#This exists entirely because about two months ago or so i said to someone. I THINK skyeventide. i want to see maedhros in this.

[thetriumphantpanda]

sharing is caring | joel & tommy miller

Summary | If there was one thing no-one really prepared you for when you got pregnant, it was the increase in your sex drive. Six months in and you're more frustrated than ever that something just isn't scratching the itch. You know exactly how to fix it, turns out Tommy does too - if only you'd asked about this three months ago.

Warnings | Pregnancy sex, descriptions of a pregnant body, oral sex (f receiving), masterbation (m), Unprotected PiV sex (Even if you're pregnant, STDs exist folks), creampie, Tommy getting cucked because he loves it more than anything, Joel just being.... Joel.

Word Count | 2.9k

Authors Note | You didn't think Joel was just going to disappear did you? Of course he wasn't. I know that pregnancy sex and this whole trope isn't for everyone, but I hope that I've managed to do it in a way that is still sexy and hot and has you all still loving our little threesome! Big disclaimer that I've never been pregnant, so the accuracy of this might be.... off, please forgive me. We've got one more part after this and I still cannot believe how many of you are still here for this little story. I appreciate all the love you've given me on this so far and I just hope you love the way this ends (When I share it with you), as much as I do! As always, if you liked this, please consider reblogging, leaving a comment or popping into my ask with some love. If you'd like to support me by leaving a tip, you can do so here on my Ko-Fi (But as I always say, no pressure!)

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“Fuck, Tommy, holy shit.” 

Your head is thrown back on the pillow as your hips rock to meet his, your hand working hard to try and bring yourself as close to the edge as Tommy is right now. It’s been six months of a sex drive that’s been through the roof and six months of nothing working to satisfy that. Tommy had always been diligent lover, right from the very beginning, you’d always been satisfied, but there was something that just wasn’t working, and it had all begun when your stomach had started to swell. 

It had nothing to do with hating your body – if anything, seeing what it was doing, carrying a creating an entire other human, made you love it even more – you could spend hours running your hands over the swell of your stomach, even when your child would kick or move about and your skin would contort in ways you didn’t know possible, all you could do was watch in awe. No, it had nothing to do with that, and everything to do with the fact you were craving something, someone, you probably shouldn’t. 

In the past month, though it killed you to admit it, you’d started faking your orgasms. Something you’d never had to do in your time with Tommy, but that was probably easier than coming clean about the fact that you wanted Joel. No. You needed him. The combination of these two men, in your mind, was the only thing you could think that would help – the eyes of your love on you as his brother fucked you into another dimension. But how the fuck do you even ask for that?

When all is said and done that evening, and Tommy is softly snoring behind you with his hands resting on your belly, you run through every possible way that you might ask him if he’ll let Joel join you again. It had been incredibly normal between the three of you – you’d fallen back into the relationships you’d had before this whole thing started – Joel seemingly nothing but the loving brother-in-law he’d always been, and two brothers who certainly hadn’t been sharing you between themselves. It was a relief, that you could all go back to your old roles, but you knew Joel wanted more. Every time you’d see him, you’d watch his eyes on your swelling stomach, eyes that would darken when they met your own, with nothing but wanting for you. You knew he would do anything for you, you just had to ask. 

“Can I ask you something?” You pluck up the courage one evening when Tommy is massaging your ankles to try and get the swelling to subside. 

“Course you can.” He comments, his eyes never leaving the sports coverage on the TV in front of him. 

“Promise you won’t get mad?” You’re biting at the corner of one of your nails, worried that you might just be about to ruin everything good you’ve ever had. 

You watch, puzzled, as a smirk appears on Tommy’s face, his hands still working to relieve the aches at your ankles, “What the hell are you smirking for?” You ask. 

“Just think I know what you’re gonna ask for, is all.” 

“Go on then, smartass,” You offer, “What am I going to ask for?” 

“You want Joel, right?” 

What the fuck? How the fuck did he know? Your shock and surprise that he knew exactly what was on your mind must show on your face because he’s chuckling. 

“You’re not mad?” You ask. 

“No sugar, I am not mad,” He smiles, “He did a big thing for us,” He pauses to put a hand on your belly, “I’d be dumb as rocks to think that after all this there wasn’t some kind of connection between you both and that’s okay,” He leans over and presses a soft kiss to your lips, “I know you love me, but if you need him to help then all you had to do was ask.” 

"I just feel guilty," You admit, "That we're doing this together," You rest a hand on your tummy where a foot has just kicked, "And I can't stop thinking about how good it feels when you're both there."

"You don't have to feel guilty," He reassures, "He's as much involved as you or I sugar, and it's okay to ask for what you want, I promise."

“I still want you to be there,” You speak softly, taking hold of his hand, “And you’re sure you’re okay with this?” 

“Don’t worry your pretty head about it, sweetheart,” He smiles, and you can tell it’s genuine, “Leave it with me and I’ll make sure you get what you want.” 

It doesn’t take long for Tommy to make good on his promise. Within the week, you’re led on your bed, trying to relieve the ache in your back for a little bit, when that familiar of knocks at the door rings through the house. You stay horizontal for a while, mind thinking back to all the times you’d done this before. This time you know it has nothing to do with being a means to an end, and everything about you being able to enjoy yourself, and that’s thrilling more than anything else. 

You push yourself up on your hands, leaning back on them slightly, when you can hear Tommy and Joel coming up the stairs. You’re dressed in your usual silk robe. The burgeoning bump in front of you means even if you tie it, it doesn’t fit properly anymore, so you’ve got the most unsexy pair of underwear on, the only stuff that fits right now, but when Joel makes his way through your bedroom door, left open this time, it doesn’t matter, he’s looking at you like you’re the loveliest thing he’s ever seen. 

Tommy is behind him, walking over to take his place on the chair in the corner, leaving you and Joel to have a moment to yourself, for now. Joel leans down and presses his usual chaste kiss to your cheek, pulling back to look down at you, looming over you as he traces your bottom lip with his thumb, just like he had the first night you’d been together. 

“You frustrated, darlin’ girl?” He asks, letting a smirk fall across his lips, “Thought you didn’t need me anymore, didn’t you?” You vehemently shake your head, no, you knew you needed him, and if you’d known Tommy would let you, you’d have asked months ago, “Don’t worry, pretty girl, I think together we can make you feel good.” He tilts his head to Tommy, sat behind you, but for once, your eyes are only on Joel. 

You reach your own hand up to cup his face, letting your fingers trace along the rough hair on his jaw, you want to tell him you’ve missed him, because you have, but instead you just settle for trying to finally get what you want. 

“You gonna spend all night looking at me?” You ask coyly, “Or are you going to eat my pussy?” 

“You drive a hard bargain.” He smirks, dropping to his knees, pulling at your ankles so you’re siting over the end of the bed, his hands coming to undo the tie of your robe, slipping it off to reveal your naked upper half to him. 

“Look what we did, pretty girl,” Joel whispers, big palms running over the swell of your stomach, “Look what we made together.” 

You’re overcome with emotion, tears pricking at your eyes, as his gentle hands trace the bump, mouth trailing just behind his hands as he worships his work, worships what he’s made you. As his fingers hook around the waistband of your underwear and pull them down, you feel the bed dip behind you. Tommy settles himself against your back, letting his legs rest on either side of your own, his lips starting to trail down your neck and across your shoulder as Joel spreads your legs. 

You can feel the breath from Joel’s mouth across the skin of your pussy, your hips bucking to try and meet his mouth. He brings your legs to rest over his broad shoulders, widening your spread legs before his mouth is on you. He’s doing what he always does, using his tongue to lap up at your slick hole first, and he’s groaning whilst he does it. He hasn’t had the taste of you on his mouth for six months, and even he’s surprised with how much he’s missed it. You lean yourself fully back into Tommy’s chest, as his hands come to cup the weight of your tits. They’re sensitive and sore, and he knows to be gentle, but he’s running his thumbs over your peaked nipples just enough that the pleasure outweighs the slight pain you feel. 

It's all inconsequential anyway once Joel trails his tongue up through your folds and over your clit. It’s like the trail of his tongue sets you on fire, lighting every single part of you alight as he touches you. You’re squirming against the pleasure of Tommy’s fingers at your chest, so much so that Joel has to grip the meat of your thighs to keep you steady as he trails the tip of his tongue over your clit in slow, languid movements, working you up slowly this time. 

With Tommy’s lips at your neck and his hands on your tits, and the slow but firm work of Joel’s tongue on your clit, you’re reaching your peak before you really know it’s happening. You can feel your thighs begin to shake and the way you’re grinding yourself into Joel’s face to chase the feeling of his mouth, you know you’re not going to last much longer. You reach down and run your fingers through his hair, anchoring his face to your aching cunt. 

“You gonna come for us baby?” Tommy breathes into your ear, “Go on, let go for us, I know you’ve been waiting.” 

“Oh fuck, oh fuck,” You breathe out with every breath you exhale, “I’m- oh my god-”

It hits you like a fucking freight train. Six months of pent-up tension released all at once as you actually scream Joel’s name out into the room. You can feel Tommy’s erection behind you, pressing into your lower back as you arch up into Joel’s mouth, his tongue working you through the aftershocks. 

He pulls his face away from your pussy, rubbing the slick onto your thigh as he presses soft kisses to the delicate skin there whilst you try and fill your lungs with air, trying not to cry at the relief you finally feel after all this time. 

“Wasn’t so hard, was it, pretty girl?” He speaks from between your thighs, finally pulling back enough that you can see those big, brown eyes, “Just needed a little extra help, didn’t you?” You’re too blissed out to care much right now at his teasing tone because he’s right. You did just need a little extra help. 

“You want him to fuck you, sugar?” Tommy asks into your ear. 

Joel stands, hands poised at his shirt buttons, waiting for your permission. You look him straight in the eye, legs spread, your wet cunt on full display for him, “I’d be disappointed if he didn’t.” 

Joel is slipping of his shirt in seconds, belt and jeans soon following. You can already see the bulge in the front of his underwear as Tommy moves from behind you. You move to grip his arm to get him to stay. 

“I’ll be right over here,” He soothes, pointing to the chair, “Just enjoy yourself, okay?” 

You turn your attention back to Joel, who is palming his cock through the thin material of his boxers, watching you as you shuffle back onto the bed. 

“What works for you, pretty girl?” He asks, letting his underwear drop to the floor as he crawls onto the mattress with you, “What makes you feel good?” 

He looms over you, settled between your thighs as he kisses at your neck. He wants you to be comfortable. He knows the positions you both favoured before are a dream now – there’s no way he would want to fold you in half, your legs on his shoulders, like he used to. You bring a hand to his chest, letting your fingers spread through the patchy hair that sits there. 

“Let me ride you?” You ask, almost shyly. 

“Whatever you want, babygirl.” 

Joel stretches out on the mattress and helps you to straddle his waist, holding your hands as you flounder a little to mount his body. He keeps you steady as you reach between the two of you to grab his cock, lining yourself up ready to sink down onto him. 

“I knew you’d be fuckin’ beautiful like this,” He groans as you slide down onto his cock, wet heat enveloping him as his hands rest on your stomach as you start grinding onto him, “Look at you,” He coos, “Puttin’ on a show for your man over there.” 

When you turn your head Tommy is exactly how he usually is, filthy grin plastered on his face, fisting his cock as he watches you take your pleasure from his brother. It makes you feel powerful as you rock your hips, feeling Joel’s cock work inside your pussy as he watches you. 

“It’s a fuckin’ great show too.” Tommy groans as he works himself in his hand. 

You bring your attention back to Joel, palms placed on his chest as you start fucking yourself on him. His hands are on your hips, but instead of the bruising grip they used to hold you in, now he’s softer, gentler with you as he guides your hips in movements that have you both moaning each other’s names. 

“Feels so good Joel,” You choke out, leaning as far forward as you can with your pregnant belly, trailing kisses along his jaw, “Missed this.” 

When you finally lean back, hands on Joel’s knee’s which he’s brought up to rest behind you, feet planted on the bed so he can finally start thrusting up into your aching cunt, you know it won’t be long until you’re seeing stars again. Joel brings his hand to your pussy, thumb rubbing tight circles across your clit. 

“Missed you too, pretty girl,” He groans, hips faltering as he thrusts up into you, he’s close too, “Missed feeling this pretty pussy clench around me when you’re gonna come for me.” 

“Don’t stop,” You breathe, “I’m so fucking close Joel.” 

He does exactly what you ask, keeps a steady rhythm of thrusts into your pussy, his hand working at your clit. You take a moment to look at Tommy, who gives you a wink as you watch him, eyes on him as he comes, covering his lower belly and his hand with his spend as he continues to watch you. 

“Come on, pretty girl,” Joel growls, bringing your attention back down to him, “Come for me.” 

You can feel the walls of your tight heat fluttering around his cock as you start to come around him. You hold yourself up with your hands on his knees as your vision blurs and pleasure spools its way across your body. You’re crying out his name as you feel him still inside you, the warmth of his spend seeping into you as he groans your name. Filling you right to the brim like he’d always done before, gripping your hips to keep you in place as your walls continued to flutter around him through your aftershocks. 

Once he’s sure you’re both finished, Joel helps you to lie down on the bed, pulling you off him and settling you on your back. You can hear Tommy at the other side of the room, doing his jeans up before he’s padding out of the room and down the stairs. 

“Are you alright?” Joel asks, lips close to your ear as he lets himself take a moment alone with you, hand resting on your stomach as the baby inside you wriggles around. 

���I’m fine,” You sigh, turning to look at him, he’s so close, his hand warm and protective on your swollen belly, “Thank you.” 

“None of that, pretty girl,” He can see the tears forming in your eyes, he takes your chin in his fingers, tilting your face just enough to press the softest kiss to your lips, “No more tears.” 

You bring your hand to his face, pulling him back down for another kiss, soft and over far too quickly, pulling away just as Tommy starts back up the stairs. By the time he’s in the room with a glass of water and the tablets you were taking to keep your heartburn at bay, Joel is already pulling on his clothes. You’re standing up, aiming to pick your robe up from the floor, but Joel beats you to it – handing you the silk material before bending to pick up his shirt. 

When he’s dressed, it’s the same as always, you both press kisses to each other’s cheeks and say goodbye. Tommy walks him downstairs, and you can hear them talking a little as you head to the bathroom. If there’s one thing you weren’t risking, it was a UTI whilst pregnant. As you’re washing your hands you can hear the front door close, and the sound of Tommy’s footsteps back on the stairs. 

You meet him outside the bedroom door, shedding his clothes as you do the same. It takes you a while to find a position you’re comfortable enough in to consider sleeping – led on your back with Tommy’s hand firmly on your stomach as is had been since the very beginning, his head on the pillow next to yours. 

“Thank you,” You say into the darkness, “For trusting us.” 

Tommy takes a moment before he replies, “I know he makes you happy,” He kisses your cheek, “All I ever want is for you to be happy.” 

#Joel Miller #Joel Miller smut #Joel Miller fic #Joel Miller fanfic #Joel Miller fanfiction #joel miller angst #Joel Miller fluff #Joel Miller x reader #Joel Miller x you #Joel Miller x female reader #Joel Miller x f!reader #Tommy Miller #Tommy Miller smut #Tommy Miller fic #Tommy Miller fanfic #Tommy Miller fanfiction #Tommy Miller angst #Tommy Miller fluff #Tommy Miller x you #Tommy Miller x reader #Tommy Miller x female reader #Tommy Miller x f!reader #The Last Of Us #The Last Of Us hbo #tlou #tlou hbo

[strawberryya]

notice me!

pairing: jihoon x reader

synopsis: Your boyfriend has a hectic life, but he usually has at least a little time to spare for his girlfriend. Now it has been two months since he last spent some alone time with you and you're losing your mind just a little over it... luckily, angry make-up sex can solve any problem!

word count: 2.1k

genre/cw: smut, angry sex, also make-up sex, established relationship, feeling neglected in relationship and bad ways of handling said feeling, unprotected sex, manhandling, light choking, fem reader, musician/producer! woozi.

rating: 18+

a/n: I had a moment a couple weeks ago where I wrote this whole thing in one hour in the middle of the night, and then I forgot about it and now I'm in shock just a little bit... anyhow, yay angry sex with wooziiii

network tagging: @svthub @cultofdionysusnet @k-labels @kvanity-main

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You watched your boyfriend of two years looking at his phone, scrolling mindlessly across whatever app he found more interesting than his girlfriend sitting on the other end of the couch. You were barely wearing anything, a large t-shirt barely covering the sexy lingerie you had put on for tonight. 

“Jihoon, it’s been two months.” 

You wanted him to notice you. He had barely been home at your shared apartment for weeks. You knew his work was demanding, and that he gave it his all no matter what. But you have been feeling neglected lately. He had been coming home late, crashing on the couch instead of sleeping in your bed. Only giving you a chaste kiss before running off to work the next morning with a groggy “Sorry I missed dinner last night,” as a greeting. 

He hadn’t touched you in two months. You had counted the days, and after three weeks you were wondering if he wasn’t stressing too much about the latest album. After six weeks you had been feeling too horny for your own good, and your toys weren’t fulfilling your needs anymore. You wanted to feel him again. It didn’t matter how many times you came. It didn’t hit the spot. After two entire months of him being abstinent, you had begun getting snarky at the smallest things he did wrong. 

Jihoon looked up from his phone at your statement. He carelessly scratched his chin, making your pussy clench at the memory of those perfect hands being all over your body once upon a time. “Two months? Of what?” 

“Of you acting like a damn nun,” you said, dead serious. 

“A nun?!” He gasped out. 

“Yes! A nun!” You shouted back at him. 

He looked you over, sitting at the other end of the couch, dolled up more than usual and staring at him as if he had offended yuo great grandmother by existing. Then it seemed to click in his mind. “Oh,” was all he said.

Two months? Had it been that long? He knew very well that he had been resisting his urges, but he had managed for two entire months? He had been so busy with the new album, he had been staying late at the studio every day and waking up rushing back to the studio to put the new ideas he got during the night into reality. Two months without sex, and a pissed off girlfriend because of it. 

“I’m sorry?” 

You looked at him like he was an equation, mouth open just a bit as you stared at him in shock. “You’re sorry? What the fuck does that mean?” He was so clueless, you thought as you watched the dumb face he was making. (You still wanted that stupid handsome face of his to eat you out until you cried, but that was besides the point.)

Jihoon knew he had fucked up, you were pissed off and picking a fight, and he hadn’t made it better by not even knowing that he hadn’t slept with you in two whole months. 

“Do you even care? Because you don’t seem to care one bit about it since you didn’t even know! Do you not like me anymore? Are you not attracted to me anymore? Are you in love with someone else? Why the fuck would you go and cheat on me?!”

He stared at you in complete surprise. Cheating? “Hold up- hold up! What are you talking about?!” He said, flabbergasted at the way you seemed to have drawn the most far-fetched conclusions to this problem you could’ve possibly thought of. “I’ve been busy with the comeback! Please, baby, why are you acting crazy?” 

He shouldn’t have said that, he knew it the second the word left his perfectly plump lips. 

“Crazy? Did you just call me crazy? You haven’t seen crazy, you fucking asshole!” You shouted as you stormed out of the room. You were packing your bags, if he didn’t want to be with you anymore you wouldn’t be the one to stop him from moving on and sleeping with whoever else he wanted. Because it sure as hell wouldn’t be you after he had just called you crazy for noticing that he wasn’t interested in you anymore. 

“What are you doing?? Why are you messing up the apartment? Are you leaving?” he shouted, seemingly surprised that you didn’t feel like staying in an apartment that he was hellbent on making a girlfriend-free zone. 

“Yeah, I’m fucking leaving,” you grunt, shoving some shirts into your bag. You wouldn’t be able to grab it all but at least you could make it with the stuff you were throwing into it for a while. Y9ou could always borrow your friends’ stuff until you could get back all your clothes. “You’re pissing me off and I don’t wanna hate you.”

Jihoon was by the bedroom door now, hands pushing his hair out of his face as he watched you angrily packing your bags. How had he fucked up so badly that his girlfriend wanted to leave him like this? 

“Hate me? Baby, I really don’t know what I did to mess up this bad…” 

Of course, he didn’t understand, because apparently, your boyfriend was a freaking master at staying “pure”. He hadn’t even spent a single thought on you and what he could do with you. He only cared about his music. And you wouldn’t be the one to stand in his way if thats how he truly felt. 

“You don’t know?! Look at me Jihoon!” You threw the t-shirt off your body in an angry fit, making your boyfriend’s eyes widen. “I’ve been waiting for you to notice me, to care even a bit about me- about us- for months!! And tonight, I just can’t do this anymore. I’m losing my mind because you won’t fuck me, how stupid is that?” You nearly sobbed as you made it clear that you were frustrated in more than one way. You were so mad at him, and still, you couldn’t help but admire the way he looked so hot even now, his long black hair falling in pretty curls around his face and his lips shiny and pink. He looked so kissable it was like he was teasing you just by existing. 

“You got me all addicted to your cock and then you fucking left me to go through some kind of twisted withdrawal.” 

He gulped, his adam's apple moving in his throat, you didn’t even care to look at him anymore, you were angrily throwing your shit into the bag on the bed yet again, bent over and flaunting the tiny piece of fabric that tried it’s best to cover your ass. “You don’t even care,” you rumbled as you stuffed more things into the bag. He took in the way the lace set hugged your curves deliciously, he had been so busy with everything he hadn’t even noticed his own cravings. He had ignored it all for so long. 

“Shut up.”

His voice was deep, and commanding. Your breath caught in your throat, surprise and need mixing in an arousing blend that went straight to your head. “Excuse me?” Your movements paused completely. When you heard his footsteps approaching you hastily you looked at him, his gaze was darkened, and your core clenched around nothing as he pulled the bag from your grasp. Throwing it on the ground before he pushed your barely clothed body into the bed. 

“You think I don’t fucking care anymore just because you haven’t gotten dick in a couple weeks? Are you that desperate to be stretched like a little whore?” He growled in your ear, his bulge evident in the way he pressed against your ass. “I care, and I see you. So shut up.” 

You gasped at his harsh movements, neediness soaking your panties in record time. God, you were pathetic. 

“I haven’t eaten, I haven’t slept, and I sure as hell haven’t let myself even think about this sweet pussy of yours. I’ve been denying myself it all. But you’re right…” his hand pressed against your throat where you laid face down on the bed, “I’ve been neglecting you. You wanna know why? It’s because I knew that if I so much as looked at you, or held you in my arms while you slept so innocently, I wouldn’t be able to help myself. I wouldn’t have been able to do anything but fuck your tight little pussy all day and night.” His growling voice set off all kinds of sparks in your core. You needed him, now. 

You pushed your ass up against him, eating a groan from your boyfriend. “Such a little slut,” he mumbled, letting go of your throat and pulling himself back from you completely. You were dizzy from the hold around your throat, his perfect hands remembering just the way you liked to feel them around you. You were about to whine when his touch left your body when you heard the familiar shuffling of his clothes falling off his body. You wanted to see it, take his form in properly after all these weeks. But he was faster, pushing you back down against the bed before you got up. 

His erection pressed against your heat, making you moan as he prodded against the soaked fabric covering your entrance. 

“Jihoon, please,” you mewled, wiggling underneath his firm body. 

“Wanna shut up and let me fuck you then since you’re so fucking needy?” 

“Please, yes! Anything! Please fuck me!” You almost cried as you pleaded with him. 

“Sobbing over cock, you really are such a dirty girl for me.” He groaned as he let his pretty hands smooth over one of your asscheeks, smacking down hard and leaving a burning sting after him. Even that felt good. You needed him more than you had ever needed anything in your life. 

You felt him pull the sticky fabric from your core, pushing it aside in favor of pushing the head of his hard cock against your messy pussy. “I’m about to drown in you later tonight, just you wait.” He whispered before pushing past your entrance, slipping inside, your walls lubing his cock up as he entered. He ignored the way you were so tight it almost hurt to push all the way inside, your moaned pleas for him to go deeper, and the way you were gripping the sheets while he pushed all of himself inside of your dripping heat enough of a reason to push through. It had been so long since he had felt your walls gripping around him that he could’ve spilled his seed into you right then and there. 

He pulled himself together soon enough, thrusting into you at a brutal pace. Your ass which you had pushed up to meet his hips at first had been completely overpowered by the sheer force he was fucking you into the mattress with. You were coming for the first time within minutes. Screaming and sobbing as you finally came around him. He continued, repeating to you what a good toy you were, and how good of a girl you had been for holding out for him this long. 

When you were moaning again, closing in on a second orgasm he told you to come again. Lifting your ass up to balance you on your knees and chest, one of his arms wrapping around your hip to reach your clit, pressing down on it while he let his cock slip in and out effortlessly. Your arousal dripped down your thighs. You came undone and sobbed as he continued to overstimulate your abused cunt. 

He continued fucking you until he couldn’t take it anymore, his own orgasm crashing into him with such force it knocked the breath from his lungs. 

“That was one hell of an apology,” you said, breathless and still leaking cum, exhausted after having all your pent-up frustrations released all at once like this. 

Jihoon chuckled, a sound you had missed these past weeks as well. He really had been unusually absent in your life. It wasn’t just about the sex, you had missed him a lot. “I’m sorry for not being around as much,” he said, dragging a gentle hand over your back. You hadn’t had the energy to move a once from the position he had dropped your hips from once he had pulled out. 

