#and i also can't figure out what i'm SUPPOSED to be doing what to people usually DO with grief how am i SUPPOSED to handle it

[penelopepine]

Don't be a stranger! Pt. 2

Part 1 Part 2

Simon "Ghost" Riley x FemReader

Content: Neighbors AU, fluff, developing relationship

"If you're going to insist on making dinner for the both of us I might as well pay for the groceries." Simon was standing next to your door waiting for you to finish getting ready. You had asked him this morning what he wanted for dinner as you were going to the store after work and could get anything he wanted.

"Me making dinner for you is supposed to be a thank you for helping me Simon. I love that you're joining me, but I'm not going to let you pay."

"We'll see."

You finally walk out of your bedroom towards Simon, "Your job on this trip is going to be pushing the cart and looking pretty. I'm going to be grabbing everything and paying." Giving Simon a playful glare as the two of you makes your way out the door.

Pretty?

Do you really think he looks pretty? 

-

Simon hated grocery shopping; he has always felt that it was a waste of time, far too many people walking around, and the lights in here were almost blinding. He’s not happy to be here, but he also wasn’t going to let you continue to let you do all this work and not help in some way. 

At the very least shopping with you did make the experience more enjoyable. All he had to do was follow you. Letting you take control of where they went and did was strangely freeing from his usual day to day. Plus getting to just watch and listen to you ramble about your day was not something he was going to give up now that he’s here. 

"You know you still haven't told me what you wanted. I've been making my favorites every time you come over; it's your turn now to decide the menu." 

"I've been living off military mess hall food for most of my life. Anything you make is going to be a favorite of mine, love."

"How about you tell me at least one thing you want?" 

"Anything I want?"

"Anything!" 

You. 

That is the answer Simon wants to say, but he knows he can't, "I like shepherd’s pie.” 

“Shepherd’s pie it is!” You say, giving him a wide grin. 

The rest of the shopping is mostly uneventful. It isn't until the two of you were at the end of your grocery list did you seem to realize something was missing. 

“Oh, meet me at the front! I forgot to add apples to the list; I’ll go grab it real quick.” 

Before Simon could even disagree and say he’d just go with you; your figure was already speeding away from him. Slowly he made his way to the front of the store out of the way of others to wait. It wasn’t until eight minutes later when he saw no sign of you that he started to worry. 

It took all but a moment to find you, and he was not pleased with what he saw when he did. A man was standing far too close to you. The uncomfortable look on your face only served in sealing the man’s fate. 

Neither of you seemed to notice as he walked closer, but he was able to finally hear your conversation now. 

“-on, just one date. I promise I’ll make it worth it.” 

"My boyfriend is waiting for me; you need to leave me alone." You try to step around him, but the man is quick to side step in front of you and makes a move to grab you. Simon would happily beat the man into the ground, but he doesn’t want to frighten you. So he does the next best thing which is to rail the man with the cart. 

With a loud grunt the man falls onto the ground holding his side in pain. 

“She said to leave her alone. So why don’t you crawl away now like the worm you are.” Simon snarls down at him. Moving the cart and himself to stand between you and the man. 

"What the fuck man!" 

"I'll give you five seconds to get out of here." Simon wasn't about to have a pointless back and forth with this guy. The only thing he cared about right now was getting him away from you.

He stands slowly and glares in your direction before practically running away from Simon and you.

As soon as his figure disappears from sight Simon turns to you and gently grips your shoulder; tucking you into his side as he guides you back to the front of the store.

"Thank you for doing that; you didn't have to but I really appreciate it." 

"It's no problem," Simon continued his hold on your shoulder; not wanting to yet let go of you, "If anyone messes with you send them my way. I'll deal with them." 

You give him a smile in return. "That was honestly really funny by the way; hitting him with the cart." 

"I would have ran him over with it, but I didn’t want you having to find a new grocery store because I got the two of us banned." 

You laugh at his words and it makes his chest feel tight. He almost wants to record it just so that he could take it with him anywhere he goes. 

"C'mon, let's get out of here before they change their minds then!" 

Simon had of course won in the end when it came to who was going to be paying. He knew he would, but you still put in a good fight to beat him to it. He’d let you win in a lot of things, but this wasn’t one of them. 

-

It wasn’t until the two of you were sitting in your flat after eating did you seem to notice that he had been acting more reserved than he normally would be. Of course you weren’t about to just let him stew in thoughts for long once you caught on to it. 

“What’s wrong Simon? You’re acting a lot broodier tonight.” 

“I’m leaving soon; next week.” There was no point in lying to you; Simon had gotten the call from Price just a couple of days ago. He had been wondering how he was going to break the news to you. 

“Leaving? So soon; do you know when you’ll be back?”

No he doesn’t know when he’ll get to see you again. For all he knows the day he leaves could be the last day the two of you ever see each other again. “No, but I’ll see what I can do to come back soon.” 

“You better,” You give him a soft elbow jab to the side, “I’m gonna miss you y'know. I’ve gotten so used to having you around these past few weeks.” 

He had as well, almost regrettably so. Your presence in his life had done something to him that he’d never be able to undo. Simon wasn’t sure how he was going to feel not being able to see you. The daily morning walks, evening dinners, and weekend hangouts had quickly become a staple in his life. 

For now though the only thing he wanted to do was live in the moment. He didn’t have to say goodbye right now and he wasn’t going to act like he did while he was with you. That time would come later.

Taglist:

@nexthyperfix @spicyspicyliving

#simon riley x reader #fem reader #x reader #ghost x reader #simon ghost riley #task force 141 #tf 141 #call of duty #female reader

[sunflowerskies00]

bet my heart, part 6

the radio's gonna play country

series masterlist

RECAP

"You and uh, Mr. Cowboy," he nods towards where I just was with Riley, "are you two, are you dating him?" He finally spits out his question.

------

I stare at him. Blinking. Words, not forming. He sounded mad, or frustrated. I open my mouth to respond, and then close it again. He definitely sounded mad. He also looked mad or hurt. I couldn't tell.

"Quinn," I start. His eyes snap to mine. "Don't you think I would have told you if I had started dating someone?" I ask.

"I assumed so, but you two seem a lot friendlier than just friends," he says. Was he? There was no way he was jealous.

"Quinn," I say his name again. His eyes move back to mine once again. "That's part of my job, and you've known me forever, I just have chemistry with a lot of people, it makes it seem like there's something there when there isn't," I explain. This was new. Quinn had never acted like this after seeing me perform with someone, specifically a man before. I didn't know how I was supposed to handle this.

"So, you're not sleeping with him either?" My jaw drops, Quinn was never this abrasive, literally never.

"Quinn, what the hell is going on?" I finally ask him. "You're acting so unlike you it's freaky. You are literally indifferent to every single man I've even glanced at," I say.

"I," He starts but then stops. "Nothing, it's nothing." He glances at the clock on the wall. I then realize what time it is, they need to go. They have planes to catch to be back for practice. "Shit, I gotta go Sage," He's using my full name, what the fuck is happening, he normally just stuck with S.

"Quinn," I plead. "We're just not going to talk about whatever the fuck this is?"

"Sage, it's nothing, let's just leave it. It's fine," his voice is short and clipped. Nothing like his normal easy-going tone.

"It's obviously something," I point out. "You're acting weird, and not normal at all."

"I really do have to go," he says.

"So, we're just done with whatever this conversation is?"

"No, we're not, just," he sighs. "I have my bye week in like four days, I'm still coming to hang out with you, we can have this conversation then." I didn't even know what this conversation was, but I was starting to get an idea. Was it possible that my more than friends feelings weren't so one-sided after all?

"Promise?" I ask him.

"Promise, just promise me you're not going to start dating someone in the next week." I raise an eyebrow, but nod.

"Promise." I agree, not thrilled about the fact that this conversation was being pushed off, but accepting it anyway. Quinn pulls me into hug, and I can't help but tense up, not happy about how we were leaving things.

"I'll see you in a couple of days, and we'll talk, I promise." I just nod, and then just like that he's taking off, and I'm stuck standing in the same place trying to figure out what the hell just happened.

#quinn hughes #quinn hughes imagine #quinn hughes fic #vancover canucks #jack hughes #luke hughes #nhl imagine #nhl hockey #trevor zegras #cole caufield #quinn hughes x oc

[fiepige]

why work on your fic when you can just make shitty art of one of the scenes in paint instead?

look I told you it was shitty okay? lol at least it's out of my system now so I can go back to actually writing this stuff- hopefully it'll turn out better when written down than when drawn...

#I was seriously debating wether I should post this or not- but now I spent time making it so here it is and now we can all move on #in my defense I had to use my mouse to draw cause I don't own a tablet #and drawing with a mouse ain't easy when you're not used to it! #I wonder if people can even tell what it's supposed to look like #I mean if people can't I guess I kinda succeeded? #cause how do you draw an eldritch horror that's supposed to be incomprehensible to the human mind? #and yes that is indeed supposed to be hobie on the ground #well technically- spoilers! not gonna elaborate on that for now #if anyone's even interested in this fic lol #well I'm gonna write it anyways <3 #my post #sadly lol #my art #??? if you can even call it that #also if you can figure out what's actually happening in this scene I need you to leave my home immediately- #cause there is no way you could know that without havig read the stuff I've written down so far- but I'd love to hear theories anyways!

[blackwinged-soul]

Actual thing I just half-hissed/whispered at my computer:

"I swear to f*cking god, if you people don't start tagging your memorys|hipping, I WILL eat you."

(There MAY have been a subtle Ry/ou shift lying in wait because I listened to In My Life today, which is a HUGE Ry/ou song for me, but that was HOURS ago. I saw that and it felt my entire back bristle and I SWEAR I felt sharp teeth, and I wonder how much of that may have been touched by the Ring S|pirit, come to think of it....)

(( What is it with this fandom/source and people shipping me with the people that I, personally, would LEAST like to see ever again? ))

( (( Aaaand per the usual Y/G/O Multi-Reincarnation/Version Life Chaos, now I'm sitting here baffled by trying to unravel how much of this feeling is Ry/ou and how much is S|pirit and how much is The Corruption. )) )

#I won't be telling people they can't ship what they want to ship #but my GODS does some of it make my skin crawl as Half the Ship. #I was glad when he was gone. When they were BOTH gone. (As Ry/ou. I figured THAT out for sure.) #And I suppose I was already used to people suggesting things that would make me uncomfortable... #It was never SUCH a bother. #But here I'm also feeling Weirdly Protective/Vengeful and I don't think that's from being Ry/ou. #It's odd feeling my mind ping-pong between Ryou's sort of blas'e neutrality and the Spirit's outright ANGER. #Don't kinfirm from Y/ugioh if you can help it. Shit's crazy. #rwt rb #rwt personal posts #...//fuck// now my brain's spitting out emotions that read something like #''I actually do pity him but I have no desire to KISS him???''

[eats-the-stars]

love the guy assigned to my case at the “help you get a job” program. i have exactly 2 modes. 1) procrastinating until the absolute last minute. And 2) guess I will complete months worth of work that is also due at the end of the year in exactly 3 days of non-stop effort. You can basically flip a coin as to which approach my brain will decide to take for any given task.

so yeah I have a job now. and my poor case manager dude is like “wait. no. that was so fast. it’s been one week. you did how many interviews? and you picked...this one. the one that is not like anything you have done before and also was not on the “jobs I think would work out for me” list that we made?”

and he was scrambling like “accommodations. training. oh god. um. do i need to talk to your employers?” and getting more anxious when I was like “no i think I have it covered.” like i am sorry bro but i know that my vibes in person are like “quiet forgetful autistic person who can pass for either a high school student or a grandma at any moment” and this does not inspire confidence, but I am actually pretty independent once someone gives me a little push to start a thing.

also...dude you have my job history. winter sports area general worker (concessions, ticket sales, renting ski/snowshoe equipment, managing cross-country trails, monitoring the tube hill, etc.). family restaurant hostess (basically every role in the place except a cook). person selling fireworks out of tent for all of July while also living in a smaller tent behind the shipping crate filled with things that go boom. call center customer service rep handling 4 different clients that range from crafts and home decor to incontinence products and super expensive furniture. freelance dog-sitting with clients ranging from “rich couple who wants me to let their elderly cockapoos out twice a day for $50 bucks a pop in a house with a basement theater” to “i’ll give you $10 a day to exercise and feed the 3 huskies in our small apartment also they can jump higher than you are tall and scream louder than you thought possible.” bro we added a whole “volunteer experience” section to my resume because I wrote grants and worked with an environmental group to restore native bluebirds to the community and volunteered at the community table and the animal shelter and the library. like i have done lots of things that are not really connected at all. someone says “hey do you think you could do this?” and I am suddenly living out of a tent for a month googling “what the fuck is a crossette?” i once ended up in Memphis for 2 months doing volunteer construction work in the aftermath of a hurricane because my cousin didn’t want to go alone and everyone was like “oh we know someone who goes with the flow so hard.”

so you better believe i told you “oh i don’t know, maybe a receptionist position would be nice” and then applied to every local job known to god and then a few extra and took the first one to say “cool can you start next week?” i know i did not give off “I will try anything at least once if you ask me fast and then go ‘great!’ before I can process what i agreed to” vibes while sitting in your office in my colorful leggings, grandma sweaters and animal hats while not making eye contact and talking about how lovely my nephew is and how much I enjoy quiet time alone and gardening and i struggle with a poor memory and navigating social interactions. but i know you proofread my resume my guy. you asked questions about all these things except the construction thing because i actually forgot to mention that actually which is good because then i might have had to mention the cult involvement that i wasn’t aware of until i was stuck on-site but it all worked out so no sweat. still, i am glad that he is concerned by my “out of the blue” spontaneity. it’s kind of his job to help people settle into jobs that they can handle, and I also know that I would realistically need more assistance from him if I wasn’t so good at adapting on the fly due to my bad habit of saying “sure, I can do that” to literally anything. also my new job is honestly pretty tame, so i am not sure what he is freaking out about. i should really not mention some of the other jobs i spontaneously applied for before accepting this one. like..my friend...i could be working in a bridal shop. i could be training to install and repair vending machines or decorating cakes or delivering medical equipment. i applied for a job that was literally “window production.” none of these are actually as wild as that time I spent 2 months with a religious cult doing manual labor and living out of an abandoned, half-destroyed school building because my cousin talked me into it. i had to watch a dramatic reenactment of the crucifixion of Jesus on my very first night that brought the whole gymnasium of strangers to wild, howling tears while I was awkwardly clapping my hands as my cousin sobbed incoherently into my shoulder. i once dog-sat a bluetick coonhound for 2 weeks in the dead of winter, and the snow if his yard was so high that he was able to jump the fence and book it down the street. i had to chase him through knee-high snow for over an hour before he stopped to sniff a bemused old lady long enough for me to catch him. i once had a customer at the restaurant rail at me for a good twenty minutes because she was absolutely sure that we did serve pineapple upside down cake and i was just withholding this dessert from her, specifically. the bar for “jobs I would apply for” is so low that I actually thought “well as long as nobody spits in my face, pukes on me consistently, or shanks me in the kidney again I could probably do anything.” although to be fair to my case manager i did not mention those things to him (except the pineapple upside down cake lady because I mention her all the time, i am still pissed off about that situation). also, my sister was actually the one to have a dog wake her up in the middle of the night only to puke directly into her mouth, but I watched it go down, so the psychic trauma of witnessing that still exists.

