#he deserved the sweetest dream the world can offer

[onysfavreader]

Random hc of being Ony's hyperfemblack!wife

You getting spoiled way to much but Ony who doesn't mind because his girl deserves the universe and more

Ony who can never have enough pictures and videos of you on his phone because he is quick to show you off at any chance you recording little maintenance vlogs for your photo shoots together

Ony who just loves you so much and never want to not see you smile

Ony being the only one to help you handle your emotions and make you feel better because he knows you can't help but be so emotional "Shh baby tell me what's wrong" "What happened ma why you look so upset"

Picks you up if you try to walk away from him when you're upset

Ony letting you decorate bc you're helping each other create your dream lives and that included giving you your dream pinterest house and closet lmao

You being the only one who gets to see Ony's soft side after you spent forever trying to get through to him like he put you through the worst when you first started talking but now he makes up for it every day and you brag about it to yourself because it took you forever to get him to that point

You not being any better in the beginning of your relationship those half assed ‘situationships’ could never prepare you for your relationship with Ony your the reason ony’s patience and trust for you is as high as it is

You two giving golden retriever and black cat energy Ony doesn’t look like he likes anyone and doesn’t but is the sweetest ever once you really get to know him especially to you and you looking the sweetest on the outside but you’re are worse then people think Ony is

Ony supporting you through everything and you doing the same even if you don't know exactly what he's doing you trust him

You walking around wrapped in a robe or one of many blankets almost everyday bc your always cold until Ony caught on buying you hoodies and jackets in his size just to see how cute you look when they cover so much more of your body than his

Ony giving you all the hugs kisses and praises he can because he knows you fiend off his attention and will throw the worst fits when you don't get it

You holding onys two fingers instead of his hand bc he's so big

Ony who lifts double your weight on a bad day this and just picks you up and you love it until he pisses you off "Put my ass down now" you shout trying to push him away "Why you not talking to me ma what's wrong" "Boy fuck you" "We gotta work on the mouth of yours" "Ony put me down" You laughed as he carried you to your bedroom “Don’t laugh now” “Baby I’m sorry” “I don’t want to hear none of that ma”

You absolutely loving Ony and the life you've built together

You're only piece of gold jewelry is an anklet with an 'o' charm and you refuse to take off even after he offered to get it in silver

Buying Ony just as many if not more flowers then he buys you

Ony and you having two dogs that are your babies. Ony's being some big 'scary' dog like a black pit bull that absolutely adores you and your a cute little brown toy poodle that Ony tries not to trip over bc they follow him almost as much as you follow him

You and Ony would have different "rooms" that would be your own space yours would be in the attic and he would have his in the basement but you two would still have your bed room

Ony never letting you know what he does for work but he keeps you safe and happy so you push your suspensions aside

You and Ony being the cutest together like your head over heels for him and he completely adores you

You being onys entire world and universe sun and all with the brightest smile on your pretty face and biggest heart

You both having to learn to love but know you want to be with each other for the rest of your lives so you push through the rough patches

Ony cooks and you bake

Ony doing the bathroom, dish, taking out the trash, fixing things, lawn work, bills, bugs, ect

You organizing, decorates, takes care of the dogs, cleans laundry, houses maintenance, groceries, ect

You and Ony who spoil each other rotten and love it

You doing Ony's hair and it's just a cute moment between you two every few weeks one of you will set up the bathroom before going to get the other then you'll sit on the sink with him in front of you most off the time it's quiet as Ony watches you concentrate

You rarely buying Ony gifts because you're always making something for him

You never being able to get enough of Ony

You have the prettiest garden with flowers herbs and fruits that you somehow managed to scared the dogs away from and plug!Ony will some times ask for help when growing his weed

- smut

Definitely the daddy dom of your my dreams he can be the sweetest softest dom ever or the scariest brat tamer but a pleasure dom either way

You almost being apillow princess bc Ony loves being the one to make you cum just by using you but you knowing how to suck it off the bone and neither of you can resist having him down your throat

You being a sweetheart but when you aren’t you can get a horrible attitude and smart mouth only Ony can handle because he knows how to keep your mouth full

Ony can't help but come inside of you so he pays for your birth control

Ony's 's so big and strong and so so big especially compared to you and you love it just the thought turns you on like just looking up at him while you standing next to him maybe holding his fingers and all you can do is squeeze your legs together

Ony fucking you in his hoodies

His voice is music to your ears but His praise will make you're eyes roll back and brain go dumb every time "Fuck you're so good baby just like that" "There you go ma"

You calling him daddy bc what is an Ony

Being each other's biggest eaters

Ony will pick you up and carry you away to your bedroom when he needs you and when you need him you’ll wrap your arms around his neck and your legs around his waist or you’ll straddle his lap until he eventually gets it

You are definitely kinker then ony hands down and has to teach him things like

You liking soft intimate sex and Ony who fucks you so hard you go dumb almost every time And somehow he always knows which one you need

#aot x black reader #ony x black reader #plug!ony #ony x reader #aot onyankopon #ony smut #aot smut

[rancidpancakebatter]

Love n' Locs | {P.P.}

Pairings: MCU!Peter Parker x Black!Female!Reader

Summary: Peter, your love, helps you with your hair. (Takes place after nwh)

Word Count: 4.4k words

Content Warnings: Minors DNI Smut (female receiving), shower sex, multiple orgasms, swearing, May's death is mentioned briefly but nothing graphic, tooth-rotting fluff that made me cry while writing it

( Masterlist )

A/N: HAPPY BLACK HISTORY MONTH!!! I PROMISE TO BE AS INSUFFERABLE AS POSSIBLE!!! (and also to not write angsty black!reader fics during this time because we have suffered enough. Only Joy <3 )

You had the sweetest boyfriend in the whole world. He was so lovely and entirely devoted. He brought you flowers. He knew your favourite foods. He gave you hoodies and kisses when you were down. He held you close and listened intently. He encouraged you to chase your dreams and held your hand when you got scared.

You had never known love like this before. The kind that steals your breath every day. But that was just who Peter was. You would never get enough of him- but what was even more amazing, you know he feels the same.

He was a white boy, and you loved to tease him about his previous love interests. He always got a rosy blush when you called him a “snow bunny,” but he never got offended, recognising that you were only joking. He would sometimes call you his “melanated queen,” but only when making fun of people who did so sincerely.

He was refreshing in that sense. You had been around more than enough “woke” people who weirdly worshipped your blackness, but not Peter. He celebrated it; he celebrated you. 

Race wasn’t something that came up often between you. He would listen to your frustrations as they arose, but he never commented on the fact that you were black.

He never fetishized or tip-toed around you. Peter was a genuine ally, never feeling like he had to make a show of how much he believed your life mattered. He just supported and only acted when you asked him to. He may have a hero complex, but he didn’t suffer from the white saviour complex, and for that, you were grateful.

You woke up this morning feeling almost overwhelmed by that gratitude. Peter was asleep, his curls strewn about the pillow. You had convinced him to grow them out. You promised to play around all day with his hair, finding the right products and creams to use. He agreed because he loves it when you play with his hair.

His lips were slightly parted, plush and pink. A smattering of freckles across the bridge of his nose glows in the early morning sun. They were very subtle, almost imperceptible unless you got the opportunity to track them down, inches from his face. You were happy to say you got that opportunity often.

Basked in light and in your arms is where he belonged. Not on the streets, fighting crime. He deserved to rest. He was exhausted last night. His eyes were half closed as he clambered out of his suit, tripping on the feet. He only agreed to a shower when you offered to join. You would have joined regardless, but there was no way in hell this man was climbing in your sheets covered in soot.

“I can feel you staring.” A small smirk pulled at his lips though his eyes remained closed.

You didn’t respond with words, instead deciding to pepper his sweet face with kisses. You felt his smile grow as you went, until it fell into a full-on laugh.

You swear his laughter had a direct line to your heart, the sound filled you, and your heart swelled to adjust. His hands found purchase on your hips and rolled you over until he was on his back and slotted between your thighs. His favourite place to be.

“You’re just so nice to look at, so handsome,” You tease.

You continue in your ministrations, your lips painting a path from his jaw to his cheek, his eyelids and his brows, up his forehead and down the bridge of his nose. All while cradling his face. Holding him like he was your most precious possession. Something deserving of the Louvre or the Tate. You poured out your love, letting it seep into his soft, golden skin.

While Peter was a giver, he struggled to receive. You took any opportunity to remind him how much you loved him, how much you appreciated him. You felt his deft fingers worm their way under your sleepshirt, where they fronted an attack.

“Pete!-”

You collapsed against his chest as your body racked with giggles. He flipped you around again, and you could do nothing as he continued to tickle you.

“Pe-Pete, no!”

His hands stilled but held you firmly. You slowed your breathing and finally opened your eyes. They were met with glowing stars, burning bright and filled with adoration. You tucked your head into the crook of his neck, feeling flustered by his unabashed gaze.

He only chuckles as he pulls you up to sit in his lap. His hands move to your back, painting soothing circles across your skin. You melt into the touch. You get hit with another wave of love, feeling it pulse against your ribcage. You begin leaving kisses across his neck, trailing across his collarbones. Peter takes the time to work his hands up your sides, massaging the muscle as he goes. You truly are putty in this man’s hands.

You find yourself on the other side of his neck, releasing a sweet sigh as his hands worked over your shoulders. His hands move to your neck, focusing on any knot he finds until they’re all gone.

You wrap your arms around his waist, pulling yourself closer and encouraging him to keep going. He removes your bonnet, setting it to the side, and massages your scalp. This was heaven. You moan at the feeling, and Peter chuckles.

“I really should be doing this for you.” Your words are muffled and slurred, but you know Peter hears them.

“Eh,” He shrugs, “it’s black history month.”

You both fall into a fit of laughter. Eventually, his hands disappear from your scalp, reappearing under your chin. You let it guild you, bringing you face-to-face with him. His smile is lazy and warm.

“Do I get any real kisses this morning?” You tilt your head to the side and pretend to ponder it. 

You let out a dramatic sigh, though, with your wide smile- you fool no one. “I guess you’ve earned it.”

Kissing Peter was one of your favourite pastimes. In a perfect world, your lips would only feel his skin. Always attached in some way. But these kisses were your favourite. The kind where your smiles get in the way. The slow and steady kind, where there’s all the passion but none of the rush. You simply get to be, enjoy, and love. His are soft and sure.

You feel safe here in his hands, treasured. Your arms rest lazily around his neck, your nails tracing shapes on his back. Peter tilts his head, deepening the kiss. His tongue swipes at your lips, and you don’t hesitate to part them. It dances with yours and makes you dizzy. You get lost in it for a moment before you pull away. Peter whines, and you can’t help but laugh at his little pout.

“Sorry, bub, I got a full day ahead of me, and I need to get started.” He squeezes your waist, and you jump as your nerves alight, sending those familiar giggles to your brain.

“But it’s your day off,” he says through his frown. “And mine…we get the whole day together.”

You lay a quick kiss on his jutted lip, “Yeah, but it’s wash day. And I wanna braid it out. That’s gonna take all day.”

Peter hangs his head in defeat for a moment before it shoots back up. He beams, sitting up straighter as he presents his idea. “I could help.”

Scepticism falls on your brow, “You wanna help…?”

He looks at you as if you’ve issued a challenge. “What? You don’t think I can?”

You laugh as you link your hands behind his neck. “I think you can; I just don’t think you understand the commitment you’re making. It takes me upwards of nine hours to do my hair.”

He wraps his arms around your waist, pulling you closer and resting his chin on your chest. Your hands run through his hair as he gazes up at you like you hung every star in the night sky. “Well, I’ll be here, and you’ll be here, so I might as well help.”

You couldn’t argue with that logic.

“Peter, when you said you’d help, I didn’t think you meant like this.”

You were currently in the shower with your boyfriend pressed against you. His hands trailed up and down your stomach as he pressed sweet kisses down your neck. You felt his lips tug at the side, a smirk you knew well.

“Don’t worry about me. You can wash your hair, just pretend I’m not even here.” His lips find the spot that makes you shudder. He holds you closer, knowing your legs weaken when he does that.

“That’s not fair; you’re very distracting,” you retort as your hand reaches up to tangle in his hair.

Pete’s hands find your hips and give them a firm squeeze. He knew you loved it when he showed off how strong he was. He was playing you like a fiddle, but you couldn’t bother to be mad.

“Do you want me to stop?”

Peter knew the answer. He caught the way your pulse quickened when he suggested you shower together. He heard your breath hitch when he took off his pants. He could smell you even as he lathered you with soap. You just liked to tease; you liked to act tough. But your bravado quickly crumbled for him. And he loved that. That your gentleness, your piety, was only for him.

“No”

It left your mouth in a puff of air. So soft and sweet, whispered with the water. Peter wasted no time dipping a hand into your slit. His finger probed around, collecting your slick and teasing you further. His foot found yours and kicked it, spreading you apart farther. You moaned softly as he licked up the collum of your throat.

“All this for me?” He rubbed small circles on your clit, a small taste of what he could do, and you both knew it.

“It’s just the shower.” His other hand reached up, gripping you by the jaw and twisting your face towards him.

“I don’t think it is”

He picked up the pace and swallowed your moans. His pillowy soft lips devour you hungrily, and you can feel his hard-on in the crest of your ass. He rips away from your lips, and his hand goes to your boobs, pinching and pulling on your nipples. He enters you with one of his thick digits. He shows no mercy as he thrusts it into you, finding your g-spot in a matter of seconds. Peter knew your body well and loved reminding you of that.

He adds another finger, and your body involuntarily jerks, chasing Peter in all directions. He hisses as you grind against him. Your toes are curling, and the steam makes it hard to catch your breath. All too soon, he removes himself. You whine as your high is stolen from you.

He waits until your eyes are on him before he brings his fingers to his mouth. He hallows his cheeks around them before pulling them out with a soft pop and a moan. You watch with wide eyes as he runs his tongue across them, collecting every drop of your essence.

“You taste so good, baby.” 

He presses his praise into your skin- down your neck and across your shoulders. He continues down a path, following the curve of your spine. He takes quite the bite out of your ass, causing you to yelp, before continuing to nibble on your thighs.

Your hand tries to grip the wall and provide you with balance, just his gentle touches making you shake with anticipation. He notices this and throws your legs over his shoulders, your back pressed gently against the cold tile.

“You okay, baby?” You try to slow your breathing, nails scraping against his scalp, the wet curls wrapping around your fingers.

“Yeah, I'm good.” Peter loved communication; it was important to him. Though often, he would steal your ability to string anything coherent together.

“Good, 'cause I haven’t had breakfast, and I’m hungry." He sent you a wink before disappearing between your thighs.

You let out a cry as he suckles your clit. His grip on your thighs is bruising as he spreads them farther apart, whipping his head furiously between them. You’re seeing stars.

This is a stark difference from the sweet kisses you shared this morning. This was need, hunger, a carnal desire. He was chasing your high as much as you were. He moved his tongue inside you, the pink muscle scraping against your walls. You ground your hips down, and you both moaned.

You, because your clit bumped his nose, a jolt through your nerves that brought you closer and closer to your peak. And Peter, because he loves when you get off to him like this. He loves that he gets to see you like this, on the brink of desperation and lost in desire. He loves that he can make you this way. That he’s the only one who can.

Eating you out is Peter’s favourite pastime. In a perfect world, he would spend every moment between your thighs, drinking from the fountain of you, never satiated.

He grinds his face into you, loving how you flutter around his tongue. He loved every way your body told him you loved this. It was like picking up a new language. He knew the meaning of every twitch, sound, and pulse. He was fluent in you.

He felt the way your thighs were shaking and knew you were right there, you just needed a little push, and he was happy to provide. He cages your leg against his shoulder as he reaches around and presses firmly against your clit.

“Fuck! Pete!”

You cry his name, and he thinks it’s his favourite sound. It spurs him on further. He only wants you to respond like that. He moves his thumb, spelling his name as if your brain would subconsciously pick up on it, and you would say it again. He’s fucking you with his mouth and marking you as his.

Your orgasm crashes through you, a broken moan ripping from your chest, completely overwhelmed by pleasure. Peter continues to fuck you through it, drawing it out for as long as he can. Wanting everything you had to give him. He really was hungry.

Your body convulses, your grip on his curls strong as you try to pull him away. This doesn’t dissuade Peter by any means. He knows you can cum again; he needs you to cum again.

Your pulling on his hair inadvertently brings him closer, and he revels in it. His mouth trades places with his fingers, giving your clit a small break from his brutal beating.

However, you don’t recognise it as a “break”. Your sensitivity sends your brain into overdrive, or underdrive- you weren’t sure. All thoughts were half-baked, and your muscles were moving of their own accord. You were glad Peter was there to hold you because there was no way you would have been able to support yourself.

“Pe-Peter! I-unghhh”

Peter had to fight his grin, knowing that he rendered your brain useless, only able to think of him and your high. There was truly no more beautiful sight. Your jaw slacked, as a cacophony of lewd sounds fell from your open lips. Your brows furrowed as you chase your peak. Your unfocused eyes, half-lidded, looking down, searching for him. Your body quaking around him. He wished he could capture this moment on camera, encapsulate this moment forever.

You pushed your hips forward in a final thrust, taking his fingers deeper and his unholy tongue pressing harder against your sensitive bud. This time you scream, nearly collapsing over. Peter brings a hand to your throat, keeping you upright while he drinks from your fountain.

He gently removes his fingers from your core, and you whine slightly, bringing a spirited smile to his face. He wrapped your legs around his waist, admiring your completely blissed-out face. You were so beautiful. In any way, but especially this way.

You rested your head in the crook of his neck, not caring that you were panting on your auditorily sensitive, always-way-too-warm, boyfriend. To be fair, he didn’t care either. He would suffer through anything to hold you like this. And it was deserved. He did kinda render you useless.

He laid a kiss to your temple and you hummed, cuddling into him more. “Alright, coach me through the washing.”

He listened intently as you told him how much product to use and where to massage it in. He was careful to try and keep all the shampoo on your scalp, heeding your warnings of drying out your curls. He was so tender and sweet. He was much gentler with your hair than you ever were.

He peppered you with kisses as he coaxed you under the shower head. Despite your recovery and your ability to stand once again, Peter refused to let you down. Keeping you wrapped around him like a koala or sloth. You couldn’t say you minded all that much.

Peter was most excited to brush your hair. He had never really gotten to do that, as you only ever did it in the shower. He felt proud that you trusted him to do it now. It felt intimate, special.

Sometimes he would get to brush May’s hair. It was long and beautiful, and when he was younger, she would let him if he asked. He would have her sit on the floor as he stood tall, bending at the knees to accommodate his short little arms. He missed those moments with her. He missed her. But in you, he found new things to miss, and he was forever grateful for that.

He continues to run the comb through your hair, even when the knots were gone, because he loved how you melted into him. You were practically purring, and it felt nice to take care of you for a change.

He couldn’t count how many times you had patched him up, made him food because he had forgotten to eat, checked up on him, or helped him through an existential crisis. You were always there for him, his rock. He would be lost without you.

The water started to get cold, so you begrudgingly left, feeling a little betrayed by your water heater for ruining such a wonderful moment. Peter only set you down then, but ordered you to stay on the bathmat. You chuckled as you watched him run, butt-ass naked, through the hall. When he returned, he held a few towels and worn shirts in his hand. You don’t think you’ll ever get used to his smile. It will always make your heart stutter.

“Arms up,” He directs and you follow.

He wraps a towel around you, and you can’t stop the satisfied sigh that leaves your mouth. It was warm and fluffy, almost enough to put you to sleep. Once he’s secured it around you, he gently moves your arms back to your sides and places a sacrosanct kiss on your lips. Your only complaint was that it was too short; your body naturally follows him as he pulls away.

He chuckles, “Steady sailor. We still got a lot of work to do. Can’t get distracted now.”

You lovingly swat at him, and he rewards you with a laugh, one that squishes his eyes and crinkles his nose. It takes everything in you not to kiss him silly. But it’s not your fault; he knows better than to look at you like that.

“I brought you these to choose from. I remember you telling me cotton is better for your hair. So, here’s three of my shirts to choose from, and whatever you don’t pick, we get to wear.”

You can’t help but beam at him. You felt absolutely spoiled. You weren’t sure what you did to deserve such royal treatment. Usually, this kind of behaviour was reserved for birthdays and other such occasions. Not a Thursday afternoon.

But you relished in it anyway, telling him which shirt you wanted to wear and which one you wanted to use. He kissed you on the nose as he passed them both to you.

You explain every step you take as you do them, even coaching Pete through some parts as you let him try it. Peter is amazed by all the products and smells. He’s a little embarrassed as he struggles through some steps; you work with such grace and ease. You explain that the steps are a little different because you’re styling your hair today, instead of enhancing your natural curls. Peter tries his best to commit everything to memory.

While you’re blowing out your hair, Peter leaves to make breakfast. You don’t really need his help for it, and honestly, the sound of the fan bouncing around the tiled walls was a bit too grating for him. As he whips up your favourite breakfast meal, he scrolls through google images, trying to get a better idea of what you were wanting to do.

He sees a lot of looks he thinks you would like, but one sticks out the most. He hadn’t really seen it before, but he thinks you would look absolutely stunning. He’s watching a tutorial when you enter the kitchen. He’s so engrossed in the video you startle him as you wrap your arms around him.

His spidey senses work differently around you, and that’s something he’s still figuring out. His best guess is it doesn’t warn him about you because there’s not a single bone in his body that sees you as a threat. You’re the only person since he was fourteen who could sneak up on him. You don’t often do it on purpose, either. And he thinks his body knows that too.

Usually, his “tingle” lays dormant unless there’s a general danger, but now it’s…evolved in a way. If he focuses, he can almost feel you. He can just think of you, and his body will tell him if you’re distressed and where you are. His instincts lead him like a compass- to you, his true north.

There have been more than a few times he rushed home to check on you just to see that you’ve dropped something or were watching a scary movie by yourself...again. He loved it, though. He had never felt so close to anyone before. He loved that there were no defences between you.

“Whatcha watchin'?”

Pete pauses the video before he turns in your arms. 

“Have you heard of butterfly locs?” You grin, delightfully surprised. 

"Yes, I have,” you say as you peck him on the nose. “Why?”

“Well, it’s your hair, and you can do whatever you want. And I’ll help no matter what you decide. But I think you would look absolutely gorgeous in them. And you can do fun colours or add funky charms. But also, I know you said you were planning on the box braids, and I’m unsure how easy it would be to switch up the plan like that.”

God, could you love this man anymore? 

“It’s actually really easy. I still have to make a Sally’s run; I haven’t bought any hair yet. Do you wanna come with?” Peter nods his head fervently, and you can’t help but giggle at his excitement. 

Pete is in awe of the selection here. He had no idea there were so many options. He excitedly asks questions, and you’re happy to answer all of them to the best of your understanding. He happily holds everything you pass him and even convince him to get some products for himself, like a hair mask and some mousse. 

When you get home, Peter shows you the videos he watched and his strategy. He helps you section your hair and tries not to complain about the sticky gel too much. With his help, it doesn’t take nearly as long. You play around with the length and stylings, and once finished you’re very happy with it.

Peter was right; you look fine as hell. You check yourself out in the mirror and laugh when you catch Peter watching you from his seat on the bed through the reflection. He’s completely in his own world, his eyes ooze raw adulation, and you can’t help but feel a little flustered.

You walk over, slotting yourself between his legs. His hands come to rest on your hips, something he doesn’t even think to do. It’s just so natural. It’s where his hands belong.

“Do you like it?”

His expression never falters, as if he didn’t even hear you.

“Did you know that I am so in love with you? Like do you know? Because I am. So, so, very in love with you.”

You feel your cheeks warm, “Yes, I know.”

His dopey smile stretches, “I don’t think you do. But I’ll be sure to tell you until you’re sick of hearing it.”

Your heart is doing summersaults, “I don’t think that’s possible.”

He places a kiss to your sternum, “Well, I’ll do my very best.”

Suddenly you’re being pulled forward. You land directly on Pete, and if you weren’t aware of all his body was capable of, you might have worried about hurting him. Instead, you giggle at his antics and let him hold you tight.

Your new locs fall around his face, and he doesn’t think he’s ever felt so lucky. Here, hidden behind the curtain of your hair, it’s just you and him. You lay there for a while like that, just drinking the other in. It’s the perfect respite from all the chaos in the world. Your hearts beating together, your love flowing between you.

“I got you something,” Peter whispers. 

There’s no need for anything louder in this proximity. “What?”

His hand leaves your waist, and you hear a familiar thwip, then the crinkling of a bag. 

Peter opens his palm to you, and a small gasp leaves your lips. There rested a little charm; hung on a small ring. You picked it up and admired how it twinkled in the evening sun. A little spider, from your man. You sat up, looking in the mirror as you strung it through a loc. 

“Petey, it’s perfect!”

“Not as perfect as you.”

Taglist: @barbecuetiddy, @heejinw0rld, @purple-amaranthe, @raajali3, @rudy-the-winged-wolf, @secretaccountlol, @scorpiolystoned, @thatblackravenclaw, @wannapizzamymindposts, @whoreforklitz,

#rancid writes #peter parker x black!reader #black!reader #black writers #peter parker x you #spiderman x reader #peter parker x y/n #spiderman #peter parker oneshot #spiderman oneshot #spiderman imagines #peter parker imagine #peter parker fanfiction #peter parker fluff #peter Parker imagines #spider-man imagines #mcu spiderman #tom holland #tom holland spiderman #peter parker headcanon #peter 1 #mcu!spiderman x reader #mcu!peter parker x you

[crash-and-cure]

Wait for Me (Yandere!Austin!Elvis x Reader)

Summary: Tupelo’s favorite son is on his way home to all the expected pomp and circumstance befitting a returning King.

A/N: This is very much inspired by Hadestown and I may or may not blend all the character together so that both Elvis and reader have aspects from all of them. Technically I’m cheating I will admit by combining these two (-, -) requests into one story but I thought it would work well. Not me trying to Posit how WW2 affected the floriculture industry all for a fanfic. But this is apparently how I marry my two hyperfixations of 2022: Hadestown and Elvis. A+ to anyone that can find all the references to both Hadestown and the greek mythos in the story. 

Warnings: Yandere!Elvis so expect themes of obsessive, manipulative, and delusional behavior. Kidnapping. Kinda of a stochholme syndrome going on through the later half. Blood and a bit of child abuse depicted (arguably this child deserved it). Emotional Manipulation throughout. Isolation. Touch-starved reader. Innocent reader. Explicit sexual content depicted that includes Penetrative sex (m/f), oral sex (f. and m. recieving), vaginal fingering and handjobs. Outsider POV for the first bit.  Probably more that I am blanking on. Excessive use of “Honeybee” and “Rosebud” as a nickname for the reader. Please do not interact if you are under 18. 

Word Count: 21k (seriously somebody stop me)

My Masterlist

Dreams are sweet, Until they’re not

Men are kind, Until they aren’t

Flowers bloom, Until they rot, And fall apart

                 Flowers, Hadestown

Demi has never feared a single man in her life. 

Men have done her wrong. Men have humiliated her. Men have even hurt her. But she does not fear them. 

That’s how she lived for years, drifting from place to place, belonging to no one as no one belonged to her, unattached and untethered as the wind. Working odd jobs to get by until the next town, but there was a perpetual emptiness in this existence of hers that left her feeling hollow. 

And then her sweet little daughter was born and she found something that bound her to this world fully. She knew who the father was, but none of that mattered to her, because her daughter was no man’s, she was hers. He wasn’t good for much, but getting roughly ten acres of land in exchange for never having to deal with either him or his wife again was one of the sweetest deals she had ever heard. 

Living on a farm was never where she pictured herself ending up, let alone working and later inheriting a farm that only grew flowers, but Gail, the old caretaker of the land, was a literal godsend in those early days. Gail had that same look in her eyes as someone else who had been wronged by a man, and this kindred spirit would end up more or less adopting Demi as her own.

Her daughter is by far the most beautiful thing to have ever existed, born the first day of spring all balled up fists and shrill cries complete with a scrunched up face.

She was perfect.

Demi made a promise to that tiny creature that night, to never know hunger, to be surrounded by only the most beautiful things the world has to offer, to never be unloved for as long as she should live, and most importantly to never let the world hurt her the same way she was hurt. All of these rather lofty promises to make, but she was determined to keep them.

Those early days were painfully idyllic, caring for flowers, selling the cuttings, all the while her daughter was strapped to her chest. It admittedly did a number on her back, but it was all worth it to remind her what she works for. She doesn’t think there will ever be a day in which she forgets the first time her daughter's tiny hands reached out for a white rose, and just the utter serenity that overcame her in that moment. There is no doubt in her mind that this is where the both of them were meant to be.

As the years passed their little family grew as Demi collected other wayward women, some came and went, others stuck around so long her daughter started calling them her Aunties. Even a war happened a world away, and the farm had to shift focus to making food rather than beauty, but now three years later everything is close to being just as perfect as it was before. 

But if there is one saying she wholeheartedly believes, it is that woman plans and man laughs. 

Her daughter had been so upset that day and had ended up exhausting herself in Demi’s bed and she thanked whatever force up above for that when she woke in the middle of the night to the sound of rustling in her daughters room. Making sure that her daughter was still asleep she crept silently down the hall, baseball bat in hand, prepared to defend her family from whoever the hell was in her home. 

Evidently nothing could have prepared her for what she would find in there, as she walked into her daughter's room and was met with the cornflower blue gaze of a familiar waifish thirteen year old boy. 

When he had first started coming around, he was more like a stray cat whom her daughter fed once; annoyingly underfoot but manageable enough with a hose. But the more time he spent the more worried she became. 

All of which the day before when she had idly asked her daughter what she did with the boy that day only for her sweet little daughter to innocently respond, “he told me not to tell you.”

Her friends tried to tell her it was puppy love and that it would eventually pass, and just to give it some time to fade. How intervening may just make it worse. But something in her gut told her that there was something about the way he looked at her daughter, the way he spoke to and about her, the way he acted, and that something was that it was all very wrong. If she had to liken it to anything, she imagines that this is the same way a hunter looks upon his mark.

It was beyond anything she’s ever seen in a grown man's eyes, so she never thought she could see something like that in a child's eyes. 

Her daughter remained innocent to it, and slowly but surely Demi was trying to edge that boy out of their lives. Sent him home earlier and earlier, kept her from the shop and in the fields, even began to go out of her way to pick up her daughter rather than chance it with walking home by herself. 

But now looking at the boy as he eagerly ransacked her daughter's dresser, did she realize she should have better listened to her instinct. 

‘Oh hi Miss Demi,” he would say, as though he just wasn’t caught rifling through her daughters drawers. He was clutching tightly to a truly pathetic and haphazardly put together bouquet of flowers, that seemed to be dripping something from the stems. “Do you know where Y/N is? I just wanted to give these to her.” 

It was only as she turned on the lights did she see the true horror to be had. Candy apple red, as though it could ever be that innocent, blood was dripping between his fingers and onto the wooden floors below, his face giving no indication that he even noticed, his eyes continually darting behind her as though waiting for someone from behind. The flowers in the chaotic bouquet tell a story of all kinds of love, but the one errant, still-thorned rose tells the story not of love, but of something else… something dark and unspeakable. 

Demi acts immediately, grabbing him by the wrist and by the ear and getting him the hell out of her house. For all his protests and attempts to escape her grip, he was no match for the fury of a mother, and with the ruckus the boy is stirring up she silently thanks god that her daughter is such a deep sleeper. 

It hurts her having to leave her daughter home alone, but she knows that her daughter's biggest threat is in her grasp.

She’s had to drop the boy off enough times to remember where he lived and she knows his mother well enough to instinctively know she is no doubt up worrying over him. She was proven right seeing the light bleeding through the front windows of the small home. 

He is out of the truck before Demi can even fully park it, and he bolts to the door, probably hoping that she will then be forced to leave without talking to his mother about this whole thing. But he is stopped as said woman flies out of the house and catches him in a massive bear hug on the small porch. 

He has parents who care for him so much, yet he still acts like this? She wonders to herself. She sees the woman giving her son once over before coming across his wounded hand that had by now begun to congeal and stop bleeding. 

“If you know what’s good for him, you’ll make sure he stays the hell away from my property and I best never see you sniffin’ around my child again, boy,” Demi would say, voice ice cold interrupting this warm reunion, pointing a single finger in this boy's face. 

“Demi, what’re you talkin’ ‘bout?” his mother would ask, already putting him behind her back, willing to defend him with her life apparently. 

Wouldn’t you do the same, a small part of her says. 

“Y’know I expected more from you,” Demi said to her fellow mother. “I never would’ve expected you to be the type to raise a boy that would break into a little girls room and go through her drawers. The hell were you even tryin’ to find in there?”

He wouldn’t answer her, but he would look her dead in the eye, with a look that told her he was unrepentant about his actions. Though that mask would crack the slightest bit as his mother took his face in her hands. 

“Bewbie… is this true?” the woman would ask her son slowly, unwilling to believe. But his downturned eyes do all the necessary talking. 

“Mama she’s crazy,” that little shit would say, trying to deflect, and cowering behind his mothers skirts. “We can’t leave Honeybee with her.”

“I oughta knock all your fuckin’ teeth out for whatchu did. See how good a singer you are then,” she threatens, though that hardly helps her case. But she was willing to do a lot worse if it meant keeping her daughter safe.

“Don’tcha see Mama?” he says, gesturing a hand her way. “She ain’t safe with Miss Demi, and we gotta take her with us.” It’s not so much his words that are disturbing, but the complete and utter conviction that he speaks nothing but the truth that has the hair on the back of Demi’s neck stand up.

That boy’s lucky that his father decided to make his way out there and prevent Demi from making good on her threat. 

“Buntyn, go inside,” she would firmly say to her son. He looks as though he were about to protest, until she shoots a look and he backs down, and walks back into his home. His mother takes a moment to process her words, though nothing she says has a chance in hell of quelling the fury in Demi’s heart. “I-I think he’s just actin’ out because we’re gonna to be movin’ soon,” she tries to weakly justify. 