“I just missed you, I’m sorry for lashing out.” 

“Don’t worry about it, just… next time you should just ask me to fuck you instead of threatening to leave me.”

You were embarrassed now, you had acted like a complete maniac, but my god - if that’s how he fucked a maniac, you wanted to stay crazy for the rest of eternity. 

Reblogging and commenting is highly appreciated!! Hearing what you thought is what makes writing and being here overall so much fun! Ty and ily 💕

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#woozi smut #seventeen smut #kwritersworldnet #jihoon smut #woozi svt smut #seventeen #svt smut #svt #woozi #jihoon x reader #x reader #fem reader #x reader smut

[writershapeholeonthedoor]

Tattooed heart

Pairing: Elizabeth Olsen x Fem!Reader

Summary: You have tattoos everywhere and your girlfriend suffers from severe anxiety. You learned to walk around with Sharpies to help her out.

Disclaimer: English is not my first language. TW for anxiety attacks.

MASTERLIST

The room was crowded to the point where you couldn’t even see the exit doors in the back.

That always made you a bit nervous, of course, but mostly because it usually meant your interview would go on forever until people were satisfied by it. Those types of venues were always endless, but it was even worse when there were so many people attending the panels. Don’t get it wrong, you love attending the coms and meeting the fans to debate the characters and movies, and just the entire MCU universe as a whole, but you were only human and, after spending so long being a part of this, you got a bit tired.

Although the interview was going on forever, you weren’t surprised by the amount of people reunited to see you guys talking. It was hard to have most of the Marvel actors in one single interview, after all, so you were already expecting people to crowd the room and want to ask everyone a million questions. The new Avengers movie was coming up, the trailer had dropped just the day prior, and people were excited to know more. You couldn’t blame them.

You had been listening to Evans give out an overly complex reply to a question someone made him for a while now when you noticed Elizabeth squirming in her chair beside you. She was sitting to your right at the large table where you all were and she had answered a few questions as well, although that was the first time you noticed that she wasn’t moving out of boredom or to adjust in her chair again. She was restless, you noticed by the way she looked down at her legs and by the way her fingers pulled at her dress as if she was trying to get rid of a crinkle that didn’t exist.

Over the years, you learned to read her.

When you first met, three years ago, you were immediately drawn to Elizabeth. At the time, she had red hair thanks to her Marvel character, she was wearing black clothes and she had a fake scar above her eyebrow since you met between takes of the new movie you were both going to be a part of. That wasn’t your first Marvel movie, neither was hers, but that was the first time you were going to share the screen. You had heard about her before, obviously, but nothing had prepared you for how it would feel to meet Elizabeth Olsen in person.

You felt attracted to her since the first day, but you weren’t brave enough to make a move, so you spent the next two months of shooting crushing on her in silence - at least to her because you sang like a canary to all of your castmates to the point where they had to make an intervention because no one could take more of your daydreaming about Elizabeth without doing anything about it. That worked, though, and you found yourself sweating like crazy just a week before the movie wrapped while you waited for Elizabeth to finish her scenes for the day.

You had been nervous for no reason, as your castmates predicted, because Elizabeth said ‘yes’ after you managed to spit out your question and you both went for your first date two days later. That night, Elizabeth admitted she wanted to ask you out since the first day too, but she couldn’t bring herself to do it.

“I’m glad you’re more brave than I am,” she whispered shyly when you were holding hands on top of the table. “I’m too anxious to have managed to actually ask you out.”

But that had been it.

You have been inseparable ever since.

Well, besides when you were both working, of course. You hadn’t made any more movies together since your characters took different turns, but you and Elizabeth were able to move heaven and Earth to make your relationship work no matter what.

As the years went by, you learned to read Elizabeth as easily as an open book. You knew when she was stressed and needed to spend some time in her garden to relax. You knew when Elizabeth was cooking because she wanted to, when she was doing it because she had to eat and when she was stress-cooking. You knew when she liked the movie you were watching by the way she bit her lip and when she couldn’t care less about what was on the TV by the way she kept sighing. There were many little things about Elizabeth that you took notice of over the years, things that you carefully stocked in your memories because they were all details that made you love her more and more every day.

However, there was one thing you made a bigger effort to keep track of.

Her anxiety.

Elizabeth has been suffering from severe anxiety for many years now. She had talked about it in interviews and other things, but no one could understand the magnitude of her anxiety attacks unless they experienced it in person. You had been there to a fair share of them since you met, from the smaller ones where she would complain about feeling like a small weight in her chest to the bigger ones where you had to rush her to the hospital because you honestly thought she was about to have a heart attack. Since that day, you had vowed to always be attuned to the signals of her crisis so you could help Elizabeth get out of them before things got too hard for her to handle.

Elizabeth used to apologize every single time about it, about how she sometimes wouldn’t want to leave the house, how sometimes she would ask you to leave the restaurant that took you both so long to get a table at, how sometimes she needed to sit in complete silence to get herself together, but you always made sure to tell her it wasn’t her fault. Elizabeth had struggled with anxiety, panic attacks and social anxiety for many years now not because she wanted to, but because the media had chased her since she was young and she had grown in fear. That was something she struggled with and something you could help her with.

Or try your best, at the very least.

Since you knew about all of this, you easily realized Elizabeth’s anxiety was making an appearance, slipping through her very strong grip. You could see by the way her green eyes started moving around without focusing on anything, how her jaw clenched, how her breath became heavier and how her fingers kept picking at her dress. Evans was still talking and there was a microphone in front of you, not to mention how there were literally hundreds of eyes and cameras staring at you at that moment, so you couldn’t take her hands and ask her to breathe with you like you usually did.

You had to think fast, however, because Elizabeth’s anxiety escalates quickly and you wouldn’t want that to happen in a room filled with strangers since that was probably the reason why it was happening anyway. Elizabeth had gotten better at dealing with attending those events, giving interviews and talking with fans, but that didn’t mean she didn’t struggle every once in a while. It was still something that wasn’t easy for her, something that made her natural instincts ask her to run away as fast as she could.

Those long interviews made you tired, but they absolutely terrified Elizabeth. She hated the crowded room because she couldn’t spot the exit and her brain would play little tricks at her saying that, if something bad happened, there weren’t enough emergency doors to take everyone out safely. The cameras pointed at her made her overly conscious of every move she made, afraid of what people might capture to spread around. The screams and yells that the fans let go every once in a while made her ears hurt and her insides churn. It was awful.

Averting your eyes so people wouldn’t notice you had been watching her, you placed a gentle hand on her thigh under the table to offer her some comfort. That made Elizabeth jump in surprise, though, since she hadn’t been expecting it, so you quickly removed your hand and offered her a small smile in apology when she glanced at you. You felt bad about it, especially when you noticed the fear in her eyes, but you still tried to calm her down by offering her a smile.

Some of her tension washed away and her shoulders relaxed enough for you to feel safe to touch her again. When your hand touched her thigh this time around, Elizabeth was expecting it and she allowed the touch with a sigh. She threw you a thankful look before turning her head to the side to pay attention to what was being said in case anyone decided to pull her into the conversation, something you also tried to do.

Luckily - so damn luck, indeed - the interview ended just a few minutes after that. You played your part waving at the fans and offering them smiles, but you still held Elizabeth’s hand to pull her away from there as fast as you could without actually running. You were both sitting in the middle of the large table so it wasn’t an easy task. However, your eyes met Zendaya’s eyes for a moment and the girl wasted no time trying to discreetly move everyone out of the way so you could walk past with Elizabeth.

You took your girlfriend backstage and avoided everyone who tried to talk with you on the way until you found a quiet corner to sit down with her. You sat her down on top of a large technical equipment box and you jumped up to sit beside her, already shoving your hand inside your pocket to remove the three Sharpies you had taken with you that day. Green, blue and lilac were the colors you took from the case before leaving the hotel room that afternoon, and you didn’t think twice before handing them to her.

“Come on, I’m your canvas,” you told her lightly while reaching out your arm to her.

Your right arm was filled with tattoos from your shoulders to your wrist. That was something that made many casting directors frown to, but you loved it. That’s the way you find to express yourself and something you cherish. The tattoos were all blackwork, which means they didn’t have any colors added to them, and they were all different drawings that entwined between them thanks to the amazing work of your tattoo artist.

The first time Elizabeth ever drew on your skin was when you took her to the hospital that fateful day. You had seen your girlfriend looking so sad and scared lying down in a hospital bed after the doctor left saying it had been an anxiety attack that you just had to do something. You knew Elizabeth liked to use her hands to help herself calm down because she would run to her garden and spend hours there tending to the plants, putting her hands in the dirt and delicately touching every leaf. That’s why you took the pen that the doctor left behind without noticing and started to look for something she could write on, but there was nothing.

So, you just handed her the pen and told her to write something on your arm.

Elizabeth had looked at you like you were insane for even suggesting it and it took you a while to convince her to give it a try, however, it played out perfectly in the end. Elizabeth spent hours using the blue pen to color your tattoos and it did wonderful things to her anxiety. When the doctor returned, he was happy to say she was good to go and you were just glad that Elizabeth was back to her usual self asking you if you could stop somewhere to eat.

It wasn’t a perfect solution. It was temporary since it usually just calmed her down enough to keep going for a few more hours, but Elizabeth still needed to fully relax in silence, go to her garden or take a warm bath to avoid any real crisis. But that didn’t stop you from buying several Sharpies from different colors to have them around anytime she might need them. You made a habit out of walking around with them inside your pockets and Elizabeth stopped resisting using them to draw on you.

Sure, Elizabeth suggested she buy a notepad to carry with her, but you told her you didn’t mind being her personal canvas. You liked how she touched your skin gently with one hand while she used the other one to color your tattoos. You found it mesmerizing how she managed to make different details every time she drew on you. And you were just glad to be able to help her. Of course, you told Elizabeth it was okay if she preferred to have some paper to draw on, but luckily she didn’t argue against painting your arm instead.

It worked.

And that would have to do because you couldn’t take her to the hotel room you were sharing yet and it was clear that Elizabeth wasn’t feeling great.

“No,” your girlfriend said without taking the Sharpies from you. “We still have more interviews today.”

“Exactly,” you argued. “That’s fine. You know I don’t mind it.”

“People will make questions,” Elizabeth insisted, but it held no real resistance behind her words anymore. She was already taking the pens from you and you smiled happily at that.

“Let them,” was your reply.

A second later, Elizabeth took the green Sharpie to start painting one of the tattoos on the back of your arm.

When your castmates found you both, your skin was a mix of green, blue and lilac already, and Elizabeth's full attention was on the task in her hands. She didn’t look about to lose her mind anymore, her breathing was normal again, her hands weren’t shaking and her frown was purely because she was trying to keep the colors inside the line and not because she was in panic. Your friends gave you space because they didn’t want her to feel crowded again, but Holland lent you his jacket while you were all walking to the next interview to avoid questions and Elizabeth kissed your lips just before going on stage.

“You’re the best girlfriend in the world,” Elizabeth whispered against your skin.

You shrugged it off and leaned to kiss her forehead. “I love you,” you reminded her gently aware that you would climb every mountain and swim every ocean to make her happy.

#elizabeth olsen #elizabeth olsen x you #elizabeth olsen x reader #celebrity x reader #marvel #scarlet witch #wanda maximoff #fanfic #creative writing #my writing #drabble #fluff #slight angst

[moonlight-prose]

HURT

➝ 05. MIDNIGHT DOVE

a/n: i never thought it would take a year to finally work up the courage to finish this. i swear it's been marinating in my mind for months. life got in the way as it always does, and well shit happens, but i am gradually attempting to return to this world. if you're new here, welcome. if you're someone who has been here since the beginning, then thank you for sticking my horrible productivity out. i swear i won't disappear again. hopefully.

dedicated to: @themarcusmoreno for being an absolute badass fighter as of late. i hope you know how proud i am of you babes and how much i adore you. a special thanks to @sunflowersteves who has been a MASSIVE supporter of this story. i love you babes! and to @soulores who has listened to me ramble about this fic for hours in the hopes inspo would strike again. te amo te amo te amo!!!

summary: joel never made opening himself up to the prospect of love easy, but when it came to you...it felt like taking a breath of fresh air for the first time in years.

word count: 14k+ (i'm fucking insane)

pairing: joel miller x f!reader

warnings: EXPLICIT SO MINORS DNI, cussing, fluff, joel attempting to be romantic, ptsd, grief, deep talks (joel opens up), joel finally telling the truth, p in v sex, choking kind of, roughness, biting lots of biting (both kinds hahaha), tad bit of violence, the dangers of falling in love.

PREVIOUS CHAPTER | NEXT CHAPTER | SERIES MASTERLIST

It was easy to forget how damaged you were in the midst of his affection. An effortless act to allow yourself a chance to heal as you gave yourself over to him. For brief moments, you weren’t the person who had gone through years of pain, suffered through grief so potent you could taste it. You were the person who could sink into his hold, lose yourself in his touch, and simply exist.

With Joel there was no pain, no reminders of what you didn’t have—what you could never get back—because he took all that away. He gave you the one thing you didn’t know you were searching for. Yourself. In whispered words beneath the midnight sky, you found the reflection you’d been so afraid to look at. You saw the person who had been torn apart by the brutality of this world, by the prospect of death you could no longer run from.

He pieced you back together with his hands, attempting to rid you of all those cracks and crevices where pain seeped out from.

And in doing so, he saved you.

“You used to be a contractor right?” you asked, trying not to huff and puff as you trailed after him through the woods.

Briefly you thought you caught the sight of tall buildings in the distance, but played it off as the sun messing with your eyes again. A few days ago the truck broke down, ruining the quick pace of travel you had gotten used to. Which left you both with one option. Walking until your feet were numb and bloody. You hadn’t missed the energy this took, suddenly yearning for trains and planes—anyway to get to Boston as quickly as possible.

Except you didn’t hate it entirely. The bonus was being able to spend more time with him in secluded areas. You liked studying him by firelight, talking with him underneath the stars. Joel was the one who kept you going in spite of the agonizing effort this took. Thankfully the moments you did run into any infected were brief and quick—simply another crack in the bubble you’d built around yourselves.

Something had shifted between the two of you. Changed the tides of your futures and gave you insight into what might be possible once you got to Boston. You saw hints of a life that you might not have seen before. A future with him. You only hoped that he was seeing the same picture you were.

“Mhm,” he hummed, pausing to let you catch up, his hand reaching for yours.

“Impressive,” you said with a smile, pressing your chin on his shoulder as he leaned against a tree. Giving the both of you a small breather before you started up again.

“It paid the bills.”

“Well yeah. But it’s also a cool job. Getting to build things.”

He grinned, his eyes tracing the shapes and contours of your face. “I guess it was.”

“What made you want to be a contractor?” You caught the way he paused at your question, his eyes unable to meet yours for a brief moment. Joel thought he was able to hide his pain so well, behind an impenetrable mask he never removed. But you saw it.

You were the only one who split it down the middle; revealing the man beneath for your eyes to see.

“Uh,” he mumbled. “It was good work. Kept me stable.”

“Joel? Did I say something?”

He shook his head. “We should keep going,” he said, pressing a light kiss to your temple, his lips lingering a bit longer than usual.

Any other person would play that off as Joel being Joel. Yet you felt the tremor in his chest when he took in a breath. You saw the way he placed another brick in his never-ending wall. One that he didn’t want you to break. Frowning slightly, you walked beside him, glancing to see if he would finally revert back to the man from moments ago, but he was lost to the ravages of his mind.

You knew it would take awhile for him to come back to you. So, you waited. You lost yourself in your own thoughts, watching the birds fly through the trees, the sun peeking through the branches and bathing you in warmth. Thankfully the cold was starting to fade with each passing day. Giving way to the weather you liked most. You wanted to ask Joel where you were—which state you crossed into—but he was still gone.

Reliving the moment he hadn’t told you about yet.

You stopped when the forest gave way to a road and finally caught sight of what was in the distance. Only to realize…the sun hadn’t been playing tricks on you.

Skyscrapers stood tall against the sky, the cityscape so famous and iconic you could pick it out from memory. It was ruined from the past, some buildings had fallen from the decay, but you felt your heart flutter nonetheless. New York City. You’d been traveling through the state this whole time and never knew. Your younger self ached in the back of your mind; the one place you had been striving to get to, now arriving too late.

Yet still…you were there. Staring at what could have been your future once upon a time.

“We’re in New York,” you said, your voice tinged in disbelief. 

Joel seemed to have been brought back by your stunned reaction, his lips pulling up into a small smirk. “Thought you would have liked to take this way.”

You whirled around to face him, your eyes wide with surprise. “But what about infected? Won’t they be—”

“They bombed most of the city when the infection hit. Took out the worst parts first.” He pointed to the direction of where you assumed the Empire State building once stood. “No one has been here for nearly a decade. They tried to have a QZ on the outskirts at one point I think.”

“And how did that go?” Although you already knew the answer. Simply another repeat of every major city in this country.

He sighed. “They wound up bombing that too.”

“So we’re going around?” you asked, knowing that the only safe possibility was skirting the edges of the city. But a part of you hoped that for once you and Joel could pretend to be normal humans again.

People who at one point in their lives…might have taken a trip to New York City.

“Well…” His hesitation caught your attention. “We’re gonna go around as much as we can, but there’s somethin’ there that still survived all this. So if we’re careful. Then it should be alright.”

You felt the breath catch in your chest. A sliver of hope flickering warm and bright through your body. “And if it’s not…alright?”

“Then we handle it,” he replied, his hand shifting to cup your cheek, thumb running along your skin. “Like we always do.” Those words alone nearly made those three words slip free from your mouth. “What do you say Boston,” he murmured, his head dipping down—lips brushing along yours. “Wanna take a trip to New York with me?”

There were infected everywhere you went, never being able to escape them entirely. That alone weighed your answer towards it being positive. Still you were wary about what could happen. What could go wrong in the midst of your happiness? It seemed that life never changed when things were already awful. The worst only hit when you were finally at peace, content with what you had.

You should have said no, should have told him it wasn’t safe, but his brown eyes held a hopeful glint in them. A look that you recognized. For the first time, the both of you were finally starting to heal from the horrid effects of this life. It was a tragedy that would never be written down. A play not yet finished.

Which ultimately made the decision for you.

How did you want things to end? With a smile on your face, spending time with the man you loved? Or alone.

“Lead the way Texas,” you said softly, dropping your forehead to his chest, feeling him kiss your head softly before he pulled away.

The trip to get into the city would take a day or two, which meant that you had to set up camp for the night. At least until the sun rose enough to guide you. Venturing back into the forest with him, you felt the lightness in your heart spread down throughout your body. A sensation that you longed to hold onto.

You couldn’t recall the last time you’d been this happy; the feeling almost effortless amidst the pain and destruction of your past. It nearly overflowed, spilling out into the area around you filled with never ending darkness. Joel’s footsteps were heavy against the fallen leaves. As if he was no longer afraid to make noise. Now that the path was clear, his head focused on one direction, you by his side.

Things had shifted drastically since that night. Since you watched a piece of his walls crash to the ground. Giving you a chance to finally see the man he had once been. The Joel you had only met in fragments—memories you weren’t a part of.

A past that you’d never fully know.

“This is as good a place as any,” he said, dropping the bag off his shoulders and onto the ground beside a tree.

“Should I gather wood?” you asked, following his movements—the routine burned into your mind.

He shook his head. “Not tonight. We’re too close to the city.”

“You don’t think people are insane enough to live there, do you?”

The silence he offered was enough of an answer. Even though you were both far enough away from any signs of life, it still wasn’t safe to assume you were entirely free. You could see Joel grappling with the decision to even go down there, but you knew which side would win the war in the end. One side told him to avoid the place altogether, to keep trekking on until you reached the QZ in Boston. But the other whispered something different.

It beckoned him closer, promising something sweet, a reprieve from the terrors of life that continued to plague both of you. Whatever still remained in that city was enough for him to choose the latter.

“I’ll keep first watch,” he murmured, settling with his back to a tree, rifle placed across his thighs.

“Joel.”

He shook his head. “You need to sleep.”

“So do you,” you replied, in the hopes that he’d relent to you as he had before.

The dark lines beneath his eyes grew with every passing day and you wondered what kept him from sleep. Was it nightmares? The prospect of death around every corner? They were things that were enough to send terror running sharply down your spine, but as long as you’d known Joel he seemed to simply take those things in stride. Refusing to give life the satisfaction of watching him crumble beneath the strain.

Yet now he looked half dead; tired of fighting an infinite battle of fear.

“Come here,” you said softly, hand gripping onto his.

“Darlin’—”

“If you don’t sleep then, so help me Joel I will stay up with you.”

The threat held enough truth in it to spur him into action. You would stay up with him until dawn crested over the city, until you could no longer keep your eyes open. Joel had stamina you didn’t possess. Not anymore. So, he allowed you to guide him forward, his head resting on his pack, rifle placed between your bodies. A safety measure in case the night turned for the worst.

“Shut your eyes,” you murmured, seeing the tension in his body melt away the second your hand pressed to his chest.

He huffed—ever the stubborn man who saved your life—but relented without a fight, his eyes fluttering shut quickly followed by a long exhale. The stars were brighter than you’d seen them; the light pollution of the city, no longer a problem the sky had to combat. So, you shifted, rested your head on his shoulder and watched the stars twinkle in a night sky free from the shackles of humanity.

“You’re supposed to sleep too,” he grumbled, his hand coming up to cover yours, thumb running along your wrist.

“I am.” You smiled at his audible snort.

Silence enveloped the two of you, but it never felt off putting in his presence. In fact you began to welcome it, because with Joel there was always more than just words. His thumb continued to go across your skin, creating a soothing rhythm that lulled you into a docile state. If you shut your eyes and focused on the beat of his heart—the rise and fall of his chest with each breath—you might be able to fall asleep. Except your mind still ran, still on high alert in case of something going wrong.

“Hey,” he mumbled, his head turning slightly until his nose brushed against yours.

“Hm?” You felt your heart skip at the sight of his eyes opening again, the deep brown hue pulling you in.

“What’s goin’ on in there?” he whispered. Joel didn’t need to go into specifics to know what he meant by that. You seemed to pick it up just by the inflection of his words—the tone he used when he spoke. This was no different.

You sighed, wishing more than anything that you could strip your shoulders of the weight they carried. “Nothing. I’m just…it’s nothing.”

“It ain’t nothin’.”

“I’m just…scared,” you said, finally showing a sliver of the truth. He hummed, attempting to show that he understood where you were coming from. “What happens when we get to Boston?”

Because that’s where that gnawing feeling stemmed from. It wasn’t your fear of death, or the terror you felt whenever you thought of Joel dying. No, you were scared of what the future held—what came when this trip finally came to an end. You didn’t want to let him go after everything you’d endured together. For the first time you felt like you found the one thing anyone could hope for in life. A partnership.

He sighed. “We keep going.”

“Together?” There you were laying your hope in front of him, wanting him to give you the answer you longed for.

“Yes,” he replied, watching a smile cross your face—his heart beating a bit faster at the sight. It lit him up on the inside. As if someone injected him with a heaping dose of pure sunlight, claiming it would fix all his broken pieces. Save him from hell.

For a moment you simply watched him, seeing an array of emotions flicker through his eyes. You wanted the night to remain endless. For you and Joel to stay there until the stars burned out above—a safe place with no responsibilities. No fear of death. But you knew eventually you would have to get up and follow him into the city. Boston remained right at the very tips of your fingers, yet getting there felt like a million miles away.

“Joel?” you breathed, bringing him out of his mind and back to the present day.

“Yeah?”

“Tell me something.” You clutched his hand in yours, enjoying the warmth that emanated from his skin. “Anything.”

He turned away, looking up at the sky as he processed your words. And you waited patiently. You found that you’d wait for him no matter how long it took, because it was him and to you…he was everything. He was worth fighting for, worth staying put for. He let out a shaky breath, his grip tightening on your palm until pain sparked in your wrist. You didn’t dare pull away though, too captured by the vulnerability that began to show on his face.

For the first time, he was the glass you couldn’t break.

“I had a daughter,” he said softly, still watching how the stars flickered above rather than the way your face went slack with shock. “Sarah.”

Your breath caught in your throat, eyes falling to the broken watch on his wrist as tears began to fall from your eyes. That night when you asked about it—watched him close up right before your very eyes—suddenly made sense. Why he never took it off, why it was the most precious thing to him.

It was from her.

“She was…well she is the best damn thing in my life.” He shut his eyes, his eyes stinging with the tears that couldn’t fall. You didn’t dare interrupt him. Joel was baring the part he’d hidden long ago—offering it to you in the hopes that you’d take care of it. “Had the prettiest smile and the best—” He took in a breath. “The best fuckin’ laugh you’d ever heard. Made everyone else laugh.”

You smiled, feeling your tears fall onto his shirt. “She sounds amazing.”

“She is,” he rasped, his hand pulling yours up higher on his chest until you could feel the rapid beat of his heart beneath your fingers. “On the night of the outbreak. We were tryin’ to get out. But something…” His voice broke, eyes squeezing even tighter. “I couldn’t—and she—”

“Oh Joel,” you whispered, your eyes falling shut as his pain seeped into your heart. It made your whole body scream out and for a moment you wondered how his heart never stopped beating. How had he survived such anguish? How was he still here?

