#'I have lived with a valentine for five years' he says in the voice of a man desperately trying to make this marriage work by will alone

[vaguely-concerned]

sometimes I think about the fact that bacta lost his virginity to tryst's sister. who looks enough like him that they easily pass for each other when they swap clothes. *touches ground gingerly* something psychosexual happened here. (good for rendezvous honestly it isn't her fault her brother is too emotionally dense and/or dysfunctional to get in there.) and then the next morning he found out the first person he was ever in love with probably isn't dead after all and never contacted him. it's a lot, to be a bacta in this world. single father despite having three co-parents, harried husband and grieving widower who's never once been married but is sometimes for sure divorced, teenage boy at his first real party, 'as your doctor I feel compelled to point out -- okay, that's, you're doing it anyway, sure, why not ', haunted veteran at the tender age of 17, owner of what must be the most common face across the galaxy, parentified oldest sibling despite being the youngest adult on the crew, sole qualified clipboard holder....... he's somehow doing it all at the same time and he's doing it on phindar, while making cupcakes

#'I have lived with a valentine for five years' he says in the voice of a man desperately trying to make this marriage work by will alone #campaign star wars #bacta #bactatryst #is that the ship name? I feel like I've seen that around it seems right #I feel so free in terms of campaign star wars ships honestly it's the only taste I've ever had of the peace of being a multishipper #zeblue is way too intense and weird and fucked up for me to wish it on anyone else to get involved in that (affectionate) but otherwise... #it's all good baby. no wrong answers here. is this why multishippers seem so chill you guys have escaped samsara I guess #anyway I love bacta with my whole heart. he tries so hard and it matters so much #even when it doesn't matter at all it matters so much #rendezvous looked at mr bacta 'black widow' mynock and was like 'that sign can't stop me I'm a valentine I can't read' and she was RIGHT TO

[sourcherryandsprinkles]

please do something with peter parker for vday. I miss you writing for him

I started writing this one last year for Valentine's Day...forgive me for the long wait

—

‘’No, you don’t understand, Ned. It needs to be perfect,’’ Peter explained, turning to his best friend for help.

‘’My longest and only relationship lasted about sixty hours, so I’m not really the one to come to for Valentine’s Day gift ideas.’’ 

‘’Uncle Ben always gave May flowers and chocolate.’’ And Peter always tried to steal chocolate from the box. ‘’But Y/N is Mr. Stark’s daughter, I can’t just buy her flowers and chocolate. She’ll think I’m poor.’’ 

‘’Didn’t you tell me this morning that you only have five dollars in your pockets?’’ Ned recalled, taking one of the homemade cookies his lola had put into his lunch bag and taking a bite. There was one for Peter too, but he was too busy worrying and panicking.

Peter groaned and hid his face in his crossed arms, frustrated and desperate. Being broke was a second problem to his Valentine’s Day plan. ‘’What am I gonna do? Valentine’s Day is in two days. I can’t not get her anything.’’ 

‘’If you go back to the roots of Valentine’s Day, it’s about celebrating love. You don’t have to spend money to show someone you love them.’’ Peter opened his mouth, but Ned spoke first. ‘’Even if she’s a Stark and bathes in money,’’ he added. ‘’She didn’t fall in love with you because of your economic status, she fell in love because of who you are.’’

On the big day, Peter set everything up in his living room. May was on a date with Happy, so he had the apartment to himself — until 10pm. He didn’t have a projector, so he made one with a shoebox and a magnifying glass, and hung a sheet to one of the walls to turn into a screen. He made cheese pastas and brought over the single chocolate cupcake he was able to afford. 

He was nervous, constantly checking his phone waiting for your ‘I’m here’ text. When he finally got it, Peter rushed to the door, smoothing his button up and fixing his hair before opening. If he was this nervous for Valentine’s Day, he didn’t want to imagine the nervous wreck he would be at his wedding. 

Not that he was planning on getting married anytime soon. 

‘’Happy Valentine’s Day,’’ you said with a smile on your glossy lips. 

Peter said the words back and let you in, gulping when his eyes fell on the small gift bag you were holding. You set it down on the table to take off your coat and boots, revealing a pink sweater and a sparkly necklace that cost probably more than anything in May's apartment.

You followed Peter to the living room, excitement bubbling in your stomach when seeing the frozen image of your favorite rom-com projected on the wall.  ‘’You made this?’’ 

Peter gave you a small nod. Projectors were easy to make. He learned how in a science book for kids when he was nine. May was so impressed when he showed her his ‘magic box’. 

‘’It’s not much, but—’’ he started to say, but you shut him up with a kiss. 

‘’Stop it,’’ you said, guessing his train of  thoughts. ‘’This is the best Valentine’s Day gift ever.’’ 

You never had another valentine before him — beside the little boys in middle school who sent you cards and heart lollipops  —, but Peter’s gift came from the heart. It was thoughtful and personal, therefore meant a lot to you. 

After eating the pastas, you handed Peter the gift bag. He was nervous just from holding it. 

He slowly pulled out the festive tissue papers and groaned when seeing a red and blue plush toy. ‘’Spiderman? Really?’’ Peter made an annoyed face. He didn't want to come off as ungrateful, but he was getting tired of the jokes with the Spiderman merch he had no control over. 

‘’Press his chest,’’ you instructed, ignoring his complaints.

Peter gave you a confused look, but listened. ‘’I love you, my Spidey,’’ the toy said.

You watched his expressions shift from confusion to surprise, Peter’s eyes widening when he recognized the sound of your voice. A genuine smile spread across his face, the small plush taking a whole other meaning. ‘’That's your voice,’’ he whispered, still holding the talking Spiderman plush. 

You nodded, the sparks in Peter’s eyes telling you that no expensive gift could have matched this one. He was truly touched. ‘’I know you don’t like when I get you expensive things, so I didn’t get you a new watch,’’ you explained, thinking back at the Cartier watch you hesitated on last week. He would have hated it. 

Turning toward you, Peter enveloped you in a hug to properly thank you. 

Your arms wrapped around him in return. ‘’Even when I’m not with you, you’ll always have something to remind you that I love you.’’ 

—

Marvel taglist: @xenasolos @chrizzierbsstuff @ayamenimthiriel @alina02 @turtleshavesoulmates @staygoldsquatchling02 @daemonslittlebitch  @wetwilliam02 @haileyismoo @manofworm @rhydianissuperior @supersanelyromantic @nicangel13 @mxxny-lupin  @sweeterheartxamerica @viridwityy @izzy-laufeyson @kenzi-woycehoski @arunaposeidondottie @liidiaaag @katsukis1wife  @amithesimpoffandoms @acornacreacure @chaotic-fangirl-blog  @hawkegfs @mommyruuetrue @youdontneedtoknowthisinformation  @aabananaa @starrrslove  @angeliod @nmedina8611 @1stevelacyfan  @yourfavdummy @laylasbunbunny  @slytherhoes @pedrosprincess  @luvvtxinityy @Eddiefrickenmunson @wandaswigglywoos @mikaelsonsstuff  @tcddszn  @skyesthebomb @a1mzcruml3y @red1culous  @popeheywardssecretgf @kattybug @loverofdrewstarkey  @sl4sh3rfuck3r  @luci1fer @dingus0401  @idontknowwhatimdoing777 @nomorespahgetti  @bloodyhw @papayaboyluvr @slytherinambitious @t-candy  @adaydreamaway08  @johannelis2302nely  @lynbubble @straberryshortcake143 @mymultiveres @hopeurokays @not-liah @beth-gallagher22  @lonelywitchv2 @lausley336 @arinexeisnotworking  @rubyliquor @Danniackerman  @angelxxrose @angelxxrose  @upwritingallnight  @cruzgrecia @evelestrange  @sunnysunny133696 @aesthetixhoe  @hoeforsirius  @secretsthathauntus  @sarcasm-and-stiles

All and more taglist:  @kenqki  @hawkegfs  @gillybear17   @black-rose-29 @fudge13 @cece05 @laylasbunbunny @gemofthenight @beautyb1ade   @mellabella101 @vxnity713  @bisexualgirlsblog @queenofslytherin889 @thatbxtchesblog @softb-tterfly @ethanlandrycanbreakmyheart  @xyzstar  @graceberman3   @mikeyspinkcup @jackierose902109 @daisydark @laurasdrey @mischieftom @fanatic4niall @peterholland04 @idkwhattonamethisblogs  @lexasaurs634  @notasadgirlipromise @zoeynicolas @thejuleshypothesis @multi-fandom-bi-bitch @lexasaurs634  @notasadgirlipromise @thejuleshypothesis  @katherinejess  @rafesgirlstuff  @lafleshlumpeater @iamluminosity

#peter parker #peter parker x reader #peter parker x stark!reader #peter parker imagine #marvel #spiderman #tom!peter parker x reader

[minihotdog]

Locked Out On Valentine's (Ending: You took the tea)

Pairing: Simon "Ghost" Riley x Fem!Reader

C/W: Smut, unprotected P in V, sexist-type humor, size kink

Word Count: 3k

Previous part

“You want some tea, love?”

***

You’re now sitting at the small round dinner table watching as he tilts the kettle into the mugs. He walks the mugs over to the table and sits across from you.

“Didn’t have anyone to stay with, did you?” He asks before taking a sip.

“I sure didn’t. Everyone is still avoiding me like the plague.” You stare down at the mug. 

“It’ll end soon.” He wipes his bottom lip with his thumb. The action catches your attention and he doesn’t miss the sparkle in your eyes. For a stone-cold man, he sure was catching himself smirking a lot tonight. 

“When I showed up to my first unit I got the same, and the unit after that.” The two of you drink simultaneously.

“What? They ignored you?”

“No,” He chuckles softly. “My first unit, they held me down and branded me with a shite-looking coat of arms made from a wire clothes hanger.”

You gasp, covering your mouth with your hand.

“What?! Where?!”

“My bum.”

You snort, “I’m sorry, that’s not funny.” You cover your face with your hands. His shoulders rise and fall with soft laughter.

“It is a little.”

“Did they ever get in trouble? Reprimanded?”

“Never told anyone, ran into them at my next unit and pummeled them into the ground.”

“Bravo!” You celebrate with your hands in the air. “I’m glad to hear that.”

“Then I was disciplined for the beatin’ they got but it was worth it.”

“I agree, they had it coming.”

You take another gulp of your tea enjoying the spread of warmth inside of you.

“You’re quite fond of trouble.” He states flatly. You still, squinting at him in suspicion.

“What makes you say that?”

“Your files,” He raises his eyebrows at you. “Lengthy history of discipline, being reprimanded.”

You hum in response. “Is that the word on the street?”

He grins, his hand coming up to stroke his stubble before he sits back with his arms crossed looking at you. You roll your eyes, “Yeah, I’ve gotten in trouble a couple of times in my career, what about it?”

“How long have you been in?”

“Five years.”

“You’re tellin’ me that you’ve been reprimanded nearly every single year you’ve been in?” He now leans on the table looking over at you with a dumbfounded look.

“Shit happens, I have no problem taking responsibility for it.”

“I didn’t take you for the type to cause trouble.”

“I’m not, I just don’t have the grace other people do. I do something stupid and get caught immediately.”

“You’re right about that. You’re a naughty one, for sure.” He says before downing the remaining liquid in his mug.

He smirks to himself letting his eyes roam over your shoulders.

"I heard that boyfriend of yours was a calvary bum." He pokes, changing the subject. 

You "tsk" at him. Once everyone found out about your now ex-boyfriend they never let you live it down.

"What's his job got to do with anything?"

Simon shrugs, feigning ignorance, “Assumed a woman like you preferred men, that’s all.”

“Oh, hush!” You bite back a laugh refusing to meet his eyes. 

“I bet he cried like a child at the thought of going to the field.”

“That’s enough out of you!” You reach over the table to cover his mouth. He fights you off taking your wrists in his hands. He stands and walks to your side of the table gently pulling up by the wrists. His massive frame takes most of your view, you can’t help but feel anxiety pool in your stomach having him tower over you.

“Poor bird, spendin’ her nights with half a man. Bet he didn’t have a clue what he was doin’.”

The warmth you felt from the tea was traveling up to your cheeks. He was so close you could smell the rich cologne in his skin. His hands were so rough but warm on your pulse. 

Your eyes focus on his lips.

“Did he?” The gravel of his voice makes a shiver run through your spine. You gulp before responding.

”He was… enthusiastic.”

Simon laughs hoarsely, “Enthusiastic?” He enunciates with a shit-eating grin.

”Why is my sex life a topic of conversation to my Lt.?” You suddenly get some courage.

”You think I haven’t noticed you droolin’ over me, love. Peakin’ at me from afar. Now you show up to my flat with your tits fallin’ out of your top, your bare ass out, and a broken heart from some lad not worth the air he breathes.” He drops his head forcing you to meet his eyes. “Quite the coincidence, innit?”

”I think it’s more of a happy coincid-“ He breaks your sentence off catching your lips with his. Your brain pushes you out of your frozen state and the two of you begin moving in unison. He slowly releases your wrists and moves his hands to your waist. Your hands run down his chest.

He deepens the kiss, forcing his tongue past your lips. You moan softly as his tongue plays with yours. He pulls you against him, one hand over yours on his chest the other at the small of your back. You feel lightheaded, not in a bad way, quite the opposite. You’d fantasized about your Lt. plenty of times, his touch, the scars he hid beneath his army green top, the way his lips felt - come to find out they were soft, unlike the rest of him. His hands keep setting you ablaze when they touch your skin, the callouses nearly make your eyes roll back.

He growls into the kiss, tearing himself away from you. His arms wrap around the back of your thighs and you grab onto his shoulders. He lifts and places you on the table, forcing himself between your legs. He bites at your neck, pulling you into him. You grip the table feeling as if you could slide off at any second. 

He eats up every single gasp he gets out of you. His teeth graze your collar bone and he sucks on the sensitive skin. Your nails run over his scalp down to the back of his neck drawing a groan from him.

He stops for a moment to let you catch your breath.

”You want this, love?” He leans his forehead against yours looking into your eyes.

“God, yes!” You exasperate. 

He chuckles, still looking into your eyes.

”Hold on.”

”What do you-“ 

You squeal as he lifts you off the table and rushes to wrap your arms around his neck. You rest your head on his neck relishing in the feeling of his body against yours. Warmth radiated off of him like a furnace, the feel of his skin so addictive.

He carries you to the couch placing his knee on the cushions before gently placing you on your back. He follows you down and your hands run down his bare back.

He supports himself with one arm, the other trails down to your aching core, cupping the mound. He lets out a ragged breath once he feels the heat burning through you. He moves to pull your shorts off, dragging them up your legs and tossing them off to the side.

”Fuckin’ hell,” He groans at the sight of your bare pussy. “Such a bad girl walking around without knickers.”

He gives you one last hypnotizing kiss before brushing his lips in between your breasts. He kisses each one and carries on down your stomach and lands right above your clit.

You panic inside, you prop yourself up on your elbows, “Lt.”

”Fuck’s sake, love. As much as I love hearin’ you call me that, say my name, will you?” He laughs light-heartedly. You smile behind your hand trying not to break out in giggles. 

“What is it?” His eyebrows pull together.

”You don’t have to do that if you don’t want.”

”Eat you out?” He looks at you confused.

You nod slowly, embarrassed at the question.

He “Tsks” at you lowering himself once again while muttering something along the lines of, “Calvary muppet took the fun out of pussy, didn’t he?”

”I’m serious! You don’t have to!” You spit out frantically.

“Shut up, doll.”

He licks a stripe up your cunt and moans softly to himself. Your lips part in disbelief. He slowly laps at your clit and you lower yourself onto your back. He decides not to work you too fast yet, scared you’d pass out after being neglected by that dumb bloke for so long. 

You whine softly, legs already shaking. He wraps his arms around your thighs and presses them against his head.

He gently sucks on your clit and your hand shoots down to his head. The feeling of you tugging one his short locs encourages him to speed up. His lips wrap around your clit and toys with it as he pleases. The pace causes you to clamp your thighs around his head on your own.

Moans pour from your lips as your back arches. His hands stroke your thighs as you restrain yourself from pushing his head down further.

”Simon! Oh god!” Your mouth hangs open. You look down at him and nearly orgasm seeing him between your legs. His eyes are blown out, his thumb caresses your skin.

He lets go of one thigh and his fingers tap at your entrance gathering your wetness. He pushes two of his fingers inside you and your head falls back. Your vision goes fuzzy and you clamp your eyes shut. His fingers pump into you hitting your g-spot each time.

Your hand flies to your mouth and you let out a high-pitched moan. You chant his name tightening around his fingers. He feels your walls clamp down and continues pumping letting you ride it out. Your hips twitch, your thighs trap him where he is. 

He waits until you go limp to pull away, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. 

”Fuck, you made a mess.” He groans. He climbs above you and peppers your face with kisses. “Was that alright, love?” 

You open your eyes to meet his, all you can do is nod unable to trust yourself to talk. He smirks at you, proud of himself for leaving you in such a state.

”You think you can take me, love, or do you need some time?”

”Want you so bad,” You whine out.

He lowers his head for a chaste kiss and pulls himself up onto his feet. He drops his sweats revealing the thick muscle of his thighs. His cock slaps his thigh as he throws his sweats onto the floor, the weight of it keeping it down. Your eyes meet his member and a wave of nervousness comes over you. His length was impressive but the thickness was your biggest concern. 

“Hey! You weren’t wearing underwear either, hypocrite!”

He rolls his eyes at you with a smile. A sight so beautiful you can’t help but smile back.

He takes his earlier position above you and aligns himself with your entrance. He looks up at you and you feel his tip poking into you already.

”Ready, doll?”

You nod at him.

”Say it.” He whispers.

”I-I’m ready.”

”Alright then.” He nudges your forehead with his before the two of you look down to watch the sinful show of him slowly sliding into you. You gasp, hands going to his back. He moves at a snail’s pace letting you adjust as he goes. He cradles your head, forehead against yours trying to keep his breathing steady.

”Ah, tight little thing.” He rasps out.

Your mouth hangs open, your nails digging into his skin, legs hugging his waist once he fills you to the hilt. He waits a moment before slowly sliding out halfway and bringing himself back to the same depth. Your whines draw out. His tip hits the deepest parts of you so well that you nearly begin drooling.

He examines your face for any sign of discomfort before nudging your neck with his nose. He begins with a moderate pace as he kisses along your jaw. You wrap your arms around him, fingers running over the buzzed hair at the back of his head. 

The stretch from his cock stings slightly, the overwhelming pleasure sending tingles through your bones making it hard to notice. He continues rocking his hips into yours letting you enjoy the feel of him without anything too overwhelming. You mewl into his ear as he stretches you over and over.

”Fuck, so good,” You whine.

His hand comes down to grip your breast, his thumb playing with your nipple, circling it gently. He slides his legs up kneeling with you in between his thighs. He stops, letting you catch your breath and he sucks your nipple into his mouth. He suckles the nub, playing with it with his warm tongue. He thumbs your clit as he treats the nub like a candy. He grabs you by the waist and pulls you down onto his cock, dragging you down the cushions fucking you onto him for a while. 

He angles his hips to hit all the right places, your cunt throbs around him when he hits your g-spot head on causing you to gasp.

”Oh fuck! Right there!” Your hands cling onto his forearms for dear life as he goes on to hit the spot repeatedly until it nearly hurts. His pubic bone rubs against your clit with every thrust. He picks up his pace, throttling that poor little sensitive spot. Your back arches painfully. He takes advantage of it and throws his hand under your waist keeping you in the position swinging you down to meet his thrusts.

He stuffs you with his cock relentlessly. You become a mess beneath him struggling to get words out, just high-pitched moans filling the room.

”God! Oh god!” 

“He’s not here, love. Be a good girl and cum on my cock.” He orders.

The feeling grows inside you pulling the air from your lungs. He nips the skin below your breasts and licks a stripe between them to your neck. Your pussy flutters around him before you fall deep into euphoria, his name pours from you. Your ears ring and eyes wire themselves shut as you clamp down around him. Tears pour from your eyes involuntarily. 

The sequence of flutters pulls him back into you making it too difficult to pull out too far. He buries his head in your chest as he’s pulled over the edge. He moans into your skin as your body sucks him back in, milking him so hard he blinks trying to rid himself of the fog. He begins spilling into you, his white hot streams shooting out at high velocity. He paints your walls so thoroughly that you feel his cock twitching with every spasm. 

His cum spills out of you not having any more room to fill. You gush around him and he quietly gasps. 

The two of you stay like this for what could’ve been an eternity. The post-orgasmic haze engulfs the both of you. He keeps himself inside and lowers himself onto his side, dragging you with him, throwing your leg over his hip. He pulls you into his sweaty heaving chest and kisses your forehead. 

He feels a wetness on his thumb and pulls back, wiping away your tears.

”What’s happened, Y/n?” He asks, concerned. “Did I hurt you?” He moves to pull himself out of you and you grab him, bringing him to a stop. “You’re crying, love.”

”That was amazing.” You mumble, eyes struggling to open.

”You cryin’ because it was good?” He laughs, a big goofy smile plasters itself on his face. You force your eyes open to peek at him. 

“You smile so pretty.”

He pulls you back to his chest, arms wrapped tightly around you.

”Thank you, love.” You could still hear the smile in his voice. “Let’s get you cleaned up and put to bed, yeah?”

”Too sleepy.” You complain.

”It’s alright, I’ll take care of you.” Against your protests, he lifts himself slowly and positions himself to pull out of you. He gives you a single nudge with his cock still sheathed and you nearly purr. 

He pulls out slowly.

”Jesus, I’m gonna need a new couch.” He mutters. His cum spills from you, his eyes glued to your core watching it slowly pour out. His cock twitches and he has to look away. There was no way you were in shape for another round. Thankfully the memory was burned into his mind - the best thing he’d ever seen, next to you of course. 

He lets you know he’ll be back and you hear water rushing down the hall. He returns moments later and slides his hands under you.

”Bath time,” He says in a sing-song-y voice. You giggle, lacing your fingers behind his neck. He lifts you in his arms and looks into your eyes. “You were wonderful.” He pecks your lips and carries you off to his bathroom placing you in the bathtub before sliding in behind you.

”I don’t have a hair tie but I’ll try with some string,” He says mostly to himself. The warm water only reaches your belly button, once he slides behind you it rises a few inches. He wraps your hair into a funny-looking bun and ties it with the piece of string he found.

” Ta-da.” 

“Thank you, Simon.” You say sweetly leaning back against him. He holds you against him and you feel something poke into your back.

”Sorry, love. It’ll go down, I don’t expect you to stay awake long enough for another one.”

You moan in response and sigh letting the water nearly lull you to sleep. 

“Wait,” you breathe out. “Does me saying your name turn you on?”

He doesn’t respond. You try to look up at him but he tightens his hold not wanting you to see the red spawning over his face.

”Siiiiimon”

”Oh, hush.” He imitates your voice.

”Hey!”

He grabs his loofa and begins lathering you in bubbles.

”C’mon, I wanna get you in bed before you fall asleep.”