#honestly i think my poor social skills get me into half of the situations in my life #because i agree to things before i process them because most people talk and talk too fast for me #so i spend the whole conversation trying to keep up also figure out what the hell we're talking about #and then at the end i turn to my sister and say 'so what was that about?' #and she says something like 'you signed up to sell fireworks out of a tent for all of july' and i just have to run with that #the other half of the situations just come from having relatives and family friends that actively seek out situations #but want to drag someone adaptable and chill along who will also not say 'that's literally insane. no' when asked #also i need less cousins who take the zombie apocalypse life tip of always bringing a slow runner with you to situations #like i am a small person ok. my legs are shorter. i can't help it that everyone else is sprinting around on their stilt-legs #also just like i like to take walks with my dad because the mosquitoes love his blood way better than mine #i have a history of 'first person to get stabbed in a situation' that is probably just due to being the weakest looking person in any group #and i don't really panic in emergencies. i don't really know why. maybe it's something to do with being autistic #but if someone is screaming in pain and writhing on the floor #or an alarm goes off #or a bus skids on the ice and smears a stranger across the sidewalk right in front of me #or if i get mugged in a coffee shop while i'm studying for exams #i don't really do the things that other people around me do in the same situation #i personally think that the bubble i exist in just runs slower than everyone else's #so they're all having their reactions and freaking out while i'm still like 'damn something sure is happening right now. #am i supposed to do anything about this?' #and then if the answer is: 'yeah you should probably calm down that guy on the floor. figure out why he's screaming. then call 911 maybe?' #then i'll just do that while other people are saying things like 'oh god what's happening?!' #like if i panicked every time i had a dog that i was responsible for make a stupid life decision in front of me #or had a cult member ask me. an atheist. if i felt like i connected with god at the emotional catharsis activity #or honestly even just every time i've ever been stabbed in the left kidney even tho that's only happened twice #then i don't know i would probably be doing a lot of panicking #maybe it's an energy thing. i feel like panicking requires more energy than i usually have access to

[doedipus]

guess who ranked up to floor 9 as gio

#cmon guess #do ya want a hint? huh? huh? do ya? #I think my defense with her is still trash garbage because I can't really figure out what I'm supposed to be mashing a lot of the time #like I was fighting a couple kyles and tried to 6p foudre arc #but 6p lost more often than not because it has way slower startup #but when I reminded myself to use 5p I could mash out more consistently because it's fucking 4 frames #but on the other hand I feel like I'm gradually getting a better sense for her pressure/offense #although I'm still definitely in the mode of like #autopiloting cs 2s 5h 214k #and I gotta think pretty hard to remember to throw in spiral arrows and overheads to keep myself plus #I've also been trying to use 2d a lot more but it's a little tricky to figure out when it's a good idea #because it's a button that doesn't really have an analogue in ram's kit #but I got a bunch of mileage out of it against a ky and a faust who were jumping around a ton #since 2d is pretty okay for hitting people out of landing recovery #also it feels like gio's 6p is way better than ram's at hitting stuff directly above her #and way worse at hitting stuff that's coming in more from the side

[probayern]

.

#i am having. a truly awful week lmao #i've really been coping with work being incredibly overwhelming by leaning really hard on my manager/becoming friends with him #and he's out through wednesday and i'm just... so close to crying #i just want to slack him and be like hello help but i can't #i am responsible for everything right now #and i'm not fucking paid for it #i'm running two programs of 20+ employees each and i can't do it #so many things are slipping through the cracks #and the people i'm like not really managing aren't ready to be independent #so i have to provide sooo much oversight #today i asked them to figure out how to split up work so that i could assign tasks with clear ownership #and they were like that's overwhelming #and i think i did a poor job of not seeming extremely overwhelmed by that #because now i've agreed to specifically message them every time i assign something bc i CANT ASSIGN IT TO A CLEAR OWNER #im just... hello ??? #how am i supposed to provide detailed oversight into their jobs and also do the manager's jobs bc 3 of them are brand new #and i'm owning all our data and apparently agreed to lead a 4 hour offsite to propose exactly what we want to track #in 3 weeks??? #and on top of that my two closest friends have been gone for 3 weeks (from life not work lol) #and i literally cannot handle not having them around right now #so much is going on and like. my other friends are great but they don't Get me in the same way #and i really need someone to look at me and See me right now #and tbh my manager and i were kinda getting there in the friendship progression #or are. literally it's 3 days i'm insane #i'm just akfjskfjskfj struggling #bella things

[franklysainz]

LOST IN THE PADDOCK.

MV1 X FEM!READER

summary getting lost in the paddock and bumping into the current world champion was definitely not on your bingo card.

cw amara is the only oc, no use of y/n. this is my first time writing rpf since middle school, so bear with me. ALSO, this is a work of fiction: i don't know these people irl, i don't know how they act. NON-DESCRIPTIVE READER.

face claims girls on pinterest but you can obviously disregard them, and imagine whoever you want.

masterlist | taglist

—

"Ah, fuck," you mumble to yourself, panickedly walking away from the direction you came from while also looking for your best friend.

You call her name a few times in hopes of her popping her head out of the Ferrari building's corner but to no avail. The group and guides you had been with are nowhere to be found, and you have to avoid bumping into employees wearing the entire rainbow as they hurry around you.

You curse the moment you decided to enter the giveaway for those tickets. Although you weren't a Formula One fan, simply because you never fully listened to Amara's ramblings and analysis, when you stumbled across a giveaway of otherwise very expensive tickets, you didn't hesitate to enter it. Despite entering for her, you kept it a secret. The list of entries was long, and the odds were not in your favour, so you didn't want to get her hopes up. You couldn't contain the bubbling excitement when you got the e-mail verifying your win for two Paddock Club tickets for the Spanish Grand Prix.

After announcing it to your obsessed-with-cars best friend, you decided to make it a five-day trip, planning to sightsee Barcelona before the race weekend and spend a free day after it. The first day had been great, albeit tiring, but you had woken up the next day buzzing with anticipation to walk around the paddock. You were the assigned photographer, as you knew Amara would want to listen to everything the guide said. You were content with taking pictures of the place and her. 

Until now. You were definitely not happy with being the camera guy. Because of that, you'd just lost your group in the middle of God-knows-where, with no idea where the building you came from was. So immersed in your grumbling and reading the map on your phone- you collide with someone. Your phone and water bottle slip from your fingers, and the tote bag slips from your shoulder to your elbow. You hiss at the sudden weight shift.

The smell of rich cologne enters your nostrils, but you don't dare look up. Your cheeks burn. "Sorry." You bend down to grab your things.

The man seems to have the same idea, as seconds later, he's on his knees and gathering his things before you can reach them. "No, it's alright! I wasn't looking where I was going."

He extends his full hands with a smile, and you return a sheepish one before grabbing your things. You take a second to look at him. He wears a Red Bull cap and T-shirt, looking like everyone who hurriedly passed you with papers and phones in their hands. I should ask him for directions. He looks like he knows the place.

"Uh...Is there any way you saw a group of people with guides walking around here? I'm supposed to be with them, but I kinda lost them." You lift the camera, further explaining why you're separated from them.

He can't help but chuckle at your flushed cheeks. "Unfortunately, no," he pauses. "Are you here for the weekend?" You nod. "Haven't they given you a map, then? They usually do, to avoid people getting lost."

You show him your phone. Your fingers brush as he pulls it closer to look at the map. "Yeah, they have. But I can't figure it out. Kind of my first time coming to something like this."

He looks at you briefly before returning his gaze to the phone. "Really?" He sounds surprised. He shouldn't.

You looked out of place compared to the rich-as-fuck members of your group. You had no idea how people dressed for these occasions. Even Amara didn't really know what to pack, so you both agreed to wear comfortable clothes. With the race being during June and in Spain, you would rather be comfortable than sweaty. The only thing tying you to the group was the Paddock Club pass you wore around your neck.

"My best friend is really into this. Loves the sport. I won us the tickets, but I'm barely grasping the basics." You laugh, and he joins. You like the way his eyes crease when he smiles wide.

"Oh, you're the ones that won the tickets! Someone told me about that, I think. Congrats!" You thank him. "How's your weekend so far?"

You shrug. "T'was really fun. Until I got lost while taking pictures of the Ferrari building." He snorts.

Leaning next to him, you try to follow his finger as he scrolls around the zoomed-in map. "You figured it out yet?" 

"I think I have, yeah." He shows you the phone. "We're here. The garages are right there. You'll be watching the race on the floor above them." You nod, slowly grasping your surroundings. Turns out it's easier to figure it out when you're not panicking and a handsome stranger is helping you. "You got it?"

You flash a bright smile. "Yeah, actually, I think I do!" You look at him. "Thank you!"

He shrugs. "No problem. I know it's easy to get lost, especially with so many people running around."

"Still. Thank you. You probably have to be somewhere, and I took up a lot of your time." You step back, turning in the direction he'd shown you.

"Don't worry about it." He fixes his hair under the cap.

"Thanks again." You wave and turn to leave.

"Hey, I forgot to ask you." You turn, confused. "What team are you supporting tomorrow?"

Oh, shit.

It's like a deer caught in headlights situation. You suddenly forget all ten names of the racing teams, desperately racking your brain for an answer. You swear you know all ten.

"Uh..." you nervously clench and unclench your water bottle. "Ferrari?" It's more of a question rather than a statement.

He laughs, and your cheeks return to their warm state. Bad answer?

"Ferrari?" He asks as if saying really? You shrug, and he huffs a laugh.

"I told you I'm not good at this!" 

You hear a shout and simultaneously turn to see a man in a Red Bull shirt beckoning him over. 

"I have to go. But you should watch out for the Red Bulls. I hear they got the better cars!" He winks and waves before walking away from you.

You roll your eyes and smile wide on your lips. Of course, he'd tell you to cheer for his team. The back of your hand touches your cheek. It's incredibly warm. You blame it on the hot weather.

—

"I'm telling you, mate! She had no idea who I was!" 

Lando rolls his eyes. "And I'm telling you there's no way. Your face is plastered everywhere."

It's Charles's turn to roll his eyes. "Or maybe she was more worried about finding a way back than asking for pictures."

"Yeah, maybe she was being polite. Didn't want to attract any attention to you." Albon adds.

Max shrugs. "I don't know."

"Was she pretty?" Oscar elbows Lando's ribs, as the latter can't contain his giggle.

Max's neck flushes. He shrugs again. "Yeah, I guess."

"Ohhhhh!" George and Lando pat him on the back teasingly, and Charles laughs at Max's expression.

Before they can tease him about this mystery girl more, a woman wearing a headset informs them they have to part ways and get ready for qualifying.

—

"And Fernando was so bloody nice, too! He was more than happy to sign the cap for you!" Amara waved her hands excitedly as she recounted everything you missed while lost.

You sat near the windows overlooking the pits, watching as the teams got their cars ready for qualifying, far away from the TVs and the crowded tables, not wanting to converse with anyone but your best friend. You chewed on your extremely expensive pasta, intently listening to her meet-up with some of the drivers. 

"I can't believe you met the only driver I know," you whined, lips pouting sadly.

"I swear I didn't realise you were gone until they stopped us to greet the drivers. I was fully into that tyre explanation the guide was giving."

"Gee, thanks." You smile, giving her the middle finger.

"Oh, you know I don't mean it like that. Without you, I wouldn't even be doing the stuff we did today." Amara pulls on your middle finger, and you both giggle.

"So, tell me what you did when you were alone," she urges, sipping her drink.

"You mean when you left me wandering like I was looking for my mother?" She gives you a pointed look. You shrug. "I stopped a Red Bull guy to give me directions. He was helpful and cute. Also took some pictures while I was making my way back here."

"Oh, was he a mechanic or what?"

"I don't know. Didn't catch his name." You smile as you recount his advice. "He told me to look out for the Red Bulls because they have fast cars."

"Well, he's not wrong."

You finish your food and drinks, chatting until qualifying is about to begin. You sit on the balcony, watching the cars drive on the track. You get settled, watching the small screen in front of you, commentary loud in the headset you wear. Qualifying goes by quickly, with Amara explaining things you don't understand and you nodding along.

It's no surprise—in Amara's words—that Max Verstappen came first in his Red Bull. He's the one dominating this season, after all. Second comes Carlos Sainz, and third place takes Lando Norris. Your best friend cheers a little more for him. You shoot her a look, and she just shrugs. "What? He's fast, and he's handsome." You laugh.

You decide to leave before others, not stick around for post-qualifying interviews. Although there's a great chance you can catch drivers, take pictures and get them to sign autographs, you're both far too exhausted to stay. There's always tomorrow, Amara says, and you agree.

You're looking through the Uber app to find a car available to take you back to your hotel when you hear Amara all but screech beside you. You look up, watching as she runs towards a wall decorated with a gigantic poster of three drivers. You recognise Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc and...Oh, shit.

"Can you take a picture here," she calls your name pleadingly.

Your eyes are wide and glued to the tall poster, even as you pull the camera up to your face. You snap a couple of pictures before Amara walks back to you. Her wide smile falters as she watches you stare at the poster intensely. You rack your brain for his name and know that you should know it. Amara has mentioned it before, but you just can't put your finger on it. He's in Red Bull, so it's either Checo Perez or—

"Is that Verstappen?" You point to him.

"Yep. Two-time world champion." Amara looks at the poster and then back at you, eyebrows furrowed. "Why are you looking at him like that?"

"He's the guy from earlier."

"What?!"

—

yourusername

liked by amaraiscool, yourmom, and 167 others.

tagged amaraiscool

yourusername chatted with a guy today, turns out he's the current world champion.

view all comments

amaraiscool i can't believe you met max verstappen

> yourusername amaraiscool i cant believe you let me get lost

amaraiscool and i can't believe you didnt recognise him.

> yourusername amaraiscool hes cuter in person, too bad you didn't get to see him :))

yourfriend1 THE DRESS IS SO CUTE, AMARA WTF DROP THE STORE!!!!!!

liked by yourusername

yourfriend2 johns freaking out rn lol

> yourusername yourfriend2 AW, i bet hes not being as dramatic as amaraiscool was when i told her :,)

> amaraiscool yourusername met THE max verstappen.

—

"You should totally text him," Amara says between bites.

She offers you a piece of chocolate, and you offer her a bewildered look. The hotel room's TV is playing a random spanish show, but with no subtitles, you can barely grasp what they're saying. Amara is scrolling on TikTok beside you.

"Text who?" You already know who.

"The two-time world champion. Duh." She rolls her eyes.

Amara hadn't stopped talking about the Max interaction since you'd pointed at his gigantic poster. The more she spoke on it, wiggling her eyebrows, the more you blushed. She had gone over a thousand scenarios, all of which you ended up hooking up with him. You had to remind her that despite his popularity, he was a stranger to you. 

"I don't have his number, 'mara. I told you he just helped me find my way."

She flicks your forehead. "That's what Insta is for!" 

"No."

"But why!?" Amara whines in your ear loudly, like a child when you take their candy away.

"It's weird! He's cute and all," you sit up, pointing your finger up," but he doesn't know my name," you put another one up, "he'll think I'm creepy," you point a third one, "and that is if he sees the requested message."

"Uh, you're ruining my scenario-building process."

"That's what Tumblr is for. Leave my quiet, boring life out of this." You dramatically sigh.

"Isn't that how all fanfiction starts? Boring and quiet life turned upside down?" Amara tilts her head.

"I don't know, 'ave never read any." You shrug, lips pursing.

She huffs a laugh, and you hold in yours. "Liar."

There's a pause. You think over Amara's suggestion. Max Verstappen is cute. And it wouldn't hurt to try and get his number. You'd never see him again after this weekend. And the worst he could say is: "Security, please get her out of here!" 

What the fuck am I thinking? He's a literal superstar. Me bumping into him was a one-time thing. 

Ah, fuck it. It's not the end of the world.

"You know what?" Amara turns to look at you. "If I get the chance tomorrow, I'll talk to him. Try and get his number."

Her eyes almost pop out of their sockets. "What?"

"I mean, I'm never seeing again? Right? It could go either way. He doesn't call for security to escort me like I'm crazy fangirl, or he does, and we pray no cameras recorded the moment."

Amara shrugs, trying to appear nonchalant, but she can barely hold her wide smile. "Sounds like a plan to me."

"Not much of a plan. I'm just indulging in your delusions."

You share a laugh before you fall back in bed beside her. You shuffle closer to your best friend's side, eager to watch the TikTok edit she is staring intensely at.

"Oh, look, it's your future boyfriend!" 

"Shut up."

#max verstappen #max verstappen x reader #max verstappen x you #mv1 #mv1 x reader #formula one #formula one x reader #formula one x you #f1 #f1 x reader #f1 fanfic #lando norris #charles leclerc #george russell #max verstappen fluff #max verstappen angst #max verstappen social media au #smau #formula 1 smau #f1 smau #social media au #frank writes

[wh0reforcoriolanussnow]

Hi sweet angel, I have to admit that I'm new to your profile, but my obsession with your writing is almost as great as my obsession with snow, I have a request that changes the story a little bit.

Coryo is completely obsessed with the reader, but she thinks he is just an affectionate friend, both become mentors and instead of snow falling in love with lucy, it is the reader who falls in love with her tribute, and begins to move away from Snow, he can not accept this and manipulates the games, Not for lucy to win, but rather, to get rid of the reader's tribute. (Sorry for any mistake, English is not my mother tongue, so I use Google translator)

Slipping Through My Fingers || Young!Coriolanus Snow x reader

GIF by i forgot sorry :( divided by @firefly-graphics

A/n: this took me forever to finish idk why 😭 also this has to be the longest fic i've written so far.

Warnings: mention of blood, possessive coryo, mentions of death

Wc: 2,975

Coriolanus Snow Masterlist

"Can I see you tomorrow morning?" Coriolanus looks down at you with hope in his eyes, you open your mouth but close it before sighing. "I can't, sorry. My parents want me to be home when my grandparents are there," You lie through your teeth as he hums, nodding.

