply leave it white.”

“Of course we’ll match,” Sebastian says easily. “But getting this one to make a selection isn’t going to be easy.”

You scoff and turn back around to the rack of dresses to hide your persistent blush.

“Go on and change back into your robes, Mister Sallow,” the shopkeeper says. “I suspect we’ll be inquiring about your opinion shortly.”

While Sebastian returns to the back, Mr. Hill summons a modesty screen around the rack of dresses you’d pulled and waits patiently while you slip out of your school robes and wrestle your way into that first dress – the periwinkle blue. There are so many layers that it takes you at least ten minutes to even put on your crinoline, which Mr. Hill assures you he’ll let you keep on for all three options.

“Have you even put one on yet?” you hear Sebastian call out when he returns. “Merlin’s beard, you’ll take on a den of trolls by yourself but you’re bested by today’s fashion trends!”

“Come and help me then!” you whine.

“Er – is that alright?” Sebastian asks Mr. Hill.

“Of course!” he exclaims. “He’s your date, it would be unchivalrous not to assist you.”

That’s when you realize that Mr. Hill probably thinks you and Sebastian are properly dating, but for reasons you don’t want to admit to yourself just yet, you don’t correct him.

You could also sorely use some help as well.

“Mind the petticoat,” you mumble as he ducks behind the screen.

You’re both quiet as Sebastian helps carefully bundle up the skirt of the dress and drape it over your upright arms, slowly working it down your body so that it doesn’t catch on any of the boning in your corset. Once the skirt gracefully pours down over your petticoat, you gently smooth the bodice and turn around so he can lace up the strings crossing your back.

“Too tight?” he asks softly.

“N-no,” you murmur. “You can even do them a bit tighter, actually.”

You gasp softly when he pulls on the strings and cinches your waist tighter, and Sebastian pauses for a beat, but you don’t instruct him to loosen it.

Once he fumblingly ties the strings together at the small of your back, he mumbles, “All set.”

He offers you a hand to steady you while you shuffle out from behind the screen. Mr. Hill immediately laves praise onto the dress, and while you agree that it is quite lovely, a glance in the mirror reveals that periwinkle blue just isn’t a color in which you shine.

“No matter,” the shopkeeper insists. “Onto the red, shall we?”

Sebastian again helps you slide the dress off up over your head and replace it with the red one, this time lacing you tightly from the start. There’s a delicate cape that goes with this one, so you turn around to face him so he can drape it over your shoulders and tie the small silk ribbons that sit just at your collarbones.

“Ought to be plenty warm in this one,” he jokes halfheartedly, trying and failing to resist the urge to sneak glances at your décolletage.

“Is the cape a bit…?” you ask quietly, wrinkling your nose. “Is it too much?”

“What?” he asks dumbly. “O-oh, no, I – I think you look great. It’s a great dress, really.”

You’re nearly as red as the dress when you emerge for a second time, and once again Mr. Hill thinks you look like “a buxom Beauxbatons beauty from the boulevards of Paris.” However, regardless of your house pride, if you’re going to be blushing like this all evening at the ball – and the odds on that are significant – you know you simply can’t go with red.

“I have one more to try on,” you tell Sebastian softly. “It’s that white one, just there.”

You notice Sebastian’s gaze linger on the ornate embroidery, a pleased look passing over his face.

“It’s stunning,” he tells you. “Shall we get it on you?”

You merely nod, not trusting yourself with words at the moment.

The moment Sebastian helps you slip into the white dress, you know you have a winner. As if imbued with magic (and perhaps it is indeed), the white silk shimmers almost like the fresh snow outside the shop window. However, instead of feeling like a proper ice princess, you feel warm all over – especially where Sebastian’s hands mindlessly reach out to trace the fine embroidered patterns on your bodice.

“You look…” he exhales. “You just need to see, come on.”

He walks you out for the last time and even Mr. Hill refrains from commenting until you twirl in front of the mirror, your skirt gracefully lifting and falling with your movement.

“...I look beautiful,” you whisper. “Oh, Mr. Hill, it’s just lovely.”

“This is the one,” Sebastian insists. “You have to pick this one, it’s hardly even a choice.”

“Your companion is correct!” Mr. Hill crows. “My dear, it’s as if that gown was made precisely for you.”

Otto comes by to charm a few simple adjustments into the fabric of the dress and you watch yourself in the mirror with wide eyes as it molds itself to your body. Now it looks just like one of those custom dresses in the illustrations that the girls in your year pour over in the shopping pages at the back of the Daily Prophet.

“I think we’re done here,” Sebastian says quietly, his eyes still fixed on that one embroidered seam at your waist where your bodice meets your skirt.

“Of course,” Mr. Hill agrees. “Let’s get you out of that crinoline so I can send you two lovebirds on your way for a nice Butterbeer or two!”

As he babbles on about how it’s just like the last time the two of you came into his shop together, you meet Sebastian’s gaze and realize both of you are steadfastly refusing to correct the man. You know that you’re blushing, but seeing him blush just as fiercely is quite revealing.

After you pay Mr. Hill and make plans for Otto to deliver the dress to the castle once the storm lets up, you and Sebastian wordlessly trudge down to Sirona’s lively pub. There you manage to snag a small booth in one of the far corners – one that you’re well aware is a popular spot for snogging.

“So…” he says softly. “Lovebirds, are we now?”

“Don’t start,” you warn him. “You know how Augustus is, it’s usually just better to let him talk than spend all afternoon trying to correct him.”

“You didn’t even try,” he observes.

You counter, “Nor did you.”

Just then Sirona drops off your drinks and Sebastian forfeits his turn in your verbal duel by taking a pointedly long sip.

Then you forfeit your own turn when you get too distracted by the bit of Butterbeer foam on his upper lip to offer anything remotely witty.

“Well, regardless,” Sebastian eventually murmurs. “You did look beautiful in that dress.”

“Thank you,” you say. “And you were very handsome in your robes.”

“Proper fit, one might say,” he retorts.

The cheek, honestly.

“Sebastian,” you say quietly. “I need you to be honest with me about something.”

“Go on,” he says, taking another long sip while you consider your words.

Slowly, you ask him, “Since we met… have you ever once thought about us being more than just friends?”

“Have I ever once thought about it?” he repeats. “Of course I have. Countless times, probably”

“Then why haven’t you ever said anything?” you ask, staring deep into your mug to avoid having to meet his eyes.

You flinch slightly when Sebastian reaches across the table and plucks one of your hands off your mug. He laces his fingers with yours and pulls you closer, and the noise in the room seems to dwindle to a whisper as he meets your gaze.

“Between you and me, you’ve always been the brave one,” he tells you earnestly. “And I’d rather have only friendship with you than ask for too much and lose you entirely. Believe it or not I have learned when to stop.”

You smile ruefully at the reminder of just how much Sebastian has grown since you chose to give him the chance to do so.

He drags his thumb across yours. “So, if you want to be brave, I’ll be brave with you.”

You exhale shakily before you finally confess, “Of course I want to, Seb.”

You’re nearly in his lap at this point, and there’s absolutely no way the conversation you’re having could be interpreted as merely friendly by any onlookers. So, you think, why not be brave?

When you kiss him, the first thing you notice is that he tastes like the caramelly richness of the Butterbeer you’d both been drinking. But then it melts away and it’s just him, just Sebastian. He’s wonderfully warm, and underneath the initial sweetness he tastes a bit like the fluxweed stem he mindlessly chews on while he studies to help him focus.

His nose slots against yours as he tilts his head to kiss you deeper, and you wonder what he’s noticing about you.

But a moment later, the feeling of his warm hand on your thigh immediately makes you lose your train of thought.

“Seb,” you whisper, pulling back just enough to press your forehead to his.

“Let’s go back to the castle,” he blurts out eagerly.

You fondly roll your eyes and let him steal another kiss before you push him back with a gentle hand on his chest.

“I believe you just said something about having learned when to stop?” you tease him.

“I don’t see how that’s relevant,” he says cheekily.

“You’re just going to have to be patient, Mister Sallow,” you insist as you reach for your drink. “I thought I saw quite the gentleman in you today. I don’t suppose you could act like him until after the ball?”

“I could,” he offers. “But where’s the fun in that?”

“Tell you what,” you bargain, leaning in close. “If you can be a perfect gentleman from now until the ball, I’ll let you help me put my dress on, and then afterward I’ll let you take it off.”

You hear him loudly swallow and take a deep breath before he holds out a hand for you to shake and breathes, “You have yourself a deal, love.”

#my fic #hogwarts legacy #hogwarts legacy fic #sebastian sallow #sebastian sallow x mc #sebastian sallow x reader #sebastian x mc #sebastian x reader #it's not the yule ball but not NOT the yule ball #i did so much googling about victorian era fashion but i'm probably still wrong #at least it was fun to look at pretty dresses #also when i say the image file i picked for this was originally fuck-off MASSIVE... converting took me like half an hour

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octuscle · 8 months

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Studying has been so stressful lately ? Have you got something to help me relax ?

Thursday morning, 8:00 a.m. You park the old Toyota Prius that you took over from your mother in the student parking lot. Thank God it's the weekend soon, you think. But you don't feel like going to the microeconomics lecture right away. Integration of AI in the pricing of inhomogeneous markets. Unfortunately, you're not one of those nerds who can jerk off to the lecture notes. But you have to go through it now. Before you go in there, you surf through Instagram a bit. An ad for Chronivac TimeTravel pops up. It looks silly… Kind of like a role-playing game. You have to choose a character. You think about how your dad always raves about his college days. Maybe it would be cool if it was 1983. And if you were a bodybuilder. A stupid meathead. You choose that as your character. You'll worry about the rest later. Your lecture is about to start. And you still have to fight your way through the group of activists protesting against the climate policy.

The lecture is really too complicated for you. AI is a complex subject. But in combination with microeconomics? Whoever came up with that… You breathe a sigh of relief when the lecture is over. As well as you can with your face mask on. This pandemic is really exhausting. But it's good that at least there are lectures in presence again. This videoconference crap is really not mature yet. Next lecture is Spanish for Business. That's more your thing. The professor is really hot. Good motivation to go back to the workout later. You've been spending every free minute in the gym for two months, and you're starting to see results.

During the lunch break you sit with the lads from the wrestling team. Wrestling is not your thing. But the lads look like bulls. And you like that. You talk about the legalization of cannabis in Canada. That would be a cool thing here too. You've pretty much given up smoking and alcohol since you got into bodybuilding. But you don't think there's anything wrong with a little weed now and then.

At 4:00 p.m., university is over for you for the day. You sit down in the five-year-old VW Jetta that you took over from your mother. It's really embarrassing. You feel ashamed every time you drive it to the gym. Let's see, maybe you can at least put a cool matte black finish on it…

The workout was awesome again. You totally forgot the time. You're back in your car at 9:00 p.m. and drive to your dorm. You turn on the news while you prepare your dinner. China's Vice President Xi Jinping is appointed vice chairman of the Communist Party's military commission. The 57-year-old is seen as a potential successor to state and party leader Hu Jintao. Boring stuff… You certainly don't have to remember that name.

The alarm clock rings at 5:00 am. Breakfast. And off to the gym. The car radio is talking about a possible invasion of Iraq. Many of your buddies from the gym were in the army or navy… Their nerves are on edge. You can understand if you still have friends or family who might have to go to war. But 09/11 must be avenged!

Before university, leg training is the order of the day. You are proud of your colossal thighs. Many of your buddies only work out the upper body. You have the best proportions here. You've only been lifting iron for two years. But for you it's not a leisure activity, for you it's a religion.

You're just in time for your lecture. Game theory. You take your pad and pen and start taking notes. A laptop would be really cool right now. But you know four or five people on campus who have one. It's just incredibly expensive… But you won't need much longer for your bachelor's degree in sport management. Then you will hopefully be able to afford something like that. And hopefully also a new car. Your Jeep Wrangler is a cool car. But it's also eleven years old. Built in 1980… At least it gets you to the gym at 4:00 p.m. reliably.

Some dumbass turned on CNN instead of MTV on the workout floor. Some shit with the Soviet Union. Apparently everything is falling apart there and the former Soviet republics are forming a new union. Boring shit. Fortunately, someone quickly switches back to MTV. Good Vibrations with Marky Mark. Cool guy. But quite a weakling. You do a double bicepz pose in front of the mirror. You've been here every free minute for almost three years. Maybe you should be in one of those music videos.

After your workout, you wanted to go straight to bed. But it's Friday night. 10:00 p.m. The lads ask if you'd like to go to the late show of the new film with Michael J. Fox. Back to the Future. Why not. The movie's pretty funny, too. Time travel. Strange conception… But you like the idea…

Saturday morning, October 22, 1983. At 10:00 you're back at the Gym. On the way here, you've been listening to the radio about peace demonstrations in Europe. The Russki is once again threatening nuclear war. And we are stationing Pershings in Germany. Bonnie Tyler's "total eclipse of the heart" is playing from the speakers in the gym. Fuck the Russki and fuck the Germans. You're all about getting your muscles burning. At 2:00 p.m., your shift at the counter begins. Tonight you and your pals are going to wrestling. That would be a cool alternative. You as the new Hulk Hogan! But until that happens, you help out at the gym on weekends. And during the week, you'll drive a backhoe on a construction site. Hey, it's a cool life. You don't want any other!