He cleans every bit of you, focusing on your breasts because no matter how much he denied it at that moment, he was still a dog. He hands you a bath bomb that he saved in case he ever had a special someone stay over and let you watch it fizz up as he cleans himself.

He dries you off and plops you down on his massive bed wearing his t-shirt. By the time he throws on his boxers you’re fast asleep under the covers, engulfed in his scent.

He slides next to you pulling you into his arms. He plants a kiss on the top of your head and whispers into your hair, “You’re mine now, doll. All mine.”

#Simon Riley #Simon ghost riley #ghost #simonghostrileysmut #simonrileysmut #codsmut #simonrileyxreader #simonghostrileyxreader #ghostxreader #ghost x reader

[stayconnecteed]

❪⠀🪐.⠀couch cuddles⠀𓏔⠀seo changbin⠀❫

☆ㅤseo changbin x afab!reader ( valentine's collab oneshots )⠀★⠀3.4k words

synopsys: everyone knew that changbin and you had met at ikea. you had been friends for years, and yet he never got tired of repeating the anecdote that had brought you together. there was one part he had never told you, though: he had asked his parents to buy that green sofa on which you had been sitting together in that first meeting. that very same couch you always ask cuddles in when one of your dates goes wrong.

note: not happy at all with how this turned out, and i know it's a little bit angsty before all the fluff but happy valentine's day cuties !!

Everyone knew that Changbin and you had met at Ikea. You had been friends for years, and yet he never got tired of repeating the anecdote that had brought you together that afternoon when you had gone to the Swedish shop with your family. It had been a very chaotic first meeting, as it could only be if it had happened between the two of you, but there was one part he had never told you. Whenever the subject came up he would ask you to narrate how it had been, with that pout and puppy eyes he knew you couldn't resist, and he would just stare at you, a smile curving his lips, hiding a part of your story that you didn't know.

You always started your story with a little context, saying that you had just turned sixteen, that your parents had decided to move when they found out they were going to have another baby, that it was a weekend in January and you hadn't started high school yet, that you had planned to travel to Gwangmyeong, where your grandparents lived, and visit the Ikea that had opened in the area. And Changbin couldn't help but stand still when he heard those words, because he knew what it was you were going to start talking about, and he loved to hear it from your lips, so he would command everyone to be quiet, to let your voice echo in the silence as you spoke.

And then you explained, under Changbin's attentive gaze, how you had driven to the shop after lunch, parking as close to the entrance as possible, and how you had to take care of your two little siblings, then aged eight and five, while your parents talked to each other about what furniture to buy for the new home. You dwelled on the details, making eye contact with Changbin from time to time, prolonging the moments before you first spoke, creating some expectation, and he knew it, but he didn't mind because he enjoyed it as much as you did.

And when you had described how small you had felt in such a big place 一the biggest Ikea in the world at the time一, when you had let slip that your parents had been so focused on shopping that you and your siblings had been left behind, when your face was a shadow of the worry, the panic you had felt at the time, then you broke the news: your brother, the troublesome eight-year-old, had gone missing. You, at sixteen, had found yourself in a maze of kitchens and living rooms with your younger sister clinging to your leg, your heart pounding, and the uncertainty of whether you would be able to find Doyun in such a large space.

Changbin's heart always twisted in agony at that part of the story, just as it had done when, already desperate, you had approached the first boy of your own age you had seen 一he一, whispering if he had seen a kid with your brother's description. He had hated seeing you like that, absolutely distressed, on the verge of tears, pretending in front of your little sister that Doyun was playing hide-and-seek. Both she and you had looked at him as if he could miraculously find him, with a blind confidence that had made him assure you that he hadn't seen him, but that he would help you look for him. He had whispered to little Jia that it would be fun, and had taken her hand, turning to you only to see you smiling hopefully at him.

At the time, and he had never acknowledged it, he hadn't cared for Doyun. He certainly wanted to find him, that was what your eyes and the values his parents had taught him screamed at him, but at the same time he longed for the way your face had relaxed at the sight of him, when he had told you not to worry, that he would find him. How calm you had been, just as you always said you were, knowing he was by your side. And with your sister on one side and you on the other, you had walked the corridors, passing where you had been over and over again, checking every possible hiding place, whispering your brother's name for him to hear.

But you always came back to the same place, the green sofa where you had asked him about Doyun. And no sign of him. You checked your phone obsessively, fearing that your parents would ask you about him and you wouldn't have the answer, and at one point, Changbin simply proposed to take a break. He indicated that you could exchange numbers, and that while you went to buy something from the shop's cafeteria, he would take another walk, in case there was any more luck, and he would text you if he saw him. You declined, his mouth suddenly going dry at the thought that he had gone too far, but then you announced in an exhausted voice and slumped shoulders that you were the one who should look for him, that you were the one who had lost him in the first place, and that Doyun wouldn't go with a stranger as Changbin was to him, anyway.

You had sat on the couch, your head in your hands, all the frustration and fear building in your chest, your pent-up emotions on edge, on the verge of overflowing, and he busied himself entertaining Jia with some cute cat pillows lying around as he squatted down in front of you, resting a trembling hand on your knee. He had spoken softly to you, like to a wounded animal you want to help, telling you stupid facts about his life, anything you needed to calm you down a bit and face the situation from the ease of a clear-headed mind. You had covered your face, hiding your silent cry, and whispered to him that he didn't need to waste his time with you, that you were a horrible sister, and an inconsiderate stranger by dragging him into your problems.

And then, in one of his most precious memories, you related how you had looked at him, tears glistening on your cheeks, and he had frowned back at you, as if you had offended him, before announcing, in the most serious tone you had ever heard from a sixteen-year-old boy, that you were the best sister in the world. And you had let out an incredulous laugh, closing your eyes and resting your forehead on his shoulder, and had kept silent as he muttered that only the best sister in the world would worry so much about Doyun, searching for him without Jia knowing what was going on, to protect them both. Only the best sister in the world would talk to a boy she didn't know, despite her shyness, just in case he could help her. You really were the best sister in the world.

They were words you repeated from memory, reciting them just as he had whispered them to you, and they always made anyone who heard them sigh. It had been almost like a fairy tale, you in his arms, asking him to show your sister the cafeteria as you took one last walk, wandering back down all those corridors you'd been down before, only to return to the green couch where you knew Changbin was waiting with your sister, but who had also been joined by Doyun, who was listening to Jia laugh at how much fun the hide-and-seek at the Ikea had been.

You had let out a breathy sigh, moving towards your little brother, scolding him for disappearing, while he protested that he had been fiddling with the tablets in the warehouse area 一a place you had hardly been to at all. Then you had made both Doyun and Jia promise not to leave your side for the rest of the afternoon, and when you turned to Changbin, all he could think about was that he didn't want to leave you yet. So when you opened your mouth, he interrupted you before you could utter a sound, asking if you could see each other again.

And you had blushed, unused to that kind of attention, and nodded shyly, the silence falling between you. You had cleared your throat, fiddling with your phone, not knowing what your next move should be. And Changbin had taken the lead again, pointing out that you should ask your parents where they were, and that he would accompany you to them if you wanted. Then you always told, with the same luminous smile you had given him at that moment, that you had walked together to the bedroom section, shoulder to shoulder, your siblings playing in front of you, always under your view, and it was then that you had begun to know each other, to develop that bond that had been born when you had asked him for help and he had not denied it.

What he had never told you was that he had seen you in the parking lot, as soon as you walked in. He had never told you that he couldn't stop looking at you, the way you nodded attentively at your parents' words, or how your eyes lit up when you glanced at your siblings even when they weren't looking at you, how you smiled at the silly things they did, how you crouched down to talk to them. He had been so dumbfounded that his sister had teased him, threatening to come over and talk to you. And every time he saw a glimpse of your white hoodie in the aisles of the Ikea, his heartbeat quickened at the possibility of talking to you. When you had approached him with that face he had seen so happily turned to distress, he had lacked the time to bring the moon down on you if you asked him to.

Nor had he told you that the only thing he had asked his parents for, although he never asked them for anything he didn't need, was to buy that green sofa on which you had been sitting for a few minutes, and which had gone from his children's playroom to the living room of his flat once he had become independent, and which you had never shown any signs of recognising. After that first meeting you had discovered that you lived in the same city, which had facilitated your weekend meetings, and the blossoming of a friendship that stayed with you until years later.

He had lived your last years of high school with you, studying together for the hardest exams even if you went to different institutions, attending each other's graduations with a proud smile, spending summers at your home with him, to the point where your parents treated him like one of the family, and his parents did the same with you. He had watched your younger siblings grow up, caring for them with the same infinite affection as you did, and his older sister had taken you in as her little girl, and everything was perfect. You had been in the good stuff, even applying to the same university, celebrating his first major contract as your own, him coming to the opening of your shop and insisting on being the first customer.

He didn't understand how anyone could look you in the face and tell you that they didn't want to be with you. He didn't understand how anyone could see you and think you weren't the most beautiful person they'd ever seen. But most of all he didn't understand why he hadn't told you yet that he loved you. Because he did, of course. After so long by your side you had managed to get into his mind, and his heart, and even if he wanted to, he wouldn't be able to kick you out of his life. You were too deeply tangled up in him, to the point where everything you did affected him in one way or another, and your absence was the worst punishment. So he knew why he hadn't said anything to you, why he kept these secrets from you 一the fear of losing you was even worse than the fear of rejection一 but he didn't understand why he hadn't been more direct before the possibility of you saying no seemed so painful to him.

Because since he'd figured out what his feelings for you were, every Valentine's Day was pure torture. Especially when he couldn't be with anyone but you, so he spent them single, while you had kept yourself pretty busy all those years, with partners, or affairs, or dates or one night stands. You always seemed to be busy on February 14th. And when your boyfriend dumped you with any bullshit excuse, or your flings found another girl, or the date didn't go the way you'd hoped, then you'd come back home, defeated after another failed romance, and it was he who picked up the pieces and put them back together, who offered to get your favourite flavour of ice cream at two in the morning, who had seen the same rom-com film more times than he could count, who held you until you fell asleep and the cycle began once more.

And every year he allowed himself to hope that this time it would be different, that you would stop running away from your appartment for once, but every year the same thing happened again, and his heart broke just a little bit more. When he saw you that afternoon in that dress he loved so much, the same one he'd seen you wear for his birthday a couple of years ago, with the black tights that had a little rip in the back of the thigh, and those platform boots that showed off your legs and made you look slightly taller than him, he said goodbye to you in a quick cheek kiss that made his lips burn, and locked himself in his room. No matter how much weight he lifted in the gym, he was never strong enough to bear the sight of you leaving.

The plan was simple: put on his sound-cancelling headphones, work on his music until he couldn't keep his eyes opened, and pray he'd be asleep by the time you got back. He sat down at his desk, looking at the pictures hanging on the wall, and sighed before picking up his laptop. The screen read nine o'clock at night, so you'd been gone for over an hour. Now that you weren't there, he could leave his room to make himself some dinner, just to get back to his projects and stop thinking about you. At least that was the initial idea. Because it wasn't working. He kept remembering how you smiled at the feel of his lips against your skin, your still hands with the mascara bottle still between your fingers, and he wouldn't let himself forget that he didn't know who you were going out with, he hadn't reminded you to keep your location active in case something happened, that he'd be with you in a phone call.

So when he couldn't take it anymore, he got up, grabbed his car keys and took his gym bag. Maybe the physical exertion would make him tired enough to sleep, maybe if he stopped thinking about you so much he could focus on his life, maybe the fact that he didn't know about what you were going to do you was a good thing. But when he crossed the hallway ready to leave the appartment and looked into the living room, he saw you sitting on the couch 一that couch that meant so much in your friendship一 and he stopped. He walked slowly towards you, leaning against the doorframe, and watched you for a few seconds. You had taken off your boots so that you could put your feet up on the sofa, and you were curled up towards the corner where he always sat, leaving the gap he used to occupy, as if you were mourning his absence, your eyes fixed on your phone.

"Hey," he said, his voice soft, seeking not to startle you, waiting for you to make eye contact with him before continuing, "weren't you going out?"

Your eyes were wet with unshed tears, and for a moment Changbin wanted to confront the one who had upset you so much, to make him pay for making you sad. He saw you shake your head, straightening slightly, and pull your knees to your chest, curling into a ball.

"I couldn't," you whispered, swallowing back a sob.

"Did he stood you up?" Changbin asked.

"He..." you began, shying away from his gaze, your red cheeks making him frown, "he's not you."

"What do you mean with…? Oh"

"Yes," you chuckled, humourless, your laughter a sound devoid of emotion, your face falling as you realised that the surprise in Changbin's eyes could only mean one thing. "Oh. No matter how hard I've tried, no one has ever managed to be you. Not even close to what you mean to me, or how I feel about you. It's... it's not fair. But it's the truth."

"So, all this time...?" he asked, absorbing your every word, drawing in his mind a sketch of all he had missed out on because he had been too lost in you, letting the gym bag fall to the floor and crossing his arms, a shield between you, in case something went wrong. He had looked at the calendar, right? Today was Valentine's Day and not April Fool's Day, even if it surely felt like someone was pranking him.

"Not all the time" you pointed out, each sentence feeling like a stab in your heart, bleeding over your voice, as he stood in front of you, asking you about your stupid crush like he needed an ego boost, and not like you were opening up to him. "Not at first. You were the cute guy of the Ikea, a real friendship. You're my anchor, you know that. But when things started to change, I... I didn't deserve you. I never did. And even though I started dating guys, none of them were you. You... you were my best friend, Binnie."

"Were? As in not anymore?" then he approached you, squatting down in front of the couch, just as he had done so many years ago, resting a trembling hand on your knee. He had looked at you softly again, as he had looked at you once, but this time his eyes exuded a fear that he had never let you see before.

"I can't" you muttered, closing your eyes and covering your face with your hands, black tears of ruined make-up sliding down your skin. "Not when I'm in love with you, and I know you don't reciprocate my feelings."

And when he saw you look up, panic shining in your pupils, and he frowned back at you, as if you had offended him, it all felt like déjà vu. He told you, his tone dead serious, that you were wrong, and that although it seemed like you were reliving that anecdote you both loved to tell, you should never take his feelings for granted. You let out a disbelieving laugh, closing your eyes and resting your forehead on his shoulder, and silence fell over you both as Changbin whispered how much he loved you, that he hated that you had both suffered so much for a love that was actually so obvious, that you had been idiots with a lame communication, and that if there was anyone who deserved to be with him, it was you.

And he knew you were trying to take in his words, to memorise them, to lose yourself in his arms and never leave them. And almost like in a fairy tale, you asked him for a kiss, in that soft voice he would do anything for, and the gentle touch of your lips against his made him pull you on top of him, sitting on your green sofa. You sighed happily, perched on his lap, enjoying his warmth, the firmness of his hands on your hips, the soothing rest of his chin on your head, and Changbin watched you drift off to sleep, your heart beating along with his, savouring the moment.

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#﹙ ★ ﹚ mars — writes. #stray kids x reader #skz x reader #stray kids imagines #stray kids scenarios #stray kids fluff #changbin x reader #changbin fluff

[sstan-hoe]

— 𝐵𝑒 𝑀𝑦 𝑉𝑎𝑙𝑒𝑛𝑡𝑖𝑛𝑒 —

𝑃𝑎𝑖𝑟𝑖𝑛𝑔 — modern!aemond targaryen × fem!reader

𝑆𝑢𝑚𝑚𝑎𝑟𝑦 — “i thought you’d at least ask me to be your valentine…” “we’ve been together for three years, i thought that was a given.”

𝑊𝑎𝑟𝑛𝑖𝑛𝑔𝑠 — once again pure fluff! also domestic aemond, you're welcome ;)

𝑁𝑜𝑡𝑒 — I really hope this is not too fast paced and you should follow, reblog and/or comment !! Also whoever find the Alicent × Rhaenyra reference...you're good have good eyes....

𝑉𝑎𝑙𝑒𝑛𝑡𝑖𝑛𝑒'𝑠 𝐷𝑎𝑦 𝐸𝑣𝑒𝑛𝑡

It was a quiet morning in your shared apartment with Aemond. You were still nuzzled up in the warm bed sheets while Aemond prepared breakfast.

As you slowly gained consciousness your head turned to the night stand which had a calendar on it. Today was marked with a red heart, it wasn't your anniversary but Valentine's Day. Your heart skipped a beat at the thoughts of what Aemond had probably planned.

The smell of fresh pancakes filled the apartment, and the Targaryen man swiftly worked around the kitchen.

It took Aemond weeks to plan the perfect Valentine’s day for you, it would start with breakfast in bed, then your favorite movie – Legally Blonde – followed by a living room picnic given it was raining heavily and at the end of the day a night filled with sex.

Aemond was proud of himself that he thought about this all by himself as he was not the biggest romantic.

Meanwhile you sneaked out of bed with the sheets wrapped around your body to keep the warmth.

There he stood, your boyfriend. His long white hair bound into a man bun, he wore no eye patch and he was also topless, giving you the opportunity to admire his abs.

Aemond took out the plates and while turning around to put them on the kitchen aisle he noticed you standing there. You looked at him with innocent eyes, then walked over to him.

He sat down and opened his arms to embrace you, “good morning,” you mumbled against his chest. “Good morning my love,...why did you not stay in bed mhm?” he questioned you in a soft tone.

“I wanted to be with you,” you returned, tightening your grip on his waist. The man gave a light chuckle. He loved your sleepy state, you were like a kitten. You wanted to cuddle all the time and were needy.

In one swift motion he picked you up in bridal style and walked you back to bed. Confused, you looked at him as he placed you on the smooth cushions.

“You stay here and I will bring breakfast to you,” he promised and kissed the crown of your head before leaving. If your eyes could, they would take on the shape of hearts. Sometimes you wondered how you deserved someone like Aemond.

Five minutes later your boyfriend came back with a tray, filled with two plates, pancakes, strawberries, whipped cream, two hot chocolates, cutlery and syrup. He placed the tray in front of you and then joined you, “it looks beautiful Aemond,” you praised him and kissed his cheek.

“Happy Valentine’s Day,” he said before cupping your cheek and pressing his lips to yours.

Smiling into the kiss you felt butterflies in your stomach. Aemond retreated back and took a strawberry from the glass bowl, dipped into whipped cream he held it up to your mouth. Gladly you took a bite from the strawberry.

“What else have you planned huh?” you grinned at him, “well we will watch a certain movie, then have a living room picnic before an eventful night of pure pleasure,” he said in a seductive voice against your neck, placing light kisses on your skin.

“Fifty Shades Of Grey?” you asked with wide eyes at the mention of a movie. Aemond looked at you bewildered, “what? No, Legally Blonde.”

Your face fell in embarrassment, “well then don’t say ‘certain’ like that!” you scolded him playfully and slapped his chest.

“Not my fault you have a dirty mind,” those words of Aemond Targaryen earned him another slap and a nose covered in whipped scream.

After breakfast Aemond didn’t even let you help him clean up, instead he told you to put on the movie. He came back and got back under the covers, lifting his arm to invite you in a cuddle session which you gladly accepted.

As the movie went on you couldn’t help but wonder when he was gonna ask you to be your Valentine.

After the movie ended Aemond instructed you to pick out a blanket for the picnic while he would get everything else. The task was rather easy it seemed but with how many blankets you had it became difficult to decide.

Meanwhile Aemond cut various kinds of fruits, took the champagne from the fridge and chocolate along with some pre-made sandwiches and glasses.

When he was finished and entered the living room he expected to find you there but it seemed you still hadn’t found a blanket. Shaking his head with a smile he sat everything down to help you with the decision, “need any help my love?” he teased you as he leaned against the doorframe.

“Nope, I got it,” you responded and looked between a green blanket and a black blanket, “green doesn’t fit…but black doesn’t either…maybe we could use both? Have them be together,” you thought out loud.

“Sounds good to me, love,” Aemond agreed and took the green blanket from you to walk to the living room with you following close behind.

You laid the blankets on the ground and then placed the food as well as the champagne and glasses on it. Aemond then sat down and held his hand to you to signal you to sit in his lap, “your throne my queen,” he jested, causing your cheeks to warm up and a giddy smile to graze your lips.

Together you enjoyed the picnic, after thirty minutes even the sun peeked through the gray clouds and shined through the floor to ceiling long windows.

You laid your head back against Aemond’s shoulder, enjoying the sun as it warmed your skin. It was already six in the afternoon as you cleaned up and the missing question clouded your mind once again.

“I thought you’d ask me to be your Valentine…,” you spoke your thoughts to Aemond who stopped what he was doing instantly.

He walked over to and gripped your waist to pull you against his broad chest, “we’ve been together for three years, I thought this was a given.” Tilting your head up you shook your head, “nope, it is a question to be taken seriously.”

Aemond rolled his eyes playfully, “would you do me the honor and be my Valentine?” He looked down at you with a teasing smirk.

You pretended to think hard, “well…, I don’t know…,” you played the game and were tickled in response, “Aemond,” you giggled. He stopped tickling you to capture your lips in a breathtaking kiss, it knocked all air from your lungs.

“Yes, I will be your Valentine,” you said breathlessly after Aemond pulled back. He grinned at you and nuzzled his nose into the crook of your neck.

“Very good choice my love,” he praised you, bucking his hips into you.

#aemond targaryen #aemond targaryen x you #aemond targaryen x reader #aemond targaryen x black reader #aemond targaryen x female reader #aemond targaryen fanfiction #aemond targaryen fic #aemond targaryen fluff #aemond targaryen valentine 💌

[steveharringtonat3am]

Steve Harrington x fem!reader

word count: 1.3k

It had been five years since you had been in Hawkins. Your parents had moved to be closer to your university, and there was nothing here that you needed to come back to.

Not anymore.

Your relationship with Steve had really gone through it. You first got together during senior year, right around the time he had gotten his ass kicked down a few pegs and turned into a really nice guy. It had started with tutoring sessions. But bonding over trigonometry in the library quickly fell into make out sessions in his bedroom. It was an incredible year.

He had begged you not to break up with him as you set off to university, swore you two could make it. He knew we could do it, he begged you. But you knew you couldn’t handle it. You wanted to get out of this town, away from the monsters that seemed to lurk in the shadows. You needed to cut every string.

You didn’t even have the courage to do it in person.

The cafe is as warm as you remember, soft lighting and comfy seating. You’re cold enough to order a warm drink and sit down to wait for it. Everything feels so similar and yet so different. They have Valentine’s decor up, reminding you that you’re alone this holiday.

You had a few flings throughout your years away. But they never lasted longer than a few months. You always managed to find a flaw, a standard that they weren’t living up to, any reason you could find to break off a relationship. You knew why you did it. Deep down, you had never really gotten over Steve. Pretending as if not thinking of him every night meant you had moved on.

You thank the serve with a polite smile as they set your drink down. Steam wafts from the mug and you’re so distracted you don’t notice the figure approaching your table.

“Hi.” The voice says, less static and sadness in it then the last time you heard it all those years ago. When your eyes lock, every feeling you had ever felt for him is right there again. You’re 17 again, giggling as he complains about calculus once again.