"That's fine, tomorrow afternoon then?" His hand touches your waist as you smile up at the boy. "Of course Coryo, I'll see you then?" You touch his hand that was at your waist as he nods. You give him one final smile before disappearing around the corner.

You felt bad for lying to him but you didn't know how he would take it if he found out that you were actually going to meet your tribute first thing when his train from the districts arrived in Panem. Your tribute, Dean, from district 8 intrigued you. You couldn't keep your eyes of the screen when he appeared. He caught your eye immediately.

Coryo couldn’t stop complaining all day about his tribute from district 12, Lucy Gray. Saying that she would not last a second in the game. Unlike him, you had faith in your tribute.

So here you were, standing on the platform waiting for the train to come to a halt as you tuck a strand of hair behind your ear. A smile on your face, dimples on display as the doors open revealing Dean. He was taller than you imagined, but nonetheless, he looked surreal. There was no denying that Dean was good looking, incredibly good looking which you would imagine would play a role in the amount of donations he would have.

"Dean. Y/n Y/l/n. I'll be your mentor." You extend your hand out in front of him as he looks you up and down before shaking your hand. His shake was firm, his fingers calloused. An indication that he was a hard worker.

"Are you supposed to be here? I don't see other people like you around here," He says as he looks around the train station. You notice Coriolanus' tribute, Lucy Gray walking by and staring at the two of you questioningly. You make eye contact with her before clearing your throat and looking back at Dean who hadn't kept his eyes off of you.

"No. I'm not supposed to be here." You confess, your hands fidgeting with the ends of your skirt as Dean raises an eyebrow at you. "Then.... what are you doing here?" You pause. What were you doing here? You could have waited like the others for tomorrow to meet him.

"I uh- I wanted to welcome you to the Capitol." You offer him a smile. Silence. "Can I be blunt with you Dean?" Your head slightly tilts, a habit of yours when you ask questions. "Sure," He shrugs. "I see potential in you," You hold his hands in between yours as he glances down at your intertwined hands with an expression you couldn't quite figure out.

"You can win this hunger games. And I will do everything in my power to make sure that you do. Such potential like you for a bright future shouldn't be wasted," You solemnly smile at him. Dean stays quiet for awhile, his hand still in yours before a peacekeeper roughly pulls him away from you.

"Hey!" You shout as you follow the two. "It's time for them to go Miss." The peacekeeper says as he throws Dean into the back of a van. Just as he walks away from your view to close the door, you jump into the van along with the rest of the tributes. "What are you doing!" Dean whispers yells at you as you stay hidden behind him.

You let out a sigh of relief once the doors close. "What's this? Is this your mentor, Dean?" A girl you recognised to be Carol asks with a sinister smile. You push past Dean and extend your hand out for her to shake. She looks at your face then your hand and lets out a laugh.

"Why would I shake hands with someone like you." She spat as a few others laugh alongside her. You notice Lucy Gray once more, sitting there silently. "Why do you get special treatment Dean, huh?" Carol pushes you backwards catching you off balance as Dean catches you.

"I could kill her right now," Carol chuckles like a maniac. Dean moves you behind him, "Leave her alone," He voices out, his tone screaming authority. Before Carol could respond, the van shook violently as you all lose your balance. You let out a groan as you felt your body slam against the van door before it flies open, causing you all to roll out onto hard rocks.

You let out a groan as you slowly lift up your head, squinting your eyes at your surrounding before you hear Dean's voice. "Y/n! Are you alright?" He asks worriedly as his grips your bicep, aiding you to stand up as you realise where you were. You were at the zoo cage.

You place a hand on your head as you let out a low groan. "Excuse me! Hello! Over there! Can they not hear me in there?" You hear a familiar voice belonging to Lucretius Flickerman. Dean takes a hold of your forearm, helping you keep balance as he whispers to you, "Own it." You look up at him with a small smile. He offers his arm to you as you link arms and walk towards the iron bars.

"Y/n Y/l/n, one of the mentors for the 10th hunger games." Lucretius says to the camera as he then directs his gaze towards you. "The game makers did tell you to jump into the cage with them," His tone was skeptical. Dean looks down at you as you glance at him before looking at Lucky.

"They didn't tell me not to. They just said it was a mentor's job to introduce our tributes to the citizens of Panem, and I thought well if Dean is brave enough to be here, then why shouldn't I be too?" You say with confidence, "For the record, I didn't have a choice," Dean butts in.

"What is Y/n doing there?" Arachne gasps as she ctaches the attention of Snow and the others as they look to the screen. There you were, linked arms with a tribute, looking awfully comfortable with him to add. Snow furrows his eyebrows at disbelief that you were there.

You told him that you were to be at home, but clearly not. Coriolanus watches with intent as you look at Dean when he spoke. His fists bawl up as Clemensia makes a comment. "You alright Coryo? You look.... bothered," Her hands rest on Snow's upper arm as he pries her touch off of him.

"I'm fine," He snaps as he leans forward on his seat. He was bothered. Very bothered seeing you so close with a tribute. "He's obviously not fine, he's bothered seeing Y/n so touchy with her tribute, isn't that right Snow?" Arachne teases as he slams his hand on the table causing her to shut up. "Shut it, Crane." Coriolanus says through gritted teeth as Arachne puts her hands up in surrender.

"They look really close. Can't blame Y/n honestly, she got a good looking one," He hears Clemensia quietly say before he had enough and stood up, storming off.

~

"Coryo," You call out as you catch up to him, adjusting your bag on your shoulder as you offer him a smile. He says nothing, his face stern as he continues to walk, not bothering to look at you. "Hey listen, I'm sorry I stood you yesterday, I just got super busy-" "Yeah I saw, busy with your tribute right?" He gives you a sarcastic smile as you scrunch your eyebrows.

You were all making your way to the enclosed cage to talk to your tributes. "What?" Snow rolls his eyes at you, finally stopping. "I saw your interview with Flickerman. Looked awfully close to your tribute," You let out small chuckle as his face shows no sign of amusement.

"Coryo, I was just introducing myself to him and getting to know him that's all. I have faith in him that he will win and I wanted him to know that. Wouldn't you do the same with your tribute if you had faith in her?" You touch his arm as he looks at your hand.

"Right?" You try and get a response from him as he sighs, "I guess," Is all he says before intertwining his hands with yours. You look down at your hands, a sweet gesture from him. When you both get closer to the tributes, you unclasp your hands with Snow and walk towards Dean who has already seen you and was making his way closer to you.

"Hey," You greet Dean as you look through your bag and find the half of your sandwich and cookie which you put away for him. You hand it to him as he thanks you, immediately taking bites as you watch him. He could feel your stares as you look away. Your eyes land on Coriolanus and Lucy.

He was talking to her about something as Lucy looks towards you and Dean. Snow finally looks at you, his expression cold as you gulp and look at Dean who was already looking at you. "He your boyfriend or something?" He asks as he takes another bite of the cookie. Your eyes widen. "Who? Coryo? No." You laugh as Dean stares at you.

"He's just a close friend of mine." You say as he nods, unbothered. "Do you? Do you- uh- have a-" "No." He deadpans as you slowly nod. From afar, Snow was watching the two of you interact the entire time. "Do you want to win Lucy Gray?" He turns his attention from you to his tribute.

"Do you think I can win?" She asks him as he thinks. "Honestly? no." He admits as Lucy scoffs. "But if you listen to what I say and do what I tell you to do, you will." His tone was stern as Lucy nods, her eyes following his eyeline which led to you and Dean. "That your girlfriend? That girl who was with us yesterday in the van."

"Her and Dean seem to be close, don't you think?" Lucy watches Coriolanus' face, his jaw clenching at the mention of the two. "They're not close, she just knows how to play the game," Coriolanus snaps before standing up and backing away from Lucy Gray.

~

You hadn't spoken much to Coriolanus the past couple of days. You were with Dean quite a lot, making up strategies and scenarios for when the games started. "I care about you, Dean. A lot." You take his hands in yours, the sound of his iron shackles making you cringe as you look him the eyes. Dean looks around the room before caressing your hand.

You and Dean have gotten very close over the past days. You both had faith in each other, trusted one another. Coriolanus narrows his eyes at the two of you, 2 desks away from him before his gaze settles on your touching hands.

He lets out a quiet scoff as Lucy Gray looks over to you and Dean. "Do you know him?" Snow asks her as he cocks his head towards Dean. Lucy shakes her head. "You want to win, don't you?" He leans in close to her.

Lucy hesitantly nods her head, "Yes. Yes you do Lucy." He answered for her, his gaze hard on her as she squirmed under his stare. "You need to kill Dean first. You need to before he kills you. He's a strong competitor, I can tell, that's why you need him out first. Then, it will be a piece of cake." He smirks as he leans back on his chair. "What do I need to do?"

~

“Y/n,” Coriolanus calls out as you turn your head to his direction, a small smile on his face as you beam at him. You run to him, throwing your arms around him as you hug him tightly. Coryo was caught off guard but eventually hugs you back.

“Good luck,” You say, although it was slightly muffled against his shirt. “You too,” He says back, his hand rubbing your back as you pull back, giving him your pearly white grin that only a few were able to see. Coriolanus felt a pull at his heart for he knew what was going to happen would break you.

Your other classmates arrive as you get settled for the 10th hunger games to start. Your eyes were trained on the screen as you watch Dean kill 2 people. You bite your fingernails as you continue to watch it play out infront of your eyes. Coriolanus offers his hand as you take it, squeezing it as you watch Dean.

A couple hours pass by and everyone sits up when they watch Coryo's tribute, Lucy Gray being corned by a few of the others, Dean included. In the corner of your eye, you watch Coryo come up to his screen and rapidly click.

Your eyes flicker back to the screen as drones of water come flying at the tributes, knocking them out as the room erupts in gasps. "These drones are not very good," Flickerman comments. "Hey! What are you doing?" Vipsania shouts as she stands up.

"You can't attack the tributes Coryo!" You snap at him. "I'm just sending water," He coolly says as you shake your head and scoff. Dean managed to dodge them luckily. You watch as Lucy Gray runs, Dean chasing after her as your leg bounces.

She manages to hide in one of the vent holes as you notice Snow let out a sigh of relief. Dean punches the vent in anger as he eventually leaves her. A few more hours pass by as you fell asleep, the sound of banging wakes you up. Coryo was nowhere to be found.

Your eyes focus on the screen as Dean and Coral stand underneath a vent pipe. Coral's pitchfork was reportingly stabbing at the vents above. Dean follows the noises, his gaze on the vent. "Coral. Coral she's right here," He whispers to her as she continues stabbing at the vent. Coriolanus then runs in, "Lucy Gray, is she okay?" He says out of breath.

"She wont be for long," Festus comments as everyone's eyes are trained on the screen. All of a sudden, Dean touches his nose as he looks confused. You immediately stand up on your feet, "Wait, what's wrong with Dean?" You move closer as he falls on his knee making your heart race.

"Did Coral do something to Dean?" You panic as Dean starts spazzing out on the floor. Coryo glances at you. Lucy Gray did what he told her to do. He had snuck her rat poison to use, if a small amount was to be inhaled, it would be deadly.

You cover your mouth as your eyes widen. Dean was laying on the ground, not moving at all. You flinch at the sound of a buzzer going off, indicating that he was in fact dead. Dean was dead. And you didn't even know how it happened. You storm out but before you could, Coryo grips your arm, "I'm sorry," He says as you furrow your eyebrows at what he meant before snatching your arm from his grip. "Dean is down. Good afternoon Miss Y/l/n," Flickerman calls out.

You storm out with rage. Dean was supposed to win. He was supposed to make it out alive. You even promised him he would come out alive and go back to his family. One moment he was perfectly fine, and then the next, he's on the floor spazzing out and then dead. Your mind drifts back to Coriolanus' words, I'm sorry. What did that even mean? You assumed he was just apologising that your tribute was dead.

~

Lucy Gray had managed to win. You were happy for Coryo of course. But Dean’s recent death still plagued your mind. “Y/n,” Coryo breathed out the moment you opened your door to him; he reached out for you, pulling you against his chest.

It caught you by slight surprise before you hugged him back. The pent up emotions finally releasing the moment he rubs your back affectionately. “Shh” He softly shushed you as waterfalls fall down your cheeks. Everything was chasing up to you.

“I-I don’t even know what happened to him,” You sob in his embrace as he traces shapes on your arm. You continued to rant to him as he brought you to your living room.

You rested your head against his chest as he listened, sometimes he would bite his tongue at the things you were saying about Dean. "He was just a tribute y/n-" "He was not just a tribute." You snapped, lifting your head up as you stared at his blue irises.

Coriolanus rolls his eyes the minute you turn your head back around. "He's human, just like you and I. He had dreams, he had a family to go back to Coryo, do not just sit there and tell me he was just a tribute. He's more than a tribute," Coriolanus listened to every single word that came out of your mouth.

He did not agree with most of the things you said but for the sake of it, he said nothing. When you spoke about Dean, it grew on Coriolanus that you infact liked him, alot. Perhaps even more than like. And that was why he felt the need to kill him. You were his, only his. And after all, he couldn't have some lowly district boy taking over your body and soul.

#fanfiction #coriolanus snow imagine #coriolanus snow #coriolanus x reader #coriolanus fanfiction #coriolanus x you #coriolanus x lucy gray #the hunger games #the hunger games ballad of songbirds and snakes #tbosas #tbosas imagine #young coriolanus snow #young president snow #president snow #coriolanus snow x reader #coriolanus smut

[jemandrr]

With manifest v3 approaching at depressing speed, i pray to the gods that firefox adopts more chromelike feature/UI options.  Like drastically lower the minimum custom tab width to support the range that chrome supports, and being able to run personal browser extensions without also using the less stable dev build.

I’m sure there’s more, but I feel like there’s a timer cutoff fast fast approaching and not much sign (that I’m aware of) of Firefox actively making an effort to catch chromium users by expanding features (or, in the cases listed, simply enabling some values that are literally already coded and accounted for - both of these things are possible in official firefox buiilds, just not in the settings for normal firefox).  

Like, don’t just wait for your competitors to do bad, also put effort into qol and providing a variety of UI options to completely whittle out snares of little conveniences and utilities people are used to.  Privacy and control of your browsing experience are important, but it shouldn’t (and won’t, because face it, people are creatures of habit) just win by default for everyone on that merit alone. There’s nothing I’m aware of stopping them from having easily customizable settings to create chromelike experiences in terms of like...Google owning all the features of Chromium (in the first place, Chromium is open source too).  Especially since the above two are still maintained features, just not enabled by default.

I’m sure if you poll a lot of chromium users you could find a lot more features to implement, many of which are probably already supported, just inconvenient to access. 

Another feature that I’ve seen some people try to fix on a personal level is how firefox’s ‘remember your last session’ is a lot wonkier than Chrome’s.  Since it has one and it just doesn’t work as well, I presume there are more things in the way than the other issues, so I set it aside for the end.  I don’t really remember what’s different, I think it doesn’t save as long, isn’t as consistent?  I just remember getting frustrated with it (among other things) when I was seeing if I could make the jump to Firefox early.  Ultimately, without manifest v3 here yet, the privacy tradeoff isn’t good enough for me to bear the massive UX decrease, and while adblock is too important for me to hold off forever (transition starts next month and is supposed to finish in 6 months), I’m really not looking forward to it after I gave firefox a fair month of trial earlier this year.

On a mostly unrelated note: Edge for some ungodly reason has it so that Alt-Tab goes through individual tabs in a window by default.  This is a setting, but literally why.  Literally who asked for this to be enabled by default.

And yes I know open source, but these issues have all been brought up by way better devs than an amateur like me, so I’m fairly certain they’ve specifically been ruled against, nor am I qualified to manage my own version of it anyway.  And maybe I’m treating firefox contributors too much like a collective who would actively make decisions to increase usability to migrating laypersons to improve crossover and retention, but I’m mostly just venting and frustrated and not expecting anything of it so

Also: If anyone tells me to write my own css to customize stuff like the amount of vertical/horizontal space a tab takes up, you’re losing sight of what normal people can/will do for basic UX.