#male tf #muscle tf #reality change #chronivac #male transformation #muscle transformation #tank top #time warp

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eddiessluttywaist · 1 year

Text

desiderium

an eddie munson series

AGELESS/BLANK/UNDER 18 BLOGS ARE NOT WELCOME TO INTERACT. PLEASE RESPECT MY RULES AND BOUNDARIES.

summary: eddie’s odd, forgotten childhood friend seeks him out when he needs her more than he realizes.

pairing: bsf!mechanic!bartender!eddie x eccentric!bsf!fem!reader

word count: 4,752 words

content/warnings: eventual smut so MDNI, angst, swearing, loneliness, mentions of drugs and crime, mentions of imprisonment, family issues, feeling unwanted, slight bullying, anxiety, nightmares, insomnia, depression, loss and grief, mentions of spit, super brief mention of alcohol and vomit, very brief mentions of breakups and inappropriate sexual relations (nothing reader or eddie are apart of). i think that’s it!

a/n: this is my first attempt at a slow burn series so i hope it’s good! i’m also trying a new setup with photos instead of gifs ^ i’ve seen a lot of other people do it and i think it looks really cool so! also creds to who owns and posted these photos! they’re not mine, i just made the collage!

part 1 - part 2 - part 3 - part 4 - part 5

Eddie Munson had grown bitter since you last saw him. To be fair, the last time you saw him was when you were kids but still. You always knew him to be boisterous. Adventurer Eddie. Eddie with the weird ideas and cool drawings. Eddie who made you laugh until your stomach cramped and you would cry out that he was going to make you wet yourself.

You didn’t know it as a kid but even then he couldn’t catch a break from the world around him, and apparently it never stopped spiraling even when it beat him into a hollow shell covered in grease during the weekdays and alcohol—and occasionally vomit—on the weekends. He was worn down by his own worries that never seemed to cease and miserable stories of others admitting things they should’ve never said aloud. Sometimes the stories were fun or at least amusing, but mostly just depressing. This was Hawkins after all.

This wasn’t an Eddie you knew. Had someone told you that man in the garage wasn’t him, you simply would’ve nodded and kept going on your journey to find him.

But it was him, and you were positive he was meant to be back in your life. No matter how much it was hurting right now.

You didn’t know why he left at first. It was as if he ceased to exist, and sometimes—when you were all alone at night—you wondered if he had been a ghost. If he had been an imaginary friend, but surely not? He had his own home you hung out in. His own dad who let you guys eat too much junk food and stay up too late. He looked and sounded real when he would scarf down several bowls of honeycomb cereal with those slurping noises you always hated and would whine at him over. He felt real when you would play wrestle—and unfortunately very real when he won and would pin you down while slowly letting a string of saliva stretch down towards your face in an empty threat. He never really did it, but it was gross all the same, and when he’d let up you’d punch his arm as hard as you could.

One day, you asked if your parents remembered him and your father scoffed at the question while he stared at the newspaper, but at least he acknowledged you at all. Meanwhile your mother had all her focus on putting her earrings in and checking her makeup in the small mirror on a wall surrounded by family photos. Those framed pictures felt emptier than the looming threat of Eddie’s spit touching your face.

“Well his father’s a bottom feeder stuck in prison,” your dad flicked his paper to straighten it out again from where it had begun to bow backwards. “And his kid is probably no better. You’ll make other friends.”

You never understood why he was so cold about the loss of your only friend. You’ll make other friends. Yeah right. No one liked you. Everyone made fun of the way you sat idly on swings just to kick on occasion as you focused more on the book in your hands, or the way you’d squat down and give all your attention to a bug in front of you. Either a line of ants that you regarded with pure intrigue because you wondered how they always filed so neatly and did their best to stay together. Sometimes you left crumbs by them just to see if you could watch them pick them up. You’d watch snails and show them the attentiveness and respect you felt they deserved as they slowly trudged along—so determined, you thought. You’d watch butterflies and try to keep track of all the different kinds you saw. A lot of them were small and fluttery with those buttery white wings, but sometimes you saw a monarch and your eyes would grow large with excitement.

You cried when Zachary McKay would stomp on the anthills or teased you about how the French ate snails—something his dad would say was just more proof of how odd Europeans are. They were one of those arrogant “We love our Country!” households with an “I can do whatever I want—America is the land of the free” ideology and it showed in their unbridled and privileged ass of a child. You didn’t inform him that one Spring of the wasp nest that formed on the underside of the slide he frequented. Maybe it was mean, but you were content in silence over on your swing when you heard him crying out in pain one day. He developed a crush on you in high school that dramatically contrasted how he treated you in grade school—and even tried to make a move at Maddi Ecker’s 17th birthday party—but you could only think of the ants and the snails. You turned him down and he was horrible to you again.

You eventually did make some friends, other odds and ends throughout your school, but it wasn’t the same as it was with Eddie. Maybe it was childish and stubborn, but you could feel it deep in your gut that he was one of a kind. So you couldn’t let him go. All those years you ached for your friend who you considered lost. He always came up with wild stories and (when you were still relatively young) you imagined he had become a pirate and was lost at sea. Or became a gunslinger in the Wild West and didn’t draw fast enough. Maybe he went to slay dragons and wound up a burnt crisp of a human. That last one made you cringe the most, but he probably would’ve liked it the most. He loved mythical creatures the way you adored real creatures. By high school you weren’t as naive. You heard about his dad—caught with multiple charges of grand theft auto, a hit-and-run in one of said stolen cars, and dealing drugs. The hard shit. Not weed or shrooms. But the kind of stuff that really ruins lives.

You always thought Eddie had a good home. His dad didn’t hate him the way you were sure your parents hated you, and he had a nice house. It wasn’t a mansion or anything, but they really didn’t need anything beyond a one story and a sizable basement with only two of them. In hindsight, you supposed he couldn’t find a home in that childhood house anymore than you could with yours. Yours lacked love. His lacked a reliable source of income.

Over time you heard about the night with all the sirens and social workers. The night he turned into a spirit that had finally moved on—an imaginary friend that your growing mind ceased to conjure. He lived with his uncle over in Indiana, rather than your small town in Ohio. Even in your mid twenties, he flashed in your mind like a small blip on occasion and it still twisted your stomach.

You thought of asking if you should go to him whenever you remembered, but you thought you needed a sign. What if you showed up too early? And you messed up any possible grand plans? So you avoided indulging in questions about him to your tarot cards or over your pendulum map. On occasion you caved and just asked a simple question: is he safe? It was a yes every time you broke and just had to check up on him, and the answer reassured you for long enough until the next time the concern rose up to unbearable levels.

But then you started getting those dreams. Sometimes they were just memories playing from deep within the archives of your mind. Sometimes they were nightmares of yelling at someone to go away, only to realize it was Eddie far too late—and when you wanted to run after him to correct the mistake, you couldn’t move as quickly as you knew you were capable of.

It went on for about a month before you finally broke. Your eyes had snapped open, accidentally waking yourself in the middle of saying what you had been shouting to Dream Eddie out loud into your pitch black room. You glanced at the time. 11:11 PM. You felt your heart skip a beat before you shoved yourself out of bed. You had to take a moment to steady yourself against your bedpost from the sudden movement making you dizzy, but then you were flicking on the light and digging through your belongings. You didn’t even give yourself a chance to wipe away at the thin sheen of sweat over your skin from August heat mixed with a cheap fan that really didn’t make that much of a difference, and the stress from the events that had played deep in your mind while you slept.

With a shaky breath, you smoothed out your map on the floor where you were squatting, and steadily held your pendulum over the center. Does he need me? You finally asked and watched as the chain connected to a sphere of rose quartz slowly began to circle. It sped up and then began to dart in different directions before finally swinging back and forth between both of the “YES''s on the piece of cloth.

It took a little over a month to arrange your departure from your life in small town Ohio—not that small town Indiana was really all that different. You had briefly been back at your childhood house after your lease came to an end for the apartment you shared with a friend (who didn’t want to renew because she wanted to move in with her boyfriend, and you didn’t have the heart to tell her that the card spread you had laid out all pointed towards a breakup). All of this to say you didn’t have a lease or mortgage to tie you down. You certainly didn’t have a boyfriend (you haven’t had one since college), and you didn’t even like your job at the local mart so it was easy to give your two weeks. Your parents were just as sick of your presence now as when you were a child, and were willing to help you in every way possible to get you to just leave again. Had you not been so focused on your end goal, you might’ve taken a beat to really feel the hurt that always came with parents who only came to your aid when it meant keeping you at arm's length. But you couldn’t focus on it and really (for the sake of your mental health) you shouldn’t focus on it. All of your energy went towards Eddie who seemed so far, even if he was supposedly just a few hours and a state line away.

You didn’t have a place yet, which was a mistake on your part for rushing, but you could stay in a motel for the time being. The prices were pretty low anyways and the owner seemed pleasantly surprised by the sudden source of money and company. The lot belonged to her husband who had passed a few years back, so now it was only her running the place. Her daughter helped sometimes, but she had another job to focus on—only coming to help when the older woman was ill. So even though she appeared kind of grumpy at first, she really softened up to you when you wound up padding out of your room the first night and asked if she wanted to play Go Fish. You had been feeling antsy and lonely, and you were right to assume she felt lonely too.

Over the past week or so, you found a friend in that creaking, groaning motel. You did have a bit of a tendency to befriend the adults around you more often than kids your age when you were younger and it still happened now, apparently. A shrink at university pointed out once that it had to do with the lack of guardianship and guidance growing up. That you were trying to replace something that had always been missing, but you didn’t go back to him after a couple sessions. You didn’t like how patronizing he was, telling you things you already knew. And when you asked your dowsing rods if he was sleeping with any of his clients, the two pieces in your fists whipped open in a blatant “Yes!” But he wasn’t around now to make you feel low with his supercilious commentary and his notes that he always scratched down right in front of you. Your parents weren’t around to remind you of how utterly unlovable you can be. It was just you, Martha at Hawkins’ Blue Bird Inn, and hopefully a pleasant reunion on the horizon.

Today was the day to finally see Eddie, and Martha urged some confidence into you this morning before sending you on your way with the directions to the garage. No matter how many times you clarified he was just your childhood best friend, she got that sly look about her that always showed when an adult was all amused about the novice in front of them being openly or involuntarily blind to love.

So there you were. On a mild Wednesday morning in late September, standing before Thacher Tire after a lot of asking around, a lot of time flipping through Martha’s phone book, and even more odd looks. You let out a careful breath, doing your best to reassure yourself with the knowledge that the people you spoke to knew his name in the first place. He had to be here, and even if he wasn’t working today he should at least be employed here. Maybe you could be told when to come back to speak with him or where you could find him outside of work. Would they share something like that? People don’t tend to care about privacy in small towns, that’s why everyone knew (generally) where everyone else was. Maybe if you clarified that you’re an old friend, they wouldn’t treat you as a customer and tell you where he would be.

You were wringing your hands as you eyed the door in front of you. The glass looking in was worn from age and weather, clearly cleaned so people could see through it, but there seemed to be an aging to the corners where the rectangle of glass met the surrounding wood that couldn’t be scrubbed out. It felt like a portal looking into what could be, and you suddenly felt yourself getting anxious with what exactly meant could be. You had a knack for catastrophizing, and spiraled in all of the worst case scenarios until you were running back to your car and abandoning the lot.

“Trust me, it’s not as scary as it seems. Going for those intimidating opportunities is always better in the long run than letting ‘em slip away,'' Martha murmured to you before biting into the sandwich you brought her.

You bought typical fast food that you always came running back to when you were stressed, but she didn’t like the grease. You learned that over the past week when you brought up your bad habit, and her nose scrunched up at the mention of crappy burgers and overly salted fries. Instead you got her a tuna sandwich from the nearby marketplace, and she shared her big jug of iced, sweet tea with you.

“I haven’t seen him for over ten years…,” you sigh, toying with the crackling paper that was wrapped around your cheeseburger. “What if I’m the only one who clung onto our friendship? What if it’s stupid to him?”

“Mm, us women always do hold on longer,” she hummed thoughtfully and you refrained from your urge to correct her old-fashioned view of gender dynamics for the sake of staying on topic. “I still think you should go for it.”

“What if… what if it’s not what I think it’ll be? What if I’ve turned him into someone more fictional than Eddie in my mind, and when I’m faced with how he really is now I just… I dunno…wish I didn’t come here?”

“They never are what you conjure up. They’re always better up here,” she pointed a bony finger to her temple and you focused on one of the curls in her short gray hair for a second before bringing your gaze back to hers. “I still think you should go for it.”

You huff out a laugh at her repetition, smiling sadly to yourself as you look down at your hands and notice the thin sheen of grease on them. Maybe Martha’s right. Maybe this food is gross. You grab a few napkins from the brown paper bag and wipe at your fingers.

“Just think of it this way: is it worse knowing the truth or worse never knowing?”

Eddie had been having a shit day. Actually he had been having a shit week. If he let himself truly indulge in his pessimism, he’d be acknowledging that he’s altogether just had a shit life, but he was trying not to fall into that trap. It would make him the kind of depressed and bitter that made him snap at others and then feel guilty about it—which only made him feel worse about himself.

He hasn’t been sleeping well, a sudden flare up of his insomnia throwing off his circadian rhythm. He thought with how busy his schedule was that he’d knock out the second his head hit the pillow, but he only seemed to be exhausted until he finally laid down. Then was when his thoughts randomly chose to run and his heart would race with the sudden surge of anxiety-inducing thoughts. He was beginning to feel so overwhelmed by everything that his eyes burned with the beginnings of hot tears but he wiped at them carelessly with the heels of his hands before they could become too real. In his mind, they didn’t exist until they fell.

Eddie ached with exhaustion that only seemed to let up when he could actually get a shot at some rest. He ached with loss and grief. He ached with pure misery and painful seclusion and a silent trailer—besides the occasional buzz of electricity through his lamp that he turned back on when he realized he wouldn’t be sleeping anyway, or the groan of the old mobile home settling against its cinder blocks. The upcoming season made itself known through the ever growing chill that formed at night and occasionally blew through every crack and crease of the trailer, making him shiver and pull his blankets up before inevitably growing hot again and kicking them away.

He missed his friends that he rarely saw. Everyone is busy nowadays. He missed Wayne who… god, he couldn’t even think about it. He missed Chrissy who lit up his world Spring of ‘86 just for them to drift apart. People seemed to drift from him a lot. People seemed comfortable with forgetting him and giving a brief call only when they got a pang of guilt at any reminder that they were getting awfully close to leaving him behind. But who was he to drag them down? It was heart-aching enough to live the way he did sometimes, let alone when people acknowledged just how heart-aching it was. Sometimes he even missed his dad, but he always avoided thinking too hard about him before it could sink his mood to a new level that would be hard to crawl out of.