“I don’t fuckin’ care what his excuses are, Gladys. Keep a leash on that boy o’ yours if you gotta,” Demi seethes, catching said boy looking out at them from the window. She makes eye contact with him, fully knowing he would hear this next part, “Because I ain’t goin’ to be so nice next time.”

Demi turned around with that threat still hanging in the air and hoped to never see any of them again. It’s a long quiet drive from there, and her fury reaches a near boiling point finding that damned bouquet on the floor, forgotten in all the ruckus, to which she quickly chucks them into the furnace. It feels wrong to burn her own livelihood, but these flowers were now in her eyes tainted and unfit to ever be seen again. 

The fury doesn’t fully melt away until she sees the love of her life sitting up from her bed.

“Mama where’d ya go?” you would ask, your tiny fists rubbing the sleep out of your eyes as you let out an almost angelic yawn. You are and always will be her baby, and nothing will ever take you away from her. 

“Just a stray dog sniffin’ round the house, Rosebud,” Demi would say, lightly scratching her nails down your back, the same way she’s done since you were a newborn. “But don’tchu worry baby, your mama scared it off. Go back to sleep.”

Demi sleeps well that night if only due to the fact that she was able to convince herself (albeit temporarily) that that had all been a bad dream. But once she saw the trail of crimson starting from your bedroom window, there is no denying what had happened the night before. She didn’t get this far by trusting other people's words, so for the next few days the two of you slept in a different room each night. Demi calls it camping and you, her sweet little girl, are all too willing to believe her. She sleeps with one eye open those nights, all too afraid that even dropping her watch for half a second will lead to disaster. 

She would find no peace until she heard around town that they had moved somewhere up north. To where? She didn't care so long as he was as far away from her precious Rosebud as could be. Still she is always worried as to the day he may come back, so she can only pray that he’s moved on to another poor girl and leaves you the hell alone.

Part of her wonders if she should warn you in case he ever returns, but this question answers itself when you come home from school wanting to show her how many ladybugs you caught in the schoolyard today. She didn’t want to burden you with this awful knowledge, wanting to keep you innocent from your mothers woes.

Demi wanted to shield you from the world, and hoped that one day, you would also get to live without fearing men. It would take her nine years to realize, by then far too late, that you only lacked fear because you didn’t know what men were capable of. 

Demi fears no man.

But she does fear Elvis Presley.

—------------------------------------

Flowers have always been the family business. Fields upon fields of every color in the rainbow going on for acres. Truly even having lived here for years and knowing little to nothing else but this, it still never fails to take your breath away. 

To say your family knows flowers, is an understatement. You had spent your days running around the property asking your aunties about the flowers they tended to, and what each of them meant. 

You learned from an early age that flowers were always meant to invoke good feelings in people, and it makes you proud that you’re a part of it. So you’re excited to say the least when your Mama surprises you with your very own gardening kit for Christmas.

It’s a rite of passage for those in your family to successfully grow and maintain their own plot of flowers for the first time. You had been given the choice of any flower you wanted to take on, most of them pointing to some of these easiest ones for your first time, the ones that you need only plant and water regularly to eventually bloom. You on the other hand wanted to do something harder. So you chose roses due to both the challenge it takes into growing and maintaining them but also the fact that your farm had them in abundance, so it wouldn’t hit the business too hard if you failed. 

But moreover, Mama had always called you her little Rosebud, so it only felt fitting to have these be the first flowers you grow all on your own. These blooms were rather picky about conditions, but you had been watching the women in your family grow them since before you could walk, and so you felt you were up to the task. You were only nine but you wanted to show the rest of them how good you could do on your own. 

So you watched the seeds germinate, watched them grow into tiny sprouts in their small pots, planted them neatly apart, gave them plenty of sun, and never forgot to water them. Mama even caught you once or twice hovering over those little pots not wanting to miss a single moment of their growth.

She warned you to temper your expectations, how sometimes you can do everything right, and they still may not grow. But you were full of hope and wanted this more than you have ever wanted anything in your few years of life. 

You had taken this seriously, hanging on to every tip you got from your Aunties, being sure to tend to them at the correct times, giving the correct amount of water and watching like a hawk for any unwanted pests. Each day you got the pleasure of watching them grow into buds and you figured they were close to blooming any day.

And that’s why you took great offense when you found a gangly tow-headed boy picking at the red roses you had worked so hard to grow. 

He looked to be older than you by a few years, stood a foot taller than you, but you knew boys like him, the type that would stomp out dandelions to make you cry and you weren’t about to let him ruin your hard work with your first batch of rose bushes. You may be 9 but you’re scrappy as all get out, which you prove when you drop your basket of fresh cuttings of the day and all but tackle the larger boy into the dirt.

He gives an undignified shriek as he hits the ground, having been caught off guard, but he does attempt to shove you off until he goes a bit limp upon getting a good look at you. The brief scuffle ends with you straddling him and your little palms pinning his arms down as best as you could as owlish, cornflower blue eyes stared up at you in equal amounts of awe and fear. 

“What’re you doin’ here?” you say your little voice indignant at what you thought were his attempts to sabotage your efforts. “Why were tryin’ to kill those roses?”

“I-I-I wa-wasn’t,” he insists, his cheeks burning from the shame of being caught doing whatever he was doing and his hands shaking something fierce as he limply tries to hide his face from you as you clench a tiny fist above you. You see that the briars got him good and little droplets of blood were beading up on some fine scratches on his hands. 

If he was trying to wreck the bushes you doubt he would try to do so in such a stupid way, but that didn’t mean you trusted him quite yet. However you weren’t about to let him continue being hurt in your presence, so you stood up and grabbed the band-aids that were in your little kit, and helped clean him up.

“I-It-ts m-my mama’s birthday to-tomorrow, an-and I wanted to get her so-somethin’ nice this year,” he said after a while, solemnly looking at his bandaged hand. 

You softened at his words, not having expected his answer, but you can hardly fault him for his reasoning. Afterall you don’t know where you or your mama would be if there weren’t thoughtful people that gave flowers to those they loved. 

But you do know how much work it takes to grow them, and maintaining your irritation at his mucking about, you indignantly say “You coulda went to our shop and bought them.”

He goes an even deeper shade of red with your statement, “I-I know it’s wrong to steal, an-and I never woulda done this i-if I had the money to buy ‘em.” 

It feels like all of the animosity you have towards him leaves your body at that moment. You and Mama have had your hard times before, and you are very much aware that each flower in your family’s field is worth something. It’s what keeps everyone fed, what keeps the lights on, and puts the clothes on your backs, but even knowing that you have one simple belief; everyone deserves nice flowers.

“Well,” you say to him as you stand up. “You picked the wrong color. You ain’t supposed to give red roses to your mama.” 

“Really?”

“If you know anything about the language of flowers, you’d know that you’re only supposed to give ‘em to your wife or girlfriend.”

“...Flowers talk to each other?” 

“No, they…” you pause trying to figure out a way to best explain yourself. “Their colors and the types are supposed to tell people how you feel about ‘em.” He draws his brows together, thoroughly confused as to what you’re saying, though that ain’t surprising. Mama often complained that when Men buy flowers, they never think too much beyond price, and boys rarely if ever appreciate them. 

You decide that it may do him better, to see it rather than trying to explain it fully. So you take his bandaged hand and you walk him through some of the crops. From the outside, the fields look to be a chaotic mess of colors, when in reality there is a lot more thought put into it as your mother organizes by type rather than color. You are able to give him a run down as to rose color meanings, until you finally arrive at your intended destination.

He goes a little wide-eyed once you take out your gardening shears, but quickly relaxes once you go behind him to the bushel of pink roses. You’ve been cutting and dethorning roses for about a year or two now, so it takes not even a minute to find one in good condition, grab it, cut it, proceed to have it stripped of all its thorns, and casually present it to the blonde boy before you. 

You thought he was red before, but as you presented him that rose, he turned redder than the rose he had attempted to pluck. His bandaged hand shakily takes the flower out of your hand, and with a reverence you’ve never seen from a boy when it comes to flowers, he holds it gently with both. 

“Pink means gratitude and admiration.”

“What?” his lip still quivering slightly and eyes glassy.

“When you give someone a pink rose,” you explain to him, with a smile. “You’re letting them know that you’re grateful for all they’ve done for you and that you admire them very much for it. It’s the perfect flower to give to your Mama,” you say, giving him a small smile, the look he’s giving you making you feel warm inside.

“Rosebud?” you hear from behind you, and all the warm feelings seem to die in that instant.

“H-hi mama,” you say nervously, whipping around, standing on your toes, as though you’ll somehow be able to hide this trespasser's taller frame behind you. Though you realize how stupid that idea is and quickly take her hand, “Mama come look at my roses, I think they’re gonna bloom today,” you say, trying desperately to turn her around as though she’ll forget she ever saw that boy. 

“In a minute Rosebud,” she said, her voice saccharine sweet, that you know by now means she’s mad. “But first, why don’tcha introduce me to your little friend here.”

“...yes Mama, this is… my friend…,” you go wide-eyed realizing you don’t even know this boy's name. 

Luckily he picks up on your pause, “Hello, ma-ma’am, my name is uuhh… Elvis… Presley.” 

Your mama slowly leans forward until she’s eye level with him, “Well, Elvis Presley,” she drawls slowly, her words friendly, yet the way they’re delivered tells you her feelings for this boy are anything but. “You mind tellin’ me why the hell you’re on my property, botherin’ my daughter, and plucking out my livelihood?”

Elvis looks down realizing that he was still holding the pink rose for all to see, and makes a futile attempt to hide it, only for his skinny wrist to be caught in your mothers iron like grip. 

Mama had that way about her, her smile could be warm but her words icy. You’ve seen her like this with the few men that had come through here. Some trying to buy the land, some trying to find one of your Aunties, all of them leaving empty-handed because of her.

But you don’t believe that the boy before you, the one that wanted to get his mama something nice for her birthday, could ever be like those bad men. So you decided to do what needs to be done, “I invited him over Mama,” you say looking down at your muddy boots.

“Rosebud you ain’t gotta lie for him,” she admonishes, though she does seem to loosen her grip on him.  

“Bu-but it’s the truth Mama. He’s been sayin’ how he needs a gift for his mama’s birthday, so I said he could come over here to get her a flower,” you mumble, knowing that this is something she always told you never to do. 

She takes a long hard sigh before she fully releases Elvis, “You best get yourself home before it gets dark.” she says, her warning punctuated with a very cold breeze, despite it being well into April. He swallows nervously as he makes his way to the road, giving one last sorrowful glance your way before leaving. 

“Rosebud,” your mama sighs, giving you a kiss on the forehead. “Sometimes you’re too sweet for your own good, and I don’t ever want to see someone take advantage of that.” 

“Ok Mama.”

When he left that day you fully expected to never see him again, until he showed up the very next day wanting to show you his guitar. 

After that, Elvis becomes a near constant presence at your farm. Your aunties thought he was nice enough, pinching his cheeks and plying him with snacks in exchange for having him sing for them. You don’t mind too much, as you don’t really have too many friends, and next to none that want to spend their evenings on your farm. You kind of enjoyed having him around, he would sometimes bring a guitar and sing to you, or read his comics to you. Other times he would follow you around as you did your chores and ask about the flowers.

You got used to him being around and even grew to enjoy it. One special day you even decided to share your most valued treasure with him: your favorite fruit in the whole world. One so good yet so expensive and rare in these parts that it’s limited to a once a year treat for you. 

“An onion?” he asks skeptically.

“No,” you insist, slightly huffy that he’s not appreciating your most prized possession. “It’s called a Pomegranate,” you tell him, taking it out of his hands so that you could cut into it the way your Mama showed you. “I know when you first look at it, it doesn't look like much,” you say, as you cut at the crown. “But when you really look at it, you’ll find something truly amazing,” you conclude, and with a twist of your wrist you take the top off to reveal an abundance of the small jewel looking seeds, where you see him looking at it in nothing less than utter amazement. 

That look in his eyes only grows when he actually tastes the little kernels for the first time, and he ravenously devours his half of the fruit, some of the juices overflowing out the corners of his mouth, and down his face.

You on the other hand savor each and every bite of it. You truly believe if perfection can be found, it would be in that late summer afternoon. The soft sunbeams creeping through from the shade and the perfume of the freshly cut flowers in your basket. The soft breeze that runs through your hair and causes the flowers in the fields to sway slightly as though they were dancing to the music flowing from your friends' beaten up guitar. 

“What’d ya’ dream about doin’?” he would ask as he gazed up at the clouds overhead, idly strumming his guitar, his lips and fingertips stained red. 

“What do you mean Elvis?” You would ask as you pick at the very last seeds on your rind. 

“I-I mean wh-what’d ya wanna do when you grow up, Honeybee?,” he asks nervously, eyes firmly on the fields as though he were afraid of your answer. You roll your eyes slightly at his nickname for you, stemming from the time a bee landed on your hand and rather than swatting it away, you gently blew on it to get it to fly away. But you do decide to humor him anyway.

“Oh…This.” 

“Really?” he asks, truly baffled at your answer. “You really don’t wanna go nowhere or-or do somethin’ else?”

“Why would I wanna do anything else?,” you ask in turn, confused at his confusion. “It’s like magic when really think ‘bout it,” you insist, showing him the last few kernels of the pomegranate you have in your hand. “Something so small can turn into something so beautiful.”  

“You could plant ‘em anywhere, couldn’t you?” he insists.

You shrug your shoulders at that. “I guess.”

“But what if you couldn’t stay here,” he asks, his tone mournful, but you didn’t pick up on it at the time. “Wha-what if you had to go far away and y-you couldn’t come back?”

“Then I would make a new home,” you dismiss, offering him the last six seeds of your Pomegranate. He looks so surprised by the offer, his eyes a bit glassy before he furiously rubs them with the back of his hand and accepts your offer. 

“Honeybee… co-could you meet me b-by your roses tomorrow,” he stutters. “I-i got something’ important to give ya’.”

“Ok.”

“Bu-but don’t tell your mama,” he says to you.

That may be a tall order, you thought at the time. Your mama on the other hand remains coolly indifferent to him, but you always got the sense that she didn’t like him for whatever reason. Nonetheless a promise is a promise.

Mama was probably at her happiest when he stopped coming around. When you learned he moved away, you were sad that your friend would leave without saying a proper goodbye, and you believed you would never see that dreamer boy again. 

So imagine your surprise when a few years later an electric, new singer starts making waves across the south. He tried to steal flowers from your farm and now he steals hearts across the country.

Just about every girl in town, if given the chance, will brag how they had known him way back when, some of the more daring ones even claiming to have been his first kiss. As far as what you have heard Elvis may be the only man alive to have had 25 first kisses. The boys were no better, all claiming to have been his closest buddy growing up, and promising any girl that they could definitely meet back up with him if they chose. 

Everyone is in an absolute tizzy for his return to Tupelo, you are simply trying to help your family through the rush of orders that has come in with the upcoming fair. Mostly it had been a headache because the new Miss Tupelo had demanded that her float be decorated with only white roses, as she didn’t think the standard red was flattering for her. 

Which is fine until your shop is presented with a very special order from the mayor himself for an order of three dozen of your finest roses to be given to Tupelo’s favorite returning son for his homecoming concert. 

Mama had initially treated it like any other order, until she saw who it was from.

“Absolutely not,” she said in her sternest voice, you hear from around the corner. 

“Demi,” your Auntie Kate would admonish her. “Don’t be stupid ‘bout this. It’s been years and he was just a dumb kid back then.” 

You don’t know what the mayor did to your Mama, but it had to have been bad, if he got her this worked up. Of course you’re not about to ask, as they had both pointedly left the room to discuss the matter while you were supposed to be minding the store. Instead you were very intently listening in to whether or not your mother was about to refuse an order for seemingly the first time in years.

“Kate, I ain’t takin’ any chances with this,” Mama declares. “You weren’t there, but if you’re ever gonna trust me on anything, let it be this.”

“Look Demi,” Kate sighs. “He’s willing to pay a ridiculous amount of money for them, and we need to offload some of the roses and it ain’t like he’s gonna-”

She’s interrupted by the bell signaling a customer having entered the shop. By the time you finish with him though, Mama has agreed, albeit reluctantly, to accept the order, under the condition the Kate be responsible for it in its totality 

You don’t know what Kate had said to her but you’re glad nonetheless as she would claim once your mama was out of earshot that she was too busy to do this order so she asked if you would please be so kind as to take care of it for her. 

Those weeks leading up to the fair, someone had asked Elvis if he was looking forward to reconnecting with anyone special back in Tupelo. As the reporter described it, the young star would look down bashfully at his feet, one side of his mouth curving upwards with only the slightest hint of red on his ears as he proclaimed yes to this humble reporter. “My sweetheart from way back in the day. I lost touch with her when I moved up to Memphis and I am praying every night that I find her this time around.”

If him simply coming back for a day to perform sent girls into a frenzy, the prospect of him coming back to find his supposed childhood love, just about turned everybody hysterical. Reporters from all over had flooded the town and had been skulking around trying to find this mysterious girl that had a hold on one of the biggest rising stars. Even once or twice coming into the shop and asking if you’ve received any calls from Memphis asking to send flowers to a specific girl in town. 

Many girls were claiming to be the one Elvis is in fact looking for, recounting their memories of a sweet boy who only had eyes for them. They all followed the same general beats of being in the same class, he was embarrassingly smitten with them, and they rejected him. You had been in different grades and didn’t really know him outside of when he would visit your farm seemingly everyday, so you could hardly attest as to whether or not any of this was true. You do however remember him cryptically referring to one specific girl that had his heart, though in not so many words.

In the days leading up to the last time you would see him, he became very interested in the flowers for romance. He didn’t say that he was planning to do so, but you could tell he was gearing up to declare his love for that girl he never named. Your first suggestion is, of course, whatever her favorite flower is. 

He would blanche a bit at that, “She-she loves em all,” he would mumble looking away bashfully and facing the vibrantly colored fields. According to your mama this is man's speak for “I don’t know.” With few exceptions, nobody is without a favorite, and you sigh slightly disappointed in him that he’s apparently ready to declare undying affection for a girl and he didn’t even know that basic but important information about the girl. But you did promise him your help so you gave him some suggestions: Lilacs for new love, Gardenias for secret love, Carnations for deep love, Tulips for perfect love, Forget-Me-Nots for true love, and of course Red Roses for passionate love. 

On that day you would find him nervously pacing in front of your first batch of roses. They were now in full bloom and you sadly recognized that you’re going to have to cut them soon. You know that’s the beast of this business, that in order to bring new life in, the old must make way, but it’s only a cold comfort and you hope that whoever they end up with will appreciate their beauty.

He practically stared you down as you walked down the row between rose bushes, but he seems to be shaking as though his knees were liable to give out at any moment, and the closer you got to him, you saw that his chest was practically heaving. You can see as he holds something behind his back and you blatantly try to look to see what it is, only to be stopped as he places one hand on your shoulder.

“What’d you wanna talk about Elvis?” you ask him, slightly worried he may be having a heat stroke. 

He swallows thickly before he finally answers you, “M-my folks and I are gonna be goin’ up North,” his eyes downcast as though he were ashamed to admit this, one hand still hidden behind his back. 

“Oh, when are you coming back?” you say oblivious to his grief. 

He’s taken by surprise at your question, but he does answer with a simple “I don’t know.” But with that he squares his shoulders and through trembling lips he stutters, “Honeybee… I-I-I want ya’ to c-come wi-with us.” 

“Ok.” you say, completely ignorant as to the true meaning of his words. 

“Really?” his face breaking into the biggest smile you’ve ever seen in your life.

“Yeah,” you say simply. You remember vividly that you were going to say something to the effect of needing to be back home before dinner because Auntie Erin was gonna be making her famous Golden Apple Pie, when you all of a sudden felt your lips being occupied.

You laugh at your reaction to a simple kiss on the lips now, but at the time, it had felt like the end of the world to you. After all, you were so sure that this was how babies were made. 

When you had asked where babies came from, Mama nervously answered you with this story: Your Daddy kissed your mama out in front of the red roses, and their love would cause a new bud to bloom where they would find you sleeping in a rosebud. 

Back then you didn’t know any better, all you did know was that you didn’t want to take care of a baby right now. You wanted to grow Azaleas next, and Mama warned you that that would be a big commitment to make. And Elvis was going to be moving away, so who was going to take care of the baby? 

You were confused and frustrated beyond anything you’ve experienced up to that point, and you did what any overwhelmed 9 year old would do. 

You started bawling your eyes out, pushed him down, and ran back home. 

Mama would later comfort you and reassure you no baby was on it’s way. She corrected her story and told you that in fact, the couple must be married in order for a baby to be made. (She never did go into further detail as to the process, so you assumed that was the only necessary detail)

The next day, you had felt bad and wanted to apologize to Elvis for the confusion and for pushing him down yet again. You even had a sprig of Lily of the Valley ready as a peace offering and everything, but you wouldn’t see him the next day. Nor the day after that. 

You wouldn’t hear about him until about a couple months back when you had been dethorning the roses while listening to the radio. You vividly remember the surprise that came over you the moment the DJ announced the artist behind the song. How could you not? Afterall it marks the first time in years that a rose had been able to draw blood from you, because in your surprise, hearing the name of a ghost from your past, your ungloved fingers met with a thorn perfectly. 

There was no doubt in your mind that it was him not just for the very distinct name, but for that song specifically. You remember him singing it while you were in the fields, saying he had heard it from Big Boy Crudup himself. 

For maybe half a second you entertain the thought that you may be the mystery sweetheart of his, but just as quickly you dismiss it as the way he describes it as being a long lost love tragically torn apart by fate. You on the other hand pushed him down and cried your eyes out when he kissed you once before never seeing him again, hardly the type of romance worth reading about.

And like a blink of an eye the fair day arrived. 

You had been expressly forbidden from going to the fair, your mother giving no real reason beyond “because I said so.” This in turn makes you feel less guilty about your little scheme, as she did not forbid you from choosing that day to be the day you work in the shop. 

Men are funny creatures, you realize as you work on the order the morning of. Whoever put in the order made sure to specify that the roses must be fresh yet somehow neglected to mention the preferred color. 

You opted for red ones in the end as you have those in abundance and you figure they probably wouldn’t look too closely into the meaning beyond it being the classic rose color. But you do slip in a pink rose in the mix, remembering the first flower you had ever given him. 

It’s a big order to fill, which you only realize once you're carrying a comically large bouquet into the backstage area of the fairgrounds. It was a bit of a hassle making it there in the first place as evidently you’re not the first young woman insisting you’re allowed to be backstage. Though none of them had the mayor himself vouching for the order and letting you in. 

He was already walking up on to the stage by the time you get there, and all you really see of him is the back of his head. Without knowing what you did, you would be hard-pressed to find any similarities between the man on stage and the boy who had to sing facing away from you lest he get too anxious. 

But when he was presented with the key to the city, did you finally see hints of that boy from your memories. The way he kept shifting nervously from foot to foot, how he kept stuffing his hands in his pockets only to take them out, his eyes flickering back and forth between the crowd and the mayor. All of it reminding you of the endearing, stuttering boy who nervously asked you what each flower in your field meant. 

You don’t think you’ve ever seen someone move like that before, so jerky and sudden, but also so very fluid when he wanted to be. Oddly enough you’re reminded of snake charming, with that vicarious thrill of watching something that looks so dangerous, but you also can’t look away from. But that begs the question: is he the snake or is he the charmer?

It’s hard to say, especially when he shifted gears to slower, less rowdy songs.

And then one day

I had my love as perfect as could be

She lived, she loved, she laughed, she cried

And it was all for me

There was a bit of a tremble in his voice as he crooned those words out to the crowd, as though he were close to tears himself. It’s here you think you truly find that boy that used to bug you when you were out in the fields. 

It felt like all too soon the concert was over and he was stepping behind the stage. What feels like half a million eyes are focused on him as he steps off the stage to where he was met with just as many cameras and questions thrown his way. You almost feel bad for him, that he wasn’t even given a chance to breathe between one stage to another. 

His eyes scanned the crowd that gathered around him, but eventually his eyes would settle on the ridiculously large bouquet right next to you.  It’s hard to miss, you think, looking at it, but when you look back at him you find that his eyes are firmly set on you and you feel your heart skip a beat. 

He’s probably trying to figure out where he knows you from, you figure. It’s been years, you yourself had long ago forgotten about him, but hearing his name on the radio for the first time dredged up all of those memories.

You can hardly blame him though the both of you have changed a lot in the almost ten years since you’d last seen each other and he doesn’t have the benefit of a famous name or your face on TV to jog his memory.

Even still some part of yourself wishes he does remember and you walk towards him with more a skip in your step than ever. But you find your path thwarted by an unwelcome familiar face.

Mindy, whom you’ve known since grade school, when her and her Mama lived on the farm with you until her mama married a new man. You used to be the best of friends but when she moved out she seemed to want to distance herself from you and did so by criticizing everything you did. 

Most people would be hard-pressed to name anything she does like, but ask her about the things she hates and she can go on for hours. And of all the things she hates, you think you rank somewhere near the top, given how much she used to talk about you to anyone who would listen. Everything about you was apparently a personal offense to her, with her latest insult being that you apparently had a bunch of cats on your farm, hence your latest and most confusing nickname of “the Cathouse girl.” Though by far her most egregious thing she's ever said was that one day you were going to suffocate from your Mama’s apron strings, and it felt all the worse that you couldn’t even go to her about it lest you prove her point.

She now proudly wears her Miss Tupelo sash over seafoam green dress as she attempts to lift the bouquet out of your hands with a cloyingly sweet, “I’ll take that off your hands hon.” 

You move to protest this, but apparently your day has just gone from bad to worse, as you feel a familiar iron-like grip on your arm. “Rosebud, it’s time for us to leave.” You don’t need to turn around to know who it is.

“But Mama-”

“Yeah Y/N, thought all you did was listen to your Mama,” Mindy interrupts you as she finally wrenches the bouquet out of your hands. 

“It’s time to go home, Y/N,” your mother says severely, her grip on your elbow unyielding. Your cheeks burn with humiliation, having never felt so small under your mothers gaze, but you don’t argue with her and allow yourself to be pulled away, lest a bigger scene be caused.

Mindy, idly pops her spearmint gum with the most triumphant of smiles, sparing you a simple dismissive twiddle of her fingers before spinning around to present your hard work to your old friend. If there’s one thing you can be glad about in that moment, is that exactly zero other eyes were on you as you conceded to your mother like a scolded child and let her lead you out of the fairgrounds.

Little did you realize at the time, someone was watching.

You get into the truck and sit your fists clenching in anger on your knees, ashamed at what transpired just now. 

“Rosebud…” she starts, and you petulantly turn your entire body to face the window with your back to her. “Honey I know you think I go overboard with these things, but you gotta trust your mama here when I say that it’s all for your own good.”

Your nails dig into the meat of your palms, so hard you worry it may draw blood, but a part of you welcomes that. Maybe then she will understand how upset you are with her.  She still treats you like a child after all these years, protecting you from some nebulous threat that is both ever present yet somehow not important enough to give a name. 

You feel suffocated, unable to defend yourself from insults that you aren’t allowed to fully understand.

These feelings would only double when you would see the next day's newspaper, where an enlarged picture of Elvis and Mindy on the ferris wheel would take up most of the front page. Well there’s your answer as to who this mystery girl is, you think bitterly. 

Sweethearts reunited at last, the headline reads.

Though all your anger and fury would end up manifesting into nothing when the real world decided to remind you what was important in life. About a week after the fair, your home would receive a late night visit from the sheriff informing you of tragedy.

It didn’t feel real seeing what was once a colorful store teeming with life and love to now be reduced to a smoldering, skeletal pile of ash. You had been there not even a day ago and now it was gone. The police don’t suspect foul play but they weren’t ruling it out, and as you would learn, the little insurance mama did have on the shop didn’t cover fires unless it could be proven beyond a doubt that it was accidental. So suffice it to say, your family is on its own in terms of getting the store back up and running. 

Typically late fall is for drying out maybe a quarter of the left over supply of flowers, storing the rest into the cold storage below the shop, winterizing the bushels for the next season, and shifting focus to seeding and growing the more popular flowers in the greenhouses, but the fire had thrown the ultimate wrench into the plans. A good chunk of the cut flowers had been kept on display at the front of the shop or beneath it in cold storage, and so with them went much of the value in the business.

Your mama is stressed beyond anything you’ve ever seen, but what makes it worse is that she refuses to burden you with the knowledge of your financial situation. Which in turn stresses you out even more about the financial situation she didn’t want you to know about.

About a month after the fire Mama had gone to the bank in an effort to get a business loan so that she could rent a new place, while the others were in town trying to strike up partnerships with other stores on the same street and convince them to buy and sell your flowers. It wasn’t the greatest of plans but it was the only one you were left with so that you may hobble through this year into the next.

They could sell the flowers off to shops in nearby towns, but even selling the rest of the supply wholesale will hardly breakeven for this year leaving you with nothing saved come next season. And even then that’s only if everybody refuses payment for the work they did, which they did offer, but your Mama was having none of it.

Even setting up a stand on your property and selling from there wasn’t an option, as you’re located way too far out from town too hope for those driving by to stop and buy flowers off of you. 

You find yourself on one of the rare days in which you’re home alone, as you sit on the porch gazing out at the fields nearly devoid of all flora now. If your mother can’t convince the bank for a loan then all that your family has ever grown will rot, the land sold, and the strange tribe of women that had been collected under this roof would be left adrift. Beauty will give way over to necessity, as these bankers are under the false assumption that people don’t need flowers.

But how can you begrudge the necessity of food at a time like this when your kitchen is looking pathetically sparse these days. You wouldn’t mind too much if you didn’t know that it was a prelude to no food at all. 

It didn’t feel right that this would be the end of the farm, your Nana Gail took the dusty lands her deadbeat of a husband left her with and turned it into something beautiful. She passed it on to your Mama, a relative stranger she took in the both of you when your daddy was sent away to die an ocean away. 

The farm had survived two world wars and yet it would be a fire that would cause all that the women of your family had built to crumble. 

You shake your head furiously at the thought. Don’t let these bad thoughts get to you, you think to yourself. You're truly afraid of where these thoughts may lead you if you let them fester so instead you decide that the kitchen would benefit from some cheery flowers to brighten up the place. 

The house is in desperate need of that these days. 

But as you were in the dirt to pick Daffodils, you realize you weren’t as alone as you thought, as in the distance you see some dust being kicked up. Your heart jumps for joy thinking that it was your mother, bearing good news, until you get to the dirt road and the unfamiliar black car drives past you.

Making your way home you can see a tall figure step out of the shiny car, dressed all in black. As they turn to look at the house, they strike an unsettlingly familiar silhouette but it still takes you a second to recognize him, even if it was not even a month ago when you saw him last. 

Maybe it’s because, in your head, he’s still that gangly tow-headed boy, not this tall dark man in black that stands before you. 

“Elvis?”

A devastating grin spreads across his face as he spreads his arms out in a clear invitation for a hug. “Been a long time, Honeybee.”

You don’t know the etiquette as to how to greet someone you haven’t talked to in years, but also whom you’ve seen in passing a few days ago. But you graciously accept the hug and kiss on the cheek he gives you, so you in turn invite him into your home, unsure what else to do in the face of his casual familiarity. 

“Hope you don’t mind,” he says, grabbing a basket from the back seat. “But I brought you a lil’ gift.” Your eyes widen and your mouth instantly starts to water at the plentiful bounty within, as no less than a dozen Pomegranates filled that ornate basket. The fact that he brought such a thing, seemingly on a whim, spoke volumes as to how well the music business was treating him more than any sparkling jewel or shiny car could. 

“Can I offer you some water or…” you trail off as you put the daffodils in a vase, hoping he accepts, and you won’t have to suffer the embarrassment of having so little to offer such a man.

“If you could be a doll actually,” he says, plucking one of the sweet fruits. “Why don’tcha pop one a these open for old times sake.” You’re silently grateful he asked as you doubt it would have been too long before your empty stomach was demanding for one. “I still remember when you gave me one for the first time.” he idly remarks as you start to cut into it.  

You smile at that shared memory between the two of you, though a sorrowful ache settles in your stomach as those days seem so far away now. You gather a few errant seeds from the cutting board and you can’t help the small moan that comes from you, as you had resigned yourself to the fact that you wouldn’t be having any this year.

With the plate in hand you turn around to find your guest frozen in his sweet, before quickly gathering himself as you approach. 

“So what brings you back to these ol’ parts,” you ask, placing the plate between you two.

He pops a few seeds off of the ridge, and into his mouth, “Well I came back here because a certain someone left my show before I could even say hello to her.” 

You look down slightly embarrassed but a little ecstatic that he realized your absence, “Sorry ‘bout that, we get super busy around this time and couldn’t stick around too long.”

“I get it,” he answers amiably. “It looked like you and your mama had somewhere to be.”

You cringe and look down humiliated that, of all the things he could’ve seen that day, he saw perhaps the most embarrassing moment of your life. You look back and see an expression you can’t quite read on his face as you quickly recover and ask him how the star's life is treating him.

He regales you with all that he’s done the past few years since the music thing took off, and how he’s looking forward to the movies he’s gonna make. He even tells you how he’s just about to finish filming his first one pretty soon, and head back to Hollywood in a week.

The irony that you sit across from him, his dreams once so lofty and out of reach now coming true whereas your simple one seems to slip through your fingers is not lost on you. You have to actively force yourself to be happy for him at this moment, as he’s hardly to blame for your recent misfortunes. 

“How are you and Mindy doing?” you ask, after a while.

“Who?”

That really shouldn’t make you as happy as it did. 

“You know your old Sweetheart and all that,” you tease lightly.

“Oh… her…” he says, unable to hide the bit of a grimace on his face. “She was… nice?”

“You don’t gotta lie,” you say, laughing a bit at the thought

“She was nice to me,” he elaborates, shrugging his shoulders a bit, before giving a pointed look at you. “She had a lot to say ‘boutchu though.”