“Hey.” Is the only thing you can get out. He’s every bit as handsome as you remember, and age has only been kind to him.

“What are you doing back in town?” His voice holds no malice, which somehow stings worse. You wouldn’t have blamed him for being angry. But no anger means he’s over you. Maybe you had deluded yourself into thinking you could still be together after all these years.

“I got a job. It’s a little bit out of town but close enough so…I figured it would be nice to be back here. I got an apartment just down the street.” You search his face for a reaction carefully, but he doesn’t fold.

“I thought you wanted to get away from here.” The slight snark peaks through and you can’t help but feel relieved. You knew annoyed Steve. You could handle annoyed Steve. Indifferent Steve? That was a minefield.

“I was young and stupid. I didn’t know what I wanted.” You let him fill in the gaps on that one. But once again, he doesn’t reward you with a reaction.

When he pulls out a chair, sitting down opposite of you, you do everything in your power to keep a neutral expression. You can’t ruin this, not again.

“You seemed pretty sure back then.” He adjusts the coffee sleeve on his to go cup, refusing to meet your eyes. You can’t help but look away too. This was exactly what you tried to avoid all those years ago. But you weren’t a kid anymore.

“I’m sorry about that. I just…I couldn’t face you.”

“So that makes it okay? I thought we were happy.” The heat of uncomfortableness burns in your stomach. You didn’t have a good answer. You had made the decision years ago, and it had seemed sensible at the time. But loosing Steve hadn’t been worth it, you knew that now.

“We were happy. You made me happier then I have ever felt. But I didn’t know if we would survive long distance. And I didn’t wanna destroy what we had just because I wasn’t ready to let you-”

“I wanted to go with you.” He cuts you off. You can’t help but freeze, and he carries on.

“That’s what I meant when I said we could make it work. There was nothing for me here. I-I could have come with you. We would’ve been happy.”

“I couldn’t ask you to do that. Your whole life is here Steve.” Something in his beautiful brown eyes changes and it breaks your heart even more.

“You were my whole life. Don’t you get that? I loved you. I didn’t need to be anywhere else but with you. But you just left and forgot about me.” He sinks into his chair, like a weight has been lifted off his shoulders. Unfortunately, it landed right on your heart.

“I never forgot about you. Not even for a second. No one even came close to how much I loved you, Steve. I was just so afraid we would destroy our relationship while trying to make it work and I would lose you forever.” When he meets your eyes with that soft look of sympathy, the tiniest glimmer of hope burns at your heart.

“You could never lose me forever.” He reaches over the table to gently take your hand, squeezing it softly. You can’t hold back a smile. Steve had always been the sweetest, and it was reassuring to know he still was.

“Do you wanna get outta here?” You offer without thinking and he nods in response. You place some money next to your cold, untouched drink and follow Steve outside to the chilly February air.

“You remember that place?” He gestures to the little pizza place across the street. You smile fondly seeing it. It felt like forever ago you had been two kids arguing over the best toppings, sharing kisses that tasted faintly of tomato sauce.

“Yeah. Our first date. One that didn’t involve your math homework.” You smile at him and he returns a dorky grin.

“You’re pretty much the only reason I passed that class” His hand brushes yours, sending a jolt down your spine.

“I absolutely was! You were hopeless when I first started teaching you.” He gasps in mock-shock.

“I was not that bad.”

“You couldn’t do long division!”

“I missed that day!” You both laugh, leaning into each other as you smile fondly. You catch sight of the park and point it out excitedly.

“That’s where we had our picnic, remember?” You ask him, happiness washing over you when he nods.

“How could I forget? It was when we made our relationship official.” He slips his hand into yours and you intertwine your fingers without even thinking about it.

You walk mostly in silence for a while, taking in each other’s presence. There’s no rush. Not anymore. But eventually, you end up at the door of your apartment, not sure how to say goodbye.

“I really missed you.” He says quietly, a hushed whisper into the bubble we had created.

“I missed you too. More then you could ever know.” You can’t help but lean closer. Steve had always had this pull, something just irresistible about him that you could never quite put your finger on. Maybe it was the slope of his nose, the way his eyes sparkled when he laughed, the way his lips would press together when he was annoyed. Maybe it was just him.

“Trust me, I know.” When he presses his lips to yours, one thing rings in your head.

You’re home.

#steve harrington #steve harrington x reader #steve harrington x you #steve harrington x y/n #steve harrington fic #steve harrington fluff #steve harrington imagine #steve harrington fanfic #Steve Harrington fanfiction #Steve Harrington smut #Steve Harrington oneshot #Steve Harrington blurb #stranger things #stranger things fic

[strawberryspence]

happy valentines day, to my lovely people. i’m not going to tag each person, but you know who you are. no, you will literally know because i am going to send it on discord. you guys are my favorite tiny lil humans in my phone. i hope this makes sunsets/sunrises a little better. (im also hoping that it heals some of the pain the original sunset fic caused) ♥️

-

Steve Harrington has always loved the sky.

To Steve, there was something so captivating about it, something so bewitching. There’s no start, nor end to it. He has always been fascinated at how vast, and free it is. More than anything, Steve loves the way it changes colors with the season and weather. Sunsets and sunrises, and the things they signify. Some people hate the way it makes them feel smaller, like they could get lost underneath it, but Steve loves it. As long as he’s underneath the bright blue sky, he is safe.

At the early age of five, Steve’s first memory is of his mother, sitting beside him in the garden. If other kids learned their colors through flashcards and crayons, Steve learned his first colors through the skies. A sunset is where he learns his first hue of orange, and yellow, and blue. She was the one who taught him colors and it’s one of Steve’s favorite childhood memories.

At thirteen, the sky becomes Steve’s only friend. His parents started leaving more often now, saying something about how he’s old enough for it. Steve loves it some days, hates it some days. Today, he loves it as he floats aimlessly around the pool. No one’s going to scold him that his skin has started to wrinkle, or that he’s wasting his time watching the clouds change into different shapes. Being under the big sky is a reassurance— that he may be alone in this big, dark house, but he’s at least not alone in this world.

At seventeen, Steve finds comfort in the night sky. He finds it as the moon watches over him and as the stars sparkle and dance against the dark. It’s the first time he’s ever loved someone and the first time he has gotten his heart broken. He doesn’t cry, because “Harrington’s don’t cry.” He’s never alone though. It’s always going to be him and the big vast sky. There’s more horror in the world, like 12 year olds that get experimented in labs, a girl getting pulled in his pool and to her death and monsters living under the ground he is laying on. But the big dark sky stares from above him and Steve feels a little better in the uncertainty. He’s being wrapped within its darkness, almost like a comforting hug from an old friend who understands.

At eighteen, Steve meets his soulmate. Not the sky, but Robin Buckley. The half of his soul, a friendship forged from scooping ice creams and drugs injected into their veins. Robin— Robin is the rain after a long drought, giving him another reason to live and fight. The mall burns down and there’s— there’s so much death and he wishes he could’ve done something more. Two nights after the fire, unable to sleep, Steve asks if Robin would lay beside him on the ground. They lay in silence as the stars wave their goodbye, and as the sun greets him hello, signifying a new day, a new beginning. Underneath that new brand new day, Steve and Robin finally fall asleep, secure under the sun and clouds and safe in each other's arms.

At nineteen, Steve meets Eddie Munson. Really meets him, while the world is ending. It’s the night after they come back from the upside down, Steve's sides are aching and they’ll probably go back to the upside down tomorrow. Nancy has a plan, because she always does and he wants to take a nap, or eat something, but he can’t. He’s paralyzed in the uncertainty and danger around them. He sits at the back of the trailer, away from people that could see him, and that's where Eddie finds him.

“I can’t believe you guys have been doing this for years.” Eddie says, disbelief apparent in his voice.

Steve shrugs, “I don’t either. They’re—“ He pauses, thinks about El who’s only 15 and has the weight of the world on her shoulders, thinks of Will who’s been through hell and death, thinks of Max who’s still grieving her dead brother only for it to be used to lure her into death.

He thinks of the kids, the kids who're all barely 15 fighting this entity, “They’re all too young for this.” He finishes.

Eddie stares at him and Steve doesn't like it at all. It feels like he’s being studied, feels naked under Eddie’s eyes. Like Eddie can see through him, see the broken pieces Steve has glued together for all of them.

“You’re young too.” Eddie answers back, gently kindly, “You, Robin, Nancy, even me.”

Steve shrugs, even though he knows it's true, “I guess. I just want this to end already.”

Eddie looks away, staring at the skies as it finally starts changing its hues, “Maybe after this we can all go on a trip.”

Steve hums, “Definitely. Maybe a beach. El’s never been to one.”

Eddie chuckles, a smile on his lips as he looks forward. They watch the sky change its hues, a new day rising right in front of them.

“I don't really like sunsets.” Steve turns to him, offended and ready to defend his oldest companion.

But Eddie continues, “I’ve always liked the sunrises more, you know? Sunsets are— endings and though they are beautiful endings, nothing beats a new beginning, a new slate.”

Steve stares at him, watching silently as Eddie smokes. Steve knows the sun is rising, and he’s never been one to miss it when it’s right in front of him. But there’s something about the way the sunlight is hitting Eddie’s face, the colors dancing on his skin and the colors illuminating his brown eyes, making it brighter.

It's lighting him up in ways Steve has never seen before and something awakens in him, his heart beating against his ribs like it wants to break free. It’s breathtaking, Eddie’s breathtaking and it makes him feel things he’s never felt before.

When the silence grows heavy, Eddie breaks it, “Plus I really like it when the darkness turns brighter.”

It’s the first time Steve has ever ignored the sky and with Eddie here, he knows it won’t be the last.

At nineteen, Steve learns that the sky could also be red. He doesn’t remember much, just Dustin crying over Eddie’s body as the red sky above him thunders on, menacing and cackling at their demise. They killed Vecna and the victory is so close— so close.

It’s hard to look up at the sky then, when they finally emerge from hell while he cradles Eddie’s body. Steve thinks that no clear blue sky, or no dark starry night, can ever give him comfort again, not until he finally knows that Eddie’s safe.

At twenty, three months after defeating Vecna. Steve is on some beach with his friends— his family and they’ve survived. There’s no more danger impending to happen, all gates burned and closed forever.

Steve has just turned twenty, and he has real friends. He sits there, sand against his toes, as he watches the kids play around the water under the golden glint of the sun. They finally have their chance to enjoy being a kid.

“Is this what you wanted?” Steve looks up. Eddie’s hovering above him, with a can of Pepsi in his hand.

He hands Steve a can and plops down beside him on the beach towel. Eddie’s shirtless and yes, Steve’s ogling him but there’s also a clench in his heart as he tracks the taut skin, and pink scars surrounding his whole body.

It’s okay.

It’s okay.

Because they’re all alive, and safe, and the scars are there to be reminders of what they’ve survived. Whatever the horizon offers them, it’ll be okay.

Steve smiles at him, opening the soda in his hand with a hiss.

He stares at Eddie, holding out his can to clink it against his can, “It’s exactly what I wanted.”

At twenty-two, Steve moves to Boston with Eddie, Robin and Nancy. It’s a weird group. It’s his soulmate and her girlfriend, who was also his ex-girlfriend. On top of that, there’s Eddie. Eddie’s his best friend, but also the same man he’s been pining over for three years.

But they’re Steve’s family (aside from the kids) and he’d go anywhere if Robin asks. It’s the happiest Steve’s been in years, and he wouldn’t do anything like confessing to ruin the dynamic they’ve created.

Steve spends most of his days with Eddie, laid on their backs as they watch the clouds. Eddie makes him coffee in the early mornings, Steve never really understood why he’s awake to watch the sunset with him, but he’s there even if he hates waking up early. At night, Eddie watches as Steve outlines the stars for him with his finger, not knowing that Steve would climb the damn moon and take it in his back pocket for him.

It’s a conversation they’ve always avoided, whatever this thing Eddie and Steve had, the endless dance they do around each other.

Eddie’s almost death has always been hard for the three of them. There’s this overwhelming thought that— somewhere out there, somewhere far away— is a universe where Steve was too late, that Eddie died, that all he has is the tint of orange in the sky. A universe where Steve didn’t know that Eddie likes his coffee sweet, but doesn’t like ordering it because it doesn’t fit his image, where Steve didn’t know that Eddie snorts in his sleep and likes to wear socks under the sheets. A universe where the only thing Steve knows is the what ifs, the what could’ve beens.

It all comes out one day. The anniversaries have always been harder, not only were they far away from the kids, but the Vecna spring anniversary always hits them the hardest. It’s also Eddie and Max’s almost death anniversary, to make it worse. Robin plans it all out for them, they all call in sick that day, skip classes, just stay inside all day. Just watch movies, eat snacks, and stay wrapped in comfortable blankets. The four of them fall asleep in the middle of their fourth movie of the day, all tangled together and it’s days like this that makes it harder to ignore the fact that the four of them— are four halves from the same whole.

When Steve wakes up, Eddie’s not beside him anymore, Nancy and Robin still sleeping peacefully on the other side of the couch. The digital clock— they all can’t stand the silent tick tocking of a clock, reminds them too much of a grandfather clock, no matter how big or small— blinks at him, it’s almost 5:21 in the afternoon.

Steve knows it’s almost time for the sun to set, he charts it every weekend so he can take a few minutes to watch the sun wave her goodbyes. Steve swings the blanket on his shoulders and heads out to the balcony.

It’s not a surprise to see Eddie already there, watching the sky start to change colors, the sun impending to set in a few more minutes.

“Hey.” Steve slumps beside him, extending the blanket over to Eddie’s shoulder.

Eddie snuggles closer to him, “Thank you.”

“You doing good?” Steve asks, not able to take his eyes off Eddie.

“Yeah. Just—“ Eddie sighs, “Today is hard. I talked to Wayne.”

“What did he say?”

Eddie shrugs, “All the sappy stuff. He was thankful that I am alive and here. That he loves me.” There’s a hitch in his voice when he says it, that makes Steve’s eyebrows furrow.

“Wayne’s right. You do know that, right?”

Eddie turns to him, his legs hugged closer to his chest and head leaning against his knees, “Is he though?”

Steve opens his mouth to say something when the words spring out of Eddie, “It’s been three years since I let Chrissy die and ran away from her dead body like a coward. She could be the one who’s living this life, alive and happy. I could’ve tried.”

Eddie lets his eyes flutter shut, and for a second he looks so fucking peaceful, “Sometimes when I remember her dying in front of me, I try to think of something else. Anything else. My mind brings me to different places. Chrissy where she gets to graduate. She wears this pink dress, with her blue eyeshadow. She’s happy.

Chrissy where she gets to go to Paris. She looks like the kind of girl that would want to visit Europe. She’s wearing a beret, with the brightest smile on her face. Chrissy where we get to be friends. She’s always been kind, maybe she could’ve lived with us, maybe she could’ve been my own platonic with a capital P.”

Eddie opens his eyes, brown eyes shining with tears, “And then I open my eyes. And I remember that she’s gone. And I am here. Why do I get to live and not her? She deserves it more than I would ever.”

“Eddie.” Steve hisses, “Don’t ever say that.”

Eddie blinks at him, tears rolling down his face. Steve swipes it off his face, in the gentlest matter, “You’re here because you are here. Chrissy deserved better, yes, but she’s gone. We couldn't have done anything about it. The life you have right now? You deserve it, Eddie. It’s always been meant to be yours. There’s nothing you could’ve done to help her.”

Steve cups his jaw, thumb softly drawing circles on his cheek, “If you really think she could’ve been your platonic soulmate, then she would want you to live your life. She would hate you for saying all this.”

Eddie chokes up even more, his voice shaky when he finally speaks, “Thank you for saving me that day, Stevie.”

He smiles, a lump burning against his throat, “Best decision I’ve ever made.”

Eddie stares at him for a few seconds, brown eyes staring intently at him. There’s a spark in his eyes that could rival the brightest stars, “I am in love with you, Steve Harrington.”

And right there, as Steve watches Eddie, the colors dance behind the love of his life, Steve says it back.

“I am also, insanely, in love with you, Eddie Munson.”

Eddie beams at him, moving closer to capture his lips into his. And if Steve had to describe the kiss, he would say that it’s exactly how he feels when the sun rises in the morning. It’s the feeling when the first hue of orange paints the sky. The feeling when the sun greets him once again. It’s a promise of new beginnings, captured with so much tenderness and adoration.

It’s comfort and skies and softness. It’s Eddie Munson.

When they pull away, Eddie moves closer, resting his head on Steve’s shoulder as they turn to the sky, waiting for it to change. Steve has watched maybe hundreds, maybe thousands of sunsets in his life. Together they watch as the day of the anniversary ends, with what Steve could only call the most beautiful sunset he’s ever seen in his life. Just before the darkness, it breaks into the most beautiful hue of pink.

Eddie starts shaking against him, a hand flying to block a gasp that comes out of him. Steve fights the smile forming on his face, his own eyes filled with tears.

“Hi, Chrissy.” Eddie whispers. Steve kisses the top of Eddie’s head to comfort him.

It’s a beautiful ending.

At twenty-six, Steve graduates with a Bachelor of Science, majoring in Atmospheric Science.

Steve never avoids the sky. He studies it now, and writes the weather news for a big Boston channel. He stops to point out random objects in the sky, and has a telescope set up for constellations. He drinks a hot cup of coffee every morning, watching as the sun rises.

Eddie is always with him in every endeavor. He works as a music teacher in the middle school near their home. On the weekends, Eddie plays in a bar, singing his own songs and playing his Sweetheart. He makes Steve a cup of coffee every morning, watching as the sun rises.

Steve lays in the grass with Dustin and Suzie’s son and teaches him how to cloud watch. Eddie will then pester them, and try to teach the kid D&D. Steve takes time to send reminders to Max and Lucas to wear a raincoat if he sees that it’s going to rain in California. Eddie will slip an umbrella on his satchel when Steve forgets, because he could only think of Max and Lucas and the other kids.

Steve talks to Will and Mike for hours, just trying to describe to them a weather phenomenon so Will could draw it and Mike could write it for their latest best-selling comics. Eddie teases Mike for it. It annoys Mike so bad that he slams the phone. They laugh so hard, their ribs ache. Steve knits El a gorgeous sky blue scarf, because he knows how cold it gets in New York. Eddie gets her a matching hat for it.

Wayne calls them, every other day, to ask how the weather is in Boston and Steve asks how the weather is in Indiana. Eddie will talk his ear off. They have Thanksgivings together, year after year, thankful for the life they were given.

Steve and Eddie spend a few summers in the guest room of the farm house Joyce and Hop bought in 1986. Steve stays and writes about the stars and the planets because the skies are so much clearer in rural places. Eddie stays and writes tunes and rhymes, sings and records it in the empty barn on the back.

They still live with Robin and Nancy, but they’ve moved to a bigger house now. Steve has his own equipment for sky watching in the backyard and Eddie surprised him with a sunroof in his office. They have a dog named Hetfield and a cat named Sabbath.

And more than anything, Steve loves sunrises. He wakes up early for it everyday. He’ll set the alarm early, wake up, tell Eddie that he doesn’t need to wake up with him. The next morning, Steve will always find the kettle hot, and a hot coffee waiting for him as his husband wraps an arm around his waist, face smushed on his neck.

They wait for the sky to turn from darkness and brightness and smile when the sun waves at them with hues of colors— different everyday.

It’s a hello, a how are you, a comfortable hug.

It’s a reminder of new chances and new opportunities.

And as long as Steve Harrington is in Eddie Munson’s arms, everyday is a new beginning.

→ the original angstier sunset fic and it’s siblings <3

#the way i teared up over this #this is my heart #in writing #steve and eddie living their happily ever after #damn #steddie #daeheadcanons #dae writes #steve harrington x eddie munson #steddie headcanon #steddie fanfic #steddie ficlet #steddie hc #steddie fic

[sailorshadzter]

@jonsa-valentine "Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same.” Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights The air is crisp and warm, the sunlight streaming down through the clouds that lazily roll on by, the blue sky the best of backdrops.  They have come a long way, he thinks, from days of war and cold, of days of pain and suffering, of loss and death… Now, he cannot recall the last loss they endured, save for good old Agatha that they’d lost a few years after the war had finally ended for good. It was a lucky thing, a wonderful thing, to live in a world such as theirs, a world in which he truly thought might never come to be.

Laughter interrupts his thoughts and he inclines his head, looking down over the battlement, catching sight of the children in the courtyard at play. Two young boys, with heads of dark curls, though one has a touch of red when the sunlight catches it in the right way, laugh and wrestle in the fresh mud, which will certainly have their mother aghast when she finds out. Across the way, their keeper, the ever faithful Brienne, watches helplessly, shaking her head as the golden haired man at her side chuckles fondly. “Get him, Robb!” Another voice calls out over the laughter and he turns his gaze elsewhere, to see the tawny haired boy of a few years older, not his son by blood, but his ward and adopted son Samwell, cheering on the older of the two boys wrestling. It wouldn’t be long, he knows, before that same boy would be joining into the fray. 

He sighs, shaking his head as a grin curves on his lips, the sight of his two sons playing reminding him of his own days of youth, long gone now, but certainly not forgotten. Once upon a time he and another boy named Robb would have wrestled in that very same courtyard, dirtying their clothes and upsetting the Lady of Winterfell. Those days, so many years ago now, still sometimes feel like yesterday, when he really thinks about it. 

“They’re at it again, aren’t they?” The voice breaks into his thoughts and he turns back, surprised to see the young woman approaching him where he stands. “I thought you were resting,” he admonishes as she comes closer, hand to her swollen abdomen, her face tired but her smile gleaming. She slides into place beside him, leaning on the battlements edge to look over, watching the boys at play, sighing heavily when she takes note of their muddied clothes and disheveled hair. 

“I was, but I knew they were up to something.” Call it a mother’s intuition, but she had felt it in her bones that her beloved boys were causing a ruckus of some kind- and certainly, the muddy footprints in the great hall were proof of that. “Besides, I will have plenty of time to rest in a few days time,” considering her time was near, she knew it would not be long before she would be propped up in her bed with a newborn to snuggle. She turns his way as his hand slides into place over her belly, the child within her kicking at the touch, as if the babe knew their father was near. “She is eager to meet her father,” Sansa says with a smile, having been referring to the child as a girl for the last few months. Jon knows better than to argue, she’d been right about both boys, after all. 

“And her father is eager to meet her,” he replies back, leaning in so he can press a kiss to her lips. Her hand slides over his, still pressed to her belly, and she feels the overwhelming sense of love she always feels in moments such as this one. To think that just five years before, they had been locked into a war, fighting with dragons and lions and the undead, uncertain if they would live to see these summer days come to pass. The days of cold and unrelenting winter were over and their children would hopefully never know the pain that she and Jon had known in the years leading up to their births. 

This new life of theirs was full of everything she had ever wanted in life as a child- love and happiness. Jon provided for her in every way a man could, giving her love, giving her children, giving her safety and warmth. “I’ve lost you…” he murmurs, his voice close to her ear and she jumps, returning from the confines of her mind and back to the present. 