He hadn’t been able to fall asleep Wednesday night until early into Thursday morning. He settled into a deep rest around 4 AM just to be abruptly woken up by his 6:30 alarm to make sure he was at Thacher’s by 7:00.

“Fuck off…,” Eddie groaned out loud and slammed his fist down onto the alarm clock, never lifting his face from where it was planted right against his worn pillow.

He laid there for what felt like forever, but was really only a few minutes before he finally peeled himself out of his spot. Forcing himself from the comfort of his old mattress was never easy, especially when he couldn’t rely on any excuses he made up as a teenager to just flop right back into his bed. He had to get up. He had to work.

He went to make his usual toast just to see there was only the end piece left in his loaf of bread, and let out a guttural groan of frustration as he tilted his head back. He forgot to stop at the store. Grumbling a bitter so that’s how today’s gonna go under his breath, he shoved the sad excuse for a slice of bread into the toaster and then began looking through the kitchen for something else to satiate him until lunch.

He wound up eating what was left in his jar of peanut butter with a spoon after slathering the small piece of toast with jelly. He didn’t have time to clean a travel mug (which he forgot to clean last night) so he took a regular one with him on his commute, and wound up dumping his coffee all over himself mid-sip when he had to stop short for a kid suddenly biking across the road. The young teen laughed at the close call and made his way to the other side of the street. Eddie glanced down at his drenched t-shirt and coveralls, releasing his third irritated groan of the morning while he rolled his eyes up to the ceiling of his van before focusing back on the road and moving his foot to the gas. He focused on taking deep breaths as he gripped the steering wheel and made his way to the shop.

Thankfully, Linda had already started a pot of coffee in the break room which he happily drank and patted at his wet clothing with one of the blue shop towels. Staining was inevitable and it really didn’t matter with the coveralls anyways, but that didn’t mean he had to be damp. Taking that moment at the start of his shift helped with his mood, but the amount of customers bitching over the phone about how long it was taking to get their cars back were steadily draining him back into a surly mood. The most he had to look forward to and keep himself from unnecessarily snapping at someone was the fact that it was almost the weekend—and yes he would still have to work nights at The Hideout, but at least he didn’t have to get up early.

Never knowing was decidedly worse.

You had concluded this after ruminating on it all night—with and then without Martha’s help. And despite all of your anxieties that were just barely buried under the surface, you made yourself go to the garage again.

An obnoxious, tinny bell sounded and a dull voice said from behind a counter: Welcome to Thacher Tire. What can we do for you?

You approached carefully as if you moved too quickly, the depressing gray and beige setting around you—which held far more meaning for you than just fixing cars—would suddenly melt away and you’d wake up.

“Do you know where I could find Eddie Munson?” you asked in a soft voice, and the woman obnoxiously chomping at her gum looked up at you over the top of her glasses before looking back down at the paperwork in front of her.

“He’s in the garage. Is he working on your car?”

Your heart jumped and although you hated to lie, you did.

“Yes,” you said probably too quickly, but it seemed nothing could get this woman to care.

“Wait over there, please,” she spoke in a voice that was just as greige as her place of work.

You thanked her meekly and shuffled over to one of the worn, faux leather and hard plastic seats. The room smelled of cheap pine air fresheners and the potent combination of oil, and that specific rubber scent of brand new tires. The space with the front desk and the waiting area was small enough to be cramped if it was a busy day, but since you were the only visitor at the moment you didn’t have to be confronted by the full potential of such limited space. You toyed with your hands and tried to pay attention to the fuzzy television in one corner of the room, but you couldn’t help listening in on the receptionist’s call.

“…’s a girl here to talk to ya… uh-huh… yeah I know… uh, no I don’t think so. I doubt it. Her voice is different from the one that keeps calling about the Ford. Might be though... ‘Kay.”

You anxiously wiped your sweaty palms over your jeans as you heard the clunk of hard plastic settling back into its cradle. What if he didn’t remember you? What if he did, but didn’t care? What if he thought you were weird for showing up? What if he grew up to be someone who stomps on anthills?

Your head shot up at the sound of a door opening and then closing from the back, and a man in filthy coveralls approached the woman behind the desk. He had messy, curly bangs settled on his forehead and the rest of his long hair was in a low ponytail. He was sweaty and clearly exhausted as he wiped at his forehead and left a swipe of grease in his wake, speaking quietly to the receptionist before making his way over to you. The closer he got, the better you could smell the grease and sweat and bitter coffee, but it didn’t deter you. What truly threw you were the circles under his eyes and the sort of pale cast to his skin that people got when they were fatigued or ill. You weren’t sure why a part of you expected to see an eleven year old kid approach you with a god awful buzz cut and big brown eyes, even after fourteen years.

This was it. This was your moment. The time to reclaim your best friend, and have the greatest person you had ever met back into your life. Why was your throat suddenly so dry? You swallowed anxiously and then parted your lips to speak and-

“Miss, I know you’re waiting on your car to be fixed before the weekend—I promise I’m working as quickly as I can.”

You tried not to cringe at the use of “miss” and looked up at him with wide, sad eyes wondering why he didn’t see an almost ten year old girl with a messy braid in her hair that she did by herself, complaining at him to chew with his mouth closed.

“I lied,” You said bluntly and the man stared at you in a way that felt blank and still despite his wonderment.

“I-I don’t have a car here. I just wanted to talk to you.”

He eyed you curiously, his hands slowly wiping onto an old rag. It looked like it had been used so many times, you doubted it was even picking up any filth on his hands but just moving it around instead. He was clearly thrown off by the sentiment which brought a sort of youthfulness to his face in that moment of curiosity before his features hardened.

“Listen. I’m sure whatever prank you have conjured up is hilarious, but I’m tired and trying to do my job.”

“No-- no, no,” you tried to clarify, shooting up from your seat. “I—I-”

But he was already swiftly stomping away from you towards the back, muttering to the receptionist with a quick and surely rude comment about you on his way. You were moments from being politely asked to leave, you’re sure, but the woman hesitated with a gentle expression when she saw you approach her with glossy eyes.

“Could you please just give him this?” you asked in a soft voice that you did your best to keep even, but of course it wobbled just enough to be humiliating. You could feel the heat in your face and (even worse) the moisture in your eyes so you did your best to avoid eye contact.

You outstretched your arm and she met you halfway with a nod, allowing you to drop the old friendship bracelet into her palm.

#eddie munson #eddie munson smut #eddie munson x reader #eddie munson imagine #stranger things x reader #mechanic!eddie #bartender!eddie #bartender!eddie munson #angst #slow burn #slow burn eddie munson #eddie munson x fem!reader #bsf!eddie munson #eddie munson angst #stranger things fanfic #eddie munson series

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sihtricfedaraaahvicius · 8 months

Text

Baby Daddy chapter 2

Note: requested by the anon who called me pookie! ;) follow up to chapter 1!

Warnings: 18+!! fluff/smut/angst. toxic relationship.

pairing: modern!Sihtric x you (f) (slight hint of you x modern!Sigtryggr)

summary: You and Sihtric had to be good parents and celebrate your son's birthday.

wordcount: 4,7k

Masterlist

The Juice.

'Okay, I'll see you at five,' Sihtric said on the phone.

'Five,' you confirmed, 'not six, not seven. At five.'

'Yeah, yeah-'

'And don't you dare bring one of your sluts!' you snarled and hung up.

You groaned and threw yourself on your couch. You had to meet up with Sihtric, your somewhat ex-husband, who was very much your baby daddy. Odin, your little boy of three years, looked just like him by now, with his piercing gaze, cheeky smile, and his dark curls. Except Sihtric had recently shaved off half of his dark curls, which you found out when you had misunderstood each other and both ended up at the school's playground to pick up your son. And Sihtric's new look was unfortunately rather sexy. But then you thought he was always sexy, to be honest, even after you two broke up about six months ago.

You had married Sihtric and more or less officially split up less than two years after your wedding day, but neither of you ever finalised the divorce. In truth, you both knew you still loved each other and wouldn't want to be with anyone else. The problem was just that Sihtric was hot, as well as hot headed and stubborn, and he often did not clearly communicate his needs, or anything else for that matter. And you were exactly the same. But you were also quite chaotic and messy, something Sihtric couldn't stand he found out. When you were together you had great times, but the way you two argued and bickered most of the time was not good for anyone involved. When you split up, Sihtric had told you to keep the house for you and Odin, while he moved out to a rather fancy apartment only a few blocks away.

The first few months you still did a lot of things together as a family, like going on weekend trips, to the movies and to theme parks. But you and Sihtric would always drive each other nuts and end up highly irritated by the end of the day. Which then led to fucking each other's brain's out somewhere fast before your son would notice his parents had snuck off. It just wasn't good and it took all your strength to create some distance between you and Sihtric overtime.

The family quality time became less when Sihtric started dating again three months after the split. Well, not really dating, he was just in his whore era. And you pushed him away more and more as it was upsetting to see some different girl by his side every time you saw him. You were hurt because the only lady by his side should be you. And over your dead body that one of his hook ups would meet your son.

So during your phone call just yet, you reminded Sihtric once again that he was not to bring a girl to your house, where you'd discuss your boy's fast approaching birthday party.

Sihtric still had the key to your house so he let himself in while you were in the kitchen. You only realised he was there when you heard your boy scream 'Daddy!' as loud as he could. And when you walked into the living room, you found Sihtric playing pretend wrestling with Odin. You sighed and chuckled at the sight. Moments like that made you wish that you and Sihtric could just get along like a normal couple. Because after everything, Sihtric was genuinely the best father any kid could possibly ask for, and you hated how it always went wrong between you both eventually.

Because there he was, dressed in black sweatpants and a black shirt, so effortlessly handsome and still giving you butterflies after not really having seen him the past two months. And Sihtric didn't know that in the meantime, you had gone for a drink with the other Dane, Sigtryggr. But nothing had happened between you and him, so you had no reason to tell your not-so-ex-husband about it.

'Hey,' you said, making your presence known.

The wrestling stopped as they both snapped their heads towards you. And Sihtric quickly picked up the distracted kid and held him upside down for a moment while the boy screamed out with laughter.

'Hey, pookie,' Sihtric said with a sly smile, then put Odin back on his feet again, who was quick to run off upstairs.

Sihtric walked around the couch towards you and pressed a kiss to your cheek, his hand lingering on your waist a little longer than was necessary. But that was just Sihtric, always subtly flirting with you on a good day. And you lied if you said you hated it.

'How are you?' he asked, eyes darting all over you, 'you look good.'

'I'm fine,' you smiled faintly, 'you?'

'Not bad,' Sihtric shrugged, then followed you into the kitchen while checking out your ass, and he sat down on one of the barstools at the kitchen island.

'Good,' you said and sat down across from him, 'so… Odin said he wants a monster truck themed party.'

'Monster trucks?' Sihtric furrowed his brow, 'those things are still cool?'

'Apparently so,' you grimaced, 'I looked up some decoration stuff already, and there's quite a lot to get with monster trucks on them.'

'Well that's settled then,' Sihtric said, then yawned and stretched, 'guess he wants monster trucks as presents too?'

'Yes, or anything Spider-Man related.'

'Spider-Man?'

'Yes, Spider-Man is also still cool,' you chuckled.

'Should I dress up as Spider-Man?' Sihtric asked half serious.

You snorted and shook your head, 'I don't think anyone is waiting to see that.'

You half lied. You could already imagine what your "ex-husband" would look like, and the thought was enough to make your cheeks heat up.

'Hey,' Sihtric pretended to be offended, 'you know I'd look good in one of those outfits, don't lie.'

'I won't deny that,' you snickered, 'you always had a good body.'

'Oh, really?' Sihtric asked with a smug face, 'you still think about my body, hm?'

'Sihtric, don't start,' you chuckled and looked down at your feet.

When you looked back up again, you found Sihtric was still looking at you, and you stared into each other's eyes for a long moment. The air suddenly became thick with tension, and you both wanted nothing more than to rip each other's clothes off, right there and then. You didn't have to say it, you could read each other like no one else could. You flashed Sihtric a cheeky smile, and he shifted slowly in his chair, trying to suppress his arousal while he bit down on his lip.

'You still think about me?' he asked after a moment, his smooth, honeyed voice barely louder than a whisper.

He reached for your hand over the black marble counter, 'Because I still think about you,' he husked.

His tattooed fingers laced with yours while your eyes never left his mismatched pair. You didn't answer. You couldn't possible tell your ex, your seriously hot and sexy ex, that you could only get off at the thought of him fucking you. And none of your few one night stands after him had ever fucked you as good as he does. But Sihtric knew that too.

The way you never spoke about another guy, or never even introduced a new guy to your son. Sihtric knew he had nothing to worry about. He was a hypocrite in that regard, he fucked around as much as he could, even if it was only to try and forget you and to make you jealous, but the gods forbid if you ever met someone else.

'Are you seeing someone?' he suddenly asked as he gently rubbed his rough thumb over your hand.

You sighed and shook your head, 'I don't have to tell you anything about that,' you said calmly, to which Sihtric squinted his eyes slightly, 'but no, nothing serious.'

'Nothing serious?' Sihtric frowned and leaned in, 'what does that mean, hm?'

He kept his curious eyes locked on you, his bottom lip drawn between his teeth while he still held your hand. And before you could speak, Odin came running downstairs. You quickly pulled away and turned, making haste to pour yourself some juice while Sihtric was being distracted by your son, who proudly showed him his drawing of a monster truck he had just made for his father.

'Are you?' you asked Sihtric the same question, and leaned back against the kitchen counter.

He looked up at you and wetted his lips with the tip of his tongue as Odin climbed to sit on his knee.

'Nothing serious,' Sihtric said curtly, which told you he already got rid of his latest hook up and found someone new for the night.