“I can imagine.” you say, plucking a few seeds. “Guess childhood sweethearts ain’t all they cracked up to be.”

“Wouldn’t know,” he says. “But enough a all that, how ‘boutchu, Honeybee? Whatcha been up to all these years?” 

“Oh you know, ain’t nothin’ ever changes down in Tupelo,” you dismiss, hoping to dodge his question. “Still growing flowers, still selling them,” you say, willing your smile to be more cheerful than strictly necessary. 

“Y’know,” he broaches lightly, his fingers awkwardly rapping against the grainy wood of the table. “I actually did stop by the shop before I got here…” he trails off, a solemn air falling over the both of you. 

“Oh.”

“Listen, darlin’,” he says, taking his hand in yours. “If you need anythin’ tell me how I can help,” he pleads softly.

“Yo-you don’t gotta be worried ‘bout us, we-we’re gonna be fine,” you stutter, attempting to parrot your Mama’s own words back to him, hoping you’re at least somewhat convincing. He takes your hand in his and soothingly rubs his thumb along the back of your hand. 

“Sweetheart if you folks need some money to tide y‘all over for a bit, I’d be happy t-”

“No,” you cut him off. “I can’t accept your money for nothing,” you declare. 

“I understand Honeybee,” he says, looking out the window. “But I just moved to a new place up in Memphis. It’s nice but kinda… bare on the outside, and I’ve been in the market for someone to fix that.” he says his steely blue gaze fixed on you. “And then I thought who better than the girl who could grow anythin’?” 

You’re genuinely flattered at the compliment, but you can’t help but feel this is simply more of his pity and you let him know as much. 

“Sweetheart, I was gonna offer you the job even before I saw your shop,” he says genuinely. “It don’t gotta be forever, just work a couple months up in Graceland, makin’ sure everything set up come spring, then you’ll be home.”

“Graceland?”

“It’s what the old owners called it anyway,” he says, shrugging his shoulders. “It’s a house right now, but it ain’t no home.” he looks solemn in his words until his eyes trail to you and you can see in real time as his whole demeanor brightens. “I think you could help fix that darlin’,” he states, his smile making it hard to focus on much else.

There is a bit of a pause, and you stupidly realize he’s waiting for an answer from you. But from the almost imperceptible drop in his grin at your hesitation, you doubt it’s the one he’s looking for. “I-I’m flattered but… I-I can’t just leave right now.” you stutter, feeling guilty that he’s now upset with you, and you feel the need to further justify your stance. “My family needs me right now.”

“And this is how you can help ‘em right now,” he argues, reaching into his back pocket. “I can even pay ya’ half upfront now.”

“Elvis, I don’t think that’ll be eno–” you’re cut off by him suddenly slapping what looks to be six hundred dollars on the table before casually going back to picking off the ruby colored seeds. He smiles a bit at the gobsmacked expression on your face, but how could you not be?

Renting out a new space downtown for a few months wouldn’t even cost a quarter of this with the rest being able to go toward everything else. It’s almost funny that previously you never even thought about money, but now it feels like that’s all you think about these days. 

“This-this is just for six months of work?” 

“Three actually,” he corrects. “The rest you’ll get paid in the Spring.” 

You feel your heart thunder within your chest with his words. This would be more than enough money to get your family through the year. But you don’t know if you could do it. Not the gardening part obviously more the being so far away from your family part. 

“Can I have some time to think about it?” you question, hoping that maybe the rest will be able to better convince you to go for it or someone else could take the offer.

“Sweetheart I gotta get back to Memphis real soon,” he warns, a lot cooler than before. “So I’m gonna need an answer right now.” You swallow nervously at the intensity of his gaze on you, feeling an uncomfortable feeling settling in your belly, the prospect of leaving home, making you queasy.

“Elvis I-I-I don’t know,” you stutter, your palms clammy as you hold the hem of your skirt with shaky hands, feeling as though the world is somehow closing in on you. 

“Well I guess that’s that then,” he says with an air of finality, that only further turns your stomach.

This man is offering a solution to all your current woes and yet you hesitate? You balk at the idea of a couple months of doing the same work you would’ve been doing here? And for what exactly? 

You know you should discuss this with your Mama, but you already know what her answer is going to be. It’s the same one she has been giving these last few weeks when you had asked about getting a job to better support the house.

Your daddy never came back from the war so she promised to love you twice as fiercely, for the both of them. She had always done her best to feed you, clothe you, protect you. It’s no secret that everything this farm started from you when she had to support the both of you on her own. And you know for a fact if it was her being offered the job she wouldn’t have even blinked to take it. But you’re about to let that all slip through your fingers because you’re too much of a coward to do what needs to be done. 

But even with all that in mind, it’s not your mind that ultimately makes the decision so much as your stomach, as it rumbles yet again as you look upon the basket he left behind overflowing with one of the most expensive fruits you know, a mere taste as to what he can so casually provide you.

You catch him just as he’s about to step out the door, but before you can officially say yes you have one question left for him. “Can you promise me I’ll be home come Spring?”

“Darlin’ I can promise you right now, come Spring we’ll both have exactly what we want.” which is a big promise for anyone to make, but you are looking at the boy who had gone from being only able to sing in front of a single person in an empty field to someone who is now selling out shows to hundreds. There is an odd sense that if anybody can manifest the near impossible it would be him. 

It takes you only an hour to pack what you think you’ll need for these coming months, as well as write a barebones note explaining to your Mama that no you’re not being kidnapped and that you’ll be gone to raise money to save the farm. You don’t say where you’ll be but you do promise that you will write as often as you can and that you’ll be home come springtime. You quickly stuff the note and the money into the envelope, and leave it right on top of the basket. 

But before you can make it out the front door, you're presented with a bright cheerful looking daffodil, plucked straight from the vase you had put it in. “For new beginnings,” he says with a soft smile. 

“How’d you know that?” you asked surprised that he remembered after all this time, but taking a hold of it anyway.

“Hell, all the time I spent down here,” he said, throwing an arm over your shoulder. “Somethin’ was bound to stick.”

And just like that you’re off. 

You refuse to look forlornly out at the fields you’re leaving behind, trying to remind yourself that it’s not as though you’ll be gone forever. You’ll be back before you know it, you think, trying to convince yourself, and it’s Elvis’ hand in yours that gives you some small comfort in this incredibly trying time, even as his eyes are firmly set forward.

Though it’s as you get to the state border do you realize that this will mark the first time you’ve been so far from home ever, and you let Elvis know as much. 

“There’s gonna be a lotta firsts when you stick with me darlin’,” he says, giving a tender kiss to the back of your hand.

Graceland on the outside is beautiful but… sterile, if you had to take a guess. There were trees with leaves starting to brown for the autumn, the shrubbery was perfectly manicured, and the grass was well maintained but it was utterly devoid of color save for the cars in the driveway. 

But then again this is what you’re here to rectify, so you try to be an optimist about it, and try to view it as a blank canvas so to speak. What the property lacked in the moment was warmth and you suppose now it’s your job to bring it.

That first month was all devoted to building the greenhouse necessary to start the entire process. You prefer to start with the seeds rather than skipping straight to the bulbs, so a place where you can better help them grow is ideal. Elvis is all too willing to indulge this and he puts in the order for one but all too soon he has to leave to go and finish his movie. 

As much as you knew Elvis, it felt odd being in a house with the owner gone. And while Graceland was far from empty, there is still that unsettling sensation of being there that you can’t quite shake. 

Of course not used to being so idle even during the winter, you start to take on other duties around the household. You quickly endear yourself to Miss Gladys with your willingness to take on the chores of the house and she goes out of her way to make you feel welcome. 

You like her, she’s the only one who feels as uncomfortable at the opulence as you did. In a lot of ways she reminds you of your own mother with the way she frets over her absent son. This strikes a particularly guilty chord within you, because unlike your Mama, Gladys has the benefit of knowing where her child was at the moment. 

“Where ya from sweetheart?” she asks you idly one day as you’re helping her make breakfast early one morning. 

“Tupelo,” you say while you beat the eggs.

“Oh do I know your Mama?”

“Probably,” you answer. “She ran the flower shop back there.”

Gladys pauses at that. You can’t see her face but you do hear the hesitation in her voice as she whispers “... Demi?”

“Yeah that’s my mama… you know her?” you ask a little confused at this point, and you wonder if there is some history there. 

There is an uncomfortably long pause before she says a simple, “Yeah I think I remember her…” The rest of the morning is filled with an awkward silence as you try to figure out what could have possibly happened there. 

That night, before you enter the room to talk to Elvis over the phone, you overhear the tail end of the conversation between him and his Mama. You hear her whisper in a low tone, “I hope you know what you’re doin’ Bewbie.” 

Whatever awkwardness that had arisen because of her question disappears soon after that. Gladys happily takes you under her wing once more, bringing you further into the fold of the Presleys and all the dynamics that come with it. She has even begun to refer to you as the daughter she never had which, while you understand is meant to make you feel welcome here, it in fact eats at you considering the state of the relationship between you and your real Mama. 

It’s times like these that you truly hate that your family doesn’t have a telephone. You want more than anything to hear her voice, but you know yourself well enough to know that if you were to even visit now you wouldn’t want to ever leave again.

You write to her pretty much every day. Like clockwork for the first month you write to her telling her about your day the same way you usually would, asking her for advice on some flowers, anything really that comes to mind. You had a lot of time that first month while you were helping with planning and building the greenhouse, so everyday you would sift through the hoard of mail to find one bearing your home address.

But it never comes. 

That doesn’t stop you from continuing to write to her everyday, handing off the letter to Jerry, and eagerly awaiting her reply. 

Elvis is very understanding over the fact that it’s a marathon and not a sprint to make the garden he wanted  and every time he’s back home he’s just as eager to see your progress with the seeds as you are to show him. Once you even tried to apologize to him feeling guilty that it’s taking so long to perfect that image of Graceland he had.

“Sweetheart you bein’ there, takin’ care a everythin’ makes it feel all the more like a proper home,” he insists over the phone. “And I can’t wait to get back and see it all.” 

This guilt eases once the greenhouse is finished and you can finally get to work with the flowers you’ve planned. Elvis quote “trusted your vision” and wanted you to choose whatever you thought worked best, but he did specify which flowers he absolutely wanted on the property: Lilacs, Gardenias, Carnations, Tulips, Forget-Me-Nots, and Roses. 

“I’m a bit of a romantic, I guess,” he said shyly rubbing the back of his neck. You don’t mind too much, as him knowing what he wants by far makes him the easiest man you’ve ever worked with. 

Elvis had left you with the understanding that the boys he left behind would be at your beck and call and that should you need anything, not to be afraid to send them to get it. Pots and other such tools were easy enough to send for, but when it came down to other fine details such as soil and seeds, you trusted no one but yourself to find what you need, and so you instead ask if one of them could take you into town to find what you need. 

“I cAN-” Jerry, one of the younger ones offered, blushing furiously at his overeagerness that caused his voice to crack slightly. “I mean I can take you,” he says, far more composed this time around. The other men protest, saying he’s too young and that he only just got his license, and ‘don’tchu want a real man drivin’ around sweetheart?’

It was those last comments that really solidified your decision to have it be him, as there was something about Jerry, (16, Lanky, and with a voice still cracking from puberty) that put your mind at ease over all these other grown men, in a way you can’t exactly place.

You stopped going to school when you were around 15 and outside of brief exchanges with the men that used to come into your shop, you haven’t really had much interaction with menfolk in the past 3 years. So that’s where you believe your unease stems from, having been surrounded by mostly women your entire life, being around so many men now is a bit of a shock to your system. 

He leads you to his shiny new car, a gift from Elvis for some unspecified favor he did for him, and just like that you’re off. The drive into town is mostly quiet save for Jerry nervously pointing out to you his favorite places in Memphis. You're happy to get out of Graceland, even for a little bit, as you rarely if ever got to explore Tupelo, so being somewhere entirely new was exciting, but at the end of the day there is really only one place you wished to be, the local nursery.

You quickly locate the specific tools you’re going to need and find the best soil for the flowers, and you’re finally able to do what you most wanted. You’re almost like a kid in a candy store as you eagerly look through the varieties of seeds available within the store. As much as you want to take them all you have to be realistic as to not only what would look good, but as to what could be grown on the property to have it looking good year round.

“So err…uhhh… Wh-what’s your favorite flower?” he asks shyly, as you're perusing the various seed packets to be had. 

“All of them,” you say without hesitation, not even looking up from the task.

“Really all of ‘em?” 

“I’m serious, asking me what my favorite flower is, it’s like asking a mother who her favorite child is,” you say fondly, rubbing your thumb lightly on the little packets that will eventually become the flowers you so love.  

He laughs at that, “Why do ya’ love ‘em so much?”

“Well when you grow up on a flower farm, you ain’t got much of a choice,” you quip. 

“A flower farm?” 

“Yeah,” you clarify. “My Mama and I grew and sold flowers in our shop back in Tupelo.” 

“...Yo-you had a flower shop back in Tupelo?” he stutters. 

“Yeah,” you say solemnly, this conversation dredging up some very bittersweet memories. “Why dontcha go ring up everything while I finish up over here,” you say.

It's October already, you think to yourself, they probably started cutting down the sunflowers by now. You know that you’re doing more for them here making money and sending it back to them than you would have being an extra set of idle hands back home, still that does little to quell that uneasy feeling being so far from home now. 

You’d kept up the writing and have recently let her know how lonely you’ve been feeling here, part venting, part as a means of getting her to write to you back for the first time.

It didn’t work and that sours your mood for the rest of the outing.

The ride back to Graceland is far quieter this time around, and Henry seems to avoid you after that, but you hardly notice as now that you have everything you need, you can really focus all your energy in doing what you came here to do. This is what you’re undoubtedly good at and now that you’re back at it, you don’t want anything to distract you from doing your job and getting back home as soon as possible.

A few days later, as you were finishing up in the greenhouse you would find Jerry sitting next to someone, back ramrod straight as a familiar figure had an arm casually slung over his shoulder. Jerry leaves before you can figure out what that’s all about, so you instead greet the not-so-stranger before you.

“You’re early,” you casually remark to him. 

“I missed ya’,” he drawls, a light smirk on his lips that causes a pleasant warmth to radiate from your chest. But his face takes on a more sobering look as he looks at you, purses his lips, and pats the no occupied seat, which you worriedly take. “Actually, I was just ‘bouta go lookin’ for ya’,” he says, before letting out a pensive sigh. “Jerry actually needs a place to stay for a week or two, and I invited him here.”

“Oh that’s nice of you,” you say.

A small bashful smile cracks his somber expression, before the intensity returns and he informs you that yours was the room he offered him. 

 “I don’t mind sleeping on the couch,” you insist, scared that you may be about to be sent home without the rest of the money to show for it.

“Don’tchu worry ‘bout that,” he said, chucking your chin up to look at him. “I just figured that my bed should be big ‘nough for the both of us.” 

His words catch you off guard, and you feel your face burning unsure as to how to respond. He sees your hesitation and backs off slightly before continuing. “Course if you don’t feel too comfortable sharin’ with me I can always putcha up somewhere else,” he starts and you’re about to jump on that offer until he continues. “Though, we might need to take that outta your pay,” he says, and you shrink a bit at the reality of the situation. “Not to mention havin’ to getchu back and forth day in and out,” he continues, rambling on and on about the logistics of the prospect.

“No-no,” you cut in. “I-if you’re really okay with it… then I-I don’t mind.” you say slightly defeated though if he notices he doesn’t say anything about it.

A full grin cracks his face, “Perfect we’ll go move your things right now,” he says as he takes your hand in his leading you up to where your room was.

“...ok…” you said, accepting his offer in a small voice. Though it’s hardly an offer as that would imply you had a choice in the matter. 

The next week you want to kick yourself over being so nervous over nothing, as he proves himself to be nothing less than a gentleman all things considered. Yes he does get a bit clingy when he’s asleep and he all but refuses to let you out of the bed when you wake up before him. But in all honesty you welcome it very much. 

It helps ease that lonely feeling somewhat as being held by him takes away some of your worry about not belonging here. Everybody seems to give you a wide berth and it was a definite shock to your system considering where you come from, being essentially the baby on the farm you were freely plied with all forms of physical affection your whole life. But you do take comfort in him, even if it is only limited to the night time.

Though when that week is up you idly ask him when you can move your things back into your old room, to which he only responds by wrapping an arm over your shoulders and saying, “Now why would I want my Honeybee so far away from me.” 

You’re too shocked at the statement to even think of countering him at the moment, but even when the statement does truly settle for you, you aren’t entirely opposed to it. As it makes you feel far more secure here knowing that he wants you here so much. It’s odd how final it feels in spite of how small the moment was. You’re not just Honeybee anymore, you're His Honeybee, and that’s that.

That’s one of the first things you learned living in Graceland, is that whatever Elvis says, goes. Everybody seems to bend over backwards to his wishes here, and at first it was a little funny if a little perturbing, as you justified to yourself that you were his friend and therefore he wouldn’t put any crazy demands on you even if he was technically your boss. 

But it’s only in that moment that you truly realize that you were no exception to that rule. And why would you be? Considering he is the one that is the one supporting not only you but by extension your entire family back home, how can you do anything but agree to his demands?

But that may be being a bit too harsh, as being his girl is certainly not an unpleasant phenomena. He seemed to become bolder with your amiable acceptance to your new found title of becoming his. In short order all of the clothes you brought from home disappeared and were replaced with much finer ones, and he becomes the most frequent visitor in the greenhouse. 

Whenever he is around is almost constantly touching you and bringing you close to him at any given moment. And these weren’t exactly touches you were familiar with; Brushing his fingers along your neck to fix your necklace, hand on your lower back to steer you a certain way, rubbing your knee beneath the table (sometimes above your clothes, sometimes not) etc. All new and exciting, in their own ways.

Everytime you see him it feels akin to something blooming within your chest. You think this is why there were so many flowers meant to express love, because that feeling he gives you is hard to put into words. 

It was only inevitable that the kisses would come along eventually. First beginning as friendly ones on the cheek before bed, then graduating to something far more… carnal. Almost like he was trying to consume you, and these kisses always left you panting and in a state of shock from the ferocity he displayed only to end it with a very sweet kiss to your cheek and tucking the both of you into bed.

You’re not gonna lie and say you don’t enjoy the kissing but it does give you a good scare when he begins to touch you in other places that are not-so-innocent places as he kisses you: His hand on your bottom when wants to press your body closer to his, the continual rubbing between your inner thighs, his thumb circling the taut peak of your breast. 

Though admittedly his new touches were a bit on the scarier side for you, you don’t fight it, and in fact get bolder yourself by taking a page out of his book and giving as good as you got. He seems to relish the reaction he can pull from you, which is intimidating as much as it is titillating. 

But these feelings have also been manifesting in some strange ways physically, like you seem to breathe harder when he’s around, and seeing him bite his lip makes your mouth go dry. But this all pales in comparison to the sensation of him rubbing a hand on your inner thigh, and it feels like you go dry everywhere, save for one place. As exciting as it is, it’s confusing all the same, and you above all else wish you could confide in anyone with how you were feeling.

Typically you could freely talk about any lady troubles you may have with your Mama but her inability/unwillingness to talk to you now leaves you to navigate this maze alone. You consider asking Miss Gladys or even Dodger for their thoughts, but the fact that it’s Elvis that awakens these feelings within you, makes going to them seem inappropriate for some reason. But ultimately that only leaves you with one person to go to about your problem despite them also being the cause of it. 

Which is how you find yourself sitting on your knees in his bed with a shaky breath telling him how his touches are stirring something in you that you don’t understand. 

“Where?” he asks, seemingly innocent but the way he bites his cheek, tells you he’s trying to hold back a laugh at your discomfort. “Here” he says, placing a hand on your lower belly, and while it clenches from the sudden contact, you shake your head no. 

“Here?” He asks with a small smile, cupping one of your breasts, and though your breath hitches in your throat and you feel one of the buds harden at his thumbs' attention, that’s not where the worst of the feelings is coming from. 

“Elvis please,” you beg, squirming at his touch. 

“Oh I think I know Honeybee,” he says one hand now slowly dragging the hem of your nightgown up well past your hips, before he rubs his fingers along the seam of your panties.

In spite of the strangled feeling in your throat, you manage to squeak out a simple “yes,” as tears begin to well up in your eyes. 

“Don’tchu worry Baby. I know somethin’ that can help,” he says as he drags the delicate fabric of your white cotton panties down to your knees. On reflex your thighs clench shut immediately but, with a few languid kisses he’s able to distract you from your skittishness and you feel the first tentative brush of his fingers on that sensitive flesh. 

As much as you love your home you’ll admit that there was rarely if ever a moment for yourself there anymore. So him now brazenly touching the seldom explored area was mind-boggling for you, moreso when he begins to prod deeper, dipping between your folds and even one finger delving further than any other.

That gets a surprised gasp out of you before you bite down on your lip hard, embarrassed that you're feeling like this while he’s trying to help you. But while you’re able to hold back your noises, you can do nothing to help the way you’re breathing-well more panting- now or the way you’re shivering. You’ve never felt anything close to this in your life, but even this pales in comparison to when he adds a second finger, and you feel like you're about to burst. 

“Honeybee… what’d ya know ‘bout baby-makin’,” he asks, seemingly out of the blue.

Part of you wants to act coy and say something like “enough” to get him to continue, but it’s hard to concentrate on any of that as you feel his fingers deep within you. So instead you reply with, “that…that o-ooh-only a Husband and Wife can make oNE.” you yelp that last part as he curls his fingers ever so slightly. 

“And that’s it?” he asks with a bit of a skeptical look on his face, and you bury your face in his neck, a bit ashamed that that is the truth of the matter. “Oh Honeybee, you don’t gotta be that way,” he says, giving you a sweet kiss to your nose as he’s still three knuckles deep up your canal. “That’s the right of it, but I don’t think yer Mama ever mentioned that there ain’t no harm in practicin’ before the Weddin’ like this.”

“O-oh,” you say, part as an answer, part an involuntary noise to the way his thumb starts to circle around that pearl between your folds.

“You like that baby girl?” he purrs to you. Your eyes are shut tight and you’re trying to move your hips in tandem with his motions. 

“Y-yes,” you manage to whimper, so focused on chasing that feeling he’s causing that you don’t even notice when he drags the straps of your nightgown fully down your shoulders. And it’s as you suddenly feel him bite down hard on the soft skin of your breast do you finally peak with a harrowing sob. 

You cling on to him for dear life as wave after wave of pleasure surges through you all at once and you feel as though you’re going to float away any moment. But holding on to him, kissing him, and feeling his skin against your tethers you here, reassuring you that this isn't a dream. 

You feel his fingers leave you, and that paired with him pulling away from your lips causes a small whine to come from you. You’re quickly quieted from the shock of seeing him stick the same fingers in his mouth giving a contented groan, “Course my Honeybee’s got the sweetest nectar he whispers against your lips, before giving you a taste for yourself. 

You feel boneless and weightless yet your eyes feel so heavy from all that you just experienced, but for as tired as you are at that moment, you’re not ready to go back to dreaming yet. 

“Ca-can I try that on you?” you ask meekly still in a bit of a haze from that euphoric feeling.

A bite to his lip prevents it from being a full blown grin “You sure ‘bout that Baby? Mine’s a lil’ different… well not too lil’,” he says. Clearly amused by your request to make him feel just as good. 

“I wanna help,” you insist. He chuckles at how eager you were before he guides your hand down to a prominent bulge in his briefs. You’re not too sure what exactly you’re feeling through the rough cotton, just that it is either intensely painful or pleasurable to Elvis given how his breath hitches and his eyes slam shut. You try to remove your hand but his vice-like grip on your wrist prevents that and you can only further palm him.  

You apply a bit more pressure, you take the sigh of contentment as a good sign before you delve underneath the fabric of his shorts. 

You watch, a bit fascinated as you work to get the rough fabric down, and suddenly you’re face to face with something you’ve never seen before. A long thick column of flesh stands before you, bobbing slightly as he takes deep breath after breath. The skin feels soft but unyielding beneath your touch and you patiently await his instructions, but that deep groan that comes from him as you apply a bit of pressure makes you feel all sorts of powerful over this beautiful man. 

He has you gather the slick from between your legs and even spit in your own hand to make it easier for you to slide up and down the shaft. His eyes are screwed shut, his long lashes brushing his cheeks, and he’s mumbling his praises for you, which only further encourages you. 

He’s unraveling before your eyes, and you take great delight in being a witness to it. You’ve seen him dance before so it shouldn’t be surprising how well he’s able to move his hips, but it does add an entirely new context to it and you hope the next time you see him on stage you’ll be able to not think of him like this.

An idea pops into your head, and you decide to jump on it before you lose your nerve, and you give a soft kiss to the very tip of him. He freezes in place, his eyes wide and shocked at your teasing, his chest rising and falling and you feel heat flood your entire being.

“I-I’m so-sorry,” you breath out, embarrassed that you may have unintentionally done something you weren’t supposed to do. “I just th-thought you mi-” you cut off as he chuckles at your obvious distress before giving you a sweet kiss. 

“Just surprised me Honeybee, thas all,” he reassures you against your lips, before giving you a little nibble there. “Why don’tcha try that again?” he drawls, trying to not appear too eager, but it’s apparent even to you. 

You get right back to it, and you give even softer kisses along the shaft, each one being punctuated by a low moan from him, until you finally get to the very top of him, and you run your tongue along the small slit to be found there.    

His hips stutter at that and one second you’re wondering what’s happening to him, the next you’re a coughing mess as that salty stream hits the back of your throat. He’s now just as dazed as you feel his hand rubbing soothing circles on your back, as you settle, and he takes charge in getting you both ready for bed.

As you lay side by side, he has nothing but praise for you whispering how good and perfect you were between hungry kisses until you drift off to sleep. 

The next day would mark the first time you didn’t write to your mother. Part because you have already accepted she wouldn’t reply, part wanting to also keep that as private as possible. It also marks the first time in your life you don’t share something that felt so important with her.

Your Mama never liked talking about your daddy beyond saying that they loved each other very much. She never went into detail beyond that believing you were too young to hear them, but she never gave you an idea when you would be grown enough to hear them. But now above all else you want to hear when she knew she was in love with him, because you think you’re falling in love with Elvis. 

Scratch that.

You know you are but you would give anything right now to be able to talk to somebody about it. And it’s upsetting that the person you usually talk your worries through is also one of your biggest ones at the moment. But even then you would have been willing to discuss it with her, if only she was willing to do so back.

It seems the more upset you become with her, the more comforting Elvis becomes to you. Even still you hesitate to share your fears with him until he is the one that broaches it. 

“What’s on your mind Honeybee?” he says as he draws circles along your hip. 

“Nothing much,” you dismiss. “Just trying to figure out when it's best to plant everything.”

His sardonic smile tells you he doesn’t believe you one bit, “C’mon darlin’ I know ya’ better than that.” Which is a bit of an understatement, as it feels like these days he’s able to read you better than you can yourself anymore. 

After letting out a long tired sigh, you tell him “I think she’s mad at me,” while you two were settling into bed. 

“Now who could ever be mad at my Honeybee?” he says, bringing you closer to him. 

“My mama,” you say solemnly, tears in your eyes. “She’s never replied to a single letter of mine, and I write to her everyday.”

“I’m sure she’s just busy,” he tries to comfort you. But they ring hollow knowing that she always used to say- something you even quoted her in your last letter- ‘I’m never too busy for you Rosebud.’ He pulls you close to his chest as he rubs his hand along your back, “Darlin’ your mama is a hard-headed woman- lord knows I got the scars to prove it- but I don’t think she could stay mad at you forever.”

“What?” you say, sitting up to face him fully.

“What?”

“What do you mean you have the scars to prove it?”

“O-oh…” he says with a slight grimace on his face, before giving a bit of an awkward chuckle. “We-well… ya’ remember before I left, I-I asked you to’ run away with us?” You nod your head slowly. “Well that night, when I went back to the farm to tell her… she… she had a bit of a fit.”

“That doesn’t answer my question E.”

His lips form a thin line, clearly reluctant to tell you more, but he does eventually cave with a long hard sigh. “She got so mad at the thought a you leavin’ she grabbed my hand somethin’ fierce, and… and… well…” he trails off as he presents you the palm of his left hand, where you can see some small jagged silvery lines along it. 

“She… she did this?” you whisper, lightly touching the scars, unbelieving that your Mama could do such a thing. She was the one who hardly ever raised her voice and didn’t even swat at Bees in front of you. How could she hurt him like this?

“I-I understand not wantin’ your kid to run away,” he says, “but I don’t think hurtin’ one like this was needed. But that wasn’t even the worst part of it.”

“What is it?”

“She… she banned me from ever comin’ back to the farm again. Couldn’t even say goodbye to ya properly,” he says somberly, his eyes sad as he tenderly cupped your cheek.

“I’m sorry,” you say, at a loss for what else you could say knowing what you do now.

“You don’t got nothin’ to apologize for baby,” he says softly, holding your hand in his scarred one. “And listen Honeybee, if she’s so mad that she don’t wantcha back, you’ll always have a home here,” he promises before he gives you a kiss to your temple and turns off the light.

You know the words were meant to be comforting, but they have the opposite effect and make your stomach drop at the prospect that she may be that mad. It has never occurred in your mind that she may be that cross with you for leaving 

But like a fowl little seed, those words are implanted in your mind and take root. You wish he had never said those words, but you can hardly fault him for his attempts to console you in your hurt. 

Would she ever be so mad at you? You wonder to yourself. You feel Elvis hands wrap around your waist and you remember the marks your Mama left on him in a rage. And that was simply from the idea that you would leave. What would she do now that you've actually left? 

Elvis has never had a bad word to say about anybody, but you realize even he was being far more generous than was needed for what she had done.  All that over a stupid kiddy idea of running away?

You lay there for hours with the only sounds being Elvis’ steady breathing. The longer you’re awake the more you think about it, which fuels the vicious cycle as those thoughts make it harder  to fall asleep. Doubt creeps into your very soul that the  home you are so desperate to return to will even be there come spring, and you silently weep. 

But not as silently as you thought, as Elvis is awake within seconds. He holds you so close and so tight that it truly feels like he’ll never let go. 

“No matter what,” he whispers in your ear. “Your home will always be here with me, Honeybee.”

You’re touched by his words and the way he holds you makes you feel so safe now and you kiss him fiercely, and want nothing more than to be as close to him as possible.

Up until this point you had been reluctant to go that final step with Elvis, pretty much doing everything but that last act. As greedy as he could be with your body (given how many hours he’s spent with his head between your legs), he had asserted you would be the one to decide when you would cross that final line with him. Though from the tone of his voice each time he said it, you figured he was gunning for it to be sooner rather than later.

You don’t know what exactly it is about the idea that you may not have a home to return to that makes you want to attach yourself further to him. You want to forget about everything when you’re with him and he makes it easy to do so. Being with him makes you so happy in way you don’t ever think you’ve experienced on the farm, and you 

“Are ya sure sweetheart,” he groans, before his eyes snap shut as you rub your lower lips along his shaft, as you’ve done dozens of times before. 

“Yes,” you whine, wanting to feel him the way he was meant to be. 

When he finally slides into you, you can’t help the satisfied hum that escapes you, as he slides right into you. You’re on top and he lets you set the pace for yourself, which is good as even with all of your previous practice with him, you still need some time to adjust to the size of him up that secret channel of yours. 

You can see the sheer will power it’s taking for him to let you go your own speed, so once the pleasure overtakes the pain, without any more preamble, you begin to quicken your hips and ride him like your life depends on it. It may very well, considering the closer you get to you climax the more it feels like you may pass out before you get to that point.

“This right here,” he grons, rolling his hips up into you rubbing his thumb along that button of yours. “This is where home is.”

“Yes,” you sob, tears streaming down your face, “Home… you.” you cry, unable to finish as he hits just the right spot within and your vision is being blurred by stars.

You feel so whole as he spills within you, and with his now softened cock still snuggly within you, “I love you Elvis,” you sigh into his chest, content to fall asleep then and there, but you quickly realize your mistake as your words seem to reinvigorate him and he takes you a few more times until the crack of dawn. But between his filthy words and his declarations of love one thing he says sticks out to you the most. 

“Ain’t nothin’ ever gonna take you away now Honeybee,” he groans as you pick up the pace, his hand squeezing your bottom so tight, only further cementing how secure you are here. 

Slowly but surely you stop writing to your mother. What was something you previously did everyday, became every other week, to eventually once a week once February came. And even the ones you do send are limited to very basic and dry summaries of the week, as to what flowers you were focusing on and general questions as to how everybody else is doing back home. Gone are the days of you waxing poetically about your confusion over your feelings for Elvis and you plea for a single response from her. She’s shown her interest in your life, as well as shown how willing she is to be involved with it anymore so you decide to accept it, albeit with a heavy heart. 

The last time you expressed anything even remotely emotional with her was how you find it hard to think of the farm as being home anymore when she’s been so cold to you these last few months, and how you doubt you even want to go back. 

She doesn’t reply.

Elvis seems to take to his new role in your life surprisingly well. Always willing to help you through your emotional turmoil when he was home and shield you from the rest.

He seems to take great comfort in you as well, and the greenhouse has now even become a place away from all of it. When he’s home one of the first things he does is visit you there, and simply sit with you for a few hours. You think it’s mostly to serve as a breather between all the chaos that is his life outside of these glass walls, but you’re all too happy to help him in this way as he’s helped you. 

That feeling of perfection you got when you first shared that pomegranate with him, you feel it almost everyday in that greenhouse with him. The light shining through the panes of glass keeping the place warm, the fresh air coming from the sproutlings in their pots, his soft humming. All of it adding up to a dream you never want to wake up from.

The beginning of Spring came and went and neither of you brought up the fact that you were meant to be back at the farm. The most you do allude to it was you telling him to forward that final payment directly to your Mama, mostly as a last ditch effort to get her to finally respond to you for once. 

She doesn’t respond. 

