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yanaromanov · 3 months

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pretty little beginnings

- professor!natasha x lawyer!wanda x reader

part summary: the start of the new semester sees you reunited with your best friend, kate, but also introduces you to your surprisingly gorgeous new professor. when you get a perfect score on her first class test, she’s keen to have a conversation with you…

part warning(s): teacher/student relationship, age gap (r is of age), power dynamics, married wandanat (no cheating), pet names, mentions of anxiety, mentions of bad family relations, reader is a perfectionist, minors dni.

authors note: i have no idea about america or their universities so am purely basing this off my own experience at my uk university, so if anything is incorrect i apologise but also let’s just pretend it’s not :)

part one of the inescapable love series

inescapable love masterlist

･｡ﾟ*. 18+, minors DNI . * ｡ﾟ･

7.8K words

The beginning of term was always one of your favourite points of the whole year. To most, returning to campus after summer was somewhat of a bittersweet moment, having to come back to the reality of long classes and endless studying. For you, however, it was the start of something new, a fresh look at different courses that hadn’t yet bundled up into countless assignments or exams. The start of term always carried the least amount of pressure and therefore, the least amount of anxiety. Everything was starting from page one again, and it always provided you with a few weeks of sweet relief before you’d once again inevitably realise just how stressful school truly was.

Aside from the pressure of classes, most of your peers also found sorrow in the end of their summer break visiting home and their families. For you, however, this wasn’t one of your mind’s concerns. In fact, the trip back to university provided solace, a well-deserved partition between the people who you’d spent the past few months trying to tolerate.

Now, to say your family were awful to be around would be overstating things, in truth they weren’t all that bad, but spending summer with them was certainly not on your list of dream holidays. Most days you hid away in your childhood bedroom, trying to avoid the bickering voice of your mother, persistently droning on about school and your grades. She’d always taken a great pride in her children and that had certainly extended to you, her ideologies of perfection constantly looming over your shoulder. Your dad liked to drink, not enough to endanger his health but enough to wake you a few nights a week when he’d stumble around the kitchen in a drunken stupor. This itself was rather a hypocrisy, your dad being the one who dragged everyone to church on a Sunday morning to praise the Christian values when it seemed the holy day was the only one he didn’t seek out the bottle. At least now you were thankful that Sunday was the only day you had to deal with your older brother, when he’d join the rest of your family at service. For years, his perfection had been a constant reminder of how you were the disappointing child, despite attending one of the most prestigious universities in America.

In fact, your family was one of the main reasons you had even applied there. Not, as one may think, to appeal to their standards, but in fact, because it was about as far away as possible you could get from them. England was your home country, growing up in a small town in the southern parts of the land. Moving to America had been a big deal, having to completely relocate your life to an entirely different part of the world, but it had been something you desperately needed. At first your mother had been hesitant to let you go at all, but once she’d heard the ranking of the school you’d earned a scholarship for, she was all for having a daughter at a prestigious university in the states.

So, that was how you ended up here, already three years into your university career with only one to go until graduation. Living in America had been just the step you’d needed, finally giving you space from your overbearing family and in the process, also gifting you with one of the closest friends you’d ever had. Kate had been the first friendly face you’d seen at your new school, smiling widely as you’d first stepped into your shared dorm and energetically shaking your hand. Ever since, the pair of you had been practically inseparable, growing closer and closer everyday, and three years later, you still found yourselves sharing a dorm room.

Despite Kate’s skills in friendship, there was one thing about her that one may call a character flaw; the inability to ever wake up on time. It was the first official day of the semester, a few weeks having passed since the two of you had had your happy reunion and redecorated your shared room. The sun shone through the curtains which you had opened almost an hour ago. In all honesty, it was quite impressive how Kate had managed to not only sleep through your alarm, but hers as well. Atop of that, you’d not taken the curtesy to get yourself ready in a quiet manner. Now however, Kate really needed to wake up.

A tress of black hair flew up in the gust of wind that the pillow brought along with it. Moments later, Kate was sitting up quickly, cursing out at you for throwing at her in the first place. You chuckled at her antics as she tried to wipe away the hairs clinging to her mouth. “You overslept, Bishop,” you called, voice light and playful.

Kate scowled back at you, finally free from the mess of her bed head. Seconds later, you were dodging the pillow flying back across the room towards you.

“Hey!” you called back, narrowly missing getting hit in the head. “You’re the one who told me to wake you up, remember? You said this was the year you were getting your shit together.”

Kate’s expression was nothing short of unimpressed. She let out a loud groan as she threw herself back down into the confines of her bed, bringing her hands up to hold her face. “Can we reschedule that to next year instead?”