“I was only thinking… How very lucky I am…” She says softly, tilting her head, blue eyes finding his Stark gray, eyes she sees in their oldest son each and every day. “Back then… I never thought we would have these moments… Have this life.” Jon grips her hand and he’s sober, for was he not just thinking those very same thoughts? 

“I am the lucky one, sweetheart,” he insists, thinking to himself how there could be no man in the world as lucky as he was…. He had a beautiful wife, a woman who brought him love and made his home, well, home. A woman who gave him wonderful sons, who was about to birth him a third child. A woman who loved him beyond words, beyond measure, a woman who had been at his side for more years than he could count now. His life had never been complete until she returned to it, until he had her to protect, to love, to hold. 

They both hear it then, the laughter faded to shouts, angry boys replacing their once happy ones. As usual, some disagreement as occurred, as it so often does in a household of rowdy, young sons.“Come, let us get our boys before they tear down the castle,” Jon sighs and she laughs, allowing him to lead her by the hand back inside, to where they will take to the stairs and down to the main floor, where they will find their boys and calm the tears and curb the anger. 

Jon can’t help but to feel happier than he’s ever felt before- this was where he was always meant to be. Despite how long the road was, it was worth every moment, every battle, every tear, that it took to get here. He wouldn’t trade this life of theirs for anything or anyone. 

It was theirs and it was perfect.

#jonsa valentine 2024 #jonsa valentine #jonsa #actuallyjonsa #jon x sansa #jonsa family #my writing #i wrote this #in case its unclear this is for storge lol

[redfurrycat]

🤠💘🐓Valentine's Day Fic Recs🐓💘🤠

Check the Top Gun Masterlist post for the latest updated version. 💕

Ao3 Authors: Abliafina, Chocabel, Cristinuke, Crowstakeflight, Dumbpilots, Emseebeans, Foxesareprettycute, JuliaBloodyMeow, LadyLanera, Lightwoodsisabelle, Ok_thanks, Sceld, Starryinspace, Xo_em.

> Christmassy "Ho-Ho-Ho" Fics {🤠🐓} > Fake/Pretend Relationship {🤠🐓} > Marriage Fic Recs {🤠🐓} > Childhood Friends-Sweethearts {🤠🐓} > Getting Back Together (Part One & Part Two) {🤠🐓}

On This Day, This Accursed Day by Sceld {T}

“Bradshaw,” Jake says with a grin. Rooster groans. “As I live and breathe.” “Hangman,” Rooster replies loftily, “You look…” He pauses for a second too long as his eyes stall on Jake’s shirt. “My eyes are up here, Rooster,” Jake teases, grateful the way his heart is pounding doesn’t transfer to his voice.

Valentine's Surprise by LadyLanera {T}

Hangman and Rooster are preparing for the birth of their first child while navigating life post-Navy and all the ups and downs that have occurred in their family since October 2019. They have lots of time, though. . . or not.

Sunshine & Roses by abliafina {T}

“How often do you get to be creative Bradley?” Jake asked. “Look, I love your designs, I wouldn’t be here otherwise, but they’re not me.” Bradley crossed his arms, an intrigued look on his face. “You saying you’re giving me free hands?” “Sure am.” Jake made sure to sound confident, but on the inside, his heart beat as if he’d just finished a marathon, “I trust you.”

More Kisses Than Hershey's by Cristinuke {E}

Jake decides to gift Bradley a special Valentine's Day present, because he's nothing but selfless.

Best Laid Plans by emseebeans {E}

Jake has always viewed Valentine’s Day as an important day to celebrate. Bradley thinks it’s a fake, over-commercialized holiday. For their first Valentine’s Day as a couple, Jake sets out to show Bradley he’s wrong, but unfortunately for Jake, best laid plans sometimes have a sneaky tendency to go awry.

Valentine's Day at the Bradshaw-Seresin's by JuliaBloodyMeow {T}

Before he even opens his eyes, Bradley’s brain is rushing with the list of all the things he has to do today...

Can we lay down, lay down together? by xo_em {T}

Bradley (accidentally) hires a professional cuddler for (on) Valentine’s Day.

give you all the love I can by lightwoodsisabelle {M}

This was their first Valentine’s Day together in the three years that they had been dating.

stupid cupid by ok_thanks {M}

“You are the most extra person I know,” Reuben challenges Jake. “How are you not all over this?” aka the one where bradley and jake somehow haven't officially celebrated valentine's day together after 5 years

blooming. by foxesareprettycute {G}

Valentine’s Day has always been a frustrating time for Bradley. This year, that frustration gets to the best of him and he snaps at Jake. Jake, of course, is not happy.

I was enchanted to meet you (please don't be in love with someone else) by starryinspace {G}

“Your date bailed? On Valentine's Day?” Jake flashes Bradley a toothy grin but there’s no warmth behind it. “Broke up with me, actually. Five minutes ago.” “Shit.” Or jake gets dumped on valentine's day & bradley comes to the rescue.

Private Traps by Sceld {T}

Jake’s cheek leans against his elbow where it rests on the window ledge, staring at the world passing by in a blur of colour. His fingers tap absently on the door of the car as the shit radio plays some shit track that Bradley hums along to. His feet are up on the dashboard, tracking mud onto the clean surface that had been so taken care of until he ruined it. He’s making quite a name for himself, doing that now. “Where are we going to go first?” Bradley asks, as the song ends and there’s a couple moments of silence before the next begins. He’s still smiling faintly, the adrenaline and giddiness of rebellion keeping him going. Jake envies him. He’s just been feeling hollow for the past day.  or; It's the 1980s, and teenage Jake and Bradley have a Valentine's Day date after a rash decision.

Home In Time by crowstakeflight {G}

The day started out like any other day while Bradley's deployed, but then Jake gets a surprise.

lift me up (but don't get stuck!) by dumbpilots {T}

It's Valentine's Day and Bradley's in a rush. It's a shame he gets trapped in the elevator with the building’s newest (and hottest) tenant.

And just like that (my world turns upside down) by Chocabel {G}

Accepting a dare to pull a date for Valentine's day is one thing. Getting through said date unscathed is a whole other beast. What could go wrong? Or the one time when there is only one table and Bradley gets more than he bargained for. Maybe Jake does, too.

#Valentine's Day Recs List #hangster #sereshaw #hangaroo #bradley rooster bradshaw x jake hangman seresin #bradley rooster bradshaw #jake hangman seresin #homemade collage #🐈red🐈furry🐈cat🐈tag🐈 #Note==>This one starts the Valentine's Day period and will be followed by several love-making-focused lists. 😉With much love for y'all <3

[taminoarticles]

— Tamino for Hercules Universal, Spring/Summer 2019 (x)

Instant radiation

Photography Daniel Riera Fashion editor Brais Vialasó Tamino in conversation with Miguel Figueroa

Troubled loves, codependency, confessions, toxic relationships and the universal freedom that comes from admitting your repressed emotions and feelings are some of the most beautifully painstaking prevalent themes in Tamino’s repertoire. The 22-year-old Belgian-Egyptian songwriter music [sic] flowing in his blood - his grandfather was a well known musician in Egypt and from and [sic] early age his mother introduced him to the world of sound. Out of all the days of the year, Tamino and I chatted on Valentine’s Day. At the end of the day, love is what it’s all about.

MIGUEL: Many songwriters say their work is mostly autobiographical and it is a way for listeners to get to know their personal life. While others imagine stories or take from their friends or stranger’s experiences. Where do your songs stand in all of this?

TAMINO: Songwriting for me comes way easier when I have lived a little. And with that I mean real life. Being on a bus or plane all the time isn’t inspiring. Touring for me is routine work and has nothing to do with being creative. That being said, I don’t necessarily have to feel fully inspired to write songs. I love to start working on something even if I don’t feel like it. But in order to do that properly I need privacy, space, and preferably something to say.

M: Who were your first musical influences? Do you feel blessed to have a musical background through your grandfather? If you could talk to him now, what would you like to hear from him?

T: When I was a kid I was singing along to everything I heard around me. Mainly being: my mom’s record collection. She has such a varied taste that I think it has definitely been of big influence on how I perceive music. I just want something to touch me. I don’t care which genre it is or what the backstory is. If it touches me, I will probably love it. Of course we listened to my grandfather’s music (amongst other Arabic music) as well and that was very inspiring too. Unfortunately he passed away when I was five years old so I didn’t get the chance to know him very well, but I’m very happy to have his records and to be able to hear his beautiful voice and his extraordinary performances.

M: Do you remember the first concert you attended? The first CD/Album you purchased?

T: First concert: Children’s version of Mozart’s opera: ‘The Magic Flute’ (Where my mom got my name from when she was pregnant with me). First album: Lord Of The Rings Soundtrack for sure.

M: I don’t know if you know this but Thom Yorke was 25 when Radiohead released Pablo Honey, Lauryn Hill was 23 when [sic] and Alanis Morissette was 21 when their records, The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill and Jagged Little Pill came out. These were all extremely personal works. How does it feel to have such acclaim so quickly in your career? Do you feel some sort of pressure or are you just taking it day by day?

T: Sometimes I get the feeling that one is expected to be some sort of machine when practicing this profession. That’s as far as pressure from outside goes for me I guess. Creatively I don’t feel obliged to do anything and the only pressure I feel there is from within me. A big pressure though, because I can be quite the control freak.

M: Men are notorious for not sharing their emotions. Would you consider yourself a healing voice for men and people in general to be able to tap into these dark emotions of troubled loves, co-dependency, toxic relationships and deep introspection as a way to find solace and peace?

T: I don’t consider myself anything but a creator/performer. Each has their own reason to listen to my work. Music can of course be healing. I think some of the main reasons people listen to music are: for healing, to hear their pain reflected in someone else’s pain, for dancing, for celebrating, for company, etc. Music is a sacred thing and I feel small next to it. So I wouldn’t dare say I’m the cause of healing. The music is, and I’m merely a vessel trying to get it across.

M: What brings you joy?

T: Music, love, and silence.

M: How do you like not only being the darling of the music scene but also the fashion world? Do you think it balances you from the depth of you [sic] music career?

T: [Laughs] I’m very flattered by your question. I love fashion and am very happy to get to know its world a little better too. Clothing for me is another way of expressing myself. I see it as an extension of my work and being. I like to dress according to how I’m feeling and dressing wup will also help me to get into the right mindset for a day of writing songs or a concert. I’ve never seen fashion as a counter-balance for my career in music. I’ve honestly never thought about doing fashion shoots or being linked to amazing fashion houses I love before I got asked for those things. They’re great experiences and I’m very grateful for them. Doing a photo shoot is something entirely different than doing music but still the best way to balance out my musical activities is being at home with loved ones and a good book to read.

M: What is honesty for you?

T: The preserving of the self.

#tamino #tamino amir #hercules universal #article #interview #english #2019 #with photoshoot #original text #this photoshoot is one of my favourites ever #the typos irked me though

[farfromstrange]

Foreigner's God | m.m

Pairing: Matt Murdock x avenger!OFC

Chapter Forty-Two: I'll Get The Coffee

previous chapter ° series masterlist

Summary: Everything is looking up for Matt and Eliza, finally, and being in love can be truly beautiful.

Warnings: SMUT 18+, unprotected sex (wrap it b4 you tap it), oral m!receiving, voice kink (?), fluff, this is so fucking soft, like this is just domesticity at its finest, and these two finally being happy.

a/n: HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY! Or as I like to call it, "Single's awareness day" because we are made aware of how painfully single we are everywhere we go <3 I wrote this with the original storyline in mind but then I went like, 'Wait a minute, I think these two deserve a break' and then this came out and I feel like I did it wonderfully. One of the best descriptive chapters I have written in my opinion (at parts, at least). I hope you can forgive me for this small break in the plotline.

The name she chose when she joined SHIELD came from a variety Nick Fury had laid out for her. With the title came a series of key points that would shape her identity. She chose her name with those traits in mind and landed on the most appealing one. She had always been rather proud of her name because it was the only thing in her life she could control, but that excitement eased after finding out she was born with the name Alina and that the name and identity she chose were just an alias to survive. Someone to exist in the eyes of the state so she could live like any other US citizen and not be locked away for it. 

When she first came to SHIELD and she was pardoned by the court while also receiving immunity for her crimes if she stayed true to the conditions she agreed to, the name she was given had felt like a blessing. Now, it filled her with dread. 

When Tony Stark stepped out of the back door of Clinton Church where the cemetery lay beyond and he said, “Eliza,” she cringed at the mere sound of her name. 

The gravestone wasn’t too fancy. It displayed his name, his date of birth, and the date he died. There was no quote, no ‘beloved father’ engraved underneath the most crucial information. He was simply Anton Sokovich-Petrova who was born in March and died in late June of 2016. He blew up an ancient terrorist organization and prevented an even worse fate from meeting his daughter, but that would have looked poorly on a gravestone.

All that was left for him was the boring gray stone that had been glazed over. A place for his daughter to stand at, leave flowers, and do all of the sentimental stuff people do at the graves of loved ones. She doubted she would; she hated the way it made her feel, how the pain caused her throat to tighten, and it made her angry too. She was angry at how everything turned out, and she was angry that her father died. Her parents were both dead and she didn’t have any extended family. She was all alone when it came to blood relations and the knowledge that she hadn’t been able to say goodbye to any of them made her already broken heart into liquid acid. 

Eliza, that was her name, but at that moment she wasn’t the woman SHIELD made out of her. At that moment, she was the five-year-old daughter of Anton whose name wasn’t Eliza Bennett, it was Alina and she was standing with her father at the grave of her late mother, leaving lilies on the already grown-over earth as if it meant anything. Somewhere in the back of her mind, the memory crawled its way forward and nestled into her frontal cortex.

The hand that was in hers squeezed lightly, reminding her that someone behind her was waiting for a reaction. She looked up at the sky, cloudier than usual, blinking away the hot tears that she had already cried too many of. 

“Do you want me to tell him to leave?” Matt’s voice sounded in her ear, a gentle echo that scratched an itch in her brain. 

She squeezed his hand back, though she felt more like an emotionless robot that wasn’t in control of herself. 

“You don’t have to do this, you know? You don’t owe him anything.”

“You’re right, I don’t,” Eliza said, her eyes still directed forward and her face white as a sheet, “but I want to.”

He nodded. “I’ll leave you to it then.”

Using his cane to tap his way over the grass, Matt made his way over to where he could hear Foggy’s distinctive voice as he talked to Happy. They were talking about football, from the sound of it. There was a new game on Sunday and they were both engaged in how it would turn out. At some point, he could hear, they even made a brotherly bet on who was going to win the game. It was a terrible topic to discuss at a cemetery after someone had just been laid to rest, but Matt figured that it was better not to dwell too much on what happened than to let Father Lantom’s service drag their moods down.

Tony approached the young woman at the grave. 

“Where does that leave us?” she asked. 

He replied, “What?”

“You coming here. Where does that leave us? You didn’t answer any of my messages. You ghosted me after writing a heartfelt letter and now you came to my father’s funeral as if it’s the most natural thing to do after not speaking to anyone for weeks,” she said. “Where does that leave us, Tony?”

He was not a man of many words or actions, but when he spoke, he knew how to use the little number of words that came out. Although this time, nothing seemed to suffice. He wanted to comfort her but he didn’t know how. 

“I told you that I now understand why you did what you did and that I am open to talking about what happened. You didn’t respond. I don’t know what that means, so I’m asking you: what did your apology mean if it meant anything at all?”

Tony nodded curtly. He turned his head toward the sky as well, taking a deep breath that developed into a sigh. “I feel guilty,” he finally spoke, “for what I did, and I’m sorry. I’m sorry for what I said, what I did, and how I behaved like an asshole,” he said. “I know I don’t deserve your forgiveness, I said as much in my letter, but you’re willing to offer it to me anyway. I didn’t know how to react, so I shut down. I drowned in my guilt and shame to the point no one could help me anymore. I realized I fucked up and that most of what happened are on me and that is something… Your getting hurt is something that I can never forgive myself for. The protection charade was complete and utter bullshit and I'm... well, I'm fucking sorry, that's what the letter meant, and I still am, possibly even more than before.”

“What changed?” Eliza asked. She held her jacket closed by crossing her arms in front of her chest. “Why did you choose to come here today?”

“Your invitation to your father’s funeral opened my eyes. He died for a reason and I… I don’t want you to hate me anymore. I want to make things right. I don’t know if you can find it in yourself to give me that chance, and it would be okay if you didn’t, but if you did, I promise you I won’t ever lie to you again. Not even about what’s in your dinner.”

She chuckled weakly. “That’s all I needed to hear… weeks ago. Now it’s just cold air.”

“Eliza, please, I don’t apologize often, but I am sorry. Let me prove it to you. Come to work for me again, let me show you that I meant what I wrote in that letter. Let me just let my actions speak for myself the same way my actions fucked everything up."

Life’s too short to hold grudges. And he had always been like a father to her before, and a great mentor at that. She could learn so much from him. She needed to learn forgiveness, which also happened to be on her sobriety list of steps, and she swore she would do them all. She forgave him, but something was lacking, something crucial that wouldn’t reappear overnight. 

Eliza cleared her throat. She tore her eyes away from the sky and turned to him, finally, looking into his eyes. “You need to earn my trust,” she told him. “I forgive you, Tony, but my trust… that is something I can’t just give back to you. You need to prove that you truly meant what you said so I can fully trust you again, and only then we can move on from this.”

“Okay, I can- I can do that." He didn't smile, he gave her a curt nod. It was a language they both spoke well - not knowing what to say.  

“One more condition: I won’t come back to work for Stark Industries. I’ve got a job right here.” She nodded toward Matt and Foggy. “I’m not giving that up. I'm happy where I am, and I don't want to throw that away just for money."

“Deal. What else?”

“There is nothing else. The rest is on you. In return, I’ll do the same for you. But it’s going to take time.”

“Lucky for us,” said Tony, “we have all the time in the world. There's nothing that stands in our way now, right? You did your best and you did better than I ever fucking could.”

"You're right, I did great. You didn't. Do you see now that I am not a child anymore?"

"I've seen it for a long time, I was just afraid to admit it."

She hummed, "Figured that much."

"So, do we have a deal?"

She took the hand he offered her, shaking it briefly. Their eyes stayed locked on each other; it appeared as if they were fighting for dominance, and the pressure of the handshake told the same story. In the end, Eliza won. He was the first to turn away from the contact and she smirked, wiping her hand on her dress. 

He cleared his throat once more. “This is getting weird,” he must have read her mind, “So I’m just gonna turn around and go. That’s- yeah, I should probably do that.”

“It’s for the best,” she said. 

“Definitely. Good talk, kid.”

She watched him step away and toward Happy’s car. Foggy and Matt didn’t say a word to him, and she couldn’t blame them. After everything, they had their reservations about the genius billionaire philanthropist playboy. It was only natural, a defense mechanism to make sure he wouldn’t come near them again. In this case, they wanted to make sure Tony knew that if he touched Eliza again, he would face a whole different orchestra of music. 

She chuckled at their overprotective nature, then turned back to the gravestone. It seemed to stare even harder than Jesus on his cross. 

Eliza cracked her neck, frowning at the empty grave. “Don’t look at me like that, you wanted us to get along again, dad.” Naturally, she didn’t receive an answer. Even if there had been a body, the dead usually don’t speak with the living, so she wouldn’t have received an answer either way. 

“And now I’m talking to a literal stone like those people in the movies. That feels even weirder than playing pretend with a fucking toddler.” She wiped her runny nose with her sleeve. “But at least your soul’s where it’s supposed to be now. Thanks, dad.”

He probably heard her, wherever he was and thought to himself that he won. But it wasn’t Anton that motivated her to forgive Tony, it was her mind. She made that decision. She had control over her life the same way she had back then when she first had to choose her new identity. 

She was in full control of herself now and even the last hurdle was out of the way. Her father was dead, but the world would carry on. It was time for a new beginning, starting right then and there. She could move on.

Birds chirped in the early morning sun, basking in the soft rays of red that broke through the earth’s surface and supplied the planet with light. A soft wind blew through the green leaves on the tree, sending some soaring through the air. It was a soft morning breeze that caused a welcome chill on the skin, but the sun made the cold go away just as fast. Little clouds danced over the sky, forming mythical shapes. 

The City of New York slowly woke out of its slumber. Curtains opened, coffee makers sizzled, and toasters worked in high gear. The day started differently for everyone, some were happy to be awake, others not so much, but the warm weather and clear skies made a look out of the window worth it, and it was enough to raise the mood in every household, even if just for a moment of relief between breakfast and getting ready for work. 

The arm that was draped over her waist slowly slid a hand under her shirt, scurrying for warmth. Still drunk on sleep, she allowed the force to pull her back into the sturdy chest she knew all too well. Sloppy kisses followed the wandering hand, his soft lips leaving the breath of an angel on the skin of her shoulders. 

The chirping of the birds grew louder. The sun broke through the slit in the curtains, filling the bedroom with at least some daylight and illuminating the small particles of dust that levitated in the air. Clothes were strewn all over the floor, even one of the pillows had fallen off the bed and added to the fabric pile. 

Matt woke up first. Not quite aware of his surroundings just yet, he nuzzled his face in the crook of her neck. The slight scratch of his freshly trimmed stubble had her stirring in her sleep, and she slowly began to wake. 

He continued kissing her skin and tracing his fingers over her heated stomach until she let out a tired whine. Eliza flipped around, burying her face in his chest, and somehow tried to evade the process of waking up. 

He chuckled at her failed attempt, running a hand through her hair. “Good morning,” he said.

She grumbled. 

“Someone not awake yet?”

She grumbled again. 

“I take that as a no.”

“Five more minutes,” Eliza whined. “Don’t wanna get up.”

“That makes two of us. This is cozy,” Matt wrapped both of his arms around her to hold her body to his even closer, “and I love cozy.”

“And you’re warm.”

“That too.”

She made a content sound in the back of her throat; it resembled the purr of a small cat. His chest rumbled with the soft chuckle he let out, his voice still groggy and thick with sleep. His nose was slightly stuffed from the used air that had collected in the room. Matt made a mental note to open the window as soon as they got out of bed and the risk of her getting sick was minimized. She froze easily, he didn’t want to add to that and cause a cold. 

Eliza buried her nose between the pecks on his chest. He not only smelled like himself but he smelled of her shampoo and partly of her perfume that lingered in the sheets. It was a comforting smell that had her floating on cloud nine. For the first time in what felt like forever, there was nothing to worry about. She closed the chapter of her past and she found herself. They saved the world and in the process, he saved her. 

Matt Murdock saved her life. He did so the second he stepped into the interrogation room to bail her out. He came back. He always came back. 

The world was okay again. It wasn’t perfect, it couldn’t be, but she could finally sort out the feeling that caused such warmth in her chest. She was happy. She was so in love and she was happy with the man she loved by her side. There was nothing that could tear them apart now. They made it through hell and still stuck together. 