#are there any other browsers left that don't run on chromium #and are run by trustworthy people #also like firefox hasn't promised not to deprecate v2 for v3 ever right just that it doesnt plan to right now but it will support v3 so #iunno is the internet truly just doomed to get narrow and narrower and more and more corporatized #i miss the early 2000s freedom #firefox is supposed to make a better v3 but its very far away so i wont really have faith in it til its here #and ofc im not smart enoguh to analyze that #its not like i dont trust mozilla but i do think that they and their core community can be rather bullheaded and #invested in their own superiority #which is how they end up falling so far despite having the most important features #cus they neglect the random stuff that builds into a user experience #and the community can be actively hostile if you say you prefer it like it was in your previous browser #which i guess is #one of the main types of open source communities #i feel like tribalism is partly what creates the drive in most major open source things #i'm unsure if i prefer rude but will tell you how to get into the settings and override limits and rewrite things if they know how #or that it can't be changed without making a whole new version #vs the open source communities that are nice but will just say if you want something done you have to figure out and do it yourself because #hey the codes all there #firefox #chrome #manifest v3 #also chrome always seems to run faster by a significant margin #im not sure how to benchmark this or if its just feel #i wonder if this is part of why firefox limits tabs the way it does #in chrome i have had literally 300 tabs open across 3-4 windows and not had any trouble browsing #when i was doing a research paper at the same time as researching something out of personal interest #and then on top of my normal hoarding behavior where im too lazy to open all the game-related forums and news and social media only when im #actually checking them #like i hear normal people just like open one site and finish and another and then end p trapping themselves in a loop

[zyafics]

play fake | part six

series play fake — ( masterlist )

pairing rafe cameron x female reader

summary when rafe cameron needs to secure a gf in order for his father to see him as a stable man, he enlists the help of a bartender who wants nothing to do with him.

content 18+, eventual smut, angst, fake-dating, jealousy, people-pleasing and independent! female reader, ward cameron pinning rafe and sarah against each other, rafe being an asshole

zya's notes thank you so much for your sweet notes in my inboxes!! also, please read the important note at the end 🩷

𓂃𓂃𓂃𓂃𓂃𓂃𓂃𓂃𓂃𓂃𓂃𓂃𓂃𓂃𓂃𓂃𓂃𓂃𓂃𓂃𓂃 ⋆.˚ ⋆.˚ ⋆.˚ ⋆.˚

Rafe's mind is spinning.

He didn't have a plan when he barged into your house. It was short-sighted and willed by his temper. All he knew was the hot, pulsating jealousy raging inside of him and he couldn't do anything to contain it. He knows you're nothing more than a fake title created to impress his father. He knows he can have any other woman in the world. He knows you two aren't real. But, for some reason, despite the lack of formal commitment, he wants you—your sharp mouth, your kind heart, your ability to tease and challenge him in one breath—all to himself.

The idea of sharing you with someone else—a Pogue, nonetheless—irritates and angers him. Because it means that a Pogue can beat him. Is better than him. More suited for your time and trust than him.

And deep down, he knows it's true.

Since you fucked Maybank, there's nothing he could do to change that. Instead, he needs to prove to you, someway, somehow, that he was better.

You said nothing when he wrapped his hand around your throat, your eyes slightly widened and your lips part. His gaze traces the outline of your features, trying to read every minuscule detail to figure out what you're thinking.

"Speak." He demands, his jaw clenching down, his desperation boiling over. Your words are mute. "Fucking talk."

You can't. You're preoccupied with the presence of Rafe Cameron in your home, just a few feet away from your sisters from discovering him, from seeing him here, that it renders you without a response.

"I—" You stutter, your soft eyes meeting Rafe's hard ones. "You're not supposed to be here."

Those weren't the words he wanted to hear.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

You lay a hand on his wrist, not necessarily pulling him off, but in preparation to. You don't answer his question, anxiously looking to the back door. You squint through the tinted screen to see if your siblings are still running around the yard, no signs of them returning to the house soon.

This move—you looking away from Rafe—twists something ugly inside of him. Rafe interprets your glance as another way to look for them, the Pogues; the people who are better than him. His hand slides from your throat to cup your chin, forcing your sight back on him.

"Who the fuck are you looking for?" He snaps, his gaze darkening with each second, pupils dilating, the sound of his own heartbeat drumming in his ears. "Maybank? Are you looking for your other boyfriend?"

You didn't bother acknowledging what he's saying. He's always saying shit. You place a hand on his chest, ready to push him out of the front door but he refuses to budge. "You really can't be here, Rafe, I'm so serious—"

"Or what?"

He hears nothing but the sound of his own blood. He can't do this. He can't stand that you're choosing Heyward and Maybank over him. That they're more important than him. That they get to stay but he has to leave.

He wants to be here too.

You inhale a shaky breath, worry edging around your heart at the idea of one of your sisters walking in. You can't afford that.

"Where's your room?" He demands, his words are sharp and filled with authority. His tolerance slipping. You don't answer him immediately and his grip on your chin tightens. "Either you tell me or I'm going to fuck you right here and I don't fucking care who sees."

His threat is real. Your panic spikes.

Having no other choice, you pull yourself out of his grip—something you know he allowed—and grabs his arm, navigating him deeper into your house. Something about it rubs you wrong; the way he's getting to see more intimate details of your home, where you grew up, where you've been surviving for the past twenty-two years. It's getting access to something you've shielded from most people.

Stepping into the small master bedroom, you close the door behind you, disregarding any attempts to lock it. It's broken.

You turn back to Rafe with a gentle gaze; you don't know where to start this conversation.

"I—"

You don't need to. The next thing you know, his lips are on you and he's kissing you, the blunt force of his sudden action slams you against the back of your door with a loud creak. His hand travels to cup the underside of your jaw, guiding him closer.

It takes you by surprise but you find yourself reciprocating him, the familiar slant of his mouth pressing against yours slowly dissolving any panic, calming your turbulent mind to one focus.

But his touch isn't anywhere soft or gentle. It was rough and demanding, punishment easing its way through his will and onto you.

Rafe breaks the kiss to descend down your open neck and you tilt your head to give him more access, a delicate sigh leaving you. His hand finds itself under your baggy tee and cups your breast. "You think Maybank can make you feel this way?" He whispers against your warm skin, his fingers lightly grazing your nipples in a way that makes you arch into him. "That he can fuck you better?"

When you don't answer him, your mind too muddled to correct him, he pulls back. His eyes are hard. "Do you?"

His insecurities are getting to him. Your lack of response is getting to him. Now knowing that JJ Maybank—a no-named Pogue from the rough side of The Cut that has nothing—could be a potential suitor for you, it opens up the idea that you can be taken away. From him. From this.

He hates it. He hates you.

"Rafe." You start gently, trying to calm him down. It does the opposite. It's only pissing him off more how you can't give him a direct yes-or-no. "I didn't—"

He pushes himself off of you. Taking a step back, his cold eyes scans your clothed figure.

"Take it off." He commands lowly. "Fucking take your clothes off."

You can hear the fury in his voice, how tense and dark it is. You don't try to argue as your fingers toy with the hem of your shirt, pulling it over your shoulders. Your shorts and panties soon follow and you're left with nothing but complete bareness for him.

Your body is insane and his erection hardens in his pants at the sight of you. Standing before him; obedient and naked. He can't help but come to the conclusion that it's only for him to see, for him to touch and please.

And he has to share that?

Fuck, no.

He just has to remind you of that.

Rafe steps forward and captures your lips once more, his large frame covers you with warmth. Now, without your clothes, his hands travel all over—playing with your tits, pulling at your hips, spreading apart your thighs against the door. His mouth leaves yours, sucking on your neck and leaving marks on the curve.

He rolls your nipple between his rough fingers. "These are mine," he declares, tugging them in a manner that makes you arch into him, a mewl leaving your lips. Your mind growing dizzy. His hand lowers to cup your pussy. "This is mine too. I thought we went over this, sweetheart."

You shudder at his touch. "We did."

"Then why the fuck are you letting Maybank touch what's mine?" He growls, his fingers grazing against your slit, teasing you with slow strokes. You arch into his hand, only for him to hold you firm by your hips. "Not so fast."

"Rafe, please," you whisper, your pleading eyes finding his. "I'm aching."

His jaw tightens, conflicted between two things. He wanted to torture you further, slow and agonizing, but he can't help but take in the look on your face that's begging him to fuck you, against this door, hard and fast.

He had to look away, back to your cunt, spreading apart your folds. "Fuck, you're wet," he groans, your arousal collecting on his fingers. You throb at his feather-light touches. "Tell me it's all because of me."

His mouth captures a sensitive spot on your neck, just behind your ear, that you can't help but do anything to what he says. "It's all because of you," you confirm, which grants Rafe to add more pressure on your clit. "Just you, Rafe."

He loves hearing his own name coming from your lips. With satisfaction, his fingers finally plunge into your pussy and he begins to pump. You gasp at the intrusion.

His fingers curl inside of you. "I bet that Pogue doesn't make you feel this fucking good." He asserts.

"Never." You shake your head vigorously, tipping your head back against the doorframe as Rafe works in-and-out of you. The sound of your pussy squelching echoes through the small room. "Oh, fuck, right there. That feels so good."

He adds a third finger. "Oh, god."

"You're so fucking tight," he whispers into your ear, watching your face twist in ecstasy as he stretches you out. "Can't even fit it all the way in."

Pleasure and pain rides together as you mutter no audible words and feel the familiar knot tightening in your lower belly, rising in crescendo.

"You gonna come for me, sweetheart?" He taunts, feeling the way you clench around him, challenging him to pump you further. You nod fervently, moaning with containment. "Right here against this door?"

"Yes, yes."

He pulls his fingers out.

"Get on the bed." He orders, watching with sick amusement at the way your face twists in frustration from the emptiness of his touch. He's proud to make you feel this way. "On all fours. Now."

You want to argue, but you're aching all over. The orgasm on the reachable horizon slowly fading away with each passing moment, that you end up obeying him. With a huff, you go to your unmade bed and settle on the mattress with your knees and palms.

Rafe smiles cruelly, taking in the mental image of you waiting for him. He quickly strips out of his clothes, his cock red and swollen, dripping with precum from the strain. But, when he steps up behind you, he doesn't immediately enter you. No, he wants to make you beg for it.

His fingers trace your wet entrance and you flinch at how sensitive it is. "Aw, my poor baby," he mocks, his voice lacking any sincerity, "do you want to come? Do you want me in you?"

It's so degrading how much you're willing to submit. To reach your release. But, nonetheless, you nod with abandon, every second passing is another unbearable heat between your legs.

"Use your words, sweetheart or I'm not fucking you," Rafe declares sharply, his ringed finger brushing against your clit and running light, broad circles. "I know you know how to use that mouth."

It's too much.

"Rafe, please," you beg, "please come inside me."

Your words make him impossibly more hard, that he couldn't take it any longer. He lines himself behind you, before slamming his cock into your pussy.

The pleasure hits you instantaneously, that you had to bite your bottom lip to contain the loud moan threatening to make itself known. You can't have that. Your sisters are just right outside your wall.

His rhythm is sharp and quick, his movement uncontrolled. "See what happens when you listen?" He grunts, the feeling of you wrapped around him is so fucking perfect. "When you do what you're told?"

"Yes, yes," you mewl, your arms giving out and you sink into your pillows from the force Rafe is pounding you from behind. "I'll be good, I swear."

Rafe anchors himself in a way that allows him to hit your g-spot with precision. You moan louder this time, forgetting your desperate attempts of keeping your voice down. "Oh god, just like that," you encourage, as he feels your walls flutter around him for the second time. "I'm ab–about to come."

He pulls out again.

This time, frustration and anger rolls over you. You're aching terribly bad, the knot in your stomach is growing uncomfortable from the lack of release.

Rafe says nothing as he grabs your waist, hauling you upright as his strong arms wrap around your front. You let out an irritated whine, your peak fading once again.

"What the fuck?" You cry out, on the brink of tears, as your spine rests on Rafe's chest and you feel his hard erection pressing against the small of your back. You know he had to be aching too. "Why'd you pull out?"

He chuckles darkly. "Want me that badly?"

"I want your dick."

He doesn't answer you, his free hand lowering. You can't see it, but the smirk of his face is full of self-satisfaction and pride.

"You can't punish me." You declare, remembering his words earlier. You wonder if this is part of it; leaving you on the edge for so long, you're going to explode. "I didn't do anything wrong."

Rafe begins to run tight circles around your clit, your swollen nub causing you to jolt into his touch by surprise. His speed quickens, drawing you back to your climax.

"Does this feel like punishment to you?" He whispers while you're writhing before him. Your head tipping back on his shoulders while your body is weakening from the strain of past attempts. "Do you want to come?"

You nod your head eagerly, one of your hands enclosing his to make sure he doesn't leave you empty again. "Yes, please."

"Who's fucking you?"

"You."

"Who makes you feel this good?"

"You." You whimper, your orgasm is so close.

"Say my fucking name."

"Rafe." You let out a moan, his cooled ring brushes against your slit and makes your sensitivity heightens. Your hand tightens its grip around his. He chuckles at the sight of your desperation. "God, please, keep doing that. Please don't stop."

Rafe's starting to know your body. Know when you're about to come. He wants you to remember. Fuck the names—the whole idea—of any other men from your head. Only his.

His fingers quickens as he lays sloppy kisses against your open neck. Your hips bucks, your thighs shaking, and your breathing shuddering. The little moans you're letting go, more contained than anything he's heard before, is a mere challenge to his ears. He wants you to be loud. He wants them to hear.

"Come on, baby," he whispers tenderly. "Come for me."

You come on his hand, slumping back against his broad chest as you catch your breath. Rafe doesn't allow you to gather yourself, flipping your position as he lays against the mattress.

Your heart is slowly calming. You blink at him through the haze of your post-orgasm.

"Ride me." He instructs, leaning back against your headboard.

Your breath hitch as he gestures to you to come forward, which your body auto-pilots and follows. You anchor yourself over his cock, lining the hard length at your entrance as you slowly sink into him, hissing from the sensitivity of your recent release.

You're taking your sweet time to get adjusted and, with thin patience and him needing his own orgasm, Rafe grabs your hips and draws you down completely, causing him to fill you to the hilt.

"Fuck," you whine, your eyes teary from the sensation of your overstimulation. You look up to him, wanting to get off, but his hands stay on your hips. "I don't know if I can..."

A hand leaves your side to cup your chin. "You want to make me feel good, don't you, sweetheart?" He taunts. "Isn't that fair?"

You let out a shaky breath before you begin to rock your hips against him, finding a speed where you can control. Rafe groans at the way your body rolls, the way your walls grip him, that he leans back against the headboard.

Your pleasure builds once again, eyes fluttering close, taking in everything. Every spot his cock is hitting, every pressure point he meets, every buzzing feeling in your body. It's all because of him.

One of your hands rubs your clit while the other plays with your pierced nipples. Rafe watches with intent as you chase your own pleasure.

"I love seeing you play with your tits," he groans, because truly, something about you playing with the little metal barbell between your fingers, twisting and pulling, drives him fucking wild.

"Yeah?" You challenge, leaning over. He raises himself, taking a nipple in his mouth as your hands are splayed across his chest to steady yourself. The sensation of his warm mouth sucking and your angle at which you grind against him—you feel yourself rising to your climax again while his cock twitches inside of you.

His arm locks you in an embrace as he comes. His cum spills inside as you straighten yourself back up, rubbing your clit once more, bouncing up and down on his dick as you allow him to ride out his high while you chase yours. His hands lazily slides to your thighs, gripping them as you go faster and harder, your wetness dripping over his abdomen and you tip your head back with an uninhibited moan.

"Fuck." You cry, knowing that that was one of the best orgasms you had, and with how loud you were, embarrassment follows. Rafe sees the look on your face and smirks, knowing he made you break one of your rules.

You slump on his broad shoulder, catching your breath as his hand rests against the small of your back, his fingers caressing your arched spine. You haven't lifted off of him; his cock still warm and softening inside of you.

Worn out, you manage to pull yourself off of him and fall back against the hard mattress. It's nothing like the one you laid on at Rafe's bedroom. With a harsh breathing pattern, you watch the ceiling, waiting to return back to normal.

Rafe follows a similar method, refusing to look at you afterwards, that you twist your head to look at his profile.

You can tell he's in deep thoughts. It pulls you back to when he came into your house, when he stepped into your sanction with this look—this anger. It was nothing like it was before, like it was with his father. This was something completely different.

"I didn't fuck JJ." You whisper in confession, hoping it would ease something out of him, and watching as Rafe finally turns to you with a look of surprise.

"You didn't?" He hates how elated his voice sounds. He tries to suppress the emotion with the blanking of his features, to appear detached, but you caught on.

"No." You smile softly. "He's like a little brother to me. I can never imagine myself doing that."

Rafe's chest lightens. Tremendously. He didn't realize how heavy it felt until you said that. But, his doubt still remains.

"Why was he in your house, then?"