The chuckle that left your lips was light. “You know there is no next year.”

Your hands reached out towards her, grabbing hold of her duvet and ripping it from her bed. A small scream escaped Kate’s lips as she desperately tried to rescue the cover, albeit she arose unsuccessful. You passed her a small smirk as you threw the duvet to the floor. “If you’re not ready in five minutes, I’m going for breakfast without you.”

The girl passed you a none-too-happy glare but eventually settled on rolling out of bed, groaning loudly as she fell ungraciously to the floor. Simply laughing off her antics, you moved towards the full length mirror that hung in your dorm to check your outfit one last time. The warm weather still clung to the September air, resulting in the floral summer dress you’d adorned for the day, a small white cardigan sat atop of it. As always, your worn-in converse sat upon your feet, tattered from the years they’d spent traversing you to class.

American weather was just another one of the things you loved about living in the states. Summer in England was sticky and gross, the house always too hot, lacking AC and unbearable to sleep in at night. You’d always end up tossing and turning, sweat sticking the shorts to your body. Every street smelled like disposable barbecues and there never seemed to be enough ice in the shops to cool your drink. Overall, it was a rather uncomfortable experience. But Summer in America was a whole different story. It felt like the movies when they’d jump out of school on the last day, sun shining down on top of them. It was warm outside, and you could enjoy the sun before slinking back to a cool room with beautiful air conditioning, rather than you’d dad’s old fan that was louder than an airplane flying overhead.

“Are you almost done?” You finally turned away from your reflection, glancing across the room to where Kate was pulling her hair up into a messy ponytail. She’d dressed in a pair of old shorts and tshirt, obviously forgoing the ritual you’d followed of dressing cute on the first day.

“Yep,” Kate replied breathlessly, moving to put on her trainers, hopping around the room as she pulled them on. Once they sat upon her feet, she stood upright and looked at you with a dopey smile. “Okay, let’s go.”

You smiled shamelessly back, opening the door to your dorm in order for the pair of you to venture out. Kate simply passed you a small thanks as she slipped out into the corridor, followed closely by you after locking up your room. Thankfully, most days you left together as Kate never seemed to remember that crucial step.

———

“Wait, so you’re actually taking Russian this year?”

Your eyes rolled as the question rung out. “Kate, we’ve talked about this so many times.”

The girl shrugged her shoulders. “I just don’t get why you’d take a random language, that’s all.”

A sigh escaped your lips as you watched Kate take a bite of some scrambled eggs. As she did most mornings, she’d chosen to load her plate up from the breakfast trays, paired perfectly with a full glass of orange juice and a large mug of coffee. On the other hand, you’d only had a slice of toast, simply buttered, then a coffee of a similar size that you’d already downed. For someone who liked to attend meals so close to classes, one would expect Kate to choose smaller portions that she could maybe finish without shoving it in her mouth two minutes before she had to leave.

“I told you, Kate,” you repeated with another sigh. “I had to pick up some credits and the only thing that fit with my timetable was either Russian or a programming class.”

Your face screwed up at the last words you uttered, the idea of such a thing enough to turn your nose up. Kate could have taken some offence, considering her major was computer science and she was in such programming class, but it seemed she was too focused on finishing her half-eaten eggs.

“I thought you said there was a Spanish class you could take?” Kate said, talking around a mouthful of food.

Your eyes rolled in your skull, not only at her actions but at the fact she’d only remembered that small detail of your previous conversation. “There was,” you replied, crossing your arms on the table. “But I just thought Russian sounded more interesting.”

Kate raised a brow as you shrugged a shoulder. She didn’t have much time to judge you however, as you checked your phone to see there was only a few minutes until your first classes. Kate scrambled to finish the food on her plate as you collected your things, downing the rest of her coffee before pulling her backpack on to her shoulders. In the end, she had to run after you out of the dining hall after you’d already left, not letting yourself be late because of her antics.

The pair of you walked across campus together, Kate branching off to her first class and promising to meet up at lunch. You continued on to the building in which your timetable indicated your Russian class would be held. It was all rather new to you, a building you’d never been in before on campus. You supposed it fit with the class that you’d be taking now, stepping into something entirely new.

Thankfully, you found the lecture hall quickly, not discouraged by your unfamiliar surroundings. A lot of the seats were already filled up, the class just a few minutes from starting. You found a space down near the front, a usual spot for you in your determination to never miss anything a lecturer was saying, persistent on never having a blank spot in your notes.