You and Elvis decide then and there to wash your hands of her, though it was perhaps the hardest thing you’ve ever had to do. But you can’t keep letting her silence break your heart so you focus all of your energy into two things: Elvis and making Graceland beautiful.

The first one is pretty easy to do considering when he is home, there is little to no distance between you two. He can hardly keep his hands off of you anymore when he’s here, with nights spent under the sheets, and days spent literally everywhere else on the property. He seems to be particularly fond of being in the Greenhouse, loving to see you so in your element in there only to bend you over your work table and take you hot and heavy from behind. 

These encounters only make you feel his absence even more, as while you’re not exactly alone in Graceland it does make the big property feel all the emptier. Which in turn makes your second focus all the harder.

You’ve by now planted any and all flowers you intended to and they are all well on their way to growing strong, and now knowing you’re going to be staying, you’re happy that you’ll be able to do so for years to come. Now that you’ve gotten past the most trying part, tending to them is going to be a cinch…

Or it would be if you weren’t so tired all the time.

Oftentimes you find yourself napping in the most inopportune places around the property. Sweet Pea has apparently appointed herself as your official protector while you rested outside and by extension roped Brutus and Snoopy into it as well. You can’t even begin to count the amount of times you would want to rest your eyes for a minute only to find hours had passed and three dogs at the ready to guard you from whatever may come. WHich considering how you’ve been feeling sicker and sicker lately what with the fever you’ve been feeling and the nausea you’ve been having some mornings. 

You don’t exactly understand why you’re far more sensitive to smell nowadays. You almost threw up the other morning from the smell of the eggs, which has Dodger and Miss Gladys looking very funny at you. You don’t pay it any mind though as you were just glad that you’re still able to appreciate the smell of flowers. 

You’re in a far better mood today, what with Elvis set to return later, you decided to leave a surprise in his office. The roses were in full bloom now, so you decided to pluck a few for old times sake and leave some for him. 

As you’re placing the vase down onto the desk, you watch as one of the blooms falls right off the stems and rolls to the other side of it. But when you go to pick it up, what you find is far stranger.

With the amount of fan mail he gets, you wouldn’t have paid the neat stack any mind if you hadn’t immediately recognized your own handwriting on the very top one. ANd you would have taken that as a very crazy coincidence if it weren’t for the fact that it also has your old address on the front. 

And it’s not just that one, you find a couple dozen envelopes with your handwriting and address on the front, and an unpleasant feeling fills your belly as you tentatively remove a page from the envelope. 

And it’s there that you read your own gut-wrenching words of your loneliness here and your wishes that your mother would write back to you. How you plead for her to reach out if only to reassure you that she’s alive and getting these letters. 

You had imagined that they had either been destroyed the moment your mother saw them or gathering dust somewhere in your old childhood home. But now you find them here, a place you know very few are even allowed to be. 

She didn’t get any of them you realize looking at the thick stack, an icky sense of violation creeping under your skin, seeing them worn and wrinkled in some places, but somebody definitely read these. 

You want to throw up, and not just because of your newfound sensitive stomach, but due to the revelation that if he didn’t send any of them, then that meant… he had seen you be upset to the point of crying over this, all the while blaming your Mama for it and letting you take comfort in him. 

Not only that, he read about your loneliness and actively decided to make you feel even more isolated by not letting you talk to your Mama. He held you as you cried over the fact she wasn’t talking to you and said nothing.

Your heart is pounding in your chest and you stagger back so far that you knock the vase full of roses right off the desk. You don’t pay it any mind and leave them and the letters where you find them. You have to get away, you have to go home. 

You don’t bother to grab anything (it’s all his anyway), you simply find Jerry and tell him that he has to take you back to Tupelo right now. He’s stuttering trying to make the usual excuses of why he couldn’t take you, but he’s weak to your tears, and he silently leads you to the car.

It’s a long silent trip save for your quiet sobs from the passenger side. You don’t know if he’s intentionally stalling or if the drive is truly this long, either way it feels like forever before you can finally breathe within the Lee County borders. 

You take comfort in the landmarks becoming more and more familiar until finally you see your home in the distance. You don’t take your eyes off of it for even a second, afraid it may disappear the moment you do so. You have a hard time believing it’s even real until you stand before the front door. 

You hold the doorknob hesitating to open it, fearful as to what you may find on the other side, but ultimately you know that there is no possible way it can be any worse than where you just came from.

It’s oddly shocking how nothing has really changed in the months you’ve been gone. It’s almost as though you just walked out minutes ago, but you yourself feel you’ve changed so much since you were last here. The furniture arrangement is the same, as are the books on the shelf, and even your Mama's house slippers are in their usual spot. 

You listen as someone is cooking in the kitchen, and you feel your heart warm knowing that at the very least you accomplished what you had set out to do and provide for your family, regardless of the sick feeling that work has left in your belly. 

“Kate that you?” you hear from the voice that has accompanied you your whole life. “I told all y’all to take the da-” she cuts herself off upon seeing you.

You almost don’t recognize her, the streaks of white in her hair, the fine lines in the corners and the heavy bags underneath her eyes, overall speak to the way your absence has affected her these last few months. You feel guilty for every unkind thought you’ve had of her all this time, as you can now see for yourself how much she missed you. She looks as though she’s aged ten years in the months you’ve been away, and you can only imagine how you’ve so drastically changed in her eyes.

But none of that matters in the moment, as she drops everything in her hands and proceeds to take you in her arms and sob uncontrollably. You meet her halfway weeping just as fiercly in her chest, you thought you had run out of tears during the drive, only to find a new spring, as she blubbers in your ear “my baby’s home.”

Even after some time had passed like that, you can’t even begin to form any semi-coherent sentence as you blubber over and over again your apologies for being gone for so long. She’s long since stopped her own tears in favor of comforting you which only makes you feel all the worse. 

“Shh, it’s gonna be okay,” she whispers, having long since stopped her own tears in favor of comforting you now. “You’re home now, Rosebud. Everything’s gonna be okay,” and guilt eats at you, that you could ever even entertain the thought that she wouldn’t want you back. 

You remain in that state for what feels like hours, with your head in her lap as she smooths down your hair and in spite of all the turmoil you’ve undoubtedly put her through, it’s clear your comfort is her priority. Eventually though she does gather up the courage to ask you where you’ve been this whole time. 

After all you’ve put her through you figure that she at least deserves the truth, so you sit up to face her. But before you can even open your mouth you hear the front door open. Any nominal contentment you’ve found being back home all slips away when you hear the familiar heavy footfalls of the man you’ve been dreading seeing all day.  

“There you are Honeybee,” Elvis says, leaning against the doorframe, the familiar rakish smile in place. Those words are so familiar yet now they feel foreign as you no longer recognize the man who utters them to you.  

It feels like in mere seconds your mama has brought you to your feet and now you stand behind her, and away from him. “What are you doin’ here!?” she shouts, her body tense and rigid, as though ready to defend you from a lion rather than a single man.

He hardly even glances her way, his eyes firmly set on you. “Here to take my Honeybee back home of course.” Your mama doesn’t even waste a second after hearing that, she only wordlessly approaches and takes a swing at him. But he was ready for that, as he easily catches her wrist, and brought her close to him “Ain’t so easy now I ain’t a runt no more?” he says, grinning ear to ear, a deadly look crossing his steely blue eyes.

This catches both of you off guard but your Mama is quick to recover and attempts to shove him right out the door with a mighty “Get outta my house!” 

“Not without her,” he says, unnervingly keeping his voice low and cool, as though he were still very much in control of the situation. 

He may still very well be, you think. 

Before you can even think to help your mama, he easily maneuvers around her only to walk straight towards your frozen figure and put an arm around your shoulder. 

“C’mon Honeybee,” he says, blatantly ignoring the tears streaming down your face. “Time to head home,” and you shiver when he runs his thumb along your cheek the way he’s done a million times before. You see your mama look wide-eyed at this familiar interaction, and to your horror so does Elvis. “That’s right you don’t know where she’s been,” he says, giving a faux innocent look while boldly admitting right in front of you he never sent any of those letters. “Why don’tcha tell her darlin’.” he declares, punctuating his familiarity with a kiss to your cheek. You don’t know what’s worse, the look of shock on your mama’s face as he does this, or the dissatisfied look he shoots you when you curl away from him.

Your mama doesn’t need to be a genius to figure out what he’s implying, as you watch her deflate as she looks at you and gives a very defeated “why?” 

“Mama,” you whimper, wanting nothing more than to go to her, but Elvis’ arms keeping you firmly in place. “We-we needed the money, after the fire and…” 

You stop yourself short as your Mama seems to contemplate your words, only to make some sort of realization of her own before, a look of horror slowly creeping onto her face. “It was you wasn’t it?” She seethes in a low voice. 

“What was?” he says, trying to seem innocent but unable to fully mask his amusement at her state.

“The fire…” she said in a small voice, not even daring to continue. 

No, you refuse to believe. Ain’t no way he would go that far, but then you remember Jerry’s skittishness when he learned you had a flower shop in Tupelo as well as his reluctance to deny you a single thing, that big favor he apparently did for Elvis to earn his shiny new Cadillac. All of it is making a lot of sense, but you’re still unwilling to go that far for a chance to be with you.

That is until he says, “Now that’s a mighty big accusation,” coolly, with a bit of a smirk as he looks down on her.  

You freeze in place at that line. That’s not a no, you think, somehow still wanting to lie to yourself. He steals a glance at you and his face softens as he holds your shoulders and looks earnestly into your eyes as he says, “Honeybee you don’t think I would ever do something’ like that, now would you?”

You have to think on that for a moment, and you’re quiet until his grip tightens ever so slightly and his face noticeably drops from earnest to frustrated. You swallow deeply as you give a very unconvincing “No, of co-”

“Get your hands off her,” your mama spits, ripping you away from him, but he’s persistent, callously shoving her to the ground and gripping your jaw in his ringed hand. 

“Because if it’s true,” he continues so softly even as the cold metal digs into your cheeks. “Then I wonder what else I’d be willin’ to do to keep ya,” he casually threatens a sadistic look in his eyes as a wide grin spreads across his face. 

You feel your throat close as he glances down at your Mama, who’s struggling to get off the floor. He lets you go and you’re able to bring her to a chair. You once thought she was invincible but now you see her trembling clearly shaken up by this whole thing. Whatever your mama had; money, influence, respect, Elvis had in spades. She’s effectively powerless against him, but she still finds the strength to angle herself in front of you to try to block him. 

She’s afraid of him no doubt about it, but she’s still willing to defend you with her life. 

Would he be willing to go that far? You think and you let out a sob knowing the answer already. 

“Choice is yours darlin’,” he whispers right next to your ear. “If you’re willin’ to choose.” and then he steps right out onto the porch. You hope in vain that somehow he’s decided to leave, but that quickly dies as you hear him strike a match and you smell the familiar miasma of his favorite cigars. 

He wouldn’t, you think, but you can no longer put anything past him. You don’t ever want to truly find out what he’d be willing to if it meant keeping you by him, especially not at your mama’s expense. But you know in your gut how you can protect her. 

If you have one thing to thank your earlier crying fits for, it’s that you’re tapped dry at this point, so as you say to her “Mama I gotta go now,” you can say it with a little bit of dignity. 

“No… no Rosebud,” she pleads with you holding both of your hands. “Please stay… we can figure this out,” she says, the tears welling up in her eyes, as she comes to the same realization as you do. 

“It’s gonna be okay Mama,” you vainly try to reassure her but mostly yourself. “But you gotta let me go,” you sob, wanting to do anything but. And you have to leave her crying in the home she made for you.

You find him leaning against the porch railing, eyes slowly opening as you move closer to him. “Yes Honeybee,” he says, cloyingly sweet, as he wraps an arm around your shoulders. 

“Elvis…please… just-just take me home,” you whisper, burying your face into his chest. 

“Course sweetheart, anythin’ for you,” he says, and you shudder knowing he means it. You walk away from the porch and you breathe a sigh of relief as he drops the cigar into the dirt and stamps it out. “I really oughta quit anyway,” he says. “Heard it’s bad for the baby.” 

“What?” you say, your blood turning to ice hearing that. 

“Ain’t it like magic Honeybee?” he sighs as you both get in the backseat of Jerry’s car, the owner of which is pointedly not looking at either of you. Elvis pays no mind to it, instead absentmindedly rubbing your lower belly back and forth. “You plant somethin’ so small, and it’ll grow up to be somethin’ else,” he sighs in contentment, and you close your eyes to yet another revelation that is coming far too late.

“But… but… you said, that it only happens when you’re married,” you say, though your spirit has long since been defeated. 

“Don’tchu worry none ‘bout that sweetheart,” he dismisses. “We are gonna get married real soon, and ain’t no one gonna be the wiser.”

There’s something so final in that revelation that you are now forever tied to him not by your own choices, but by his. He chose you. 

He knew what he was doing and he knew you didn’t. 

Looking back you don’t think there was ever anything within your control. What’s worse is that a part of you wishes you had never gone into his office today and could have lived blissfully, unburdened with the knowledge of what he was willing to do to get you. 

You love him, which makes this betrayal feel all the worse. You glance to the side to see the fields of flowers you’re leaving behind, as he slowly slips a ring on your finger. Now he’s not even gonna pretend that you have a choice in the matter, you are going to marry him because he said so. 

With his hand in yours you feel as the car transitions from the dirt road to the paved one that will take you far away from your home. 

You close your eyes and you don’t look back.

Alternate Summary: In which Elvis sees himself as a triumphant Orpheus when he’s actually a victorious Hades.

Taglist

@venus-haze​ @djsjs13949​ @ilovehobi101​ @butlerslut​ @richardslady121​ @giabelia​ @sydneyyyya @meetme0614 @tacozebra051​ @myradiaz​  @thelifes-world @maythesunshineagain @rakitirakiti @lostteenagetale​ @j-v-9-2  @eliseinmemphis​ @dkayfixates​  @immi547 @thatbanditqueen​   @marriedtoeddie​ @cuteejeno​ @itlover8000​ @isthlsfate​ @mgparker​ @thatbanditqueen​ @softsatnin​ @literally-just-elvis-fics​​ 

#Elvis #elvis presley #elvis 2022 #austin!elvis #yandere #yandere elvis #yandere!elvis #yandere!elvis x reader #yandere x reader #yandere austin!elvis x reader #austin butler #austin!elvis angst #austin!elvis fic #elvis x reader #austin!elvis x reader #austin butler elvis #austin butler x reader #smh #it's not showing up in the tags yet again #hadestown inspired #hadestown #hades and persephone #hades #persephone #orpheus #eurydice #istg #I'm so done with you tumblr

[criminalskies]

Hey Rome! 👋🏽

What do you think about a Multiverse of Hotch’s? Like I have a pipe dream where maybe Aaron and reader aren’t together yet but maybe Haley from another universe shows Aaron what happens in other universes where they’re together and when they’re not? And it prompts Hotch to action to ask out and confess his feelings to his universe’s reader?

oh my god you're really appealing to the portion of my brain that was completely consumed by miles morales across the multiverse.

I can just see this, maybe Hotch is having a really fitful sleep one night and he takes something to help him sleep a little better, some melatonin or something, but then he finds himself in the strangest dream.

Suddenly he's staring at Haley, from four years ago, the last time they were happy together, and she's giving him a knowing look, AHH LIKE THE BARBIE SCENE, he walks over to her wanting to talk and the lighting is shifting colours around them in a big empty space, and she says "take my hand" and asks him why he's choosing not to be happy? he's so confused, he just doesn't understand what she's asking him.

She asks him what he thinks a soulmate is. He finds his answer easier than he had expected to, somebody who makes you feel whole. Somebody you can't imagine yourself without. Your hearts and your souls find themselves inextricably intertwined one day and then your whole view of the world shifts. They're the person who makes your world turn. He's thinking of Haley but she makes him close his eyes, and think about his life right now.

Who's the one person you want to run to when you're afraid, Aaron?

He knows his answer, Y/N. But he holds it back. It was supposed to be Haley, he thinks.

Who's the one person who can see right through your frowns and your guarded exterior, who can see the real Aaron no matter what?

Y/N, he thinks again. He feels bad this time, thinking about how even at their best, Haley could only see him the way he was when they had met, as they both grew up, she stopped being able to see him for who he was now. It freaks him out sometimes, actually, how the very moment in a social situation he realises nobody's asked him for his input in a while, your head will spin, take one brief look at him and ask him the exact question that flew through his mind mere moments before. You sweep him off of his feet with it, sometimes, he wonders at what point a person goes from profiler to psychic.

Aaron. Why aren't you letting yourself be happy with them, then?

Aaron can't help but think now that Haley was meant to be his soulmate, that was his chance at true love and he failed her. He's not sure he deserves another chance, and wouldn't it be wrong of him to love you without all of him in it? The pieces of him that died with Haley are holding him back. He doesn't want to offer you only the parts of him that remain.

"Close your eyes, Aaron." He obeys. His vision swims with a face much like Y/N's, only they're wearing a military uniform, muddied frags and dirt under their fingernails, but their smile is the same, bright, sunny sight he recognises from his sweetest dreams and from his warmest days at work, when he gets to spend time with you. You're growing smaller in his vision as the picture gets further away, he can now see you smiling at another uniformed officer, only this one... looks like him?

'He begins to wonder why Haley has brought him here when the image warps again, this time he can see you down at the beach, wearing a wetsuit with a surfboard under your arm, your hair is lighter here, and the uninterrupted sunshine makes your eyes sparkle even more. You throw your board down on the sand, turning to Aaron and motioning him to come closer. confused, he takes a step, but another surfer runs right by him, full speed towards the ocean, board under his arm. He turns as he runs past Y/N, smiling and calling out 'I'm gonna beat you!' It's him. Again. Your bubbly laugh erupts in his ears as you stagger to your feet, running after surfer aaron towards the crashing waves.

The next moment, Aaron finds himself standing in a quiet Parisian cafe, you're donning an apron and a frown as you sweep, picking up chairs as you go. Aaron wonders why you seem so sullen in this scene when he notices a man seated in the corner, even under a hat and thick framed glasses, aaron can see himself. He looks longingly at the server as he taps his fingers against the table, shaking his head and turning his attention back to his laptop, trying to go back to work. Aaron thinks he might be starting to see what's going on here as his vision changes again.

Now he sees himself, from just last week, when he came to visit Haley's grave, having felt guilty for not visiting in so long, he brought fresh cut flowers to replace the dried old ones left in the holder. Aaron can't help but notice the bags under his eyes, the slump of his shoulders. Every other Aaron he's seen today looked so full of hope or joy, but this one seems so plagued by guilt, weighed down by the shadows of his past.

Aaron's vision swims once more as he finds himself back where this dream began, his large hands are in haley's smaller ones as tears gather in his eyes, he looks around the previously empty space, seeing dozens of happy couples, some swinging a small boy between their interlaced hands as they walk, others are just basking in each other's embrace, quietly enjoying the others' company. Every couple looks like a slightly altered version of himself and Y/N. In some, aaron is younger, some older. One of the couples looks to be 95, a blanket draped over their legs as they both share the warmth of one armchair, a photo album in their laps. Even they look so happy.

"Aaron." Haley brings his attention back to her. he blinks away tears, looking at her.

"Soulmates will find one another in every universe, every time. Whether you take the leap to be with them, is up to you. But I wish you'd let yourself be happy, honey. I know there's obstacles, there always are, but obstacles are frightful things you see when you take your eyes off your goal. So keep your eyes on Y/N. Don't lose sight of what makes you happy."

A loud buzzing wakes Aaron up, he sees the tiniest sliver of sunlight rising over the horizon and entering his bedroom as he turns off his alarm. His chest is heaving and his eyes are still pooling with tears as he realises he's been holding himself back from you all this time. He's spent all of his time considering the past and none of it contemplating the fact that he can have a future.

That changes today. Today he's going to make the leap.

anon! I actually want to kiss you on the lips for giving me this idea! and i'm so willing to make it into a full fic if you wish me to but I just had to throw down my thoughts on this now bc my mind is spilling over with thoughts about this. I love those 'in every universe' posts i'm such a sap for destiny.

#anon mail! #rome's got mail! #aaron hotchner #criminal minds #haley brooks #aaron hotchner x reader #aaron hotchner x y/n #aaron hotchner imagine #aaron hotchner oneshot #hotch imagine #hotch oneshot #hotch x reader #hotch x you #aaron hotchner x you

[toxic-ship-tournament]

ROUND 1 / SIDE B / POLL 1

Ve’Qren x Lohl ( @zillastar13 ) vs Res x Leo ( @adanaac )

who makes up your ship?:

Ve'Qren x Lohl

why does your ship deserve to be considered the most toxic?:

Ve'Qren is a vampyr posing as an ancient pagan god to take advantage of the human sacrifices being preformed by the society he's deceiving. He's a manipulative and charismatic false god. Within two nights in his role, he has murdered a willing sacrifice, tortured a doubtful priest to set an example, and had highly dubiously consensual sex with Lohl. Lohl is the human high priest and wants nothing more than to serve to gods. He's utterly loyal, the sweetest thing, and easy to control. If Ve'Qren wants to drain someone of their blood, Lohl will find someone eager. If Ve'Qren wants to torture a priest, Lohl will watch reverently. If Ve'Qren wants to violate Lohl's celibacy vows, who is Lohl to stop him? They are a shining example of toxic relationships, and it's only a matter of time until Ve'Qren does something to keep Lohl, the object of his intense obsession, to himself. (Maybe even turning Lohl and letting him in on the ruse)

ship tags/playlists/pinterest boards?:

They're characters in my ongoing whump series. All of the chapters are linked in my pinned, but to start: Chapter one: https://www.tumblr.com/zillastar13/709917930705551360/blood-sacrifices The chapter where they get together: https://www.tumblr.com/zillastar13/713262473598386176/blood-sacrifices-part-five

****

who makes up your ship?:

Res and Leo.

why does your ship deserve to be considered the most toxic?:

Leo can’t remember anything that has happened to him before the age of twelve. All anyone knows is that he was in an accident that should have killed him, then he returned with an indestructible body and a void where his personality should be. He cannot comprehend good or evil, does not understand the concept known as ‘choice’, and cannot envision an existence where Res isn’t his Master. He imprinted onto Res the moment he met the other man and pushed himself into Res’ life without considering whether or not Res might want it. His first Master did not pass, he simply changed how he looked, and what he looks like now is Res. Period. He has nothing to offer, nothing to say, no emotions and no heart to give. All he knows are the facts, and the facts tell him that there is no Leo without Res. So he’ll make sure that there’s no Res without Leo. Res has always been very into science, but he isn’t too fond of how there are a bit too many restrictions on the experiments he can perform, and he’s even less fond of how they die whenever he tries some of his more ‘exciting’ stuff. Thankfully he has Leo, his little obedient puppy who will obey his every word and donate his body for research. Of course, he’s never asked him whether he was okay with that, but signing a consent form is so old school. He believes that we should be doers, not dreamers, and he’s always wanted to see what the insides of Leo’s body looked like. And all the resistance it’s putting up just makes it all the more exciting. Leo spells unending excitement, and that’s all the reason Res needs to make sure no one else has him. Res is life, but he is not Leo’s purpose for living, because Leo has not questioned whether or not life has a purpose. He doesn’t need to. Res is Leo’s Master, and Leo’s Master is the very concept of life itself. Without his Master, the earth does not spin, and the sun does not shine. Why would it be anything else? Leo is not a person, he is Res’ dream. The dream of a creature that would do nothing but obey his every word, and the dream of an anomaly that he could endlessly explore without an expiration date. A thing that Res will never get bored of. To Res, Leo is just an adorable lab rat who happens to be the only one in the world who can fulfill his dreams. He does not care for Leo, the person, because Leo is not a person, but he does care about Leo, the humanoid playground that belongs to Res, and Res alone. This is love, because love is when someone makes your heart race, and love is when someone makes you feel like you’re free-falling into obsession. Res loves him, loves him, loves him loves him loves himloveshim. Just as we don’t get emotionally attached to the oxygen that keeps our heart beating, Leo does not get emotionally attached to Res, and he doesn’t need to. This isn’t love, it’s something more than that. Love can change, fade and evolve- it’s fickle, fleeting and easily manipulated. What Leo and Res have is a constant. Res belongs with Leo, and Leo belongs with Res. Don’t argue with the facts. Because you’re wrong, and Leo will make sure you know you’re wrong, no matter who you are. It’s a good thing they’re with each other, and no one else. (Leo is Uno's oc, Res is Canada's oc. Above description written by Uno. Canada's description below) They're basically like those AITA stories where both are the asshole and its a good thing they're together and making each other worse. btw Res is the short pink one and Leo is the tall one.

ship tags/playlists/pinterest boards?:

#zillastar13 #adanaac #ve'qren x lohl #res x leo #toxic ship tournament

[zenvisions-184056]

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Join Bongo on an enchanting adventure and experience the sweetest dreams. Don't miss out on our regularly updated bedtime stories, ensuring your little one gets the restful and calming sleep they deserve. Subscribe now and create memorable bedtime moments! Nature's Symphony (https://naturessymphony-184103.tumblr.com)

#BedtimeAdventures #DreamyBedtimeRoutine #SoothingRainForKids #QuietNighttimeSounds #RainyNightWhispers

[tranquilsouls-184058]

Introducing our latest breakthrough - a nighttime routine designed to help your child feel relaxed and invigorated. Our exclusive collection of nighttime rituals, found on our YouTube channel, is guaranteed to deliver exceptional results. Our videos have been meticulously created to help your child unwind, find calm and enjoy a rejuvenating sleep.

Step into the world of Bongo, the brave and adventurous monkey, as he embarks on a thrilling quest to find the elusive golden bananas. Indulge in the soothing sounds of gentle rainfall, and immerse yourself in a captivating tale that will guide you into a peaceful slumber.

Our innovative platform caters to a diverse audience and offers a range of exciting stories that enhance your bedtime experience. Bongo's adventures will ignite your child's imagination, and foster a strong connection that will be treasured for years to come.

But don't be fooled - Bongo's stories are not just for kids. Adults too, can lose themselves in Bongo's captivating escapades. Witness first-hand the incredible bond Bongo creates with your child and revel in the lovely memories.

Together with Bongo, embark on an enchanting adventure, and experience the sweetest of dreams. Don't miss out on our regularly updated and delightful bedtime stories, ensuring your little one gets the restful and calming sleep they deserve. Subscribe now and make beautiful bedtime memories! Tranquil Harmony (https://tranquilharmony-1922.tumblr.com)

#RainyNightStories #SoothingRainForKids #BedtimeBliss #QuietNighttimeSounds #BlackScreenRelaxation

[buckyownsmylife]

Follow you - Chris Evans smut

The one where Chris becomes your roomate and finds out he has a domesticity kink... and more

Warnings: Smut, breeding kink, domesticity kink, friends to lovers, rommates au, pandemic mention, hair-pulling kink, daddy kink, cockwarming, kind of allusion to an age gap, but can be read as reader being into teasing chris

Word count: 4.1k

A/N: Thanks to @mollygetssherlockcoffee​ for reading this over and helping me make it better! You’re the sweetest person ever!  this is for my own birthday celebration challenge! Like I explained here, I’m going to try to fill every single AU I listed with the characters I picked for the challenge, and since the deadline if May 27, these fics will be posted randomly, as I finish them. Hope you guys like it!

Chris’ P.O.V.

“C’mon, sweetheart,” I’d been trying to convince her to close her laptop for the last two hours, unfortunately without any luck. She just glanced at me before returning to her document, and I groaned as I left the living room in search of what I knew we needed.

“Close the laptop and I’ll give you a sip.” This time when she looked up, she found me holding a bottle of my most expensive whiskey, the one she’d been dying to try ever since she first got invited to my place.

It was a tense moment of evaluation while she took in my offer and her workload, her head turning from her computer to me and then back to the device again, and I found himself growing anxious because of how desperately I wanted her company that night.

“Please?” I tried to convince her, even going so far as to pout - which at least earned me a giggle. I considered it a win, especially with the way it made my chest warm up. “C’mon, we deserve it! After the week we had?”

She frowned when she thought back on the stresses we had confided in each other for the last couple of days, and I watched with glee when she slowly closed her laptop, prompting me to wave my arms around in victory. “We?” She teased, getting up to stand before me with her arms crossed in front of her body, making me laugh.

“Alright, so maybe just you.” I couldn’t really deny that my work “problems” paled in comparison to hers. “Listen, I’m only trying to help.” She narrowed her eyes at me, reaching out for the bottle and unscrewing it before taking the sip I’d promised.

“Shit, this really is good.” A smug smile took over my face as I wrapped my arms around her, walking us back to the couch before making us fall over it.

“Only the best for you, babe.” I watched her roll her eyes at the pet name, snickering at how it affected her. I knew it made her giddy and she hated it, it’s why I insisted on doing it - or so I told myself.

Something deep inside of me whispered differently, though. I tried to ignore it. She was my best friend and we were going to be living together for the foreseeable future. No one knew when this pandemic would let up.

And lord knows that nothing positive had ever come out of my investments in romantic relationships. So every rational thought in my mind was begging me not to overcomplicate this. I couldn’t stand to lose her friendship, anyway. That’s why I had invited her to spend lockdown with me - my need to know she was okay, and be able to have her around whenever I needed to vent.

She was the only one outside my family who got my anxiety well enough to help me work through it when I was feeling bad, and she had even been able to prevent me from having panic attacks more than once.

I just couldn’t imagine going through this with anyone other than her. I simply hadn’t anticipated how fucking horny this period of forced sexual privation would make me, and I never expected her to become a willing victim to my needs.

But boy, once the liquor hit and she ended up over my lap, shivering as she rode my thigh without a care in the world, was I glad that she did.

“Is this what you like?” I asked, looking up at her with my mouth hanging open, unbelieving of how fucking sexy she looked as she used my body for her pleasure. I didn’t even care that my cock was straining against my jeans, begging me to move her on top of it. As long as I could keep enjoying the show, being a part of it, I was satisfied.

“I wanna learn it,” I pressed, moving my hands to hold her ass, squeezing it the way I’d always wanted to do but never allowed myself to dream about. “I wanna learn how to please you.” She made me feel something I hadn’t felt before, in any of my past relationships. There was attraction, of course, but there was also this deep, familiar feeling that made me feel at home. It made me feel safe, and with the help of alcohol, I was desperate to explore it.

“Ugh,” she groaned, letting her head fall back, drawing my attention to her breasts, the way they bounced in front of my eyes, unfortunately still covered. My mouth watered at the sight of it, wanting nothing much than to strip her bare and wrap my lips around one of her nipples.

“Don’t say stuff like that, Evans.” The comment threw me off, making me frown as I took a hold of the hair on the back of her head and yanked her to me, devouring her lips. They were soft - so much softer than I’d ever allowed myself to imagine.

“Why not?” I panted against her mouth once I was forced to separate from her taste of whiskey to search for some oxygen. She kept moving, her eyes hazy and glossed over, and it sent a pang of lust straight down my body when I realized it wasn’t completely due to the drinks we shared. There was also desire in there.

“You want to learn?” She asked, hands bunching up my shirt as she used her hold to grind against me faster. “Then fuck me, Chris.” She molded her body to mine, engulfing my lips once more as I laid her down on the couch, excited to have her underneath me - excited to see her naked body, explore it, get to know every little thing that made her tick.

I knew it would be a moment I’d forever remember, regardless of the amount of bourbon in my blood. I just never expected it to become something I was so eager to relive over and over and over again.

It was supposed to be a one time thing. When I woke up in the morning, I was ready to go back to being roommates. We were good at that. She was a morning person, by the time I woke up every morning, she already had breakfast ready for me, and then we’d go out to the backyard to let Dodger out together.

We’d sit and talk and then I’d go for a run - she’d have done her yoga already, while I was still asleep - I’d answer some e-mails, she’d work on her laptop by my side and the silence was just as comfortable as all of our late night conversations.

She’d sneak out to the kitchen and come back with a few sandwiches for our lunch, and then the rest of the day would go by with us doing whatever mundane task we had in mind, together even if we were doing separate things, and I didn’t feel suffocated.

I didn’t even run out of things to say. By the time dinner rolled around and I followed her back to the kitchen, cleaning up the dishes while she fixed us dinner - I wasn’t allowed to cook in my own stove, mostly because she was terrified of my food but hid it under the excuse of that one time when I started a fire - then we’d eat together, watch a movie together, talk until we fell asleep - always together.

I was shocked. It’d never been this way in any of my previous relationships. In fact, I was certain it was the reason why they had never worked. I’d given up on any realistic expectation of settling down precisely because of this: I just never expected to find anyone with whom a day-to-day life wouldn’t eventually grow boring.

It’d been three months and I still loved to wake up to her coffee. We still fell asleep every night side by side, too tired to move into different beds because we had laughed our asses off after skyping Scott.

And now that sex came into play in our relationship? I just knew there was no way I’d ever go back to being nothing but friends - or living in a place where she wasn’t the first person I saw when I woke up.

It sucked that it took a pandemic and a night of alcohol to make me realize that, but damn, was I grateful that I decided to open a bottle of whiskey that evening.

I kept waiting for the catch, the moment it would all go to shit, but it never came. Our lives resumed to how they used to be, only now I had this ongoing inner battle to not just bend her over the nearest piece of furniture when we were busy, and the ability to do exactly that whenever there was nothing else to do.

And for a while it was bliss. There wasn’t a nagging voice inside my head questioning this arrangement because it was theoretically perfect. I had a best friend, a roommate and a fuck buddy, all wrapped into one single person that I adored.

Life couldn’t possibly get better - until I realized that I wanted more. Talks of lockdown being over started and she had plans of going back to her place, of course, but I couldn’t stand the thought of being away from her.

I wanted to see my family too, but I wanted to take her with me. Introduce her to my mom, see her get along with my sisters. Witness how she’d be with my nephews and nieces - I knew how much she loved kids. And that’s when it hit me.