"I was patching him up," you say with a sigh, pulling yourself into a sitting position. Rafe had the urge to grab your wrist and pull you back down. To be here with him a moment longer. "His... something happened. Got into a fight. I was just helping him."

His jaw ticks, "he could've gone to the hospital."

"Do you forget we're poor?" You turn back to Rafe with a defeated laugh. He looks so big in your bed, so out of place, like he doesn't belong. That this world could never be something of his. "Insurance is expensive. The hospital takes forever. I'd rather take care of them without them spending hundreds on normal injuries."

Rafe says nothing as he watches you. Trying to understand you. He's coming up mostly blank.

But, he realizes one thing.

You do that. You help people when they don't deserve it. You even helped him after a fight when he was being a complete asshole to you at Topper's party. Your instinct is so friendly, so giving and undeserving, he doesn't know what to do with this.

It elevates the sentiment that, perhaps, his father was right.

"That doesn't explain why I couldn't be here."

This one, you hesitate to answer. You look away, to the bedroom door where the lock doesn't work and knowing, if your sisters decided to barge into your room right now—there's absolutely nothing you can do to stop it. Fear pricks your chest again.

"Hey." He places a hand on your back. He couldn't beg you to respond. That's pathetic. "Answer me."

"I..." You let out a reluctant sigh. "I didn't want my sisters to see you."

This surprises him. "You have sisters?"

You nod, not supplementing more information. You already revealed too much.

His brows furrowed together. "What do you mean? I'm good with kids."

You chuckle, attempting to lighten the mood. "Yeah, probably with making them, but you can't meet my sisters."

"Why not? Are they scary?"

"No, they're like eight and twelve."

"Then what's the fucking problem?"

"I..." You mess with your hands, trying to rid yourself of this discomfort. You hate telling people about yourself. "I don't bring guys home to meet my sisters. Not unless it's serious."

Not unless it's real.

You think it's all the bedtime stories you read to them. Of princesses and princes, of fairytale endings, and they have this fantastical expectation of love that only happens in books. They want you to find that same love, to be happy, and they get so attached whenever you bring someone new home. Like it could replace the hole in their hearts with your missing parents. So, you try not to get their hopes up.

Because you know. Whatever is going on with Rafe is not your storybook ending. It can't be. You're nothing more than a fake girlfriend, someone he fucks whenever it's convenient, someone he doesn't even consider a friend. Even if you're starting to feel something more, to see him beyond his privileged, over-pretentious self, you agreed to those terms. You're going to stick with it.

Rafe doesn't say anything in return.

The back door squeaks open and your eyes widen as you hear your name being called from the hallway, footsteps approaching your bedroom.

"Don't come in!" You shout to whoever is behind the broken door, their steps pull to a halt.

"Why?" JJ asks. You can see from the corner of your peripheral, the way Rafe's jaw tightens at the sound of the Pogue's voice.

"I'm... I'm naked."

He chuckles with amusement. "I'm sure I can take a peak," he teases, testing the door as it creaks from the disengagement.

Rafe sits up, ready to fight the Pogue, but you lay a flat hand on his chest.

"If you open that door, JJ, I'm going to kill you."

He laughs. The door falls back into place, the deadbolt sliding into the latch, before announcing. "Alright, whatever. I'm just telling you that I'm heading out with Pope so your sisters are going to be alone out here."

"Thank you." You say, your heart is still racing. "I'll be out in a minute."

JJ bids a farewell as his footsteps retreat, and you turn back to Rafe. His expression is unreadable, his thoughts elsewhere.

"They know your sisters?"

You can't decipher the tone in his voice.

"We grew up together, of course they know." You answer, hearing the familiar roar of JJ's bike engine leaving your driveway. You turn back to Rafe. "You gotta go."

He doesn't move when you get up from your mattress, putting your clothes back on.

"What if I want to meet your sisters?"

The inquiry, so genuine, stops you in your tracks. "For what?" You question, tilting your head to the side.

He shrugs.

"I..." You don't know what to say. How the earnest attempt brings a feeling of warmth and buzz to your stomach. "This has nothing to do with our arrangement."

Rafe sucks in his cheeks, swallowing hard, before nodding. "Right."

He gets off the bed and redresses himself silently. Nothing else to be said. He doesn't bother to turn to you to bid a farewell before he goes. Just as he's about to open the bedroom door, you stop him.

"Go through the window."

"What?" His brows pull together. Irritation flares in his expression. "No."

"Either you do that or you have to wait till my sisters are off to bed."

"So what if they fucking see me?" He snaps, making another move towards the door. He didn't understand why it bothers him so much that you're hiding him from your family. He doesn’t care if he breaks one of your stupid rules. You grab his arm before he makes another break.

"No, I'm serious, Rafe." Your voice is firm. "This is one of those things you can't just decide on your own. You have two choices. Pick one."

He's frustrated. He's a bit pissed. He's angry with himself. He can't complain about you wanting to set boundaries with him, with this relationship, because it makes sense. Because, if it was anyone else, it would've been perfect for him.

He shouldn't want to meet your sisters. He shouldn't feel this unburden urge to impress them. To make them like him more. He shouldn't care about you—beyond what you can offer with your end of the bargain—but he fucking does. And he can't fucking stand it.

All he knows right now is he can't bear to be in the same room with you right now. He needs to be alone. With others. People who don't give a shit about him the way you do. Smoke. Drink. Attend one of those parties someone on the island is hosting.

So, he leaves. Through the fucking window, like a teenager again, trying not to get caught by the parents. When he treks to his car, his phone is already in his hands and he was dialing up one of his buddies, asking where the next rager is.

—

You arrived at Sailor earlier than opening time to make up for your absence yesterday. It’s at the same time Heyward opens his shop, that you manage to meet him on the docks as you're unlocking the bar.

He calls you out by name.

"Hey, Mr. Heyward," you greet with a smile, turning to him. "What's up?"

"Hey." He stops just a couple of feet away from you. His expression flits with trouble. "I just... I wanted to tell you that Aaron stopped by here yesterday."

Your heart stops.

"And, I don't know if you know, kid, but messing around with someone like him is—" You cut him off.

"I know." You say gently, adrenaline pulsing through your veins at this reveal of information but you can't let him know that. You plaster on a look of normalcy, trying to calm him down from his worry. The man has known you and your family forever and he can almost be seen as a second father figure to you, but the way he over-extends himself to make sure you are fine makes you uncomfortable. "It's... it's probably nothing."

"Y'know, Luke Maybank got caught up with Aaron once and—"

"I know." You say again, this time, a bit firmer. This get Heyward to back off on you. "Don't worry. I got it handled. Thank you for telling me."

He's watching you, full of concern and wonderment about what's going on with you. You're just a kid, with too much on your shoulders, taken on too many responsibilities at a young age. He's afraid something is going to happen.

"Be careful." He warns, knowing that's all he can offer with what you're giving him. You nod appreciatively, just as he departs back to his shop.

You watch as his figure disappears into his store, and when he's gone, you release a heavy breath. God, Aaron was here? And you weren't? This drives panic in your system, because you know the man doesn't bother you physically unless a deadline is approaching.

You were afraid. You were getting stressed. You have to plan your next steps.

But, you couldn't think of that right now. All you can do is twist the key in the lock and enter the bar, starting your day. 

— part seven here —

hello! my taglist is getting a bit long and exhaustive, so i've shifted into a notification blog! i'm probably going to tag for a few more parts, but otherwise, please follow @zyafics-library + turn on notifications if you would like to follow my stories! taglists: @quicksilversg1rl / @uraesthete / @maybankslover / @trshngyn / @irides-solstice / @kur0obaby / @groovycass / @emmalandry / @rivaiken / @outlawedmando / @ditzyzombiesblog / @mattyskies / @sunshinepanic / @too-deviant / @rafesgiirl / @lafavoritaangel / @bunniii-98 / @vvvhack / @babygoddam / @cami-is-reading / @peachesmilk / @whore4fictionalman / @artemiswinnick / @janediazwindsor / @pandora-rosier1 / @solanathascientst / @itshellie / @grace-sully / @loveyouok / @tayrcse / @mysteris-things / @ella131989 / @starrkissezz / @sanriobuny / @chopshopcheesecake / @fentyxmalik / @fleets-world / @supernaturalwriter / @taylorsmissamericanna / @hehelollmao / @lac0nically / @elysiasshit / @kravitzwhore / @tommysaxes / @ma-yangg / @carolinaxvz / @bandsbooks / @sourjoonie / @rafemotherfuckingcameron

#rafe cameron #rafe obx #rafe x reader #rafe outer banks #rafe imagine #rafe smut #rafe fic #rafe x you #rafe fanfiction #rafe cameron fic #rafe cameron smut #obx fanfiction #obx fic #obx x reader #obx smut #rafe cameron x reader #rafe cameron x y/n #obx #rafe cameron x female reader #outer banks #zya's fics #zya's play fake series

[kingkyks]

why did I choose a job which requires a lot of organisation and with so much responsabilities ?? it doesn't match my personnality I want to cry

#I love this job #I enjoy it a lot #but I also feel like I can't handle it ?? #so many people (included myself) expect so much of me... #like much more than what I can provide #and some kids still tell me that I'm really nice and that they love me #I don't feel like a nice person #I raise my voice too much imo and I don't have as much patience as I would like #and I do everything at the last minute #and I feel like I don't teach well enough #maybe I'm being dramatic because I'm not supposed to have figured it all out in the first month #but I used to tell myself that even if it goes wrong and I'm bad at teaching at least I'll be gentle and provide a safe place for the kids #well who would have guess it would not have been easy to handle 20+ kids when you have no experience with children #anyway class begins in 5 hours so it's time to go to sleep I guess

[azaleaniath]

~ AO'NUNG X FEM! SULLY! READER ~

Terrible liar

summary: Ao'nung loves to mess with your siblings, as they always get mad. Your reaction to his behavior though not only confuses but also frustrates him. Why are you always nice to him?

includes: swearing, cuddles, bullying, injuries, soft and harsh psychical touch, denial, anger, falling in love

SFW

5.4k words

------------------------

You lived in Awa'atlu with the people of the Metkayina clan for a while now.

Some of them were curious about you and your siblings. Others ran off as soon as you were near. Some of them even seemed to be disgusted by your presence.

Ronal did not want to have you here. She was certain that you would bring war and death above her folk.

Tonowari on the other hand had a kind heart and allowed you to stay here. If he would've been in Jake's position, he would've pleaded for Uturu as well, at least for his children.

The chief's daughter Tsireya proved to be a bubbly and lovely girl who had helped you voluntarily from the moment she saw you. She always helped wherever she could.

And then there was his son Ao'nung. He used every chance he got to bully you and your siblings. He found it absolutely amusing to see you fail, it entertained him to get especially Lo'ak all angry.

Seeing your brothers and sisters all pissed and annoyed was fuel to his fire. To him, is was only a game. A game he always won. Or so it seemed at first.

"Ooh, what have he here? A forest freak~" His friends laughed at his dramatic pronunciation. You sat on the dock all alone, carving an ilu out of a peace of wood you had found underwater.

You looked up to Ao'nung and his two friends with a genuine smile. "Hey guys, what are you doing?"

Your friendly voice already disgusted him, but he loved to mess with your family.

"Better question, what are you doing there?"

Reaching your carving out to him with a proud face, you watched his grin turn into a disgusted yet still amused expression.

"Can you see what it is? I'm as good as done! If you want to, you can keep it." Your smile did not seem to lessen, even when Ao'nung snatched the wooden figure out of your hand. He heard you wincing, but he did not really care.

For a tiny moment, his mask fell. The carving was very impressing, it really looked just like a mini ilu.

"Can't tell. You forest freaks don't have any other talents apart from swinging through trees."

His friends took a look at it as well, bragging about how 'awful' it looked.

"You could've just asked me to hand it to you, Ao'nung. It's supposed to be an ilu."

As you checked your hand, he also noticed the bloody cut across the palm of your hand. Now seeing that he had actually hurt you, he almost felt bad for it.

"Aw, did little (Y/N) get hurt? You're gonna run to you big brother now?" one of his friends teased before throwing the carved ilu into the reef.

"Whoops~" he flashed a wide grin, but you still smiled as friendly as before.

Instead of being angry, you thanked him, calling it a good idea.

The three boys watched in confusion as you sheathed your knife and jumped after the wooden ilu, retrieving it from the depths.

Once you came back to the water surface you held the carving out to them again. "I can practice diving like this! What a wonderful idea, thank you!"

Ao'nung looked into your eyes, trying to hide his grin and instead faked a mournful face.

"I should apologize for my behavior. I'm sorry for treating you like this. Boys", he turned to his friends, "apologize to her too."

They only looked at him in confusion. Ao'nung, saying sorry? There was no way.

"Seriously, guys. It's wrong to treat her like this."

For a moment you hoped there was an ounce of truth to his words, but before the thought could even blossom, his devilish smile returned to his visage.

"It seems that poor (Y/N) hurt her head, she probably fell face first off a tree. That's why she's so dumb."

His friends laughed together with him, so loud it also caught Tsireyas attention.

"That would explain everything!" They wheezed, slapping their knees while Ao'nung wiped his tears from all the laughter.

"What's going on?" Tsireya asked, as she rode closer on her ilu.

You showed her the carving you had worked on all day, and she immediately fell completely in love with it.

"That's so pretty! It looks just like mine. Here, look-"

She held the wooden ilu against hers, comparing them.

"And it's so small, it fits right into the palm of your hand!"

With that, she reached out to your wrist to place the ilu back into your hand, as she saw the fresh cut.

"Ow, you need to be careful while carving, (Y/N)."

When Ao'nung saw Tsireya inspecting your hand, he almost felt bad since the cut was his fault.

None of your siblings behaved like this. He loved how aggressive they got, his ego fed on that.

But you were so pure, so kind. It confused him. More accurately; it didn't even feel satisfying to mess with you. But why didn't it bother you?

You almost reminded him of his sister, even more as he saw you two next to each other.

"Let's just go, guys." He murmured with a shaking head and left.

~~~~~

The next morning you trained ilu riding with your siblings again.

Kiri and Tuk had already taken off as they had mastered these animals pretty easily.

Tsireya tried to teach it to Lo'ak, Neteyam watched closely.

Much to his displeasure, Ao'nung was designated to teach you.

"You're still doing it wrong, ugh! Get it together!" he hissed quietly, so that your brothers wouldn't hear him.

You shrugged lightly while he held his temples in annoyance.

"I'm sorry Ao'nung. But if you could teach me more precisely, maybe we can get through it quicker."

The young man sighed and grabbed one of your knees unpleasantly, pressing it against the ilu.

"Close your damn knees, skxawng. Now try again."

You gave a thanking smile. It worked better already, you noticed, as you took off for a quick round with the ilu before returning to Ao'nung.

"Finally. Took you long enough."

He turned to leave, but you stopped him with a hand on his shoulder. "Wait!"

"What else do you want? Unlike you I have something actual to do."

You guided your ilu closer to him to pinch his cheek.

"I wanted to thank you. For taking your time-"

"Like I have a choice." He slapped your hand away. "I'd rather be hunting."

You huffed at his comment and nodded. "You're always so stressed and angry, how about you come over and we teach you some human ways to calm down through training. A smile yould suit you so much better." 

Instead of a proper answer, all he gave you was that confused and disgusted look again.

"You're wasting my time."

With that, he swam off to the shore again and you decided to join your brothers and Tsireya again.

"(Y/N)! You got it!"  the young woman happily cheered while your brothers high-fived you.

As you looked back to Ao'nung, you caught him looking back to you as well. Once he noticed he turned away quickly, and it almost looked as if his cheeks seemed darker than before. Was he blushing?

~~~~~

A few days passed. You sat at the docks again, simply enjoying the warmth of the sun, until you noticed a shadow over your face. You felt someone kicking your leg, which made you open your eyes soon after.

"You think you can live here, sitting around doing nothing?" Of course it was none other than Ao'nung again.

"I've been busy until half an hour ago. How was your day?"

Ah, there was it again, that friendly smile you carried on your face, no matter what he said to you.

As you watched him closer, you noticed his bruised face.

"Great mother, what happened to you? Are you okay?" you asked while getting up to take another close look at his bruises.

Backing up a bit, he turned his head slightly.

"You can tell me how it happened, i won't tell anyone. Why don't you come to my marui, I can treat your wounds there?" He visibly froze as you invited him over. Something inside of him screamed to agree and follow you, yet he knew if your brothers would be there, he wouldn't get out alive.

"I'm a man, I can handle myself. I don't need you."

Why did he felt like he just lied to himself? Something about the sentence felt wrong.