At the beginning of the year, she would have never thought her life would take such a drastic turn. She couldn’t have predicted the fallout after the Sokovia Accords or Hydra. If someone had told Eliza that she would almost die but find the love of her life that year, she would have called them crazy or even delusional. She had never fathomed something like this possible. Her life often went to shit, so something like Hydra coming back to haunt her was bound to happen, but finding Matt was a destiny come true that she could not have seen coming. All the fears she’d had before were gone now and she could finally rest. 

Her life was finally on the up again. 

“You know you can’t get inside of me, right?” Matt mused into her ear. 

She whined, pressing her face so deeply into his chest that her nose got squished. “Why not?” she said. 

“Because I can’t absorb you, that’s not how it works, love.”

“Unfair.”

He chuckled again, lazily tracing his callused fingertips over her spine. “You’re beautiful,” he said. 

The heat rushed to her cheeks. “Stop it.”

“Never.”

“I’m not as beautiful as you make me out to be.”

Matt gasped, and although it sounded playful, it was far from it. He tangled his hand in her hair, pulling her head back gently and just enough to bring her face to the same level as his. She closed her eyes, afraid to look at him, but he merely traced the loose strand of hair from her face and grabbed her cheek. “You are beautiful,” he said again, eyes loving though they didn’t meet hers, couldn’t possibly, but she felt every ounce of his love in the way his lips pressed to hers, caressing her with such unconditional love that had her shaking.

“How can you judge that? You’ve only seen me once-”

“I don’t need to see you to know that you’re beautiful. Pushing away the thought that I objectively saw you, I use other markers to judge your beauty, even though beauty is something I feel like no one is allowed to judge. To me, you are beautiful. And you wanna know why?”

She shook her head, nose still pressed against his. “Tell me,” she said. 

“First of all,” he began and with his arm hugged around her waist, he rolled them over until she laid on her back underneath him, “I can feel you,” he said. 

His index finger started at her forehead, tracing over the worry line that was nothing but a faded memory under his touch. He smoothed over her eyebrows, following the growth. He traced her temple, the distinctive vein that popped when she was angry or swallowed hard; he felt her pulse there. Then, he traced along the bridge of her nose and the top of it, pressing down slightly and she scrunched, making him chuckle. 

“That’s cute,” he murmured, “when you do that.”

He continued his wordless journey over her cheekbones, the skin red with the blood that pooled underneath, and so were her lips that she kept continuously biting with every electrifying touch he left on her skin. He pulled at her plump bottom lip, tracing the cupid’s bow of her top lip. Her tongue darted out to lick over his thumb, sucking on it momentarily before he pulled away. 

“I can feel you,” Matt told her, “and every scar or wrinkle on your face. I can feel every crevice and every imperfection that you hate but I love so damn much. And your eyes…” he traced her lashes. “I don’t even need to know the color, although I do now, to know that you are beautiful. You were beautiful to me before you showed yourself and you are still now. I love your eyes,” he said, “because they always look at me, no matter where you stand or where you are. You always seek me out and when you see me and your heart jumps, that’s when I know your eyes start to sparkle and you look at me the same way I do when I think of you.”

“What’s that?” she asked, her lungs out of breath. 

“Like you’re my world and I am yours.”

With his hand still on her cheek, he pulled her toward himself and captured her lips again. This one was no less gentle. 

“And your lips are kissable, but you know that. You knew that already.”

Still, out of breath, Eliza kissed him again. The words out of his mouth turned her head. They made her feel all kinds of things, none of them bad. She had never felt so on top of the world. He showed his love and devotion plenty, but his words paid with his touch were enough to make her fall even deeper in love with him. 

When her kisses grew more desperate, he pulled back. “I’m not done yet,” he said. 

His finger brushed along her jawline and down her neck where he traced her pulse point and her sternum. He painted a picture on her collarbone, moving lower down until he reached the collar of her top. Without struggle, he pulled the fabric over her head, leaving her torso bare to him. He drew stars over the vertical scar that adorned her chest and abdomen, a reminder of the worst night of both of their lives, and then he moved on to the smaller scars, paying the same attention to them. There was one on her hipbone and her lower stomach. 

He found her thigh, reaching into the leg of her shorts only to touch the skin he had missed, then traveled back down over the other scars that she had put on herself, the stretch marks on her sides and her ass, but even when she gasped, he didn’t stop. Matt felt the urge to prove to her that nothing could disgust him about her and that he loved every inch of her body. He worshipped the ground she walked on and he worshipped her body like her body itself was God. She felt like the filthiest yet purest heaven. He would drown in her any day. She owned him, body and soul, and he bowed down to the woman she was. 

Lastly, he pressed a kiss over her heart. He felt the organ jump in excitement, an emotion only he could elicit. 

“Like I said,” his breath fanned hot against her skin, “Beautiful.”

“Matthew,” her voice had shrunk over time. 

“Have I told you that the sound of your voice is the most beautiful sound to me?” Matt didn’t even think about stopping. “I love listening to it. I love how it changes pitch or volume according to how you feel,” he said. “Like it did just now. It sounds like the sweetest of honey, but not the overwhelming kind. You’re the sweetest, most exquisite honey. The one that runs straight from the spoon into your tea and it makes you feel all warm inside.”

The hand she fell in love with wrapped around her neck like a vice. The gasp got caught in her throat, sending shivers down her spine. Her nipples reacted instantly to his touch, even though he was far away from stimulating them. Only his voice reverberated in her ears and it sang a symphony of the highest order. 

His nose brushed against where his hand was wrapped around her throat and he inhaled sharply. “Your scent is the most distinctive, so I always know when you’re in the room,” said Matt, and Eliza shut her eyes at his wandering nose. It stopped behind her ear, taking another long whiff and it sounded almost as if he swallowed a moan. “Right now, you smell like my body wash and laundry detergent, but you also smell slightly salty, like rain. There’s some vanilla stuck to your skin from your perfume, and maybe it’s cinnamon, I’m not sure. You have this distinctive smell about you that instantly makes me turn my head your way because no one else smells like that. You’ve got me so high off of you, it sometimes feels like you’re a witch. Because every time you are near, I feel compelled to be with you, to kiss you, or to touch you in any way. It might be weird,” he said, “but I don’t care. You’re beautiful, inside and out, and I want to be with you every second of the day if necessary to feel you in the most intimate of ways. I know we can’t, it’s not how life works, but if I could, I would. I would die between your legs just to smell your pussy, I don’t care. I just want you.”

He drew the first lewd moan out of her. Her back arched, wanting to be touched so desperately she had never wanted it more. Her skin felt as if it was on fire and she hadn’t realized it before but the sweat started pooling out of her pores and her cunt ached for his attention. What started as a gentle display of love shot straight to her core and one look at his blissed-out expression told her he was doing it on purpose. He got off on it, that bastard. He purposely drove her up the walls in a way that was beautiful in itself. He was the beautiful one, surely, not her. 

His blunt confession made her clench her thighs, but his body between them forced them open. 

At the scent of her arousal in the air, Matt restrained himself from moaning the way he wanted to. He would have taken her right then and there, but his mission was not yet complete. 

“The way you taste, now that is something… I can’t even describe it. I mean, my senses are more often than not overwhelmed beyond compare and I can taste how certain things smell, like tears for example, or sweat. It’s all very unique in my head,” he stated. “I experience the world differently with my senses, but you already knew that. When I feel you, when I hear or smell you, it’s different. It’s intense. You’re everywhere and while that may sound overwhelming to a man like me, with you it’s not. You’re not intense, only the experience is, and you calm me more than you keep me on edge. You’re not loud or dirty like New York is. You’re not an attack on my senses, it’s… I find you beautiful because you’re everything but overwhelming to me. You’re the beauty I lack in what I have to hear, smell, taste, and feel every goddamn day. So when I taste the sweat on your skin-” he licked a long stripe along her throat, “or when you’ve baked something that smells good and I can taste the remains on you, it’s an escape for me. And when I go down on you?” he said. “Now that is something that could keep me going for years because your taste gets me high. Your taste lingers, it makes me want you more every time I do it, and I could never tire of eating you out. Between your legs is where I want to be because even then, the world turns quiet and it’s just you and me and your pleasure that is on my mind. It’s what’s important. Everything else - the world, the city, they don’t matter. It’s just you that I need.”

He didn’t even get a second to breathe. Her lips were on him without hesitancy, locking her leg around his hip and pulling his entire body into hers. Her kisses were bruising, biting on his bottom lip and assaulting his tongue with her own. 

“Get me out of these clothes, Matthew,” she demanded, lifting her hips. 

He pulled at her shorts and underwear until they came off. Left in his boxers, Matt ground against her core. It was only the silk of his underwear that kept them apart. 

“Do you believe me now that you’re beautiful?” he whispered into her ear. 

The kiss was forgotten for a second as she stared into his beautiful brown eyes. “I know one thing that is more beautiful,” she replied. 

“And what is that?”

“You.” 

His name was nothing but a breath when he removed the last piece of clothing in the way and skilfully thrust his hard cock into her tight cunt. She was wet and warm and he added that to the list of things he found beautiful about her. He molded into her and they became one. They were connected with every nerve ending. With every kiss, they grew closer together. With every thrust of his hips, their connection grew stronger. 

He panted into her ear. “You feel so fucking good, Angel. So beautiful,” he said. “And you’re all mine.”

“Yours,” she breathed back. 

Their lips connected again, dancing heated against each other. 

“Matthew.”

He pressed his forehead against hers. 

“I love you,” she said. 

His breath shuddered and he moaned in the back of his throat, cradling her head tighter so he could have full control, and she let him. “Fuck,” was all that came out as he picked up his thrusts, hitting that spot inside of her perfectly. Every nerve was already so sensitive, she clenched around him every time he drove home and he could feel every muscle mold around him as if she was only made for him. 

It felt territorial almost, the pull he felt toward her and how he wanted everyone to know that she was his and no one else’s. No one else could have her. He was the only one who could make her feel this way and he was adamant about proving it every time they so much as sensually touched each other. He owned her, but she was also her own person and the claim he felt over her came from a place in his heart that was more of the Devil than Matt Murdock, but at that moment, with his cock so deep inside of her and his lips sucking marks into her skin, neither of them cared. She would be purple and blue once they were done, and she would carry those marks with pride because she loved being claimed by him. She loved being his and she would continue doing so until death would tear them apart. 

When he had started rubbing her clit, she wasn’t sure, but the wave of the orgasm was close to overtaking her. He twitched and she knew he felt the same, but there was something about both of them holding back that made the experience even more magical. Neither of them wanted the moment to end so they both walked the tightrope, holding onto each other with the purpose of not stumbling and falling into the deep end. 

“I love you too,” Matt managed to choke out. “God-” he pulled at her hair, capturing her lips in a bruising kiss that made the burning in her belly so much worse. “I love you so much.”

She whimpered into the kiss. “I know.”

“You close?”

“Uh-huh.”

“You wanna cum with me? Can you do that? Fuck- please. Be a good girl for me.”

With their lips pressed tightly against each other, the wave crashed into the shore. It was strong, it was burning, it mutated into an inferno that took down everything with it, and they so loved to burn alive. 

His hips stilled eventually. He gave her all he had and it still felt not enough. She breathed heavily, her body slacking into his arms and he collapsed on top of her. He was exhausted and she was, too, but in the best way. She cradled his head into the crook of her neck; it was her turn to take care of him. His soft pants waved over her sensitive skin, the sweat in his hair transferring onto her body. 

“Oh, my-” she exhaled. Her chest deflated with a heavy sigh. “Matty.”

He made an incoherent sound. 

“Are you okay?”

After a moment of contemplation, he nodded. She stroked a hand through his hair, relieved to have received at least some sort of an answer. His breathing slowed down after a moment and so did his heartbeat that was drumming against hers. 

Matt lifted himself on his forearm enough to pull out and dropped on the mattress next to her.

Eliza instantly moved to lay on her side, reaching out for his face. His eyes were closed. He still wasn’t present, his thoughts a mess, and his body on fire with all the different sensations and feelings that seemed to attack his soul. He tried not to show how sex affected him often, but even he had his weakest moments, and she loved him even more for showing them to her. He didn’t have to be afraid of her reaction, he could just be himself, and if he was overstimulated and tired after fucking her in a way that had been both loving and intense, she would make sure he got out of his trance just fine.

He licked his dry lips. “Do you, uh, need a towel?” even his voice sounded disoriented.

She chuckled lightly, stroking his sweaty hair back so it wouldn’t fall into his face anymore. “Don’t worry about me,” she said. “I’ll get us cleaned up. You just lay back and breathe.”

“Thank you,” he said. 

Leaning down to kiss him, he placed a firm hand against her sternum. His eyebrows furrowed and he winced. “No kisses.”

“Okay,” she moved away instantly, giving him the space he needed, “I’m sorry.”

“‘S too much. Not your fault.”

“I know, baby. I’ll be right back.” 

The space allowed him a few minutes to get his thoughts back in order. He focused on the silk sheets and the air that smelled like her. He listened to her heartbeat in the other room and then some more when she came and cleaned up the cum that covered his lower half as well as it had hers. She did it so carefully, he barely felt it. All the while her hand stayed wrapped around his wrist, drawing soothing circles on the skin. 

She settled into bed next to him again, pulling the covers over their naked bodies. Trying not to touch him, she scooted close enough for him to feel her comfort. 

Matt exhaled. “That was-“ he trailed off, pinching the bridge of his nose, “Intense.” 

She said it at the same time as him, nodding along. “Yeah, it was. But it was good, right? You liked it too?” 

It had to have been by far the gentlest sex they had ever had, and with all the feelings he stirred up before it had made the experience intense on a level neither of them was used to. So this was what making love felt like. It wasn’t raw fucking, it wasn’t rough, it was gentle throughout and focused solely on feeling each other. 

His Adam’s Apple bopped as he swallowed. “Yeah, I did,” he wasn’t a man of many words when he was overwhelmed. She knew it was the truth though. He would have told her if it wasn’t. “Did you?” he asked then.

She blinked wildly, surprised that the question came when it was his moment of vulnerability and not hers. He was ever a selfless person, even when he wasn’t fully himself. 

“I did,” she said. 

“Good, that’s good.”

“I love you.”

“I love you too, bug.”

“Is it okay if I touch you now?”

He opened his arm. “C’mere.”

She placed her head on his chest. His skin was hot and still flushed from the orgasm, as was his face. She had never seen a more beautiful sight. Tracing her fingers over his scars, Matt finally returned to himself fully and he hugged her to his bare chest. 

“Thank you,” he murmured, “for everything.”

“Don’t have to thank me,” she told him. “I’m always going to take care of you.”

“That’s what makes you so good.”

“I don’t know about good, but-“ Eliza searched for his lips, “I’m better with you.”

He melted into the kiss. It was peaceful. With the birds in the background and the sun on the rise, the world was okay, and time was merely a construct. 

That was until the obnoxious declaration of Foggy’s name caused by his phone broke the silence and their kiss in two.

Matt reached over with a scowl, but he missed the device and accidentally caused it to soar to the floor. He tried to stop it, but his reflexes weren’t quite awake yet. He grunted at the thought of having to get up to shut it off, and letting it ring hurt his ears too much. He leaned over, but Eliza had already thrown herself over his chest and fished his phone off the floor. She swiped right, answering, “Yeah?”

“Good morn- Liz?” Foggy sounded from the other end. 

“Yeah.”

“This is Matt’s phone.”

“Yeah, I know. He dropped it.”

“You- okay, I still have to get used to you two living together.” Cars rushed in the background and she could hear the clear honking of a driver that seemed unsatisfied with someone who cut him off. “Anyway, I just called to tell you guys to get the fuck up!”

“What time is it?” She squinted her eyes at the alarm clock.

“Half past get the hell up! We have work today. You know the thing where you have to come into the office and do something productive the entire day?”

Eliza rolled her eyes. “I know what work is,” she retorted.

“Oh, yeah? Then why are you late?”

“Oh, my God! Foggy, we had sex, that’s why we’re late. Matt and I did a very adult activity that took a lot longer than expected and that is why we will be coming in a few minutes late today. Unless you want us to come strutting in naked and sweaty, you let us take a shower and we’ll see you at the office. Good day!” 

She hung up, leaving Foggy flabbergasted and quite frankly a little disgusted, but he brushed it off as he made his way down the street with two cups of coffee in his hand — one for Karen, one for him.

Matt raised his eyebrows, brown eyes filled with pure amusement when she slapped his phone back down on the nightstand and resumed her position on his chest. 

“What?” Eliza challenged. 

“Can I get you bragging about our sex life on tape?” he said. “Because that was hilarious.”

“Oh, shut up!” She rolled over with a groan. 

“A very adult activity.” 

“Matthew, shut up!” 

“I need that on a sign that I can put on the door whenever we have sex. I had one of those Do Not Disturb signs in college, but that sounds way better. Adult activities in progress. We should get that framed.”

In response, he received a pillow to the face. His laugh grew louder and she hit him again, this time with more force.

“You are a violent little thing,” he mused. “If that’s what you want-“ reaching behind himself, Matt grabbed his pillow and smacked her across the face with it, “You got it.”

She gasped. She underestimated the force he could put even behind a soft piece of fabric. 

Eliza licked her lip, fluffing out the pillow she was holding. On her knees, she flipped to look directly at him. “It is so on,” she said.

He slipped into his underwear, something she had done while she grabbed a towel for them, so their state of clothing was almost equal. She wore one of his thin sleep shirts, but it gave her enough space to move without losing a boob or two. 

Her eyes grew darker and her bicep tensed. She took this seriously. Matt was not about to pass out on an opportunity to humble her. 

When it came to pillow fights, he would always win.

“Careful,” he said, and his words were what truly started the game of cat and mouse that sent them chasing each other around the apartment, “you might hurt yourself reaching for me.”

She growled, “The only thing that’s gonna get hurt is you.” 

He laughed when he jumped out of bed and to the foot of it, holding his pillow like a wall of defense. 

“It’s like a puppy threatening me with his leash.” 

A pause. She stared at him, eyes narrowing, and then, “Run.” 

Matt’s first instinct was to jog into the living room. She followed close behind with her pillow at the ready. They stood at either end of the couch, and even though they were well-trained, they panted from the short distance traveled. 

“To hit me, you have to actually go around the couch,” he said. 

She ground her teeth. “Not necessarily.” She hauled her arm back and then forward, and let go of the pillow. It hit with precision, landing in his face. He tried to catch it, but it flew too fast, even for him. 

He played with it. The smirk he gave Eliza was shit-eating and laced with mischief. “You know that that was a mistake, right?” 

She had already grabbed one of the cushions by then, cocking her eyebrow at him. “Wanna bet?” she said. 

He chuckled. He was the first to take a step and she followed in the opposite direction. The couch was still between them, but it was only the backrest now. Her eyes sparkled. This was her shot. He didn’t see it coming, metaphorically speaking. She easily jumped over the backrest, catching herself on the seat, and hit him over the head with the couch cushion again. 

Out of reflex, Matt responded with his pillows, hitting her back. She squealed. Her weapon of choice was much harder; he eventually fled her notorious attack. Eliza jumped from the sofa, with her hair disheveled and the shirt bunched up over her ass. In her state of playful rage, she tossed all of the cushions toward him. She hit him in at least three different places - not even the pillows he stole from the bed could protect him. In the end, though, she was left with nothing and he had all of the pillows, and she only realized that too late. 

He sighed. “Sweetheart, I hate to break it to you, but you’re fucked,” the words flowed so flawlessly, she wondered if she was talking to the same person who spoke so eloquently in the courtroom. Of course, she knew better. She knew he had a dirty mouth deep down, but it had never shown this extreme. Perhaps she was rubbing off on him in more ways than one. 

“Uh-oh,” she gasped when he charged at her. Eliza ran circles around the couch with him hot on her heels, and once again they stood on opposite ends. She calculated - there were two ways he could run. If she pretended well enough, she could trick his senses into thinking she went the other way, and then she would be able to rearm herself in the bedroom. 

Matt being Matt though - or in this case, it was the Daredevil in him - saw right through her plan. She tried to fool him by leaning right, but he caught her before she could run. Halfway on her way to the bedroom, the pillow hit her and she squealed again. After hitting her a few good times to the point she was suffocating with laughter, he threw the pillow aside and wrapped his arms around her to keep her from leaving. 

“Gotcha,” he purred into her ear. 

“That is so not fair!” She cried out when his fingers dug into her sides, searching for the spot he knew she was most ticklish at. “Matt-y, st-oh-p!”

“If you yield.”

The smart comeback that laid on her tongue was cut off by a fit of laughter that came from a spot of discomfort. He knew exactly where to grab and it seemed unfair that he was so much larger, he could overpower her, and pulling out her super-strength didn’t seem fair. She couldn’t have, anyway, because the way he tickled her clouded her eyes with unshed tears. 

“C’mon, yield,” he said, “and then I’ll stop.”

“Okay, OKAY!” Eliza hit his arm three times, giggling, and she couldn’t possibly form a coherent sentence. “Yield!”

As promised, he eased up his torture. She slacked in his arms. 

“Wasn’t so hard, now was it?”

“Asshole,” she bit back. 

He raised his eyebrows. “Oh, I am? Alright.” 

“Matthew!” He singlehandedly tossed her over his shoulder. His hand collided with her backside. She was putty in his hands. He could throw her around however he wanted, she would let him. 

She had never laughed this much or loud before. He carried her over to the now cushionless couch and laid her down. His lips found hers, not giving her a second to breathe. She kissed back almost instantly, tangling her hands in his hair and pulling him closer. They were panting and giggling into each other’s mouths and it was perfect. There was no other adjective to describe the situation, and she felt so happy and warm inside, she felt as if she were going to combust any second now. 

Breaking the kiss, Matt smiled down at her. “You forgive me now?” he asked. 

Eliza traced the crease between his eyebrows and down the bridge of his nose. “I suppose,” she said, her voice only a soft hum. 

He bent down and pressed another kiss to her lips. It was short yet no less passionate. “We should get ready.”

“We should, but do we want to?”

“We don’t, but we have to.”

She sighed heavily, “True.”

“C’mon,” he patted her thigh, urging her to wrap them around his waist, “Let’s take a shower first. We’re already late, might as well make it worthwhile…”

The shower ran shorter than either of them would have liked, but they were already late and as two responsible adults they didn’t want to waste any more time. Although Matt considered it, Eliza had to physically force him away from prepping her neck with bruising kisses that were sure to have her on her knees in seconds. She exercised what little self-control she had left to steer off the inevitable. There was nothing she loved more than intimacy, but Foggy would murder them and she had already almost died too many times to count. 

She exited the bathroom, fiddling with her earrings - the new beginning gave her a boost when it came to looking dashing anywhere she went, and she started to appreciate herself a lot more since then. The necklace matt got her dangled over her shirt, Natasha’s crystal underneath. It was in no way a display of favorites; Matt was the closest person to her heart and she wanted people to know that she was his and he was hers. In return, he wore his necklace just as obviously, though the crucifix would always be there. Even through all the pain, he kept his faith and she found that remarkable. 

He stood in the kitchen, pouring some coffee into to-go cups that she had insisted that they should get. It was a wise choice. Upon hearing her enter, he smiled and shoved a plate over the counter. “Eat,” he said. 