'Daddy stay dinner?' Odin innocently grinned.

'No, honey,' you smiled at your boy, 'daddy has other things to do tonight,' you sneered and glanced at your ex, who clenched his jaw.

It was early in the morning when Sihtric let himself in your house again, carrying a bag with monster truck decorations he had picked up from the store at your request. Today was your son's birthday party, and you needed help decorating the house.

'Hey, pookie,' Sihtric rasped and kissed your cheek.

'Jesus Christ, Sihtric,' you grimaced and shoved him with your shoulder.

'What?' he asked, clearly confused and agitated.

'Can you at least fully sober up, take a shower and make an attempt to wash off some woman's cheap perfume before you show up here?' you scowled and snatched the decorations out of his hands.

Sihtric sighed, raked his hand through his messy curls, and he finally allowed the regret of the night before to settle in. He always felt horrible the day after another random hook up. He didn't want anyone else, he only wanted you. But he couldn't have you, not anymore, not the way he wanted. So he'd get drunk, have sex, and hoped he would have forgotten all about you in the morning. But it never happened, it never worked. And he always ditched whoever he had slept with as fast as he could.

While Sihtric was deep in his regret, rubbing his eyes while he sniffed, you had been taking in his appearance. You knew this look all too well, as you had seen it countless times before. You knew exactly what he looks like after a night of rough sex, because he'd look exactly the same after your nights together; sleepy and his hair messy, while wearing comfortable grey sweatpants and a loose fitting white shirt. The only difference was that his eyes were empty now, whereas they used to be full of life after being intimate with you. And you hated how he still looked so good, even when you knew he had been with someone else. While it should have been you.

'Are you still drunk?' you asked.

'What? No,' Sihtric clicked his tongue, 'I'm not drunk anymore.'

He huffed and sat down on your couch. He took out his phone after he felt it buzz in the pocket of his sweatpants, and he quickly blocked the number of last night's lady who was texting him now, asking where he was.

'Classy,' you rolled your eyes, knowing exactly what he was doing when you watched him tap his screen a few times with slightly shaking hands, 'when will you grow up?'

Sihtric looked up at you, but didn't answer. You sighed and realised you shouldn't take your own pain out on him, you were separated after all. He was allowed to do whatever he wanted, as long as it would not interfere with the relationship he has with his son, and so far it had never done that.

'Just… come help me,' you said and pointed to some flags that needed to be hung from the ceiling.

Sihtric neared you and, once close enough, he cleared his throat.

'Pookie, I miss y-'

'Can you grab me a chair?' you cut him off, not wanting to hear his words because they hurt.

Sihtric exhaled sharply and did as you asked. Then, after about an hour you were finally done decorating. You told Sihtric to go home and take a shower, while you left the house too to quickly pick up the cake you had ordered at the store.

The party was already busy when Sihtric showed up again, holding two bags full of presents, which he placed on the table in the dinner area, along with the rest of Odin's still unwrapped gifts. He looked even better than earlier that day; his half shaved curls were fixed up, he looked completely sober again, and he was wearing tight fitting black skinny jeans, with a comfortable looking black hoodie on top. You spotted your ex from outside as you stood in your backyard, and you quickly made your way over.

'Finally,' you muttered as you neared him, 'we have to sing happy birthday and cut the cake, but I can't let Odin blow out the candles without his dad there.'

'Thank you for waiting,' Sihtric said, then grabbed your hand as you passed him, 'pookie?'

You turned and looked at him with questioning eyes.

'I'm sorry about earlier,' he said and pulled you closer.

'It's fine,' you sighed, allowing his hands to settle on your waist while you adjusted the hammer pendant he wore around his neck, 'it's your life, it's none of my business what you do. I just don't want to know about it. And I definitely don't want Odin to know about it.'

'I know,' Sihtric whispered and cupped your cheek, 'I'm sorry I was a little reckless this morning. You know I never mean to upset you, or our son,' he leaned in and brushed his lips faintly over yours.

'I know,' you breathed, your hands lightly tugging his hoodie, 'sorry if I was a little mean this morning. I have no right.'

'You know that no one compares to you, pookie,' Sihtric whispered, his thumb caressing your cheek as he circled his arm around you, 'no one fucking compares to my wife.'

'Sihtric, we're not really marrie-'

'Shh-shh,' he hushed you, 'I need to taste you, pookie.'

And just when Sihtric leaned in further to kiss you, you were both startled when someone cleared their throat suddenly.

'You two are back at it again, I see?' a thick irish accent sounded, making you both jump in your skin.

'Fuck,' you mumbled under your breath and pulled away from your husband, quickly turning towards the fridge to get the cake out for your son.

'Finan,' Sihtric greeted Odin's godfather with a curt nod, and leaned back against the kitchen counter.

'So you're together again?' Finan frowned.

'No,' you snarled.

'Yes,' Sihtric said at the same time.

'Sihtric, we're not!' you hissed.

'We're still married, sweetheart,' he said bitterly.

'And still separated, handsome,' you snapped back, just as bitter.

Finan rolled his eyes, as he already knew where this was going when he felt the clear sexual tension that lingered between the two of you.

'Just don't fuck in the kitchen,' Finan grimaced, 'that's nasty.'

While your son was playing in the backyard with his friends, and your friends and family were all busy stuffing their mouths with cake, you had enough of the chaos and went upstairs to fold some laundry you had left on the bed.

And just as you went upstairs, Sihtric walked towards the kitchen and caught a glimpse of you leaving the party. He didn't think much of it and walked up to the refrigerator, to get a juice pack for Odin. And when he wanted to return to his son who was still outside, Sihtric saw your phone screen light up, which you had left in the kitchen. And he couldn't help but read the message as it was right there.

Sigtryggr: can't wait to see you this weekend

Sihtric frowned and read the message again.

'Who the fuck is Sigtryggr?' he mumbled to himself, and another message came in.

Sigtryggr: last time was fun ;) x

Sihtric became furious. What guy had the balls to text his wife during his son's birthday party, sending winking emojis and a kiss? Oh no, Sihtric wasn't having this. And in his fury he forgot he was holding Odin's juice pack, and it exploded in his tight, angry grip, splashing all over his hoodie and jeans, and his face.

'Fuck!' Sihtric hissed.

He threw the exploded juice pack in the sink, washed his hands and dried his face with a towel, and went upstairs.

You were in Odin's room, putting away the recently folded laundry. And as you were so caught up in organising the clothes, you didn't hear someone coming up the stairs. Sihtric walked into the spare room, where he had installed the laundry machine and dryer himself a few years ago, and he took off his clothes. He threw his juice soaked clothes in the laundry machine and put it on a short cycle. And as he was so caught up in his own anger, he forgot you were upstairs too when he walked into your bedroom, wearing nothing but his tight fitting boxer shorts, and he sat down on your bed, waiting for the laundry to be done.

'Jesus Chri- what the fuck, Sihtric?!' you yelled when you were spooked to find someone in your bedroom.

Your folded laundry flew up in the air because of the scare you got, and landed in front of your feet in a messy pile.

'Fuck! Shit!' Sihtric hissed, also startled, 'I- I'm sorry!'

'What are you doing?! Why are you in my bedroom?! And why are you naked?!'

'I'm not naked!' Sihtric said, annoyed, and he pointed at his boxers, 'I spilled juice over my clothes, okay? I'm washing them now on a short cycle, then I will put them in the dryer.'

'For fuck sakes,' you groaned, your heart still beating out of your chest.

'Gods,' Sihtric said, 'calm down.'

You huffed and picked your clothes up from the floor while Sihtric sat back on your bed. You threw your clothes next to where he sat, and glared at him when you grabbed the first shirt, only to refold it again, all while he eyed you up and down.

'You left your phone in the kitchen,' Sihtric suddenly said.

'I know.'

Sihtric hummed at your answer and brushed his hand through his hair. And you tried to not look at his stupidly delicious body, while he just sat there, leaning back and showing off his good looks. But then he got up, slowly closing on you until he had you cornered.

'What are you-'

'Where are you going this weekend?' Sihtric asked, his voice low, almost threatening.

'What? That's none of your business.'

'Are you seeing someone?'

'Sihtric,' you sighed and rolled your eyes, 'again, none of your business.'

You tried to move away from him, but he kept you cornered.

'Who the fuck is Sigtryggr?' Sihtric asked and took your chin, 'hm? Why is he texting you?'

'Oh, you're reading my texts now?' you scoffed, staring up into his eyes.

'Answer me.'

'I don't have to answer you.'

You tried to shove Sihtric away, but he pinned your arms down against the wall and pushed his body up against yours, towering over you.

'Does he get near my son?'

'No,' you said, irritated, while feeling a heat rise in your core.

'Good,' Sihtric said, refusing to back away, 'does he get near my woman?'

'I'm not your woman.'

'You're my son's mother,' he breathed, his gaze trailing down to your lips and back to your eyes, 'you're mine, pookie, still my wife.'

'Maybe,' you pushed him away, 'if you weren't so stubborn and stupid sometimes, I would still be yours.'

'So you still want me then?'

'For fuck sakes, Sihtric… you know I do. Or do you not remember that I told you I'll only ever want you when we broke up?'

He stepped closer again and chuckled.

'Yeah, I know,' he husked and trailed his fingers over your arms, to your neck, and cupped your cheeks, 'I remember. And I also remember exactly how you used to beg for my cock.'

'Yeah?' you purred, cupping his arousal.

'Yeah,' Sihtric breathed, 'and I remember exactly what it felt like to be inside that tight pussy after you begged me for it. Fuck,' he laughed softly, grinding his erection against the palm of your hand, 'yours is the best I ever had. No one compares.'

'Not even your slutty hookups?' you taunted.

'Oh, pookie,' he chuckled, 'it's still your name I moan when I cum inside someone else.'

You felt your breath hitch when Sihtric pulled you against his chest, wrapping his arms around you while pushing his hard cock against your stomach.

'I never loved any of them,' he confessed, 'they're merely a temporary fix.'

'I know,' you whispered when your lips almost touched.

'What do you know, hm?'

'I know the way you look at them,' you said, moving your hands up his chest while Sihtric backed you up against the wall, 'and I know it's not the same way you used to look at me.'

'Hm,' Sihtric teased, grazing your ear with his lips, 'is that so?'

'Mhm,' you hummed, feeling his warm lips drag over your neck, 'there is no fire in your eyes when you look at them. No hunger, no passion,' you paused, moving your hands up his neck, into his hair, grabbing his curls firmly, 'no possessiveness,' you chuckled at his moan when you tugged his hair, 'you don't care for them.'

'You're right,' Sihtric smiled, 'I don't. I don't care about any other woman,' he pulled back and grabbed your chin again, locking eyes with you, 'and how could I, when I still jerk off to your pictures?'

'And I still finger myself to our videos,' you admitted.

'Yeah?' a sly smile appeared on his face, 'which one do you get off to?'

'The one we made in that hotel, in Spain,' you grinned, feeling his hands back on your waist.

'Yeah?' Sihtric chuckled at your cheeky reveal, 'you kept that video?'

'Of course I did. It was good,' you giggled, running your hands up his chest again as both your breathing became heavier, 'you looked so hot that holiday.'

'Hm, that was a good fuck indeed,' he sighed, and shoved his leg between yours, pushing up your skirt, 'and you looked so fucking sexy in that bikini thong. I had to ravage you before we had dinner that night.'

'And you ravaged me good,' you bit down on your lip and grinded against his thigh.

'How about we reenact that video?' Sihtric husked, his hands grabbed your ass firmly while he felt your soaked panties on his bare skin, as he enjoyed you grinding up against him.

'Will you stop seeing other women?' you asked, playfully tugging the elastic waistband of his boxers before you pulled them down.

'Will you block whoever the fuck that other guy is?'

You chuckled and pushed him slowly towards your bed, 'Are you jealous?' you asked and pushed him to sit down.

'Of course I'm jealous,' Sihtric scoffed and took off your panties, then pulled you in his lap, his twitching cock pressing hard against your core, 'no one gets to touch you but me.'

'Oh, really?' you teased, grinding your wet folds over his leaking tip.

'Yeah,' Sihtric growled softly and spanked your ass, 'I'm going to fucking mark you all over,' his fingers dug in your thighs, squeezing your warm flesh, 'I'm going to ruin you for everyone else. You're mine only.'

'Am I?' you provoked, tracing his lips with your thumb.

'You're still my wife,' he growled and flipped you over.

Sihtric got off you, turned you to lay on your stomach and spanked you again, causing you to let out a moan, which was followed by a soft giggle.

'Yeah, you like that, huh?' your husband laughed as he massaged your reddened skin, 'I'll make you remember who you belong to.'

You pushed yourself up and turned to face him. You grabbed his hair and pushed him down on the bed, then climbed on top of him.

'You want to have me but you can't handle me,' you purred.

'I can handle you, lady,' Sihtric hissed, 'it's you who can't handle me.'

You silenced him with a slap to his cheek, to which Sihtric laughed.

'Do that again,' he dared you, with a grin.

When you raised your hand to slap him again, he grabbed your wrist mid-air, and he pulled you down to him. He grabbed onto the back of your neck and crashed his lips onto yours, easily finding access inside your mouth with his tongue while you moved to sink down on his cock. A moan escaped both your lips at the feeling of each other, and it didn't take long before you were both moaning and cursing under your breath, while fucking each other like wild beasts, all while your whole family and group of friends were downstairs to celebrate your son's birthday.

Sihtric flipped you over again, taking you from behind, relentlessly, while pulling your hair and grazing your ear with his teeth.

'No one feels as good as you,' he hissed.

'F-fuck me h-harder,' you murmured, eyes nearly rolling back at the sensation of your husband fucking you after months of being deprived of each other.

And Sihtric fucked you, hard, with both love and anger, and he covered your mouth to silence you as you screamed out his name when you finished. And only seconds later he moaned your name when he finished inside you.

Sihtric joined you back on the bed, dressed in just his boxers again, after he had thrown his clothes in the dryer. During your animalistic sex session, the laundry machine had finished too, moments before you both did.