The remaining minutes passed as you set yourself up for the class, pulling out your notebook and pen and setting them neatly on the desktop. Remaining students filed in, filling up what had to be one of the smaller lecture theatres on campus. It seemed there were barely thirty students who had decided to take the class, a small number compared to your usual large English lit course.

Noise bubbled in the room as the clock ticked by. At the exact second the hour struck, a door to the left opened wide.

“Good morning. If you could all settle down now, please. I need to take attendance.”

All attention fell upon the person who walked through the door, silence befalling the room as their voice echoed through the hall. As your eyes lifted from the scribbles on your notebook, they too sought out your new professor, but what they found was certainly not what you had been expecting at all.

The woman that approached the desk at the centre of the room was perhaps the most gorgeous you’d ever seen. Her hair fell perfectly in cascading curls, a brilliant red draped across her back. She wore a pair of black slacks, paired with a light blue dress shirt, rolled up at the sleeves. Her heels clicked meticulously across the polished wood as she set a laptop down at the centred desk, opening it up and glancing down at the screen.

It seemed you were not the only person affected by this woman’s presence as the entire hall fell silent as she began to call register. Most professors at this school were old men, droning on about things tirelessly. Even when presented with a female professor, none ever compared to the power and lure that this woman seemed to radiate across the class.

Once she’d finished calling names and assured everyone was marked down correctly, the red-haired woman moved towards the front of her desk, leaning back against it as a pair of arms came to cross over her chest. Your eyes found particular interest in the very expensive looking watch that sat upon her left wrist.

“Okay, my name is Professor Romanoff, as you have probably seen on your timetables. I will be your teacher for this class on introductory Russian.”

All ears seemed to be on the professor as she spoke, her voice confident in the space it held.

“I will start off by saying that this class is not easy so if you have taken it for that reason, I suggest perhaps changing.”

A tight smile appeared on a pair of red painted lips as the professor continued talking, the curtness behind it clear.

“This class is not impossibly difficult but it is certainly not a free ride. Anybody who treats it as such, is likely to fail.”

You weren’t sure what it was, maybe something in the air, but your attention seemed to cling to everything that fell out of the professors mouth, practically drinking up every word that she said. Your eyes found themselves particularly focused on her lips, adorning a shade of red so perfectly you even questioned if they were naturally that colour.

Professor Romanoff continued to rattle off expectations for the class, bringing up exam dates and testing styles before discussing an outline of everything the class would cover. Your pen jotted down everything she said, almost working faster than your brain could keep up, that ever persistent need to be perfect taking over once more, just like it did every time the new semester rolled back around.

Overall, the class seemed to be mostly an introduction. Professor Romanoff outlined specific topics you’d cover, before beginning to teach the difference between the English and Russian alphabets. Whatever it was she said, every word was jotted down into your notebook with persistent attentiveness.

The class seemed to pass by quickly, the order to pack up echoing out earlier than you thought it would, but with a quick glance at your phone, you realised that an entire hour had indeed passed. You tidied up your belongings, throwing them all into the old backpack you carried about everywhere, then got up to follow the crowd out of the lecture theatre. Your mind found itself satisfied with the enjoyment of the class, finding everything taught very interesting. Some part of you even found yourself somewhat excited for the next time you’d dawn the building and Professor Romanoff’s class.

———

“So how was it?”

Kate’s words were out of her mouth before you’d even sat down at the table, delayed in joining her by a few minutes due to your English professor droning on too long in his lecture. A sigh escaped your lips as you finally set yourself down at the dining table, throwing your backpack underneath as you looked over at your friend.

“How was what?”

Kate rolled her eyes. “Your Russian class,” she replied, as if it was the most obvious thing ever said.

“Oh, right,” you replied, reaching for the cutlery on your tray and using it to begin cutting the omelette you’d picked up for lunch. “It was good.”

Kate raised a brow, obviously more curious than your answer could satisfy. “Just good ?”

You nodded in response, raising a single shoulder. “Yeah, good. It was really interesting.”

Kate hummed, taking a bite of the chicken burger she’d chosen for lunch. Like she often did, the girl spoke around her food to ask you another question. “How was the professor? Some old Russian guy?”

Unsure of exactly why, it felt like your heart gave a little flutter when Kate mentioned the professor, maybe it had something to do with the way you’d spent most of the lesson staring at her and thinking how beautiful she was. “Uhm, no actually,” you replied, taking a small bite of your food. “It was a woman. Quite young looking too.”

Kate’s interest seemed to be piqued, a single brow raised. “How young?”