Eliza frowned, walking up to him. Avocado toast. Her heart swelled. At the rate, the happiness was growing she would need a new heart very soon. She couldn’t take this. It was sickeningly too much, but she loved every second of it. She loved being loved, seen, and appreciated. She loved the care she received and how important she felt in his presence. She would show him the same kind of affection until her very last breath, or she would try to, anyway. She still believed she didn’t deserve him. 

She sat down at the edge of the table. He somehow always knew just the right amount of seasoning to use. She watched him while she ate. He cleaned up what he had made messy, put the little glass jars in the same spot he got them from, and wiped the kitchen counter. It was domestic, their new life together. She could get used to this. 

“You’re staring,” Matt mused from the fridge. He pulled out a water bottle, then patted the top of the fridge for the orange capsule that was as much of a friend as it was an enemy. “Here, before you forget,” he said. 

Eliza felt the three pills in the palm of her hand. He took care of her, he always did, but staring at the medication that kept the hormones in her brain in check reminded her why it took so long for her to be happy. She sabotaged herself. She was sick, after all. And she would always be sick, no matter what she did. The illness would always be there. Even with her life in order, the monster would continue lurking in the dark, waiting for a moment of weakness until it could attack. 

He stroked over the crown of her head. “You okay?” he asked. 

She looked into his eyes. “I’m okay,” she said. 

“Take your pills, c’mon. They don’t mean anything. You’re here and you’re alive, nothing else matters. Everything that comes our way now, we can conquer together. You know that.”

The pills went down with a lot of water, but she took them and he kissed her forehead with a proud smile and said, “Good girl.”

She shivered, but she kept quiet, too trapped in her head to focus on what was happening around her. 

Matt noticed the signs of dissociation and tugged at her hand instead. She yelped, blinking up at him in surprise. He pulled her toward him. “Stop thinking so much. Alexa-” the smart device made a melodic sound of agreement, “Play my Spotify playlist.”

“What’s that? Jazz or somethin’- woah!” Her joke was cut short. He twirled her around her axis before hugging his arm around her waist, and he cupped her cheek to lean down and kiss her. 

“Wait for it,” he hummed against her lips. 

The sound of the birds and the people outside was tuned out by the soft melody coming out of the speaker system. 

“We’re gonna dance to keep your mind off of things and then we’re going to work, but only once I’m sure you’re okay.”

Eliza pouted as she looked into the eyes of the man she loved. Tears sparkled in her own and she wasn’t even sure why. She was overwhelmed by his love, mostly, but also by the emotions that she kept bottled up inside, the ones that appeared suddenly and nestled into her soul in seconds. He was right, she wasn’t okay. She wasn’t terrible, either, she was in a weird space in-between good and downright awful and she hated it there. 

“How is dancing gonna help?” she asked, her voice wavering at the same time her breath did. 

He kissed the tip of her nose instead of her lips. “Trust me,” said Matt. 

She trusted him with her life, but she wasn’t sure if she wanted to trust him on this. She didn’t feel like dancing. It seemed useless, anyway. But he insisted and with his hold so strong, she had no choice but to succumb to his unorthodox method. 

“Sometimes you just gotta-” he pushed her back, “dance it out.”

She twirled, not even in control of her limbs when he pulled her back in, but this time with her back to his chest. And that was when she recognized the melody. 

“Oh, you sly bastard.”

“Uh-huh.” The glitter in his eyes reminded her of the universe. “You remember?” He ran his fingers over her bare arm when she reached back to run her fingers through his hair and bring him closer in the process. “The night of the gala when we danced?” he said. “You remember the song?”

“Of course, I do,” she said. “I love that song. I just didn’t think… you put it on the top of your playlist?”

He shrugged. “Maybe?”

In seconds, she turned around and stood face-to-face with him again. She wrapped her arms around his neck, lifting herself on her tip-toes to kiss him. Their forehead collided. “We’re not dancing,” she reminded him.

“Aren’t we?”

“No, we’re swaying. It’s just an excuse for people to-”

“-stand on the dancefloor and look like they belong,” he finished. His breath turned into a chuckle that fanned across her face. He smelled of coffee and mint and his cologne. “Yeah, I memorized that line in case I had to use it again,” he told her. 

“Oh, you taking pointers from me now?”

“Don’t tell anyone.”

“Well, lucky for you that we’re not standing on a dancefloor, so the rule doesn’t apply.”

“You’re right, but we could pretend.”

At that moment it seemed as if he was staring into the depths of her soul. 

A sigh left the depth of her chest. “We have to work,” she said, hesitant to admit it and with the utmost regret in her voice.

Matt chuckled. The usually so sweet sound was breathless, maybe a little knowing because yes, they had to go to work and her point was valid, but he didn’t want to acknowledge it. The more she kept staring into his eyes, the more her self-control swindled and she fell into his arms. She didn’t care about the world. She was his to command now. Screw self-contro, she thought. She could spend the remaining two minutes of this song dancing with the love of her life, the Man whose initial she had hanging around her throat, and it would feel good because they deserved it. After the hell they went through, they deserved this. They deserved a fucking break. 

He listened closely to her heartbeat. It dropped suddenly in determination and that was how he knew that she made her decision. His lip curled up into a smirk, it wasn’t naughty or anywhere near suggestive, it wa a kind one suggesting that he was proud of his accomplishment, so it was cocky nonetheless. 

Eliza took his hand in hers, holding it tightly as the other arm wrapped around his shoulders instead. “Lead the way, counsellor,” she said. 

The song was so familiar yet at the same time it sounded foreign. The day they first danced to it laid far in the past. Things had been different then. The night ended blissfully tangled between the sheets of his bed, but the cost they paid for falling so fast so hard for each other left them shattered in the end. They spent weeks picking up the pieces that were left behind of each other’s hearts. In the end, they found together. The universe brought them together without question as if it knew they were meant to be together, and it felt right at that moment, dancing with Matt in his living room while the world disappeared on the outside, but the path they had to take to get this far was now littered with corpses. 

They both lost. They both suffered. In any other life, the likelihood of Matt and Eliza finding together after the hell they’d been through would have been nill. But in that universe, in their reality, they found back together. What they had was a cursed love that they were slowly starting to heal, and while she laid in his arms as he swayed them around the room to the song she had grown to title as one of their own, she realized that this was it. They passed the finish line. The worst was over. They weren’t cursed anymore; this right there was her and him healing each other in the only way they knew how - through unspoken words and meaningful touches. Their hearts spoke a language their mouths could not. 

She was sure she found the man she would spend the rest of her life with and knowing he felt something resembling the same after he gave her that necklace was the thought that kept her alive and breathing. He sustained her, after all, and he had started doing so from the day they first met. It all became frighteningly clear to her, but the fear didn’t scare her. No, it excited her and it reminded her that this was real. She wasn’t dreaming. He was truly in her life and she was going to be okay; they both were. 

“What are you thinking about?” he asked. 

What was she thinking about? She was fighting off the cruel thoughts all by herself. She didn’t feel weak, she felt stronger than ever as she did it. 

“You,” she answered without missing a beat. “It’s always you.”

His feet stopped and so did she, stumbling a little at his abrupt change of pace. Through thick lashes, she looked up at him. She expected him to say something or at least to receive a reaction of some kind, but it didn’t come. Instead, his eyes darted aimless around and his eyebrows furrowed. He was listening to her heart, the soft tilt of his head told her as much. He saw the world through his senses, she sometimes forgot that, and he was trying to paint a picture - what the picture was, she wasn’t sure.

“Matt-”

He cradled her head faster than she could speak. His lips pressed against her in a heated affair. She caught herself by holding onto his forearms. The kiss wasn’t forced, not at all, it was merely deeper than she was used to, and she swore she could taste the emotion on his tongue. That part of her powers was gone, but he poured so much of himself into the kiss, she could taste his soul. 

He pulled away to let them both breathe. Their lips ghosted over each other, heartbeats aligned. Same situation, different setting.

“We should, um-” Eliza swallowed. She felt lightheaded. His body was the only thing keeping her upright. “Work,” she prompted. 

A strand of hair flopped into his face. It was so damn familiar yet still so foreign. He was officially hers now, she didn’t have to pine and wait anymore. He wasn’t going anywhere. 

That was the essential difference to that day at the gala. They were together now. The wait and heartbreak were over. There was nothing standing between them now, and that was why such a familiar situation felt more foreign than it felt like a real de ja vu. 

Matt desperately kissed her cheek. “Work,” he agreed, though his voice rumbled like gravel. He didn’t want to work, he just wanted her. 

His need for her, the constant yearning, he believed were starting to turn into an unhealthy obsession. But if it was so unhealthy, why did he feel happier than ever? 

He turned away, ready to grab a tie from the bedroom and get the day over with, but once he took a step away, she reached for his arm. She pulled him back, smashing their lips together once more. 

“Can we be late five more minutes?” she asked, assaulting his mouth with open kisses. 

Her hair seemed like the best thing to grab in her moment of eagerness, so he tangled his hand in the freshly brushed strands, pulling at them. He panted heavily, the answer coming more choked up than he intended it to, “Yeah, sure,” he said. 

The buckle of his belt hit the floor. Eliza dragged the zipper down, ruining his ironed shirt by crumbling it up until it was resting just above his hip. 

“Good, ‘cause we’re gonna need them. Or you are, anyway.”

“Five minutes?” He breathed even heavier now, the sound of her knees hitting the wooden floor sounding louder in his eardrum. His hand was still in her hair and he followed her down; it slowly dawned on him what she was doing. The plea for her to stop got stuck in his throat. “Fuck!” 

At first, she simply kissed the outline of his cock over his boxers and the friction along with the pure essence of her rushed the blood from his head where her tongue laid, and he was painfully hard again. As if he hadn’t just finished inside of her, she undressed him with precision. Her nails dug into his upper thighs and by God, he was this close to losing himself completely, he intertwined his fingers with hers s they traveled under his shirt and caressed his stomach. It was too much. She was already everywhere, the heat of her mouth would send him straight to hell and back and then to hell again until he was doomed and done for. 

His eyes rolled back toward the ceiling. In his head, he prayed to God. The crucifix rested heavy around his neck but her name rested heavier. He prayed to God because the almighty father of all was no longer the most important character in his life. He questioned faith, but he never questioned her. She was his vice, she was his guardian angel and she would eventually corrupt him in a way that would asure him a place in hell, no matter how many times he asked God for penance, but hell with her sounded much better than heaven, and he figured he would have never ended up there anyway. They were both sinners, all things would fall into their rightful places in the end. Where she went, he would follow. Unhealthy obsession be damned, he was so infatuated, he would have burned the world down on the spot for her. 

He had loved strongly before, then he had his heart broken by the woman he loved so desperately, and he had suffered alone for so long before she came along. He never thought a love this strong would be humany possible, but there were a lot of things he hadn’t fathomed possibly only a month ago. A love like that was the most plausible because it was real, she was right there and she was realer than anything else. God put her in his path for a reason and he would follow her until the end of the line. 

She drove him higher and higher until he was dangling off the edge of the cliff, and when she pressed her hand down on his abdomen, squeezing his hand in the process, he couldn’t hold it anymore. 

“I love you so much. Fuck!” The curses tumbled freely from his lips at the same time that he tumbled from the precipice. Her tongue along his shaft and the sensitive tip of his cock were more than enough.

Her five-minute estimate had not been far off. He came with the soft cry of her name, or had it been one of his many pet-names? She wasn’t sure. Her mind was just as fuzzy as his. Swallowing every last drop of cum he had to give her, she kept him tucked neatly inside her mouth. He rested perfectly in her throat. She exhaled through her nose - the sight before her was so damn pleasurable, she clenched her thighs. This would suffice for the rest of the day. The pornographic sounds and pcitures she had in her head were better than any real life nude picture she could have taken of him. 

Matt pulled at her hair, forcing her off his cock with a whine that both came from her and from himself. He brushed her cheek, catching the small droplet of cum on the corner of her mouth and shoving it back inside. She took it wordlessly. The mascara she had applied was smudged all over her cheeks from the tears she had shed, but it was so worth it in the end. 

He helped her to her feet, his eyes once again darting back and forth, searching for something he couldn’t see. “You’re so perfect,” he murmured. 

“You are,” she told him. When he kissed her, he could taste himself in her saliva, and his moan made her whimper. “You’re perfect,” she said again. 

The move she made to adjust his pants and get the belt back where it came from went unnoticed by him. He was somewhere between the sky and cloud nine, free-falling. Only when she gently kissed his neck did he snap back to reality. 

“We have to go work.”

He chuckled. “Foggy is gonna kill us.”

“Eh, but it was worth it.” Eliza smoothed out his collar. “Get yourself a tie, I’m gonna use the bathroom real quick to, uh… take care of some things.”

His lips pursed into a pout. “Take care of some things?” he quoted. 

“I have to pee.”

“Sure, that’s what it is.”

She slapped his chest, blushing at the sound of his clear laugh in her ear as he kissed her temple and sent her on her way. 

“I could just take care of it, y’know,” Matt said behind her.

As hard as it was to pass down the opportunity, she raised her middle finger into the air. “Fuck off!” The bathroom door fell shut behind her, but she heard his laughter long after she was gone. 

Today is never too late to be brandnew.

That much was true, at least.  

#matt murdock #matt murdock smut #matt murdock x oc #daredevil #foreigner's god #matt murdock x ofc #matt murdock fluff #matt murdock x female!oc #matt murdock fic #daredevil fic #foggy nelson #karen page #tony stark #matt murdock angst #marvel #daredevil smut #valentines day fic #i'll get the coffee by kathryn gallagher is so beautiful #inspired by a song #taylor swift references #of course

[mariacallous]

For thousands of Ukrainians, Mark Hamill is the voice of the air raids. The first notice of an incoming attack is an ear-splitting whoop-whoop coming out of cell phone speakers, followed by the voice of the Star Wars actor in full Jedi Knight tones. “Air raid alert. Proceed to the nearest shelter,” he says. “Don’t be careless. Your overconfidence is your weakness.” In mid-May, following a few months of quiet in the skies over Kyiv, Russia restarted its almost nightly bombardments of cruise missiles and kamikaze drones. After a week of alerts, the novelty of “May the Force be with you” sounding asynchronously from a dozen phones in the air raid shelter wore off, and it was hard not to start blaming Hamill personally for the attacks.

The air alert app was developed by a home security company, Ajax Systems, on the second day of the war, in a process that epitomizes the scrappiness, flexibility, and back-of-the-envelope creativity that have allowed Ukraine to, at times, run its war effort like a startup, under the guidance of its 32-year-old vice prime minister, Mykhailo Fedorov.

On February 25, 2022, as fighter jets dueled low over Kyiv, Ajax’s chief marketing officer, Valentine Hrytsenko, was driving west out of the capital, helping to oversee the evacuation of the company’s manufacturing facilities, when his phone rang. It was the CEO of an IT outsourcing company, who wanted to know if Ajax had any experience with Apple’s critical alert function, which allows governments or emergency services to send alerts to users. The municipal air raid sirens were, in Hrytsenko’s words, “very old-style pieces of shit,” built during the Soviet Union, and often couldn’t be heard. People were already cobbling together their own mutual alert systems using Telegram, but these depended on volunteers finding out when raids were incoming and posting to public groups, making them unreliable and insecure.

From his car, Hrytsenko called Valeriya Ionan, the deputy minister of digital transformation, whom he knew from years working with the ministry on tech sector projects. She, in turn, connected him to several local “digital transformation officers”—government officials installed by Fedorov’s ministry in each region of Ukraine, with a brief to find tech solutions to bureaucratic problems. Together, they figured out how the air raid system actually worked: An official in a bunker would get a call from the military, and they would press a button to fire up the sirens. Ajax’s engineers built them another button, and an app. Within a week, the beta version was live. By March, the whole country was covered. “I think this would be impossible in other countries,” Hrytsenko says. “Just imagine, on the second day of the war, I message the deputy minister. We’re talking for five minutes and they give us the green light.”

When he came into government five years ago, Fedorov promised his newly formed Ministry of Digital Transformation would create “tangible products that change the lives of people,” by making the government entrepreneurial and responsive to the needs of the population. The process is working exactly as Fedorov envisioned. The products aren't quite what he had in mind.

Fedorov is tall and broad with wide schoolboyish features and close-cropped salt-and-pepper hair. Almost always seen dressed in a hoodie and jeans, he looks like a movie star unsuccessfully geeking up for a role. When we meet, he’s just come offstage after headlining a press conference to launch a new digital education initiative. In keeping with the government’s carefully curated image, it’s a slick affair, with strip lights and hi-def screens, celebrity cameos, and a Google executive giving a speech via video call. It’s held in a five-star hotel near the Dnipro riverside but, as a concession to the ever-present threat of airstrikes, it’s taking place in the underground parking lot. The gloom and the neon and the youthful crowd in sneakers and branded sportswear gives the whole thing a kind of subversive glamor.

It’s not a packed room, but Fedorov is the main draw. Since the invasion began, he’s been one of the Ukrainian government’s most visible figures at home and abroad, more so even than the minister of defense, and second only to President Zelenksyy. Which makes sense. This has been a war fought in parallel in cyberspace, with information operations from all parties, diplomacy done at small scale on platforms, and relentless news flow, stories of hope and horror leveraged—and exploited—for gain on both sides. It’s one where, oddly for an active conflict, digital marketing, social media campaigning, crowdfunding, and bootstrapping have been vital skills. That is Fedorov’s world.

Within days of the invasion, the ministry had launched an appeal for donations: Fedorov tweeted out the government’s crypto wallet addresses, raising millions of dollars by the end of the first week. By May, the ministry had turned this into United24, a one-click ecommerce-style platform where anyone with a credit card, Paypal account, or crypto wallet could contribute to the war effort. Superficially simple, it was a radical move for any government—let alone a government at war—to open up its state finances and military supply chain to donations from the public. “But the world hasn’t seen such a huge, full-scale invasion, broadcast live, 24-7,” Fedorov says, speaking through an interpreter. “If we’d waited for people to donate through the organizations that already exist, they’d have got to Ukraine’s needs very slowly, or not at all.”

Since the start of the war, United24 has raised a reported $350 million to buy drones, rebuild homes, and fund demining operations. It has attracted celebrity endorsements from Hamill to Barbra Streisand to Imagine Dragons, helping to keep the conflict in the public consciousness around the world by giving ordinary people an opportunity to feel like they’re participating in Ukraine’s struggle for survival—something Fedorov says is more important than the money. “The same way the president talks to people abroad by broadcasts or on stage, this is the same way United24 speaks to regular people,” he says. “The main point of United24 is not fundraising itself, but keeping people around the world aware of what is going on in Ukraine.”

The initiative, and the projects that have spun out of it over the first 500 days of the war, have also been a vindication of Fedorov and Zelenskyy’s peacetime vision for the Ukrainian state. Since taking power in 2019, their administration has been trying to rewire the country’s bureaucracy, running parts of the government like a startup, communicating with and delivering services to citizens directly through their smartphones. They have nurtured their relationships with the local and global technology sectors, presenting themselves as an open, transparent and tech-forward nation, contiguous with the European Union and the democratic world they want to be part of, and whose support they now depend on.

Nothing could have prepared them for the total war that Russia launched in 2022. But Fedorov has been able to mobilize an extraordinary coalition of volunteers, entrepreneurs, engineers, hackers, and funders who have been able to move fast and build things, to innovate under fire to keep soldiers fighting and civilians safe—to get smarter. To win.

Until 2019, Fedorov was a little-known figure in Ukraine. His first foray into politics was as student mayor of his hometown of Zaporizhzhia. In 2013, as a 23-year-old, he founded a digital marketing company called SMMStudio, specializing in Facebook and Instagram ads for small businesses. One of its clients was a TV production company, Kvartal 95, founded by a comedian called Volodymyr Zelenskyy whose biggest hit was a political comedy, Servant of the People—in which a schoolteacher is unexpectedly elected president on the back of a viral video. Zelenskyy’s political party, also named Servant of the People, was spun out of Kvartal 95 in 2018. Fedorov signed on as an adviser.

In 2019, Servant of the People ran an extraordinary insurgent campaign for the presidency. The Ukrainian electorate was desperate for change, four years into a slow-burning war with Russian proxies in the Donbass region in the east, and exhausted with the crony politics of the post-Soviet era. Zelenskyy’s pitch was a new kind of politics: consensual, based on listening to the people and taking advice from experts, and decoupled from the oligopolies that corrupted administrations and slowed economic and social progress. Challenging those vested interests meant cutting the party off from the oligarchs’ financial resources, so they had to fight smart.

Fedorov ran the campaign’s digital strategy. He used Facebook, Instagram, and Telegram to sidestep the mainstream media and talk directly to a young, very online population. On Facebook, Zelenskyy crowdsourced policy ideas and asked for nominations for his cabinet. While TV was still a more important medium for the electorate at large, Zelenskyy’s campaign was at times able to dictate the news agenda online, driving viral stories that then made their way onto mainstream channels. They micro-targeted demographics that could be mobilized to vote on individual issues, with categories from “lawyers” to “mothers on maternity leave” to “men under 35 who drive for Uber.” With a full-time team of just eight people, Fedorov’s unit used social media to mobilize hundreds of thousands of volunteers, coordinated through a hub on Telegram.

Zelenskyy won the election in the second round against the incumbent, Petro Poroshenko, with nearly 75 percent of the vote. At 28 years old, Fedorov was appointed to head the newly formed Ministry of Digital Transformation, with the brief of digitizing the Ukrainian state. The new government had inherited a Soviet-era bureaucracy that had been hijacked by oligarchs, manipulated by Russia, and was corrupt at many levels. In 2019 the country ranked 126th out of 180 countries on Transparency International’s Corruption Perception Index, a common benchmark. By bringing services and government processes online, the administration hoped they could create a more transparent state, where corruption couldn’t fester in dark corners. “A computer has no friends or godfathers, and doesn’t take bribes,” Zelenskyy said at a Ministry of Digital Transformation summit in 2021.

The ministry’s flagship project was Diia, a “state in a smartphone” app, launched to the public in 2020. The system stored users’ official documents, including driver’s licenses and vehicle registration documents, and let them access online a growing list of government services, from tax filings to the issuance of marriage certificates. Ukraine became one of the first countries worldwide to give digital ID documents the same status as physical ones. Initially met with skepticism by a public used to governments overpromising and underdelivering, it’s now been downloaded onto 19 million smartphones and offers around 120 different government services.

“We wanted to build something that Ukrainians abroad would brag about when they went overseas,” Fedorov says, knowing full well that they already do. In its early days, Ukraine’s plans to digitize the state were often compared to Estonia, the small Baltic state that has become synonymous with e-government. This year, Ukraine is exporting Diia to Estonia, which is white-labeling the service for its own citizens.