You bit back the sob that threatened to spill free and buried your face into his shoulder, clutching onto his hand to show that you were here. That he could give you this pain to hold and you’d bear it for him for however long he needed. His face turned, a shaky breath leaving his lips as he let the words hang in the air. What more needed to be said? When he had just ripped down the last of his walls.

“I’m so sorry.” The words were a breath on his cheek and you knew they wouldn’t take away any amount of grief. You knew they were simply a band-aid to the gaping wound that would never heal.

He didn’t reply; you didn’t expect him to. So you allowed the silence to fill the air between you, covering you like a comforting blanket. Hiding you from the world until the sun came up. Joel pulled you closer until you practically lay atop his chest, the steady thud of his broken heart echoing beneath your ear. The world had taken so much from him—turned him hopeless—you just never knew the extent of it.

Staring into the darkness of the trees you heard him begin to snore softly, his body now lax beneath you. Except you didn’t move. You remained in the same spot, watching as the world turned a bit darker. The hope seeped out of your body bit by bit now that you understood how much Joel carried—how much he endured.

“I love you,” you breathed, pressing a kiss over his heart, finally shutting your eyes and giving into the soft embrace of sleep.

You woke up to find him gone, his jacket placed strategically over your body to keep you protected from the early morning cold. What you wouldn’t give for a fire to combat the chill that began to seep into your skin. Sitting up slowly, you attempted to catch sight of him through the trees—hoping that he had wandered a bit. But you were left alone with just your pack and his extra gun.

Scenarios began to run through your mind, panic settling in your veins, but you fought against it. You’d been here before. Alone while Joel went off to do who knows what. You knew he would come back—that was a given—but you couldn’t stop the worry from eating at you.

You watched your breath collect in the air as you moved, gathering pieces of wood and rocks to build a fire for a short amount of time. If you were moving today it wouldn’t be such a bad thing to warm up and gain some strength through food. If Joel wasn’t back within the hour you would go out hunting. He’d been generous enough to leave you with a few bullets still in the chamber of his gun.

Which meant he had full intentions of coming back.

The fire sparked quicker than you expected, catching on the brush you packed around the wood and sending heat up towards your face. You couldn’t burn it for long, in case people caught sight of the smoke. Which meant you had to relish in the heat for as long as possible—the stiffness in your body dissipating the longer you sat there.

You watched the orange glow flicker across the wood, consuming it entirely and found you couldn’t tear your eyes away. The sight was familiar—as if you could feel it against your skin with every passing day. Life burned through you with swift brutality and for that mere moment you wondered if it would hurt if you fully sunk into it. Allowed it to destroy you as the flame did the wood that now sat cracked into two pieces—the charred bark falling onto the ground.

A rustling echoed behind you, making you reach for the gun, but the sight of Joel’s graying hair peeking through the woods sent relief flooding through your body. He carried a rabbit in one hand, clutching onto the rifle with the other, and you felt yourself relax just a bit more. Body sinking back into the spot you’d made, legs crossed and hands hovering over the flames.

“Breakfast?” he asked, crouching beside you.

“Don’t mind if I do.” You grinned, pressing your chin against his shoulder briefly, soaking up the warmth of his body.

You couldn’t see his face, but you could feel the smile being pressed against your temple. His lips a soft brush across your skin. If time was kind, you’d be able to stay there. Sitting in the comfort of his presence—the worry that plagued you now pushed to the very back of your mind. It was rare to feel this okay in the comfort of someone else, but Joel made it easy. You wanted to thank him for simply being here, but the words were stuck in your head. Unable to be released.

“How long until we go?” you asked, watching as he cooked the animal over the flames, your stomach clenching painfully.

“Soon as we’re done here.”

The trip into the city wasn’t by any means safe. In fact you were certain it was the most dangerous thing you would attempt in your journey to the Boston QZ. For so long you’d played it safe, but Joel had plans and you would follow his lead wherever he went.

Perhaps it was ridiculous to say you loved him now. In a world where the small hints of anything good were smothered before they could bloom into something more. Except you couldn’t deny what your heart knew was true—what it had been holding onto for months. You loved him. Possibly more than you could ever love someone, and that’s what scared you. Sent a sick feeling into your stomach, your heart twisting violently in your chest at the thought.

Traveling through the city was lethal—a death sentence—but you soon realized it wasn’t the most dangerous thing you could do.

Falling in love in a world intent on destruction was the true risk. Because whether you liked it or not, your entire life could come crashing down in an instant if you lost the man beside you.

Joel was your oxygen. The sole reason you were still alive. You couldn’t lose him.

You both ate in silence, an act that had become sacred to you as time went on. Just a small piece of normalcy that remained—something to remember your old lives by. While you couldn’t necessarily sit at a table and savor the meal. Both of you were content with this. A small amount of peace before chaos ensued once more.

The city called to you—beckoned you closer—and you had to be careful not to give in. There was an unspoken rule in all the traveling you’d had with one another. Joel was the leader in this situation and you were to follow what he said; after all he was simply trying to keep the both of you alive. So you did just that. You waited for him to finish eating and explain exactly how this was going to go down.

“You know…” You picked at the grass beneath you. “I’ve been thinking about what comes next.”

His eyes raised to meet your gaze—the once hardened stare now softened to something you now knew to be familiar. A look he only carried when he was around you. You felt something tug at your chest, warm and inviting.

“I want a home,” you said softly, twirling a dandelion between your fingers. “If that’s a possibility.”

The corners of his lips pulled upwards and you nearly missed the sight. But once you caught it…you couldn’t look away. Joel smiling was a rarity—this you knew to be a hard fact—but when he did the world lit up around him. His smile felt safe. As if he kept every ounce of love given to him in that single look.

“Could be a possibility,” he replied, shifting to where his arm was behind you—his weight leaning on it. “Got a place in mind?”

Heat bloomed beneath your cheeks, small petals of the dandelion flying off. “Nothing too fancy. Big enough for us and…well…it has to be just right.”

Perhaps your mind was playing a trick on you, creating fantastical sights that felt too good to be true, but Joel's smile deepened. A soft light entered his eyes for a brief moment, effectively stealing the breath right from your lungs. He was so beautiful when he smiled. As if he was gifted with it from the gods themselves—his own secret power at the end of the day.

"A house huh."

You nodded, still stunned in place as his smile remained intact. "I miss having a home."

Five words. That's all it took for light to be extinguished like a flame being put out. Sorrow seeped back into his face, his smile faltered, and you felt the world shift beneath your feet. Whatever you said triggered something in his mind. It dragged the memory to the front and forced him to watch with no escape. You know...because you'd been in his place before; you had been a victim to the horror of your own life, privy to the movie that never had an end.

The difference was with Joel you could do nothing but watch.

There was no pulling him out of it, no distracting him, because the memory had already started. So you sat in silence, waiting for it to run its course. Until Joel returned back to you. His smile was gone, face grim once more, and grief stained his soul. But you'd take him any way he was. You'd take him damaged and ruined beyond repair, as he would with you.

"We should get moving soon," he said, voice lower than before, eyes glassy with tears that would never fall.

You let out a breath as your heart sank deeper in your chest. "I'll put out the fire."

He didn't question you or even try to stop you. He simply let you do what you thought was best. Gathering his jacket and gun, he helped you to your feet, the furrow between his brows now set back in place. For a moment...he looked younger than his actual age. A man from the past peeked out, but nothing stayed the same for long.

Nothing good ever stuck.

"Once we get to the edge of the city we'll be out in the open for anyone to see." He slung his pack over his shoulder, handing you a knife to stick in your pocket as an extra precaution for what was to come. "You know I only have one rule darlin'."

Now felt like the perfect time to make a joke—to bring back his smile—but the serious tone of his voice lingered in the air. A reminder that you may be able to take care of yourself on your own, but traveling with Joel now meant you had his life to worry about too.

That alone was something you couldn't risk.

"Follow your lead."

He nodded. "We should be alright, but just in case stick close."

"I will." The idea that you'd stray far from him was ridiculous and he knew it, but the words had to be said. For his own peace of mind.

Somewhere in the middle of the trees there remained an old hiking path. A memoriam of the years that came before, and yet you couldn't picture tourists taking this road. Not even their footprints would survive twenty years of nature. No, this small but distinct path was carved by people traveling towards Boston. You liked to imagine that they made it eventually; that their lives went on in the QZ without issue. But reality always held a harsher reflection than you expected.

Twigs snapped beneath your boots as you trailed beside Joel, eyes set on what remained of the city skyline. Proof that humanity once lived on this planet.

"They'll be deeper inside the city lines," Joel said, dragging your attention away from the ruin. "It's likely there ain't been people for years. But we can’t be sure."

"No reason for activity then?"

He sighed, squinting his eyes against the blaring sunlight. "I'm not sayin' there'll be less. But we might not encounter them much if we’re lucky."

A small amount of relief spread through your chest, pushing against the constant fear that ate at your heart. Devouring it as if you were the meal it had been waiting for. A delicacy of the human body.

"Better than nothing."

He made a noise of agreement, taking the lead and heading deeper into the woods. Eventually they would become sparse, giving the both of you less coverage, until they disappeared altogether. Two decades was plenty of time for nature to reclaim parts of the city, but the cement and stone still remained. A permanent fixture of what used to be in front of you.

The city that used to never sleep, now forced to rest forever.

In the distance you swore you could hear the now familiar screech that haunted your dreams. But it was too far out for you to make out. So you followed Joel, the sun beating down on both of you even through the trees. Sweat stuck to the back of your neck, your fingers slippery on the trigger of your gun. And you both walked in silence—focused on your surroundings. Too anxious to even allow yourselves to whisper.

Yet with Joel it never felt like you were losing time.

How could you? When he was giving back what you lost.

No one else would do this. No one would bother to make sure that you got a chance to visit the city you dreamed about, the place where your future was supposed to be. But he would.

Joel would have given you the sun if you asked him to—if only to see you smile.

Your words from last night continued to rise to the surface, placing themselves on the tip of your tongue, and begging you to open your mouth. Yet as much as you wanted to stand atop the tallest building in the city and shout it from the top of your lungs, you knew you couldn't.

Those words remained hidden in your chest like a wound that could never truly heal. A gaping hole that forced you to bleed out each time you acknowledged its presence.

The sad part was that Joel wasn't the one to rip it open. He was simply someone who managed to stir it awake. He brought it to life with just one look. You started bleeding years ago with loss after loss, until eventually...you stopped trying to close it up with cheap booze and an even cheaper version of what you ached for.

What you needed to sustain you.

"You never told me," Joel said abruptly, shutting down those thoughts within seconds. "About your life."

You smiled despite the effort and lack of breath. "There's not much to tell."

"I doubt that darlin'." He fell into step with you, his hand brushing across yours gently, but even you knew holding hands wasn't a luxury you could afford right now. Not when you'd have to run at a moment's notice. "What was college like?"

Scoffing, you adjusted the strap of your pack. "Parties, hangovers, and lots of coffee."

"Sounds 'bout right."

"Why Joel Miller. Don't tell me you went to college."

He leaned into you, his shoulder hitting yours with enough force to throw you slightly off course. "I didn't. My brother Tommy did. Well...he enrolled."

"Ah yes. The infamous Miller," you joked, grabbing onto his arm to steady yourself.

He snorted, wrapping it around your waist instead. "I wouldn't call him that."

"Then tell me about him."

His eyes met yours, grief still pressing against the light that once was there, but you could see something else linger below. A sense of joy that only came when talking about his younger sibling. A relief that he had family still alive, still around for him to worry about. You knew the fear remained that one day...he might not have that person to worry about, that the world would remain just as cruel as before.

That thought hit you harder than you would have liked—the face of your own brother flashing in your mind. You couldn't save him. Shit, you barely even knew if he was still alive or dead. And that in itself was a different type of grief; a horror you wouldn't wish on anyone.

Least of all Joel.

"He was in the army."

A fallen tree came into view, blocking the path. Joel climbed over it first, grunting as he jumped down, his feet slamming hard when he landed. He took your hand as you went next, helping you go softer than him, checking with a glance to make sure you hadn't snagged yourself on the split wood.

You recall your own brother enlisting, although your mother used to claim you were too young to remember the day he left. But you could make out the hazy images of tear filled goodbyes and hugs that lasted longer than normal. He joined to find purpose. You understood that now.

"Nearly gave our parents a heart attack when he came home with the news." Joel huffed, his hand still clasped tightly around yours. "But Tommy was eighteen. And damn stubborn."

You tried to picture the other Miller as you did when Joel first mentioned him, yet still came up blank. They must look alike. Maybe the same nose, or jaw. No matter how hard you tried though, you could see nothing but a faceless man—a blank slate to the one Joel spoke of so fondly.

"He's younger than you?"

Joel nodded. "By a few years."

The thought of Joel trying to be a good role model for his brother made you smile. You wondered if they ever got into trouble together, if there were stories he might tell you one day when you finally found a safe place to live.

"So...he was the troublemaker of the family."

His gaze slid over to you, eyebrow arching slightly in faux surprise. "I wouldn't say that."

You grinned. “Let me guess…” Joel’s hand tightened around yours. “You were the responsible brother.”

“I had to be.”

“He sounds fun. Maybe I should have met him first.” Glancing to your side, you didn’t see as his face darkened. A look of something wild crossed his face, the painful grip on your hand bringing you back as he yanked you forward. “Joel—”

Unexpected. That is what you continued to feel each time Joel kissed you. Unexpected in his action, unexpected in the feelings he buried beneath the rubble of his heart. You felt yourself stumble into his chest, his lips sliding against your roughly, as he gave into that wild unknown sensation.

A hunger that consumed him quickly. Larger than anything he’d known before.

He exhaled, pulling away with reluctance, and you nearly moved forward to take back that fleeting euphoria. His thumb and forefinger pinching your chin lightly kept you in place. Until you opened your eyes—catching his gaze. Want burned in his iris—turning the deep brown a shade of black—but something darker peeked out, a possessive glint. A promise that you were his.

“Trust me darlin’,” he murmured, lips pulling up into a small grin. Your stomach fluttered rapidly at the sight of his eyes sliding down to your lips—his tongue running along his bottom lip. You wanted it in your mouth. “You’ve got the better brother.”

That remained clear the second you met him. But the tease still lingered in the air. A hint of irritation plucked at Joel’s heart as he thought about you and Tommy instead. If there’s one thing he knew it was this: Tommy would make you laugh as often as possible. He wouldn’t quit until he saw joy overtake the grief on your face. But something told him you needed more than humor.

Even as you looked at him like that—eyes soft and hazy with need—he still felt the innate need to prove himself. To show that he was it for you; that no matter what happened next, Joel was going to be yours.

His face darkened and you longed to peel away the layers of murkiness that hid his true feelings.

But that was the thing about Joel. He’d never show you outright what he kept beneath the surface—not unless he was telling you himself.

His hand took yours again, a small kiss pressed to your temple as he started walking. Towards a future so tangible you could almost feel it between your fingertips. How it ebbed and flowed despite the endless mountain ridges you were yet to traverse.

There was no telling where it dropped off. Where this future finally settled, but regardless of what happened, you’d remain. You would choose Joel over and over again, even if this path led to your death. As long as he was safe—as long as he survived. To you Joel was the only thing you could save—having given up on yourself years ago.

You were two broken souls, but given the chance, you’d piece him back together.

You could see that the path veered back towards the forest, probably to some old forgotten campgrounds. A part of you nearly asked him to head that way, but you stopped before you started. The realization dawned on you quicker than you would have liked. How many people never made it home? How many lost parts of humanity still remained in a place meant solely for joy?

A cold unsettling feeling burrowed its way into your stomach, nausea rising quickly to the surface. Everywhere you looked, death stared back with an empty gaze.

A promise already embedded too deep to remove.

This is how it was always meant to go. This is where it would always lead to.

Joel couldn’t see the terror stricken expression across your face. You were in too deep to ask him for a rescue anyways. So you simply remained. Entrenched in the thick darkness. Yet your feet still moved, your body still complied. He led you closer and closer to the outskirts of the city. And where you expected fear to arise, you found nothing but numbness.

An echo of pain that called out to you. How could you fear what you already knew? The infected were no longer the embodiment of your worst horror come to life.

No, that title now belonged to the man holding your hand so gently in his. Squeezing every few minutes in an act of unconscious reassurance. His fate, his life, it all twisted together until you could barely catch your breath.

He turned to glance at you over his shoulder, his lips curving into a soft smile, the lines around his eyes deeper than before. You nearly gasped as you were yanked out of the darkness, warm air brushing across your face. For those few seconds you felt the sunlight against your face. The worries melted away and this is what you were left with.

Pure broken love.

“Tired?” he asked, oblivious to the way you were drowning.

You grinned, moving closer. “Not really.”

“We got a few more hours.”

Perfect.

You didn’t say it aloud, but you could see the sentiment was reflected back in his eyes. He wanted this as much as you. Where the world only existed in time spent alone. Where nothing could harm you here in your infinite haven with him.

Returning his smile, you squeezed his hand softly, doing what you could to burn the feel of his calloused skin into your mind. Whether it took a few hours or a few days, you didn’t mind. As long as it was with him.

Silence.

That’s all you heard throughout a city once plagued by noise. Where thousands of people used to live—creating the hustle and bustle of the city that used to never rest, now an echoey hollowness remained. At last…the city was asleep. And you hated it.

Life should spill out of every crack and crevice of this place, but there was nothing. You felt as if you should grieve for what once was, but no emotions rose to the surface. Instead you were faced with a bottomless pit of something that once existed.

Joel’s hand was replaced with your weapons, his gun clutched tightly in his own grip. You remained on the outskirts, but that didn’t mean you were safe. If anything you were in more danger this out in the open. There should have been something by now. Yet it seemed that fate had a different idea altogether.

In a way, you were beyond thankful, but uncertainty still remained. A reminder that this would only last for so long. Fate offered what it could, and you took without a second thought. There would never be another chance like this—never another moment of peace.

Sweat stuck to the back of your neck as you walked, eyes scanning the area like clockwork. Joel was a few paces ahead, his body tense, finger on the trigger in case of the worst. You hoped it would never come. Neither of you spoke for fear that whatever remained in the abandoned buildings could hear you. The air was sticky with heat and you felt your body begin to dry out the longer the both of you traveled.

“We can rest up ahead,” he called over his shoulder as if your thoughts were projected to him.

“Do you know where we’re going?”

It’s not that you didn’t trust him—you did—but wandering in the city felt like a risk you shouldn’t be taking more than a trip of enjoyment.

“I’ve got an idea.”

You scoffed. “That’s helpful.”

“Don’t tell me you don’t trust me now Boston,” he drawled with a halfway grin across his face.

“It’s kind of late for that…Texas.”

“No shit.”

You did your best to hold back the laugh that bubbled to the surface, but there was no use. You couldn’t stop it now. Joel looked surprised for a split second, his lips parting into a wide smile, until he began to laugh with you. Deep and rough and perfectly Joel.

This. This is what you ached for most. Joy—no matter how small—in a time where the concept no longer existed. If you could bring that to each other even as you fought to survive then you’d be okay.

In the near distance you could see it, a small section of benches surrounded by nothing but overgrown bushes, flower patches, and trees that would have never been allowed to grow that tall. A sense of elation filled your chest at the sight of a park. So out in the open, so mundane in a city quickly being overtaken by nature. Ivy trailed up the buildings as if that alone kept the ruins together, but you’d never seen something so beautiful.

“I got some food left over,” he muttered, rummaging in his pack as you took a seat on a bench covered by vines. “Nothin’ much, but it’ll work till we dig up somethin’ else.”

You took it gratefully, taking in the area with wonder as you caught every small piece that might show a hint of the past. Shop signs were broken off, rubble scattered through the streets, and abandoned cars were lined up like barriers to the inside of buildings. Perhaps people had come through here before, trapping the infected inside as they made their way through the city quickly.

“Do you remember what it was like?”

He threw a quick glance over his shoulder, catching sight of the coffee shop sign you were fixated on—half of it gone and broken on the asphalt. Everything here had been destroyed over the years. Taken, ripped a part, and left to rot. Yet the cracks in the streets where plants grew told Joel that life still found a way to flourish. Even as darkness and cruelty became the figurehead of humanity.

“Loud,” he said, biting into the dusty granola bar.

You smiled, shifting to make room for him as he joined you on the bench. “So I’ve heard. The city that never sleeps. I guess it was named that for a reason.”

“People were crammed into every corner.” He pointed up to a building in the distance. Surprisingly it hadn’t collapsed yet. “I stayed there. Fourth floor.”

“Hotel?”

He nodded. “Expensive as shit.”

“That tracks.”

“But I had fun.” He grinned, eyes distant as if replaying moments of his past, reliving what it was like to be in this city at the height of its prime. “Tommy wanted to move here. After the army.”

“Did you…want to go with him?”

Joel huffed, eyes falling to his hands as he broke apart the granola bar—anxiety bleeding off his body and seeping into yours. “No. That life was his. Not mine.”

Counting in your head, you tried to calculate at what age Joel might have been when Tommy came home. What might have happened in his life. Until the conversation from earlier came back to you like a fist to your face. Sarah. You tried to picture him as a young dad, raising a little girl, and suddenly the gap between your years and his felt like a chasm you shouldn’t cross.

A split in the ground so deep you could see right down to the center of the Earth.

“And to think,” you replied, resting your chin on his shoulder. “I could have met you here.”

His laugh was shadowed by pain—grief he’d never let you see in its entirety. “You wouldn’t have gone for me.”

“That’s not true.”

“What with you bein’ a fancy museum worker?” He turned, his nose brushing against yours. “Gettin’ you to look twice at me would have taken some effort.”

You smiled, stealing a kiss. “You’re wrong. I’d have asked you out in an instant if I saw you. Maybe…in a bar.” His laugh was soft, raspy as if he’d been shouting for hours. “Or a park.”

���Yeah?” You wanted to keep his smile. “How would it go?”

“Well…” Pulling back, you pressed a finger to your chin, eyebrows pulling together as you pretended to lose yourself in thought. “I’d begin the conversation, because you’re not much of a talker.” He pinched your side, drawing out a laugh.

“And you’d say?”

Forcing your face into a stoic expression, you grasped his shoulders. “Excuse me sir. Are you a fan of country music?”

He snorted, his body shaking as he broke between your palms. Laughing so hard he nearly dropped his granola bar on the floor. If you closed your eyes, you could imagine the sounds of the city in the background. The echo of what could have been reverberating to you through the years.

This would be it. The moment you knew you were head over heels for the man sitting beside you.

This is where you’d start to plan a future.

“And you’d say…of course, I’m from Texas darlin’.” You did your best to morph your voice into his, but couldn’t get through it without smiling.

Joel cupped your chin, tugging your lips close enough to feel them brush across his—your heart now beating an unsteady rhythm in your chest. “Of course.”

“And I’d say…that’s funny. I’m from Boston.” Sadness seeped into your heart when he looked at you like that—as if you were the only person to exist on this planet. His hope. His lifeline. “And the rest is history.”

He pressed his lips against yours, stealing a kiss soft enough to crack off another splinter of your heart. “I like that version of history.”

“Me too,” you breathed, biting down hard on your bottom lip to keep the sting of tears at bay.

You could feel the pain in your feet begin to shoot through your lower back. Traveling steadily with each step. From what you could tell, the sun was dipping into mid afternoon, still early in the day, but late enough to cause worry. Staying in the city past nightfall didn’t bode well for either of you. Yet somehow…you were traveling deeper into the maze of fallen buildings and broken roads.

“Joel—”

He stopped in the middle of the road, his back straight and shoulders tense. You braced yourself for the worst, hands grabbing tightly onto the weapon clutched to your chest. A small chirp of birds sounded in the distance, animals echoing their sentiments back to the broken world around them. Yet nothing sounded dangerous enough to cause worry.

“What is it?”

Glancing back at you, he threw you a cautionary smile, head tilting as if to say join me. 

So you followed his instruction. Stepping around the cracks in the street to stand close, facing him as he looked at something behind you.

“We’re here.”

Confusion lined your face, worry filtering through your chest. “Where’s…here?”

“Turn around.”

His hands grasped your shoulders, shifting you until you were staring at the building he was. And for a moment you nearly laughed; claimed it was a good joke walking you nowhere. Only for your eyes to catch sight of the cracked and broken steps before you. Weeds grew between what still remained and the front was blown to shit, but you’d recognize this building even with your eyes closed.

The final destination in the path of your old future.

“The Met?” you whispered, eyes wide in awe at the sight of such a grand building torn to bits.

He pressed his lips to your ear. “Thought you might want to see it in person this time.”

Those three words you uttered last night, barely spoken at all, suddenly felt too small to describe the depth of what you felt. You didn’t just love Joel. You would die for him. You’d take any pain he harbored and carry it as your own. And you’d do all this…because he’d do the exact same for you. Love felt too little in the grand scheme of things.

How could you simply love someone who would bring you the future and lay it at your feet?

“Is it safe?” Your voice was barely above a whisper, tinged by awe.

“Probably not.”

“So we could die?”

“There’s a good chance.”

You smiled, tangling his hand in yours. “I think it’s worth it.”

“Yeah.” He squeezed your palm softly. “I do too.”