Not listening to him at all, you grabbed his hand and dragged him over to where you stayed. Even though he refused to go with you verbally, he almost automatically followed. It felt like he was losing control over his own body.

A relieved sigh escaped from his lips as he saw that there was nobody else in here but you.

"Sit down, I'll treat your wounds. Just hold still for me, will you?"

Ao'nung internally cursed himself for following the order so easily. What kind of magic was this?

He hated you to hell and back, wanted to have nothing to do with you at all.

All he did was mess around with you, and yet you sat here now, treating his swollen face.

"Did someone hit you? You know", you gathered all of the utensils you needed before kneeling down next to him to take care of him, "I thought my brother was a troublemaker, but you're an entirely different story."

The young man did not say a word. All he did was stare at the ground, wondering why his heartbeat was betraying him.

He jumped at the cold feeling of the paste on his skin.

Giggling quietly, you covered your mouth with one hand.

"It's not gonna burn. Trust me, it will help you."

You spread the paste over his cheek with gentle touches. Some of it you also smeared across his bruised chest. He prayed you wouldn't notice his pounding heart which he couldn't even explain to himself.

"This will help you. See, that's better."

The treatment pleasantly cooled him off right away.

Ao'nungs eyes followed yours in mental absence. "Why are you always so mean to my family? We don't want to harm you, we just want to survive."

Your blatant words hit him like another punch and pulled him back to reality.

How the hell should he anwer this? He just didn't like your family. You were strange, different and new. He hated it for some reason.

On top of that, messing with your siblings just entertained him. But messing with you was... frustrating. And yet so strangely addictive.

You shifted into a more comfortable position and mustered him carefully. These doe eyes of yours almost made him feel guilty again.

"You seem so frustrated. Usually, people mess with others if they are hurt. They mostly are unhappy with something about themself. So in case you need to talk, know I'm here, listening."

Before he could get any word out, your parents returned to the marui. Neytiri and  Jake stepped in, looking at the two of you sitting on the ground. The entire energy around shifted in an instant. Jake decided to speak up. In english.

"Looks like your mind games are working, huh?"

"I think so. You should see how mad he gets when I don't react."

Ao'nungs body nervously tensed up from not being able to understand your words.

Were you talking about him?

Jake was very happy and proud that at least one of his children didn't argue with this young man. Instead, your mind games actually seemed to have an influence on his behavior.

You got up, held a hand out to Ao'nung then. He ignored your help and got off the ground by himself.

By now, your treatment had already eased some of the pain of his bruises.

"What did your father say?" he asked rather quietly as you walked him out of the tent a bit later. You bit back a smile seeing him so suddenly humbled.

"Oh, not much."

This didn't really help him at all.

"What kind of language is that?"

He slowly walked besides you, his posture not as arrogant as usual.

"English. I can teach you if you want?"

"Demon language?", he huffed, "What am I supposed to do with that?"

His eyes landed on you. After watching you closely for a while, he gave in.

"Let's hear it."

A wide smile spread across your face, and you gave it your best shot to teach him some basics. If only he knew what they actually meant...

Soon you arrived at the marui he shared with his family. They all looked rather surprised seeing the two of you actually talk to each other.

Tonowari walked over to you and greeted you with a simple nod.

Ronal also came closer, inspecting her son's bruises. Her eyes widened in surprise as Ao'nung told her that you had treated him, and she found nothing to complain about.

"We're eating soon. Why don't you join us?" Tsireya offered kindly. Seeing the two of you next to each other without him pestering you was a nice change of scenery for her.

Ao'nung looked at his sister in confusion, and something inside of him was pretty relieved yet also sort of hurt as you thankfully rejected her kind offer.

"I'm sure my family is waiting for me. I'll better be going. Good night."

As you gently patted his back, his muscles immediately tensed up again. It burned anf tingled, wherever you hands layed on his skin.

After saying goodbye to his family, you turned and left, leaving the young man rather speechless. Something about you worked like magic on him, and he absolutely hated everything about this.

He felt weak around you. There was nothing he could do to get you out of your positivity.

As he sat down to eat with his family, Tonowari mustered his son silently. Since you had treated him, he was so unusually quiet and seemed like he wasn't present with his mind.

"My son, it is good to see you getting along with (Y/N). She seems to be a nice young woman."

He did not answer, but only stuffed his mouth with his food so he wasn't expected to talk. Tsireya listened to her father attentively.

"Maybe you should invite her to eat with us?"

While Ao'nung stopped chewing immediately, he looked up to his father unamused, unlike Tsireya, who giggled at her fathers words.

"What a great idea! She's such a sweet soul, and apparently a great healer too! You've been circling her a lot lately, Ao-"

"Over my dead body. I can't stand her."

His father took a deep breath.

"If Tsireyas words are true, and I've seen it myself, it is rather hard to believe."

"I said I cannot stand her! What would I like about her? Her baby tail, her weird yellow eyes? Or her skinny arms?"

His words immediately reprased in his head. That delicate, graceful tail of yours that he caught twitching whenever he picked on you.

These shiny, golden eyes, which seemed so full of love.

Your elegant, almost fragile looking wrists which he could just wrap his hands around so perfectly.

"She's beautiful, Ao'nung, stop saying mean things about her!" Tsireya defended you in your absence, before their father spoke again.

"She seems like a good person. Bring her over to eat with us tomorrow evening. She can be our guest."

The young man balled his fists, both at his fathers words and his thoughts.

You were an ugly freak. Nothing more than that. A four fingered freak.

"Father I-"

"It is the least thing you can do since she treated your wounds." Tonowari said rather loudly, to which Tsireya agreed nodding.

His guts were tossing and turning. He wanted to hate you, but how could he? You had done him no harm.

"Agh!" he hissed in annoyance before he got up again to take a walk on his own, to sort out his thoughts.

'She is a freak. A forest freak.' Internally repeating this over and over again, a recent memory started to crawl up in his mind.

As you had treated him, your touch on his chest had burned. It felt like his skin was on fire. Yet not in a bad way, rather like a warm, tingly embrace.

You treated him like a friend, still all he did was pick on you.

You never took any defense. You never got mad.

It made him feel awfully bored at first, but that boredom turned into frustration, confusion and in the end; guilt.

Usually his ego fed on your hot headed siblings getting annoyed and even aggressive through his behavior. It was fun. But the more he bothered you, the worse he felt about it.

He wanted, no, he needed to get rid of these disgusting thoughts about you.

~~~~~

Tsireya hopped over to you and your siblings with a wide smile. All of you greeted her with the same energy, especially Lo'ak who was head over heels falling for her.

"Good morning, guys. Should we start with breathing lessons?" She asked, still smiling happily.

"Sure!" Lo'ak answered right away. You and Neteyam exchanged amused looks at his reaction.

"Wonderful. I see, you guys are getting better and better at swimming as well. Unfortunately I'll be teaching you alone today."

The girl smiled at you especially, as if this had to do with you. Did you miss anything?

"How come? Your brother's throwing tantrums again?" Neteyam joked, making everyone huff.

"Not at all. He's hunting right now, we're having a guest tonight. At least, that is the plan."

"A-a guest?" Lo'aks eyebrows furrowed at her words. Was she probably seeing someone he didn't know about? But she just shook it off quickly, seeing how his heart was about to crumble.

"Let's get to training, shall we?"

~~~~~

After training you decided to sunbath and relax in the sunlight on the docks again. Getting better at swimming and holding your breath did not make it less exhausting in the end. While dozing off, your thoughts gathered around one thing only; Ao'nung.

You couldn't help but smile at the thought of him. He was a pain in the ass sometimes, but after all, something about him made you all warm around your heart. By now, him trying to annoy you was almost something you adored. He tried so hard to make you mad, there was something cute about it.

You were almost sure that he actively seeked you even if it was just for his own entertainment.

The intense smile on your face almost hurt your jaw and cheeks, which lead you to the decision to cool yourself off. Immediate regret hit you after sinking your hot body into the cool water beneath the docks.

Your head started spinning soon,

swimming was only hardly possible.

"(Y/N)!" you heard a voice call out.

Yet you did not react, thinking this was only fabricated by your brain.

With heavily lidded eyes you tried to hold yourself over the water surface until you felt a hand wrapping around your waist.

Someone supported your body and held you up so you could calm down from the shock. Your upper body fell forwards in dizziness, against the chest of the person that held you up.

"Brother...?" you mumbled, trying to figure out who was supporting you.

"Yeah, take another guess."

It was Ao'nungs voice which was pretty close to you. While resting against him, you dropped the weight of your head onto his shoulder.

"And here I thought you didn't like me?"

Your voice was still quiet, even if the spinning lessened slowly.

"Don't get any ideas, skxawng. You helped me yesterday, so we're quit."

While he talked to you, you got even more comfortable against him. Never before had he been so close to you, but you were thankful. Him being caring for once was also something you could get used to.

Even as the spinning in your head disappeared slowly, you decided to stay like this.

"Did I get promoted from 'freak' to 'skxawng'?"

Ao'nung still held you close. One arm hugged your waist completely while the other one supported your back. He had gently pressed one of his knees between yours for more support, so you got to sit on his thigh.

"You're both."

You couldn't help but silently giggle at his comment, but so did he.

Your hands grabbed onto his shoulders while he still held you in his arms safely. You could swear that his hands traced along your back the slightest bit.

"How do you stay over water so calmly without your arms?"

"Cause I don't have such a thin baby tail like you."

You wrapped your tail around his waist, hearing his breath hitch as you tickled him like this. His facial expression hardened.

"It has other benefits." you grinned against his shoulder.

Again. He made fun of you and you laughed about it.

Ao'nung bit his lip in anger.

"You're weird."

"The way you don't give up mocking me is adorable and fascinating. Maybe this is just your love language?"

Chaos raged inside of his racing heart.

How the hell did you turn his insults into something so lovely? That's not how it was supposed to be.

He pushed you off of him and dipped your face under the water surface.

"Is this how you show your affection?" you asked with an amused smile once you came back up.

Ao'nung simply groaned and swam back to the dock, getting himself out of the water. You followed him and held him by his shoulder.

"Thank you for helping me."

His blue eyes stared at you in confusion. He was confused through not just your words, but also his feelings.

"Should've let you drown." he cursed before pulling away from your grip.

"Where are you going?" you asked as he stomped off, following him for a few meters.

"Prepare food for tonight. Why else do you think I went hunting earlier?"

"Right, your sister mentioned that you are having guests tonight. Who's coming?"

Ao'nung sighed, he didn't even look at you but just left.