Diia wasn’t just about building a practical tool, it was a way to change the perception of the Ukrainian government at home and abroad. Under Fedorov, the ministry was very visibly run like a startup. Its minister dresses and speaks like a tech founder, and the ministry has cultivated an air of accessibility and openness to experimentation. It has positioned itself at the center of the country’s booming tech sector, facilitating, investing, and supporting. In 2020, it launched a new “virtual free zone,” Diia City, offering tax breaks and other incentives for tech companies. The ministry has been a cheerleader internationally, with Fedorov himself conducting state-to-company diplomacy to build links between the government and Big Tech. A few months before the full-scale invasion, in late 2021, Fedorov was in Silicon Valley, pitching Ukraine to the US tech sector. On Facebook, he shared a picture from his meeting with Apple CEO Tim Cook, posting effusive praise for the “most efficient manager in the world.”

In peacetime, it’s easy to look at these initiatives with a cynical eye as the branding exercises of a country competing for a slice of the global tech dollar. Eastern Europe and Central Asia are densely populated with former Soviet states trying to reorient their economies toward services; what country doesn’t have a putative tech hub? But when the full-scale war finally began, this groundwork meant that Ukraine had a leadership with enormous experience of running asymmetrical digital campaigning; it had immediate access to a network of innovative and highly motivated engineers and tech entrepreneurs; and it had direct lines into a number of powerful global companies.

The war didn’t come s a surprise. Intelligence agencies had been warning for months that the huge buildup of Russian troops on Ukraine’s borders wasn’t a bluff. Fedorov’s ministry had been on a war footing since November 2021, working to harden national infrastructure against cyberattacks.

When the invasion began, the ministry went on the offensive, mobilizing the local tech community and using a weaponized version of its 2019 electoral playbook. Fedorov promoted a Telegram channel, the “IT Army of Ukraine,” which gathered volunteers from across the country and all over the world to hack Russian targets. Admins post targets on the channel—Russian banks, ministries, and public infrastructure—and the digital militias go after them. The channel now has more than 180,000 subscribers, who have claimed responsibility for hacks of the Moscow Stock Exchange and media outlets TASS and Kommersant. They got into radio stations in Moscow and broadcast air raid alerts, shut down the ticketing systems of Russian railway networks, and took the country’s product authentication system offline, causing chaos in its commercial supply chains.

At the same time, Fedorov, the ministry, and members of the tech community were pulling strings in Silicon Valley, mobilizing support for a “digital blockade” of Russia. On February 25, Fedorov wrote to YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki, Google CEO Sundar Pichai, and Netflix CEO Ted Sarandos asking them to block access to their services in Russia. He asked Meta to shut down Facebook and Instagram for Russian users. He reconnected with Tim Cook at Apple, asking the company to stop selling products and services to Russia. “We need your support—in 2022, modern technology is perhaps the best answer to the tanks, multiple rocket launchers … and missiles,” the letter read.

The ministry had friends in America who helped spread the word, like Denys Gurak, a Ukrainian venture capitalist based in Connecticut. “I knew lobbyists, and I knew journalists, so I started picking up the phone and calling just everybody, asking, ‘Who can you connect me with?’ So we could start shaming Big Tech that they’re not doing anything,” Gurak says. Some of the Ukrainian demands were wildly improbable—there was a campaign to get Russia disconnected from GPS. “In the minds of Ukrainians, that totally made sense,” Gurak says. “If you ask any Ukrainian back then what had to be done in tech, they would say, ‘Just fuck them all,’ [cut them off] from GPS from the internet, from Swift.”

Gurak and others didn’t just target CEOs of tech companies, but employees at those companies too, urging them to pressure their bosses to act. When Zelenskyy and Fedorov wrote to executives, including Meta’s president of global affairs, Nick Clegg, and COO Sheryl Sandberg, asking them for assistance, Gurak helped make sure the emails “leaked” to The Ink, a newsletter read by tens of thousands of tech workers.

It’s hard to say whether these interventions directly resulted in what the companies did next. Netflix was already under pressure from new laws in Russia that would have restricted the content of its shows and compelled it to broadcast propaganda. Meta had been publicly dismantling Russian disinformation operations on Instagram and Facebook for years, leading to intense criticism from the Kremlin. Apple’s exports to Russia were inevitably going to be hit by looming sanctions. But nevertheless, they acted. Netflix, which had roughly a million customers in Russia, suspended its service there in March, closing it fully in May. YouTube blocked access to Russian state-affiliated channels worldwide. Apple halted all sales in Russia. Amazon gave Ukraine access to secure cloud storage to keep its government functioning, reduced fees for Ukrainian businesses selling on its platforms, and donated millions of dollars' worth of humanitarian and educational supplies. Facebook blocked some Russian state media from using its platforms in Europe, and changed a policy that blocked users if they called for the deaths of Russian and Belarusian presidents Vladimir Putin and Alexander Lukashenko. In response, Russia banned both platforms for “Russophobia” in March. In October, Russia declared Meta an “extremist organization.”

These are tech companies that have often studiously avoided taking overt political stances, at times dancing on a razor’s edge between neutrality and complicity in autocratic countries. Taking sides in a war between two sovereign nations feels more profound than simple commercial calculation. At the launch event in Kyiv where I met Fedorov, a Google executive gave a gushing presentation on videoconference, in front of a yellow wall that echoed the Ukrainian flag. A couple of months earlier, I saw Fedorov give a video address to a Google for Startups event in Warsaw. Wearing military green, he described the tech sector as an “economic front line” in the war with Russia. The support in the room was unambiguous. “When the invasion began, we had personal connections to these companies,” Fedorov says. “They knew who we are, what we look like, what our values are and our mission is.”

Of all Fedorov’s callouts to the tech world, the most tactically significant was probably his February 26 tweet to Elon Musk: “While you try to colonize Mars—Russia try to occupy Ukraine! While your rockets successfully land from space—Russian rockets attack Ukrainian civil people! We ask you to provide Ukraine with Starlink stations,” Fedorov wrote. “Starlink service is now active in Ukraine. More terminals en route,” Musk shot back.

It could be argued that this was a fantastic marketing opportunity for Musk’s company—Starlink being a solution in search of a problem—but the devices have at times proved decisive. The satellite broadband service has been used by frontline troops to communicate with one another when other networks go down, and to fly drones for surveillance and artillery targeting. Starlinks have kept government agencies and health care facilities online despite Russia’s routine targeting of power and communications infrastructure. When, in February 2023, Starlink said it was restricting Ukraine’s military use of the system, there was an outcry. (Although true to form in a Musk company, there was apparently little follow-through, and Ukrainian users said they experienced no meaningful disruption to their service.)

When asked about the early days of the war, what Fedorov reaches for isn’t the big picture, but the details—the small changes to processes that made the state more nimble. They figured out how to securely send training materials to military volunteers. They changed the law on cloud storage for government data to make it harder for the Russians to take out vital systems. They tweaked financial infrastructure to make sure donations from the global public went straight into transparent national accounting systems. United24, a platform where you can donate bitcoin to buy drones to kill Russian soldiers, has a banner saying it’s audited by Deloitte, one of the Big Four global accounting firms.

These things must have felt small and needlessly bureaucratic during the opening days of an existential conflict, in which government business was being conducted from bunkers and leading political figures were reportedly being targeted for assassination by the Russians. But they mattered, Fedorov says, because the administration couldn’t afford to be anything less than performatively incorruptible. “It was a test [set] by the president,” Fedorov says. “Make all this happen fast, but also keep the bureaucracy in place.”

Fedorov’s ministry was able to use that solid base of bureaucracy to bypass the military’s slow procurement processes, taking in money and buying drones and other high-tech gear from whoever could get it into the field quickly. “United24 shows how many unnecessary chains there were in this decisionmaking, and how it could be streamlined or optimized,” he says. In practice, what that meant was they could buy things that soldiers wanted, but the army’s procedures wouldn’t let them have. “Procedures work like anchors,” says Alexander Stepura, founder and CEO of Skyeton, a Ukrainian drone manufacturer. “The guys on the front line, they don't think about procedures.”

In a farmer’s field an hour’s drive outside of Kyiv, a man in combat fatigues kneels in the dust like a supplicant, one arm raised to the heavens, holding a quadcopter on his outstretched palm. A few meters away, two of his comrades take cover behind a concrete pylon, watched over by an instructor in aviator sunglasses. After a long wait—long enough for the kneeling soldier to have to get up and stretch his legs—the drone’s propellers start to spin. It lifts slowly from his hand, then zips away, heading for a distant tree line.

The team of three—pilot, navigator, and catcher—are learning how to launch their drones (the instructors call them “birds”) and bring them safely home in a low diagonal line that’s hard for the enemy to track. The rule of thumb is you have 30 seconds in the open before someone spots you and the mortar bombs start to fall. “Priority number one is for soldiers to survive,” the instructor, who spoke on condition of anonymity, says. The second is to get the drones back intact, since it’s getting harder and harder to get hold of the Chinese-made DJI models that were ubiquitous in the early days of the war.

These fields, strung with electrical cables and dotted with smallholdings, are where Ukraine’s “Army of Drones” trains. Over the past year, hundreds of Ukrainians have come here to learn to fly unmanned aerial vehicles in defense of their homeland, being taught how to surveil enemy lines, spot targets for artillery, and drop explosives on Russian vehicles. There’s an informality to the operation—at the battery charging station a spaniel belonging to one of the instructors barges between the trainees’ legs—but the trainers have honed their skills in combat, and many of their students go from the school directly back to the lines.

The Ukrainian army’s use of drones in the early days of the war was another master class in tech innovation. Ordinary soldiers collaborated with engineers and programmers working out of living rooms and office spaces to bootstrap a weapons program that helped drive Russia’s armored columns back from the edge of Kyiv, often using drones costing a few hundred dollars apiece to destroy millions of dollars’ worth of high-tech military gear. Since then, the enemy has begun to develop countermeasures, so the Army of Drones has had to adapt and refine its tactics and its gear. “If you want to win, you have to be smarter,” the unit’s lead instructor, who also spoke on condition of anonymity, says. “And the only way to get smarter is to learn.”

Many of Ukraine’s innovations in drone warfare were made in sheds, offices, small industrial premises, and in the trenches themselves. Soldiers jury-rigged drones to carry grenades or mortar bombs; engineers and designers helped refine the systems, 3D-printing harnesses that used, for example, light-activated mechanisms that could be fitted to the underside of DJI Mavic drones, turning the UAV’s auxiliary lights into a trigger. But the country also had a sizable aerospace industry clustered in Kyiv, Kharkiv, and Lviv, which naturally pivoted to meet the threat of obliteration. Skyeton was part of it. Founded in 2006 as a maker of light aircraft, it’s been making UAVs for close to a decade, selling long-range surveillance drones to coast guards and police forces in Asia and Africa. One of its drones was put to work in Botswana, protecting the last remaining black rhino from poachers.

Converting its products for military use wasn’t straightforward. They needed to be adapted to fly without GNSS or GPS signals, and to be resistant to electronic warfare. Their software needed to be rewritten to identify military targets. “A lot of engineers in Ukraine are obsessed with fighting the enemy, so you just say ‘We need you guys’ and they come to the company and help,” says Skyeton CEO Stepura. They quickly built a new system that could fly without satellite navigation and took it to the military—who turned them down because it hadn’t been through testing, a process that typically takes two to three years in peacetime. The Army of Drones said yes straight away, and Skyeton’s drones headed to the front, where they’re still flying.

Stepura, and others I spoke to, are convinced that this approach has given Ukraine an edge. This is a war between competing technologies, he says. “Today, we have in this test field in Ukraine everything that was developed around the world. And it turns out, it doesn’t work.”

Surveillance drones like Boeing’s ScanEagle, previously billed as best-in-class, were too heavy, too slow to deploy, and too easy for the Russians to spot, he says. So the Army of Drones has gone for war-as-product-development, beta testing with “end users,” getting feedback, refining, picking winners. “The Army of Drones, all the time they communicate with end users, they collect information,” Stepura says. “They continue to invest into those companies that provide the product [about] which they've received good feedback.”

It’s easy to see Fedorov’s fingerprints on this approach. The deputy prime minister is taciturn, factual in his answers. (He’s far more expressive on Twitter.) But he’s at his most enthusiastic when he recounts a recent visit to a base on the front line near Zaporizhzhia. “The base is like an underground—actually underground—IT company. Everything is on screens with satellite connections, drone videos,” he says, with evident satisfaction. “The way people look and the way people talk, it’s just an IT company. A year ago, before the invasion, you wouldn’t see that.”

When I mention my meeting with Fedorov to Stepura, he beams. “He’s really good,” he says. “He’s really good. He’s a champion.” He might well be happy. The war, terrible as it’s been, has also been good for business. Skyeton has gone from 60 employees to 160. The drone industry is booming. A consensus estimate among half a dozen people I spoke with in the sector is that there are now around 100 viable military drone startups in Ukraine.

With the first, desperate phase of the war over, and the front line settling into more of a dynamic equilibrium, the Ministry of Digital Transformation wants to turn this startup arms business into a bona fide military-industrial complex. In April, the ministry, working with the military, launched Brave1, a “defense-tech” cluster to incubate promising technology that can first be deployed on the battlefield in Ukraine, and then be sold to customers overseas. In early June, the same fields where I watched new recruits learn the basics on DJI Mavics hosted a competition between 11 drone startups, who flew their birds in dogfights and over simulated trenches, watched over by Fedorov and an army general. The winner gets a chance at a contract with the military.

“The defense forces and the startup communities are different worlds,” Nataliia Kushnerska, Brave1’s project lead, says. “In this project, everybody receives what they need. The general staff and Ministry of Defense receive really great solutions they can actually use. The Ministry of the Economy receives a growing ecosystem, an industry that you could use to recover the country.”

It’s been a balmy spring in Kyiv. Café crowds spill out onto street-side tables. Couples walk their dogs under the blossoms in the city’s sprawling parks and botanic gardens, and teenagers use the front steps of the opera house as a skate ramp. From 500 days’ distance, the desperate, brutal defense of the capital last year has slipped into memory. What’s replaced it is a strange new normal. Restaurants advertise their bunkers alongside their menus. On train station platforms, men and women in uniform wait with duffel bags and bunches of flowers—returning from or heading to the front. During the day the skies are clear of planes, an odd absence for a capital city. At night, there are the sirens: Mark Hamill on repeat. When I left, the counteroffensive was due to happen any day. Here and there people dropped hints—supplies they’d been asked to find, mysterious trips to the southeast. It began in June, with Ukrainian forces inching forward once more.

Victory isn’t assured, and there are many sacrifices yet to come. But there is now space—psychological, emotional, and economic—to think about what comes next. Before I left Kyiv, I spoke to Tymofiy Mylovanov, a former government minister and now president of the Kyiv School of Economics, who is known for his unfiltered political analysis. I asked him why this young government had defied the expectations of many pundits, who expected their anti-corruption drives and grand plans for digitization to founder, and for them to crumble before Russia’s onslaught. “Because people weren’t paying attention to the details,” Mylovanov says. Of Fedorov, he says simply: “He’s the future.”

The war has provided proof of concept not just for drones, or the tech sector, but for a government that was idealistic and untested—even for Ukraine, as a nation whose borders, sovereignty, and identity have been undermined for decades.

Brave1 is a small way for Ukraine to look forward, to turn the disaster it’s living through into a chance to build something new. The incubator isn’t hosted in an imposing military building staffed by men in fatigues, but in the Unit City tech hub in Kyiv, with beanbags, third-wave coffee stands, and trampolines built into the courtyard. It’s emblematic of the startup-ization of the war effort, but also of the way that the war has become background noise in many cases. Its moments are still shocking, but day to day there’s a need to just get on with business.

The war is always there—Fedorov still had to present his education project in the basement, not the ballroom—but it’s been integrated into the workflow. In March, Fedorov was promoted and given an expanded brief as deputy prime minister for innovation, education, science, and technology. He’s pushing the Diia app into new places. It now hosts courses to help Ukrainians retrain in tech, and motivational lectures from sports stars and celebrities. Ukrainians can use it to watch and vote in the Eurovision Song Contest. And they can use it to listen to emergency radio broadcasts, to store their evacuation documents, to apply for funds if their homes are destroyed, even to report the movements of Russian troops to a chatbot.

Speaking as he does, like a tech worker, Fedorov says these are exactly the kind of life-changing, tangible products he promised to create, all incremental progress that adds up to a new way of governing. Small acts of political radicalism delivered online. “Government as a service,” as he puts it. He’s rolling out changes to the education system. He’s reforming the statistical service. The dull things that don’t make headlines. Ordinary things that need to be done alongside the extraordinary ones. “The world keeps going,” he says. “While Ukraine fights for freedom.”

[sugarhillpark]

.....okay i tried to resist. i'm in your walls. talk to me about wallllls <3 <3 <#

Happy very late Birthday and Valentine’s day babe. ❤️I am giving you three snippets as requested when we last talked, with the requested Peterick in them, and I even tried hard to stack ones that kinda matched up and are chronological because I love you. And I know two thirds of these don’t constitute anything close to ‘snippets’ because I'm a no-good hooligan.

You know what Walls is about but for anyone reading in the back: post-divorce Panic! fic where Ryan and Brendon and the people around them navigate the thorns of the past after Ryan spontaneously appears at Brendon’s door years later.

Under the cut lovely 🌹

Brendon watches the girl make her way down the cobblestone path, the red enamel rose on her navel ring glinting like a garnet in the sun as she tugs down Ryan’s traded shirt. He heaves himself out of his awkward crouch position once she’s vanished from view. Brendon makes a face at the loud crack of his back in the hot silence as he stands among the dead orchids and the fading smell of weed. He hates how sore his shoulders are after the long drive here as he edges out of the greenhouse and thinks about the flat stomach of that girl, tanned and adolescent against the wine bottles on Ryan’s sofa.

1.

Ryan’s hand is curled around the hem of the grey t-shirt he swapped with her as Brendon approaches him on the path, knuckles pink against the fabric and nudging his hip. Ryan doesn’t acknowledge his presence as Brendon comes to face him, passive gaze on the gravel.

“So why did you have my t-shirt?” Brendon asks flatly.

Ryan looks up, startled.

“It’s a grey t-shirt,” he says, but his face is flushed and he folds his arms across his chest the way he always had when he was caught out. Brendon rolls his eyes.

“No. I wore that shirt as a pyjama top on the Circus tour and I fucked you in it once. Then I thought I lost it, but then you wore it that time we were hanging with Pete by his bus. And I was going down on you and fingering you that night and then…” Brendon shoves down a wave of self-pity at images of Ryan spooned up against him all night and breathing softly, spit on his grey t-shirt and sleep crusting on his lashes. “And then I lost it again,” he finishes.

Ryan stares at him, brown eyes wide and flush deep along the column of his throat. He arches an eyebrow.

“You have a pretty great memory of what you did with your fingers like seven years ago,” he says dryly. “Why do you know all that?”

“You know why I remember you, Ryan!” Brendon snaps, and then palms at the sweat on the nape of his neck, embarrassed. “Why didn’t you want her to take that shirt, anyway?” he sneers. “Is that like a personal trophy?”

 “You understand I have all the same awards and shit as you do from like five years of my life, if I wanted a trophy, right?” Ryan snaps. “You love to forget about the part where I was in our band.” Ryan looks so pretty, skin pink against the cotton grey and brown eyes flashing in anger under the sun. Brendon thinks about the peace on Ryan’s face asleep in his arms that night over half a decade ago. He suddenly wants to go home.

“No, I don’t,” Brendon says slowly. “Whatever. Tell your ex-girlfriend thanks for the weed,” he adds as he turns around and walks down the path.

“Brendon,” Ryan lets out on a frustrated breath. Brendon ignores him, crunching over the sand-coloured gravel and picturing Z’s dreamy hand-writing on the side of the one living orchid pot. It hurts.

“I’ll post you like fifty grey t-shirts. Since apparently you’re fucking destitute of grey shirts now or something. I guess the one you took without asking’s a present now too.”

“Brendon could you please stop,” Ryan tries. His voice falters and Brendon pauses on the cobblestone he’s standing on and looks at what looks like some kind of stumpy palm tree beside him. A lot of the plants around him look like Ryan wasn’t sure what was meant to belong there.

“What?”

“That night after we were with Pete outside the Fall Out Boy bus. After we,” Ryan clears his throat with a strange, anxious sound, “had sex. You were humming a Britney Spears song.”

Brendon turns around and stares at him in astonishment. Ryan looks at him for a moment, cocking his head like he’s reading his face and then taking tentative steps down the path towards him.

“You were humming against my neck. What song was that?” he asks as he reaches Brendon.

“It was ‘Lucky’,” Brendon tells him without time to process if he wants to. Ryan smiles, cracked lips full from where Brendon kissed them in the greenhouse.

“What: no petty, asshole comment about that?”

Ryan’s shoulders sag and he twists his hand in the grey fabric at his stomach.

“Ask me again why I still had your t-shirt.”

“Fuck you, Ryan.”

Ryan looks up at a bird passing overhead that looks like it might be a hawk. For a moment he looks like he wants to be far away too, hungover and vulnerable with half of his face in the sun. Brendon sighs and lifts his fingertips to touch the part of Ryan’s lips where they’re a darker pink in the shadow. Ryan closes his eyes.

“I remember you too.”

2.

“I almost kissed Ryan today.”

Pete feels Patrick’s breath catch at his back and his arm shift around him as Patrick shuffles on the bed the way he does when he’s anxious. What Patrick doesn’t do is stop holding Pete. It makes Pete feel more loved and more like hot garbage than he did ten seconds ago.

“So that coffee really escalated fast,” Patrick starts cautiously after Pete doesn’t say anything. “That really- that got out of hand quickly,” he stammers out with an anxious laugh. Pete’s heart swells and he wants to turn in his arms and kiss that guarded laugh out of Patrick’s lungs. He loves the fact that Patrick is trying to make a bad Anchorman reference right now so hard it gives him chest pains.

“That line goes the other way around. That got out of hand fast.” Patrick takes another breath at Pete’s shoulder and Pete adds, “I didn’t kiss him. I thought about it, though.”

Pete feels Patrick’s entire frame relax around him.

“Ah, so I have to apologise to you for almost kissing the girl at the florist today because I thought she was cute, right?”

Pete shakes his head, staring ahead at the wall he knows he’s facing in the dark.

“That’s not the same.”

Patrick chuckles.

“Are you saying I have no game? Because we can’t all have your looks, but I can be pretty charming,” he teases, placing a warm, wet kiss on Pete’s neck. Pete doesn’t respond to the touch, static and staring ahead in Patrick’s arms. It’s not that he doesn’t want the way that Patrick’s hand is sneaking around his hip. It’s that Patrick is so good, and Pete hasn’t earned that today. “Come on, girls think my awkwardness is hot,” Patrick jokes. He squeezes his hand around Pete’s hip and Pete exhales.

“You know what I meant.”

“Okay…” Patrick says. He takes his hand away and his voice changes as he realises Pete’s taking this seriously. “That’s fair; you guys have a history. I understand that my odds of hooking up with our florist aren’t so great. What I don’t understand is you wanting to punish yourself for anything you thought about doing.” Patrick kisses the crest of Pete’s back, more gentle this time. “We’ve talked about that.”