Carefully he led you up the steps. A walk that felt surreal after years of dreaming this exact moment. You knew one day you’d get here. Whether that was with a degree and a resume in your hand, or holding the hand of a man who saved you. You didn’t care, because finally…there you stood.

Ivy crawled up the sides of the building, the doors were no longer attached, and you felt as if you were walking into a different universe. The entrance that you’d seen in brochures and pictures somehow looked prettier this way; slowly being captured by the hands of nature. As she shifted the land of humans to her point of view.

The almost crystalline marble shone differently in the direct sunlight. Glancing up you caught sight of the hole in the ceiling. This building must have been affected by the bombing.

“I remember this part,” he said suddenly, an awestruck expression painted across his face. He looked like a young man again, taking his first visit to this grand old museum.

“This is called The Great Hall. And it was Richard Morris Hunt that was the architect on the project. One hundred years ago. Well give or take a few years.”

A stream of words left your mouth without a single thought. Explanations of the different parts that once existed, the historical references for how they were built. And for a moment you felt nineteen again. Fresh out of an art history class; the knowledge once again at the forefront of your mind.

All the while Joel watched with a glint in his eyes, silent to what you had to say, yet focused entirely on you. The museum wasn’t important to him. Hell he barely gave a shit about what used to be here. But something changed in your demeanor as you spoke about art and the history attached to it. You bloomed before his very eyes.

You came alive.

“I wonder if a few of the paintings are still around,” you murmured, eyes averting to one side of the room. “Could we…”

He nodded, readying his gun. “We can try.”

You expected this place to be crawling with infected. At least a few here and there, yet nothing but silence greeted you with each new room you entered. It became unnerving after a while. As if fate was waiting to drop the other shoe, tearing apart something already special.

Hesitation lingered in each step you took, fear crawling along your nerves like a spider, until you entered a room filled with paintings torn apart. Once upon a time it was a gallery, yet now the delicate pieces of history were nothing but a reminder of what happened.

Tucked away on a side wall, you found a painting still hanging. A small crack went through the top corner of the glass covering it, but as a whole the piece remained pristine enough to make out.

“You know that one?” he asked, following your quick pace through the room.

“Allegory of the Planets and Continents.”

“Allegory huh?”

You nodded. “Painted by Tiepolo in…1752.”

“I can’t say I’ve heard of him.”

“He did a lot of allegorical pieces.” You tilted your head, eyes tracing the intricate details that were nearly lost to time. Joel did the same. “I remember seeing this in a class presentation.”

He hummed, his gaze finding its way back to you. “And what does it mean?”

“A number of things really.” You pointed to the center. “That’s Apollo. And those are the gods as a representation of the planets. Mars, Jupiter, Venus. You know.”

“And them?”

You sighed. “Humanity.” His hand found its way towards yours, fingers twining together as you stood there. Alone in a museum together. “They’re waiting for Apollo to take to the skies and bring about the sun.”

“Seems like a lot of work for a God.”

The smile that crossed your face made Joel’s chest tighten. “I guess it was. Although it’s strange. Back then people were waiting for the sun and now…well now we wait for death.”

Pain flared in his heart quickly and without warning. But he did his best to force it down, steadying himself in your hold. Oh how he wished he could tell you the truth. About the past he had yet to accept as his own. About the bullet that never met its mark—the hand that remained unsteady even now.

“We should go soon,” you said, pulling him out of his own mind, and he nearly thanked you. “The sun will be going down eventually.”

He nodded. “Go out the way we came.”

It hurt to say goodbye to a building you’d never been in before. But that’s not where the pain stemmed from. You’d said goodbye to the prospect of what if a long time ago. You had to. This was from losing such a precious moment with Joel—a memory you’d hold onto for as long as you could. For that time…you were simply two people wandering the halls of a museum together. Finally on a date after so long traveling.

Maybe if you had met years before in a bar or in a park. You wouldn’t have to say goodbye.

The sunlight felt different back on the steps, brighter, crueler. As if Apollo was mocking you for such a small hope, such a small dream come to life. Yet even now you couldn’t blame him.

You headed back the way you came through the city. But your feet were weary, your body drooped with each step, and eventually you’d collapse on the asphalt just as the buildings once did. Joel could tell with each look he threw your way, checking to make sure you were in fact following him. He wouldn’t have put it past you to remain in that building.

To make a home with history.

“We can’t sleep here,” he said, pausing to let you catch your breath.

“I know. My feet just…”

He nodded solemnly, squinting against the sunlight. “Wait here.”

“Joel?”

There was no time to question his actions, because you were out of breath as it was, and he was moving further away quicker than you expected. Standing there in the middle of the street wasting sunlight turned your insides with every second that passed. Your eyes caught sight of him turning a corner before he vanished entirely from your sight. And you held onto the thin shred of sanity you had left in your body.

You trusted Joel. A fact truer than anything you’d known in your life.

So you waited, watched your surrounding areas, and held your breath. 

If you weren’t so unnerved by the silence, you might have found it enjoyable. Some peace before the two of you went in search of a QZ that may no longer be there. That thought never occurred to you—traveling with Joel kept you distracted enough to where you didn’t focus on the important things. The question that now picked at your heart.

What were you supposed to do if the QZ wasn’t there? Where would you go?

Blind faith is all that kept you going, but that never seemed to be enough. In the end you were left with nothing but disappointment. You’d run all out of faith when it came to the fates. The still healing wound on your side was proof enough of that.

The echo of dried leaves cracking beneath feet signaled to you that Joel must have returned. Whatever he was looking for must have been a bust. The smile on your face and tease right on the tip of your tongue died in moments as you turned. A rock falling to your stomach, filling you with dread.

Dried blood caked down the side of their face. A deep red now a rust brown; a stark contrast to the green moss that covered their torn clothes.

Every time you saw one you felt the punch to your gut grow stronger. As if lead embedded itself in your flesh. Again. Your breath came in short, eyes stuck staring at what was once a person. They stumbled forward, body twitching with every stunted shift. And you wanted to scream. Shout for Joel, but your mouth sealed itself shut, your body rooted to the ground beneath you.

The whole time you were aching for life to return to this city, you forgot. Life already existed here. Mangled and rotting and steeped in death.

But life nonetheless.

They turned, eyes glassy and empty, but somewhere in the depth of them they recognized that you were alive. Your heart pounded against your chest, louder than their fucking screech. It pierced right through your skin, a slice to the already existing wound.

You clutched Joel’s gun, finger sliding along the trigger. It was easy enough to pull, to set the bullet flying towards its mark. And you should have pulled it, should have watched as they dropped, but like an idiot…you hesitated.

Why the fuck did you hesitate?

A pause of silence filled the space, echoing louder than any gun could have, before time slowed before your very eyes. How fucking stupid of you. To think you’d be safe. They clocked your shift back, head twitching, before that horrifying click you’d come to hate echoed in your ears. You were dead the second they started to run, limbs flying and body thrashing, as if the control stemmed to one part.

One sole purpose.

Infect.

“Fuck!” you shouted, ignoring the ache in your feet as you sprinted in the direction Joel disappeared to. If you were lucky he was still there.

Yet life had a way of proving to you that luck had nothing to do with why you remained alive.

“Joel!” You gasped for breath, doing what you could to ignore how they sped up behind you, their screech somehow louder as it echoed off the buildings around you. “Joel!”

If you could get the upper hand you could put a bullet in their skull, but your thought process happened too late. Glancing over your shoulder, you were blinded by their body launching at you. Toppling you to the ground as they scratched for your face, any part of you they could sink their teeth into. You don’t remember screaming, or even calling Joel’s name. You simply fought. You tugged on the loose thread of pure fucking rage that called your name—screamed for you to do survive.

“You piece of shit!” you yelled, managing to hold them off with your forearm, your fingers grappling for the knife attached to your side. “You fucking animal!”

“Boston!”

Yanking it out, you nearly cried in relief as you jammed it into their neck, shoving it in deep enough to hear a crunch as it met bone. Satisfaction pulled at your chest. You didn’t stop there. Dragging it out, you sliced through their shoulder, their throat, any part of them you could reach. Until you were no better than the monster that now lay above you. Lifeless.

Hands came out of nowhere, grasping onto their corpse and shoving it off you. You nearly took a swing at the person above you, the red fury blinding you to anything that could have existed nearby. The feral piece of your heart—the survivor—had been set in motion and they called for blood.

Joel’s hands yanked the knife out of your clutch, his voice calling your name, and for a moment you felt lost to the depths of your own fury. You would have killed him if he wasn’t fast enough to dodge that knife.

“Boston!” He pressed you to the ground, his body sitting on your waist, hands keeping your wrists together. “Baby it’s me.”

The breath in your lungs escaped in a sharp gasp, your body stilling within seconds. Only a few times in your life had you succumbed to that raw emotion that scratched and clawed at your chest. Some days you claimed it kept you alive. Others you ignored its existence in the hopes that it would disappear for good. It was the darkness you refused to see—the one thing you wouldn’t accept about yourself.

“You’re okay,” he mumbled, releasing the hold he had on your hands in order to cup your face. “It’s dead. It’s gone. You killed it.”

You let out a shaky breath. “Why…did you leave?”

Leaning forward he pressed his forehead to yours, his breath hot across your chin. “I’m sorry darlin’. I keep doin’ that.”

Inhaling his breath, you did what you could to regulate your heart. “And I keep nearly dying.”

He grinned, pressing a kiss to the corner of your lips. “Nearly. Not if I got a say in the matter.”

Dirt covered your back as he helped you to your feet, and before you could shake it off, he brushed his hands along your body. Patting it off as best he could. The act shouldn’t have brought tears to your eyes, it shouldn’t have even been noteworthy. But the tenderness behind his touch reminded you what you could have lost.

“I want an explanation,” you said, your voice thick with tears. Thankfully he chose to ignore it.

“I found somethin’.” He pointed to a shop that held no sign, no indication that it was anything before this. “You might like it.”

You struggled to put the knife back in its place—still wary and on edge. “This better be good Texas. I didn’t almost die for nothing.”

Joel didn’t respond, but you caught the flash of something crossing his face. Dark enough to cause worry. And you wanted to ask, to prod and poke at what he was keeping to himself, but the way his fingers tightened on his gun told you enough. He didn’t like to think of you that way. Dead on the ground in a city that he brought you to. A trip that was meant to be filled with joy.

“Follow me,” he stated, pushing open that already broken door.

You half expected to see a shop, something frivolous from the past, but the sight of a garage nearly stopped you in your tracks. A dusty brown cover cloaked something in the middle, but the shape was familiar enough to light up your chest. A car. Joel tugged at the cover, kicking up dirt and whatever else lay atop, but you couldn’t care less.

It’s once beautiful dark red color looked aged with however long it had been here. Never one to know cars, you simply knew that it was expensive—a thing that would have cost the entirety of your tuition at one point.

“How…” you breathed.

“Saw the logo on the window,” he replied. “I figured it was a hardware store until I came in.”

“Does it work?”

He shrugged. “Probably not.”

You deflated slightly. “Can we…fix it?”

The sun was going down faster than you would have liked and Joel knew it. He could see how you were both losing time the longer you were there. But the prospect of having an escape kept him on the edge. His grim expression made the choice for you as you moved to pop the hood. Your bag, now discarded on the floor by his feet.

“I don’t know much about cars—”

“Lucky you got me.”

“Don’t tell me. You’re a contractor who knows cars?”

Joel huffed. “Someone had to help my brother fix up his shitty truck.”

The words were good enough for you as he moved you out of the way, ducking down to peer at the engine. His shirt tugged up his back as he leant forward, his skin coated in a sheen of sweat. If it were any other time and the prospect of this car working didn’t depend on life or death, you would have sat back and admired him.

But the edge from earlier still ran through your veins, adrenaline the only thing that kept you upright and stable. Joel worked silently, cursing under his breath every now and then. Only speaking to ask for certain tools. And you watched the sun begin to dip lower. Suddenly you found yourself regretting never taking auto shop in high school. Choosing wood shop over it in a heartbeat.

“Turn her over,” he said, wiping the sweat away from his neck. You felt warmth pool in your stomach at the sight.

Jamming the screwdriver into the ignition, you turned it slowly, hope cresting at the top of your chest. Only for the sputter of an engine to die out in seconds.

“Shit,” he muttered, glancing back at the work he’d put in. “The battery ain’t dead yet and I fixed everythin’ else. Try again for me darlin’.”

You repeated the motion, pressing down on the gas pedal, clutching the wheel in your hand. Whether it was you attempting to force life into the car, or sheer fucking luck, you’d never know. But the echo of the engine roaring to life flooded you with enough relief you fell back into the seat with a smile.

“Joel?”

He looked up, a smile of pride across his lips. “Yeah baby?”

“Let’s get the fuck out of New York.”

Nodding, he tossed your bag into the backseat as you let him slide into the driver's seat. “I like the sound of that.”

The calm of the forest welcomed the both of you with open arms. As if promising the rest you ached for desperately. Miles and miles of trees—of different shades of green and brown—were softly illuminated by the sun steadily dipping in the sky. In an hour or less night would be upon the world and this day, no matter how special, would have to come to an end.

You tried not to think about it; the idea of having to say goodbye to something you’d cherish. What would keep you going if Joel and you were to ever part. What you wouldn’t do to keep the sun in the sky for a while longer. Give up a few years of your own life, of the future you planned with hope filled eyes and empty hearts.

If staying here—in this moment—was an option, you wouldn’t hesitate to jump at the chance.

Joel slammed the trunk of the car shut, a small box of cans he found buried in the back of the garage, clutched in his hands. Despite the prospect of all this eventually ending, you caught the hint of a smile on his lips. Barely there, yet bright enough to light up your heart like a match being struck.

You found yourself smiling back—heart hammering loudly in your chest.

“We’ve got…” He raised a can covered in dents and coated in a thick layer of dust. “‘M gonna assume it’s soup.”

“Lovely,” you laughed, your face twisting up in disgust as he tossed it to you.

The dust was sticky beneath your fingers, as if something had spilled across it years ago. You figured it was best not to question more than necessary. Settling on the ground, you plunged your knife into the cover, taking a hesitant whiff of something probably expired past saving. Much to your surprise though, a pungent scent of tomatoes greeted you.

“Raviolis,” you exclaimed, delight scrawled across your face.

You wished you could have seen Joel’s eyes go soft, seen the way he practically melted at the expression of joy you wore. Joel Miller remained hard as stone to the rest of the world, but in moments like this, when peace was prominent and life gave way to something other than pain. He allowed himself to feel. For a bit…he was the man he might have been a decade ago.

“Good enough for me.”

Prying the lid off, you watched as he set up stones for a small enough pit. You were far enough in the forest that it would take people several hours to get to you. Far enough away from civilization of any kind. What remained in the city, the bits and pieces left behind, would never be enough to build what used to exist. Like it or not…that part of the world had come to a close.

The chapter sealed and signed off with enough blood to keep it shut forever.

“Thank you,” you said softly as he struck a match from the small box you kept in your pack. “For today.”

He grinned, glancing down at his hands that fiddled with a stick. “Was nothin’ really. You wanted to see the city and we were heading this way—”

“Joel.” Cupping his face, you shifted his shining brown eyes until they were upon your face. Gazing at you with a look he’d never shown you before. “You gave me a day I’ll never forget.” He chuckled, grasping onto your waist gently. “Thank you.”

Those two words didn’t seem like enough to get your message across. You wanted to do the same for him. To give him something he’d remember, but nothing felt enough.

He pulled you closer. “Would have been better if you didn’t get attacked.”

“Well…” You looped your arm around his neck. “I knew what I was getting into when I chose you.”

Something shifted in the air between you the second he led you up those cracked and broken museum steps. The front of the building had been blown clean off by bombs, but you’d recognize it anywhere. The place where your future once led to. A home in your heart for so long. A dream not yet come to life. Joel took care to lead, to put himself in harm's way to keep you safe. But it was more than that.

He gave you time to look.

To take back a part of your past you never got to have.

An act that he’d never be able to do. He couldn’t go back, couldn’t take anything from his past that hadn’t already been destroyed. The watch on his wrist was all he’d keep. But you…he could give this to you. He could heal something in your heart you didn’t even realize was broken.

“I’d do it again,” he murmured, lips sliding along the inside of your wrist, nose pressed to your palm.

Your heart ached for him; body burned for him. And in the lowlight of the sun, you found your hope in him. It glimmered softly, barely within reach, but Joel had kept it for you all this time. He made sure to protect what you couldn’t—what you had given up.

“Kiss me,” you whispered, catching his quickly darkening gaze. “Please.”

The crackle of the flames couldn’t hide his small groan of pleasure as his lips met yours. What he intended to be soft, reverent in a way he’d never been before, shifted rapidly. His hand slid up your body, fingers wrapped gently around your throat to keep you in place. To help him devour you a bit deeper. That alone sent a flutter to rush through your entire body, your fingers digging into his wrist, silently begging for him to press down tighter.

To cut off the air he exhaled into your lungs.

“You got no idea—” He sucked in a breath when your lips met his throat, teeth nipping at the salty skin. Red bloomed beneath the surface as you went, small marks and bruises to prove that he wasn’t dreaming. That this trip was real—that you were real.

He growled, fingers tightening around your throat to pull your lips back to his, a rough breath exhaled into your open mouth. “No idea what you do to me darlin’.”

Sticky warm wet heat spilled into your stomach, flooding your already damp panties. The can was forgotten on the edge of the pit, his touch far more enticing than a few meager pieces of food. If you could survive on one thing alone, you’d want it to be him. You would train your body to sustain itself on his touch, his tongue sliding along yours, his fingers digging into your skin.

He’d become your oxygen, your reason for living.

“I-I do.” You gasped as his teeth dug into your throat, hands quickly stripping you of your flannel. Helping him, you yanked at your shirt, discarding it to the side. Nothing mattered but the feel of his tongue tracing along your skin—the hot mix of his touch and spit made you dizzy. “You do the same to me.”

A soft grunt was muffled into your chest, his hips rising up to grind against something. To gain what little friction he could.

In the midst of kissing him, he managed to drag you into his lap, your knees pressed to the forest floor on either side of his hips. Your body, as close as you could get with clothes in the way. You could feel the heavy press of him against your thigh and clenched around nothing. The needy emptiness that slammed into your body was nearly too much, but you held onto what little fragments of sanity still remained.

You clung to the bits of yourself he wished to consume, knowing the consequences of what might come afterwards.

But how could you give a fuck about consequences when his touch lit you up like the fire to your left? How could you care about anything else? When his lips wrapped around your peaked nipple and sucked at it as if you were his source of life.

His hands slid up your back, skin hot wherever he touched, as he pulled you down into his lap a bit more. Enough to feel the familiar press of his cock straining against his jeans. The sun was nearly gone now, light bleeding through the branches of the trees, and you let the warmth consume you. You relished in its burning caress as he worshiped your skin with his mouth, his hands that had spilled blood for you.

“Need to be—” He bit off with a sharp moan as you rolled your hips down, giving him the pressure he needed. “Fuck keep doin’ that.”

You were desperate for him and you weren’t afraid to admit it to yourself. The infatuation bordered on obsession, but if you were to say that about him he’d finally have to admit the same to you. He’d have to crack open his chest, bleed through your fingers like sand, and allow you to dig your way to his heart. As if you were conducting an autopsy on his body—picking a part each dark piece that he was ashamed to hold onto.

“Touch me,” you whined, digging your fingers into his hair as he dug his into your hips. A burning bruising touch that left you needy.

He grinned, pulling at the button of your pants. “I am touchin’ you darlin’.”

“You—fuck, fuck, fuck—” His fingers slid through your slick, finding their way to the parts of you he’d memorized in such a short time. Your clit practically throbbed beneath his touch, body shuddering as he circled it with enough pressure to electrify your nerves. “Yes.”

“That’s what you want?” The question was irrelevant. He knew this better than you, but that wasn’t what he was asking.

Is this enough? This quick fuck beside a fire as you both hid the real reason. Was his touch, his kiss, enough to show the truth?

Was he enough?

You choked out a soft yes, your lips finding his in a sloppy spit slicked kiss, and his fingers became insistent in their determination to watch you break. Joel had become addicted to the sight. His very own guilty pleasure—yet how could he feel guilty about something so angelic? How could he repent for a sin that he’d give up everything for? What was the point of worshiping at an altar when heaven existed between your thighs?

Eventually his fingers wouldn’t be enough. For either of you. But he was focused on one thing, feeling your pussy spill along his palm. He sunk two fingers into you knuckle deep and smiled as your head fell back, a throaty moan echoing off the trees. You grinded against his hand, fingers tugging at the hair on the nape of his neck. And this was enough.

“Prettiest fucking thing I’ve ever seen,” he murmured, hand still placed around your throat. His cock leaked as it constricted with your swallow and images of what he’d look like in your mouth flashed in his mind.

“M-More—” You gasped, your clit dragging along the heel of his calloused palm.

But you had begged for something else and Joel was never one to deny you. He ripped at your pants as you did the same with his, your lips messy and rough against his. You swallowed his moan the second your cold hand wrapped around his throbbing cock—precum sliding down your palm as he did his best not to finish there and then. He was so fucking wound up that this would be over before it began.

Neither of you cared.

“You’ve gotta know,” he rasped, gripping onto your bare hip as you hovered directly over his cock. Your pussy practically dripped onto him.

“Know what?” you sighed, sliding him through your slick.

He squeezed his eyes shut to the sight of you. The shine of firelight and sunlight played against your skin and Joel felt his body tighten painfully. The view alone nearly made you double over in pleasure, your breaths coming in short gasps as he fought to finish on the front of your pussy.

“That I—” He gasped as you began to sink down onto him, encasing him that sticky heat he’d begun to think was the cause of his demise. He’d never be able to live without this. Without getting to carve his way into your body. “Fuck darlin’.”

You grinned, cupping his chin and pulling his attention back. “I’ll go slow.”

“You don’t have to take it easy on me.”

“Seems like I might.”

A rumble started in the base of his chest, lips curving up as he caught your mouth in a searing kiss you felt down to your toes. The grip on your throat tightened as you began to move slowly, letting him pull out of you slow enough to cause madness to rise in your chest. Like a burn you refused to let go of. Joel had other ideas. He yanked you down with enough force to drag out a high pitched cry from your chest, your mouth falling open in a silent scream when he set his own pace.

Quick and fast and filthy enough to sign your name on hell’s roster. He wanted to fuck himself into your body so deep he was buried there. Wanted to paint your insides until you were leaking him all morning. He wanted to etch himself into your soul.

Permanent and without shame.

“C’mon darlin’.” His teeth dug into your jaw, pain slicing through the pleasure deliciously. “Let me hear ya.”

You curled into him, meeting him thrust for thrust as he pounded up into you. “‘S good,” you gasped, coherency going right out the window.

He grinned, tugging at your throat. “You can do better than that.”

Words faintly entered your mind before disappearing seconds later as he tilted your hips slightly. You scratched at his chest when his cock struck right where you needed him. Right where your mouth began to form words you fought so hard to keep at bay. Words that revealed too much, gave a window into your heart, and if you had the capability you’d shut your fucking mouth. But it was far too late for that.

“You like that?” he groaned, teeth digging into his plush bottom lip as he kept the angle. The veins on his neck were strained, begging for you lick at them, and you dipped down to distract yourself from the words.

The one thing that seemed to catch his attention.

“What was that?”

You whined, wrapped an arm around his neck as you dragged your hips along the coarse hair at the base of his cock. “Nothing,” you mumbled, sucking at his neck.

Only for him to pull you off by your throat, his lips hovering over yours. “What’d you say?”

“I—” You clung to him, begging for the truth to sink back into your chest. But he was staring at you with dark eyes and a parted mouth begging for you to kiss it. He looked at you as if you were ethereal and for that small moment, you believed it. “I love you.”

He sucked in a sharp breath, his hips stuttering in their movement. You watched his eyes go wide, understanding finally dawning across his features, and you prepared yourself for the worst. You waited for him to reject you. The words never came. He pulled you into a kiss, tongue sliding along yours, as he sped up his thrusts. Grunting into your mouth with each one—his body taut and begging for release.

“Yeah?” he panted into your mouth. You nodded, feeling the burn of pleasure begin to flash white behind your shut eyes.

“So much,” you sobbed, tears spilling down your cheeks. Something pulled tight in your stomach, building with each stunted move of his body against yours. You needed it, would beg on your knees for it, and Joel was right there with you.

His dark gaze met yours as he finally released your throat in favor of finding your clit. “Say it again.”

Heat rocketed up your spine as you locked down around his cock, his fingers insistent and rough. “I love you!” you cried, trembling in his hold. Those three words you’d been so afraid to say out loud finally spilled free over and over and over again. Until you couldn’t hear them anymore over the loud rush in your ears.

He slammed his hips up one last time, lips finding yours in a bruising kiss, and found his own peak. Spilling into you with a moan, his arms wrapping around your waist to keep you pressed up close. You wondered if he feared you’d vanish before his very eyes.

“I love you,” he sighed, his forehead pressed to yours, eyes shut to your own wide gaze.

The words didn’t register at first, simply flying directly over your head. Yet as silence wrapped around your entwined bodies, sunlight disappearing over the last of the trees, you finally understood. No orgasm could match the absolute bliss that filled your body at the echo of his voice forming those words. Of their soft cadence. He was hesitant to look at you, to face what could finally break him, but your hands cupping his face drew him out of his own mind.