I’d given my heart to her. Somewhere between the morning coffees and afternoon runs, the nights where I’d rant about all of my silly problems and she actually listened to them - really listened, never making me feel bad about what could only be described as rich people problems.

All the innocent little gestures, and the not so innocent ones - when I discovered she was exactly the nasty slut I’d always dreamed of, the way she would randomly drop to her knees and suck me off, even while I was on the phone. Most times she didn’t even let me repay the favor. She just genuinely liked to blow me.

She also liked to play with me randomly, like when we were watching a movie and she mindlessly reached for my crotch, rubbing me until I got hard. It almost always ended in sex, and I just loved it.

I loved it, and I loved her, and the idea of her ever sharing this idyllic lifestyle with anyone else made me irrationally jealous.

And that’s how I knew it. I didn’t want to mess it up. But how could I not fuck this up?

Xxx

“Chris…” Her sweet voice called out to me, reaching my ears while I was hiding in my office, trying to get my thoughts in order so I wouldn’t just randomly blurt out what I was feeling for my best friend to my best friend.

To her credit, she didn’t try to force me to keep her company - but that only made me fall even deeper for her, leaving me a complete and utter mess while she went about her day as if nothing was wrong in the world.

“Yes?” I looked up to see her by the threshold, clearly reticent about invading my privacy. It made me smile, thinking back on all of the times my exes hadn’t been as understanding, even after I let them clearly know what I was needing.

“I made cupcakes, do you want me to bring you one?” The thought of her in the kitchen, baking a sweet treat just for me had my cock twitching in my pants. Biting my lips, I pushed away from my desk to finally get up and stretch my legs, taking advantage of the monitor to hide my hard-on.

“No, I’ll come eat them downstairs with you.” She smiled before leaving, and I soon trailed after her, walking into the kitchen to find the most delicious-looking little treats, just waiting to be devoured.

Much like her, I supposed.

I was reaching for one of them, already licking my lips in anticipation when something caught my eye, prompting me to raise my gaze and look at her again, but really look at her this time.

She was wearing an apron.

There was nothing inherently sexual about the damn thing, but the way she looked with it, going about her business in my kitchen like she owned the place… It just felt right, seeing her there.

And suddenly I couldn’t hold back anymore.

“Y/N…” I started, leaving the cupcake back on the counter and brushing off the crumbs as I circled the kitchen island to go stand in front of her. She hummed before turning to meet me, smiling slightly to signal that she was listening to what I had to say.

But I didn’t know how to say it. So we just stood there, staring at each other until eventually her smile became a frown. “Chris, what’s going on?” I still couldn’t speak. Much to my absolute surprise though, she just sighed, wiping her hands on the apron while shaking her head, a knowing smile on her face.

“You’re stressed, aren’t you? You’ve been working so much, that’s why I thought the cupcakes would be a good idea,” she explained nodding towards the tray where her sweet treats laid. “They’re a reward and a break all wrapped in one delicious cake.”

The comment was like a punch to the stomach - or a scalding wave of desire rushing through my body, straight to my groin. The idea of her thinking about my needs and catering (quite literally) to them just did something to me, and I didn’t know how to explain it - I don’t think I understood it myself.

“But since they didn’t work…” she continued, blissfully unaware of the conundrum she had put me into. “I know something else that will definitely work.” And just like that, the woman dropped to her knees in front of me, reaching for my sweatpants before I could find a way to close the mouth that was hanging open.

“I guess I’ll grab a sweet treat for myself.” She looked so devious, small hand encircling my already pathetically engorged member, that all I could do was whisper an, “Oh, shit,” when she immediately wrapped her lips around it,  starting to suck me off without any preamble.

My fingers were white as I held onto the counter behind me to keep myself up. She looked so good, staring up at me with her lips wrapped around my dick, I felt like I was about to blow already.

Why did she have to be such a fucking tease?

“Oh, God,” I moaned when she managed to engulf the entirety of my member inside her throat, the choking noises getting to my head. My hand instinctively laced with her hair, first to hold her lips close to my navel, then to pry her completely off of my member.

“What’s wrong?” She questioned once she was able to speak, surprise written all over her features while I was still staring down at her slightly teary face and trying to find my voice.

“I-I have a problem.” There. I said it. I had finally made some progress in my goal to let her know what was going through my head. Only instead of curiosity, what I got was a confused expression from the woman still holding my dick, her eyes darting from my own to the member throbbing between her fingers.

“No, you don’t!” It would have been funny if I wasn’t so fucking frustrated. Yanking her by the hair, I complained, “Not that kind of problem!” pulling her to the living room so I could throw her on the couch, trying to ignore her moans of pleasure in the process.

I’d figured out pretty early on that she had a pretty serious hair-pulling kink, and if my plans of sitting down and having a level-headed conversation were ever in motion, they surely went out of the window the second she pulled my body down to cover hers and adjusted my cock so it would easily fill her.

“Son of a…” I groaned, letting my head fall down against her chest as the little vixen gleefully giggled underneath me, legs wrapped around my torso as she tried to thrust up and tempt me to move.

“Just wait a second,” I managed to reason, but she just shook her head.

“Fuck away your problem, Chris. Use me. I want you to.” Motherfucker. I really couldn’t catch a break with her. Just as she started to make me move again, my hand instinctively wrapped around her neck, lightly squeezing it just enough to get her to shut up.

“I wanna start a family with you,” I finally spilled, looking deep into her eyes as I tried to ignore that I was still balls deep inside of her. Her eyes widened, and now her mouth was the one hanging open.

I couldn’t really relish in it because she looked absolutely delicious and she felt stupidly heavenly to my throbbing dick.

A few seconds went by without as much of a reaction from her and I was about to pull out - despite still being achingly hard - but her legs held me tighter, stopping my plans of leaving her tight haven.

“You know…” She started to speak, a little out of breath, catching my attention as I finally gathered the courage to look her in the eye again. “When I first met you, I thought you were the epitome of a fuckboy.”

The unexpected sentence had me snorting, and then I just couldn’t stop laughing. Finally pulling away from her, she fixed her hair when she sat up and I did the same, shaking my head slightly as I rubbed my eyes.

Our own relative nakedness - well… mine, she was wearing her usual dress with no underwear under the damn apron - didn’t affect anything when I pondered over her words, until I decided to break the silence.

“I mean… I think I was?” She chewed on her bottom lip as she took in my response, analyzing it, weighing its validity in that gorgeous head of hers. I was nervous, but she hadn’t blew me off yet. And quite honestly? I’d do anything for that little hope that was growing inside of me.

“What changed?” Was her question, so unexpected I couldn’t help but question, “Huh?”

“What made you change?” It wasn’t an unwelcome inquiry, especially when the response became clear to me, lighting up my brain and warming my chest, spreading all over my body until I had no choice but to voice it.

“I realized I could have a future with you.” My smile was vulnerable but honest, and in her eyes, I could see that she knew that. When she threw one leg over my lap, straddling my hips, I allowed myself to breathe deeply again, leaning on the soft cushion while taking a hold of her ass.

“So, how are we gonna do this?” She non-nonchalantly asked, slowly rubbing herself against my still half-hard member. I groaned when I realized the implication of her words, knowing that the meaning paired with the feeling of her wet lips dragging along my cock would get it back up in no time at all. “You wanna do me right now?”

The brashness of the question made my eyes light up, as weird as it may sound. In that moment, it became clear just how perfect for me she really was, giving me what I needed exactly in the way I didn’t know how to ask for it.

“See? This is why I’m in love with you.” She rolled her eyes at that, making me laugh. I’d anticipated the gesture, I knew it’d take her longer to say it, but it was alright. The fact that she was willing me to give me a child was more than enough proof of her feelings for me, if her entire behavior ever since she moved in wasn’t already.

“Shut up and fuck me, Evans.” Throwing her back against the couch, she yelped in surprise when I took off my shirt and slapped the inside of her thigh, assuming my usual position of hovering over her smaller frame.

“Spread your fucking legs, darling. I’m gonna fuck you real good.” The way she bit her lip as I slowly penetrated her again showed me just how excited the prospect got her, and as I started to make good on my promise, her moans told me just as much.

“Holy fuck,” she commented as I pounded her ruthlessly, weeks of frustration and the rush of anticipation getting the best of me, and I was glad for the feeling of her nails biting into my skin because otherwise, I’d probably run over the edge of not even caring about her own pleasure as I chased mine.

“You gonna cum inside of me, honey? Make me a mom? Finally fulfill your dream of becoming a daddy?” Her words detracted me from my task of sucking bruises on the skin that was now mine to bruise, mine. I threw my head back, yelling a, “fuck yes,” as my hips sped up, desperate to fill her up, but I was determined to get her to cum before me.

“Say it,” she ordered, small hand circling my throat as best as she could, a throwback to what I’d done only moments prior. It wasn’t enough to choke me, but it did catch my attention. “I wanna hear you say it.”

Tears escaped the corners of my eyes as I blinked, the intensity of the moment overwhelming in the best of ways. “God, you are such a fucking tease…” She chuckled underneath me, giving my throat a squeeze before she raised up on her elbows to kiss my jaw.

“Better get used to it… daddy.” And just like that, I realized that I had yet another kink I hadn’t known about before her. Or maybe it was just her, and I was obsessed with the damn woman, painfully turned on by every little thing that she did.

“I’m gonna cum deep inside your little pussy, sweetheart,” I finally gathered myself enough to do as she asked me to. “You’re gonna belong to me forever now. Give me kids, make me happy. How do you like that?”

The mischievous grin she gave me told me everything. “I love it.” I knew this was her way of saying what she couldn’t yet voice, and I’d take it. I’d take anything she gave me, any chance I got to love this wonderful woman.

We came together, both riding our highs in deep ecstasy. I moaned when I felt myself empty all of my seed inside of her, incredibly excited about the prospect of starting our future together right then.

“You’re so fucking beautiful.” I cradled her face in my hands as I struggled to catch my breath, but she turned it to the side and pressed a kiss to my palm and I was breathless all over again. It was such a simple action, why did it get to me so much?

“You’re not too bad yourself, Chris.” I didn’t want to part with her warmth, so I just adjusted us on the sofa in a way that kept me inside of her, sighing contently as I realized I’d never have to sleep away from her again.

“I’m gonna stay right here all night.” I adjusted myself so I was resting my face on her boobs, perfectly happy to do just so, but by the tone of her voice, I knew she had a teasing smile when she called me an, “Old man.”

“And here I was, thinking you’d be able to go again.” Warmth filled my chest at the realization of just how badly she wanted me - just as much as I wanted her too. I was so damn ecstatic. Not even her pokes at my age would be able to affect me.

“Oh, darling… better get ready,” I warned as I adjusted myself to hover over her again, taking notice of the excited glint in her eyes, the way she bit her lip as she stared back at me. “I’m never gonna get enough of you.”

The next morning, I added a new kink to the list of random bits of information that were driving me slowly insane as I felt the overwhelming need to bend the woman that I now got to call ‘mine’ over the nearest piece of furniture and rail her until I had cummed deep inside her pussy: seeing her in my shirt while cooking breakfast.

Yeah, I was going to live a happy life by her side.

#my 2k challenge #chris evans smut #my fics #chris evans #smut #roommates au #friends to lovers #chris evans x reader #chris evans reader #chris evans reader insert #chris evans reader inserts #RPF #chris evans fanfiction

[closetedbumblebee]

White Wedding (Addison Montgomery x Female Reader)

Weddings are supposed to be full of love, happiness and gratitude. A wonderful celebration of two souls coming together as one. Today was one of those days. Callie and Arizona were finally and officially tying the knot.

It was supposed to be a happy celebration all round; all the happy couples loved up, attending the wedding together. Meredith and Derek, Christina and Teddy, Owen and Amelia, Richard and Catherine, among others showed their support for the sweetest couple who were currently reciting their vows.

You sat alone in the third row from the front, extremely proud of your friends. You were smiling from ear to ear as they each walked down the aisle. You knew their story like the back of your hand, and couldn’t contain the happiness you felt when Callie and Arizona finally came through for the other, especially after the accident. They had come so far.

You felt a pang of sadness, taking a look around the room at all the couples. You wished your girlfriend, Addison was here with you, but she had to fly back to LA after Sofia’s delivery. You barely spent enough time together as it is, both of you living in separate cities, leading separate lives. You did, however have a relatively strong and healthy relationship, taking the time to have long phone calls, FaceTime, and send as many text messages as you could. You tried to sneak weekends away  to LA, also. 

But, things felt strained for the last few months, and you both felt the need to remedy that. 

The last time you and Addison saw each other was during her stay, which was 4 days long. You hadn’t seen each other for five weeks, and you could tell the strain was getting to you. But, you both pushed those feelings down to focus on your friends. After all, you were both doctors.

When you did catch up, you and Addison had a slight argument the night before she was set to jet out of Seattle. You sort of made up, but you hadn’t really spoken since, just the odd text and call here and there.

You reminisced… 

“Honey, I really want to stay longer, but I can’t. I’ve got patients to get back to and-“, Addison said sadly.

“We’ve barely seen each other for weeks on end, and when we do, you suddenly have to rush off again. I get that you have a new life now and I respect that. Of course I do, but where the fuck do we fit in?! When you took the job in LA, we promised we’d make each other a priority regardless of whatever happened. You only fly back to Seattle when Richard needs you. I’m busting my butt every other week, rearranging schedules, going out of my way to see you. Because guess what, Addison? I love you! Clearly you don’t love me enough, otherwise you’d be making some sacrifices” you snapped.

Addison was taken aback. You had never seen her look so sad and upset. You just missed her so much, and wanted to be with her. You instantly felt guilty for snapping because you didn’t mean to go that far and before she could say anything, you jumped in again.

“Shit. Baby, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that. I just miss you so much. You know that. I’m so so sorry”, you said, equally sad as you reached for her hand.

“We’ll, I’m not going to say that didn’t hurt, because it did. But I understand. I guess it was deserved. I’m sorry too, sweetheart. I’m gonna do better, I promise”, she said.

You held each other tight, “I love you”, you said in unison.

Addison was about to say something else when - 

Her watch beeped, reminding of her flight and you drove her back to the airport where you shared one last kiss.

It wasn’t the way you wanted to make up, but it was a start.

Upon arriving back in LA, she texted immediately.

‘I’m back. I won’t say back home, because it isn’t home. Never has, never will be. My home is with you. FaceTime with me tomorrow? I love you baby xxxxx’, she texted

“Me too, my love. I most certainly will. I’m so sorry again. I love you too xxxx”, you replied.

Things improved between the two of you over the next four weeks, before she told you she couldn’t attend the wedding…

“I’m sorry, sweetheart. I really wanted to be there, but I just can’t get away”, she said, evidentially disappointed.

“Oh…okay. It’s fine. I can try and film it for you. It’s not going to be the same without you. I love you”. You were sad, but you didn’t want to push her.

……………..

Drawing you from your thoughts, you noticed the last of the guests arriving before the brides made their voyage down the aisle.

“Excuse me, beautiful, is this seat taken?”, you heard a voice say.

You thought you were dreaming. It couldn’t be. You looked up, to see a familiar, beautiful face smiling sweetly at you.

“Addison?!”, you shrieked

You both started crying as she pulled you up into her arms, holding you tightly.

“Surprise”, she whispered huskily into your ear.

“What are you doing here?! I thought you couldn’t come”, you cried.

“I couldn’t bear being away from you anymore”, she said, smiling through tears.

You kissed her with everything you had, before she pulled back.

“I mean it. I’m miserable in LA. I can’t stand it there. So, I’m coming home - for good”, she said.

You didn’t exactly comprehend what she said at first, but then gasped in delight, wrapping her up in your arms. Looking around, your friends were watching you both, all clearly happy for you.

You and Addison still had a lot to talk about, but right now, you put it to the side when Callie and Arizona appeared….

Everyone cried during the vow exchange, and you and Addison shared sweet, knowing looks, never letting go of each other’s hands.

…………..

At the reception, everyone gathered around Arizona and Callie as they had their first dance as a married couple.

Addison wrapped her arms around you from behind and rested her chin on your shoulder as you watched the happy couple. You hugged her arms, and she reached around to peck you on the lips. You two couldn’t get enough of each other.

When it came time for other couples to join the dance floor, you and Addison wasted no time walking hand in hand to the floor. At this point, everyone was in their own worlds, all content and happy, buzzing from the day’s events, while you and Addison were completely wrapped up in your own little bubble.

“So….”, she said, arms wrapped around your waist, holding you close as you swayed to Shania Twain’s ‘You’ve Got a Way’.

“So…”, you repeated.

She jumped right into it. 

“I’ve missed you, my love. I really have. You are everything to me. I’m so sorry for making you feel otherwise. I shouldn’t have been neglecting us”, she said softly, her eyes not leaving yours.

“Addie, hey… No, please. I’m sorry - I had no right to go off at you. I should’ve been more understanding. You uprooted your life and that’s a huge deal; because you’re a big deal, babe. I thought about what I said to you that night, and it was completely unfair, way out of line, in fact.. I was just projecting my feelings onto you. I was so scared that by you moving would have jeopardised our relationship without thinking about anything else. It was me, I was selfish”, you said, sheepishly.

“In other words, you thought I’d cheat on you. That’s it, isn’t it?”, she asked.

You felt tears in your eyes. Blinking them back, you smiled sadly and nodded.

“Come on now, you know I would never, ever, do that to you”, she said.

“I know. I…know. I just should've been more supportive of you. I know what this opportunity meant to you”, you said, your tone apologetic.

“It’s not all on you, okay. I realised I was working longer hours, and I turned my back on us because I was so overwhelmed with all of it, and avoided you, because I think deep down, I was scared too. I was afraid of hurting you, and was terrified the long distance wouldn't work at first. So, I can see how you must’ve felt that way”, Addison said, gently touching your face.

You looked into her eyes, to see the tears shimmering like white diamonds.

“Baby…”, you said.

“Being away from you, not being able to see you, or hold you, or kiss you, made me realise that you, that what we have, is worth more to me than any job. So I told Naomi I quit, called Richard, and he offered me a new job”, Addison smiled.

“Oh, Addie, that’s great!”, you said gleefully.

“Yes, yes it is. But, the best part is that I am now Grey Sloan’s Chief of Neo-Natal Surgery. I’m officially the boss now, baby. You know what that means. This is going to be so good for us!”, Addie said.

You were crying softly and gently touched her face. You knew what this meant; Addison being in charge of her own specialty, back on home soil meant everything to her. She was determined to fight for her relationship with you, so being the boss meant she could make her own rules and schedule. But, not only that, she deserved that title; worked hard for it her whole life; and you were determined to fight to the ends of the earth for her. 

It hit you then that she was really back.

“You’re home?!”, you asked, almost in shock.

“Mm-hmm. I’m home, baby”, she beamed.

“No more messing around, no more arguments. This is it - you and me. No more turning back. I want to fight for us”, she continued.

“I want to fight for us too”, you said back.

You smiled brightly at each other, feeling more connected and more in love than ever.

She was just about to kiss you when you heard the clinking of champagne glasses, as Callie’s father, Mr Torres called for a toast.

“Thank you everyone for coming to celebrate my beautiful daughter, Calliope and her wonderful new wife, Arizona on their special day today. These two have gone through hell and back to be together. I have never felt prouder of my little girl, than I do today. I look around the room, and see it filled with such love. It’s a really beautiful thing. Real, true love is a once in a lifetime feeling, so if you’ve found it, hold onto it with both hands and never let it go, because it’s one crazy ride. Ladies, I congratulate you both on overcoming your obstacles and finding your way to each other. I love you both so much, my dear daughters. To Callie and Arizona!”, Mr Torres exclaimed, full of pride.

“To Callie and Arizona!”, everyone said.

The newlyweds kissed, before turning their attention to the wedding cake.

You and Addison watched the whole exchange, extremely proud of your friends, grateful to be a part of their special, historic day; however, deep down, you both pictured this day of your own, in your not so distant future.

Addison and you shared a look, and you both just knew. This was the path you wanted to take.

“Forever and always, Addie”, you said, winking at her.

“Forever and always, Y/N”, she repeated, clutching your hand, bringing it to her lips.

#greys anatomy #greys anatomy imagine #addison montgomery #addison montgomery x reader #addison montgomery x you #addison montgomery imagine #posted a fic to ao3 but someone took it way too seriously and didn't understand that fanfiction is supposed to be fun so I had to delete it #all new fic now #hopefully more to come #enjoy! #addison montgomery x female reader #love #new beginnings #callie and arizona #callie x arizona #calzona #meredith grey #derek shepherd #merder #ameila shepherd #owen hunt #miranda bailey #ben warren #richard webber #catherine avery #hit me up if you want more #send prompts!

[forever-rogue]

In Name Only - Part 16

A/N: Hi, hi, hi! I’m finally back with some more of Oberyn and his Sunshine! I’ve missed them so much, and I hope you’re all excited for more as I am! As always, feedback and comments are welcome, and if you’d like to be tagged, let me know. xx

Pairing: Oberyn Martell x Fem!Reader

Word Count: 7.2k

Warnings: discussions of pregnancy, violence, slight language 

IN NAME ONLY SERIES MASTERLIST

MASTERLIST

»»————-　♡　————-««

"Those are so pretty," Saria chirped excitedly as she reached up and touched one of the newly bloomed flowers. It was brilliant shades of yellow and orange, creating the illusion of a sunset. You nodded in agreement before delicately plucking the blossom and tucking it behind her ear.

"And now the prettiest girl has the prettiest flower," you told her as she beamed at you. She giggled wildly before touching the flower and running to join the Dorea and Loreza who were busy playing in a different part of the garden. They'd come to stay for a while at Sunspear and you were more than happy to keep them as long as they wanted.

"And what about you?" you turned to Altair who was intently observing a different flower, “which is your favorite?"

"I like this one best I think,” he commented thoughtfully as he touched over a dark red flower, one that was native to Dorne - hardy and resilient, just like its people. It almost reminded you of a rose, but what with a bit.

“That’s one of my favorites too,” you agreed as you pulled one of the hardiest blossoms off and held it out for him, “do you want to know why?”

“Why?” he asked, his dark eyes wide and glittering with excitement. You couldn’t help but ruffle his dark hair, an affectionate smile on your face. 

“My husband planted them for me,” you explained, thinking back to the day you had found Oberyn in the gardens, hard at work by himself planting the flowers as a surprise for you. He was many things, but a green thumb he did not possess, unlike you. But he had been so proud and excited to show them to you, his hands covered with little cuts from the harsh thrones and thick stalks, “and they remind me of Dorne - home. Strong, beautiful, and welcoming to those who treat it right.”

“Can I keep it?” he asked quietly as you nodded. He threw his little arms around your waist and you bent down to press a kiss to the crown of his head, “I’m going to go and show the others!”

Before you could even get a word in edgewise, he was gone, off to join his sister and the younger girls. You crossed your arms over your chest, a content sigh escaped your lips as you picked up your watering can to continue tending to your flourishing garden. But you were once again estopped by a warm of arms wrapping around your waist, causing you to make a small sound of surprise.

“Hello, my sweetest sunshine,” Oberyn’s voice was like golden honey in your ears as he pressed a kiss to your neck, “how I have missed you.”

“And a hello to you my moon and stars,” you couldn’t help but laugh as you put your hands on top of his, deftly spinning around in his arms before facing him and pressing a soft kiss to his lips, “it has been what...about five hours since we parted ways for the afternoon? I hardly think you’d had adequate time to miss me.”

“I always miss you when we’re not together,” he insisted, playfully pouting at you, “the insinuation that I should feel anything but wounds me so, dear wife.”

“Oh stop,” you swatted at his chest before he pulled you towards him, “you are a fool of a Prince. Besides, I for one have not missed you!”

“Oh?” he teased, his eyebrow arching as you broke into a fit of giggles, “I spy a little liar.”

“You’ve caught me,” you acquiesced, “but alas, I have been busy with the garden and these little ones constantly under foot. Loreza is a little trouble maker, just like her father. But Dorea is as steadfast as her mother. A lethal little duo.”

“Ahh, they have learned well,” he snorted as you nodded. He wrapped his arms around you as he watched the four young children running around and playing, the wistful look on your face not lost on you, “the twins seem to enjoy spending time with them.”

“They do,” you agree, biting on your lower lip, “I k-know we’re not supposed to play favorites, but they just...they’re special to me.”

“And they adore you just as well.”

“They adore you,” you insisted with a laugh, “the prince of legend! The lethal, ever deadly Red Viper.”

“I do have a reputation to uphold.”

“I know your bark is worse than your bite,” you insisted as you kissed him, cutting him off before he could argue, “it is not wise to argue with your wife.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it,” he promised, “will you take a turn about the gardens with me? There are some things we should discuss..”

You knew it wouldn’t be anything bad, there was no reason for it to be, but a lump still welled up in your throat. Such things always made you nervous, especially since the majority of the times you’d been asked to speak in such a manner only bad news followed. But judging by the light smile on his face, you knew it would be okay. 

The past month, almost two, had been a whirlwind, especially when it came to helping Oberyn get closer and closer to be back to perfect health again. It had hardly allotted you many moments to talk properly. He grew stronger and stronger each day, and it some ways it was almost like nothing had happened at all. But you knew - you remembered. It was always in the back of your mind, reminding you that your family was the cause of this. You still needed to talk about it, but you’d never found the right time. But as you looked into those soft brown eyes, you decided it could wait. For now, all that mattered was this. 

He offered you his arm and you looped yours through his, allowing him to dictate the course. It was silent for a few moments, not but the sounds of the fountains, chirps of birds, and the sounds of laughter reaching your ears. 

“I’ve been thinking…” he started slowly, “and before you say anything, I do realize it is a rare occasion!”

“I would say no such thing,” you promised with a wink as he just shook his head in amusement, “please my prince, do tell me what has been weighing on your mind.”

“It’s…” he paused before exhaling slowly, “the twins.”

“The t-twins? What about them?” you tried to rack your brain for something that you could have possibly done wrong with them, “I haven’t…”

“It is nothing in the negative,” he must have sensed your worry without you even having to do anything. You visibly relaxed as you nodded and waited for him to go on, “I note that you’ve grown ever closer to them, you spend much time with them at your side.”

“I know we are not..to play favorites,” you answered nervously, “I fear I must have been doing a horrible job of that.” 

“And your actions are not at fault,” he insisted, as you offered him a confused look, “I know we talked before...about children...”

“I can’t have children,” you interrupted him, answering his silent question. You kept your gaze pointed straight ahead, attempting your best to conceal your emotions. Oberyn’s gaze was trained intently on you, his expression soft. It wasn’t often that he was rendered speechless, but this turned out to be one of those rare moments, “I speak with the maester when we returned from Starfall and you were gone in King’s Landing.” 

“Oh,” was his simple answer as you nodded, “and she…”

“There’s no way to be completely certain,” you said softly, “but there are ways to be almost certain, as certain as one can get. And it seems that the odds are not in my favor.”

“You said there is no way to completely certain,” he insisted, “there’s still a chance, and if you should want, we can always try...”

“No, Oberyn,” you stopped in your tracks as you pulled him towards you, a hand going to his jaw before you ran a hand through his dark curls, “it does not matter, my love. I am happy, so happy. Nothing makes me happier than you, I swear it. You, the girls, Ellaria, the rest of the family, we have so much already. There’s nothing for me left to want.”

You had hoped that saying the words out loud would somehow make them more true, more real. But they still hurt, cutting deep. 

“You deserve the world, my sunshine,” he promised, kissing the top of your head, “whatever you desire you shall have it.”

“I’m afraid that nothing will give this to me...us, not even all the gold in the Seven Kingdoms,” you offered him a small smile, “now, tell me, what you were going to say before I so rudely interrupted you.”

“The twins,” he said, cradling your face in his hands, “I realize this might be a bit unconventional, but what do you say about bringing them in our family? Adopting them?”

“A-adopting them?” you weren’t quite sure what you were hearing as the word tumbled from your mouth. Looking at Oberyn, you opened and closed your mouth a few times, tilting your head to the side as you tried to figure out what was happening. He was watching you with a small smile, waiting for you to realize what he had said, “Oberyn? D-do you mean it?”

“Of course I mean it,” he said softly, “I would not joke about such a matter. I know...it is unconventional and not very common, but I would like to bring them into our family. By convention, they would not be recognized as Martells in other parts of the Kingdoms, but in Dorne it would not matter. It-”

“Does not matter at all,” you finished for him as he nodded in agreement, “it is not the name that makes the person, the quality of their heart - their actions.”

“If only the rest of the world thought as we did,” he gave you a fond smile before pulling you into his arms, “but what do you think?”

“Oberyn…” you looked back up at him, your eyes already misty with tears as you nodded at him. You knew you wanted this - not because your dreams of baring your own children were gone, but because you loved them, truly. And you wanted nothing more than to bring them into your family, your family that had nothing but love and kindness to give. 

Oberyn seemed to know what you were thinking, because he quickly wiped away the tears that slipped down your cheeks before pressing a soft kiss to your lips. He paused for a moment and rested his forehead against yours as he held you tightly in his grip, “everything is going to be alright, my love. Please don’t think ill of the situation...no one is to blame, absolutely no one. And you know my love for you will never change or waver, never. Things will work out as they are meant to, I know it doesn’t feel like it right now.”

“I’m sorry,” you said softly, hearing his words but failing to process them in the moment, overwhelmed by emotion, “I’m sorry, my love. I-I...I can’t even give you a child of our own. I’m such a -”

“Stop,” he whispered softly, his heart breaking a little at your anguish. He wrapped his arms tightly around you as you buried your face in his chest, tears soaking into the fabric of his tunic. You knew it was silly to get so upset, especially since you thought you’d come to terms with this, and you knew Oberyn wouldn’t be upset, “I know this means nothing coming from me, but i will be okay. I swear it. I will do whatever it takes to get you to understand that.”

“You’ll still love me?” you asked softly as he chuckled warmly and pressed a kiss to the side of your head.

“I will always love you. Nothing, and I mean nothing, will ever change that,” he promised, and you relaxed slightly, “my love for you knows no bounds. And you have my heart and soul. Completely and fully.”

“I love you,” you whispered, “so much.”

“And I you,” he responded, “and I’ve got one more bit of good news for you. I know it’s not much, but I’m hoping that perhaps it will at least bring a smile to that pretty face.”

“You’ve given me nothing good news and love,” you laughed at your foolishness as you pulled back from him, “and I give you nothing but theatrics. What else could you possibly have for me?”

“Have you ever considered traveling across the Narrow Seas?” your eyebrows immediately shot up at his question as he seemed to be holding back a gleeful grin.

“I can’t say it’s really crossed my mind…” you admitted, “what lies there that has you asking?”

“Essos,” he answered, “the King needs an envoy to go to make the journey and ensure that plans and laws that were instilled by Daenerys still stand.” 

“And he asked you to go?” your heart immediately grew worried and nervous as your eyes darted to his side, the spot concealed by his tunic where he still bore the scars of the stabbing that your brother had inflicted on him. You were reluctant to let him leave again, especially anywhere out of Dorne, “a-are you sure, Oberyn? I don’t know if that’s the best idea…”

“You worry?”

“Of course I worry,” you insisted, “there are enemies everywhere, as you have said many times. I couldn’t even trust my own flesh and blood. The last time you left, you almost….and Essos? That’s half a world away…”

“I would not go with your blessing,” he promised as he put his hand on your cheek, “nor would I go without you. It’s a large and wondrous world, and I think it would suit you. Essos and the Summer Isles are some of the most beautiful places in the world.”

“You want me to go with you?” you asked hopefully as he nodded.

“What is this old fool without his wife next to him?” he teased, “besides, I was told that I could not venture into the world without you...I think it would be quite dull without my sunshine. I would not let anything happen to you.”

“Nor I you,” you promised, knowing you would cut down any man or woman that even breathed wrong in his direction, “you’re serious about this? You’re sure it will be safe?”

“Yes,” he insisted, “and yes. We won’t be going alone. The retinue will come, as well some other Lords from around the Kingdoms. Honestly, I doubt it will take much work from our end...it will be more of a vacation than anything else.”

“You’re sure about this?” your words were gentle and soft as put your hand on his chest, “positive?”

“I am,” he took your hand and pressed a kiss to your knuckles, “what do you say?”

“For you?” resting your hand on his cheek, you brushed a finger over his cheekbone, “I would do anything and go anywhere. Yes. Let’s do this.”

»»————-　♡　————-««

Diplomatic ventures had always seemed so....droll. Plagued by aged and old fashioned men who claimed to know what was best for their people, who claimed to know what people wanted but did everything but. Naturally there were exceptions, such as your father, and it wouldn’t be fair to lump all men into the same category. But from your childhood trips along with Lord Beesbury, your hopes were not high that this would be any different. 

But you should have known better because like with most things, Oberyn was able to turn into a pleasant adventure. Along with the shift of having a Stark King on the Iron Throne accompanied by the Queen in the North, things were...different. Gone were the stilted and old ways, slowly morphing into workable and tangible - change. 

What you were sure was destined to be nothing but boring roundtables without anything productive being done, turned out to be the opposite. Men, and women, of different backgrounds and creed came together to work for the people, not just their people but all people. It was something to marvel at and instilled a sense of hope in you. 

Hope that Oberyn’s children, your children, would grow up in a world where things would be different from your youth, where they would not have opportunities denied to them because of their birth, their origin, or the truths and beliefs they held. Things would never be perfect, but they would be better and that was enough to carry you forward. 

Watching Oberyn, not just your husband or the Prince, but a man of his people - the people - in action was a treat unto of itself. Eloquent and well spoken as ever, he carried himself with an ease and comfort that you could only wish to obtain a fraction of. He was never loud or over the top, but his tranquility and calm aura did not let you forget that he was still as deadly as the rumors suggested. 

This was a man that spoke in prose as lovely as roses but sharp as hawthorne. A man that would charm and persuade to see his ways, but would not hesitate to cut you down if necessary. The duality of Oberyn Martell was a gift to behold, and somehow it still stunned you that you were in the very center of his universe. But somehow you were, his sunshine that brightened every facet of his life while he was your moon and stars, grounding you and keeping you safe and sound. 