You had gotten dressed rather decently again too when Sihtric pulled you in his arms.

'Whatever happens to us,' he whispered and kissed your hair, 'know that only you have my heart. Forever, pookie.'

'And mine belongs to you,' you said softly, tracing the visible veins on his arms.

'I wish we could make things work.'

'As do I. But this… this is exactly what's wrong,' you sighed, 'we argue, we fuck, we cuddle, we love, and repeat. I just don't understand where it goes wrong. We clearly love each other but… I just don't know.'

'I…' Sihtric began hesitantly, 'I- I've done a lot of thinking the past half year. And I think I'm just terrified of getting stuck in a rut. I love our son, and I love you, I really do… but I just feel… when we're together, as a family, I just feel suffocated after a while. Like I can't escape that life, you know? There was never a moment for me to just… take a step back, have some alone time. And that scared me, and then I became agitated and confused. And… I felt guilt and hatred towards myself, cursing myself because I needed time away from my family, thinking I'm just a bad… father.'

'But why did you never tell me this?' you asked, 'taking some time for yourself is normal, Sihtric. It doesn't make you a bad father, we all need our space. You should've just told me instead of… picking fights with me.'

'I know,' he sighed, 'I was just afraid you'd think I didn't want to be together, or that I wasn't really ready to be a dad…'

'If anything, you are a good father. I always knew you were ready for that.'

'Yeah, a good father maybe,' he shrugged, 'but what about a good husband? I want to be a good husband too.'

'Then stay,' you whispered and cupped his cheeks, suddenly feeling desperate for him, 'stay with us.'

'I want to,' Sihtric whispered against your lips, 'there's nothing I want more than for us all to be together.'

Sihtric captured your lips in a soft kiss, and you were startled again by someone clearing their throat. You both looked up and found Finan leaning against the doorpost.

'While you two were busy,' Finan said, angrily, 'your son was crying because he was promised a juice pack by his dad!'

'I spilled it,' Sihtric said, '... by accident.'

'You spilled juice from a kid's juice pack, that's designed to not… spill?'

'Yes,' Sihtric said, irritated, 'my clothes are in the dryer now.'

'Aye, okay. Seems like daddy spilled his own juice too,' Finan sneered and walked away.

taglist: @clairacassidy @finanmoghra @uunotheangel @hb8301 @bathedinheat @neonhairspray @anaeve @bubblyabs @travelingmypassion @sylasthegrim @andakth @chompchompluke @willowbrookesblog @lady-targaryens-world @skyofficialxx @diosademuerte @elle4404 @alexagirlie @sweetxime @solango @gemini-mama @cheyennep3107 @little-diable @jennifer0305 @drwstarkeyy @mrsarnasdelicious @verenahx @urmomsgirlfriend1 @moonchildrenandflowercrowns @foxyanon @djarinsgirl27

#sihtric x reader #sihtric x you #sihtric kjartansson #the last kingdom #sihtric #tlk #sihtric fic #the last kingdom fic #sihtric kjartanson #modern!sihtric

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maggiemacabre · 2 months

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SiIvaGunner SmashUp! Behind the scenes and post-mortem

Hello folks and welcome to my new Tumblr blog. I don't know how much I'm going to actually use this thing in the future but I figure if I need it, it's here. As you can probably tell by the title, today's subject will be none other than my most recent "work", the SiIvaGunner SmashUp!

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The idea of a SiIvaGunner take on the concept of "Royal Rumble but full of stupid contestants" was in my head for a while, but the motivation to do it wasn't in place until I found Dead Meat's Horror Royal Rumble in August or September of 2023. The Jerma Rumbles and Vinewrestle were definitely also influences on the idea, but the Horror Royal Rumble was the impetus, and played a part in influencing some creative choices featured in the SmashUp (more on that later).

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After running the idea by the team and the rest of backroom, I picked up WWE 2K23 (which fortuitously was on sale that weekend) and got to work. Going in, I had next to no idea of the ins and outs of pro wrestling, which meant that I had to do a lot of research into things like the wrestlers themselves, moves, terminology, different match types, general historical stuff, how shows are actually presented, etc. This put me in a very, very deep rabbit hole which I have still not crawled out of. I even went to two house shows!

Making the wrestlers was the first step and by far took the longest amount of time out of anything, since this was the first show of its kind on the channel and required the creation of 34 unique wrestlers. Some of them were easier than others (lookin' at you AMUNO), but others such as Ninomae Ina'nis took days to complete due to the amount of detail they required. This also isn't including wrestlers who were made that got cut; some of these exclusions include Bottom G, who was left out because Andrew Tate sucks, Elly from Touhou Project, who was replaced by Sumireko, and Wood Man, who was left out for lore reasons and replaced with 8-Bit Beast in a somewhat 11th hour decision. Maybe next year?

The decision to make Hot Cross Buns and Raft Ride into women also spawned from this period. Hot Cross Buns was made first and was originally meant to show up in the Grand Rumble, but after some time I ended up deciding to move her to her own match, which became a Women's World Champion match because lol. I had to use mods to make the men and women able to fight each other, so theoretically Raft Ride could have been a man, but women are awesome.

Being an egotistical maniac, I also included some references to things I'd worked on in the past. Totino's Stadium, the arena where the match takes place, was first mentioned in the FUMO JAM ad from the DJ Professor K Day stream, and Nu Grandiose City is the city where Woodyana is from in Woodyana Stones: Raider Made of Lost Bark. Also I guess this is why Elvira was included? LOL. Fun fact: The footage of "Totino's Stadium" is actually of Gazprom Arena in Russia.

Since I was involved with the channel's MAGFest panel in 2024, I was able to announce the show months in advance, although I'm not sure how many people actually paid attention at the time. Getting a logo ready between finishing CCC and MAG was a bit tight, but thankfully it was able to be done on time, and on top of that I was able to make the big card poster thing on my own. I actually designed it to be printed, and I proposed making it a sold item, although that idea was rejected. I also came up with the date during this period, choosing the day right before the WWE Hall of Fame show, and while things got a bit close to the wire, it was luckily able to make the date and time without a hitch in the end.

After all the wrestlers were made, it was time to record and edit. I was a bit worried about my laptop overheating while doing so, but I was able to get good quality 60 FPS 1080p footage recorded without any hitches other than some human error on my end. While the controversial ending of the Grand Rumble wasn't what I had in mind, I ended up leaving it as-is for time reasons and also because it felt like a funny troll ending. Which it was! Editing was not quite as smooth since I had to go through all the footage and edit it together into a cohesive product. WWE games don't allow you to cut to entrances during a Royal Rumble, which meant that I had to record and edit those in myself. The method I ended up using resembled the one from the Dead Meat rumble mentioned earlier with cuts to the audience as the buzzer rings, although I'd like to believe I did a better job than they did with their 2024 entrances where they awkwardly cut around shots of the ring. This is also where the fun facts come from, as they are actually covering up the nameplates that show up as an alternative to cutting to the entrances.

After editing was done I got some other team members to do commentary. Thankfully I was able to get someone with wrestling knowledge, which definitely added a dimension of realism and legitimacy to the project. I don't know if I can say who the announcers are because of leaks, but if you haven't figured it out, Randall Shields is a Smash Bros. reference. Also it was the first contribution to SiIvaGunner that had "Randall" made in about half a decade. What a return!

The premiere of the project was electric. Seeing over 1.3K people tune in and get hype over something I made was incredible and made my week, if not month. I did feel a little bad about the reaction when Dream came in (💀), but other than that it was awesome. And don't worry, he won't return.

In the end, I had a lot of fun with the project and it was awesome seeing everything pay off. I want to thank everyone who helped, including the artists who designed the logos and the people who did commentary. It couldn't have come together without help and assistance from everyone, and I hope that this becomes the first in a series of similar videos.

#siivagunner #siivagunner smashup #wrestling #behind the scenes #Youtube

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rainisawriter · 8 months

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A Helping Hand – Cobra (PSF #11)

PSF Ficography | H&F Flash Ficography

Genre: Fluff, slice of life, romance

Prompt: Sweet Tooth (@flufftober) / Would you rather… pumpkin spice or cinnamon? (@slumberpartybingo Fall Flash)

Word Count: 2,729

Pairing: Reader x Cobra

World: High&Low

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You entered the diner, enjoying the warmth it offered against the cold wind outside. The usual suspects were chilling at the table in the center of the room, eating the omelet that Naomi had made them while they argued about some TV show the three of them were watching.

You approached the booth in the corner where Cobra sat, flipping through a wrestling magazine. He sent you that soft smile that was reserved only for you as you sat down across from him.

“You’re late,” he spoke softly, eyes falling to the ring on your finger. He had given it to you for your birthday as a promise that he would always love you. Though you had sworn to never take it off, he still felt surprised and happy every time he saw it on you.

“Sorry. You know how Hyuga is,” you shook your head, tugging off your jacket. “A lot of people are gambling around this time of year, trying to win big before December finally gets here. It’s only going to get busier and he’s only going to get more demanding.”

Cobra did not like the fact that you worked for Daruma’s gambling hall, but you had known Hyuga long before you ever crossed paths with Sannoh. He had considered, on more than one occasion, asking you to quit working for him but he knew that you were, above all else, loyal.

“You don’t need to apologize.” He held his hand out and you smiled, setting yours against his own. “Just promise me you won’t gamble again.”

Your smile turned sheepish, a laugh passing your lips. You had only gambled once in your life after you had gone drinking with the Daruma babies one weekend. You were on a hot streak, actually, but you refused to quit while you were ahead and ended up losing everything.

You had started out with twenty bucks, turned it into ten thousand only to lose it all and walk away with just twenty cents to your name. The Four boys hadn’t done much better, either, and Hyuga was pissed when he found out. You were pretty sure he was just upset that you hadn’t blown it all at his gambling hall instead, honestly.

“I learned my lesson, I swear. I’ll never gamble again.”

He chuckled, nodding his head. “Good.”

It was pretty late by this point, so the boys slowly filed out of the diner until it was just you, Cobra and Naomi left. It was strange when the diner was quiet, but you didn’t hate it. Everyone needed a break from the rowdy Sannoh boys every now and again.

“Are you kidding me?” cried Naomi, sounding distressed.

You glanced over at her, seeing her begin to pace back and forth as she talked to someone on the phone.

“There must be some way… can’t you reschedule? Ah, no, I… yes, I understand… I’m sorry about that, but…” She pinched the bridge of her nose, clearly frustrated but trying to remain polite. “Yes… yes, I understand, Nakamoto-san. Good night.”

You exchanged a concerned look with your boyfriend before addressing her. “Everything alright, Nao?”

“No, not at all.” She ran a hand through her hair, continuing to pace.

Cobra leaned forward, brow furrowed in concern. “What is it?”

“You remember how I was asked to help provide snacks for the elementary school’s autumn festival, right?”

He nodded.

“The job was supposed to be split between me and Nakamoto-san, the head of the PTA but she just told me that something came up and she can’t help. There’s no way I can do it by myself! What am I going to do?”

You frowned, standing up to comfort her. “It’s alright, Nao. I’ll help.”

“You will?” She looked at you hopefully. “Are you sure? I know you’re really busy with Daruma…”

“Don’t worry, Hyuga owes me some vacation time anyway,” you grinned.

“Are you sure he’ll give it to you?”

“Nothing is ever a sure thing with him, but I’ll find a way to get out of work.” You gave her a reassuring look. “I’m not very experienced with baking, but I know how to follow a recipe. If you write down everything I need and how to make them, I’ll happily help.”

“Thank you so much!” She threw her arms around you, hugging you tightly which you returned without hesitation.

Cobra felt butterflies in his stomach as he watched you. You were willing to blow off your responsibilities with Hyuga to help Naomi, to help a member of his family. The amount of happiness that brought him was, quite frankly, embarrassing.

“I’ll help, too.”

Naomi looked between the two of you with glassy eyes. “Thank you both so much! I’ll get to work on the lists and recipes.” And then she disappeared into the back.

Cobra approached you with a warm smile, wrapping his arms around you. “Thank you for helping her. Let me know if Hyuga gives you a hard time.”

“I’m always happy to help your family, Jun.”

He hummed, brushing his lips against your own. “They’ll be your family, too, one day.”

You chuckled, looping your arms around his neck, fingers playing with the hair at his nape. “I don’t think so. I’ll always be Daruma and, well… we caused you guys a lot of trouble at one point. They may be willing to put up with me because of you, but I doubt they’ll ever view me as part of the family.”

His brow furrowed in concern. Had one of the Sannoh boys said something to you? Thinking about it, he hadn’t really discussed it with the others. You just started dating one day and he started to bring you around without asking how everyone felt about it. He knew Yamato didn’t trust you at first, but did he still feel that way?

You poked the spot between his brows. “If you keep frowning like that, you’re gonna get premature wrinkles.”

His lips formed your name but you cut him off, knowing what he was going to say.

“It’s really not a big deal, baby. I went into this relationship knowing that they most likely wouldn’t accept me and I honestly don’t blame them for it. As long as I get to be with you, that’s enough.” You tugged him closer until your lips met.

He didn’t hesitate to kiss you back, but his mind was partly elsewhere. It was enough for you, perhaps, but not for him. He wanted them to accept you, to love you like he did. He didn’t just want to be your boyfriend, he wanted to be your everything like you were to him.

Having his family accept you and love you was important to him.

“Okay, this should be everything.” Naomi returned with a small stack of papers, pausing when she saw how close the two of you were. “Am I… interrupting something?” The sly smile on her lips said that she already had her answer.

You laughed, pulling away from him. “We were just keeping each other company until you returned.”

“Sure,” she chuckled, handing you the stack. “I printed out the recipes for you. Each one has a full list of everything you’ll need to make them and if you have any questions, I’m just a phone call away.”

“Nice. When do they need to be made?”