"You." he said while walking away.

~~~~~~

You had spent the rest of the day with you siblings before going over to the chief's family marui.

"Dude I'd trade my ikran to be where you get to be tonight!" Lo'ak hissed at you.

"She isn't even trying to, bro", Neteyam laughed, "I guess she is the chosen one."

His exaggeration made Lo'ak turn his eyes. He would've done anything to get invited for dinner with Tsireya.

Kiri sat next to you and fumbled with her braided hair. "I don't think it was her choice, and I'm certain it wasn't Ao'nungs choice either."

You looked at her nodding, then back to Lo'ak who was still more than jealous.

"Is (Y/N) going on a date?" Tuk asked, she didn't fully understand what was happening.

"Yes." Neteyam grinned.

"No."  You corrected right away.

Tuk didn't understand. But in all honesty, neither did you.

Neteyam pulled his youngest sister into his lap and covered her ears before speaking again.

"He has to choose a mate soon, I'm sure Tonowari had this in mind when inviting you."

"As do you, dear brother. I'll better go, don't wanna be too late."

With that, you got up and left. It only took a few minutes until you arrived at the home of olo'ekytans family. Tsireya was the first to greet you, she got up as soon as her eyes landed on you.

"It's so good to see you!" she cheered happily while leading you inside.

You greeted their family with a humble gesture before sitting down at the place between Tsireya and her brother.

Ao'nung barely looked at you. Ronal and Tonowari on the other hand mustered you from head to toe.

"Our son's bruises healed in no time. May I ask what exactly you used?" Ronal asked with high interest.

"I've used yalna bark. I know you don't have that here, but I brought some from home."

Ronal nodded in approval.

She seemed to like you, so the first ice was broken.

Tsireya meanwhile got some of the grilled fish on a flat leaf that served as a plate and handed it to you.

"So, do you enjoy our customs and our way of living?" the chief asked, thrilled to get to know you better. He had no doubts about his son following his footsteps, but he needed a wife, and a worthy one at that. Some times already he had seen the two of you interact, Tonowari was sure that you would be able to handle Ao'nung well. On top of that, you were the daughter of another olo'ekytan and tsahik.

A few hours passed in no time. You sat with the chiefs family, ate, talked and laughed until it was late at night. It was getting so late that your father even came to check on you to make sure you were still with them.

Tsireya turned to yamn silently, it had been an exciting and exhausting day.

Most of the time you had talked to Tsireya and Tonowari, even Ronal had gotten comfortable to talk to you a bit more. Yet Ao'nung didn't say anything unless he was personally spoken to. He only watched his family and you interact.

Over the time, he caught himself staring a few times, and so did his sister. She found it rather amusing to see him like this while Ao'nung hated the fact that his heart wanted to jump out of his chest whenever his eyes landed on you.

He wanted to find negative aspects about you, but during his mission to find anything, he only ended up appreciating the smallest details about you more and more.

"I'm glad you joined us tonight. Know that you will always find a place here in the future. Feel free to visit us anytime."

Ao'nung clenched his jaw at his father's comment and took a deep breath. He hated how his father was trying to get the two of you together.

"I think I will go to sleep." Tsireya announced in a tired voice before she got up and went to her mat.

"As should we all." Ronal said, visibly tired as well. The chief hated to throw you out, he would've liked to see you and Ao'nung interact more.

You got up and wished a good night to the entire family, thanking them for the invitation and the meal before leaving  the marui.

As you did, you watched watched the stars burn bright above the horizon.

What a pretty sight, you thought, until your ears twitched at the sound of silent voices.

"Son, I'm not discussing that with you!"

"She's old enough to walk home alone, isn't she?"

"It's about courtesy and politeness!"

You sighed as you heard Ao'nung and his father arguing and hissing at each other.

"I can't stand her anyway! I hate her! She's an ugly forest freak, useless and stupid! It's annoying enough already to teach her our ways, I can't wait for her to get back to wherever the hell she came from! Disgusting demon halfblood!"

"Ao'nung!"

Even if you did like him, his words did not hurt. You knew that he had a weakness for you no matter how much he denied it.

You looked back to the marui as its curtains swung open, only for Ao'nung to step out in fury, he wanted to cool his head off, but as he saw you so close he was sure you had heard him.

Even if he said the same things to your face already, he was still shocked that you heard his words. But seeing you smile nonetheless was something he did not understand.

"You're a bad liar." You smiled while looking up into the stars again.

"There are some things in this world that we have to accept. Some things we cannot change. It's childish to think we could control them through denial."

You calling him childish only fed his fury. Ao'nung balled his fists in frustration.

He wanted you to leave and never come back. You made him weak, made him lose all focus whenever you were around him. The most embarrassing part for him was the fact that bobody believed him anymore. More than anything he denied his feelings for you but nobody seemed to believe it.

Was it so obvious?

He came a few steps closer only to drag you away with him. Nobody else was supposed to hear this conversation.

No matter how frustrated he was, his thoughts betrayed him again.

Ao'nungs curiosity about your wrists got confirmed; he could just wrap his entire hand around them. It fitted like they were made for his hands.

Shaking his head once, he got rid of the thought. At least, he tried to.

You looked around to where he was leading you. In no time he had guided you to a small bay, away from the village, where the two of you could be alone.

He turned towards you and pulled you closer by your wrist.

"Why?" was all he managed to get out, but all you did was look at him in confusion.

"What why?"

Aonung closed his eyes for a second, trying to remain focussed.

"Why are you so nice? I don't understand! I treat you like this, I pick on you every day and all you do is laugh! You never defend yourself! By Eywa, why are you so friendly? Why do you like me?"

You watched how he got completely mad, his eyes were filled with rage.

"Frustrating, isn't it?"

"You've been doing this on purpose?!"

His jaw dropped in anger while you simply smiled.

"You mocked me and my siblings on purpose too. It's fun to see them get mad, right?"

Ao'nung was completely speechless. It suddenly clicked in his head. All you had ever done was making him feel how he made your siblings feel.

And now that he thought about it, your behavior was only fair.

Something deep inside of his mind visibly changed. His anger turned into realization. He couldn't be mad at you, as much as he wanted to hate you.

"See, Ao'nung, I was never mad at you because that is what you wanted to achieve."

He swallowed the big lump in his throat. Nothing compared to the hatred he felt for admitting that you haven't done anything wrong. His tight grip around your wrist had loosened, his furious eyes seemed to calm down as well.

You came closer to him and took his hands instead, but he pulled away. Sighing, you engaged once more and placed both hands on his cheeks to hold him in place.

"Be honest to yourself; do you really hate me that much?"

At the question, his eyes darted right at yours, then softened at the sight of your gentle expression.

"... Maybe not that much..." he mumbled in shame, knowing this was definitely an understatement.

Your thumbs caressed his cheeks while your over four fingers softly traced over his neck.

"I forgive you, Ao'nung."

He almost overheard your voice since he was only paying attention to your soft touches and these golden eyes of yours which he secretly adored so much.

Once more he swallowed as he lost himself in your eyes.

As guilt took over his heart completely, he simply pulled you closer and held you pressed against himself. His arms fell around your neck, one hand buried in your hair, caressing your head carefully.

"What I said to my father about you-"

"No worries. Like i said, you're a terrible liar."

He swallowed heavily at your words again. Was he so transparent for you?

"I know you like me. But you've grown on me as well." you giggled into the crook of his neck.

"You're weird... but at least you have a good taste in boys..." You looked up to him, his face actually turned into a genuine smile.

"You're a skxawng , you know that, Ao'nung?"

You pinched his cheeks playfully until he pulled away, only to lift your head and look into your eyes once more.

"And you're a freak. My freak."

#aonung #aonung x reader #aonung headcanons #aonung imagine #atwow #atwow x reader #atwow ao'nung #ao'nung #ao'nung x reader #avatar 2 #avatar the way of water #avatar 2022 #avatar way of water #avatar x reader #avatar x you #avatar x y/n #sully!reader #atwow fanfiction #metkayina #omatikaya

[patdkoala]

I Don't Hate You

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x Fem!Reader

Warning: Angst, enemies to lovers, smut, nicknames (Doll and Charming), unprotected p in v, masturbation (Fem), Oral (Fem receiving)

I'm not entirely convinced that Bucky doesn't hate me.

His resting face is also his angry face. And he's always looking at me in that tone.

Like right now. He was just sitting there staring at me.

"What?" I asked while looking up at him.

"Nothing, just... thinking."

"About?"

"You wouldn't want to know."

Now what the fuck is that supposed to mean?

"Try me," I said to try and get something, anything, out of him.

"Don't push it, kid."

Oh, I hate it when he calls me that.

I grit my teeth. "Fine, don't tell me. I don't care anymore.

"Fine by me." His tone was sharp. He spoke with such anger towards me and I didn't know what I ever did to him.

Bucky is handsome, sure. He's tall and largely built. The metal arm alone scares away almost everyone.

But there is something about him that I find incredibly charming.

But in a stuck-up asshole Prince Charming way.

"Whatever, Charming," I sneered back at him.

Bucky scoffed when I called him that. "Charming?"

"Yeah, you know because you are a jerk like Prince Charming," I said as I got up from the couch and poured myself a drink.

"Hey, at least I own up to it. Unlike some people, who think they're God's gift to womankind," He said as I nearly killed him right then and there.

"I AM! Have you seen this ass? And my tits? These are fantastic. You just wish you were one of the many men I have that get to touch me."

"You're as shallow as a kiddie pool."

"Confident. I'm confident. Not my fault you cry when you look in the mirror."

He sighed and I could have sworn I saw a hint of a smile. "I don't know why I waste my time with you. I could find a rock with more personality than you."

I had had it with him. He is such an asshole.

"Why do you hate me?"

"I don't hate you. Hating you would mean I loved you at one point and grew to hate you. I can't stand you."

"Wow. Fantastic. How about I go outside and help you find a rock with a great personality?"

"Be my guest."

I set down my drink and walked towards the door. He was standing in front of it.

"Oh, you have got to be kidding me. What are you doing?"

"Getting a rock. What does it look like?"

"No you're not," He said in a stern tone.

"What are you saying?" I was so confused. First, he wants the rock. Now he doesn't.

"You're not going outside to find a rock," He said it but it felt like a demand.

"I'm not?"

"No. You are not."

"Are you asking me not to? Or telling me not to?"

"I'm telling you."

oh

My breath caught in my throat as he just stared at me. There he was. Again. Just staring at me.

"What is going on in that mind of yours?" I asked with actual curiosity.

"You really wanna know?" He asked as interest peaked in me.

I couldn't even speak I was so excited. I just nodded like a mindless bimbo.

He got closer only to whisper, "I'm trying to figure out why in the hell I haven't left you in the middle of the woods yet."

Asshole.

I pushed him back against the door but not in a flirty way. More of a shove before storming off.

He doesn't even flinch. He just glares at me as I storm off.

I go to my room to cool off. I obviously like him but he doesn't like me and I am just going to have to deal with it.

I decided to work out. I needed to get this fire out of my system. I blasted my music into my headphones as I started my routine.

The workout wasn't working. I needed to matters into my own hands. Or, hand.

I made sure my door was locked and when I did I saw Bucky in the living room doing push-ups. He was trying to cool off as well.

I am going to make his life very hard. Well, and something else.

I sat on my bed and slipped a hand into my shorts. I started off slow but then built up tension.

My fingers felt nice but they weren't him.

"Oh, Bucky~" I moaned quietly as I came.

That was when I heard the knock.

I got up and opened the door.

"I hope you didn't think I didn't hear anything."

"Oh, but I was intentionally being loud for you, Charming." I smiled as I raised an eyebrow.

He rolled his eyes. "Of course you were."

"Is there a problem?"

"Yes, actually."

"What is it now? Gonna tell me how much you hate me? How much you wish I was dead? Or maybe-" "I was just going to ask that you keep it down when you finger yourself."

"Seriously? That's it? No snide comments?"

"Don't temp me."

"Oh, but it's my favorite thing to do!" I whined.

He just stared at me. Again. So, I stared back. He turned around and walked away. I rolled my eyes and followed him.

"Do you seriously have to follow me everywhere?"

"No. But I just want you to tell me the truth." I said as I followed after him.

"What truth? That you're a pain in my ass? That I want nothing more than to ditch you?"

I was actually hurt this time. "Is that actually true?"

"Yes. Yes, it is."

"Because I need you to be very honest with me, Barnes. If that is really how you feel then I will just head out and you will never have to see me ever again."

"Fucking guilt-tripping. You're not gonna leave, and you know it."

"Watch me." I felt the fire inside me rise.

"Oh please, spare me. I know you. You wouldn't make it a week on your own."

I rolled my eyes. "And why is that? Why do you think I need you all the time?" I was practically screaming at him at this point.

"You are the most dependent person I have ever met. You would die without me."

I thought for a second. "No. No, I think it's the other way around. You'd die without me and you just don't want to admit it. I swear you are such an asshole."

"And I think you are in denial. That's why you cling to me so much because you hate being alone with yourself."

I scoff. "I think you are forgetting how okay I was with myself not too long ago in that bedroom in my own hands."

"Oh yes. I remember. You were so "okay" you were grunting and groaning for half an hour." He paused and took a breath. "You want the truth? I'll give it to you. Right now. You're a spoiled, ungrateful, whiny, little bitch," He said I was slightly taken aback but I didn't flinch.

"Oh, come on. Say it like you mean it." I roll my eyes one last time.

"You'll be back here in a day you useless piece of-"

"Save it. I'm leaving."

"Fine."

I went to my room and honest to God packed a bag.

I went back towards the front door and saw that Bucky hadn't moved. I lifted my hand to the handle. I was going so slow a snail could have stopped me.

I wanted Bucky to speak up and say something. Stop me from leaving. But he just stood there.

Then he cleared his throat.

"Oh, this should be good. What is it now?"

"Please... don't go..."

I was speechless.

"Give me one reason. One honest reason to stay," I finally spoke.

"Because..." he doesn't continue.

"Exactly. That's why I'm leaving. You only want to fight me when I'm here but you won't fight for me to stay."

"Don't go. Please," He said in a breathy sentence.

"Why?"

"Because I don't want you to go."

I didn't know what to say. He was just staring at me. Again. I swear to God this guy has got a problem.

Except this time he looked vulnerable.

Helpless.

Needy.

"Are you asking me to stay? Or telling me."

"I'm fucking begging you."

I dropped my bag and turned around so that I was standing closer to him. It was taking everything in me not to pounce on this man and rip his clothes off of him.

We were so close that I felt his breath hitch.

Say something God Damnit!

He didn't say a thing.

He grabbed me by the waist and pulled me into a kiss.

"I- I thought you hated me," I said in a breathless sentence.

"I do." He said as he brought his mouth to my neck.

I moaned as he touched me so feverly. I had never felt something like this before.

The passion. The rage. The fire.

He pulled me closer as if it was even fucking possible, and he started to kiss down my collarbone.

"Bedroom- the bedroom-" I stuttered out.

Bucky smiled in a way I had never seen before. He had mischief in his eyes. He picked me up and carried me to my room.

He put me on the bed and crawled on top of me.

Mother fucking Bucky Barnes was crawling on top of me.

He held our gaze as he removed my shorts and soaked panties.

He held our gaze as he moved to the edge of the bed and sunk his teeth into my inner thigh.

The only time he looked away was when his head was too far buried in my cunt to even notice his surroundings.

I tugged on his hair and tried to pull him closer. I was so close to coming and we were only on that bed for maybe 6 minutes.

"I know, Doll," He said as chills went down my spine.

I wanted more.

"Mhmmm," I moaned out at the empty feeling as he got off me and then he removed his shirt.

I sat up and ran a hand down his chest.

The muscles.

The scars.

The happy trail.

The sweat.

I wanted to lick him.

As my hand was gliding down his glistening chest, he removed his belt and pants.

He was so hard that part of him was poking out of his boxers.

"That looks painful," I said as he slowly pushed me back onto the bed.

"You have no idea what I have been going through all day today," He said as he pushed his knee between my legs to spread them apart.

"All day?" I questioned.

"When you asked me what was on my mind while I was staring at you from the couch. I was thinking about how hard my dick was and what it would feel like inside you," He said as he moved his boxers down just enough to get free.

I kissed him roughly and bit his bottom lip as he lowered himself into me softly so I could adjust to his size.

He then held onto one of my legs. "What-"

"I need to get a better angle." He said as I felt like I was splitting apart.

I moaned so loud as he started thrusting into me. Hard.

His hips snapped so fast and the whole bed shook.

He was the one grunting and groaning now.

"Oh, Bucky~" I moaned out again but this time with him inside me. Happily.

"No, use the nickname," He said as I smiled. "I did. Bucky-" He stuck a finger inside just to hit my clit.

"Charming!" I yelped out as felt myself getting closer and closer.

His hips started faltering and my legs were starting to tremble.

"I- 'm close Doll," Bucky moaned out as I sat up a little more so he could really get up in there.

"Me too, Charming," I said as his eyes rolled to the back of his head. I think I hit a nerve with that last one.

I moaned so loudly as I came around him. He came very soon after. I think the feeling of me pulsing around him was too much for him.

He pulled out and then cleaned us off with the henley he had thrown off.

He laid down next to me and pulled me close so my back was to his chest.

"Do you still want me to go find you a rock?" I asked as he laughed.

"You are insufferable."

#sebastian stan #sebastian stan smut #sebastian stan x reader #bucky barnes #bucky barnes fanfiction #bucky barnes smut #bucky barnes angst #bucky barnes x reader #bucky barnes x reader smut #winter soldier #bucky smut #bucky x reader #bucky fanfic #bucky imagine #bucky x y/n

[gay-otlc]

When people say they struggle with keeping track of all the tone tags (the ones like /j or /gen), everyone who disregards that by responding "it's just memorizing some abbreviations/acronyms, it's not that hard, stop complaining" is ableist and a fucking hypocrite. If you're going to advocate for accessibility, advocate for accessibility for all of us.

You can't claim to be an ally to neurodivergent and disabled people and then shit on us for our symptoms. If you actually care about helping us, why aren't you listening when we say we struggle with something? It's never okay to tell disabled people they should be able to do something they can't, that it's not that hard, but it's especially not okay if you do so while pretending to support disabled people.

Also, in addition to the "it's not that hard" statement being ableist, it's utter bullshit. There are so many tone tags to keep track of and memorize. I did a quick google search and one of my top results had ninety one tone tags. That's a lot. That's probably a lot even for a neurotypical person, and I'm not a neurotypical person. I struggle to remember a lot of basic, necessary tasks, so I really can't memorize ninety one tone tags.

Especially when some of them are incredibly ambiguous- only one letter? Acronyms or abbreviations at least give you some clues, one letter tone tags are so incredibly confusing. Like, what does /t mean? There are a lot of words that start with T! (This is a rhetorical question. I know /t means "teasing," but I only know the answer because figuring that out was a memorably frustrating experience.)

And /t is just one example of a tone tag I learned because I kept seeing it in conversation and not understanding and being really confused and frustrated. I can't tell you the number of times I've been messaging someone on discord, and they say something with a tone tag I don't recognize, and I just open a new tab to google the meaning, which is where I find lists like the one above. I usually rely on google instead of asking the person what they meant, because I feel stupid and embarrassed for not knowing this code that everyone else seemingly gets.

Which is exactly how it feels when I don't understand someone's tone in real life! Confused and frustrated and ashamed. And tone tags were supposed to help neurodivergent and disabled people not feel that way, so I don't know how we reached a point where they cause those feelings in many of us.

I can't deny that tone tags are a useful accessibility tool for some. If you find them helpful, it's genuinely good that you have that resource. But they're not accessible for all of us. It's incorrect to act like tone tags are a perfect way to communicate, and it's ableist to disregard our struggles with them and tell us to just try harder.

Either listen to those of us who say they have trouble understanding tone tags, or stop pretending you actually give a shit about accessibility.

#this was meant to be just those first two paragraphs about ableism + hypocrisy but then i kept on rambling. i am incapable of shutting up #anyway. had some thoughts about the disk horse and then i had more thoughts and more thoughts and more thoughts #tone tags #tone indicators