“What?” Oberyn’s voice was warm and gravely, still heavy and thick with sleep as he opened his eyes to find you watching him closely. A warmth flooded into your face  as you attempted to burrow your face into the pillow; you hadn’t expected him to wake up and just wanted to study his features while he slept. You’d done it a million times before, or so it seemed, and you wanted to do it a million times more. There was something about how calm and at ease he looked while his broad chest rose and fell in a steady rhythm. His chocolate curls were mussed and wild, practically calling for you to comb throw as his plush lips were drawn in the lightest of smiles. He was just so...golden; drawing you in like nothing else mattered.

The soft, warm air of the Summer Isles  was coming in through the windows which you had left open the evening before, perfuming the air with the faint smell of the salty ocean. You’d had a late evening before and were in no rush to get up, despite the fact that you knew he had duties to attend to. There was something about the comfort and safety of waking up in his bed, your, bed that always kept you wanting to stay tangled up with him.

“Nothing,” you insisted as you opened one eye and peeked at him, watching the corners of his mouth tug up. He laughed lightly before his strong arm found you under the covers and pulled you closer to him. A contented sigh escaped your lips as his fingers traced aimless, gentle shapes into your back. You closed the small gap and pressed your lips against his, feeling him smile against your as he chased after you with a few kisses of your own, “Oberyn.”

“Yes?” he teased as he kissed long your jaw and neck, nipping and sucking at the delicate skin in a way that he knew would leave marks, “tell me what’s on your mind or I’ll stop.”

“Such a tease,” you huffed tightly as you tugged on his soft curls, “I was just thinking about you.”

“About me? Whatever for?” he seemed genuinely surprised and pulled back for a moment, which allowed you to take advantage of the situation. You pushed him flat on his back as you rolled on top of him, your bare body flush against his. He almost laughed when he realized what you had done, one of his large hands going to your bum and giving it a firm squeeze, which elicited a soft sigh from you, “cheeky girl.”

“Hmm,” you hummed as you kissed him, “I was just thinking about all the ways in which I love you, which, in case I haven’t reminded you lately, are infinite. But now, I’m thinking about something far different.”

“Oh?” he pressed your forehead against his as he held you with a vice grip, “and what would that be?”

“How much I want you,” it was a gentle, breathy whisper in his arms as you kissed the shell of his ear before working your way back to your lips, “my moon and stars.”

“Then take what you need, sweet girl. I am all yours,” he promised, “body and soul. Besides, I quite like you on top. A sight to be marveled at it, that even the finest art could never capture in essence.”

“Always a poet,” you flourished under his praise as your hands roamed his body, “almost as lovely as watching you come undone, Oberyn Martell. Now, don’t hold back, my love, let them all hear you…”

»»————-　♡　————-««

“Be safe,” Oberyn whispered against your lips before slowly pulling away. It was endearing to know he was so concerned about your safety, despite the fact that the Summer Isles were one of the safest places to be. You nodded slowly before sneaking in another kiss and smoothing down the soft fabric of his bronze tunic. He was handsome as ever, and despite the fact that you were dressed in a soft, breezy gown of your own, you knew you would never match his beauty. 

“I will,” you promised, “I’m just going to explore the markets, maybe go to the ocean, nothing dangerous at all. Besides, I think I found something that the girls will like and I want to get it for them if it’s still there.”

“Do you want-”

“Oberyn,” you insisted firmly, but with a soft tone nonetheless, “I will be fine. I can handle myself, and besides, Jeron’s taught me a few tricks for the times I should be parted from you, in the off chance I need them. It should be me worrying about you. Politicians and Lords are the real snakes here after all, remind them who the Red Viper is, remind them that you are the Prince.”

“I should know better than to worry about you,” he said with a small laugh, “I will see you this evening for dinner then. I love you.”

“I love you too,” you grinned at him before gently pushing on his chest and back towards the building in which all of these so called important meetings had been happening, “now go and get your work done. I don’t want to keep you away!”

“Wait,” he ducked after you and reached for your hand, despite the fact that you had just turned away from.

“What?” a look of surprise coloring your features as he brought your hand to his lips and delicately kissed your knuckles, “Oberyn!”

“I missed you the moment you turned away,” he said softly, as you just shook your head at him, “until your paths cross again, sweet girl.”

“You are a fool of a man,” you teased as you let him be the one to walk away. He turned and gave you one last look before crossing the threshold and giving you a soft smile, the one that made you weak in the knees and a fire pool in your belly. 

Staring at the spot he had previously occupied, you let a small sigh before walking away, ready to take on your own leisurely day. The island of Jhala was a beautiful place, filled with kind souls and beautiful scenery. You’d never seen any place like it before, but you already knew a piece of your heart would remain here even long after you were back in Dorne. Hopefully Oberyn would not be opposed to coming back soon. 

You’d even made a few friends during your extended stay, finding the people welcoming and open, much more than most people in Westeros and they’d even taught some of their language, simply dubbed the Summer Tongue. 

As you walked through the bustling marketplace, your eyes came across glittering jewels of rubies, emeralds, and sapphires, fabric of the brightest tones and colors, arts and sculptures, and anything else you could possibly imagine. You made it a point to find something special for everyone back home, including all of the girls, and the twins you’d soon be calling your own. The hunt for something special for Oberyn was proving to be the most challenging of all as you tried to pick your brain for what to get him. Anything that had crossed your mind, he had in turn picked out and gotten himself, he already had, or was something that just wasn’t quite it. But you’d kept your eyes peeled anyway. 

So peeled, in fact, that you didn’t watch where you were going and walked right into someone. A small oof escaped your lips as you looked and found a little girl with bright, eager eyes watching you eagerly. She was gorgeous, skin almost as dark as the richest chocolate, with hair that was intricately styled in braids you learned were traditional to the people of Jhala. Her dress was feathered, a brilliant symphony of greens and reds as she grinned at you, completely untroubled or phased by the fact that you almost bowled her over.

“I’m so sorry, sweetheart,” you offered an apologetic smile and looked her over to make sure she was okay, “I should have been watching where I was going. Are you alright?”

“I’m fine,” she chirped back in your tongue, “we’ve been expecting you!”

“Expecting...me?” you asked as she reached for your hand, and started to pull you away from the crowd. Nothing but a cloud of confusion hung over you as you followed the young girl; you were nervous or scared, but you were intrigued, “who’s been expecting me?”

But she didn’t say anything else, instead pulling you near a small back alley where there were almost no people, just a few here and there milling about. When she seemingly reached her destination, she dropped your hand as you studied your surroundings. Strange, you thought to yourself, I’ve never seen this before.

“Hey-” you turned back to your mysterious little friend but found...nothing. There wasn’t even so much a single disturbance in the air to suggest that anyone had been there or moved away rapidly...there was nothing. A huff of air escaped your lips as you turned and did a spin to just to make sure no one was there; surely you didn’t mind all of that? No, you couldn’t have....you were positive you could still feel the touch of her small hand in yours. It was like a direct call back to your encounter with the mysterious woman in the woods, but this you were sure was real. 

“Hello?” your voice sounded small and diminutive in the large open alleyway, reverbing off the stone walls. No response met your ears but you were positive that you heard your name being whispered softly, calling to you and drawing you in. You were like a moth to a flame as you walked along the cobblestones to the place you were being drawn to, “hello?”

You stopped in front of what appeared to be a small little shop that smelled deliciously of warm spices. Flowers decorated the small window and doors, immediately giving you a sense of warmth and ease. Pushing aside the curtain made of hanging beads and jewels, you slowly stepped inside and looked around. The small space was lit up from the golden sunlight streaming in from the window and softly flickering candles. A small table and two chairs, both looking soft and cozy were in the center of the room, the rest of the space occupied by trinkets from what you assumed were around the world.

“Lady Martell,” the voice was warm and richly accented as you turned and found yourself looking at yet another new person. She offered you a warm smile before coming over and holding her hand out to you; there wasn’t even a moment of hesitation as you reached over and took it, giving it a firm shake, “a pleasure to meet you.”

“How do you...know my name?” you asked as she led you to the table and pulled a car for you to sit in. You sat down and watched her intently as she busied herself with making tea. You tensed for a moment as you flashed back to the tea that had once been presented to you with a most devious intention. But you didn’t think this would be anything like that. She took a few moments, humming under her breath before coming back to you and placing it in front of you before and taking a seat.

“There is no need to worry,” she insisted, “everyone knows who you are. The Prince’s wife, of course. He’s always a welcome sight here as is anyone with him.”

“Oh,” you laughed at yourself, “of course. Sometimes I forget that my husband is such...a prolific figure.”

“As you should,” she said with a warm smile, “he is no stranger to you, but your partner, your lover, your friend - just another person in your life. But to us, he is a man of myth and legend.”

“Yes,” you agreed, “that is he is. Do you...umm...do you happen to have a young girl? I bumped into her and then was gone…”

“Acacia,” she sighed with a smile on her face as a sense of relief washed over you and you realized that you most definitely were not crazy or imagining things, but she had been a real, tangible little girl, “she’s a wily, sneaky little thing sometimes. Here one moment and then gone the next, and almost impossible to keep track of. I wish I could have even a fraction of her energy.”

“She was there one moment and then gone the next,” you told her, “I thought I might have imagined the whole thing.”

“No worries,” she promised, “she’s something else...but I find that people often land where they’re supposed to be at the right time.”

“I…” you mulled over her words as you drank some of the tea; it was sweet with a hint of a spice, but delicious, “I suppose they do.”

“What troubles you?” 

“I’m sorry?” you almost choked on the tea as you set it back down. You looked around and tried to put together who the mysterious woman was when it hit you, she was likely some of...something. You were unsure if there was even a proper label for it, “I-I don’t know what you mean.”

“You appear happy,” she said as you nodded, “but I can tell there is something underlying...there is something in your eyes that suggests a deep sense of unhappiness.”

“What?” you asked as you almost laughed in her face. Of course you were happy, you had no reason not to be...your life was practical bliss… “I am happy, so happy. I-I have everything and then some…”

“That may be so, but one can still experience unhappiness,” you swallowed thickly as you shifted in your seat, “but you have to be honest with yourself...what plagues you? What keeps you up at night?”

You wanted to argue with her and tell her she was wrong, but in that moment you just couldn’t. Instead, your eyes welled up and stung as you stared at the table, playing with the delicate lace of the fabric that covered it. You closed and opened your mouth a few times as a few warm, salty tears filled down your cheeks. You had thought, you were sure, that you had been able to conceal your emotions so well, that everything was in check, but apparently you had been very, very wrong. All the feelings you thought were resolved were apparently very much unresolved. 

“Umm,” she handed you a handkerchief which you used to dab at your eyes, “it’s...gods, I feel silly being so worried and still ruminating on this, but my husband...he was injured at the hands of my family, my brother specifically. Oberyn told me to let it go, that things would be resolved, but I can’t just let it go...I can’t forgive them for what they did to him. He almost died, I stayed by his side as he clung to life, and he wants to let it go.”

“And you don’t want to do that?”

“No,” you insisted sharply, “I don’t. My entire life I have been the black sheep, the scorn of the family. I have had so many things taken from me, and I refuse to let them take more. I don’t...I don’t know what I would do if anything happened to Oberyn...I would....I cannot fathom it. But I can’t let it go and let them think they can do this. Oberyn thinks it’s better to let it go and not stir up trouble, but this isn’t like nicking some chocolate. They wanted to kill him and they almost did. I want them to know what they did, to experience the pain I did.”

“And what would you do to them?”

“I would make them suffer, the same cruel harshness that Oberyn had to go through,” you said through gritted teeth, almost surprising yourself with such harshness. You’d had these thoughts swirling in your mind since you had first discovered the truth from Jeron, but to hear out loud like this was another story, “I want them to know what I went through. And I want to know why. Why can’t they just let us alone and experience our own happiness? Oberyn went to them with peaceful intentions, asking almost nothing of them, but they couldn’t let it go.”

“Every action has a consequence, you understand this, yes?” she asked as you downed the rest of your teeth, studying the grit at the bottom of the cup “

“Action-Reaction,” you concluded with a nod, “I won’t do anything that will cause trouble. There is no reason to incite a war, which my husband has reminded me of many times. He worries too much about me sometimes, I think. He wants to protect me, I know he does, but sometimes I want to protect him too. And I know that I would have all of Dorne support me in this, he is their Prince! The Stark King would make them see reason and realize their actions will not go unpunished.”

“Does their violence necessarily mean you should respond in kind?”

“I....” you paused as you mulled over her words as you realized she had a point, “I don’t know. There’s a million different ways to look at this, but I don’t know what’s right or wrong anymore. I just know...I can’t let them do this without saying something.” 

“And have you told Oberyn about all of this?”

“Yes - in passing,” you sighed lightly, “and he’s fervent in his request to keep things civil and let them go.”

“But you don’t want to.”

“No.”

“You should express this to him,” she took your cup and swirled the two drops of liquid around as she looked at the grit, making a small sound in the back of her throat, “the two of you will be able to work things out and see eye to eye.”

“He’s insistent.”

“And you shall be just as insistent back,” she suggest as you nodded, “make sure he knows that you do not want to let this go and that you want words at least. That you at least want to express your grief to your family.”

“And if he shall not agree?”

“Remember who you are,” she said softly, “before you became a wife, before you became a Martell. Remember your roots and that you are not to be trifled with. You were strong then too, and now you need to remember that. What were your words?”

“Before Our String.”

“What are your words now?”

“Unbowed, Unbent, Unbroken.”

“Remember those,” she took your hand in hers and gave it a gentle squeeze, “remember that you are strong, with or without your husband. Don’t do things in haste either, but do not allow yourself or your feelings to get pushed around either.”

“I won’t,” you promised softly, “I am not just Oberyn’s wife, I am so much more than that. I will...I will have what I want.”

“Everything,” she whispered as she pushed the cup back at you and motioned for you to look inside, “everything you want will be yours.”

“Everything?” you whispered as you looked into the cup and tried to see what she was seeing. Your voice cracked slightly as you knew she meant so much more than just your issue with your family. I…”

“I don’t think that’s true,” you gave her a small smile as you pushed the cup back at her and cleared your throat to keep from crying, “I can’t...I have everything I want.”

“This world, here and back in your home, is strange and mysterious. Sometimes it is best not to question things and let them work out as they were intended,” she shrugged lightly as you felt as confused as ever, “have faith in yourself and the universe.”

“I have faith in things I know, things I can touch and see,” you shrugged lightly, “I don’t know about the rest.”

“Exactly,” she stood up as she gathered your cup and hers, “we don’t know and perhaps we’re not supposed to. 

“I don’t understand…”

“Mama!” Acacia poked her into the shop and offered you both a gap toothed grin. You stood up and brushed off your dress before walking towards the door. You gave the young girl a small hug before turning back to her mother.

“Thank you,” you told her softly, “I realize I still don’t know most things, but I do know some. I do know I love my husband and I will go to the ends of the world for him, but I also know I refuse to let things go without a fight.”

“You are well on your way, young one,” she insists as you give her a smile, “things happen as they are supposed to.”

“Yes,” you agreed, “thank you for your help.”

»»————-　♡　————-««

“Oberyn!” by the time you reached the small villa you were staying in, Oberyn had already been back for some time and he was sitting out in the garden, a book perched on his lap as there often was. He didn’t even hesitate to close it and toss it onto the table as you rushed over to him, throwing yourself in his arms as he stood up to meet you, “my love.”

“You are very energetic this afternoon,” he beamed as he picked you up in his arms and spun you around gently setting you and offering you another kiss, “did you have a good day?”

“I missed you,” you told him, reaching up and threading a hand through his curls, “I always miss you when you’re not with me. But yes, I did. I have a very eventful afternoon. How was...business?”

“Business as always was...business. Nothing terribly exciting, and as always my day would have been better at your side,” he touched your cheek gently, “was the market nice?”

“Very,” you promised, “Oberyn, you know I love you more than anything, right?”

“Of course,” he gave you a curious look as one of his eyebrows perked up, “you have never given me a single reason to doubt that. And I feel the same, of course. Tell me, what brings about this sudden declaration?”

“I want you to know. That no matter what ever happens, silly disagreements and bickering, should they happen, you will always be my moon and stars,” you told him and a mildly concerned expression crossed his features, “there’s nothing to worry about my love. But I also...we need to talk.”

“And whatever is so serious that it requires this level of commitment to speaking?”

“I think you know, Oberyn,” you put your hands on his shoulders, “we’ve ignored the issue since it came up and passed, and I...I don’t think I’ve had my fair say.” 

“The issue is over and done,” he immediately picked up on what you were talking about, “there’s no reason to dwell on things that are over and done with.”

“That’s just it, it’s not done,” you insisted softly, “not to me. Oberyn, please just listen to me and hear me out…”

“No,” it was a firm statement, laced with a sharp bite as he stared firmly into your eyes. It was the first time he had ever said it to you in such a manner, “this is over and you....we are letting it go.” 

“Oberyn,” you pulled back and gave him a hurt expression, one that immediately caused him to regret his decision to speak in even a likely harsh tone, “I...we should be able to talk about this…”

“I respect that you have feelings about this, and that they differ from mine,” he promised, “but I don’t think you understand the gravitas of acting upon what happened.”

“I do too! They hurt you, Oberyn. They were going to kill you!”

“And they didn’t,” he held up his hand as if trying to end the conversation then and there, “I know it’s hard to accept, but sometimes inaction is the best response.”

“It’s not...no. I understand exactly what you’re saying, but I don’t think doing nothing is the right response.”

“No,” it was harsh and final, “you are but a child when it comes to affairs of the kind! You know nothing about them. We are not going to do anything and that is final. You will listen to what I say and we are not discussing this further.”

“Oberyn…” you blinked at him a few times, trying to keep your tears from spilling over. He’d never yelled at you before. He let out a long, heavy sigh as he looked at the ground, already angry that he had spoken to you in such a manner The last thing he ever wanted was for you to cry because of him. A few tears rolled down your cheeks as you turned away from him with a small nod, “okay. I understand…”

“Sunshine,” it was soft, reverent whisper as he reached for your hand. But this time, for the first time, you didn’t let him take it, “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have spoken to you in such a manner.”

“It is no matter,” you lied as your lips trembled with cries that you tried to keep quiet, “like you said, I don’t understand these matters. I am but a child and don’t understand these types of things. “

“Please, my sweet girl, listen to me-”

“I’ll see you at dinner, Oberyn.”

With that you walked away from him, hastily wiping at your eyes as he stared after you, unsure of what to do. His shoulders slumped as he regretted every word. He only wanted to protect you, to shield you from the harshness of the world, and yet he was the one that had hurt you. 

That was going to be the first and last time, he quickly decided, he’d make sure there was never a single tear from you ever again.

»»————-　♡　————-««

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[scorpiosanssexy]

Pick a Card Reading: Who is your Soulmate

If you are a hopeless romantic like myself and you wanna know some traits, what your relationship will be like and even a possible meeting place you are in like with this pick a card reading.

Below are pictures of some Haikyuu Team banners, look at each one and decide which one you feel most drawn too (it could be the messages or just the colours) once you have decided scroll down and read your reading.

The banners are in order from 1 to 5 (left to right). I would suggest only picking 1 or 2 banners in order to get an accurate reading . The waltzes are taken from waltzing in a ballroom by Lia Wang on Spotify.

I hope this resonates and have a wonderful day

Carla

 Itachiyama (Pile 1) 

Personality- what type of person is your soulmate 

8 of Cups- your soulmate is always on the go, their life is anything but stagnate and they constantly always on the lookout for a new adventure (which they will happily let you join them). BIG TRAVELLERS, they wanna see the world with you, take some cute couple selfies all that jazz. Cups represent the element of water so I think this person can be quite deep and introspective and is constantly trying to become the best versions of themselves.  Will 100% go backpacking with you 

The Lovers- this person definitely has an equal split between divine masculine energy and divine feminine energy, being good at logic and emotions. I also got the impression that this person is extremely romantic, like a scene that popped into my head is in the Addams Family where Gomez and Morticia declare their love for another and he (Gomez) kisses her arm, that’s the kind of person they are. The lover’s card shows up in readings when you are asked to be your authentic true self so I feel they are naturally themselves, no persona. Also, they have 100% cried whilst watching the notebook and if they haven’t seen it they will in the future. 

Ace of Pentacles- very opportunistic, if they see something they just go for it (including you wink). I feel like they have been very lucky in regards to wealth in their life, either they were born into a rich family or are just very strategic with their money. They may swap careers often in their life or just love the idea of a challenge however what I can confidently say is they are pretty damm cunning and resourceful, leave the money-making to them because they have a natural knack for manifesting wealth and abundance into the physical world. Some people may describe this person as lucky however that is not the case they just know which opportunities to capitalise on. Work smarter not harder energy, just very savvy 

Astrology Notes - Gemini in their big 3 (Sun, moon or rising) with some water and earth influences 

Relationship- what is your relationship like with them? 

The Devil-  I promise you they are not the devil however they might as well be because of how much they will spoil you. In tarot, the devil is represented by Capricorn (aka the sugar daddy of the zodiac) so of course they have to indulge in their baby girl/boy. I feel like they low key become obsessed with you not in a creepy way but whenever you are not with them they always find themselves thinking of you or dropping your name subtly into conversations. They want to provide for you, make you comfortable, in their ideal world they do not want to make you lift a finger. Also think you are the most attractive thing to walk on this planet like they get flustered at the thought of you, low key a very big simp. Incredibly passionate in and out the bedroom, I feel like in the beginning stages of your relationship they will try and suppress their desire because they are worried they will scare you off. 

If you wanna find out more I suggest reading up on Capricorn Venus because I highly suspect that they might have it in their chart. 

How you meet- pretty self-explanatory 

Page of Swords- out of all the piles I found this pile to be the vaguest in regards to this question. The energy from this card is new ideas, collaborative work and just general communication. You may meet one another simply through a friend of a friend or maybe you are working on some sort of project together. I decided to have a look at the bottom deck to see if I could find any clarifies and drew the Hanged Man, this could maybe be a passion project (not one for work) in which you meet one another whilst embarking on it. The Hanged Man indicates rest so a time in your life where you are taking a break from the world around you, just having fun and socialising with friends. You will meet when you are feeling care free and feel like you no obligations- a spontaneous outing. 

Advice 

: Blue Moon - “Believe in the Impossible”

You never know what can happen, the universe may be giving you a rare opportunity in regards to your soulmate 

Make sure you believe in it, believe that you are deserving of love 

Miss the chance and it might not come back soon 

What happens may happen once 

Believe in your dreams 

The person you are inquiring about is a rare find 

Affirmation: I am lucky 

Your Waltz: Mystery of Love by Hanah Stater 

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

Aoba Josei (Pile 2) 

Personality- what kind of person is your soulmate 

The Lovers- this card has come up in ⅗ piles which suggest that many people seeing this reading are destined to have very passionate soulmates. I have always the lovers card to be grandiose and romantic so I feel like this is a primary characteristic to sweep you off your feet. This card is ruled by Gemini so your soulmate is gonna be one smooth mother fucker, mr steal yo girl energy. The lovers is a combination of both divine masculine and divine feminine energy so your soulmate is both very good at being logical whilst tapping into their emotional intelligence. They are naturally themselves and are proud of who they are 

10 of Cups- this card aka the happy ending card, I think your soulmate has an idealistic stand point on the world , the image that came to mind was Sugawara from Haikyuu shouting Negativity begone. I think this person radiates calm energy, I just imagine them to have a very soothing voice. This is the kind of person you could confidently bring home to meet your parents (in which they would automatically love them). Also I feel like family is very important to them, mummy’s boy or daddy’s girl vibe, I can imagine they are also extremely good with kids too and maybe have some career which involves this. Very protective of their loved ones honestly as I am writing this i am literally gushing, this person is the sweetest bean alive. 

3 of Pentacles - all I could think about when I drew this card was how incredibly hard-working your soulmate is. Pentacles is all about the physical world so your soulmate definitely has one hobby they are super passionate about (sports or something creative) which they love to spend time on. This card is an indication of teamwork so your soulmate is a huge team player, making sure that everyone is alright before checking themselves, they naturally bring people together and perhaps others view them as a leader. Also not a procrastinator by any means, they love the feeling of completely goals and ticking off their to-do lists in which they encourage friends and lovers to do the same. 

Astrology bits: Gemini in their big 3 (Sun, Moon or Rising) with some cancer and earth influences 

Relationship- what is your relationship like with them? 

Judgement- I promise you that it does not mean they are going to judge you actually I do believe this is the exact opposite. The judgement is a very heavy card in the sense that it represents spiritual awakening and revolution, your soulmate 100% believes you were the missing piece in their life. You have changed their life for the better. I feel that this soul connection is based more on deep emotional understanding rather than physical attraction. Your romance is that 50k word slow burn fic with the friends to lovers, mutual pining and comfort tags. I know that you cannot see it but on this card you see two people looking up towards this beautiful angel and I am can confirm that this angel is you. Your soulmate views as the person that set them free as you offered them new life perspectives. Perhaps your soulmate uses the pet name “angel”. If I could describe this relationship in one word it would be Ethereal. 

This person may have a Scorpio venus or venus-pluto aspects in their chart. 

How do you meet? 

10 of Wands- The image that I first thought of when drawing this card was like cramming for a final week or something and you both meet one another at a library or something however this might not be for all of you. I can tell you however you will be meeting them under a time of great stress, perhaps you accidentally volunteered to do more overtime or you have a presentation due very soon, you are most likely going to be in a state of fatigue (and be very flustered)  when you first meet. Just from their nature, I imagine they will help you carry the wands or in this case the ever drowning work. 10 is the number of completion so you may meet them in a point in your life where you have nearly completed a goal (them being that final push to do it) or it could represent month number 10 like October. 

Advice

Waxing Moon - “the energy is gaining momentum” 

The Situation is full of potential- your soulmate may be near 

You may need to take more action on your part 

Keep moving forwards 

Universe has given the green light so just go for it 

Your dreams can come true 

Affirmation: I know I’ve headed in the right direction 

Your Waltz: Clair de Lune by Claude Debussy 

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

Inarizaki (Pile 3)

Personality- what kind of person is your soulmate

6 of Cups- this card in tarot represents nostalgia and familiarity, I feel your soulmate definitely likes their home comforts, perhaps preferring to have quieter dates rather than over the top ones. For some reason I just imagine them being a hoarder of some kind, like any little trinket you get them they will keep it or they might be into scrapbooking. They love to keep their memories close. Again I feel like they are really into history and would love to take you to a museum or perhaps a historical castle, they give me dark academia vibes. I feel like your soulmate had to perhaps grow up too quickly and perhaps through this connection they hope to find their inner child again (which I believe you will definitely bring out in them) 

Queen of Pentacles- not be a simp or anything but your soulmate is one of the most caring and nurturing people ever. A scene that plays in my head is that after a really long day you come home from work or whatever and they are just there cooking you your favourite meals and being like “welcome home sweetheart”. Whilst the Queen is a caring figure we do have to remind ourselves of the Pentacle energy. Your soulmate does prefer the finer things in life, taking you to bougie restaurants or having a mini spa day together. They do like to live a luxurious life and believe you should too, never settle for anything less. Your soulmate is definitely a tidy person and knows how to keep their life nice and orderly and finds joy in organisation, also probably quite a private person. Even though the Queen court card represents feminie divine energy I feel like your soulmate has an even split of both masculine or feminine energy they are good at both logic and emotion. 

Page of Cups- this is one of my favourite cards in the deck, the page of cups represents someone who perhaps sometimes has their head in the clouds and can be a little bit innocent. Your soulmate is naturally very creative and takes inspiration wherever they go, for some reason I pictured them being into to photography but that might not be the case for all of you. Also I believe they may refer to you as their muse, you know the anime duos where there is the light and the shadow, the shadow helping the light shine and getting inspiration for them to keep going (think Akaashi from Haikyuu or Kuroko from Kuroko no Basket), I feel like your soulmate is your shadow helping you cast you light into the world. I feel your soulmate does have a hard time to express their emotions so doing so using a creative medium really helps them. The type to make handmaid gifts for their friends on their birthday. 

Astrology Notes: Taurus in their big 3 (Sun, moon or rising) with some water influence 

Relationship- what is your relationship like with them? 

The Chariot- this is not the most romantic card in the pack however there is one thing I can tell you about your connection your soulmate is devoted, they are the CEO of long term commitment like your relationship gives me the same energy as Carl and Elle from Up, just very pure and filled with love and support. The Chariot represents self-control and focus and a funny scene that popped into my head was your soulmate being kind of prudish at first when it comes to the more physical aspects of your relationship, they get easily embarrassed however I feel like their love language is acts of service. You will 100% be their focus in their life, they do love to spoil you rotten with attention and want to be your protector. They may be a little bossy but they just want to see you thrive, like they may leave little notes to remind you how much you love them. The kind of people to make an itinerary for a date because organising things for you is their love language. Overall, a very sweet relationship based on kinds acts of service, the married couple before being married. 

Your soulmate might have a Cancer Venus or Venus-moon aspects so if you want some further detail you can read up on those 

Where you will meet- pretty self explanatory 

The Hanged Man- Because this is a major arcana card I feel you meeting your soulmate will be quite a significant event in your life. The Hanged Man represents a time for letting go and a time of delay, perhaps you will be meeting your soulmate during a time where you are letting go of the past, this could be getting over an Ex, letting go of negative thoughts or even changing careers. I also got the image of you both meeting when you are volunteering, doing something for the community as this card is ruled by the planet of Neptune. Maybe be relaxing and doing something creative could be potentially when you meet them, ie: dancing, singing. I do know that it is during a time when you are moving on from something or your life has entered a limbo stage, nothing exciting happening. I wanted to see if I could find any clarifiers to this because I thought it was too vague and the bottom deck was the Devil Card, perhaps when you start to let go of limiting beliefs about yourself your soulmate may finally appear or perhaps getting over an addiction of some kind. The devil is ruled by capricorn so perhaps a creative project more for work may be potentially another place. 

Advice

: New Moon in Leo - “Confidence is the Key to Success” 

This is your time to shine so show off your talents

Be proud of yourself, you have come so far 

Spoil and pamper yourself because you have earnt it (just like how your soulmate does) 

It’s your turn in the spotlight do not shy away from it because you deserve the success and recognition 

Make sure you work on your self esteem first before seeking romance 

Make time for fun 

Affirmation- “ I am compassionate towards myself as well as others

Your Waltz: Once upon a December by Emilie Pandolfi 

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

Dateko (Pile 4) 

Personality- what is kind of person is your soulmate 

The Lovers: this card has come out in ⅗ piles today so you may have been drawn to more than one school banner. With the lovers card I can definitely imagine your soulmate to be passionate and romantic and wants to recreate all those cute couple things you see in the movies. They have a flair for the dramatics and can be naturally creative people. They are smooth operators when it comes to flirting so you might have a couple of pickup lines thrown your way (which by the way are actually good) this is because the lovers card is ruled by the zodiac sign of gemini in which are renowned to have silver tongues, teasing might be there love language. For some reason whilst writing this interpretation all I could think about was the character Tamaki Suoh from Ouran High School Host Club so perhaps your soulmate kins him. 

4 of Pentacles: whilst the other 2 piles containing the lovers card are very authentic I feel like this person sometimes uses their flirty persona as a mask, to protect themselves. Your soulmates are very possessive. I can imagine they have only a select few people who they are really close with and hold them near and dear to their heart. However a good thing about the 4 of pentacles is that this is the card that indicates it’s time to save money so as you can probably guess your soulmate is very good at saving money they may even be a money saving expert (martin lewis is that you). You can bet they know where to get the cheapest things from so if you ever need to go bargain hunting they are your person. I can imagine them being really good at DIY as it is a way to save money. I feel like in the past they may have had low self esteem, you may have also been drawn to Shiratorizawa pile because 4 of pentacles feature in this one too. Probably a tsundere 

9 of Pentacles: Your soulmates tagline is confident, independent and self-sufficient. I believe they were 100% the gifted child at school and are naturally very intelligent, and may have a tendency to brag about this too. I feel like this person can maybe be a little high maintenance and perhaps they are perfectionists also. With the number 9 it means not quite completion (seeing as number 10 represents completion), this means your soulmate is always striving to achieve more. Looking at the three personality cards as a whole I think that missing thing in their life is an emotional connection, they are extremely talented in whatever field they work in however they do find it difficult to make friends because they may be slightly above average in lots of areas of life (High IQ or plays a high level of sports). Whilst they may be show offs when in a relationship with you my goodness do they love to brag about all your amazing qualities. Words of affirmation may be their love language

Astrology Notes: Gemini in their big 3 (sun, moon or rising) with some earth influence 

Relationship- what is your relationship like with them

The Hierophant- this card may represent the strict teacher figure however for you, you will get to see their much soft side. They honestly want you to have all the success in the world and will be your number one cheerleader. With none of the other piles I never really specified ages and such but for this one I get a clear picture that this person may be a bit older than you, they have more life experiences than yourself. The Hierophant represents tradition so of course your soulmate will court you in the proper manner making sure to always respect your boundaries, a true lady/gentlemen. At the beginning stages of your relationship I feel like your soulmate used to excuse of “study dates” to be able to have a proper chance of getting to know you (as we already have established they can be a bit of tsundere). Your relationship is incredible strong and steady, others may describe it slightly mundane however it is the simple things which make this connection really work (every saturday day nights, cuddling whilst watching netflix and honestly the amount of flowers they buy makes your home look like a garden centre). They want to show you the world and want to be relied upon as it boasts their confidence when they can help you with a task. 