“The festival is tomorrow afternoon,” she winced, running a hand through her hair. “We need to start working on them tonight if we want to make it in time… I’m sorry, I should have told you that first… it’s probably too short notice, right?”

“I’ll make it work and yes, I’m sure.”

“Thank you so much.”

“You’re welcome,” you replied, turning to look at Cobra and holding out your hand. “Up for some late-night shopping?”

“Sounds fun.” He slid his hand into your own, fingers lacing together.

───── ⋆⋅🍂⋅⋆ ─────

As soon as you returned home, you started to look over the recipes while Cobra put away anything perishable. None of them seemed too complicated so you felt confident that you could make them with little to no problem, especially with Cobra at your side.

“What are we making first?” He leaned on the counter beside you, peering at the recipes.

“What do you think?”

“We should probably choose whatever takes the longest to make so we can get it out of the way.” His eyes scanned through pages before tapping the one for the Sakura Mochi. “This is the longest, so let’s start with it.”

“Okay, let’s see. We’re supposed to soak the sweet rice for at least an hour and soak the sakura leaves for fifteen minutes.”

“Easy,” he grinned, grabbing two bowls and filling them with water. “We have to wait for them to soak, so which recipe is next?”

“Purin! We have to combine the sugar and water into a saucepan. Medium heat until the sugar has dissolved.”

Cobra did as you ordered without question, enjoying how domestic this all felt. He could definitely get used to this and was already making up excuses in his mind to get the two of you cooking together again.

For the rest of the night, the two of you worked together to bake the various treats requested by Naomi and you felt as if you were making pretty good time, all things considered. You did end up getting into a flour fight with Cobra because he kept trying to steal some of the finished treats, unable to fight his sweet tooth.

You were proud to say you had won that fight, though the messy kitchen was a reminder that you both had lost the war.

You yawned as you looked at the final two recipes, trying to decide which one you wanted to make. You had messaged Naomi about your progress and she told you that there were plenty of treats between the three of you. You should have gone to bed since it was nearly five in the morning, but you wanted to make one last thing first.

You hummed, thoughtfully. “Hey, Jun?”

“Yes, love?” He glanced over at you from where he sat on the couch, looking half-asleep.

You leaned on the counter, smiling at how cute he looked, even with bits of flour stuck to his blonde locks. “Would you rather have pumpkin spice cookies or cinnamon cookies?”

He thought about it for a moment, shifting to a more comfortable position. “I’ve never had pumpkin spice cookies before but I know you like them. I choose those.”

“What if you don’t like them?”

He hummed, closing his eyes. “I’ll like anything you make.”

“Such a hopeless romantic,” you teased softly, walking over to cover him with the blanket. You brushed the hair away from his face, fingers lingering on his cheek longer than necessary.

It didn’t take long for him to fall asleep, though you really couldn’t blame him. All you wanted to do was sleep, as well, but you decided that making these cookies was more important. He had worked hard and, though he did attempt to swipe a few treats, he had mostly behaved.

Cobra was a man who loved sweets. More than anything, he wanted the sweets that you had made with your own hands because, to him, they tasted all the sweeter. You had honestly always wanted to bake for him, but you had just never gotten around to it for two reasons.

The first was because Hyuga kept you so busy that you rarely had the time or energy. The second, which was probably more important, was because you were afraid. Afraid that they would come out terrible and he would hate them, yet he would still force himself to eat them because he loved you.

You slapped both of your cheeks at the same time, shaking your head to wake yourself up. You were going to make these cookies for him and he was going to love them, not just because you made them yourself, but because they tasted amazing.

───── ⋆⋅🍂⋅⋆ ─────

Cobra woke up several hours later, the apartment still smelling like sugar, pumpkin and various other sweet flavors that made his mouth water. He expected you to be asleep in the bedroom but you weren’t. You had fallen asleep at the island, the other half of your body draped over the countertop, arms acting as a pillow.

All of the treats had been wrapped up or placed in containers, ready to be picked up by Naomi. He glanced at the clock. There were still a few hours left before she was due to arrive so he had time to clean up. Before doing that, however, he wanted to take you to the bedroom. That couldn’t be a comfortable position to sleep in, after all.

He brought you carefully into his arms and you shifted closer to his warmth, mumbling incoherently in your sleep about pumpkin sugar cubes and honey tea. With a chuckle, he placed you gently in bed, bringing the covers over you so you wouldn’t catch a cold.

“Sleep well, love,” he whispered, pressing a lingering kiss to your forehead. It took a while for him to get the mess cleaned up and he was sure he had missed some flour somewhere, but that was a problem for the future.

There was a knock on the door and he headed over to open it, drying his hands with a dish towel.

“Good morning,” greeted Naomi, looking tired but pleased.

“Morning.” He stepped aside to let her in. “We got everything done and ready to go.”

“Thank you so much for the help. You two really saved me.”

“Don’t mention it. We were happy to help. Do you want some coffee?”

“I wish I could stay for one, but I have to get these to the school.”

“Do you need help?”

“No, I’ve got it,” she smiled gratefully, packing away the containers into the reusable bag she had brought with her. When she picked up the final container, she paused, a smile coming to her lips. “Pretty sure this one is for you.”

His brow furrowed as he took the plastic container from her. An orange sticky note sat on the lid with his name written on it next to a cute little heart. When had you made these? He realized it must have been after he fell asleep and he couldn’t help but smile, warmth filling his chest.

“I’ll see you later,” said Naomi as she headed for the door. “Thank you again!”

“Be safe, Naomi.”

Once she was gone, he grabbed one of the cookies from its container, taking a small bite. It was his first time trying a pumpkin spice cookie so he was a bit weary at first, but the flavor exploded on his tongue. Maybe he was crazy, but he felt as if he could feel every ounce of love you had poured into them.

With a smile, he returned to the bedroom, sliding under the covers and pulling you into his arms. You didn’t hesitate to snuggle further into his chest, adoring the way he smelled and how warm his body was.

“What time is it?” you mumbled.

He glanced at the clock on the bedside table, brushing his fingers through your hair. “It’s almost nine.”

“Shit, Naomi will be here soon.” You tried to sit up but he tightened his grip, keeping you in place.

“I already passed them along to her. Go back to sleep.”

“You didn’t give her the cookies in the plastic container with the blue lid, did you?”

“No, love,” he answered softly, unable to hold back his smile. “You didn’t have to make them for me.”

“I wanted to. I hope they came out tasting good,” you muttered, looking up at him tiredly.

“They taste amazing.”

“Do you mean that or are you just saying that because I made them?”

“I mean it.” He cupped your cheek, leaning down to rub his nose against yours. The gesture was cute and sweet, but it left you feeling embarrassed. “Thank you for making them.”

“If you want… I can bake for you more often?”

“Please,” he replied quickly before clearing his throat, color rising to his cheeks. “I’d really like that.”

“Consider it done, then,” you laughed, snuggling closer to him and closing your eyes.

───── ⋆⋅🍂⋅⋆ ─────

-> High&Low/Rampage Taglist: @kiraaaeon, @simpforchuchu, @star2fishmeg, @thatpoindexterpixy @manhwabtch

-> General Taglist: @asterhaze, @mrskenpachizaraki

#flufftober2023 #day 11 #high&low #cobra #high&low cobra #hino junpei #slumberpartybingo #fallflashspb #RFO - PSF #RFO - PSF23 #fanfiction #fanfics #reader insert #sannoh rengokai #rains ficography #RFO - SPB

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sionisjaune · 1 year

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I told @blorbocedes I would write this so I did! Inspired by this clip where Lewis says Nico's name TWICE! Also loosely in this universe...

Lewis gets in on Wednesday and spends his time talking through the new sidepods with the engineering team, facetiming the stylist who’s somehow going to replace Law, and texting Nico, who doesn’t arrive until Friday.

It’s probably Angela’s fault that Lewis’s message thread with Nico is several months long and permanently open in the background of his phone. She didn’t tell him it was a bad idea, and then she left him. Lewis is a grown-ass adult anyway. He can decide what’s good for him.

Nico sends, Dinner Friday? and Lewis sends, Lunch? I can only do casual, and then he has to put his phone away and jog back up the stairs to talk about tire deg and pit strategy.

Texting Nico is surprisingly easy. Sometimes Lewis catches himself thinking about Nico as if he belongs to some ancient, obsolete aristocracy, but he’s actually a proficient texter. He can do most of the things Lewis, a socially proficient thirty-eight year old can do, and some things that Lewis can’t.

When Lewis’s phone vibrates in his pocket he refrains from slipping it out under the table and checking his messages during his meeting. It’s enough to rest his hand over his pocket and burn with a little bit of shame and too much giddy excitement that he’s trying it on with Nico for the third time in his life.

When Nico arrives at the track, Lewis gets a text and ignores it until he scooters past Nico hiding under an umbrella with Natalie Pinkman and Naomi Schiff. He looks good and very like himself, and like he’s enjoying his job. That’s good. Lewis is enjoying his job this weekend too.

Near noon, Lewis is able to escape to his motorhome for lunch. He shuts the screen door but leaves the real door open to mitigate the awkwardness of having to let Nico in. He collects the salad he’s eating today from the fridge, two bowls and some cutlery. When Nico arrives, he lets himself in with the cocksure attitude Lewis is used to and pauses by the door.

“Shoes on or off?” Nico says.

Lewis shakes his salad in its container and glances at Nico’s shoes. Everyone has those sandals. “On is fine.”

Nico crosses the rest of the distance and pulls out a chair across from Lewis to sit down. They’re not at the point of kissing when they see each other or even of kissing on the cheek. It creates a degree of separation that Lewis is comfortable with. In the bad old days, Nico was very presumptuous about his presence. Before that, he was clingy and affectionate. This is better for both of them.

“Wow. This place has been upgraded,” says Nico, looking around.

“It’s new from last year,” Lewis says.

Nico moves as if to push out his chair and stand. “Can I take a look around?”

“Sure.” Lewis shrugs. He doesn’t really understand Nico’s obsession with property value. He portions out his salad while Nico opens all the cupboards and pokes his head inside the master bedroom.

“You and I would have gone crazy over this back in karting,” Nico shouts. It sounds like he’s in the ensuite. He wanders back out, obviously impressed. Lewis didn’t buy this motorhome to impress his exes/current hookups/whatever Nico is to him now, but he’s glad that Nico likes it. “Remember how we used to—”

Nico seems to abandon his train of thought and opens the fridge to inspect it. It’s just a regular fridge.

How we used to what? Lewis thinks. How he and Nico used to have secret, shameful sex in Nico’s motorhome over a race weekend? How he and Nico used to practice shit talking each other in the bunks at the back of Keke’s motorhome and wrestle when the insults got out of hand? He and Nico used to do a lot of things in a lot of places like this one. Now they meet up for lunch and eat chickpea salad across from each other.

“Will you sit down, man?” Lewis says.

Nico rolls his eyes. He’s still mostly the person Lewis remembers. “Sorry.”

“Come on, try this,” Lewis says, gesturing at Nico’s plate. “New recipe.”

Nico re-seats himself and pokes at a chickpea daintily with his fork. “I know you didn’t make this,” Nico says.

“Whatever. I supervised the making of it. Just try.”

A micro-expression that implies Nico is trying not to roll his eyes again flits across Nico’s face, but he lifts a forkful of kale to his mouth anyway.

“It’s good,” Nico says.

“Good,” says Lewis.

Later, Lewis is going to jog back to the garage, climb into the car for FP2 and pretend Nico doesn’t exist, and Nico is going back to Sky headquarters to pretend Lewis is the guy he still needs to make amends with. On Monday, there will be wine and sex and a few uncomfortable moments at Nico’s house in Ibiza, a sleepover if Lewis doesn’t get too in his head about it, and breakfast the following morning. It's not a bad plan at all.

#brocedes #i wrote this #INSANE day for the brocedes girls #committing to writing the boring sex they have in ibiza if lewis gets a good result #dirty valentine

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writeforfandoms · 9 months

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Fall Into Me 8

Find the series masterlist

Gaz and Soap spend an evening trying not to worry. Gaz finds something unexpected on the coffee shop Monday morning.

Warnings: Swearing, antisemitism (instance of swastika being spraypainted on the building), not quite panic attack, Soap and Gaz gossip.

Word count: 2.1k

Eventual Rose x 141/Los Vaqueros. Eventual.

Gaz liked Soap, he really did. He just… liked Soap less when Soap followed him home.

Not that he was truly surprised anymore. Soap only spent half of his nights in his own apartment, claiming it was too quiet and infringing on everyone else’s spaces instead.

(Apparently the last time Soap had shown up uninvited at Ale and Rudy’s apartment, though, Ale had sworn at him in Spanish for a solid minute before throwing a pillow in his face. Rudy still refused to translate everything, and Soap went an interesting shade of red whenever the subject came up.)

Gaz had acquiesced with mostly good grace, especially since Soap paid for dinner from a little deli Gaz had never been to.

Which is how the two ended up on Gaz’s couch, eating some of the best matzo ball soup Gaz had ever had and playing video games.

“You have to go left,” Gaz pointed out, very helpfully if anybody asked him.

“I know what I’m doing,” Soap muttered, hunching his shoulders. “Guess that explains how she knew about the deli.”

“What?” Gaz blinked at the non-sequitur, and then smirked when Soap had to backtrack. “Told you to go left.”

“Fuck off,” Soap grumbled without heat. “Rose. Jewish. Explains how she knew about the deli.”

Gaz snorted. “I don’t think she knows every Jewish spot in the city just because she is, man.”

Soap shrugged. “Dunno, she got a bit squirrely when we asked.”

Gaz huffed, leaning back and balancing his soup in his lap. “Not everybody likes Jews,” he pointed out, reasonably enough.

“I know that!” Soap growled softly when he had to backtrack again.

“And she doesn’t know us well, yet.” Gaz ignored that little outburst. “Of course she’s being cautious. Can’t blame her.”

Soap didn’t respond for several moments. “D’ye think she’s been hurt before? Because of who she is.”