“Say it again,” you whispered, smiling so bright your cheeks ached. “Please.”

Before you could bask in their beauty, he was pulling away. Digging into his pack that lay behind him. You wanted to stop him, bring him back to this current moment, but the glint of something gold caused you to freeze. The breath once again caught in your chest.

For the first time you saw Joel grow nervous. Almost bashful as he lifted his hand and allowed a small green jewel on a gold chain to dangle between the both of you. The last of the sunlight glinted off the emerald and for some reason it reminded you of him. How it shone in those rare moments when light caught it just right. Yet held a darkness to it, a hidden truth yet to be revealed.

“I love you,” he said, pressing the necklace into your palms. “I always will darlin’.”

Tears dripped onto his hands as you clutched the dainty piece of jewelry to your chest. “Oh Joel.”

“It’s not a ring—”

You silenced him with a tear filled kiss, salt spilling across his tongue. He did what he could to wipe them away, but like it or not there seemed to be no end in sight. Not when your heart finally latched onto all those broken pieces you thought were lost. Joel did the one thing you never thought possible. He healed you.

“It’s enough.” You smiled into his kiss, the necklace digging into your palm—carving its shape into your skin. “You’re enough.”

You could see it now. The path your future led to. Not a building, or a job, or even a home. The end of your path—your grand plan—would always and forever lead to him.

#this is so long i don't even know what to say #um...i'm sorry for what's about to happen next???? #ANYWAYS I'M JUST GONNA *dips for fear of this flopping* #joel miller x reader #joel miller x f!reader #joel miller x you #joel miller x y/n #joel miller smut #joel miller #the last of us fic #my writing

[crxss01]

— Heartache

pairing ʚɞ ⁺˖ ⸝⸝ jason grace x reader

summary ⁺˚⋆｡°✩₊ jason and you were dating before he was taken by hera, when he comes back he chooses piper over you leaving you heartbroken.

warnings ✧˖ ° angst, hurt/no comfort, breaking up (is not even stated, he just dated someone else), curse words, jason is kind of an asshole, i love him but i hate him here, piper was clueless about your existence, no piper bashing.

m. list, main m.list.

a/n . . ◟੭ hey, sweet anon! i found this request so interesting and i really enjoyed (even though it hurt) writing this idea for you!

you stood stunned, looking at your boyfriend as he stood there having just climb out of the greek ship. you were too shocked to move towards him, almost a year ago you had started dating and then a couple of months ago he completely disappeared but that time he was missing only made your feelings for him grow.

you had grown desperate to find him and when you found out that he had been sent to camp half-blood you had felt relieved because that meant that there was a chance he was still alive and that you would be able to see him again.

you finally got over your surprised and when you took one step to run towards him like the blonde had done for percy, you didn’t know how you hadn’t notice the hand that jason was holding or the way he was looking at you with guilty eyes.

those same eyes that used to look exactly like that when he did something that you didn’t like, for example one time he made your entire cohort have cleaning duty for a week for something only one of you guys did. it pissed you off extremely that all of your cohort had to pay for somebody’s mistake, now that look was there and you didn’t like it one bit.

this couldn’t be happening.

during the feast you watched their interactions quietly and you weren’t dumb so you connected the dots quickly, hazel kept giving you glances full of pity and reyna glanced at you once in a while.

when others started going their separate ways, (ella with tyson, octavian leaving with leo and others just doing whatever.) you finally decided to speak up when jason had the audacity to ask reyna if he could show the girl, piper, around.

“jason, i think that we have something to discuss before you do that. don’t you think?” you raised an eyebrow, using all your strength to pray to the gods that you don’t start to cry right then and there.

“umm, sure..” he appeared uncomfortable, and piper looked confused.

“i’m his girlfriend,” you told her. “or ex? i don’t know, last time i saw him i was pretty sure we were even in love with each other.” you said the word like it physically hurt to say, and it did because he even told you that he loved you so what was this shit he was pulling now.

“hey,” jason said before you can continue saying more stuff. “we’ll talk, you don’t have to put this onto her. she didn’t know.”

you bit the inside of your cheek, trying to stop yourself from crying and nodded, turning and walking away from the group expecting him to follow you which he did but not before telling her that he will explain everything later. the way he defended her hurt you so much, it was like you didn’t matter anymore.

you finally reached a place where you could have some privacy with him, it was actually the thinking tree. the spot where you and jason met, where he met up with you a couple of times before dating you, where he asked you out, where you had your first kiss with him, where you two said your first i love you and where you last saw each other until now.

you were the one to name the tree and you remember jason’s sweet laugh when you told him the name, he found it interesting that you liked to come under a tree so that you would be able to think with nothing else in mind and then go and give it a name.

“you remember this?” you asked him, nodding at the tree.

“yeah…” he looked at it and you hoped he was getting deja vu.

“why are you dating her?” you asked him, straight to the point. “you are dating me, jason. that’s called cheating, something i never expected you to do.”

“listen, i didn’t mean to. it just happened.” jason explained. “i really like her, and i want to stay with her.”

“did you have your memories back at the time this feelings continued to grow?” you asked, still trying to keep your cool.

“yes,” he nodded. “but there was nothing i could do to stop it.”

“jason, i—” your voice broke, the tears started to spill out. “i w—waited for you, all this time…”

“i’m sorry, but i didn’t ask you to do that.” jason said, looking at you with pity which you hated. “i want to stay with her because she makes me happier than i have ever been, i’m sorry that this hurts you.”

“you want to stay with her?” you asked shocked, those words had cut deep.

“yes, and—”

a shrill sound pierced the air. lights flashed in the direction you two had come from.

“piper!” jason rushed in that direction without even glancing back at you.

that single word alone was enough to completely shatter your heart.

ʚɞ ⁺˖ ⸝⸝ reblogs are really appreciated!

#jason grace #jason grace x reader #pjo #percy jackson fanfiction #percy jackson fandom #percy jackson and the heroes of olympus #percy jackson x reader #percy jackson greek gods #percy pjo #percy jackson #percy jackson angst #the mark of athena

[tearskillstardust]

🎐 WINTER FLOWERS AND AUTUMN LEAVES; k. kazuha

— summary; kazuha has very little in his life to hold on to, and when love leaves his grasp, he doesn't know what to do anymore. [povs switch frequently] modern au!

— !! tw: themes of— death, suicide, depression, implied sex, co-dependency, toxic relationship. !! MINORS DO NOT INTERACT. — female reader. angst and emotional content. long read under the cut.

It was midnight.

When I was born, that is.

Of course I couldn't remember it, and I bet mother lied that she could just so she didn't look like an entirely awful parent. She recited the fact it was the most beautiful day of her life because she overheard women in crowded markets say that to their little five-year-old sons, but little five-year-old me still thought I was special. Apparently, I was a handful, and nothing had changed since.

I soon realized she mixed this beautiful day up with the day my father left her, which was only a week before. They'd argued: bottles smashed, tremors, pleading, front door slammed. She shut doors with special caution for eighteen years after that, nudging them slowly as they creaked one, two, three times into the doorframe whilst gently twisting the doorknob into place as if she were waiting for someone to knock again, letting them know she'd kept the door open for so long but would still let them slip through.

I never found out what they argued about. Me, probably. The smartest thing mother ever did was never tell me.

When I was six, seven, eight, nine, and ten, I'd gotten used to taking care of my mother, tipping water down her throat, carefully, both hands, the way I should've been practising on a doll. I used to go out and spend hours in parks with kids who didn't care about me just to come home to find her scattered on the living room floor. I didn't understand. Was I meant to? Mummy, why are you sleeping on the floor? Why were you sick? It smells of vomit in here, wake up—

I didn't go out very much after that.

But school and friends peeled me away from it. It was both terrifying and refreshing. The only thing was that nobody's parents were like mine—theirs were together. Proud. But I couldn't tell if they were happy. A slice of me well-kept in the ragged pocket in my chest hoped they weren't. It was selfish of me and I knew it but each time I watched someone's parents give their child a gentle smile or pat on the back, I felt like crying my ribs sore.

'Someday, Kazuha, someday,' you often rubbed my back soothingly when it happened.

Someday, I would echo silently, and like someone descending into anesthesia, I began to count backwards.

4 months ago.

'Why do you like winters?', Kazuha had questioned you once, a few months ago, playing around with a leaf in his hand. You couldn't help but look up from your book, only to find him resting against the tree, pondering something deeply.

You stared at him for a bit, at his serene beauty that seemed to be enhanced by the sun's dying rays as they shone over him, before going right back to your book. You shrugged, 'No deep reasons, I just like daffodils I guess.'

'And why do you like daffodils?'

You huffed, irritated but affectionate in the gesture, nonetheless. It was a certain difficulty about Kazuha that made him all the more endearing— but his own habit of over-romanticizing everything never quite appealed to you, nor could you understand where it came from.

For someone who had constantly been pressurized to be the best, you had no time for poetry and art— and he was born a poet. You were thankful for his existence and his acceptance for you, but the poet inside of him could never really be accepted entirely.

You looked up finally once you were done with your page. 'Why does it matter, Kazuha?', you said, never looking directly at him as you picked a lone flower on the ground. He stared on, curious.

'Everything withers when winter passes and returns with spring. Beauty blooms in summer and dies in Autumn. Your or my own preferences don't matter, nature remains undeterred.'

'Isn't their comfort in romanticizing life, though? Finding love and loss in our twilight existence.'

'So you just want to feel loved by giving adjective to natural things?'

He laughed at the simplification. 'No, but to be more direct, since you would like that, I merely like having natural memoirs to associate people and places with, so I tag them with adjectives. Much easier for a wanderer to keep, isn't it?'

You sighed quietly before smiling softly at him. 'You're at it again? Not everyone leaves, Kazuha. Some people come in our lives to stay,'

He smiled at your words, though the smile never quite reached his eyes.

3 weeks ago.

I had always loved stargazing. There was something about staring at the stars that shape our unfortunately funny lives and still deeming them worthy of our praise. Making them the base of our adoration.

I had invited Kazuha here, and though we had talked a lot initially, which ultimately led to kissing and to confession and to this— his head on my lap as I rested against the slide of the children's park, watching with him as the night zoomed by, suddenly every possibility of the future crossed my mind and I couldn't help the curious cat inside of me.

'Why would you want to be with me?', I asked, staring down at him.

Don't get it wrong— he is the love of my life. The most beautiful person I have ever known, ephemeral inside out. Perhaps that's the problem. He is like a songbird, and I am a hunter. Horses don't befriend the grass, but I fall deeper in love nonetheless.

Sometimes I scare myself— Will I ever be able to save myself from the depths I am venturing to? Will he reach his hand out? Will I be able to see him from the depths? Will it be too—

'I love you, that's why.'

What a lie.

'Huh?' I hadn't meant to say it out loud, but it would be for the best of both of us.

'You wouldn't think of suicide and then not think of me if you really did, Kazuha.'

He had nothing to say, he quietly stared on. More startled with the knowledge of my awareness than looking for an answer.

But I could not blame him, I had nothing to say either.

I pressed my lips against his in that moment, not realizing I had been crying until he wiped the tears with his thumb. He kissed with a passion, pouring himself out, as though saying all the words through this kiss then he would ever have time to before he left. He always kissed deeply— but right now he did it as though he was desperate to tell me his tale of love.

But I had stopped believing him after a point, and my own support remained these small physical exchanges that we would have; away from the world, under the stars, hoping they would have some pity on us. On me.

'Do you really love me, Kazuha?', I asked when he pulled away, our breaths mingling in an intimate dance of fire and ice. His touch lingered a bit too long on my exposed neck, and I knew part of what was coming.

He remained quiet when I wanted him to answer, before pushing me down on the grass, continuing the kiss. I was the songbird perhaps.

Curiosity killed the cat.

1 day ago.

She wasn't the same after that.

After we slept together, that is.

I had not wanted to hurt her, but only yesterday as I thought over everything once again, I realized how selfish I was. How filthy. Her purity had always been a source of utmost awe for me, as I stared at her skin, free of sin. But it had been foolishness on my side— I should've known my hands would burn against her skin. I should've steered away, but then she stepped in the lion's den like a willing sacrifice.

My mother had said it to me once— it's easier to solve conflicts between lovers if you sleep with them, albeit half drunk.

She was wrong about it.

She was so wrong about many things.

But like a desperate man drowning in dark waters, I clawed at whatever I could take and she, the love of my life, gave me whatever she could before the waters reached waist-deep and I pushed her away.

When we shared a bed, she was the last to sleep. I wasn't a mind reader but I was nearly certain I knew her every reason for muffling her wails in her blanket. I wanted to get up and say something. But when I went to Germany, Greece, then Italy, I needed her to feel nothing but relief. The euphuism had been funny, but she saw right through it.

The moon tutted at me, the sun nearly ready to rise over her, trees leaning over in private chatter, whistling together, chiming their little criticisms as the sinners—suicide and homicide—stared at each other.

I had always dreamed of how today would be ever since I had made up my mind. Dying was never easy, no matter how badly you desired peace. Instincts could never be stopped. Drowning, cutting, burning, suffocating— I tried everything in the same order, then backwards, then all at once. But even my self-loathing was not strong enough to betray my instincts.

She found me once— laying in a pool of my own blood. I had never seen her crying before, she'd been desperate, desperate to do anything, to scream, to cry, to shout but the night was a trap on us that doused her voice and she was left with all but one person to rely on— herself, as she carried me to the hospital.

If the Hindus were right, I was worthy of being a Hemlock in my next life. Cursed to eternal damnation by the gods— a life devoid of love, adoration or beauty. Only the winter for company and solace.

Such thoughts did not scare me.

She did not cry tonight, only packed her bags and left.

7 hours ago.

I folded over into her like a secret billet-doux. I was unbelievably small next to her, my words just as frail as I was. She wanted us to break up. I knew she did, I just wanted to be happy in my last breaths by playing a game of pretense.

'Can you hold me until I'm completely gone?'

Her brows furrowed, eyes devoid of their usual kindness. 'Kazuha.'

She said my name without anything attached to it, like those three syllables meant everything between ardour and despair.

'I know you hate me,' I reassured her, 'I only want to pretend I'm not alone for a moment.'

I began to cry. Am I that insignificant, God? Am I easy to kill?

But to my surprise, she let my head grate against her chest, soft fingers knotting through her jumper, crying, screaming, let it all out, I want to see you hurting darling, let everything go while I take it from you, our final reconciliation, my love.

             But then she let go of me and death held me, tightly, like she was suffocating me, like this was the first and last time she'd ever hold anyone, like murder was primal and she wouldn't shy away from its beckoning voice, like a siren, a mother, a ghost, with the blade to my neck, her final judgement on her tongue—

Let go of me, my love, for this is where I die.

Now.

Autumn. His favourite.

I always had one complaint with Kazuha— he was bad with goodbyes. For someone so poetic, it was a bit ironic even, but I hated how he simply left, walked away as though that was all there was to it. He never turned and smiled, waving back gently with a promise of return, however fake might it be.

Anybody would say he looked peaceful. He's poetry in a face. His lids unfold over his eyes like broken shutters, and it looks like a sigh has prised his mouth open. If you stare hard enough, it looks like he's breathing.

He didn't die like that. Death had to pull the shutters down. She had to draw his mouth shut, but the wind seized it again. She had to scrub the tears and saliva from her skin. Otherwise, it looked like a struggle. It wasn't. He'd given in and told me not to interfere.

As I stared at his coffin, his resting place, I couldn't help but feel repulsed at the muddy brown. It takes place in a church, like most things do. According to Kazuha, his mother is God-fearing, although I don't think he meant it in the conventional sense. Rose just dreads what God will do to her for all her sins, not that she ever made an attempt to repent. The woman is a filthy hypocrite like all cowards are. In turn, her son was taken from her.

Quel dommage.

Surprisingly, I didn't find tears to cry. I came for the same reason as everybody else—curiosity, guilt; not love though. Very few attended because everyone liked Kazuha. It was like he was a discarded newsprint, not a person.

I had cried all I could, wanted to, weeks ago. I knew what was coming— so did he. Neither of us cried when we accepted our fates because we had read it under the stars we made love under for so long. There wasn't guilt in him as he sinned, which made him so corrupt— and there wasn't regret in me as I turned away, which made me, oh, so pure.

I felt violated.

I don't mention it when I visit his grave, though. I hadn't come to hate him, he was wrong about that I'm afraid. I had come to see him for who he was— pure as a fire but feeding on impure things, and I prayed for hours, hands folded, knees scraping against cold, harsh marble as I cried, as I waited, only for the smallest of whispers to infiltrate my mind—

God is dead.

Should I have followed?

there we go! idk if this is exactly what anon was expecting but when i was writing fluff, i suddenly wanted to add angst and it turned into this. thank you very much for your request though! as a treat, i'll also publish some cute kazuha stuff later lmao.

#genshin impact #genshin #genshin headcanons #genshin imagines #genshin x reader #kazuha kaedehara #kazuha #kaedehara kazuha #kazuha x reader #kazuha smut #genshin angst #genshin x you #genshin fluff #genshin impact x reader #minors dni #anon <3

[leclerqueensainz]

A Family of Three (C.L 16)

Part. III - Heroes, Princess and Fewawi.

⚠️ Warnings: Distress (Charles is very sad talking about losing someone he loves), mention of maternal abandonment, issues with parents, and postpartum depression, among other triggers. However, there is also a cute interaction with Vincenzo for the first time, so that's a step forward.

Enjoy the reading!

P.S.: This is entirely based on Charles's point of view.

Word Count: 4,332.

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April 19, 2019 - Monte Carlo, Monaco.

When my father died a few years ago, I thought I would be prepared for any loss I would have endure later on. I anticipated losing other people, of which I had no doubt, but I swore that nothing could shake me as much as losing my hero.

When I lied to him about securing the Ferrari contract because it was his dream, and I wanted him to rest in peace, knowing that we had achieved it, that all the effort he had put into my future had been worthwhile, I thought nothing else could hurt as much as knowing he would never have the opportunity to see me don a red racing suit and drive a Scuderia car.

When I was given permission to drive the car carrying his casket, and I drove through the city so my father could bid a final farewell to the place he lived and loved for so long before taking him to the cemetery, I thought nothing could destroy my heart and burn every cell of my body as much as that did.

I was wrong.

But I should have known better. I should have understood that no pain would be enough to call someone's soul.

The news reached me two days ago on Monday when I was still in Shanghai after a race. Marie, my ex-girlfriend, called me in the middle of the night, and I couldn't fathom why she was calling me when we hadn't spoken in six months since the breakup.

My heart had raced before answering the phone, and a thousand thoughts crossed my mind—whether she was drunk and missing me or if she dialed accidentally. If she just wanted to talk because she had a bad day and Jules didn't answer when she called. I could expect anything and think of any possibility, but never these words. "Jules is dead." That's what she said right after my hello. There were no tears, no pauses. Just a broken and lifeless voice. A dead and cold voice.

Marie hadn't called because she was drunk or had a bad day and had no one else to talk to. It wasn't nostalgia for the six months we had been apart. It wasn't to tell me she loved me, as I had dreamed so many times before.

Marie called because our best friend, my godfather, was dead. No tears, no pauses. Just shock. It was direct. It was terrifying.

I wanted to know what she was talking about because Jules had left after the race, and he was fine. He was happy with the position and wanted to return to Nice to celebrate with the family. She didn't answer me. And I wondered if she had a baby or if it was a playful way to start a conversation with an ex-boyfriend. But she didn't laugh like I knew she would if she were joking. Then I felt it. The silence that told the truth. I had lost Jules, too.

So I shouted into the phone, said it wasn't funny, I was late, and I didn't want to participate in that cruel game. Denial. "Come to Monaco, Charles." She said and hung up.

I never wanted to have answered. I never wanted to pack hastily, wake up Pierre, and tell him we had lost him. I didn't want to arrive in Monaco and see the faces of my brothers and my mother painted with grief again. "I'm so sorry, my love." That's what my mother said when I fell to my knees and allowed myself to cry in front of my family as she hugged me. "It will be okay." That's what Lorenzo said. But we both knew it wouldn't.

I thought I wouldn't feel the sense of helplessness and bitterness when putting on a black suit again. I thought grief would be something I could handle. But it wasn't.

I begged anything that existed not to take anything else from me. I couldn't bear to make the same journey to that church because of another funeral. And I didn't want the experience of that shadow that left me shattered again.

I didn't want to overcome another loss; I didn't want to wonder why the pain didn't pass and didn't seem enough. I didn't want to try to understand or hear people saying that he would be in a better place and everything was God's purpose.

God. Why did he seem so angry with me? Wasn't losing my father enough? Why did he need Jules, too?

knowing that the only certainty of life is death, why didn't God bring an easier way for those who remain to overcome it?

There was no more my father; there was no more Jules. My heroes were gone, and I was left here. Why was I left?

I was being selfish and wise. Nevertheless, it was what allowed me to feel at the moment. I was alone, without those who once helped me become who I am. There was no one else to advise or guide me. And even though I still had Lorenzo or Arthur, I felt lost, like a drifting boat.

When the car parked in front of that church, I asked my family to proceed. I need a few minutes. I gathered the courage and strength to enter that place once again and face what I already knew would be the cause of my nightmares in the coming days. "Confront your demons," everyone says. But whoever coined that phrase never understood the complexity of the dark and bitterness-filled hole that grief brings.

I stared at the church from behind the car window. The same car in which I had once smiled with my best friend for having won it and carrying the Ferrari brand on its bodywork. The same car where I cried when I thought about how my father would have reacted to seeing me come home with it, and Jules hugged me and said it didn't matter where he would be; he would be selling and proud of my achievements.

And now I'm here inside. I'm inside this car, once again, in front of this church. However, without the consolation of someone I love this time. I'm inside this machine, summoning the courage to enter the funeral of someone who once comforted me for a loss.

I'm here summoning the courage to say goodbye to another of my heroes.

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January 20, 2023 - Nice, France.

I park the car in front of an old, low-rise building. Beside me, Marie watches closely as Cecilia steps out of the car in front of us. I can feel her nervousness and notice her hands tightly gripping the cuffs.

I know exactly what she's feeling, and a part of me is proud that I still manage to understand her body language even after all these years, but I try my best to downplay it since it's a delicate moment for both her and me.

After the meeting, Cecilia made a request that we expected but still caught us somewhat off guard. She wanted us to meet Vincenzo that afternoon. And that's where we are now—parked in front of the building, which I assume is where Cecilia lives with Vincenzo.

"What if he doesn't like us?" Marie asks softly. And I think she's posing the question more to herself than me.

"Hey! He's going to adore us!" I say, and she looks at me. Her eyes are wide with fear and anxiety. "Marie, it won't be easy initially, but we've discussed this before. Let's take it one step at a time. Don't think of Vincenzo as our future responsibility for now; think of him as a piece of Jules we will meet, okay?" Her eyes fill with tears, but she nods and smiles.

I take her hand, still clenched into a fist, and slowly bring it to my lips, gently touching it. Her hand opened, and I saw the half-moon red marks in her palm. She sighs in surprise, and I smile, trying to convey reassurance, even though I'm as terrified as she is deep down.

"We'll make it, my dear. Trust me," I say, and she agrees.

She subtly motions for me to release her wrist, but before I can feel my stomach sink with her rejection, her hand grabs mine and squeezes—a firm grip with a lot of meaning. My eyes go from our joined hands to her face, and this time, she has a small, reassuring smile on her lips.

"Let's go, Leclerc! Let's meet the legacy of our best friend."

(…)

"Sorry for the number of stairs! Our elevator hardly ever works," Cecilia says when we finally reach her apartment door after climbing about eight flights of stairs.

I lean against the wall next to the door and pull the air firmly into my lungs. On the other hand, in the last step, Marie depends on the railing, trying to laugh her heart out and normalize her breathing.

"Jesus! How do you manage to do this every day?" She asks Cecilia, who laughs and shrugs.

"Try doing it with a child in your arms; you'll guarantee it's much worse," she says, and Marie laughs lightly.

"So, good for you that you'll soon be free from going through this, right?" I speak, and the smile once painted on her lips fades.

Marie clears her throat, making me take my eyes off Cecilia and look at her. She is giving me a reproachful look, and I muster all of myself not to roll my eyes.

"Cecilia, do you want to go in first and talk to Vincenzo for a bit?" She asks, and Cecilia agrees.

"Good idea! Be back in a minute," she says, searching for the key inside her bag until she finds it and inserts it into the door lock. Before she turned the doorknob to open it, she waited for me for a full minute.

"I'm not asking you to like me, Charles," her tone is profound, and I stare at her with the same intensity. "But know that while we are in my house and front of Vincenzo, you won't talk to me like that, and you won't disrespect my pain in front of my son. I know I can't expect much from you because you're a man, and you'll never understand the situation with any view other than a man's." She turns entirely to me. "None of this is a walk in the park. Not for any of us. And this is the saddest thing I've had to do since I spent 12 hours in labor alone in a hospital while still mourning the father of my child." Tears overflow in her eyes, and I swallow hard.