[callofdudes]

Best idea

Y/n had to go MIA/KIA to keep the 141 safe, once Simon founds out angry cause he mourned for his best friend only to find out their alive and in hiding, demanded platonic cuddles as their “punishment”

Ok, I'm gonna get the brain juices running for this one. Another one based off a story my bestie @itsscromp and I did. But I changed it up. Hope you enjoy, it's longer than I anticipated it being.

Also, I should have fully expected the repercussions of letting you guys vote Egg as a callsign... but I'ma still use it.

Where did you go??

Summary: They thought you were gone, dead. Turns out you were under their noses and a call away the whole time.

Cw: Angst. Nothing much else.

Your mission had gone... Well for lack of a better word it went to shit. Whole thing blew up. An ambush, a bomb, it would be a long road to explain what all in all happened but it did, and now you were paying for it. It had gotten so bad they couldn't pull you from the junction you were stuck in.

You were supposed to be infiltrating an old base which had become home to a drug ring. But no one happened to mention the mines you'd step on and fuck up your leg with. Or the live wire that alerted the whole base after said mine went off.

So now this entire base was up in arms, you have a broken leg and probably other damage. You were lucky your leg hadn't been blown off.

And to be quite frank, these men were extremely dangerous which meant your fuck up was astronomical. The second they found you you were probably going to die.

So you commed into Price, telling him your situation.

"Alright Egg, I'm going to go in on foot and bring you back to the helicopter just hang tight soldier."

"Yes sir." You lay down, catching your breath and willing yourself not to look at your leg because if it felt bad it probably looked bad too.

Not twenty minutes later Price was approaching your form, bending down to check on you. "You broken??"

"Yeah I'm pretty sure... I don't want to look though."

Price nodded, tucking his gun away and grabbed your arms. "Alright, up we go," he hauled you up into his arms, hefting you over his shoulder and going back the way he came. Just... A little quicker this time since things were looking good for the oppositions infantry.

Price brought you back to the helicopter where you were bandaged up. The mission could have been better planned so they didn't end up sending another team out.

Price had the team drop you off near some loading stations far off the location of the base.

"What... Are we doing here??"

Price got out of the helicopter and checked your leg before pulling you out with him. "I can't bring you back to base. It's a security risk if I do..."

You frowned. "What do you mean?? Where am I going then??"

"There's a secure underground safehouse that will keep you hidden. It's got the provisions you need and the people you need. They'll keep quiet and keep you safe. For now, for however long, I need you to lay low."

You opened your mouth to protest but then shut it again. "I understand. Will I get to see the others..?"

"No, you are not to contact them in any way at all. Until I contact you, you are to remain on the downlow."

Your head falls slightly, but you nod. "Alright, I can do that."

Price nodded and patted your shoulder. He picked you up and helped you into the truck waiting for you. "They'll take care of you. I'll contact you as soon as it's safe. If I do not contact you do not contact us. Got it?"

You nod once again, taking the instructions to heart. You wouldn't be able to contact Ghost, Soap or Gaz. You wouldn't be able to contact anyone. But you knew this was for the best.

So with a last goodbye Price closed the door to the truck and the soldier in the driver's seat drove down the empty road out of the landing space.

"How long will we be gone??"

"Until we get the word from Captain Price. Don't worry. It'll be kept under wraps..."

...

Price returned to the base, taking a deep breath and having had time to figure everything out. He immediately called the others into a meeting.

Considering you and Price weren't supposed to be back for the rest of the day, or even two days or more the meeting was seen as urgent.

Ghost was there first, the sergeants following his trail as they came into the office. "Price... What are you doing back?" Ghost asked sternly, hands clasped tightly as if ready for action at a moments notice.

"Relax... There won't be any fighting. I need you all to sit."

Soap threw Gaz a concerned look as they sat. "Where is y/n, are they still out there??"

Price straightened his posture. He didn't exactly want to lie to his own men, but he'd done worse and he knew this was completely for the best.

"The mission didn't go well as soon as we went in."

Ghost frowned. "Didn't go well?? These drug traders could be connected to Shepherd's on power, how did it wrong??"

"Ghost, relax." Price replied firmly. "I realize that we didn't think this over as well as we should have... Their base was much more protected than we originally thought so Egg went in blind."

"So what happened? Did you pull them??" Ghost was growing more agitated the longer they sat there.

"They commed in about an exploded mine and... We couldn't find them."

The room grew quiet. Soap and Gaz shared concerned looks as Gaz spoke up. "Did you do a full search? We're they hidden in the dirt or something and you missed??"

Price shook his head. "Too risky to go on foot and search. We didn't know how many more mines were out there." Only a small white lie, but a lie nonetheless.

Ghost squared in his chair. "Then we need to go find them. What are we sitting here for just waiting-!"

"Ghost, if they are safe they'll comm in. For now I can't risk sending men in there with the base on high alert and their supposed boss on speed dial. So for now we sit down and we wait to see if Egg comes back with anything."

Ghost was boiling up underneath. Feelings of rage that Price couldn't have waiting a little longer. Worry because they left you out there probably still alive... And fear. Because what if you weren't alive.

"I won't make any calls on it now, but this is where we are at so remain patient. I'm doing what I can to sort this out." Price had to rewire this plan to keep all of his men safe. All of his soldiers, including you.

"Dismissed."

The air was tense when everyone left. The idea you were out there alone, still alive and possibly if not injured and with no help. It scared them all.

Gaz was the first to try and get in contact with you. But any of his efforts were proving ineffective.

Soap just had to wait it out. To hope they could find you or you could find them in time.

Ghost... Ghost didn't know what to think. He knew you were capable. He knew if you were alive then you'd comm in. Once you were safe he knew you would make contact. You could protect yourself... He had to believe you would be ok.

That mentality lasted right up until a week later when Price called everyone back in to pronounce you MIA. Stamped on a card to your file and just like that, they truly had zero traces of you.

They were devastated. A week and no turn of anything from you. This is when Simon started to call your phone. Leaving you text messages.

He couldn't sleep because all his thoughts and dreams were of you. Hoping you were ok and alive. That hope was dying, waking up in cold sweats on nights he could close his eyes for even a moment.

Clutching his beating heart while his body rattled with panic, phone pressed to his ear only to hear your voice over the same simple voice mail as ever.

He couldn't be without you. You were a crucial part of his life. Of his mission. He couldn't just abandon that connection. You had to be alive.

Price cut communication with the safe house you were being taken care of. Unless it was an emergency Price knew not of your condition, only that you were safe. He too was worried, bouncing around through meetings and talking with Laswell and this and that and the other thing.

Trying to figure out what to do now that they needed a new plan and how long they could wait to re-infiltrate.

Simon had started leaving you voicemails, not knowing if he'd ever hear your voice again.

"Hey, this is Y/n, I'm currently busy but please try to leave a message so I can get back to you!"

Simon laid awake, staring up at the ceiling as he held the phone to his ear.

"Y/n.... If you can hear me you gotta respond. Please, I don't know if you'll ever hear these again but if you're somewhere out there I know you're alive. Anything, please, I..." He closed his eyes, thinking back to the last time he saw you. Taking off in that helicopter, a pat on the shoulder and a good luck...

"I miss you. And I'm not giving up on you. I'm not." He wouldn't cry... He wouldn't cry. He would not cry.

"I'm going to come find you. I know somewhere you're still alive. Even if their torturing you I promise I won't leave you out there to die you hear me."

Tears rolled down his cheeks and he covered his eyes, curling up on his bed. "I know you hear me...." He choked out. "I know you can hear me...." He stares at the phone. "Please Y/n.... Please, anything..."

He stared at the phone, waiting like you would magically pick up and reassure him even for a second that you were ok and alive and even if you weren't thriving you were still breathing.

But no...

The voicemail lasted for over an hour. Simon laid there, staring at him phone, unable to bring himself to hang up again.

His thumb hovered over the phone. He wanted to say one last thing... He opened his mouth, but he hesitated. His eyes downcast and one last tear rolled down his cheek as he ended the call once again. Only to face another restless night of no sleep.

By the eighth month mark you were pronounced KIA.

Simon had pretty much known by that point. He'd lost his best friend but he had been in denial until Price told them. They couldn't find a trace of you. No body, no tags, no clothes, no weapon. You had simply... Vanished.

Simon continues to mourn all while you were still being held up in that underground safehouse. Sitting on the small rickety bed, watching the higher ranked soldiers also staying watch at the safehouse talk in the other room.

It was beyond difficult. No contact with outside, you ate, slept, the others tended to your leg and occasionally sparred with you to help you back on your feet.

You missed your team. Your friends. Your family.

You listened to every single voicemail Simon sent. You couldn't reply. Couldn't text him back or even pick up the phone for a second to let him know you were ok.

You remained radio silent.

Even as you'd lay awake at night with your phone replaying the voicemail, listening to the recorded lapse of Simon's breathing while he stared at the phone with an empty, sorrowful expression from the other side.

You missed him so much. You wanted to see them again. But you couldn't. Not yet. Would you ever get to see them again?? They couldn't leave you down here forever.

There was a brief knock on your door as one of the sergeants nodded to you. "Food is ready, new supply just came in."

You nod, pausing the voicemail. "Thanks... I'll be out in a minute."

You sighed, turning off your phone and tucking it away, praying that you'd see them soon.

...

Simon had lost you. Didn't even get a chance to protect you. It had gotten to the point where his lack of sleep would lead to seeing figures of you disappear down hallways. In a spark of hope and joy he'd rush to find you only to find nothing...

On the off days he'd run into a recruit or a sergeant wandering the halls. As soon as they would turn around though... The illusion would shatter.

His own mind was killing him from the inside. Sending you hundred and hundreds of text messages. Every morning and night, rants about his day and what he was feeling. If he was going to pour everything out like you'd ever see it he did it now.

Knowing you'd never pick that phone up again, knowing you'd never look him in the eyes again. Knowing he'd never hear your voice or feel your touch or know your comfort ever again.

This drove him further and further into the spiral. Price had never seen Simon beat up the punching bag so much he bled all over it. He'd never seen Simon get snappy and angry I'm split decisions like he did.

He'd never seen Simon grow so desperate and over protective of Johnny and Kyle. Because Simon's new fear was he'd lose them just like he lost you...

This went on for the next three months after that. Nearly a year since you'd died and they were back out on that minefield. A proper plan, a new way in, a new goal.

Simon was desperate to tear that base apart and even find a trace of your body. Even just a piece of your clothing or your signature engraved gun hanging in their armory somewhere.

But in the end he was left with no more questions answered than when he first entered that meeting room eleven months ago.

Simon had followed the trail to the last thread. The main office of that base. Pulling open every drawer and every cabinet.

"Lt stop you're making a mess-!"

"There's got to be a file or something here! There fucking has to be!"

"Ghost stop we found the information we needed. We have the shipments contained the base is clear what could you be looking for??" Gaz asked, trying to understand what had gotten Ghost in such a frenzy.

"A kill list or an interrogation chart. Anything."

"For what Simon!?"

"For Y/n!!" Simon snapped at them both. Breathing heavy as he finishes emptying every drawer in that office.

Price stood silently in the doorway. Enough time had passed. He wouldn't put them through this anymore.

"Come on lads... I think it's time I show you something."

Their attention turned on to him. Simon was almost vibrating with rage and anxiety. He just wanted any knowledge of what happened. He knew you were dead but his soul was restless without knowing. He needed to know...

They left, Price piled them in the helicopter and the ride back was silent. Simon stared at his hands the whole time. Soap fidgeted, knee bouncing and chewing his lip anxiously.

Gaz picked at the loose strap of his gun, also attempting to distract himself from the elephant in the room.

When the helicopter landed they weren't on base. They landed on the small helipad you had been brought to some some before. Price got out, motioning the other three to follow.

"Where are we Price??" Soap looked around, not recognizing the place.

"You'll know soon enough." Price brought them to a truck, talking with the officer in charge of the station before climbing in the driver's seat.

The sergeants got comfy in the back and Simon slipped into the passenger seat. His eyes remained fixed on the passenger window, watching the open land pass by and the fields of undisturbed flowers and wildlife.

What if he had found you here? May you would have liked that better. Surrounded by the flowers and the soft blowing breeze instead of wherever your body lay, ashes or not.

He turned away, fixing his eyes to the dashboard to try and distract himself.

The ride was quiet once again. Lasting about an hour and a half before Price stopped, parking the vehicle outside a small outpost of sorts. It wasn't build very high off the ground and was concealed by trees and wildlife.

"A safehouse. Why cannae we jus' go home??" Soap asked as he jumped out of the vehicle with the others.

"I'd prefer we made a stop here." Price said, leading them to the entrance where surpisingly a soldier was there to bring them in.

"Occupied? Now there's something new." Gaz whispered to Soap.

Simon didn't understand why they were even making this stupid trip. He wanted to go back to base. He wanted to hide once again like he always did.

"Captain Price, welcome back." The soldier shook Price's hand and walked them further inside.

"Sergeant! Their here for you!" The soldier called out, walking to one of the small rooms where you were. Where you spent most of your time.

You looked up. Who was here for you?? Your eyes widened. Them, your team! It had to be them they were back!

You pushed off your bed, leaning into your good leg and moved faster than you had in almost a year. Turning the corner and there they were. Price, Simon, Johnny, Kyle. All of them.

But.... This wasn't the hopeful reunion you'd pictured in your head over and over again. No one moved. The thought of Simon rushing the hug you didn't come true as he didn't move.

Price walked over, embracing you. "Good to see you again sergeant." You hugged him tightly, so good to be held by him, embraced by Price again. You'd missed him so much.

Johnny was the second one to snap out of it, running over and wrapping his arms around you tightly. "What the hell is wrong with you doing this! You had us all sick and worried and heartbroken!!"

"It wasn't my plan... I'm sorry." You hugged Johnny back. "I'm so sorry Soap, I'm so sorry." Johnny couldn't stop his tears, not wanting to let go in fear you'd slip away again.

Gaz followed, hugging you tighter than you'd ever felt him do before. You'd never seen Gaz openly cry but he was balling, sobbing as he hugged you tightly.

"We thought you were dead, captain told us you were dead!"

"I had to do it to protect them... To protect all of us." Price knew this would probably take a bit for them all to come to terms and forgive him for, but it had to be done.

When the others were done cooing and coddling over you, there was just Simon left.

He felt alone. He felt cold and separated. He felt like he wasn't a part of the same bubble as the others... He watched them embrace and kiss and love on you... You. It was you.

You turned to him, but Simon didn't move. He didn't know if he could. He felt so consumed by his darkness and his grief it didn't allow him to step into the light.

He'd consumed himself so much if he touched you he felt he might burn. That you fall like sand from his fingertips and the illusion would shatter...

"Simon...." You whisper, stepping toward him, causing Simon to step back.

You could see the fear in his eyes. The lack of trust, the amount of hurt, the pain he must have went through to have one of his lifelines ripped away and then thrust back into his life suddenly like it was fine.

"I'm... I'm sorry Simon I didn't mean to hurt you. I listened to every voicemail you sent. I knew every text that went through. But I...."

"You could have told me you were fine! You could have told me you were ok!! Bullshit that you couldn't!! Bullshit!!" Simon thundered.

You remained silent. Simon glared at Price. This was his fault. You'd been taken away without warning. He could have kept it a secret he could have carried that knowledge and not been out through a years worth of fire from hell!

Simon threw his gun to the ground, not even carrying as he left again.

"Lieutenant! Simon!" Price called after him as Simon left the safehouse.

You placed your hand on Price's chest. "Don't... It's ok. Let me help him."

Price looked down. But he nodded.

You left the safehouse, finding Simon around the corner huddled up, shaky hands trying to light a cigarette to get his nerves to calm down and his mind to clear up.

"You hid from me." He cursed, acting like he was seconds from spitting your name into the dirt and squashing it. But you knew. You knew inside he was hurting more than anyone else on the team.

You knelt beside him, gently taking the lighter from his hands. "I never meant to hurt you. If I didn't have strict orders from Price I would have contact you right away."

"Why couldn't he have at least told us you were ok. That you were alive."

"I... I don't know Simon, you'll have to ask Price about that one. But I promise I never meant to hurt you. I listened to every voicemail, I didn't give up. I can see the pain it caused you."

You moved closer, slipping into his arms and hugging him tightly. The second you wrapped your arms around him. He felt your weight, your warmth, your heart pounding in your chest against his own.

Simon finally looked at you, tears spilling down his cheeks. He was shattered. So hurt from losing you.

"You fuckin' abandoned me!!"

"I didn't abandon you Simon. You know I would have picked up and came running back even if my leg was missing."

He knew it was true. But he was so... So angry and torn and upset. He wanted to scream and fight and he felt so small and helpless.

The real you.

Not some illusion passing corners or drifting through his peripherals. The you he could touch and hold and protect.

His arms wrapped around you tightly, never letting go of you even once. He didn't stop those tears as he pulled you impossibly closer.

"I'm here Simon. I'm not leaving again ok? I'm right here."

He remained silent, crying as he held onto you. Hiding his face in the crook of your neck. It felt like hours passed. It felt like time slowed. What felt like two hours was twenty minutes when he finally pulled away enough to look at your face.

To see the light in your glimmering eyes, to see every feature of your face that made you, you.

His sergeant. His teammate. His family.

You smiled softly, gently pulling up his mask off his head to cup his cheeks, rubbing your thumb gently over the dimple in his cheek you've seen when he shows you his smile.

"Smudged your paint a little bit," You whisper. "Let's get that fixed." You gently brush your finger over his face, feeling him start to relax at that familiar and missed touch as you fix the paint around his eyes.

"There we go. How can I help Simon. What will help make this better?"

Simon tried to flick away the rest of his tears, huffing softly. "Cuddles. And you are not allowed to say no after what you put me through. This is your punishment for making me go through that shit!"

You chuckle. "Oh, cuddles with Simon, scary. I'll pay the fine, I'll do all the punishment time of cuddles you request. Sound good?"

Simon nods his head.

"Ok, well how about we go inside now? I could use some cuddles too."

You were about to get up when Simon hugged you again. "I'm glad you're ok..."

You smiled softly, kissing the top of his head. "I am too Simon." You help his mask back on and the two of you head inside.

Simon would let out his feelings to Price sometime later when his head felt less foggy. For now, he was content to crash on the rickety old safehouse bed and koala cling to you till kingdom come.

Nuzzling up and holding you tightly, not letting you go for even a itty bitty millisecond.

And you were fine with that. You were glad you could be back with your family. Simon was glad to welcome you back. You'd be serving a lot of cuddle prison time. A strenuous task, but one all too rewarding.

Running your hand down the back of his head, scratching his back to help him relax and set himself at ease.

All he needed was to koala crush your soul into his soul, and then he'd be ok. Slowly, his eyes started to close after the exhaustion of the mission, but he fought to keep them open.

"I'll be right here when you wake up. I promise, I won't be going anywhere." You whisper to him.

"You promise?"

"I double swear it. I won't leave. I'll be right here."

He snuggled you impossibly closer and let his eyes close. He let his mind rest. His heart soak in you and heal. Slowly you could help mend what has fallen apart.

And cuddles were never a bad place to start...

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