Gaz considered the question carefully and eventually shrugged. “Dunno. It’s hard to say. She hides a lot behind those smiles.”

Soap grunted softly as he finally got his character back onto the farm and into bed. “Your turn.”

Gaz took the remote and knocked his fist into Soap’s shoulder. “There’s still a lot we don’t know. Takes time to get to know someone. Just keep being you, she has fun with you.”

“Course she does.” Soap grinned, leaning back to watch Gaz work on the farm. “How’d you get her number, anyway?”

“I asked.” Gaz preened a little. “She likes me.”

“Shove off.” Soap stuck his tongue out.

“I could make you go home.”

“Good luck, this couch is mine.”

Gaz was just debating pausing the game to tackle Soap off the couch when his phone pinged. He paused the game anyway but only to dig his phone out.

“From Rose,” he muttered, for Soap’s benefit. “Says she’s… on her way home already?”

“It’s just past 9,” Soap muttered, frowning. “She alright?”

Gaz was quick to text back, thanking her for letting him know and asking if she was alright. He ate more soup while he waited for a response. It was really good soup.

I’m fine. Dinner ended early is all, no big deal. See you Monday!

Gaz turned his phone around so Soap could read it before Soap could do anything like try to wrestle the phone away from him.

“Dinner ended early,” Soap repeated blandly. “Sounds a bit fishy, aye?”

“Not our concern,” Gaz reminded him. “She’s basically telling us to back off.”

Soap made a face but didn’t argue. “Hurry up and finish the day,” he grumbled. “I wanna see if I can catch that fish.”

Gaz rolled his eyes but resumed the game. But he (and Soap) kept an eye on his phone, just in case of further texts.

But he didn’t hear anything more from her all weekend.

He got up early Monday morning, intending to help her out with the shop for the morning rush. Fortunately he didn’t live far from the office building (closer than everybody except Soap, actually) so it wasn’t a long walk.

He stopped dead on the sidewalk outside the coffee shop. Someone had spraypainted a swastika on the outside of the shop, the black and white stark and ugly.

“Rose!” He ran the last few steps to the door, tugging on it. Locked. But the lights were on. “Rose!” He knocked and then moved, searching for movement in the shop.

Rose emerged from the back, pale and trembling, and unlocked the door for him. Gaz was quick to grab her shoulders, giving her a once-over. But she looked okay, just scared and shaky.

“Are you alright?” he asked, locking the door behind them and guiding her back again.

“Yeah, I’m okay.” She looked at the front window and shuddered, eyes closing in misery. “I already called building management, I’m waiting to hear back.”

Gaz clenched his jaw for a moment. “I’m calling the Captain.”

“What? No! Why?” She shook her head rapidly, hair whipping around her head.

“He might have access to the outside cameras, so he can find who did this.” Gaz shrugged as he pulled out his phone.

“Don’t bother him so early.” Rose looked if anything more panicky, which was… the opposite of what he wanted.

Slowly, he put his phone back away and pulled her into a hug. Her next inhale was shaky, and he hugged her harder even as he felt moisture on his shoulder. Her hands gripped the back of his shirt tightly, but she was remarkably quiet. If anything, that made his heart hurt more for her - that kind of quiet was learned.

“I’m sorry,” she finally gasped, pulling away and wiping at her eyes. “I just–it was a long weekend and I didn’t get much sleep and I wasn’t expecting to see that and–”

“Easy,” Gaz murmured, tugging her over to a chair. “It’s alright, you’re alright. We’ll get that taken care of, yeah? You don’t have to worry about it.”

Rose shook her head again, but she didn’t actually object, so Gaz called Price. But he stayed right next to Rose, one hand rubbing her shoulder.

“Gaz,” Price answered, calm and even as always. “What’s going on?”

“Someone spraypainted the outside of the coffee shop,” he reported immediately, squeezing Rose’s shoulder when her breathing hitched. “I’ve got Rose.”

“Copy that, I can be there in ten.”

“Rog. See you soon.” Gaz hung up. He had no idea how Price was going to manage getting here in ten minutes, but if there was one thing he knew about his Captain, it was that when he gave his word, he kept it. Price would be there in ten minutes, or less. “What can I get you, love?”

Rose shrugged a little helplessly. “I don’t know. I haven’t…” Her gaze strayed to the window again and she swallowed hard.

“Hey.” Gaz moved between her and the window, cupping her cheek to keep her from leaning around him. “You’re alright.”

Rose shook her head again but didn’t elaborate further, just ducked her head. “I should be getting ready to open.”

“I think people will understand if you don’t, today.” Gaz was going to hold his ground on this. Especially since he knew he’d have backup shortly.

“No, I was already closed all weekend, I can’t…” Rose trailed off, visibly struggling.

“This counts as extenuating circumstances, love.” Gaz swiped his thumb over her cheek, hating the wetness there, that this had upset her enough to cry over. “We’ll get it figured out, yeah?”

Her next exhale was shaky, and for a moment Gaz was afraid she’d start crying again. But she just sniffled and nodded.

“I have tissues in the back,” she muttered, getting to her feet again, more slowly than normal. She shuffled away from him. Gaz almost called her back or grabbed her or offered to do it for her, but he restrained himself. She needed a bit of time and space. At least she wouldn’t be able to see the spraypaint from the back.

Gaz put his hands on his hips and briefly dropped his head. Poor thing - she needed a few more good hugs and some time to calm down.

And they needed to figure out if this was a genuine threat or just some arsehole.

Two pairs of boots approaching got Gaz to move, and he unlocked the door before Price could knock. Ale was with him, likely a coincidence, holding a small bundle of flowers. Both men looked furious, as Gaz expected.

“Sitrep,” Price growled, taking a quick look around the store.

“Found that this morning,” Gaz said, locking the door again. “Rose is in the back, already contacted building management. Unknown motive.”

Ale set the flowers down gently, lips set in a grim line. “Cameras?”

Gaz shrugged. “Don’t have access yet.”

Price nodded once, gaze flitting about the store. “Is she staying closed today?”

“No.” Rose stopped behind the counter. Her face was still a little blotchy, her eyes still a little red, but she looked steadier. She was certainly less pale. “I can’t.”

“You don’t know if that is a threat.” Price crossed his arms over his chest.

“I doubt it. Most likely just someone thought they’d make an antisemitic statement.” She shrugged. “It’s awful, but it could be worse.”

“It could be worse is not reassuring, cariño,” Ale murmured, stepping closer to her to cup her shoulders. “We worry because we care for you and do not want to see you hurt.”

For a moment, her lip trembled. Then she breathed in slowly, smiling just a little. “I appreciate that. But I really can’t stay closed today.” Her gaze darted to the window darkened with spraypaint and the smile twisted into a grimace. “For one thing, I don’t want to be intimidated into closing. And for another… still have bills to pay.”

Ale clucked and pulled her into a hug, tucking her easily under his chin. Watching the two of them, it struck Gaz how much smaller she was - she fit easily into Ale’s hold. Even Gaz had no problem tucking her into his shoulder when he wanted to. Smaller, soft, gentle. All the things that he’d been trying to protect in the world.

Gaz clenched his jaw and looked away, only to find Price already watching him. The captain raised a single eyebrow: Alright? Gaz nodded once, determined.

“Gaz will stay here today,” Price decided, watching as Rose pulled back a bit. “I’ll handle building management.”

“But–” Rose started to protest.

“Your safety is more important,” Price interrupted, no-nonsense. “One of us will be here, we can work down here just as well as in the office. It’s not a problem. It’s not an imposition. Clear?”

Rose made a complicated expression, an almost-smile paired with a little wiggle of her nose (and seriously, Gaz hadn’t thought she could get cuter) and some eyebrow acrobatics. Then she sighed and nodded. “Fine. Just. Don’t make anybody go out of their way because of this.”

Price huffed a laugh. “Darling, I’ll be lucky if they don’t all relocate down here,” he drawled.

He had a point, Gaz had to admit. Rose blushed, though if it was the nickname or the rest of the sentence he couldn’t tell. Not for sure. But she was rallying quickly.

“Fine,” she agreed. “But you will let me know the second you hear anything from management.” She narrowed her eyes a little at him, which was fair.

“Yes, ma’am.” Price’s lips twitched with a barely repressed smile.

“Oh don’t ‘ma’am’ me,” she sassed. “Or I’ll start calling you Captain.”

Gaz just caught Price’s reaction, watching heat flare and be suppressed in a fraction of a second. Oh. Now that was new.

Ale, fortunately, distracted her with another hug, murmuring something to her too low for Gaz to hear. Gaz took the opportunity to step closer to his Captain.

“Standard check ins?”

“Yes.” Price didn’t look away from the two for another long moment before those blue eyes focused on Gaz. “I’ll keep you updated on my end.”

“Rog.” Gaz nodded once and slipped back behind the counter to grab the spare apron again. He paused outside the tiny office - he’d peeked inside before, of course, enough to see that there was barely enough room for Rose to get any kind of work done. Today there was a bright-colored bag sitting on the desk chair, and he could just see yarn poking out the top.

He walked away, because if he thought about this too much, thought about Rose coming into work happy and looking forward to sharing her knitting, he’d go hunt the bastard down himself.

“Where do we start?” he asked brightly, smiling at Rose.

#fall into me #f!oc #poly au #poly vibes

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bellafragolina · 1 year

Note

I just found your blog and Ive been binge reading the whole thing this entire weekend. I love how you write Ingo and Emmet! and if I may humbly request a drabble about Warden Ingo x a motherly reader who fell through the Rift into Hisui. She dotes on all the village kids, always worrying over Lain and Rei, and is always cooing and fussing over her pokemon.

And the moment she’s introduced to Warden Ingo she just-immediately starts fussing over him. Poor man doesn’t even get out a hello before she’s asking if he is alright, what happened to his coat, when was the last time he slept, etc etc. From then on she’s always making a point to check in on him to make sure his taking care of himself and offers to mend his coat if his alright with her trying to fix it. Just smothers him in affection.

thanks for reading this and hope you have a good day!- Sweetea Anon

Aww! Motherly characters are the best! Very very good!! And thank you!! I’m glad you’re enjoying what I got so far

🍓🍓🍓

Hisui is a dangerous world, and you’ll be damned if the Galaxy Team sends out children with no support. Hell, you’ll be damned if the clans make children wardens without any time to be simply children. You put your mom jeans on (or perhaps just mom pants as denim has yet to be invented) and storm after the kids, Kamado be damned

All the kiddos love you. Akari and Rei lean heavily on you when things grow to be too much. It’s a lot of pressure to withstand, so you always offer them a place to rest their heads and cry their tears without judgement. You feed them too, bandage their wounds, kissing them so they heal faster. Neither really believe the superstition, but their injuries always seem to ache more without your kisses.

Sabi and Lian similarly rely on you. Your visits to their stations are always met with cheers. As much as Lian tries to act grown up, he’s still a young boy, and he often joins Sabi in barreling your over with hugs. The two love you, love that you listen to their rambles and indulge their wants to play. You wrestle them and play pretend so well, always kissing their heads and saying how proud you are of them. It means more to them than you realize

Ingo sees this, before you properly meet. He lingers on the outskirts of your interactions with the children, warmed by how attached to you and your care they seem. When you’re finally introduced by Rei and Akari, Ingo tips his hat to you. You respond by immediately fluttering over and fussing over the bags that hang below his eyes. Ingo flusters from the care, and the kids only laugh as you guide him to your abode for a warm meal and a good night’s sleep

From there, your relation blossoms. You make it your mission to take care of him, and though Ingo worries about you traveling all the way to the Highlands for him, he has to admit he melts at your softest touch. He’s been very alone at his station, so you coming in with your warmth and gentleness, it soothes the ache that seems to never leave Ingo’s heart. He’s quick to grow attached to you, your cooking especially, since his own skills are a little lacking in that area. In return, he finds you rare materials you need, bringing them to you with doed eyes

Every time you visit, before you leave, Ingo takes your hand in his weathered palms, and presses a firm kiss to the valley of your knuckles. His lips are chapped but warm as well, and never fail to make you shudder as they brush the sensitive skin. It makes you ache, a want to kiss him back buried deep within your heart. When the need grows to be too much, you dive foreword, sealing your lips together as he rises from your hand

Ingo jolts, but eagerly leans into you. Finally, he thinks to himself. Now his daydreams of having a family with you don’t feel so shameful

🍓🍓🍓

Ingo is definitely the guy that daydreams about having kids with his crush. Wants to be a dad so bad

~Renee

#warden ingo x reader #ingo x reader #pokemon imagines #pokemon x reader #submas x reader

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thanks-obillma · 7 months

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hcs for the system's sports

kickboxing (Mike and Mal)

Mike kickboxing is sorta canon, he picked it up pretty young bc he was absolutely ecstatic that he could do cool fighting moves like his favorite movies

once Mal stabilizes a little, he gets talked into trying beating the shit out of people in a safe environment (totally not as therapy), but he has some issues with going too far and/or losing his temper, eventually will only do it with friends who can tell when he's about to lose it and call a time out

gymnastics (Svet obviously)

her specialty is vault, but she does floor too

she has to compete in the men's section but is openly a woman and they get bullied a lot for it

Mike secretly wishes she would stay closeted but she shines so bright when she's in the gym that he feels bad about saying anything and never does. they graduate and move before his resentment boils over

she's not actually Olympic level but she's pretty decent and hits province level consistently

she joins a queer gym when they're adults and eventually ends up co-coaching a team of kids

cross country (Mike and occasionally Manitoba or Svetlana)

mostly Mike's but Manitoba likes the trails and Svet thinks it's a good off day activity

Manitoba got him lost in the woods during a cross country meet once and he never lives it down

after that the others are banned from voluntarily switching in for meets or practice

Svet still goes for weekend runs sometimes, especially if she has friends to do it with (mostly Zoey or Jo)

track (Mike, but Svet and Vito have been known to take over practice for him when he's not feeling good)

he does the 3000, 800, 300m hurdles, and pole vault

he's good at the 3000, enjoys the challenge of the 800, kinda sucks at 300m hurdles but enjoys it anyways, and got put in pole vault by the coach because he's actually really good at it, he doesn't mind the event but wishes he didn't have to juggle a field event during meets

wrestling (Mike and Vito)

it's a filler sport for the winter season

Vito switches in for practice sometimes if Mike's not feeling good

weight lifting (Vito)

Mike's rule is don't do it at school (mostly because he doesn't trust Vito to behave and doesn't want to seem even weirder), but there's a gym close by so they go there a lot

rock climbing/hiking/backpacking (Manitoba)

not much opportunity until they move out, but then Mani joins an outdoors club, he drags Scott along sometimes

#total drama #td mike #td svetlana #td vito #td manitoba #td mal #my brain words

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aerodaltonimperial · 6 months

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✨Fic Writing Review 2023✨

Tagged by @rosabellebelieve and oh girl. Ain't nobody ready for these stats LOL. Uh oh. Also, I've removed all collab fics for purposes of this, as it doesn't really seem fair since I only wrote, like, half of them lmao.