"I messed up, and I messed up a lot. But I pay my penance every day for it. While you could feel the pain of mourning at your doorstep, I had to get up every day to feed and change a child who depended on me, and for a long time, I considered him to blame for everything." She lowers her gaze, shame and regret in her words reflecting her being. "They said it was postpartum depression, but I always knew better. I always loved Vincenzo, but I will never be able to look at him without seeing the reflection of my mistakes." She wipes the tears streaming down her face with the backs of her hands. "I will live eternally with these ghosts haunting me, but I won't let my son go through this." She says and turns, opening the door and entering right after.

The door closes with a soft thud, and I look at her. I don't know how I should react or even what I feel in the face of Cecilia's declaration. But even without knowing, shame points at the pit of my stomach. It's a shame because I wonder what Jules would say if he could see me now. And I think about my father for the first time in a long time.

"She didn't say that for you to feel bad, Charles," I'm drawn by Marie's voice. Her expression is serious, but her tone is gentle. "But she's not entirely wrong. You'll never understand her, not just because you're a man, but because this situation is far beyond any understanding and empathy you and I can have." She says, and her gaze shifts momentarily before returning to me. "I think the only one who could understand her is no longer here." She whispers the last part, and I continue observing her and digesting her words.

I also wonder if Marie has ever felt like Cecilia, not for the same reasons; that's obvious. But for different reasons, has she ever felt so alone with no one to understand her motives?

And then, I remember when I found out she had left a few days after Jules' funeral. I went to her apartment in the center of Monaco, and when I arrived, the landlord told me she had moved two days ago. I remember the emptiness that filled me: the pain, the loneliness, the mourning.

I had questioned many times why she left and abandoned me, even though she had nothing left with me and no obligation to try to restore what was broken inside me. But at no point did I wonder what she felt.

Jules died, and Marie and I no longer had a relationship. Her parents were never real parents. She had no one else but me, and even though I felt lonely and abandoned, I still had family who felt my pain.

So, is that it? Is that why she left? Because she thought she had no one else? Did she go through all of this alone?

"Please, Charles. Don't do this," she says, and I stare at her.

"Do what?" I ask, confused.

"Don't try to decipher if there's more to what I said than what I said," her gaze is as intense as Cecilia's a bit ago. "This is not about me and certainly not about you." And with these words, she ended the subject.

I wish I could retort and ask her, but that wasn't the moment, and I had already messed up enough for today. So, I nod in understanding, and she relaxes her shoulders and clears her throat.

Marie walks towards me in small steps, my trained eyes on her movements. She stops by my side, leaning against the same wall as me. Her face turned to the stairs where she was before.

"I'm sorry," is what I say because that's what I feel. Marie looks at me, and a faint smile adorns her lips.

"It's not your fault," she looks back at the stairs, and I follow.

We spend a few more minutes facing the cold steps, both immersed in our thoughts until I hear a slight maneuver coming from inside Cecilia's apartment. The door opened, but there was no one there.

"Hi!" A childish voice says, and I look down, seeing a tiny being with dimples and chubby cheeks staring at us. "I'm Vitiendo."

I feel my body freeze, and everything around me seems blurry. The little one looks at me with big brown eyes, just like Jules'. My heart races inside my chest, but still, I try to pull the air as deep as I can.

I crouch down, getting as close as I can to Vincenzo's height, and he keeps looking at me with big and curious eyes.

"Are you a friend of Daddy?" He asks, and I nod.

"Your father was my best friend," I say, his eyes light up. "I'm Charles. Nice to meet you, Vincenzo," I add, extending my hand for him to take.

"Will you be my best friend too, Shal?" he asks, looking from my hand back to my face.

I feel my eyes welling up, and a smile grows on my face.

"Yes, Vincenzo. You'll be my best friend," I reply, and he throws himself into my arms. I was startled and remained still momentarily, feeling his little arms tightly wrapped around my neck.

I instinctively hugged him back when I finally realized he was hugging me.

Tears I tried to hold back streamed down my face. It's Jules' son who is in my arms now. And it's him to whom I will give my word and my life to protect, no matter what happens. Just as Jules once did for me.

I lose myself in the feeling of that hug. I lost the sense of familiarity I felt at that moment. It's as if I've been transported back a few years, and the person in my arms is my best friend. I close my eyes tightly and suppress the urge to say everything. I never had the opportunity to speak to Jules one last time.

I love you. I miss you. I'm sorry. Thank you for being my hero. Stay.

I don't know how long we've stayed in this position, but I've returned to reality, or at least part of it when I hear a sniffle and a half sob behind Vincenzo. He must have heard it, too, as he squirms slightly in my arms, urging me to let go. He then turns to his mother and Marie, who are watching us, tears in their eyes.

Many things are happening on Marie's face, but for the first time since we learned of Vincenzo's existence, fear is not a part of any of them.

I watch her eyes shine with inspiration as she looks at the little boy in front of her, who looks back at her with sparkling eyes. They stand there, staring at each other for a few seconds, until Vincenzo tilts his head in confusion.

"Hi!" he greets with a shy smile. "Are you a princess?" I let out a low laugh, and Cecilia joined me. Marie bends down to his level. Her right hand slowly traces Vincenzo's face as if she wants to capture every feature.

"You look just like your dad," her voice falters with emotion, and Vincenzo extends a hand, mimicking her movements.

"Were you also a friend of Daddy, Princess?" He smiles openly, and Marie quickly nods with closed eyes, savoring the affection Vincenzo is showing.

"Yes, my love. I was excellent friends with your daddy," she says in a soft voice, and just as he did with me, Vincenzo throws himself into Marie's arms, who holds him instantly and presses him tightly against her.

I approach the two and give Marie a sideways hug, running my hands through Vincenzo's small curls.

(...)

"And this here is my Lawi Hamilton car," Vincenzo shows me another one of his toy cars when we reach the small room he shares with his mother. "It's my favorite," he says, and Marie laughs beside me when I can't hide my grimace.

"And a Ferrari? Don't you like Ferrari?" I ask him, and he leaves me confused for a few seconds.

"Fewawi? Is that the red car that breaks?" He innocently asks, and this time Marie bursts into laughter. I nod and give her a dirty look. "Fewawi is cool, Shal. But I like Cedes," he says, his eyes sparkling with the name of Mercedes, and I can't help but smile.

"Alright, I'll make you change that over time. At least it's not Redbull," I say, and Marie shakes her head, the huge smile still on her face.

"Edbull is the best! I like Edbull!" He says, and I choke on the air.

"But that's not possible!" I am incredulous, and Marie already has tears in her eyes from laughing so much.

"Don't be mad, Shal! I'll like Fewawi too, I promise!" Vincenzo extends his pinky finger towards me, and I catch it with mine, crossing them in a promise.

"I think that's great because you're going to spend a lot of time in the Ferrari box with me, little man," I say, picking him up, and he laughs.

"And are we going to meet Lawi Hamilton?" He asks excitedly, and I nod with a smile.

"Well, he won't be in the Ferrari box, but we can go to the Mercedes one; how about that?" I ask, and Vincenzo lets out a scream of happiness and hugs me tightly.

"Thank you, Shal! Are you coming too, Princess?" He turns to Marie, who looks at me awkwardly, unsure what to answer.

It has been a long time since Marie walked through the Paddock; the last time was months before Jules' death when we both ended our relationship. And I understand that for her, it might be a bit challenging.

"The Princess will go when she's ready," I say, looking at Marie. "And when she's ready, we'll both be there to hold her hands and ensure she doesn't feel scared, right?" I ask, shifting my gaze from Marie to Vincenzo, and the little boy in my arms jumps, making me hold him tighter to prevent him from falling.

"Yes! And can we take mommy too, Shal?" I feel a shiver down my spine when he asks me. I look at Marie, who stares back at me with wide, sad eyes.

I don't know what to answer. I still need to understand my position here. Vincenzo will live with us, but I don't know who or how we would break this news to him. Even though I don't like Cecilia and disagree with her parenting methods, I still don't feel that this conversation should come from me but rather from Cecilia, who is still the boy's mother.

No child is ready to leave their mother, especially one so young. Cecilia is Vincenzo's world. The only absolute truth he knows, and I don't want him to lose that, even if it's something enforced.

"How about we check if Mommy has finished making dinner, Little One?" Marie asks, lifting the rug where Vincenzo is sitting. "Will you help me find the kitchen? This house is still a maze for me, and princesses can't wander in mazes without royal guards and knights in armor to watch over them, right?" Marie gestures and puts her hands on her chest, pretending to be a distressed damsel. Despite wanting to laugh at her horrible acting, I feel grateful she thought of something so quickly to distract the boy from his question.

"Yes, Princess! I'll protect you from monsters and bad guys!" Vincenzo says, striking a pose as a brave hero, making us laugh. "Shal, floor!" I understand what he means and bend down to safely put him on the floor.

Vincenzo takes Marie's hand, pulling her towards the door. She follows him briskly, and I stay in the room for a few more minutes, looking at the toys Vincenzo had left on the floor.

His question still echoes in my head. The feeling of wanting to shield him from any pain overwhelms me, but I know it's impossible for him not to suffer from Cecilia's future absence. I wonder if she is not going through the same, for I've known him for less than an hour, and I can't imagine being away from the boy for too long. Then I remember what she said earlier, her bitter words against herself, and how she doesn't want Vincenzo to be haunted by the ghosts of her mistakes.

And remembering the feeling I had earlier with him in my arms, this may be the universe's way of telling me that even though I no longer have my heroes around me, I still have the opportunity to be someone's hero.

And there, sitting on Spider-Man's play mat, holding the toy cars in my hands, I begin to understand, or at least I think I do. If I already love him, having just met him, it's clear that this is a nightmare for Cecilia. She has to leave her son, her only companion because guilt and the consequences of her mistakes always haunt her. Sacrificing her right as a mother rather than offering her son's happiness and future might not make her a terrible mother. Perhaps it's the only thing she has done right in her entire life.

"Come on, Shal! Many monsters want to take the Princess!" Vincenzo appears at the door, and I quickly get up, running towards him. After all, I can't let such a tiny being fight against so many monsters alone.

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Hello! After months, I brought another part translated into English! I apologize for the delay, but it's truly challenging to translate into another language. This weekend, I will translate the other parts :) See You!

Tag list:

@woofgocows

@livinglifethroughfanfic @allthisfortommy

@kyomihann

@numafarawayglxy

@ushygushybaby

@lara03

@alwaysclassyeagle

@ru-kru @pjofics

#carlos sainz fanfic #charles leclerc smut #charles leclerc x black!reader #charles leclerc x reader #charles leclerc x leitor #carlos sainz x reader #f1 smut #charles leclerc x reader angst #f1 x y/n #angst

[stonewall2023]

A Perspective on Noah Schnapp and Israel/Palestine from someone who studies the region

I don't really comment on this tag much. Over the last two years, it has just been a fun place for me to go because I've always seen so much of myself and my childhood in Will's character. It is a nice break from the stress that is my day job. However, it really hasn't been as much of a fun place to go in the last few months because of the posts on Noah Schnapp, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. As someone who has spent half their life in the region, speaks Arabic, and studies Israel/Palestine, I thought I would throw my two cents in on Noah and this whole controversy. As a supporter of Palestinian rights, I do think that there was a lot of things wrong with Noah's initial statements that he posted a few months ago. I don't think he understands the root causes of why Hamas has engaged in violent behavior, the historical occupation of the West Bank/Gaza strip, land confiscations, settler violence, etc.. The conflict is not black and white obviously. However, I am as bothered by many of the responses to Noah Schnapp on this tag as I was with Noah's take on the conflict. There seems to be a complete lack of empathy for the Jewish plight or an understanding of where the Israeli state comes from. Zionism emerged in the late 19th century among Jewish intellectuals facing persecution in Europe who thought that the only way the Jewish community could survive was by establishing a state of their own, and not all of these intellectuals favored going to Palestine. It was the British at the end of WWI that conquered Palestine and started allowing Jewish emigration under the Belfour Declaration. Jews fled persecution and massacres from not only Europe but the Middle East and North Africa over the next two decades. Half of Noah's family fled persecution in Morocco and the other half from Eastern Europe. That is his family's experience and why he supports "zionism" and the existence of Israel. While Israel's far right interprets zionism as the right to conquer the entire holy land for religious reasons, Israel's center and left wing sees it merely as the right to exist as a state and a secular one at that. Palestinians, for their part, feel that their land was taken from them through colonization, but Israelis feel that they were driven from their homes throughout Europe and the greater Arab world due to persecution. At the end of the day, the United Nations established Israel and Palestine in 1947 by splitting the land for both peoples, and that is what I support as do millions of moderate Palestinians and Israelis. I don't support the tactics and rhetoric of the Likud Party and Israel's far right nor do I support Hamas and other far right Islamists--neither of these sides supports peace, democracy, multiculturalism, or the rights of the lgbtq community, issues that are all dear to me. Noah was right to criticize people justifying Hamas' use of violence against civilians just as the supporters of Palestine are right to condemn Israel's government for the indiscriminate violence. Based on Noah Schnapps previous statements, he seems to support a two state solution and isn't calling for people to be massacred, which quite frankly, makes him quite moderate. While I don't agree with everything he is said or how he has said it, he seems like a good kid who just needs to learn more about the conflict...and quite frankly, so do many of you as well...Anyway, that's my take.

#byler #noah schnapp

[lokisprettygirl]

Under his influence (Post Avengers! Loki x female reader)

Read chapter 25 here/ Series Masterlist

Chapter 26

Summary : You do whatever you can to get back to your Loki.

Warning: 18+, HUGE Canon divergence(Just me making shit up), masturbation, mention of stalking, mention of psychological torture, angst, insecurities, ptsd, self deprecating behaviour, panic attack, soft precious bean loki,

He didn't know at what point the world had darkened around him but he knew he had lost you, as the Avengers brought him back to the tower after his public breakdown, he was shoved in a cell again. He didn't fight it this time, or made a joke out of the situation or attempted to manipulate anyone, he felt tired of the constant turbulence he had to suffer through.

"I have to leave for Asgard and be answerable to our father of this situation here, in the meantime don't do anything to make this worse," he heard Thor's voice and chuckled.

"Define worse" Thor sighed and turned around to leave, Loki had just started to improve his relationship with his brother only for it to get ruined again. As Thor left he sat down on the floor and closed his eyes, he remembered kissing you one more time, he felt a shift and all of a sudden he was back at the tower, right where he was eight months ago.

You must not remember him, Strange said there was barely any chance that any of you would remember this, but of course he did, he was cursed to live with the memories of you and he was the one who had to suffer losing you again. He just wanted to go see you once, even though Strange asked you two to not say anything he knew he just had to see you once, there would be no repercussions right? This was the correct timeline and he was the master of his own destiny here, he wasn't an anomaly any longer, he wasn't someone who wasn't supposed to exist.

But it hurt so much because all he wanted to do was get back to your apartment and hold you in his arms. Why did he agree to this? Why did he choose to be so noble this time? Perhaps it was you that had changed him into this person because the Loki that had fell off that bifrost, he never would have sacrificed his own happiness for anyone else, you made him get back to his roots, made him kind and gentle again, he was blessed to have find you the way he did but now he had no clue what was going to happen.

You were pacing around in your room, you missed him alot and to know that he remembered you was calming at first but then you worried about him, he didn't know that you remembered him. You laid down on the bed and you noticed how his smell was no longer lingering in your bed sheet or your pillow, you quickly got up and opened the closet but you had nothing in there that belonged to him, the gifts he had given you were gone, his essence had evaporated and all you had was the faint memories of the time that never existed, memories of the events that never should have happened in the first place.

What were you supposed to do? Strange said to not say anything but if you both remembered your lives then you had to do something about it right? You can't just sit here and stew in this heartbreaking ordeal. You can't let him go now and wait years for him to return to you. What if he never does? What if he goes back to Asgard and marries that princess? Several fears were hounding your entire being, you couldn't even go talk to Strange because he wasn't even the sorcerer supreme yet.

You had to do something and you had to do it now.

You dialed a number on your phone and took a deep breath,

"Hi ummm can I get a ticket for the nearest Nyc flight?" You asked nervously and there was a red eye leaving for the city so you packed a little something and quickly made your way to the airport.

As you were locking your apartment you did bump into Mrs Geller and she asked you where you were going so you lied to her. She had no recollection of the previous timeline, nobody did, except you two.

During the flight you tried to sleep but it was difficult to do so. More so because you knew he must be up there and that he was restless. Now that you were thinking about that life you were living in the past few months it did feel surreal in every way, there's no way a god just landed in your apartment like that but the truth was that it still happened, it didn't exist now but it was real for you both..

Once you reached Manhattan you saw the destruction the war had caused, there was rubble everywhere and people in general seemed scared to come out of their houses. You kind of understood now why Stephen hated Loki but you knew why Loki did what he did.

You found a cheap hotel to stay the night because you had no idea what to do. You just can't go to Avengers tower right? Or maybe you could.

The next morning Loki witnessed the Avengers hoarding outside his cell, Clint was sending him death glares and the rest of them were just looking at him like he was an animal at the zoo, he had managed to gain their trust only to lose it all over again.

"Where is Thor?" Loki asked them

"He will return soon and take you back to Asgard, now what did you mean when you said you remembered?"

Loki raised his brow as Tony questioned him but he didn't respond, he wasn't supposed to say anything to them but maybe he can warn them about Thanos.

He was in the middle of the discussion that he despised as much as he did the last time when a man entered the area.

"Captain Rogers, a woman is insisting on meeting you" Everyone turned their attention towards the man, tony had a smirk on his face at the mention of a woman wanting to meet the now famous Avenger Captain America.

"What woman?" Steve asked, Loki stood up and walked closer to the glass door of his cell at the weird turn of events,

"Some y/n y/l/n from the state of Minnesota" his eyes teared up as he heard the name. Did you come for him? Was this some other woman? It must be you right? That would mean that you remembered him. His heart started to thump loudly as he realized that you both remembered each other.

"I don't know anyone with that name" Steve scoffed,

"Must be a fan, we are famous now" Natasha chuckled and Bruce hummed in response.

"You can leave Carl, we are having a meeting " She told the informer and he was about to leave but he had something else to add.

"Captain Rogers, she wanted me to tell you that your friend James Buchanan Barnes or Bucky was alive and staying in Minneapolis at the moment"

A look of surprise graced his features and took a step back at the mention of the name of his former friend, the other avengers looked at him curiously, they didn't really know anything about Bucky.

"Get her in the interrogation room stat"

Steve ordered so the informer turned around and left. As Steve stormed out, the rest of them quickly followed him. Loki was extremely worried about you, he remembered you telling him that James was the one who had hit you with his vehicle so maybe he was in Minneapolis or even if he wasn't he would be there because Strange has clearly said that you had gotten into an accident after the meeting so the accident was supposed to happen in this timeline as well.

You looked around, it seemed like a prison interrogation room that you had seen in movies only, you had never been to this part of the tower before. As Steve walked in you took a deep breath.

"Who are you and what do you know about Bucky?"

Okay maybe you should have been prepared for this before you walked in with a half lie like that.

"My name is y/n, I'm from Minneapolis Minnesota, I don't know anything about your friend, but I have seen this guy around in my city who I think is your deceased friend James Barnes" Steve banged his fist on the table and you flinched.

"That is not possible, he's dead" you gulped as he said that.

"Is he though? Like I said I don't know much as I have seen him a bunch of times on his bike and on the grocery store ..but he has a metallic bionic arm, i remember that because it kind of took me by surprise" Steve looked at you curiously as you said that.

If you fall for me I'm not easy to please

I might tear you apart

Told you from the start, baby from the start

You looked around as you heard the song and he was doing the same thing. You cleared your throat and pointed towards his pocket so he hurriedly tapped all over his body and realized that it was the cellphone thing that was invented a long time ago, Clint had just given it to him this morning and he had no idea how it worked yet.

I'm only gonna break break your break break your heart, I'm only gonna break break your break break your heart

You bit on your cheeks to prevent yourself from smiling or laughing at the situation.

"I don't know how..uhh.. Clint must have–"

"No issue" you mumbled quickly to save him from the embarassement but he was mortified so he turned around and left the room to pick up the call.

You were finally able to breathe when he was out of sight. Where was Loki? There's no way you'd be able to find him in this huge tower but you had come this far and you weren't going to leave without seeing him once. You had to come up with something.

Loki was worried sick about you, what were you doing? What if these assholes in suits would see you as a threat and try to hurt you? Next time those Avengers bolted inside the prison area Thor was with them as well.

"What is this I am hearing about Thanos?" Thor asked him so Loki sighed and told him everything. Thor had a sudden change of heart the same as the last time when he had heard about the torture his brother has been through. Though the Avengers didn't trust him or his words, Thor insisted that his brother won't remain chained up like an animal this way after suffering so much.

Odin was away on a political endeavor so Thor had informed Loki that he'll be taken to Asgard when Odin will return and until then he'll remain in the tower.

He was thrown into a room which was the same as his room the last time but it somehow seemed different. He couldn't help but wonder if you were still here in the tower so he quickly walked towards the telephone and called on your number but your phone was unreachable.

.....

Steve came back to grill you further, you noticed he didn't have the phone in his pocket anymore but he had your passport in his hands instead, your phone was confiscated by the security as well.

"Y/n, Y/l/n, 29, Minnesota"

"Actually I'm 30"

He raised his brow as you said that and that's when you realized that you weren't thirty yet. Wow it felt good to be 29 again "I'll be thirty soon"

"Did you come all the way here just to tell me about James? " He asked you sternly so you shook your head.

"No..I was visiting a friend and just thought that I should tell you..I'm a history buff. I read about him and had seen the pictures of your friend, that's why the striking resemblance was hard to scratch away.. his hair is long now though, it wouldn't hurt to give it a try right? I mean he was your friend. I'm also sorry for what happened today but you guys are heroes, thank you for saving the world today " you smiled as you pulled a lie out of your ass again.

"I hope this is not some cruel joke y/n"

"It's not, just go there and look for a speeding man on a bike"

"Well You are going to stay here until I'm done dealing with this matter" he said to you so you pretended to be shocked, even though deep down that's exactly what you wanted.

Steve asked you to follow him and as you were both walking towards the elevator ,Clint and Thor passed by you two, your eyes teared up as his eyes met with yours but he looked away immediately. He didn't remember you and you knew this was going to hurt but not this much.

As you both stepped inside the elevator you watched him press the button to the fourteenth floor. Did fate want you to find Loki?

"Ummm so what happened to that guy uhh..the guy who attacked?" You asked sheepishly so Steve looked at you.

"It's none of your concern" you made a pout as he said that so he sighed but he didn't say anything.

"I mean I saw that he refused to go back to his realm"

"He's going to be here until the investigation is completed"

"Ohhh" you smiled and you were definitely happy with the prospect.

As you reached the floor Steve took you to a spare room which was the same one Jane had made you stay in when she had invited you for her birthday.

"Umm how long will I be staying here, i have a job you know" you looked at him and tried to appear as annoyed as possible. You were definitely going to lose your job but you didn't care at the moment.

"I'll leave tomorrow and if I don't find him or even a miniscule trace of him anywhere in that city of yours, you're going to be in a lot of trouble young lady"

He left after threatening you, he had no idea that you were doing him a huge favor, saving him alot of time and trouble. You knew your way around the area very well so after an hour you stepped out of your room and made your way to Loki's room, maybe they gave him the same room this time as well. You chuckled internally as you saw that there were two big burly guards outside of his door, as if they'd be able to stop him if he was determined to leave.

You walked towards them and they immediately put their hands forward to stop you.

"You are not permitted to see him" one of the guards said, his name was Mark, the other one was John. That was definitely not weird.

"That's too bad I was hoping to see how he looked in real life" you chuckled nervously and they just glared at you in response, they did seem scary. You heard footsteps approaching behind you so you turned around to look and it was Thor. He stared at you for a moment before he opened his mouth

"Are you lady y/n? the one who brought the news about the captain's friend?"

"Yes I am the lady, your captain has held me hostage so I just wanted to look around " you smiled so he nodded.

"Would you like to meet my insane brother?" He asked you and you were going to tell him that he wasn't insane but you kept your mouth shut, you were coming across suspicious already.

"Yes please, I heard he's not being taken back to Asgard and he's not even in prison, I am wondering why, isn't he a danger to the society?" you put your fingers on your chin as you pretended to think

"Well it is a matter of a universal nature but my brother might not be the bloodthirsty creature that I had feared he had become"

You looked at him and nodded as he said that, he was already starting to believe in Loki, that was a good start. Maybe all Loki needed to do was reveal everything about Thanos but maybe this war was destined to happen the way you were destined to meet him..

You heard Loki's door opening so you quickly diverted your attention towards him, even the guards turned their heads to look at him. Your eyes teared up as you looked at him, he didn't seem okay.

"I heard voices" he mumbled as his eyes met with yours, he seemed so sad you just wanted to hug him and take all his pain away. Even though it's been just a day since you had kissed him last, your life felt meaningless without him, it was different not knowing him at all but losing him again and again after falling for him brought you insurmountable pain and suffering.

"Brother, this is lady y/n, here on a ..uhhh business" Thor introduced you so you put your hand forward, he noticed the saddened look on your face, only he could tell that you had no amount of sleep last night, that makeup wasn't really hiding anything from him. He still couldn't believe that you had risked everything to come for him, his heart felt heavy because he just needed to hold you in his arms and love you until all this pain would fade but it seemed impossible at the moment.