I suspect that they might have a Taurus Venus 

How you meet

The Emperor- This card being here for me makes a lot of sense just by looking at your soulmates personality (over achiever and incredibly witty). It is also a major arcana card so this meeting will have a great impact on your life or it will be a vivid memory. The emperor represents organisation, structure and achieving your goals. I can definitely see the pair of you meeting in a work setting in which you may both have to do collaborative work. You may meet your soulmate in a time in your life where you are trying to organise it and come up with a long term plan, maybe at a point where you have to pick your college major or perhaps a lots of job offers have just come in. They may even give you advice. If you are planning on going to grad school then maybe you may meet them there. What I can tell you is that your meeting will not be a relaxing one as the Emperor is a bit of a workaholic so after your first meeting it may be weeks before you both have a proper time to wind down and relax. I also got the image that perhaps you see them as the emperor figure when you first meet them, like they could be your boss or a co worker who is top of the class sort of thing. 

Advice 

: New Moon in Virgo- “A time to give rather than take” 

Gradual Improvements are coming in regards to your soulmate 

Be of service to others and abundance will follow 

Your soulmate is very reliable so try not stress too much 

Make sure to stay organised, eat and drink plenty and have a proper sleep schedule 

Pay attention to detail

Affirmation: “I am capable, hard-working and ready to complete my goals” 

Your Waltz: The Great Fairy Fountain by the Video Game Music Box

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Shiratorizawa (Pile 5) 

Personality- what kind of person is your soulmate

King of Pentacles- Ambitious, protective and calculated, these are all words to describe the King of Pentacles and in turn your soulmate. Your soulmate is somebody who is extremely driven and has lots of success in their life however this didn’t come from blind luck. They are a very responsible figure and are definitely involved in some leadership role most likely to do with their career. The king is a generous provider so I’d imagine your soulmate has an abundance in wealth, sugar daddy/mummy vibes, gift giving may be their love language because I do feel like they have a serious and aloof disposition. Do not be alarmed by this, they are very caring people however they do an “image” to maintain but if you are close with them you may see them in a more real light. Whilst I was typing this description all I could think about was Kyoya Ootori from Ouran High School Host club so perhaps your soulmate kins him in some shape of form. 

5 of Cups- This isn’t exactly the happiest card in the deck but one that means disappointment and having trouble letting go. I feel like your soulmate in the past has been disappointed by people, perhaps they have left them or betrayed their trust, looking at both of these cards I feel like it might have been because they found it hard in their childhood to form emotional connections. This is not to say they cannot do this I believe it just takes time with this person, however you know what they say- slow burns are the best. A message popped into my head when thinking about this aspect of them, I believe they have a hidden creative talent in which they learn to express their emotions through that, the piano was a striking image but it could be art or any other form too. I feel likethey are perfectionists but only because they believe you only deserve the best from them, very touch starved like please give them a cuddle it will make them melt. I feel like over time and as they have grown up they have a realistic kind of approach to the world. Whilst writing this I felt incredible sad for this person, my heart goes out to them

 4 of Pentacles- aka the tsundere card, this card makes sense in this in the personality part. This person is incredible protective and loyal to their loved ones as I believe it is hard to get to know them at first but once you do you have one very loyal “bodyguard”. These people are very money savvy and for some reason I can picture them having a career in finance or economics. Can perhaps be a bit frugal with themselves and don’t like to treat themselves often but love to pamper others. This person likes to be in control in all aspects of life and has a very commanding aura about them (which I think is incredibly hot), I believe it brings them a sense of comfort. Lastly whilst they may find it hard at first to be more open more emotionally they are the most helpful souls on the planet when it comes to career, education or even just general organisation, I believe it gives them great joy to help others out in this area as not only does it boast their self-esteem but they love seeing the smiles on other peoples faces. 

Astrology Notes: Capricorn in their big 3 (Sun, moon or rising) and may lack water placements in their chart

Relationship- what is your relationship like? 

They may have Aquarius Venus or Venus-uranus aspects so check those out for more info 

The Fool- the minute I drew this card I literally squealed and had to take laps because this card compared to the personality spread were just so opposite. To but it briefly you make them act like a bit of a fool (not in a bad way), like they are very blushy towards you and at the beginning stages they would get so flustered if you held their hand it is simply adorable. Looking into this card, the fool represents new beginnings, adventure and idealism. You bring new hope into their life, you know those soulmate AUs where everything is black and white until you meet your soulmate and the world turns to colour. I feel like emotionally that is what happened to them forming a union with you. You bring the fun and zest into their life, offering them a chance to relax instead of doing work all the time which they are forever grateful for, you definitely make them feel young again. Not to be sappy but I do believe you have turned their life around, the fool represents new beginnings so your connection will be a massive turning point in this person’s life. Of course, the fool represents fun too so this relationship will be filled with adventures and lots of funny memories, I feel like the pair of your friendship groups will get on really well and that you too will love to tease one another or even give the other a playful kiss. I just sense an incredibly low maintenance light hearted energy and I believe that is a great way to sum up this connection. You free them. 

How will you meet

The Tower- looking at this card with the fool card they both make a lot of sense seeing as once rules Aquarius and the other rules Uranus. Whilst the Tower does represent chaos I believe it doesn’t mean bad chaos in regards to your meeting. The tower is very random bringing in live events which change your life, I believe you will meet your soulmate in the place you least expect it the most, like the most random location you could possible think of, a couple that came to my head was the Supermarket, in a Bank or at bagage reclaims (these were just some random locations that pooped into my head when writing this). However this card can also be an indicator of you meeting this soulmate at a time in your life where you are having a massive change, like you could move abroad to a random country, start a completely new career or just when you do something that is a little crazy. Perhaps you are going through something that is chaotic and your soulmate helps you sort it out. With the tower card the possibilities are endless but what I can tell you is that you will very shocked (in a good way) and it will be a meeting you will never forget

Advice

: Mutable Moon - “Nothing is set in stone” 

Staying adaptable is the key to success 

Make sure you have not become too distracted in your day to day life, stay focused 

Stay with it ( don’t lose hope) 

Don’t let others lead you estray, your intuition is high listen to that gut feeling 

The situation is far from being finalized you have the power 

Affirmation: “ I know the best will unfold for me” 

Your Waltz: Merry-go-Round of life by Nuvo Orchestra 

#tarot #anime x tarot #haikyuu #romance reading #tarot romance #soulmate #soulmate reading #pick-a-card #cupid carla returns #soulmate tarot #tarot reading

[skzfairies]

sooyoung’s relationship with nct dream!

✿ mark

he was actually the first one to introduce himself to her in the dreamies

he was really sweet towards her but wasn’t like, over the top, he was kinda chill yk

and that just made her feel so comfortable because she had so many worries about joining nct dream as a girl, she knew monique would also be there, but they weren’t in the same unit so it was very nerve racking for sooyoung

and this girl was like, 15 and she was being thrown into debut suddenly with a bunch of boys, and it was very overwhelming

but mark assured her that it was all okay, and that everyone wanted her there, and that she deserved to be here

if she was ever having any problems with anything, he would always try his best to help her out, or direct her to someone he knew would help her

and now they are the bestest friends, sooyoung admitted that out of the members he feels like an older brother the most to her :D

their always goofing off or messing around, but not like bouncing off the walls together, they just make jokes to each other and burst out laughing

they have so so many inside jokes omg

and whenever they randomly make eye contact, they would always burst out laughing, they literally can NOT be serious around each other ....

mark is basically the reason she knows so much english 😭 she literally just repeats whatever he says and then studies it later....that’s basically how she learned lmaooooo

✿ renjun

renjun ALWAYS clowns her, like she could just be breathing and he would make fun of her (all jokes ok he loves her)

and she’s just like .... did i ask

but she always gets him back :D

she doesn’t roast him, but rather she EMBARRASSES him

if renjun teased her a lot in a video that was uploaded fhat day, she would go on vlive and tell a VERY embarrassing story of renjun and go in COMPLETE detail and then she’s done she’s like “how are you guyssss?”

once renjun saw that she was doing that and he went to where ever she was and complained about it and she just laughed at him while he was begging her to stop 😭

they love each other i promise

they also play fight a lot, like they could just randomly be hanging out in the living room and they would just randomly start fighting each other until they called a truce

sooyoung always wins ☺️, you gotta learn a few tricks if you spend the majority of your time with seven boys

also, when sooyoung got confindent and comfortable with speaking some mandarin, she randomly started speaking it renjun

and he was SO touched like 🤞 he was in shock he was like “when did you- how- what?” and she was just like “ i wanted to learn some so i can talk to you and chenle, i don’t know much but it’s a start!”

and renjun just hugged her, he didn’t know what to say and he was like I LOVE THIS GIRL SO MUCH

no bcuz sooyoung literally deserves the world okay shes so sweet

and renjun would teach her and help her practice when he saw her studying and they just have little conversations with each other in mandarin, and it’s so cute hehe

oh yeah stargazing is a thing for them heeh, when neither of them can sleep because their stressed or it’s just not happening, they both go outside and attempt to watch the stars, even if you can barely see them since their in the city :/

✿ jeno

GAMING BESTIES

they stay up so late playing games whenever they are off and always regret it in the mornings 😭

when she first started playing games w him she was rlly bad and jeno would always beat her and he was SO SMUG ABOUT IT and he was like “haha loser💪”

and sooyoung being the hard worker she is, she practiced her gaming skills for a few months and watched a ton of vids and jeno would ask her to game and she was like “no, not yet.” “i’m kidding your not a loser!” “i’m not playing w u until i can beat ur ass!”

and then a few months later she finally asked him to play

and jeno was like YAY ☺️☺️

and he kept on hyping himself up,,, and then sooyoung beat him

she ended up beating him 4/6 times they played 🤞

JENO WAS SO SHOCKED

HE WAS SO HEARTBROKEN

and sooyoung was just like :))) it’s okay jeno, maybe next time!” and she skipped out of his room happily while jeno was still like :0

he sat there in shock for awhile...

song writing besties 🤞

he actually helped her a lot when she was first learning, and when she completed her lyrics she had him check them over

same for him, she would always read over his lyrics he written, and sometimes she recorded a guide for him !

they always bounce ideas off of each other whenever their stuck, and then their like “damn we rlly are big brain 🤞”

OHHHH SHE MET HIS CATS ONCE

she fell in love with them, and his cats were instantly drawn to her

jeno has like 100 pictures of her w his cats he’s like :)) my childern

after meeting them sooyoung wont stop asking for asking for pictures of them or asking if their okay 😭

jenos like “do you love my cats more than me?“ and shes like “YUP:D”

✿ haechan

oh my gosh someone seperate them

these two are so chaotic omg

they are always coming at everyone’s throats omg

they roast the shit out of everyone 😭😭

whenever they are together there’s always loud laughing, BECAUSE HAECHAN IS JUST SO FUNNY OK

completly random but they look so cute and pretty sitting next to each other :D

haechan does tease her, but it’s not as much as the other members and she’s like :) “i’m special”

he’s always hugging on her and she either has two reactions:

if she’s sleepy and haechan throws himself on her she’s like ??? who tf is on me ??? and she looks so confused while haechan is moving around on her to get comfy and hes lowkey screaming and shes like 😳 i just woke up, and then she just goes back to sleep

if she’s wide awake she will scream and laugh and jokingly push haechan off of her until she gives up and just hugs back onto him, and she pats his head and goes “haechannie, your so cute :) i love you!“

its kinda a suprise that he’s older than her because he acts SO CUTE AROUND HER

and normally sooyoung would judge tf iut of u if you acted cute around her but wirh haechan she gets SO SOFT

like internally screams with haechan looks at her with a soft expression on his face because HE IS JUST SO CUTE AWH

another gaming duo <3

although it’s harder to beat haechan for her 😭😭

she’s only beat him like 5 times of the 6 years she’s known him 🤞

they also stay up late together, like they’ll be facetiming and they will litwrally just talk about ANYTHING and laugh their asses off

he lets her ramble about the random facts that she knows or the show she has been watching and jes just like :D your so cute, even if she repeated the same thing 2828 times or is not making any sense at all

haechan and sooyoung are so soft for each other 🤞

but they also arent afraid to roast tf out of each other 💪

✿ jaemin

these two are the sweetest omg

like they are SO CLOSE

and they are always together omg

like they always hang out in either one of their rooms and chill, it’s mostly her room tho because she complains about jaemins bed 😳

jisung feels like jaemin is his roomie too because he’s in there so much :0

dw sooyoung and jaemin are considerate 🤞

if jisung is sleeping and they wanna have a deep ass talk then jaemin will drags her to his room, because lets say jeno is a heavy sleeper (idk if he is but lets just say he is ☺️)

they are ALWAYS cuddling, like whenever she walked infront of his and he is sitting down, he’ll pull her to either sit next to him or his lap, it depends if cameras are around 🤞 and then once she’s sitting he’ll wrap his arms around her and just cuddle until they get uncomfortable lmao 😭

sooyoung will not fall asleep on any other member but jaemin, it’s just a thing idk, not that she’s not comfortable with the other members she just prefers to cuddle w jaemin since they cuddle so much hehehehe

whenever they are out walking in the streets and she’s tired she’ll grab onto jaemin’s shirt and he just down at her like :0 oh my god your so cute i just wanna protect ☺️, and he just puts his arm around her shoulder while she holds onto him :( i love them their relationship is so soft

ohhhhh jaemin made her go bike riding w him one day and she felt like she was going to DIE, her legs were so sore afterwards but jaemin was semi fine, and she was just like 😡i hate you.

she always asks jaemin to edit her photos for her, cuz she doesn’t know how hmph, and jaemin offered to teach her so she was like ☺️ okay so she sat in a chair next to him, and she ended up falling asleep.... whoops

jaemin was like “so you just do this to remove any- sooyoung?” and he looked down and sooyoung had her head against her knees, and she was OUT, like jaemin tried everything to wake her, so he ended up having to pick her up and put her on his bed while he finished editing her pictures 🤞

best boy jaemin YUP

i could write for AGES about them because i just love their relationship so so so much but all you guys need to know in summary is that they are such a soft friendship, they can always be seen cuddling together, they talk about almost everything, and their just besties :D

✿ chenle

01 liner babe’s yup !

they were close before debuting because they were close in age, and when they found out they were debuting they were like YESSS I KNOW YOU 😟😟

they call themselves twins hehe, even if they aren’t even born in the same month 😭

if they say they are twins, they are twins.

HIGH PITCHED LAUGH DUO YUP

sooyoung also has a higher pitched laughed, so whenever they laugh, it’s VERY high pitched

also they love to randomly harmonize?

like they could just be sitting in the waiting room and then they would just sing in harmony and then go back to whatever they were doing :0

ohhhh and they LOVE doing tik toks together

they will do covers of dances together or those silly duo ones and it’s so FUNNY because they are both so chaotic and it’s so cute

they really killing everyone w their cuteness 😭😭😭

he was also so shocked when she spoke mandarin to him, even if it was just a little bit and kinda awkward because she had just been studying to for a few months (she started studying it in january 2021!) and he was like 😟😄😄

he also gave her a big hug but he was way more entergetic than renjun, he shook her back and forth and yelled in her ear, NOT ON OURPOSE

he was just excited 🤞🤞

ohhhh they also post lil duets together :D and it’s so CUTE

like their both bare faced in a dim lit vocal room and one of them is playing the piano, and they just sing, and it’s so raw and beautiful, OH MY GOD I LOVE THEM

vocal icons

✿ jisung

at first he was kinda shy around her, since hes normally shy around new people

and sooyoung was like, i understand, but shes an extrovert so she tried her hardest to be friends with everyone and talk to everyone, and jisung was like ???? how are you so talkative ???

the first thing he ever said to her was “your shirt’s cool, i like shinee subaenim too!” and it was really quiet and sooyoung was like “thanks ☺️”.

she was wearing a shinee tshirt btw, she’s a big shawol 🤭

they eventually got close though, i mean your bound to be when your with them all day yk

but sooyoung was so soft and gentle w him and reassuring him that it’s okay that hes a lil shy and he just felt comfortable around her, even if it was kinda hard to have conversations

now their inseparable!

she always laughs whenever he breaks something, but she always grabs it and sees if she can fix it for him, while laughing

for the first few years of their debut jisung was like her lil bro, she would always tease him or fool around him

and now its the reverse 😭

jisung always roast her or teases her, and it’s so subtle she would just laugh whenever he said something and then after awhile she realizes what he just said so she’s like ... ☺️😟😳😕

shes like wHAT HAPPENED TO MY LIL BRO

jisung always pats her head when she has her mouth open after he teases her, and is like “hehe, love u”

“sure you do jisung, sure you do.”

she gets him back by blasting twice or shinee and dancing on her bed until jisung gets out of bed and turns it off 😭

she never does that when he’s sleeping because she doesn’t actually wanna make him mad 😭

they have never fought and she’s not willing to loose that streak

jisung compared their hand size once and it litteraly made sooyoungs hands look like a baby hand and she was like ... i hate it here

now he always asks for a high five and then he laughs because of the size difference

and she gets SO MAD

“STOP DOING THATTTTT, ITS NOT FUNNY”

“stop falling for it 🤷‍♂️”

“hOLD ME BACK.”

jaemin actually had to hold her back from running after him after he teased her

not that she would hurt jisung....she would just hit him a few times

jaemin scolds her for fighting the members he’s like “we do not condone violence in this household!”

then she goes “condone violence my ass! just let me flick him.”

jaemin doesn’t let her flick him 😭😭

she does it before jisung goes to sleep tho 💪

#deluxeoc #aesocnet. #nct dream fluff #nct dream oc #nct dream #nct dream extra member #nct dream 8th member #nct dream female addition #nct dream female member #nct dream addition #nct dream fanfic #nct extra member #nct addition #nct added member #nct female addition #nct female oc #nct female member #nct female unit #nct female subunit #nct fluff #nct fanfic #mark fluff #haechan fluff #jeno fluff #jaemin fluff #chenle fluff #renjun fluff #jisung fluff #nct 127 fluff #wayv fluff

[bigassnocash]

Hopeless Romantics

HiHo friends! I mostly wrote this piece for @iaminlovetomhollandmarvel because she's like my one consistent reader. Once again, I'm still fairly new to writing so please be kind, and send in requests for any characters and actors/actresses you want and I'll write for you! I also used writing prompt 707 from @creativepromptsforwriting and its highlighted in bold, there is also a Sylvia Plath poem in here!

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"Hey Y/N, what're ya doin?" Arvin asked as he walked up to you as you sat reading on the steps outside of the school.

"Not much, just sittin' here enjoyin the warm weather. What are you doin' Arvin?"

"Well you looked pretty lonely over here, so I was thinkin I could keep you company but I can go if you want."

"I don't mind, come sit down I promise I won't bite."

As he sat down next to you he linked his arm with yours to see how you'd react. When you didn't pull away he scooted closer to you, to the point of being able to see over your shoulder.

"Y/N L/N what on Gods green Earth are you reading?" he laughed at the content you were consuming.

"If you must know, nosey josey its a romance book," your cheeks started turning red with embarrassment as he laughed.

"I don't know much but I do know one thing; people do not talk like that on dates."

"I wouldn't know, I've never been out on a date before," you turned your head away feeling shame. 17 years old, and never been out on a date while some girls in your class were out here getting married.

Arvin felt bad, he did know that you didn't go out much but he figured that the most beautiful girl he's ever seen would've been asked out at some point.

"Thats about to change. C'mon Y/N get up, I'm taking you out on a proper date," he offered his hand to help pull you to your feet.

"Arvin are you insane, what would even do?"

"Anything you want. We could go to dinner, a movie, we could go to the library, I could get a picnic together really fast and go to the lake, we can go skinny dipping," he winked at you.

"Skinny dipping is a third date activity young man, I think you know this," you shot back at him matching his cheeky smile, "I wouldn't mind a picnic by the lake, I just need to stop by my house and tell my momma where I'm goin."

"Your carriage awaits m'lady," he help open the car door for you and helped you in.

"Before we do this I need to know, why are you doing this Arvin?" you asked him, very worried about getting hurt.

"Cause its Friday night and I'd rather spend it with the prettiest girl in school than at Church with Lenora."

An hour later after you dropped your stuff off at home and got a picnic and blanket you and Arvin were sitting by the lake looking out over the water.

"Y/N will you please read your book to me? 'ts just I've heard you read in English and I really like your voice. Please?" he was so kind and quiet that there was no way you could deny him of this.

"I won't read you my book but I'll read you a poem, how's that?" he nodded happy with the trade off. As you pulled your poem book out of the small bag you packed, he laid down in your lap looking up at the sky.

"This one is called Mad Girl's Love Song by Sylvia Plath.

"I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead; I lift my lids and all is born again. (I think I made you up inside my head)

The stars go waltzing out in blue and red, And arbitrary blackness gallops in: I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.

I dreamed that you bewitched me into bed And sung me moon-struck, kissed me quite insane. (I think I made you up inside my head.)

God topples from the sky, hell's fires fade: Exit seraphim and Satan's men: I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.

I fancied you'd return the way you said, But I grow old and I forget your name. (I think I made you up inside my head.)

I should have loved a thunderbird instead; At least when spring comes they roar back again. I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead. (I think I made you up inside my head.)"

Arvin stared at you in awe. He had never felt feelings like this before. In the moments that you were reading to him everything felt right, as if you wrote the poem for him.

"Y/N that was absolutely beautiful," he gushed to you.

"Aww you don't mean that, now c'mon enough with all this gushy stuff. Its hot and i want to cool down with a swim."

"But we dont have our swimsuits and I thought skinny dippin was a third date activity miss," he was getting real cheeky now.

"Thats very true, but I wear undergarments, and those cover the same amount skin that a swimming suit do. Arvin, do you wear undergarments?" you asked as you started to unzip your skirt.

"You sure about this?" he wanted to go swimming with you more than anything but he didn't want you to feel uncomfortable.

"I've never been more sure about anything in my life Arvin." you were completely undressed, except the matching bra and panty set you were wearing. Arvin was awestricken with you. "Hurry up, I want to swim and your taking forever."

In record speed he took off his jeans and shirt, grabbing your hand and running into the water with you. You guys splashed in the water for a long time, well into the night. At some point you guys just floated, side by side holding hands. No one had ever made you feel the way Arvin did, like you mattered.

"Y/N your shivering, let get you dried off," he helped you onto the shore and wrapped a towel around and rubbed your shouders. "Heres the keys to the truck, you can changed in there. 'm gonna go into the woods to give you some privacy." he truly was the sweetest boy.

Once you both got changed and were sitting in the car, he asked you something you never thought he'd ask. "Will you dance with me? I can turn up the radio and we can dance outside." you nodded your head and lept out.

He took your right hand, in his left and wrapped your left arm around his waist. He placed his right hand low on your back yet high enough to still be respectful.

"Arvin, real talk and I want a real answer from you this time. Why did you ask me out tonight?"

"I asked you out because I've been infatuated with you, but i was never sure to liked me back so I started to flirt with you."

"What? We barely even spoke before today, how did you flirt with me?"

"I mean, I looked at you... sometimes you looked back."

"Arvin I don't know what to say, you could've talked to me."

"I wanted to, so badly Y/N its just that... I didn't want people to get the wrong idea about you because you deserve the whole world and I cant give it to you and people say I'm dangerous and I swear I'm not I just don't wan-"

you cut him off with a kiss. An earth shattering, mind blowing kiss. his lips were so soft and molded perfectly to yours, and he could taste the cherry chapstick you always wore. It lasted forever it felt like. When you both eventually pulled apart he rested his head against yours. "Woman if you keep doing that you're gonna kill me."

"I hate to ruin this absolutely perfect first date but, its past my curfew and I have to be home," disappointment clear in your voice. "All good things must come to an end eventually I suppose."

The whole way home, you didn't leave his side. He even walked you to your door and kissed you goodnight. "Can we go out again tomorrow, ya think?" he asked so hopeful you'd say yes.

"I would absolutely love to Mr. Russell but I don't know if my mom will let me after gettin in so late after I was supposed to be home. Give me your number and Ill call you tomorrow if I can."

He gave you his number and you two parted ways. He sat by the phone all weekend waiting for you to call, disappointment shattering his heart when you didn't. He found you by your locker first thing Monday morning at school.

"Hey, I figured that Id come say hi to you. Ya know, just make sure everythings still good between us?" He had never been this nervous in all his life.

"Yes of course everythings good between us why wouldnt it be?"

"Well you never called, and I got really worried. Why didnt you call?"

"My mom said I wasnt allowed to use the phone because I broke curfew. I promise you I would've called Arvin, I had the best time of my life on Friday. I would do it again in a heartbeat."

"Really, you want to go out with me again?"

"Well, yeah. Of course I do. There's still a second date we have to go on, before we get to the third." you winked at him as you shut your locker and turned around and walking in the opposite direction. Leaving him there, wondering what on Earth he just got himself into.

#arvin russel fic #arvin russel x y/n #arvin russel fluff #arvin russel imagine #arvin eugene russell #arvin russel x reader

[genesisrose74]

Requested by @blanknamed (aka my bestie fr): hihi i saw the matchup and remembered my irl friend sent me these pictures when describing my aesthetic at one point and was wondering if i can have a matchup with someone from dsmp and dr. stone 🥺congrats on 1k too! so proud of you ❤️ you deserve this milestone!

Arielle get over here and let me give you a virtual kiss on the forehead because you’re just the sweetest person to ever grace this earth 😚forgive me for the long wait but i had to put so much into this one because it’s for you!! thank you for always being such a ray of sunshine and for becoming one of my first ever mutuals so long ago — and as a show of my gratitude, i’ll get right into your first pairing, which is going to be with…

I had a literal conflict over this because I think you could be compatible with more than half of the characters in dr. stone (looking at gen specifically), but UGH you and Senku would be so damn iconic together. As much as he’s not intent on becoming romantically involved with anyone, it just so happened that you both had a chance meeting together at the school library — in the modern times pre-petrification, of course. You were looking for a book on the development of radiation powered technology for a history class, and by coincidence Senku was reading the blurb of that very text when you stopped by. When you asked if he’d read it, your classmate simply shook his head and said he just knew a lot about the subject, and soon enough a conversation blossomed from that point.

Y’all talked for two hours. While standing in the same spot. TWO HOURS. And it didn’t even stop there because he realized the time and asked if you wanted to talk more over a bowl of this really good ramen he knew about close by. Senku barely even realized the implications of his offer until much later, since…

He was way too involved in your conversation to notice

He’s never had any interest like that in someone before, let alone has he ever tried asking a person out in general

Everything about you was so interesting to him that he cannot process anything else going on around him and he doesn’t know why

You just feel so different in comparison to his dynamic with anyone else that it throws him off. He’s curious as to why he straightens up when you walk in a room, why everytime you smile at his stupid dry jokes it makes him more confident, why your intrigued questions about his work give him an extra burst of adrenaline. After he comes home late, having fallen asleep in the library while you studied for a test beside him, Byakuya eventually spells it out for Senku in massive bold letters.

No, seriously, he writes it on a whiteboard with a chunky black marker.

“That’s ridiculously far-fetched,” he asserts quickly, trying to push his old man out of the room. “Since when have I ever been interested in anyone in that way?”

“Senku, you waited for her to finish her work. Without complaint.”

And he’s like: oh shit—

But knowing Senku, he still makes some futile attempts to disprove the concept that he could ever be attracted to someone in a romantic sense. Ya know, all that, “science is my only devotion” shit. It lasted for about two weeks, which was the exact amount of time that he tried avoiding you in hopes of seeing if he could in fact continue his routine without your presence next to him.

The bitch still cannot swallow his pride though, so you have to be the one to make the first move — which is about as simple as perfecting Flight of the Bumblebee on a violin. Every time you try bringing it up, it’s like Senku gets a sixth sense about it and is pulled away from you as soon as possible. At some point you just had to corner him in the school lab, hands smacking against the surface of his work table and mouth blurting it out.

“I think we should go on a date.”

He’s kinda impressed at the sheer willpower you displayed in finally getting the question into the air. And as much as he would hate to admit it, some happy nerves shot through his body when it happened. On the outside, though, he simply failed to fight a grin.

“Wanna get food with me tonight?”

And you did :D and it only went good from there. Dates at cafes with comfy chairs and pretty lighting, test runs of new experiments in the middle of the night that Senku calls you to see together, just enjoying the presence of one another in a secluded corner of the libraries you frequent. Even after the disaster that was petrification you’re both side by side, being sarcastic little shits to each other as soon as Senku frees you from the stone; doing new tests to save the world, going on picnics by the river, and constantly being of service to one another.

And then from the c!dsmp, I thought it was only fitting to match you up with…

^^ artwork by SAD-ist on YouTube

Listen, listen: I was considering a more standard/expected approach to this matchup, like maybe c!Wilbur or c!Niki because they’ve both got some major academia vibes. Especially Niki, because damn she’d probably take you to her flower shop and make handmade bouquets for you each day. However, I just think that it would be so perfectly fitting to have you and c!Sapnap together aesthetically. He’s very emotionally driven, always doing something stupid, and he probably hasn’t read a book since L’manburg claimed to be a sovereign nation. Regardless of that fact, he could sit and watch you read a book for hours, even if you didn’t ask him to. Standard case of grounded scholar + impulsive idiot = natural soulmates.

Within the region of the SMP, I imagine you like confining yourself to the libraries filled with ancient texts on the vast history of your home — although taking a visit to Eret’s self-made museum is always a pleasure as well. Niki gets along with you easily enough that you hang out together all the time, and it’s on one such occasion in the early days of L’manburg that Sapnap encounters you for the first time.

Dream had sent him out for scouting duty (which to Sapnap translates into, ‘be annoying to everyone within the walls’), and he’d taken to the edge of the country’s small borders, lounging up high above the trees so that he could see everything below with ease. To his surprise he found you, scribbling away within a ragged old notebook underneath a tree canopy, and wearing the prettiest smile he’d ever seen exist on a person before. You were waiting for your friend to arrive, it seemed, taking the ideas in your head and putting them to paper whilst you sat patiently. He was enraptured with you right away, and as a result he took to teasingly pestering you every chance he could.

Sapnap showed up at least once a week — and when he could, more than that — to slowly learn more about you. He tried staying under the radar of Wilbur when he did, just to make sure none of his endeavors were interfered with or got back to Dream in any capacity. Initially, his presence appeared a pain in your side, but your apprehension ultimately fell at the hands of his ridiculous humor and genuine inquiries as to your likes and dislikes. You knew who he was from the get-go, but it was hard not to find delight in his visits when he made such vigorous attempts to know you.

Although you’re sure he’d already learned it somehow, you told him your name one fateful afternoon, and he’s thought about that moment every day since, marking it as the first day he truly made progress in winning you over.

“You should come up here one day so we can talk normally,” he called out on a particularly overcast fall morning. “Maybe then I can see your face up close.”

You laughed, gazing up at him from the hillside on which you reclined. “You’re ridiculous. That’s not how this relationship works.”

“Mm, relationship? Sounds like you wanna gimme a kiss more than saying anything, hu—ow!”

A pine cone had clipped him in the shoulder harmlessly, chucked with expert aim by your own hand. Despite his surprise, Sapnap couldn’t help smiling.

“If you’re working that hard to twist the narrative and get me up there, how about you just come down instead?”

Without missing a beat the next day, he scaled to the top of the nation’s wall, made his way inside (with very little consideration for his safety), and took your face in his hands.

“You want me to?”

You already knew the implications. “Yeah.”

And he kissed you, then and there. Nice job, Ari!

Navigating a full blown relationship in the conditions y’all were in was not ideal. Sapnap tried everything he could to make sure you were safe, despite his distaste for your mother country and its leaders. After that cleared, though, it was a whole lot easier to be together and figure things out. Sapnap didn’t mind you staying within the walls as much as he initially thought because it reminded him of the first time you met, and so long as he could spend time with you he loved every second. Literally ask this man to do anything with you and he’s in, no matter what it is.

The sheer spontaneous energy Sapnap has inevitably feeds into your own, so while you’re much more contained than the pyromaniac, you have some very notable moments of crazy that are simply unforgettable. It’s honestly super funny to see that infectious life invade your senses, because otherwise you’re a super logical person and love entertaining yourself with the more simplistic things.

You work a lot with Wilbur on record keeping and cartography, but something that you and Sapnap apparently have in common is archery. That pine cone throw was no fluke, and he found that out when you came to visit, a shimmering bow fastened to a stock-full quiver on your back. It’s become a pastime to both ride out into the forest with your horses and practice archery (oftentimes mounted) as a way to let out frustration. If the weather conditions are too abysmal to go and do something outdoors, though, Sapnap likes to fall asleep watching you do methodical work, most commonly with his head in your lap as a fireplace crackles nearby. He’s a huge sucker for that cozy atmosphere, even though he tries to be all tough and badass at other times.

This became a huge ramble because I just think this pairing for you works so well, but I’m praying you get the picture. Sapnap is a flirty, slightly whiny, very protective, and free spirited person whenever you’re around, and he’d do whatever he could to see that pretty smile like the first day you told him your name. He thinks the world of you, and in his eyes your intelligence goes unparalleled.

#genesisrose 1k event #milestone event #matchup event #aesthetic matchup #senku x reader #c!sapnap x reader #dr stone matchups #dsmp matchup

[robininthelabyrinth]

Do you think the 3zun dynamics would change veryuchf they were age swapped? If NMJ were the youngest, or LXC the oldest, or even JGY as oldest? not a prompt, just warning your thoughts!

on ao3

Meng Yao went to Qinghe on Lan Xichen’s recommendation.

He’d never quite given up hope of finding his way even after his father’s rejection, and while Lan Xichen was kind and generous and everything Meng Yao had ever dared dream a cultivator could be, the older man was on the run, his sect burned, his family stolen – he was in no position to help him at the time.

Meng Yao had expected the leader of the Nie sect, who was reputed to be a righteous man, just and uncaring of status, to be much the same. Fiercer, of course; who had not heard about the tempestuous tempers of the Nie sect? But he’d expected something of that same ageless dignity, the way the two years that Lan Xichen had on him might as well have been a hundred years, that same feeling of distant awe as if looking up at a deity far above him –

He was not expecting Nie Mingjue.

Nie Mingjue, the youngest of the sect leaders of the Great Sects, who had prematurely inherited his sect after his father’s death and who’d run it with an iron fist ever since –

Nie Mingjue, who raised his younger brother like a father and lead his sect like a general –

Nie Mingjue, whose fighting skills were already renowned, whose people adored him, who stood against the world with no thought of anything but justice and revenge –

Nie Mingjue, who was a teenager.