Words and Fics

268,626 words in 2023 (mother of god)

52 fics on AO3 (dear christ)

I'm not even counting Tumblr ficlets, oh god, don't make me

Top 5 Pairings

💚🖤Jack/Darby (24) (NUMBER ONE???? how tho)

🧡🖤Hook/Danhausen (23)

💚🧡Jack/Hook (5)

🔮🍑Julia/Anna (4)

🧡🎤Max Caster/Hook (3) & 🧡🍊Orange/Hook (3) (HAHAHAHAHA)

Top 5 by kudos

i found love where it wasn't supposed to be (right in front of me) [Hookhausen]

man of lesser words [Hookhausen]

don't need a cure for love [Orange/Hook]

baby please (would you read my eulogy) [JungleCorpse]

you're the realest thing i've never had to fake [Hookhausen]

Top 5 by hits

baby please (would you read my eulogy) [JungleCorpse]

i found love where it wasn't supposed to be (right in front of me) [Hookhausen]

now you know how i feel [Hookhausen]

Weekend in Fresno: or, a Hook choose your own dating adventure [Hook/everyone]

threat level: euclid [HH, JC, SP]

Fandom Events in 2023

I made it to a wrestling show! Since they never go near me and my life is what it is, I really can't manage more than one a year, and I've got to be lucky to get that to work, but this was a big deal and I'm so happy that I could make it happen!

ALSO I MADE UP A FUCKING PAIRING AND GOT IT TO THE #1 FOR BOTH PARTIES INVOLVED you know what this counts as an event LMAOOOOO i'm thinking no one should actually have this power

Upcoming Projects

If I ever stop bemoaning my perceived lack of skill, I've got 2/3 of a fic that Vamp prompted dialogue for, largely me writing something fluffy and saccharine because she was trying to write smut and we were both trying to write out of our wheelhouses lol

Writing reflection

Well! 2023 was quite a year, honestly. I was going to be like OH HOLY SHIT about my word count but when I took our collabs, it dropped so fast, so that's good, I guess (???). I'm still so happy I discovered wrestling, because it's been easily 12 years since I had this amount of creativity for a single fandom. And this year I really stretched out and started writing new stuff within the wrestling fandom! That's exciting (depending what you followed me for, I suppose LOL).

But more than anything else, this year I looked at what I wanted to write and said, FUCK IT, I'M WRITING IT. And I started dropping horror shit I fully expected that no one would read, because I didn't think people came to fandom for spooky stuff??? And lo and behold, y'all really showed up for those fics! I'm forever grateful you saw me writing absolutely batshit horror and were like yes, Katy, we will also read this creepfest. So much love.

I also tried to write more smut, which I am not particularly adept at, and also some darker themes. I do try to write lighthearted things, haha, but my own mental state has been not stellar, and I think that tends to come out in my fics. And I started writing femslash, which this fandom needs so much more of! So. All in all, a real banger year for me in fandom. I'm pretty proud of a LOT of the fics I wrote this year.

And, obviously, 2023 would not be complete with me mentioning that Vamp and I produced an epic shit ton of words together, and MORE IMPORTANTLY had an absolute blast in doing so. What a whirlwind writing together has been!!! I think we've really gotten to this point of just great flow, and I'm super proud of how we work so well like we do. We DO HAVE SOMETHING ELSE COMING but we've been "planning" it since August and haven't written it yet, so HAHAHA. Anyway. Expect that in 2025, or something. ;)

Rules: Feel free to show whatever stats you have. Only want to show Ao3 stats? Rock on. Want to include some quantitative info instead of stats? Please do this. Want to change how yours is presented? Absolutely do that. Would rather eat glass than do this? Please do eat glass, I’ve heard it’s good for your gums.

Tagging: @whysamwhy123 @meeplanguage @fille-lioncelle and anyone else who wants to take a stab at this!

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crashtestjeffy · 7 days

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I wrote this today. It has stuff in it that might trigger you. Suicide, drugs and sex. But everything does so I guess...Anyway. This means something to me if you want to read it.

If I let go the latches that tie down my memories, I can still see it as clear as if I were standing there right now.

My father - dead on the floor of the tiny bedroom that used to be mine in the bleak two-bedroom apartment I grew up in. The building was a place most people used as transitional housing. Going from nothing to something. But we got stuck there. 32 years.

It was a building in a poor government housing neighborhood. We started out in government housing. Because I was born sick, my parents spent the first 6 months of my life in the city. And it just seemed logical to them to stay. A social worker got them a nice townhouse that was government owned and rent geared to income.

My dad got a job at General Motors. And the rent geared toward income suddenly became more than market rent. In those days, that was possible. So we moved out after living in the townhouse for four years. Moving out meant we moved to a privately owned apartment building across the street. It had an indoor pool, and we had a balcony. I lived on the 8th floor. Apartment 810.

My brother and I were three and a half years apart. As soon as he was old enough to leave the crib and move to a bed, we got bunk beds. Me on top and him on the bottom. Because he was a bedwetter and would be till he was 13.

And so it went.

There was a lot of abuse. There is a lot of dysfunction. My father was a violent opiate addict who was miserable all week long, but on weekends and holidays, he would binge drink in ways I have never seen another human consume alcohol. He'd start drinking the moment he came in from work. Drinking the first six of many beers in an hour. While popping pills, snorting, and smoking anything he could get his hands on. He's never injected, though. "That's junkie shit, and I ain't no junkie.".

My mom was a slow-burn drinker. By the time I was six, she got a job within walking distance of the apartment. And she would drink every day if she could. She hated anything that took her away from her booze. At first, it was a 6 pack a night on weeknights and a dozen a day on weekends and holidays. She was just trying to get a little oblivion. She didn't want to deal with anything, and that was that. She built a bubble around herself, as foreboding as stepping inside the radius of a chained-up junkyard dog. Only right after she would tear your head off, and then she would cry and tell you in one way or another that she couldn't handle this and that no matter what problems you had, they were not her concern; everything else she was dealing with was bigger.

And so it went.

In my tiny bedroom, I was beaten with everything from a belt to half of a pool cue. Where I was left in a puddle of my own urine on a few occasions when I was hit so hard that my bladder released. Where I would crawl into the corner of the bunk bed, which after a few years required repairs to keep standing and was a white trash castle. And I would sit. And talk to no one, to Jesus, to myself, to the walls, to the gods of good boys—to give me a chance. But it never happened.

I would grow up and leave at 15 and float back and forth on occasion or on a bail order. I would always end up back in that room. I did everything in that room. I had sex in that room. I made a child in that room, a secret that I still wrestle with. I did drugs in that room. I nearly died in that room three times. Once from asthma, once from a beating, and once from an overdose of barbiturates and opiates.

And so it went on and on.

My daughter would be born, and we'd have visited, and my daughter and I napped in that room. By then, the room had become my father's. My mother kept the other room, and my dad just lived in that room. Computer for hockey stats and playing online games. Bed and a TV. It was as good a cell as any deteriorating man could ask for.

And so it went to goodbye.

Till one day, I got a call from my daughter's mother. "Come home," she said, since I was at work and my daughter was 11 weeks old. I asked why. She said, "Just come home," and I felt it like some kind of Star Wars Jedi vibe. "My dad died, didn't he?" and she broke down, crying and sobbing yes. Okay, I would go home.

Then I hung up and started to gather my things. Then, almost immediately after, my brother called, "Hey, stay where you are at. I am coming to get you; we can go down together." We had both been living in a smaller city to the north of the one I grew up in. So I went outside and stood on the curb, and the supervisor was yapping at me about breaks and leaving the site. So I pushed him away and said, "You're gonna leave me alone; I am leaving," and he looked at me as if he wanted to fight for a second, and I calculated I had time for a dust up before my brother got there, so I was game. And I immediately thought how funny it would be if my brother showed up to pick me up to go to the big city and I was fighting this guy on the curb. I even laughed. Instead, the supervisor looked at me and said, "Okay, it's not my fucking problem," then turned around and went back inside.

My brother rolled up. I got in, and he spent the first 30 minutes of our drive arguing with his wife. A charming woman who informed him on that very day that she'd been cheating with his good friend. He had her phone, and he handed it to me; it was ringing. Then he lowered my window and said, "Throw that fucking thing out." We were on a major highway. So I did.

I asked what he knew, and he said he talked to my mom. My dad had died by OD. It was a suicide. She thought he was just passed out on the floor, which was a regular occurrence. So she left and went to work. My dead father is on the ground. Her unaware. The dogs were alone with him.

When she got home and he hadn't moved, she knew something was wrong. So she went into his room and saw that he was blue and cold, He was gone. She called 911, and the operator tried to convince her to do CPR, but she told the operator there's no fucking way that's helping. My mother was always pragmatic like that. Then she called my brother and then my daughter's mother because she had her number, but not mine.

My brother and I were sitting in pained silence after he caught me up. And that was that. We were not going to cry together, talk, or reminisce. Until he broke the silence to tell me about his wife and how she was cheating. I couldn't think of anything to say, so I shrugged and said, "Shit man, what are you going to do?" and he must have said something, but my head sank back into silence, and I have no recollection.

We got to my parents place, and there were cops, my mom, and a couple of her co-workers. They were waiting for the coroner. I asked her if she was okay. She explained to me, in the most guilty way I have ever seen, how she had left, how she didn't know, how he was alone with the dogs, and more, but I didn't take any of it in. I just said, "Mom, don't worry, you did nothing wrong; the asshole passed out on the floor lots of times, I would have left the fucker too."

I turned around to see my brother emerging from the hall to the bedroom. His face blank and pained all at the same time. And I said, "The cop let you go in?" and he said yeah, and the cop interjected that I could too, but it was not pretty, he'd been on the floor for twenty hours by then. So I walked past the cop and into the room.

The same little room I was a frightened little ball in. The same room I hung magazine pictures from as a teenager and hid Penthouse magazines in and the same room in furious masturbation sessions, I would wear myself out till I slept. Or I would eat mushrooms and lay in my bed listening to music and watching the lights play on the ceiling, till I got really high and went away.

The same room that I felt like all my damage was held in.

The same room had a secret box up inside the wall where the radiator meets it, and there is a gap to allow for the pipe. I showed it to my dad as a joke years after I left home and said I hid my drugs there so he wouldn't steal them. He then took to hiding his drugs in there too. As well as in a little corner of his dresser beneath the bottom drawer. There were two lesser spots he used too. I knew them because for years he would freak out and accuse me of stealing his drugs, so I had to learn where he hid his drugs so he would shut the fuck up. When I was a younger guy, it was never that simple. He'd accuse me of stealing his drugs and then break my nose, or beat the shit out of me and take my wallet and empty it, or hit me with a bat. Right there in that little room.

Now my blue/white father lay on the floor. An empty shell. His mouth open, and his eyes were almost closed, but not enough that you couldn't see the whites that had gone a weird pink. His body dappled with dark splotches. Livor mortis. The spots were where blood pooled inside the bag that once held his life. He had no shirt on and a pair of sport shorts. His arms and hands sort of pulled at his chest like a squirrel. And the smell... It is a smell you cannot possibly describe. It was all at once heartbreaking, horrifying, and fascinating.

And so it went. And it was gone.

Then I turned around and found all his stashes. And then some. In his final hours, he had balanced pills on picture frames and on the head of a soapstone totem pole he bought in the Yukon twenty-five years before. And he had grouped up pictures of my daughter and my brother's son, the boy was three weeks older than my daughter. And it was something magical for him. There was a weird, surreal feeling about it all. I was gathering drugs while a cop stood with his back to me at the door, less than twelve feet away. I could hear my mom and my loud brother talking in the living room next to me. But there I was, knee-deep in death.

A suicide. He went out angry after trying to call me, and I didn't answer because his drug-rotted brain was just being squirrely, and it had become like talking to a ten year old. He left sad voice messages instead. I was giving my little baby a bath, putting her in her PJS, and handing her off to her mom the night before. I had something more important to do.

If you don't think the guilt around all that was a fucking bramble and nettle bush that took a long time to work through, you'd be wrong.

All that in that little room.

I would stay really high for most of the next three days. But by then, I was an old hand at being stoned. So I did all the things I needed to. I just didn't feel it all.

And now it's someone else's home. It probably has been a few someone else's home since he died, and my mom disappeared for eight months, reappearing on the east coast, telling me and my brother she was going to stay there and live with her mom. She was not talking to us for a while. Once again. My mother, the queen of avoidance,.

I have been dreaming about this room ever since. three or four times a week. Sometimes my parents are still alive, and they live in the apartment. Or it is just my mom, and she lives in a house, but she brought the room with her. Or my father is in a skyscraper, and the room is there.

When I talk about chains, this is what I mean. This is the kind of life that tears you to shreds as sure as running through razor-wire.

I am empty now. If you made it all the way through., holy hell! You're crazier than me. I hope it was decent at least.

#broken people #death dreams #little rooms #this is why i am....this #hey i even edited

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