"Have you forgotten your manners brother?" Loki rolled his eyes as Thor said that, he hoped his brother would start to think of you as his sister in this timeline as well because right now he could tell Thor was trying to charm the pretty midgardian lady by his side.

"Apologies Sweet y/n" he grabbed your hand and you felt shivers run down your spine at the mere touch, he brought your hand to his lips to give it a chaste kiss before he stepped back again.

"Get yourself to be more presentable, then we will go have a meal" Thor said so Loki nodded, he couldn't take his off you and neither could you.

"Lady y/n would you like to join us?" Thor asked you so you turned your attention towards him and agreed.

"Well I'll see you later Mister Loki" you mumbled softly and you noticed the corner of his mouth curving into a small smile "You should wash your hair, you look like a pine tree"

And then he smiled, the kind of smile that always made your heart skip a beat.

"I will do my very best lady y/n, i promise i won't disappoint you"

Thor looked at both of you and his brows scrunched in confusion so you turned around and left before he'd become more suspicious.

....

As Loki stood under the cold shower, the memory of the first time you both had showered here together came to the surface, he needed you badly, every inch of him craved you, maybe it was the situation that was making him feel so needier than usual, maybe it was the way you had traveled all that distance for him had swelled his heart, from not wanting to come here at all to facing these people all alone, you had come so far for him, he knew how anxious you must have been but you still took the risk, you saved him the last time and you were doing it again.

All he wanted in the moment was to get down on his knees for you and follow every command of yours, he wanted to hold you in his arms and never let you go again, he would have killed for you he knew and that's exactly why you both were thrown into this situation again. He would destroy everything and everyone to keep you by his side and that's why he had to let go of that possibility.

A lucky stroke of luck somehow made you both remember and he was still amazed by that, he placed one of his arms on the wall in front of him while he stroked his cock slowly with the other one. He needed a release, mentally and emotionally he had moved on from this day but physically his body was still suffering from the aftermath of the war.

The way you had pleased him that night was haunting him now more than ever, he felt exhausted and overwhelmed, the only person who could calm him down was just mere steps away from him but he couldn't get her. A moan escaped his throat as he thrusted into his own fist, he wished you were there instead. The orgasm washed over him swiftly and he took a deep breath, he can't lose you again and he had to do something so he won't be taken back to Asgard.

After showering he had changed into an Asgardian comfort wear, when he opened his door Thor was waiting to take him to get a meal.

As you saw him approaching your heartbeat sped again. His hair was wet and slicked back, he did seem a bit better now but the urge to coddle him was intense, you just wanted to pamper him all night long and tell him that everything will be okay, this was meant to be right? Why else would you still have your respective memories if this wasn't how it was supposed to happen?

He sat down on the other side of the table and Thor sat next to him, Thor gave you a polite smile so you returned it. Loki seemed flushed and you definitely saw that look on his face, you could always recognise the way he seemed after he was pleased in every possible way. Just the thought of him touching himself in the privacy of his bathroom burned you with intense heat and desire for him, as glad as you were that he made himself feel relaxed you also felt jealous because you wanted to be the one to please him that way, you wanted to be there to touch him so tenderly and make him emit all those pretty little sounds that he always made.

God you would have died for him you knew, you knew you'd have given up your life for him and that is the main reason why you were here now.

You placed your toes on his shin and he dropped the fork in nervousness, the adorable look on his face made you smile.

"Are you alright brother?" Thor asked him so Loki cleared his throat and hummed.

"You seem ..flushed, are you sure you are fine Mister Loki?" You asked loki so he stared at you intently, you could see the wheels turning in his head.

"Perhaps I do miss the company of a lady that is very precious to me," Loki answered, but his mouth opened slightly and he closed his eyes as you rubbed your toes up and down in a caressing manner.

"Well you should meet Princess Atrishia whenever we will venture for our realm, she told me to give you her regards" Thor said.

You stopped caressing him under the table as you heard that. What if he goes back to Asgard and falls for her again?

Maybe they will get married and maybe that is the reason you never met him until later in your life. Strange or the Other loki, well this Loki if you think about it now, they never said anything about what had happened in this time period. Loki noticed how lost you seemed all of a sudden so he turned to his brother before he spoke,

"I will not be marrying her brother, i assumed she must have moved on after I was thought to be dead for good" Thor sighed as Loki said that.

His words did make you feel better but the next day that princess that you never wanted to meet came for him.

She still had the engagement ring on her finger, she seemed ethereal, one look at her divine self and you wondered why Loki would let all of that go for you? You didn't understand why he fell so deeply for you when he could have had her.

😌😌😌😌😌😌😌😌😌😌😌😌😌

@annoyingsweetsstranger @mcufan72 @nixymarvelkins @stupidthoughtsinwriting @fictive-sl0th @eleniblue @violethaze @anukulee @ladymischief11 @12-pm-510 @wolfsmom1 @whylokiissocute @pics-and-fanfics @daddylokisqueen @olivertwistrabbit @blog-the-lilly @prettylittlepluviophile @vanilla-daydreaming @somewiseguy @yaaamadaa-blog @dragonmurray @elthreetimes @gruftiela @thenotoriouserg @greep215 @yallgotkik @obscureenigmatic @janineb86 @sflame15-blog @nyxlaufeyson @lokidokieokie @purplekitten30 @sunnixart @nikkig496-blog @frozenhuntress67 @qardasngan @rosecentury @lokiswife-dark-fox-queen @hrefna-the-raven @jennyggggrrr

#loki x female reader #loki #loki x reader fluff #loki x reader #loki x reader insert #loki x reader fic #loki x you #loki x reader angst #loki x reader smut #post avengers loki #canon divergent au #soft loki

[butcharyastark]

i cannot explain how simultaneously complexly fascinating and deeply hilarious this fucking intimate coming out scene between flint and silver is in the s3 finale of black sails.

like. imagine you are james flint. you have a horrible secret tragic backstory you won't tell anyone about how you became the fearsome and capable pirate captain you are today. that tragic backstory involves being the bisexual unicorn for a rich couple's poly triad dreams in 1700s england. you confide in someone outside of this dynamic for the first time after everything happened about what happened because they asked to know. you bare your soul uncharacteristically about being bisexual, polyamorous, and griefstricken. nobody else but one person in your life has seen this of you. the person you confide this to is someone that genuinely worried about you killing them in front of your entire crew like, literally 10 days ago, for confessing to betraying you abt smth that took months of efforts and dozens of death to try to achieve. this person, who is the most kindly understanding and softspoken person on your ship of ragtag hardened pirates, looks you in the eyes by the soft lighting of the campfire under cover of nightfall after burying literal and now metaphorical secrets, and says, in order, to your FACE, that 1) firstly he is a hashtag gay ally (in the 1700s) and so sorry for your loss but 2) he's been thinking lately it's kind of weird everybody around flint dies and he doesn't want to be next bc everybody flint trusts is a dead man walking bc 3) hey flint have you ever considered maybe it's your fault this happened and that you are doomed bc of just who you are as a person? and 4) but it's okay actually bc if it came down to it i think i've grown as a person enough that if anyone dies in this partnership it will be you 😤

like. to his face. i repeat, to the face of the most feared pirate this side of the americas, who has considered killing him within the past month or two, who opened up to silver in the most baring way possible for a regular man, much less a man like flint--to his FACE silver said that "maybe the homophobia you experienced that ruined your entire life was actually your fault for existing and everybody you love is doomed to die because being around you is a curse :/" in the most GENTLY understanding tone of voice while staring deeply into his eyes and professing genuine care and friendship and respect for him.

i'd lose my mind. i'd implode. no fucking wonder flint takes a preparatory, longsuffering swig of liquor with the most exasperated expression i've ever seen on a 40+yo man's face the literal second silver's mouth is open for longer than 2 sentences. silver is SO goddamn lucky this man stopped seeing him as an enemy 6 weeks ago and instead switched to begrudgingly ominous mentor and weird older brother.

and they're both still being friendly about it like silver isn't casually portending one of their deaths because of the other because of the inherent darkness of their souls and like flint hasn't killed men on his own crew for saying less than this behind his back. this is fucking insane energy. i want to study them both. i want to microwave them at high heat. i want to put them in a jar and shake it. you two really live like this?

#my post #black sails #nomi liveblogs #this is the gayest cishet-toxic-masculinity ass conversational response to being told someones darkest secrets #its the straightest queer man to queer man 'im here for u bro' conversation ive ever seen #silver is talking exactly like a man who only stepped foot onto a boat 3 months ago acting like he knows shit abt longterm captaincy #and flint is reacting like that while stsring into the ground questioning all of his life choices up til this moment. #somehow james flint being a bisexual unicorn in a poly triad is still relevant as a plot point for totally separate characters #i love all of this its so. fuckinf. hilarious #@flint and silver: this is amazing. you live like this?

[lilliththeghost]

I was always jealous of boys. I knew from a young age they had something I didn't. Different toys, different hobbies, different roles. My dad made it no secret that he wanted a boy. Someone he could teach to play football and game with. It hurt me that he never thought I could be that person. I thought I must've been born wrong somehow, that I was a mistake, that I should've been different.

I remember when I first discovered that you could change your gender, and you could do it just by deciding that you were something else and maybe taking some medicine. It would change me, but I never wanted to be myself anyway, so maybe this would be better. I was on board. I changed my name, cut my hair, bound my breasts. I never wanted to be a girl anyway. I wouldn't miss it. I found a doctor that would prescribe me testosterone and started looking into a double mastectomy. I felt like I finally knew why I was so broken, and this would fix me.

I panicked a week in and cancelled the whole thing. People were confused. They had supported me, for the most part, and now they thought I was lying. They thought I was backing out because I was scared. And I was scared, because I just wasn't sure this was the answer I was looking for. I just wanted to time to decide if I was sure. But the gears were already turning. People had decided I was a boy now from the instant I said so. But I was unwell. Very unwell. And I had always been, and people tried to convince me that transition would fix that. It would cure me.

I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder two months ago. After years of psych visits and evaluations and hospitalizations, years of people ignoring and downplaying my symptoms. I just turned 30. It's likely that I have been suffering from this disorder for the last 15 or so years without the proper assistance. This is how long it took for a multitude of doctors to find out what was wrong with me.

And do you what really scares me? The fact that it took this long to diagnose me with a lifelong medical condition, yet when I expressed that I MIGHT be trans, I was IMMEDIATELY told that I needed to make major medical changes. I almost signed myself up for a lifetime of the wrong treatment because people were so concerned about validating my identity that they didn't even stop to ask if I was sure.

I don't know which is worse: not being diagnosed with bipolar for 15 year, or being diagnosed as trans inside of a week. I think both are examples of the failure of the mental health system. Where is the balance? How are women supposed to lead healthy lives when they're either ignored for years or immediately prescribed permanent life-altering treatment that might not be right for them?

I want to understand and be accepting of people. I want the people around me to feel heard and loved. I just can't help wondering how many girls like me thought they might be boys because everything in their life just sucks, and they desperately need a change. I see doctors from gender clinics coming out and saying that the majority of their patients are women with serious mental health issues and trauma. And I just think, that could've so easily been me.

My entire life has been defined by my existence as a girl and a woman. And I always hated that. But it's not because I was never meant to be a female; it's not because I was born wrong. It's because being a female in a patriarchal society is utter fucking shit. And I owe it to every girl like me to help fix that.

#detrans #gender critical #terfblr #radfems please interact #mental illness #bipolar #mental health

[fict1onallyobsessed]

Playboy Behaviour

Abby Anderson x Fem!Reader 18+

She couldn’t even fucking believe it herself.

She was Abby fucking Anderson, she didn’t fall in love. She refused to, it was simple like that. No connections, no emotions attached, just simple sex with anyone she scored. Love was for the weak, for the ones who actually though they could settle on one person in circumstances like a whole fucking epidemic of zombies. Pfttttt.

Well, clearly she was very fucking weak then.

Your eyes, your laugh, your smile. It all affected her like nothing else in the world. It actually made her day better, it filled her stomach with butterflies, it made the blush on her cheeks turn a little more pink. But it’s also filled her with rage.

Since she realised she liked you, since she couldn’t think about anything else but you, she was filled with a small amount of anger in her stomach.

She’d given herself the ‘playboy’ title way before you joined, and she was okay with that. As said before, she only wanted sex, no connections. But now with you being around, she kinda wanted that playboy title gone. She didn’t want you to think she’d fuck anyone anymore. She wanted you to know she wanted you, and only you, even if it took her almost a year to realise it.

Now if she told you, everyone would think she’s weak. Because Abby doesn’t fall in love. And more importantly, everyone would think you’re just her new plaything for a while. She didn’t want that, she wanted you forever. She wanted to wake up in your arms, kiss your face in the morning, cook breakfast with you, protect you from the fucking horrible world you lived in.

So she did the next best thing she thought of;

Avoided you.

She knew it hurt you to see her ignoring you. She overheard some group talk about it a couple of weeks ago, but she still thought this was better than letting people know she loved you. In her mind, if she avoided you enough, both her feelings for you and your resentment for the avoidance towards her would be forgotten.

And for a small moment she thought it was working. You didn’t look at her anymore as the two of you went out for patrols, nor did you pay the slightest attention to her if she was sat in the same group as you, sometimes even going as far as leaving the group entirely to find someone else.

See, in your mind you weren’t doing it to hurt her back, because you already thought she hated you purely because of the fact she ignored your existence. You were doing it to save yourself, to try and ignore the hurt in your gut every time she laughed at someone else’s joke the same way she used to do with you. If she didn’t want anything to do with you, you’d give her the same energy back.

Unbeknownst to you, she just ended up hurting herself more. She tried absolutely everything to forget you, erase your smile out of her memory, but not even ignoring you did the trick and one day she snapped.

“Can I talk to you?” She approached you completely out of the blue, face stone cold as she watched your brows furrow. You nodded and sighed, following her to her room before watching her lock it shut. “I want to say I’m sorry.”

“Sorry?” You scoffed, crossing your arms across your chest. “What the fuck did I even do to you for you to treat me the way you do? For months I’ve wondered what I did wrong, if I said something that offended you, and you wouldn’t even look at me for-”

“I really like you.” She cut you off, effectively shutting you up and keeping you quiet before you went on another tangent. She sighed, walking to her bed and sitting in it with her elbows on her knees. “Really fucking like you.”

“What?”

“I though avoiding you would help me get over the stupid crush I had on you, but it didn’t work.” She weakly spoke, completely contradictory to her normal self. Never did you think you’d see Abby so vulnerable. “I’ve never liked someone as much as I do you, and I didn’t want you to think I’m using you because that’s what everyone thinks of me-”

“Abby.”

She looked up at you, feeling you cup her face in your own hands. When did you get so close to her? How? All you could focus on is the tear resting on her eyelids, your thumb running across her cheek as she let you cradle her jaw.

“You deserve love just as much as anyone else here. There’s nothing wrong with realising you want to be loved, fuck what other people think.” You leaned down and straddled her legs, suddenly all that rage you’ve been holding on for so long dissolved into care. “I really like you too. Why do you think I spent all my free time with you. It just sucked because it felt as if you decided I wasn’t worth your time.”

She shook her head, hands placed gently on your waist. Apologies flying out of her mouth as you held her face, she kept trying to ramble on to justify her actions, but to shut her up you decided to lean down and finally kiss her. It honestly felt like heaven getting to do that after so long of avoiding each other.

Her hands roamed your body, lips moving in sync as your hips started grinding down on her lap. Eventually she did turn you over, your back colliding with her mattress before she was on top of you, hands equally roaming your body as before.

“Abby.” You whispered, your hands around her neck to keep her kissing you, her mouth slowly moving to your neck where she left small bite marks and purple bruises. “I want you so bad, please.”

“You drive me fucking crazy.” Her hands reached under your shirt, fingers teasing your skin as she carried on kissing your body. She looked up at you for permission when she reached the hem of your jeans, undoing your pants when you nodded in confirmation.

It wasn’t long before her tongue was between your folds, sucking and fucking you thoroughly until you were begging her to stop because it was too much. Your hands did little to push her away as your fingers threaded through her hair to attempt to slow her down. She didn’t give up, and she was damn good at it too.

By your fourth orgasm there were tears in your eyes, mind fuzzy with pleasure as she finally climbed up to leave over your face.

“You okay?” She asked, kissing around your face to calm you down.

You nodded, whispering a faint ‘yeah’ before you opened your eyes to look at her.

“Only you, (Y/N).” She pecked your lips, feeling you smile against her mouth before she repeated her sentence, cuddling close to you as you dozed off into a peaceful slumber with the person you cared for the most.

“Only you.”

THE END

#abby wlf #abby anderson one shot #abby anderson x reader #abby and lev #abby anderson imagine #abby anderson tlou2 #abby tlou2 #abby anderson tlou #abby tlou #tlou part two #tlou series #tlou imagines #tlou x reader #tlou imagine #tlou smut #tlou fanfic #the last of us 2 x reader #the last of us x reader #the last of us imagine #the last of us

[qqueenofhades]

i know you've talked about this before but i just saw someone say obama had 59 senate seats and a 78 house seat majority and he "could've done anything" and i can't. when did peoples' collective memory get so shit? i was in middle school for most of his presidency and even i knew back then how hostile the republicans were to him. what is this revisionist history people are insistent on engaging in like i just don't get it. it's so easy to look back from where we are now and act like people back then didn't try hard enough and it's infuriating

"Obama could have done anything." Sure, when he came into office in the middle of a global economic meltdown and somewhat understandably, put that first, even when the Republicans had already declared their firm intention, in the middle of said financial emergency, not to work with him ever on anything and to make him a one-term president. And yet, still got the $787 billion stimulus through (which at the time was just an Absurd level of Government Spending Oh Noes!!!) and in fact managed to stop things from getting even worse.

"Obama could have done anything." Sure, for the first half of his first term where he had full control of Congress (4 months with 60 seats) and aside from said minor economic problem, was also trying to get the Affordable Care Act done. After 2010 he lost the House; after 2014 he lost the Senate. There are plenty of critiques to be made with the benefit of hindsight about how the Democrats did or did not push to change the procedural rules (something they still can't do now with a much smaller majority and Joe Fucking Manchin reliably on hand to torpedo it), or how they did or did not campaign on the ACA, or how they got punished for it, or how Obama's political inexperience and knowledge that the Republicans were going to crucify him but he still tried to work with them did or did not play into it. The point is, to act like he had those whopping majorities for his entire two terms (and that they automatically just did whatever he said, thanks to his magic mind-control powers) is nonsense.

"Obama could have done anything." As the first African-American president who faced ungodly levels of hate, racism, paranoia, personal attacks, personal attacks on his family, attempts to prove he "wasn't American," Tea Party conspiracies, and Christ knows what else, all while he had to not put a single foot wrong in any scandal, no matter how minor, for eight years. (Which he did!) If only Obama had KNOWN that he could have just done anything and this would totally happen and be fine and never be subject to legal challenges or anything! The Republicans haven't spent a decade since trying to destroy the ACA or anything like that, not ever. Why didn't he use his psychic powers to peer into the future and realize that Roe, universally regarded as settled law, was going to be overturned thanks to an orange maniac and a dark-money federalist judiciary effort! Why didn't he predict that American white fragility was going to backlash in the form of Trump and just never run for president at all? HIS FAULT! THANKS, OBAMA!

"Obama could have done anything." Because he was a wizard, because the Democratic Party and the country was exactly the same 15 years ago, because 2008 was completely identical to 2023 in its social priorities, political issues, cultural beliefs, and other material, and because we can happily act as if Trump never existed, his effect on the American social, political, and racial zeitgeist never existed, because everything is Obama/the Democrats' fault somehow for Not Doing Enough, and nothing to do with anything else, ever. Clearly nothing to do with these fuckwits and their chucklefuck revisionist purity ideology and deliberate refusal to learn or accept anything that contradicts that, i.e. basic reality and history. Nosirreebob.

#anonymous #ask #politics for ts

[blossom-hwa]

Hi there! I was wondering if you could do a skz seungmin academic rivals to lovers drabble? Love your work, especially your Whispers of Nature supernatural au!!

thank you for the request and your kind comment, I'm glad you liked the series! hope you didn't mind me inserting the spiderverse into this drabble - ever since I watched the new movie I've been itching to write something with it, and this idea struck me with help from @wingkkun (thanks chip <3). please enjoy!

summertime drabble fest: send me an idol from the list (Stray Kids, Ateez, TXT, Seventeen) + a prompt (check out the post for ideas) and I’ll write a drabble for you!

REQUESTS OPEN!!

~

Title: The Bane of My Existence, the Reason I'm Alive 

Pairing: Seungmin x gender neutral!reader

Word count: 2.3k

Genre: fluff, angst, Spiderverse!au, university!au

Warnings: injury, cursing, a mention of porn as part of a joke (no actual sex/suggestiveness)

~

3:55 PM. 

You slide into the seat of the lecture hall, five minutes before your exam is supposed to start. Physics—your best and favorite subject, and also the one you happen to have studied the absolute most for just to be absolutely certainthat you'll beat Seungmin Kim, the bane of your entire existence. 

Which, to be fair, is not entirely true. Because for one thing, the stupid criminals and villains you fight every week as your spider-based alter ego are far bigger nuisances than he is. Doc Ock nearly killed you, physically and metaphorically and sarcastically. You're still recovering from the shock of live tentacle porn crawling down the streets of Manhattan—you're not quite sure you'll ever get over that, which is something you made sure to say when he was wrapped tidily up in your webs and the police were coming to take him away. 

And for the record, Seungmin does seem like a nice guy—for the most part, at least. He's got a sense of humor and he's friendly enough, liked by most of the student body even though he transferred to your university very suddenly just a month or two ago. But his smile—his stupid smile—whenever he beats you in a test in one of the classes you share, his stupid little shrug when you beat him like it doesn't matter at all to him, this one-sided rivalry of yours—

Ugh. You grit your teeth just thinking about it. Enough said. He's the bane of your existence. That's it. 

And…

You look around the room. 

And he's not here. 

Huh. You frown. The TAs have already started passing out the tests, starting from the front and back and making their steady way to the middle where you usually sit, Seungmin just one row in front. But the seat he always takes is suspiciously empty right now, his head of black hair nowhere to be seen anywhere in the room. 

Your frown deepens as a TA passes you an exam sheet face down. Why would he miss an exam? You've only known him for a couple of months but he doesn't seem like the type to skip a test—or, at least if he had to, he'd probably have said something about it in passing when you two eventually got to bickering like you always do—so why?

A bubble of worry starts to build in your stomach, which is so dumb—why should you care? Why the fuck should you? It's just Seungmin, Seungmin Kim who's not even really a friend. He's just a guy. A dude that infuriates you a little too much when it comes to your need for academic validation. 

The clock strikes four. Papers rustle around the room. You flip over your own exam and force all thoughts of a certain Seungmin Kim out of your mind once and for all. 

He's not your problem. 

. . . . .

4:30 PM.

DANGER DANGER DANGER DANGER—

It hits you with a jolt—almost physically. You let out a gasp and the tip of your pencil breaks when you press it too hard into the paper, blinking furiously. The sense—the spider-sense—

DANGER DANGER DANGER

Your breath catches. Someone next to you gives you a sidelong glare and somewhere else someone hisses in frustration, but you can only force yourself to sit. And breath. And focus on what exactly you're going to do next. 

Physics exam. Saving the city from possible disaster. 

Seungmin's not here. It's silly and even selfish to think about now, but it makes the decision so much easier to know that at least compared to him, your half-finished test won't matter.

You hand your test to the nearest TA and sprint out of the hall. 

. . . . .

4:47 PM. 

"You're late to the party!" 

That's the greeting Spider-Min tosses over as you swing into the fray. Despite the huge lizard monster thingrampaging through the streets, you grin—for all your initial frustration when a new spider person suddenly appeared in town, clearly more experienced than you, you think you can now count Min, as he has you call him, as one of your friends. He caught you when you were just starting out this vigilante gig and has since taught you so much. 

It's also just really nice to have someone around who understands living a dual life like this. 

"Well, excuse me for having a physics exam! How'd you get here so fast?" You lash out with your webs, slamming the monster's snapping jaws shut. It tries to roar but can't, so it settles for stomping over half a dozen cars instead. Screams erupt from the streets. 

Shit. You leap from the side of a building, scooping up civilians and depositing them further away. "Better run!" you yell, waiting just long enough to make sure they survive their mad scramble to safety before turning back to the fight. 

"Happened to be in Brooklyn when it started causing chaos, nerd!"

"Oh, suck it!" You punch one of the lizard's claws away, rolling your eyes under your mask. "As if you're not the exact fucking same, dickhead—"

Min laughs. It's a bright sound, warm and heavy and like one of the last rays of sunlight permeating your suit, warming you up from inside and out. 

And even though you've most certainly failed a test for the first time in your life, even though you're still smarting over the fact that you worried about Seungmin Kim, even though you're fighting a lurid green lizard monster that's just managed to tear your webbing away from its mouth, you don't find it very difficult to laugh, too. 

. . . . .

4:59 PM. 

The lizard monster won't go down. Just—won't. It's annoyingly persistent and it fucking regenerates limbs—both you and Min have screamed some obscenity about this at least five times each because while the regeneration is slow, it's incredibly disturbing to watch in real time as well as annoying to deal with when you're trying to subdue it. 