Pete nods in the dark. Pete doesn’t mention the part where he thinks Ryan is the reason that didn’t happen, not him. He thinks about Ryan’s back pressed against the bathroom wall next to the roaring hand dryer, Ryan’s annoyed brown eyes and Ryan’s hot breath on his face. The closeness accidental but the sugar on his breath slamming into Pete’s blood like Pete’s hips used to slam into Ryan.

“I love my flowers,” Pete croaks. “Thank you, ’Trick.”

“You’re so welcome,” Patrick murmurs, tugging Pete closer so Pete’s lower back is pressed against the softness of his belly. “You’re way hotter than the florist.” Patrick rests his hand on Pete’s abs now, thumb stroking along the muscle. It’s like he’s uncertain if he should go back to giving Pete more sexual attention, but he’s making sure to present that option. Patrick hadn’t seemed like he was after sex tonight when he came into bed, wearing a faded Simpsons t-shirt and bright blue boxers and turning off the lamp as he lay down.

Maybe Patrick thinks it’s his job to make Pete come now, if Pete wants that. Because Pete always wants to crawl inside Patrick when his perfect life gets too hard. Pete’s eyes water.

“Patrick?” Pete whispers.

“Hey,” Patrick says softly.

“Am I bad?”

3.

“Look, it’s alright,” Pete says. He crouches down in front of Ryan, hopeful as he pushes his handful of wet grey fabric forward above Ryan’s lap. “Baking soda and vinegar, right? It’s almost all come away already. It’s alright.”

Ryan’s head is still hanging forward on his neck, shoulders pressing in over his thin frame on his knees on the floor. He slowly takes the t-shirt out of Pete’s hands and looks at the faded pink mark where Pete soaked and scrubbed at the wine stain. Ryan’s knuckles turn pink as he squeezes and Pete watches the water soak Ryan’s thighs.

“You’re alright,” Pete tries, and Ryan looks up at him like his awareness of Pete’s presence lapsed. Ryan shivers. Pete touches his wet leg and then takes his hand back, face burning.

#fanfic #writing #Walls #ryden #petrick #peterick #ryte #rpf #ask games #man i do love to make people have a Hard Time huh

[iamthejinyouarethejin]

Not Just A Crush

Valentine’s Day.

It’s a turbulent day for all.

Well, not for all, but for many.

Especially in your case.

You had a screwed up. MY GOSH, you had screwed up.

You mind was pressuring you to make yourself vulnerable to the one person who could make you weak at any moment.

Valentino.

Love is a strong word, but was it the wrong word? No way in Ohio.

Your school’s senior class always had a big Valentine’s Day Fundraiser, five buckaroos for a generous portion of candy, a personalized note, and a balloon.

I think I’m gonna get him one.

“And what could posses you to do that?”

“I said that out loud?”

“Loud and clear, sister.”

“Well, I dunno,” you shrugged. “I’m not gonna sign my name of course… Or should I?"

“I’ll pay for it!” One of your friends chimed in from across the table.

“Cesi, no way.”

“YES WAY!"

And somehow, you found yourself writing him a two page long note saying how much you liked him, but still ended up shortening it to a few words.

Anonymous.

You stuffed some tissues in your pocket, tapping your pen on your desk.

"That's smart... In case of rejection, always be prepared."

"Great pep talk," you rolled your eyes. "I guess you're right. I don't even see the point in this."

"Well we do!" your friends chimed in unison.

There you were, giving your homeroom teacher the note and $5 along with it, praying by some miraculous power you weren't at school that day.

But you were, and that week before Valentine's Day went by way too fast.

"HE'S READING IT!!!!" Cesi poked her head in from the other classroom, grinning. "C'mere!"

You and a couple others trotted along to Mrs. Ortega's class, barely looking in, but positioned just well enough to hear everything.

"Anonymous? Bro-"

"Shut up. You don't even know who it's from."

Oh, he looked so beautiful in red. It worked wonders with his skin. He looked even more gorgeous than he usually did to you.

"Ssh, ssh-" Cesi snapped. "Guys!"

"To..."

"I'm gonna die."

"You'll be fine."

You covered your eyers, biting the insides of your cheeks, hoping for the worst.

"From Anonymous. 'Hey. How are you? I like you.' Smiley face."

"I'm actully gonna die."

"That's Valentina's handwriting!" a guy sqwacked.

"Shut up... there's no way- She could... like me?''

"Dude- haven't you wanted this since like the second grade?"

"Well, yeah- But I didn't realize how I actually felt until this year and just seeing her all pretty and dolled up every day... she makes me uncontrollable without even realizing it."

"Dolled up? It's not like she dresses up. She wears the same stuff we all do."

"But she's so... perfect... I guess nobody's perfect, but she it makes it hard for me to truly believe that."

"..."

"..."

"..."

"Too much?"

"You're down bad, bro."

"I know that. That's why I'm glad I'm not in her class and she's not in mi-"

"Hey Valentino!"

"Mm?'

NO NO NO NO NO NO.

"Shut up, Cesi, shut the hell up."

"No."

"Valenti-"

"Before you say anything, I'm sorry if the note weired you out, I was being strange as hell and I don't know wh-"

"You don't have to apologize..." he muttered, his voice barely above a whisper. His face was flushing with a bright red, and the palms of his hands were drenched in sweat. "I- I'm just a little hot right now."

You smirked a little, seeing how hot he did look. He was sweaty, squirming, and seemed very uncomfortable. You loved to see it.

"So I'm assuming-"

"I like you too? Yeah."

"Yeah..." you nodded. "Well, at least we didn't have to do this on Instagram live like those juniors did last year."

"Right..."

"That would've been a catastrophe."

"..."

"Um... So- D-Do you want to hang out or s-something? W-We could go to the movies and do stuff... l-later, I don't know."

"Stuff?" his friend chuckled.

"I mean... Not like that, unless you want to-"

"Oh no no, it's up to you."

"Well I-"

"My family is-"

"And I want you to be-"

"Oh, sorry."

"No- You go first."

"No! You can go. It's fine."

"Can you two dorks actually look each other in the eye for a minture and say "I like you"? What's so hard about that?"

EVERYTHING.

"Ahahah..." Valentino awkwardly scratched the back of his neck. "Uh- Yeah, I like you, I do. A lot. A whole whole lot. Don't blame me for it. She's the pretty one."

Blushiiiiiiin'.

"Oh- me? Heck nah. If anything, I'm the sidekick to the pretty girl."

"Don't say that. Smart, respectable girls are pretty girls. And I think every girl is at least one of those things in her own way. You just happen to be both in the way I find deathly attractive."

You both laughed, shaking your heads.

"Ok then?"

"Haha, yeah." You avoided his gaze, reaching your hand out for his.

"Happy Valentine's Day, Valentine?"

"Happy Valentine's Day." :)

#crush x reader imagine #Crush scenarios #valentines dayyy #💌💌💌💌💌 #💌 anon #loved this #based on somewhat true events #ididthissamethingwithmycrushtodaybutidkifhelikesme #thoseexactwords #l rizz #requested by anon well wait #they werent anon #lemme get their @ rq #ok nvm i'm lazy but u know itz 4 u luv!!

[liaromancewriter]

Hey there! In an attempt to spread some Writer Positivity, I'd like you to share five (or more, if you'd like to!) memorable quotes by your characters, across your fics!

They can be fun, silly, romantic, anything that exemplifies your writing! Thanks for sharing <3

I really love this ask, Mads! Thanks for including me. At first I was overthinking it (shocker, I know). Then, I decided to go with my first instinct.

Quote 1: Unforgettable

Reaching into the bag she pulled out one of the condoms, tore open the foil and then rolled it down his length while he watched.

“You know that glows in the dark, right?”

“Beggars can’t be choosers, Valentine.”

Quote 2: Waiting for Dr. Ramsey

“I don’t expect you to say it back. I don’t,” she said quickly when he opened his mouth to speak. “But I want you to know how I feel because I’m not giving up on us. If I have to wait two more years for my residency to end and we can be together, I will. Just tell me it’s not hopeless.”

Quote 3: Private Celebrations

“I wanted you from the first moment you held my hand,” she whispered, leaning in to trace his jaw with her tongue.

“Is that right?” he responded, unable to keep the amusement from his voice. “Do emergency thoracotomies in the middle of a waiting room make you horny, Dr. Valentine?”

Quote 4: Falling Into Dust - Part 3

“Do you know how many deaths I had seen before med school?” she asked, not waiting for him to respond before continuing. “None. Cassie Valentine lived a relatively carefree life. She spent time with her family and friends. She danced. Could jet around the world if she had the whim to. Her only worry was being caught by the paparazzi and making the front pages of tabloids after a night on the town.”

“But Doctor Valentine?” she expanded. “She saw too much death from the first...I don’t know that I want to be Doctor Valentine anymore if it means I lose Cassie with it.”

Quote 5: Falling Slowly

“You make porno sounds during a massage. Good to know,” he teased, laughter in his voice.

Sienna’s eyes snapped open at the words and she tilted her head back to meet his gaze.

“I don’t make porno sounds!” she protested, eyes narrowing to slits to show him she was not amused.

“I don’t know, Si,” Max said, his eyes smiling into hers. “I’m the one listening and those moans are definitely X-rated.”

Quote 6: Rumor Has It

“I thought we were going to be discreet at work, Dr. Ramsey,” she whispered, green eyes sparkling with joy.

“I’m done being discreet, Dr. Valentine,” he said, placing a light kiss on her lips before resting his forehead against her.

“Rumor has it,” he continued, his fingers lacing through hers, “the Hair Twirler on 5, the EMT with a crush, the NICU intern and the surgical nurse that stalked me at Derry’s need to learn an important lesson. That no amount of cupcakes will change how I feel about you.”

Quote 7: Not Too Late

“So?” Max smirked, enjoying himself. “We’re still newlyweds. It’s expected.”

“How long do you think we can use that excuse?” she asked with amused exasperation.

“The first six months, so we have two more months to go,” he nodded sagely but with a twinkle in his eye. “Of course, our post-wedding reception is next month, so one could argue, the clock resets and we’ll have another six months after.”

“You’re incorrigible,” Sienna said with a shake of her head.

Character Asks: @bluebelle08 @crazy-loca-blog @coffeeheartaddict2 @doriopenheart @quixoticdreamer16 @lucy-268 @jerzwriter  @openheartforeverinmyheart @peonierose @queencarb @rookiemartin @trappedinfanfiction

#ask and answered #open heart #ethan ramsey #ethan ramsey x cassie valentine #sienna trinh #sienna trinh x max valentine

[depressedhatakekakashi]

Every Field Needs a Scarecrow

Pairing: Hatake Sakumo/Hatake Yua (OC)

Words: 2637

Pandemonium. That was the only word Yua could think of to describe the scene in front of her. Everywhere she looked women were running around snatching up boxes of chocolates. Some of them would spend time in front of each display carefully contemplating their options until finally settling on one beautiful box, but others were filling their arms and bags with as much as they could carry.

“I need three more!” She heard one woman call out as she rushed past her with a tower of chocolate boxes piled so high that it blocked her from seeing where she was going, resulting in her smacking straight into another person and sending all of those precious chocolates flying in every direction.

“Is there a reason for all of this?” Yua asks, keeping her voice low as she leans in a little closer to Tsunade. “Why are they acting like this?”

“Like what, exactly?” Tsunade fires back with another question, staring at the same scene as Yua but with far less confusion. 

“Like Animals,” Yua answers. “Except instead of fighting over food or shelter, they snatch at… chocolates.”

Tsunade threw her head back and laughed. “Yua,” lifting her left hand, she wiped away a tear that rolled down her cheek. “It’s Valentine's day.” 

“Valentine's day?” Twenty-five years Yua had lived in this world, and not once had she heard anything about a ‘Valentine's day’. “What is that?”

Amusement washed off of Tsunade’s face in an instant. Turning her gaze towards her friend, she stared at her with wide eyes and a mouth that was agape in shock. “You don’t have Valentine's day in the land of Iron?”

All Yua could do was shake her head. There were holidays in her homeland. Days of rest and celebration that included dances, food and games.

There was no such thing as ‘Valentine's day’, though. A holiday that involved fighting over chocolates was surely one she would remember. 

Tsunade stared at her with a bewildered expression. “You don’t know?” A shrug of her shoulders was the only answer Yua could provide. Her knowledge of the holiday was none existent and lying to Tsunade about that fact would do her no good. “Well, it’s a holiday for couples. Women are supposed to go out and buy chocolates that they’ll present to the person they love.”

“The person they love?” Staring back into the crowd, Yua watched as the woman who’d dropped her chocolates just moments ago knelt low to the ground and frantically grabbed at the fallen boxes. “If they’re for their love, wouldn’t they only require one box of chocolates?”

“Depends on the woman,” Tsunade continued. “Some want to spoil their lover as a show of affection, and some are trying to show their affection for multiple potential partners.” 

As she listened, Yua couldn’t help but allow her eyes to wander toward the nearest shop. With shelves that seem to have had all of their stock stolen by desperate customers, leaving only two or three boxes that looked as though they had been tossed against a wall. The idea of a day to show one’s feelings for their lover seemed romantic, but the scene in front of her was anything but.

“You know,” Tsunade spoke up, a sly little smile stretching across her lips when Yua looked back her way. “Before he came home with you, Sakumo would always end up with armfuls of chocolate. Almost every girl in Konoha had a box for him.” 

“Every girl?”

“Well, minus me,” her friend admitted. “I always saved the chocolates I bought for Dan.”

As she would expect. Even if Tsunade and Sakumo were close, they never seemed to have feelings for each other that surpassed those of friendship. If anyone was likely to fall in love with Tsunade, it was Yua herself. Not her husband. 

“So, what you’re saying is it would be appropriate for me to buy chocolates?” She asked, already contemplating just what to get for her husband.

“If that’s what you want to do,” Tsunade confirmed. “I’m sure Sakumo will appreciate chocolates from

His adorable Samurai wife, more than the mountains of chocolates he has gotten every year before.”

Mountains of chocolate.

The idea of buying her husband so many chocolates that he’d be eating them for the next year was compelling, but Yua couldn’t help thinking that there was something else she could get him.

Something that had a bit more meaning.

“Are there any other gifts one could give to their partner?” She asked, requiring all of the information she could get before making her decision.

Tilting her head, Tsunade seemed to contemplate her question for a moment before answering. “It’s traditionally some sort of chocolate, but I suppose it can be anything you want. As long as it has the effect of showing your partner how much they mean to you.” 

A gift that would show Sakumo how much he meant to her. There was only one thing Yua could think of that would display those deep affections that swelled in her chest whenever she saw her husband, but it would take some work to get it ready before Sakumo returned home from his mission.

“I’m tired of this place,” she announced suddenly, grinning when Tsunade raised an eyebrow at her. “Let’s go to the bookshop.”

“The bookshop?” Her friend rolled her eyes. “Didn’t you just buy a new book yesterday with Jiraiya?”

Grabbing hold of her friend's arm, Yua charged forward with no care for the protests that were being yelled at her, or the people unfortunate enough to find themselves between her and her goal. There were many things to do before Sakumo returned home, and only a short amount of time for her to complete them. 

The Land of Iron had its traditions and holidays. Time’s when families would huddle close together and chase away the deep cold that had settled into their bones from the harsh winter weather, or when they would rush outside to enjoy those few precious moments of sunshine that seemed to disappear just as fast as it had arrived. 

Konoha’s holidays were very different. Since the first day she’d stepped inside the giant village, Yua had felt overwhelmed and lost. Always scrambling to learn new things about the place that she now called home, and Valentine's day was no different.

It had taken her two books dedicated to explaining the holiday, and some help from Tsunade, before she was prepared to create a surprise for Sakumo that was sure to win her the title of ‘most dedicated wife in all of Konoha’. A title she was sure to wear with pride, as long as everything went just as she had planned.

“Flowers,” her eyes scanned over the room, stopping on the little bouquet of tulips that she’d picked up from the Yamanaka flower shop on her way home. A gift she’d chosen out more for herself than for Sakumo, though she had no doubt he would find some small joy in their presence. “Poem,” glancing down at the table, she smiled when she saw her poem laying there waiting for Sakumo. It wasn’t a piece of work that she was particularly proud of, having rushed its completion so that she would finish it in time for Sakumo’s arrival, but it was perfect for the occasion. Something sure to bring a smile to his handsome face. “Dinner.” Finally, she turned her attention to the stove where a nice pot of Gyudon sat waiting for them to eat.

The sound of the front door sliding open reached her eyes, causing Yua to turn away from all of her hard work and stare at the man who now stood there in the doorway. The man who she’d fallen in love with in the dead of winter while sitting atop his waist holding a sword against his neck.

Hatake Sakumo.

“You’re home,” he stepped into the house and slid the door shut behind him, toeing off his shoes while Yua stood there watching him. Waiting for him to notice all of the things she had put out. “I was expecting you to be out.”

“Where would I be?” She asked, amused by the way his smile seemed to stretch a little wider. 

“With Tsunade,” He answered confidently. “You’re always with her when I’m away.”

A truth she wouldn’t dare to try and deny. Tsunade was easily her second favourite person in the village, and when she wasn’t busy with work at the hospital or missions, Yua loved to spend time with her. 

“She’s busy tonight,” stepping forward, she watched as Sakumo glanced over her shoulder toward the table. “Her and Dan have plans tonight.”

“It seems like the whole village has plans,” Sakumo snorted. “I’ve seen people running around everywhere. Is there something special going on?”

It was comforting to know that she wasn’t the only one who hadn’t been prepared for today, though she was certain Sakumo knew about the holiday unlike her. Tsunade had stated that he was used to receiving gifts, after all.

Not wanting to make him feel bad for forgetting, she held out her hands toward him. A small gesture was quickly rewarded with Sakumo closing the distance between them and grabbing hold of her hands. The warmth of his skin hit her instantly, as it always seemed to. Providing her with a comfort that she’d only found in sitting by the fireplace when she was still in the Land of Iron. 

“I have a gift for you.”

“A gift?” His smile grew brighter. “Why would you get me a gift?”

“Do wives not sometimes get their husbands gifts?” It seemed such a silly question, but Yua was used to such things from her husband. Though he was known as a fearsome shinobi, capable of defeating even the three legendary Sannin, he was still Hatake Sakumo. The man she’d fallen in love with not because of his skills in battle, but because of that soft, dorky smile. 

“Sometimes,” he confirmed. “Though you usually prefer to do other things to spoil me.”

Other things were, of course, Sakumo’s way of hinting at their bedroom activities. Yua wasn’t the best at showing her affection with words even though she prided herself as a writer, and gifts hardly touched on her feelings for Sakumo. The passion that burned between them when they shut the bedroom door and spent half of the night making love, though, never failed to make him understand just how deeply she cared.

“I decided on a gift this time,” pressing a quick kiss against his chin, she extracted her hands and turned towards the table. “There’s Gyudon for dinner.”

Taking the hint, Sakumo stepped past her and made his way toward the table. “You got tulips,” he noted, reaching out to touch the delicate petals. “That’s a new one. Usually, you have a flower crown.”

“Inoichi wasn’t at the shop today,” slipping in behind him, she watched as he rubbed the petal between his thumb and forefinger. “So I had to settle for a regular bouquet this time.”

“Unfortunate,” releasing his hold on the flower, he focused on the poem she’d laid out for him. “Did you write this?”

“I did.”

“And you didn’t get any pointers from Jiraiya on this one?”

Covering her mouth, Yua took a moment to collect herself before speaking. “That was one time.” 

“It was riddled with sexual innuendos.”

“And I learned my lesson,” she defended herself. “Jiraiya is no longer allowed to give me any writing advice, especially when I know that he has been visiting the bathhouses,” The look he gave her was one of disbelief, but she simply shrugged it off and gestured toward the poem. “I worked very hard on it.”

“You did,” he responded matter of factly, aware of just how important writing was to her. There was no story or poem that Yua didn’t pour her entire soul into, and this one was even more special. It was made just for him, with a message that she was sure he would enjoy. “Alright.”

Sighing, he picked the poem up and began to read it. At first, he looked tired, exhausted from a long mission and no doubt too hungry to appreciate all of her work. After reading a few lines, though, his eyes widened with surprise. 

“Yua…”

“Yes?” stepping up behind him, she smiled when he looked back up at her. 

“Does this mean….are you…”

A small nod of her head and suddenly Sakumo dropped the poem back down to the table and spun round to face her. His arms snaked around her body and pulled her tight against him, the warmth of his breath brushing against her forehead. 

“What part of the poem did you get to?” 

“A scarecrow in an open field, guarding the crops planted for future generations.” He repeated her own words back to her, joy dripping in his voice. “When did you find out?”

“Tsunade did a test this morning,” lifting a hand, she laid it against his chest just over his heart. “I was having some difficulties when we went out for breakfast and she wanted to make sure everything was alright.”

His laughter rang in her ear.”That sounds like Tsunade.” Another kiss, this time on her cheek as Sakumo hugged her a bit tighter. “I can’t believe this. But what about you?” he pulled back suddenly and stared at her. “How do you feel?”

“I feel…a lot of things,” she tried to laugh, but it came out as more of an awkward chuckle. “Happy, though. That’s the most important part.”

“Happy,” he agreed, sliding one arm off of her waist and reaching up to cup her cheek. “That’s a great way to feel.”

Leaning into his hand, she smiled. The warmth that radiated off of him was comforting. A far cry from the bitter cold that she was used to growing up in the land of Iron. “And the name? Do you like it?”

“That name?” confusion crossed over his face. “I didn’t see a name?”

“You said it,” extracting herself from his hold, she stepped around him, picked up the poem, and turned it towards him. “Right, here.” 

Examining the paper, Sakumo frowned. “Scarecrow?”

“Yes,” with that confirmed, she set the poem down once more. “It seems fitting with the family name.”

“You want to name our child-”

“Our son,” she corrected him, feeling far more confident in her words than any first-time parent should. “I want to name our son scarecrow. Well, I want to name him something that means ‘scarecrow’”

“How do you know it’s a boy?”

“I just do,” she answered with a shrug of her shoulders, unable to explain the feeling in her gut that her child would be a boy. “And he needs a fitting name. Something that he can be proud of.”

Sakumo went quiet. His eyes moved away from her and his hands came up to his hips, settling there while he mulled over her words. Yua had seen him thinking about things before, but never quite as intensely. Even missions never seemed to require this amount of focus before.

“I like it,” he declared as a smile stretched across his face. “Kakashi.”

Kakashi.

Yua’s heart swelled when she heard that name. She’d had an idea of what to name her child, but no matter how hard she tried to couldn’t think up a name on her own. All she could do was display the idea to her husband, and as always he’d taken that idea and turned it into something beautiful.

“Kakashi,” she tested it out for herself, and almost as soon as she had spoken the name aloud she could see her child. With spiky silver hair, sunken eyes, and a smile that matched her own. “It’s perfect.”

#Sakumo X OC #Sakumo/OC #SakumoYua #Hatake Sakumo X OC #Hatake Sakumo #Oc: Hatake Yua