“I’m almost twenty,” Nie Mingjue said with huff when he blurted it out, all his ideas about convincing the man to take pity on him – Lan Xichen had let slip that Nie Mingjue had a fondness for the underdog – going out the window at once. “And when I am, I will celebrate no one ever saying that again. Come on, get up; who forced you to stay out here? I’ll have words with them.”

More than mere words, he brought his saber up in Meng Yao’s defense, and it wasn’t long thereafter that Meng Yao secured his position as the man’s deputy.

“More like babysitter,” Nie Huaisang teased, and didn’t protest when his brother shoved him out of his chair without even looking up. “He never had one when he was younger, you understand – probably why he never learned how to take care of himself. He was only twelve when he took the position of sect leader, you know, and he hasn’t grown up one tiny bit since.”

“Huaisang! Shut up!”

Twelve, Meng Yao mouthed to himself. When he was twelve, he’d still been marking time at the brothel, doing odd jobs for a miniscule wage – he was barely entrusted with serving drinks. The only thing he’d been in charge of had been a few scrappy street kids that were awed by anyone who slept indoors; he couldn’t even imagine having to run a sect, much less as ancient and powerful a one as the Nie sect.

“You can ignore anything my brother says,” Nie Mingjue told him. His cheeks were darker than usual – was he blushing? “Consider than an official order.”

Meng Yao had had plans for what he’d do if he ever managed to get in closer to a sect leader. He’d thought it over in those years since the fiasco at Lanling, brimming as he was with resentment – it was all mapped out: how he would flatter them with respect and awe, how he would learn their weaknesses and cater to them, how he would make himself indispensable to them without ever allowing them to realize that he thought of himself as more than the dirt beneath their feet.

Such a plan, in the face of Nie Mingjue, was useless.

“You are going to go to sleep right now, Sect Leader” Meng Yao announced, dowsing the candles in the main office one by one.

“You can’t order me a- a-” Nie Mingjue’s complaint was interrupted by a yawn. “- around.”

“There’s no point in you staying up and wasting paper that you’ll only have to fix tomorrow, Sect Leader Nie,” Meng Yao said with a gentle smile, “when you can instead go to sleep, get a good rest, and actually write something coherent in the morning.”

“M’not tired.”

You’re a liar is what you are, Meng Yao thought, unable to keep the fondness out of the thought.

“Whatever you say, Sect Leader Nie,” he said in his sweetest tones, the ones that implied but did not say that he was indulging a small infant.

Nie Mingjue grumbled and glared, but he did put down the papers, which had in fact become totally incoherent splashes of ink as he desperately tried to fight back the tsunami of paperwork necessary for a sect leader to complete – Meng Yao had offered several times to find him more secretaries, and Nie Mingjue always refused; after interviewing the first few applicants behind his sect leader’s back, Meng Yao realized that was such a well-known path to corruption that even he’d been forced to give up on it.

He reached out and idly tugged on Meng Yao’s sleeve. “You have to help me with it tomorrow.”

“Don’t I help you with it every day?” Meng Yao replied, putting his hands on Nie Mingjue’s shoulders – for all that he was little more than a child to Meng Yao’s eyes, Nie Mingjue was tall, excessively so, and Meng Yao suspected he might possibly still be growing, somehow – to walk him over to the bed. “If you mean that I should do it and read out questions while you train your saber, the answer is no, Sect Leader Nie. You don’t focus enough on what you’re deciding when we do that.”

“But Meng Yao –”

“If you make me sit outside in the midsummer sun for a full shichen just because you’d rather be doing anything but read about Wen Ruohan’s latest atrocity, I may have no choice but to quit.”

Meng Yao had never expected to ever say such a thing to someone in a position above him. He’d never expected that it would work.

“Don’t quit,” Nie Mingjue said at once, allowing Meng Yao to pull his clothing off to prepare him for sleep. For all his height and power, Nie Mingjue had an earnest personality that was exactly like one of the street kids Meng Yao had bossed around all those years ago, and somehow he’d found himself falling into precisely the same patterns. “I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

“Your work, probably,” Meng Yao muttered under his breath but still unintentionally audible, wincing the second the too-sharp words passed through his lips, but as always when he slipped up Nie Mingjue looked delighted rather than scandalized.

“But I get so much more of it done when you’re around,” Nie Mingjue protested with a laugh, reaching up to start undoing his hair. With anyone else, Meng Yao would have thought it was an invitation to stay longer, to perform other services, but no matter how often Nie Mingjue’s eyes trailed after him or how stunned he looked on the rare instances Meng Yao had reason to wear formal robes, he would never ask and, if Meng Yao offered, invariably and firmly refuse. “Go to bed yourself, Meng Yao, and that’s an order. Don’t worry about me – I’ll be good.”

Meng Yao averted his eyes and smiled.

-

Meng Yao didn’t especially regret killing the Jin sect captain.

The man had been an ass, rude and overbearing and incompetent; he had stolen Meng Yao’s achievements for his own, not giving him any room to climb up through the ranks by his own merit the way he had in the Nie sect – not even citing his name in any of the reports, erasing everything he’d done from the record as if he was nothing, and when confronted, claimed it was because he was nothing, deserved nothing. He’d laughed at Meng Yao for daring to think that he could ever be worth anything, for forgetting who his mother was, what his mother was.

Meng Yao had never been inclined to forgive such slights – the opportunity had arisen, the two of them alone in the remnants of the battlefield, and he had taken it without a second thought.

He did not regret his death.

But he did regret the expression on Nie Mingjue’s face when he saw him do it, the confusion and devastation in his eyes. Meng Yao had turned at his shout to see him, and perhaps it was his youth that made Nie Mingjue unable to fully hide his feelings away from one who knew him well, or perhaps it was simply not in his character – Meng Yao had seen it all.

Meng Yao wished he’d turned around a little slower.

Maybe if he’d been slower, he would have only see the anger and not the hurt; the rage, the blame, and not the trust shattering, naivete broken as if Nie Mingjue were seeing death for the first time, as if he were not the blood-soaked Chifeng-zun with a thousand lives lost to his blade.

The guilt, as Nie Mingjue blamed himself for having sent Meng Yao here –

The worry, as he began to wonder what else Meng Yao was capable of doing, what he might have already done while at the Nie sect –

The shame, at not having realized what Meng Yao was like.

Meng Yao’s excuses came slowly to his mouth, his silver tongue failing him, and anyway Nie Mingjue couldn’t quite decide if he was shouting at him to explain or telling him to shut up – his excuses were only making it worse, and Meng Yao knew that, he knew Nie Mingjue didn’t understand how words could hurt or the importance of glory (except he did, he who was called a child, inexperienced, naïve, and because of that his thoughts were overruled and ignored unless he fought for them), he knew Nie Mingjue wouldn’t kill someone over his personal hurt (even he should have, Meng Yao had wanted a thousand times to silence those self-important elders of the Nie sect, those condescending little sect leaders), he knew that Nie Mingjue had only ever wanted to do the right thing just because it was right.

He knew that the world had disappointed Nie Mingjue time and time again, and this time it was his turn.

Meng Yao did not regret the Jin captain’s death.

But if he could do it again, he might have let him live.

It was something to think about during his time at the Nightless City, as atrocities flowed easily from his hand and he won yet another sect leader’s admiration and trust, for it was only ever his father that refused to even let him try. The Wen sect was more like what he’d imagine the Great Sects to be, full of back-biting and scheming and everyone out for their own gain, and those games he knew how to play.

“I want that bastard’s head,” Wen Ruohan raged.

You, want someone dead? What a surprise, Meng Yao thought but did not say. Nie Mingjue would have liked him to say it; Wen Ruohan would have him whipped or worse if he did.

“Whose head, Sect Leader Wen?” he asked politely. The number of people that Wen Ruohan wanted dead was as countless as the grains of sand on a beach. “You need only say the word, and I will see what can be done.”

Often, nothing. They were at war, after all.

“That overgrown infant, Nie Mingjue,” Wen Ruohan said with a sneer. “Arrogant little demon; he was always too clever by half, even back when he became sect leader at the age of ten –”

“Twelve,” Meng Yao automatically corrected, then winced; crossing Wen Ruohan was a good way to get into trouble from which there was no escape, and he knew better.

Luckily, for all his anger Wen Ruohan was in a good mood, and he only gave a bark of laughter. “I keep forgetting that you weren’t raised a cultivator,” he said, rolling his eyes. “The Nie sect habitually lie about their ages, some old superstition or some nonsense like that, and it’s usually revised up. Perhaps they think they need to get living sooner than everyone else, what with those qi deviations of theirs. Pity they takes so long to get to – I’d like to see him bleeding his life away.”

The thought of Nie Mingjue bleeding from the qiqiao, his eyes bloodshot his nose running his mouth choking on thick black blood, was not one that Meng Yao much liked.

He got to see it anyway.

It was his own plan that did the trick: he knew how much Nie Mingjue trusted Lan Xichen, who he saw as almost an older brother; he knew, in turn, that Lan Xichen trusted him. It was not difficult to lead Nie Mingjue into a trap from which he could not escape.

Meng Yao should have learned from Langya that he would not enjoy the sight of Nie Mingjue humbled and humiliated, Nie Mingjue on his knees, Nie Mingjue have been beaten black and blue, dripping with blood, and still not bending – anyone else, and he would have been pleased.

Anyone else, except perhaps Lan Xichen, who was untouchable.

Perhaps he would have enjoyed it if Nie Mingjue were just a bit older – usually revised up, he thought, and wondered if he’d been right about Nie Mingjue still growing – if he’d been settled in his own skin, confident and self-assured and righteous in a way Meng Yao knew he’d never be, if he was as high above him as Lan Xichen but less worthy, but he wasn’t and he didn’t: he only saw the way Nie Mingjue’s eyes were wide and hurt upon seeing him, even though he should have known better after Meng Yao’s earlier betrayal, should have expected something like this.

Children never understood why people hurt them. Meng Yao hadn’t, when it’d been him.

Knowing what he knew, Meng Yao did not expect forgiveness when he struck Wen Ruohan down before he could end Nie Mingjue’s life.

He did not receive it.

-

“I think we should become sworn brothers,” Lan Xichen said, and the proposal so perfectly suited Meng Yao’s ambitions in Lanling – Jin Guangyao’s ambitions – that for a moment he wondered how he had managed to manipulate Lan Xichen into doing it without having realized he was doing it. “The three of us.”

“Three of us?” Jin Guangyao asked, because surely he didn’t mean –

“You, me, and Nie Mingjue,” Lan Xichen clarified. He smiled, graceful as an immortal descended from the heavens. “I would be happy to see the two of you friends again, as it was before.”

It will never be as it was before, Jin Guangyao thought. Nie Mingjue had barely refrained from killing him, turning away only at Lan Xichen’s urging; he had returned to the battlefield and cleaned up the rest of the war, and not once in that entire time had he said a word to Jin Guangyao. No letter, which he’d expected, but not even in the few times since when they’d met in person.

Not even at the banquet when Jin Guangyao was recognized officially by his father, and took on a new name, a new title.

It was about what Jin Guangyao had expected. He’d learned long ago in the brothel that even the most foolish child would learn to shy away from you if you hit them enough – if he sometimes missed the feeling of being able to speak his mind freely, recalled Nie Mingjue’s badly hidden glee at having elicited a real reaction from his unflappable deputy, was wistful for the days of being in a sect where the Sect Leader listened to him and let him shine, well, that was on his own head.

Just one more thing he’d sacrificed, never to be recovered.

He didn’t say that. He only smiled and said, “You know I hold both you and Sect Leader Nie in the highest esteem; I would be honored. But as to whether Sect Leader Nie would agree…”

“He already has,” Lan Xichen said, and Jin Guangyao was truly shocked. “We can do the ceremony at the end of the week, if it suits you.”

“Of course,” Jin Guangyao said. He went to try to find Nie Mingjue himself, but the wall of hostility that surrounded the Nie sect, which he had found amusing when he was on the inside, now worked to repel him: the guards refused to let him pass, the new deputy aide told him that the sect leader was too busy to accept guests, the disciples refused to pass on letters, and even Nie Huaisang could not be found.

Even at dinner, Nie Mingjue did not meet his eyes once; it was as if nothing had changed.

Why would he agree? Jin Guangyao wondered. What did Lan Xichen tell him to make him agree?

In his heart, Lan Xichen was as untouchable as the moonlight, and yet for the first time Jin Guangyao felt the slightest hint of dissatisfaction – no, perhaps it was better said that it was Meng Yao who was dissatisfied, Meng Yao who had seen the fate of all those foolish children on the streets that were led into the abyss because they trusted too much. He knew himself to be the very same abyss: his words were as pretty and poisonous as any pimp’s, his motives as murky and foul, and Nie Mingjue had seen it.

Why agree?

When the ceremony was completed, they were congratulated and called the Venerated Triad, and in the evening they shared some wine – Lan Xichen’s idea, and a stupid one, since the next shichen was spent chasing their new da-ge around in an effort to convince him to stop climbing things or at minimum not to fall.

When at last it was late enough in the evening for the Lan sect’s strict discipline to kick in, and Lan Xichen safely stored away in his bed, Jin Guangyao gave a sigh of relief and turned to go.

A tug at his sleeve stopped him, and he turned to look at Nie Mingjue, who was frowning.

They were alone together, at last, and Jin Guangyao had a thousand questions and more, but he restrained himself and asked only, “What is it?”

He refrained from adding the ‘Sect Leader Nie’ that rose to his lips out of habit; he did not know if it was still appropriate.

“We’re sworn brothers now,” Nie Mingjue said, and Jin Guangyao could not read the expression in his eyes. “Given our ages, that makes you my older brother.”

“It does,” Jin Guangyao agreed.

“Since you’re my elder, that means I have to listen to you,” Nie Mingjue continued. “To be filial and obedient, as well as respectful.”

Jin Guangyao had not thought of it that way, but it was true: he was indeed the elder, and with their oath binding them, could expect such things to be due to him without having to concern himself with the differences in their rank.

“And in return you have to guide me and take care of me, to be concerned with my conduct and well-being; isn’t that right?”

Jin Guangyao nodded.

Nie Mingjue’s expression, which had been wary, firmed. “Good,” he said, and tugged on his sleeve again, an emphasis Jin Guangyao did not quite understand. “Mark your words. I entrust myself to you, er-ge; you can scold me as much as you like, but you have to model good behavior for me…”

He hesitated, then burst out: “No more killing, okay? No matter what, no killing anyone until you’ve learned to tell good from bad - if they anger you, you tell me and I’ll beat them up, but don’t you dare do it yourself! You hear me?”

Jin Guangyao’s eyes were as wide as saucers and a smile he had not had to force was on his lips. “You’re selling yourself and helping me count the money,” he told the foolish child, who scowled and glared at him. “I don’t deserve to hold something so valuable in my hands.”

Nie Mingjue huffed. “Maybe if you thought less about what you should deserve and more about your duty to what you already have, you’d have fewer problems,” he said tartly, Nie Huaisang’s da-ge shining through for a moment. “You’ve already sworn with me; it’s too late to take the deal back.”

No wonder he’d refused to speak to him before: Nie Mingjue had too many feelings and was too bad at hiding them – he would never be able to hide his intentions if they had had time to speak, and he had clearly been determined to lure him into this trap no matter what.

As if he thought Jin Guangyao would refuse.

“No more killing,” he promised, already aware that such a vow would be an impediment in his plans and not quite managing to care. The steel of Qinghe shone cleaner than all the gold in Lanling; he would not throw away a treasure a second time. “You have my word.”

“And you consult with us about your troubles,” Nie Mingjue added, seeing he’d won an inch and trying to get a mile. “You can be good, Meng Yao; you only forget sometimes, when there’s something you want more – you can trust Xichen-ge, at least, even if you don’t want to come to me, but don’t go alone anymore.”

“Because I can’t be trusted?”

Nie Mingjue rolled his eyes at him. “Because you’re ours,” he growled, a little tiger cub flashing its milk teeth, and he wasn’t talking about Lan Xichen. “You’re ours and we’re yours, and it’s about time you started acting like it!”

“All right,” Jin Guangyao said, feeling indulgent again. “Be good, A-Jue, or else I’ll think you think you’re the elder, not the younger.”

Nie Mingjue flushed red and ducked his head to hide it – it might have worked, too, if he wasn’t so tall or Jin Guangyao so short; he could see the embarrassment on his face at once.

A bit exaggerated a reaction to such mild scolding.

“What is it?”

“Nothing,” Nie Mingjue’s voice stuttered a little, which Jin Guangyao hadn’t even known was possible – how delightful. “No one’s ever called me that, that’s all.”

Moved by an unspeakable impulse, Jin Guangyao reached up and touched Nie Mingjue’s head, and was delighted to find that his hair was as soft as he’d always suspected it would be.

“Well, you don’t have a choice but to bear it,” he said, happy without even a trace of resentment in his heart. “I’m the older brother, remember? You made the deal; you can’t back out of it now.”

Nie Mingjue smiled at him, his eyes curved up, and then abruptly the smile faded.

Jin Guangyao’s heart, always wary, recoiled at once: “What’s the matter? Do you regret…?”

“Oh, no, not at all! And anyway it’s not you! It’s…our da-ge is climbing out the window behind you.”

“Oh no!”

Learning to trust would take some time, but Jin Guangyao felt confident that he’d figure it out eventually.

He always did.

#mdzs #jin guangyao #meng yao #nie mingjue #lan xichen #3zun #my fic #my fics #age swap #a matter of age #chuplayswithfire

[apiratewhopines]

Thanks to @teamhook for the artwork and for helping me pick a movie that wasn’t already done!

Midnight

Chapter 6 — The Mice

Summary: In which our heroine wins the battle but loses the war

Chapter 6 of 7 on AO3

“The way you changed my life

No, no, they can’t take that away from me”

-They Can’t Take That Away from Me, Fred Astaire

After the excitement of the morning passed, Sidney grumbled until they returned to the table. Still shaken by whatever Arthur said on their brief phone call, Killian declined to join them and returned to their room. No doubt to dream up a make-believe pregnancy for her. Most probably twins this time.

“I thought you told me we would have smoked salmon for our bagels,” the man complained to Guin, face upset as if the plentiful choices offered on their breakfast buffet were insufficient.

“I’m sorry, dear. I know it’s your favorite, so I made sure it was on the menu I gave to our chef,” she murmured coaxingly. Looking at the butler who was filling Arthur’s coffee cup, she asked, “What happened to the salmon?”

“There was a mistake, ma’am. It was left out of the last delivery, and since the phones have been out all morning, we couldn’t contact the market. I’ve sent one of the girls into town to buy some, so we will have it tomorrow morning. If the gentleman prefers, we can prepare a plate for him this afternoon.”

“Nonsense,” she replied. “The phones are in perfect working order. We just made a call to Europe to check on the Baron’s daughter.”

“No, ma’am, only the internal phone system is working. An accident took out the lines last night.”

Emma reached over and grabbed Arthur’s hand under the table as they shared an uneasy look when the other three people at the table all glanced at her with questions in their eyes. Lance broke the silence. “I don’t understand…”

“I’m afraid he’s right. I wasn’t on the phone with my mother-in-law. In fact, I don’t— No, I don’t want to burden you with my problems,” she said haltingly, her mind racing with ways to get out of this mess. The words tumbled from her mouth so quickly she didn’t have a chance to think through the consequences, which seemed to be the way she operated these days.

“Oh, please, you can’t stop now. This little mystery is the only thing distracting me from my lack of fish,” Sidney countered. He was studying the wide variety of fruit compotes and toppings for his pancakes and sounded desolate. “Please.”

“Well, let’s just say the Baron’s family has a touch of eccentricity,” she continued with a grimace. She had their rapt attention; even Sidney abandoned his food and gawked at her. “My first hint was at the wedding. I was opening the gifts, and his grandfather gave us a broken compass covered in Thousand Island dressing.”

“Yes,” Arthur broke in, determined to help. “Now I remember hearing there was a streak of madness in the family. His father was known as the Mad Baron of Cambridge. He liked to give people roller skates with missing laces instead of flowers.”

“The truth is…we don’t have a daughter.”

“Oh, this is much more delicious than breakfast,” Sidney gushed, pushing his plate away and moving to the seat across from her. “Tell us more.”

“I don’t want you to think bad of him. Most of the time, he’s lucid and the sweetest man in the world. That’s the man I fell in love with. But when he’s having one of his episodes, like this morning, he can get quite aggressive if confronted. It’s best to go along with whatever he’s saying. It always starts when he first wakes as if he can’t shake some odd dream in his mind,” she grabbed her napkin and dabbed at fake tears. “There was one time about six months ago he woke up convinced he was Captain Hook. He wore eyeliner for weeks and refused to use his left hand. When I tried to make him see reason, he insisted I call him Captain and tried to have me arrested as a mutineer.”

“You poor thing,” Guin said, genuine sympathy in her expression. “I wondered why you called him that. I thought perhaps he served in the Navy.”

“And you’ve stayed with him all these years?” Lance’s gaze, which was always admiring, held a new respect for her now. It didn’t make her feel any better. “You’re wonderful.”

“Hmm, yes, absolutely amazing,” Arthur murmured under his breath. The smirk was back, and she could tell he was enjoying her web of lies. At least someone was. “Is there some medication he can take? Perhaps you should have him committed.”

“No, I would never. I promised to stay with Killian in good times and bad. It will pass eventually. It always does,” she bit out, kicking him under the table. Before anything else could be said, she heard the Captain whistling as he practically skipped out of the house toward them dressed in the sky blue scrubs of a surgeon. The color made his eyes even more beautiful, and the tiniest smattering of hair visible above the v-neck of the shirt did things to her heart.

“Arthur, Guinevere, thank you for the hospitality, but we really must be going. I have to get back for my shift at the hospital.” Everyone jumped at the pronouncement, exchanging loaded glances and trying to figure out what to say or do next.

Guin smiled at him shakily and in a calm voice asked, “The hospital, Baron?”

“Not a baron, I’m afraid. And this woman isn’t a baroness. You notice I didn’t say my wife because she isn’t that either,” Killian informed them as he stopped by her chair and reached down to place a hand on her shoulder.

“Killian, you don’t mean that,” Emma responded. She would have laughed at his look of confusion at the lack of reaction to his revelation if she wasn’t so sure it would come back to bite her in the ass.

With an admonishing look, Lance said, “See here, Baron, there’s no need to insult the woman who has stayed by you through thick and thin.”

“Thick and thin? We met five nights ago, and she couldn’t wait to be rid of me. She’s an imposter. And I’m a doctor who has real things to do in the real world. Come on, Swan, let’s leave these lovely people to their breakfast.”

“Oh, I get it. You think she’s Elizabeth Swan from Pirates of the Caribbean.” Sidney snapped his fingers as if all the pieces had fallen into place.

“What? No, I think she’s a bounty hunter and the most impossible woman I’ve ever met,” Killian argued, determined to make them see the truth. The more he spoke, the more their faces cleared of all emotion like they were afraid a smile or frown would push him further into his delusions. He pulled her from the chair gently, and since she felt like pond scum for the lies she told, she let his arms circle her waist. As an added benefit she didn’t deserve, the position allowed her nose to be tickled by the chest hair so temptingly on display.

“Maybe she’s a mutineer,” Arthur offered.

Looking at the group, Killian shook his head in disbelief. “I think you’re all crazy.”

“Yes, that must be it,” Guin said soothingly. “Why don’t you have some breakfast, Baron?”

“I’m not sure how I can be more clear. I’m not a baron. We’re not married. We met in the middle of the road a few nights ago, and I pretended to be her Uber driver so I could give her a ride to a strip club. It turned into the best night of my life.”

Undeterred, Guin patted his arm, which was still wrapped tightly around her. “What a lovely courtship you’ve had. Now, let’s get you something to eat. Do you prefer coffee or tea to drink?”

“Are you not listening to a word I’m saying? We’re fakes! We haven’t known each other for more than a week. She twisted me around her little finger in two minutes. As infuriating as she is, I fell in love with her smile. The sound of her laugh makes my blood pump faster, and when she talks about not believing in love, it makes me want to prove to her that it exists every day for the rest of our lives.”

She was fading, her will to stick it out with Arthur and give him a happy ending melting in the heat of Killian’s honeyed words. His genuine concern at how nonchalantly they were accepting his confession should have been funny, but all she could think about was how he said ‘the rest of our lives.’

Like he meant it.

“Well, fakes or not, I’m still hungry,” Sidney answered, trying his best in the face of impossible odds. “Maybe your patients could wait a few hours until the salmon arrives. It’s quite good.”

“Bloody hell, this is a madhouse. Come on, Emma, enough is enough. Let’s go,” he urged her again. Taking the napkin from her hand, he threw it on the table and switched his grip to gently hold her upper arm and guide her away from the group.

They were immediately halted by Lance, thunder in his expression and lightning in his eyes. “She’s not going anywhere with you, Baron. We know all about your illness. She won’t be safe.”

“My illness?” Understanding dawned on his face and his head tilted back like he was searching the morning sky for answers. With a wry chuckle, he sighed. “Bravo, Swan. You told them I’m crazy. And I played right into it, didn’t I? Because I’ve been acting crazy, a man driven out of his mind at the sight of his most cherished dream waltzing away from him like he was nothing. Like everything he felt was nothing as far as she was concerned.”

She choked up at the bitter twist of his mouth. He was so brave, declaring his feelings in front of everyone, even convinced she would reject him again. Was it any wonder she had fallen head over heels for him?

And what did she do? She lied. She tricked. She ran. Then she rinsed and repeated.

“Captain,” she whispered, her hand moving to cradle his face when a sickening crack was heard and he crumpled at her feet.

Behind him, looking proud of himself, Sidney was still holding a pan aloft like he thought Killian might jump to his feet and demand a second round. Fear flooded her and she dropped to her knees to cradle his head in her lap. Helplessness, her hands fluttered over his body, her mind trying to sort out the impossible situation that was entirely her fault. “Why the hell did you do that?”

“He looked homicidal.”

Shaking him gently, she begged, “Killian…Killian, come back to me. Don’t leave me here alone.”

“You aren’t alone, sweetheart,” Lance promised, trying to move her away.

She swatted at his hands and refused to leave. The movement caused Killian’s head to lull to the side, and she saw a smear of red dripping from his hairline. “Someone call 911. He’s bleeding!”

Sidney glanced down at them with a mildly alarmed look and then at the weapon he still held. He ran his finger across the bottom and, with some relief, announced, “That’s not blood. It’s raspberry compote.”

—

Arthur’s personal physician made a house call to attend to the victim. Of course, the woman knew Killian Jones, MD, who was apparently the Director of Pediatric Oncology at Storybrooke General and one of the foremost experts in his field.

He was a saint in addition to being her Captain.

He deserved so much more than a lost girl who was too scared to know a good thing when it stopped on the side of the road to save her.

“This couldn’t have worked out better, my dear,” Arthur commented with an eyebrow wiggle. “Lance is beside himself. He just announced he plans to hire a divorce attorney this very afternoon. Run along. I’ll make sure the good doctor makes it back to town safely. I’ll even throw a couple thousand his way for his performance.”

“Shut up, Arthur. This is terrible. An innocent man got hurt, and it’s all our fault. My fault,” she corrected with a whisper, running her hand softly through Killian’s hair. He regained consciousness as the doctor checked him out but fell asleep while she assured them no permanent damage was done. Replacing the ice pack against the goose egg forming on the side of his head, she silently pleaded with him to wake up so she could grovel properly and beg for forgiveness.

“He seems quite taken with you.”

“Maybe he’s crazy after all,” she joked, but her heart wasn’t really in it. She doubted she would find anything funny until she saw his electric blue eyes again. “Can you leave us alone? I want to be able to explain when he comes to.”

“Of course, just call if you need anything.” He gave her a probing stare as if trying to decide whether to say something else before he left.

When she heard the door click shut, she leaned over and brushed a soft kiss across his lips. “I’m sorry. For running. For lying. For putting you in a situation where you got knocked out. I know that’s not nearly enough, but I am.”

“It’s a start,” he groaned as her hushed tone drew him from sleep, one hand moving to cover hers where it held the ice to his head and the other reaching out to play with the ends of her hair. “What happened?”

“I happened. This is why we don’t work, Captain. I’ve brought you nothing but pain and suffering since the moment we met.”

“I didn’t figure you for the melodramatic type, Swan. We had some good times before this farce began,” he reminded her as he shifted into more of a sitting position. “Are you ready to admit there’s something between us, or do I need to jump back into the fray and take a punch bowl to the face?”

“I never denied there was something between us, just that it was a good idea. I believe a raspberry-flavored concussion proves my point perfectly.”

His hand drifted to her cheek, calloused fingers glancing over soft skin. She wanted to look away from his intense gaze, but he tenderly grabbed her chin and held her in place. “Love, come away with me. It doesn’t have to be forever; we can sort that part out later. I’m simply asking for your company now, to give us a chance before you decide against it.”

“I want to, Captain. I want the carrot and everything else behind Door Number One,” she murmured with a watery chuckle. His gentle caresses grew hotter and more insistent. Finally he pulled her to him, her body half-covering his, as he claimed her mouth in the kind of scorching kiss that would burn through her memory forever.

She had nothing to offer him, and she had a long way to go before she would be worthy of this kind of love. Unconditional. All-encompassing. The kind she didn’t even know existed until he rescued her.

“I sense a but coming…”

“But—“

With a sad smile, he interrupted her. “On second thought, don’t. Please. I can’t bear to hear you say the words. To watch you run one more time. Let’s call it a day now so we can remember it fondly in the years to come.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Not as sorry as I am.” He tapped her nose lightly with his fingertip, observing the tears in her eyes as she fought to keep them from falling. Giving her a bittersweet grimace, he added, “Just promise you’ll take care of yourself, Swan. No more skipping meals. No more pretending to be anyone other than the amazing woman you are.”

The tears that were a threat until then slipped past her defenses, leaving trails down her face. He swiped at them and pressed a kiss to her forehead.

Then he was gone.

Arthur found her later in the exact same place, not having the energy to move. He slipped his arm around her shoulders and pulled her into a hug. “This is the last time you’ll ever have to live this day, my dear.”

She knew he was trying to make her feel better, but the knowledge he was wrong caused her to feel light-headed as she turned into his embrace. She would never have to say goodbye to Killian again, but she knew she would relive it over and over until the day she died.

—

He approached her on the shoreline as she watched the blue waters of the Atlantic crash against the rocky beach forming one side of Arthur’s estate. Heat lightning flashed in the distance; the far-off storm robbed of its noise and violence when viewed from the calm of land. Emma knew it was only a matter of time until he sought her out. He was a smart man, a gambler and a rogue, so why not press his advantage?

“You disappeared on me after the baron left.” Lance never referred to him as her husband, always ‘the baron.’ She wasn’t sure if it was his way of skirting the immorality of his pursuit or simply to rob the other man of any claim on her, but it was starting to piss her off. Which was silly considering he wasn’t really her husband. Or a baron.

“He told me he was filing for divorce on his way out. That he hoped you found happiness but had come to realize it wasn’t going to be with him.”

She had yet to look at Lance, but she felt her heart break a little at the scene he painted. It was just like the Captain to try to help her all the way to the bitter end. She supposed he simply couldn’t stop himself. Breathing in the warm salty air, she wanted to let it fill her lungs and sweep out the misery that had taken hold in the core of her.

She was an idiot. She had let someone who had never loved her, never really even cared about her, twist her into someone who would do the same thing to a man who was perfect in every way. If she hadn’t already sworn to get even with Neal Cassidy, this would have driven her to it.

She was damaged now, unfit for human company, clinging to a sham because it was easier than facing the fact she made the biggest mistake of her life. Only this time, there was no boogeyman in the form of a cheating, lying ex to blame. She did this to herself.

But she didn’t have to double down on it.

With a deep sigh, Lance dropped on the sand next to her. He was more casual than she had ever seen him, and somehow it made him more approachable. Barefoot and with his pants legs were rolled up to mid-calf in a nod to the tide, he observed, “He was wrong, wasn’t he? You still love him.”

“Yes,” she admitted, staring at the horizon.

“And you aren’t a baroness…”

“No,” she confirmed, this time chancing a sidelong glance at him. “Everything he said was true. I’ve been here under false pretenses.”

“To come between Guin and me. It has the smell of an Arthur scheme all over it,” he explained with a wry grin. “Well, I can’t say I didn’t deserve it. I never intended for it to go this far, but once it started, we kept getting deeper and deeper until I couldn’t see a way out. And then I didn’t want to. I love her, I probably always will, but she’s not mine. You helped me realize that. A gorgeous wake-up call designed to turn my head and steal my heart. Losing you is my penance. One I can’t regret because I have a feeling you saved several lives by playing along.”

“You’ll be back in the saddle again soon, I’m sure, and the women of the world will be better for it. Do yourself a favor next time, though. Choose an available woman, and once you find her, don’t let her go. Don’t make the same mistake I did.”

“What are you going to do now?”

“Pick up where I left off, I suppose. I have some debts that still need to be paid and a fugitive to bring to justice. Maybe if I keep busy enough, keep moving, this will all fade and seem like some fever-induced dream.”

“I meant, what are you going to do about Jones?”

“I think I’ve done enough already. The best thing I can do for Killian now is to stay away.”

“For someone so smart about other people, you have a rather glaring blind spot when it comes to your own life. A mistake is only a mistake if you keep making it. You know where to find him, you know he wants you to, the only thing stopping you is fear.”

“Fear is enough, Lance.”

“You know what fear has gotten me: Absolutely nothing. I was afraid to put myself out there, so I only got involved with women who I knew would leave me before the whole thing even started. It’s hard to mourn the loss of a relationship that never stood a chance to begin with. It cost me my best friend and two women I care about. You’re better than that, Emma, and doesn’t he deserve the best version of you? But more importantly, don’t you?”

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