And, of course, there are a select few idiot civilians who insist on making your lives harder. It's usually a few foolhardy police who don't like vigilantes, but this time, there's a vlogger. 

For real. A vlogger. Trying to film the fight from way too close. 

And what does said vlogger get for his efforts? A chunk of rubble falling on his head. Or it would have fallen on his head if you hadn't abandoned the fight to sweep him out of the way, leaving Min to fight the creature on his own for a few dangerous seconds. "RUN!" you yell, shoving the stunned vlogger towards the police before spinning around to face the lizard creature that Min's still fighting alone. 

Only—

It happens so fast you almost miss it. Something like—a computer glitch, almost. A spasm. That's as close as you can get to describing it, a sort of television static ripping through the air and distorting Min's image into a blur of—pixels, almost, though that doesn't make sense because pixels only exist in screens and not in real damn life. 

It's fast. Half a second, maybe. But it's enough for the lizard's tail to sweep through the air, smacking the already falling Spider-Min into a building and hurtling him to the ground. 

A blurry screech fills your ears. Only later will you realize you were the one who made the sound. 

You sprint and leap onto the side of a building, shooting out desperate strands of web. By some miracle streak of luck, one of them catches Min in the back as he falls. You nearly fall yourself with the sudden weight at the end of the strand but you force yourself to hold on, to grab your friend before he falls. 

"Min?" You land behind a pile of rubble, patting his cheeks. "Min!" 

He doesn't respond. 

Panic almost blinds you. Your head feels fuzzy and you can't see clearly, can't really breathe either, but you press two numb fingers to his neck and nearly swoon with relief when you feel a faint pulse beneath his suit.

Somewhere above you, the lizard hisses. You look up to see the hideous green face swinging left to right. Looking for Min. Looking for you. 

You swallow hard. Min's in no condition to fight. He's out cold. His suit is shredded, showing bloody scrapes on his skin, and half his mask has been torn off. 

Taking a shaky breath, you gently lower Min to the ground and step out from behind the rubble. "Over here, ugly!" you scream to disguise the fear freezing the blood in your veins. 

Time to go on alone, just like you did before. 

. . . . .

5:13 PM.

After Min falls, you don't know what happens. 

Seriously. You don't. You know there was fear, you know there was rage, you know there was red crossing your vision that wasn't from your mask—but you don't know what happened. You just know that ten short but still horrifically long minutes later, you knocked the lizard out and it morphed into a human who you wrapped tightly in your webs and strung from a building for the cops to grab before ducking behind the rubble to pick up Min, who was still out cold. 

He's still out cold as you swing him across the city and in through the window of your dorm. 

Your body hangs on just long enough for you to deposit him on your bed and check his pulse to ensure that he is in fact still breathing. Then your legs give out and you fall to the floor. 

For several long minutes, you can only sit there and gasp. Breathe. Try to make sense of everything that happened—lizard man, vlogger, glitch-pixel-what-the-fuck-Min, unconscious Min. 

Most of it can be explained. Lizard man: experiment gone wrong. Probably. Vlogger: people are idiots. Unconscious Min: he got smacked into a wall. 

But the glitch-pixel bit. 

What the fuck was that.

You rip off your mask and take a gasping breath. Somewhere nearby you spot your water bottle and drain most of it in two gulps. You dump the rest on your face. 

The cool water splashing onto your skin brings your mind back to focus, just a little bit. Enough for you to finally take a good look at Min on your bed, still unconscious. 

Already some of the smaller scrapes have faded from his skin, visible through the torn fabric of his suit. You breathe a little sigh of relief, pushing yourself back up to take a closer look—not too close, because it feels kind of like an invasion of privacy, but enough to reassure yourself. Just a little bit. 

Then your gaze falls on his face, where half of his mask has been torn off. 

Your first instinct is to look away. You've never shown Min your face, nor has he shown you his. It's an unspoken agreement between the two of you to keep it quiet—not because you don't trust each other, but because you just didn't. No one knows you. No one knows Spider-Min. It's meant to be this way. 

But almost against your will, you have to look again. Because there's something very familiar about the bottom of his face. The set of his jaw, the pale skin of his cheeks, the tilt of his nose half covered by a little flap of fabric still hanging on. And though you look away almost immediately, the familiarity stays. Tugs at your mind in all the wrong ways. 

You squeeze your eyes shut. Half of you screams to look again. The other half screams to turn yourself away. And between the two halves, a little piece of your mind is whirring, trying to figure out who Min looks like to you. 

And then. 

And then.

It hits you. 

Seungmin Kim. 

Your eyes fly open, immediately lighting on Min. The jaw, the face shape—his laugh, his voice—his name, Min—

"Happened to be in Brooklyn while it started causing chaos, nerd!"

No wonder he wasn't taking the physics exam. 

A strangled noise leaves your throat. Spider-Min. Seungmin Kim. Fellow spider person. Academic rival. You don't want to believe it—can't believe it—but all the evidence is staring you in the face, quite literally in your face—

If you just lift off his mask you'll know for sure. 

Before you even realize it, one hand is reaching out for the torn edge of the mask, fingers itching to pull back the fabric and confirm every one of your horrible suspicions. They can't be the same—not the bane of your existence and half the reason you're still alive—but—

And then it happens again. The glitch. Pixels scrambling with radio static, television buzzing but in real life. Only for a second but just enough for you to watch Min blur in and out of reality the way he did during the fight. Enough for you to confirm that you weren't losing your mind then. 

Though you just might be now. 

To your horror, Min—Seungmin—what the fuck, did you bring Seungmin Kim back into your own bed, what the fuck—his eyes flutter. His lips part, just slightly. His breath catches. 

You clap a hand over your own mouth, stifling something that feels half like a sob, half like a scream. And as Min's body shifts, his eyes starting to blink open, you do the only thing you can think to do. 

Trembling fingers pull your mask over your face, and you jump out of the window.

#stray kids #skz #stray kids seungmin #skz seungmin #kim seungmin #seungmin x reader #kim seungmin x reader #seungmin imagines #seungmin scenarios #stray kids scenarios #skz scenarios #stray kids fanfic #skz fanfic #skz seungmin x reader #stray kids x reader #skz x reader #stray kids seungmin x reader #stray kids oneshots #skz oneshots #skz imagines #drabble #university!au #spiderverse!au #cw injury #cw cursing #the bane of your existence the reason you're alive #summertime drabble fest #blossom-hwa #lina answers #hamburgers101

[acourtofthought]

I find it so strange when readers try to pit Elain and Gwyn against one another, acting like one is better than the other when they've had extremely similar journeys so far:

Catrin was always the strong one. The smart and charming one. After our mother died, she took care of me. Looked out for me.

That sounds a lot like Elain and Nesta's relationship right? Where Nesta was the strong one when it came to Elain? Where she looked out for her?

We were raised in the temple as well. I never left its grounds until … until I came here.”

For Elain, I wouldn't say she was quite as cut off from the world as Gwyn was and she did experience the loss of her mother and poverty at a young age however, I don't know that she suffered the greatest burdens that came about from those things as Feyre did (and to some degree, Nesta). So again, both she and Gwyn had a somewhat sheltered childhood.

“I have been broken once before,” Gwyn said, her voice clear. “I survived it. And I will not be broken again—not even by this mountain.” / “A commander from Hybern raped me two years ago. He had his soldiers hold me down on a table. He laughed the entire time.” Tears gleamed in Gwyn’s eyes. “Hybern attacked in the dead of night. We were all asleep when they broke into the temple and began the slaughter.

I think what Gwyn went through hits home for a lot of us and that's why so many connect with her story. But Elain's experience is not less traumatic just because Cauldrons do not exist in real life (technically temples full of fae priestesses harboring a piece of said Cauldron do not exist in real life either). What happened to Elain is metaphorical for anything being done to someone against their will, for having their choices taken away, and for losing the life they planned on and hoped for in the blink of an eye:

"Fear like I had never known entered my heart as the men dragged my sisters, gagged and bound, before the King of Hybern. / But there they were—in their nightgowns, the silk and lace dirty, torn. Elain was quietly sobbing, the gag soaked with her tears. / Elain was shaking, sobbing, as she was hauled forward. Toward the Cauldron. / Lucien staggered a step forward as Elain was gripped between two guards and hoisted up. She began kicking then, weeping while her feet slammed into the sides of the Cauldron as if she’d push off it, as if she’d knock it down—/ Elain’s foot hit the water, and she screamed—screamed in terror that hit me so deep I began sobbing / Elain was still shivering on the wet stones, her nightgown shoved up to her thighs, her small breasts fully visible beneath the soaked fabric. Guards snickered.

I've seen it said that Elain's experience was only "being dumped into a Cauldron" therefore it wasn't that big a deal. But that ignores everything we're told of the experience:

Of course, there are risks—the transition can be … difficult. But a strong-willed individual could survive.”

“I saw it,” Rhys whispered. “Felt it. Everything that happened within the Cauldron. / And I saw … felt … what it took from her.” / He met Cassian’s stare unflinchingly, his eyes full of remorse and agony. “Her trauma is …” Rhys’s throat bobbed. “I know,” Cassian whispered. “I guessed,” Rhys breathed, “but it was different to feel it.”

Gwyn and Elain were both forcibly held against their will and had their bodies violated.

“I’ve been here for nearly two years"

We don't know exactly how many months went by from the time Elain was made until she started interacting with the outside world but my guess is about 4 / 5? Elain started getting better after Lucien made an appearance in the NC however she didn't leave the townhouse until it came time to seek shelter for the humans prior to the war.

Elain and Gwyn stayed in a place they felt the safest until it was time to do more. For Gwyn, she wanted to train as it was something her sister would have done and Elain wanted to find a place for the humans:

Nesta straightened her fork and knife beside her plate. “Can’t you spirit them away somewhere south—far from here?” “That many people? Not without first finding a safe place, which would take time we don’t have.” Rhys considered. “If we get a ship, they can sail—” “They will demand their families and friends come.” A beat of silence. Not an option. Then Elain said quietly, “We could move them to Graysen’s estate.”

Gwyn and Elain were both traumatized a second time in the series. For Elain, it was being kidnapped again, stabbing someone and seeing her father's murdered body and for Gwyn, it was being kidnapped and taken into the Rite.

But in both instances, the females stepped up to do what they had to do.

Gwyn waited on its other side, bloodied and in a warrior’s clothes, face filthy and torn, but eyes clear. (Gwyn after leading the beasts to the Illyrians)

And then walked to me and Nesta, who pulled back long enough to survey Elain’s clean face, her clear eyes. (Elain after helping to save Briar and kicking the beasts which saved Briar and Az).

Gwyn showed additional bravery later in the Rite as did Elain when she stabbed the King.

Gwyn has made it known that she no longer wants to take the safe road though we know she's still processing new traumas from the Rite (which probably played a role in why she wasn't sure she'd attend Nesta's mating ceremony) but all that does is set her up for her story. SJM FMCs start at a low point and work their way up.

It is confirmed that Elain still has trauma though she has shown signs of progress since the war. She's out and about in Velaris, helping it's people. She was willing to search for the Trove when even Nesta was afraid to, she joined her sisters in the Hewn City even though the cruelty there bothers her.

Elain is not 100% fine (again, a perfect setup for her own book) but she has had progress that cannot be denied.

And finally, both females stood up to Nesta in SF:

“I don’t need to be coddled. Only spoken to like a person.”. “I doubt you’ll enjoy the way I speak to most people,” Nesta said. Gwyn snorted. “Try me.” Nesta looked at her from under lowered brows again. “Get out of my sight.” Gwyn grinned, a broad, bright thing that showed most of her teeth and made her eyes sparkle in a way Nesta knew her own never had. “Oh, you’re good.” Gwyn turned back to the stacks. “Really good.

“You do not decide what I can and cannot do, Nesta.” / Elain cut in sharply, “I am not a child to be fought over.” / “Oh, fuck you,” Nesta snapped, and then choked. Elain blinked. Nesta blinked back, horror lurching through her. And then Elain burst out laughing. Howling, half-sobbing laughs that sent her bending over at the waist, gasping for breath. / Elain held up a hand, wiping her eyes with the other. “You’ve never said such a thing to me!” She laughed again. “I think that’s a good sign, isn’t it?”

I do think Gwyn and Elain are headed down different paths, Gwyn's being that of a warrior and Elain (in my opinion) one of a healer / peacemaker between courts. And Gwyn definitely seems a bit more irreverent (but not in a negative way, she just doesn't seem bothered by someone's standoffish personality which is why she seems better suited for Az) but outside of that, it's difficult not to note their similarities. Gwyn is bookish what with the research she does alongside Merrill, Elain is canonically wise and observant (so both intelligent in their own ways), they're not as bold and brazen as Nesta or Feyre however there is evidence to support that they too are curious about sex, and they each take solace in creature comforts (bracelet making and singing for Gwyn and gardening and baking for Elain).

When someone insults Elain, they are insulting Gwyn and vice versa and it's too apparent that the reason that happens in the first place is readers are blinded by their ship to pay attention to what SJM has told us about both females as individuals.

Out of the possible pairings I do think Az and Gwyn are more compatible but at this point, she's even more similar to Elain than she is to Az.

#pro elain archeron #pro gwyneth berdara #Elain Archeron #gwyn berdara #gwynriel

[wooahaes]

to dye for

pairing: non-idol!woozi x gn!reader

prompt: soulmate au series. 4/13

word count: 2.4k

warnings: small bit of angst over jihoon thinking he doesn’t have a soulmate. jihoon gets kinda yelled at for dyeing his hair. 

daisy’s notes: ok ignore the fact im posting this not even a full day later and also the fact the ending is bad!! a girl is trying rn.

summary: Jihoon doesn’t have a soulmate. He’s positive. He’s never shown the signs before. And yet one lost bet against Soonyoung results in dyed hair and a surprise the next morning…

For a really long time, Jihoon had been positive he didn’t have a soulmate. His parents had comforted him over it (which, at age ten, made him feel... weird. Lost. Like he was broken). It felt weirder when he grew up, listening to classmates talk about their signs. Weirder in college, where he watched people run into their soulmates or make an active effort in finding them. And maybe it started to stop feeling so bad when he met his current circle of friends, who, despite their initial efforts, began to let him cope with his feelings as he needed to: through his music.

They initially had tried to tell him that soulmates were overrated--Soonyoung later ended up confiding in him that he hadn’t shown any signs, and neither did Vernon or Seokmin--and that plenty of people didn’t have a soulmate and were fine on their own. Jihoon shouldn’t feel incomplete (which, actually, Jihoon never said?) or alone because he wasn’t: he had his friends, and he could always date later on if he chose to. Maybe the comfort was a little misguided and something he hadn’t asked for, but he could appreciate it. That conversation happened long before three members of their friend circle found their soulmates, the most recent having been two months ago. That led to questions, and listening to those questions led to other people (namely the ones without signs) to get a little too caught up in thoughts.

There was comfort in knowing they weren’t alone, though. Soonyoung had confessed to Jihoon that he was glad that, if he didn’t have a soulmate, that maybe the other people in the circle would help him feel more normal. It wasn’t as lonely an existence if you had other people with the same circumstance. It hurt, though: Jihoon could see how starry-eyed Soonyoung would get over the idea of a soulmate.

And, honestly, Jihoon couldn’t lie: he knew he spent too much time checking his skin for words, for a name, or pinching himself and hoping to feel someone else pinch back or to taste what they’re eating or to start missing colors. Maybe he was a late bloomer. He never voiced those things to anyone, and he never planned on it. If the others believed he didn’t care about having a soulmate, then it was fine. He could be fine like that. The idea of someone being built-in to love you was... hard to swallow, after all. Love took time. Despite the way that Seungkwan seemed to claim that he and his soulmate were getting along perfectly from day one (Vernon had given him a weird look that quickly disproved that statement), Jihoon knew that you had to fall in love with someone slowly, the way Wonwoo and his soulmate seemed to be moving. So he had focused his energy elsewhere in the meantime, working on his music throughout his entire life.

It gave him something to do. He never heard anyone sing back when he sang, though, so mark that one off the list. He sang often enough to himself that his soulmate should have sung something back so he knew they were alive. Of course it wouldn’t be that easy.

“Are you sure you want to do this?“ Joshua asked for the third time that night, mixing up developer with the lightener.

It wasn’t as if he could go back now, products already open and mixed, but Jihoon could appreciate the check-in.

“I can always just bleach someone else’s hair,” he said, pulling the gloves on. “I’m sure Mingyu would be okay with it. He’s been wanting to go blonde for a while--”

“It’s fine,” Jihoon said, looking at the box of bright pink dye in his hands. One lost bet against Soonyoung and of course it’d be the one that’d result in him dyeing his hair. He’d already donned one of Joshua’s old shirts just to keep from ruining his own clothes. “Just do it.”

Joshua nodded, and began to section out parts of his hair. “You really got unlucky with this one,” he hummed, already beginning to apply the bleach to the end of his hairs. “But you’re also really lucky that I’ve done this enough times for Jeonghan that I won’t fry your hair.”

He resisted the urge to nod, just humming in acknowledgement as Joshua continued to work carefully. Loser had to dye their hair the color of the winner’s choice, and Soonyoung had spent approximately half a second before grabbing cotton candy pink off the shelf when he saw it. The bet was stupid, but it was.. whatever at this point. No point in dwelling on it. All of their friends were sitting out in the living room, waiting as Soonyoung likely entertained the crowd while Jihoon sat through this bleaching process. Joshua sang softly under his breath the same lyrics that he had been working on with Jihoon for the past few weeks whenever Joshua wasn’t busy with work.

“You went too high,” Jihoon said offhandedly, trying to distract himself from the box dye in his hands. He left his phone out in the other room, and he already knew that Soonyoung was probably filling it with silly dumb selfies that Jihoon would delete half of before filing the rest away for blackmail (and maybe a little bit because that was his best friend, too--he’d made one dumb rap song with Soonyoung before just to tease Seungcheol, after all).

Joshua merely chuckled as he continued to work, finishing the application at his roots. “So... Do you wanna go back out while it’s setting--”

“No.”

Joshua laughed. “I’ll grab your phone so you can do something,” he said, setting aside everything. “Then we’ll go pink, alright?”

He just nodded, watching Joshua disappear from the bathroom before he let out a sigh. The bleach burned and smelled like shit, but there was no going back at this point. He could already see the way his hair was lightening. Soonyoung better watch his ass if the pink looked awful on him. Jihoon could hear someone laughing--Junhui’s laugh, Jihoon was positive that he knew it anywhere--in the other room. He could hear the muffled sound of Joshua calling out for someone to give him Jihoon’s phone, someone else laughing (Seungcheol, Jihoon thought, but he wasn’t positive because whoever it was was farther away from the bathroom than Jun and it was harder to hear). The door opened a moment later.

“He’s not coming out until it’s done,” Joshua called back over his shoulder, before stepping back in. He handed over Jihoon’s phone before sinking down to sit on the floor, pulling out his own. “Soonyoung had it,” he said. “Just so you know.”

Jihoon set his contact photo to the stupidest selfie that Soonyoung took. “You don’t have to stay in here.”

“It’s fine,” Joshua said. “I’ve gotta keep an eye on it anyway. For what it’s worth... I think it’ll look good,” he said. Jihoon glanced up to see Joshua already smiling at him, eyes lit up with that mischievous look he’d get whenever he was around Jeonghan. “Pink might be your color.”

The next half hour was spent in relative quiet, aside from the occasional talk of the song they were working on. Lyrical changes Jihoon wanted to make to make things flow smoother, the guiding track he was almost done working on. Joshua could come up any time and get in the booth and get his part of the work over with, and Jihoon was happy to work with him. It’d come soon enough. The bleach was washed out soon enough, Joshua humming to himself again.

Joshua knew this process well enough, apparently. Soon enough they’d dried his hair completely and Jihoon was watching him mix up the pink dye. His hair was covered in it again, and he stared at the pink stains along his skin as Joshua started to clean them up.

“It’ll look good,” he promised again.

Jihoon shut his eyes as Joshua helped wash out that second round of dye. He was never taking stupid bets again. Even if the sound of the group losing their shit at his new hair color, dried and styled with the help of Joshua, was amusing to hear. Even Seungcheol, who couldn’t see the exact color (and started shouting for people to take pictures because he wanted to see it, and he would), made Jihoon laugh.

Maybe he’d keep it until his roots started coming back in. He promised at least a full week with it. He’d have to steal Soonyoung’s color-safe shampoo, but it’d be fine. Soonyoung owed him that at least.

The two returned home after a night of drinks and games with their friends, and Jihoon took one last look at himself after running through his nightly routine before he started to fiddle with his hair. It looked good. He honestly kind of liked it, if he was being honest. He ruffled his hair a little more, and resolved to find away to make it look better in the morning.

And then he woke up to his hair dyed a completely different color--a more natural shade than the bright ass pink he’d had--and Jihoon suddenly realized that he had a soulmate. 

He grabbed Soonyoung and made an appointment at whatever place would take him that same day to dye his hair another color. Fuck waiting. It might be a dick move, especially if you went out and spend good money erasing the aftermath of a lost bet on his end, but you could be mad at him once you found each other. A place took the appointment, and soon enough he was sitting in a chair listening to Soonyoung joke that Jihoon should thank him with dinner that night since he wouldn’t have discovered his sign without him.

(He’d do that, in the end, because Soonyoung... did deserve something. Jihoon was fully ready to go his entire life with his natural color, and unless you decided to dye your hair, he’d never find out you were out there.)

He went bleach blonde again, and then bright red. He could stand out in crowds like that, if he was lucky enough that you were in the city. When it was dyed back days later, he went bright purple. Again, and he kept it bright yellow. Any loud and proud sign that he was right there and looking for you. Someone joked that all it took was one bet with Soonyoung for Jihoon to decide he liked dyeing his hair. They shut up immediately when he made it clear that his soulmate would have the same shade and to stop whoever they had to for him. Everyone promised to keep a look out, and he was more than thankful. Someone had thought they found you, but the shades of green were too far off: his was neon, the other person’s was a little too dark.

He did meet her, though, and wished her well. She told him to keep looking. They’d find their soulmates eventually. Jihoon let himself hold onto that hope for once.

Before his appointments, he started going to beauty stores in order to get ideas on what color to go next. It felt silly to repeat colors so soon, and he was torn between maybe bright orange to replace the pastel blue he’d settled on before. You hadn’t dyed your hair again, but Jihoon was waiting for it. He was thankful for soulmate discounts, the documented pictures of his hair being dyed back too quick while his hair stayed healthy enough to prove that this was a soulmate thing, otherwise his bank account would be hurting too hard for him to keep doing this.

He pulled up his phone, snapping a picture of the oranges he was debating between. He’d send it into the group chat to get a second opinion. He could hear the door to the store chime from where he stood, and he started typing out his message.

“YOU.”

Jihoon looked to see... you. You, standing there at the end of the aisle with the same bright blue hair, were fuming. He could see the cashier already nervous, leaning forward enough to see him as you made your approach.

“You absolute fucking dick. Do you know how mortifying it is to be in the middle of a meeting when your hair starts turning platinum blonde?! My coworkers wouldn’t stop laughing because I got stuck with the schmuck who has a weird thing for dyeing his hair! They keep looking at me weird because I tried to cover it up the first few times before my boss told me to stop killing my hair!” You balled your fists, and Jihoon could say nothing as you let out a groan. “It’s bullshit! I mean, okay, cool, we found each other because of this, but I can’t keep going to work like this!” You motioned toward your hair. “I need people to take me seriously!”

Jihoon gaped at you, unsure of what to say. “Sorry,” he settled on. “I just wanted to find you.”

“So did I, asshole,” you huffed, crossing your arms. “We’re getting that shit removed right now even if I have to pay for it.”

“I really think you should just dye your hair,” Jihoon said. “I don’t think mine can handle it.”

He watched the anger slowly drain from your face as it suddenly dawned on you that... you found him. Even if you’d been pissed before, his bright colors had led you to him in the end, just as they were supposed to. 

“You’re lucky you’re cute.” You let out a sigh, “and that one of my friends was in the area. He tipped me off and swore the colors matched.” You looked at him and then smiled, introducing yourself. “Your soulmate, I guess.”

“Jihoon,” he said. “Do you wanna... talk more?”

You laughed softly. “Yeah,” you said, taking a step back. “I think that’d be good. Just... no more hair dye after this, yeah? I’m sure the pink looked way better on you than it did me.” You stared at him for a moment, noticing the way that color had begun flooding into his face. “It definitely does now, at least.”

This would be a fun story in the future, at least. He erased his text to his friends, deleting the picture off the message, and replaced it with a “I found them. I’ll update you guys later.” before Jihoon made a call to his usual stylist. He’d sit with you the entire time while you were getting your hair fixed, already deciding that he liked you. The hair dye he could promise to avoid, but the way you were already turning his face red? That one he couldn’t.

And honestly? He didn’t want to. You could turn his face red any day with your cute quips and quirks and Jihoon would be completely fine with it.

#wooahaes.fic #seventeen imagine #seventeen x reader #seventeen x you #svt x reader #svt imagine #svt x you #jihoon x reader #jihoon x you #lee jihoon x reader #lee jihoon x you #woozi reader insert #woozi x reader #woozi x you