You shrugged a shoulder. “I don’t know how young. Like, thirties? I don’t know.” You shrugged again, unsure of how exactly to answer her question.

The girl across from you hummed. You could tell why it was a suprise to her, it had been to you too when you’d first laid eyes on your new teacher. Most professors at this university were very good at what they did, but that often came with the experiences of age. A younger professor was an uncommon sight.

“What was her name?” Kate asked, still chewing another bite of her burger.

“Romanoff.”

Kate hummed. “And she was any good?”

“Yeah,” you replied lightly, trying not to think too hard about the way her red hair had formed perfect curls. “She seems a little strict but she’s a good teacher.”

“Well, that’s always good I suppose.”

From there, Kate seemed to become disinterested in the professor, instead moving on to discuss a cute girl she’d seen in her programming class. You’d asked more questions but the pair of you knew Kate would never do anything about any crush she had, she would get far too nervous and stumble over all of her words any time she tried to talk to anyone. Many times you’d watched her fail to flirt with someone drunkly at a party, accidentally blurting out something stupid that caused the other person to turn away. Each time you’d end up giving her a pat on the back and assuring her she’d get the next one, both of you secretly knowing it probably wasn’t true. Nevertheless, it was fun to fantasise about cute people you saw on campus and Kate often liked to share all the things she’d like to do with someone if she could actually talk to them.

Your conversation slowly passed on to other things, talking over activities you both did over summer, but sooner than you’d like, the time came for you to both head to your next classes. You both packed up your things, tidying away your lunch trays before heading out of the dining hall and across campus, Kate giving you a very dramatic goodbye before disappearing into her coding class and you slipped away to criminology, some part of your mind still clinging on to the idea of alabaster skin and perfect red curls.

———

The semester kicked off quickly and before you knew it, you were already three weeks in. Your time had been spent flitting between your classes, keeping consistent with your notes and readings. That fresh term feeling still resided within you, positivity and interest radiating through you in each of your courses. Though your creative writing class remained your favourite, your new Russian elective had quickly climbed the charts to take spot number two. Something about the language simply drew you in, perhaps how different it was to English, but every class seemed to suck you in entirely and leave you eagerly awaiting the next one.

Through Kate’s complaining, you were exceedingly glad that you didn’t pick her programming class, the professor apparently loading far too much work on his students. Though, you were never sure how much of the complaints could simply be down to Kate’s dramatics. The pair of you continued to spend your free moments in each other’s company, talking over every meal and studying in the library. You made the most of the disappearing sun, basking in the last of the summer warmth on the campus lawn, your head stuck in a book while Kate napped next to you.

You’d also easily picked up your part time job once more, the manager of the campus coffee shop reminded of your hard work the past three years. The job itself was usually rather tiring, filling up your weekends and free mornings, but it paid for your food so you knew it was a necessity. Thankfully, the lingering warmth had meant the shop had remained rather quite so far, not too many people racing for a hot coffee while the sun still shone down from above. Your experience however, let you know that in just another few weeks, you’d have to pick up the pace and things would get increasingly harder as the temperature began to drop. Yet, for now you basked in the calmness that the summer brought. But one person in particular seemed determined to change that.

Kate stumbled around the room, grabbing different outfits from the closet and trying them on, before deciding they were no good and tossing them on to the floor. She’d never been a very quiet person getting ready, usually singing along to whatever band she found interesting that month, but at that exact moment, you wished she’d sometimes find a slightly calmer routine.

Your head hurt, most likely from dehydration. It had been a long afternoon shift at the coffee shop and it seemed summer was giving everyone one grand goodbye, bringing the temperatures soaring and consequently, leaving you with a very sweaty shift. Now you were back in the dorm, showered and in some light pjs, hoping to finally get started on the work you’d been thinking about all day. But someone seemed destined to distract you. Your eyes fell to Kate, desperately trying to find a top to match the current skirt she was wearing. “I hope you’re gonna clean that up,” you said, glancing at the mess of clothes on the floor.

“‘Course I will,” Kate replied, pulling another top from a drawer. “Ugh, why does nothing look right!”

You glanced once again to the girl, taking in her current appearance. “Wear the silver top,” you said nonchalantly.

Kate began rummaging in the drawer, knowing what you had meant and what to look for. She pulled the top out and tried it on, looking at herself in the mirror and letting out a pleased hum. “Looks good, thanks.”

She passed you a grateful smile and you simply passed one in return, merely thankful that she’d stopped making such a fuss while you were trying to work. Your body turned back towards your desk, eyes falling back on to the open notebook in front of you.

“I really can’t convince you to come tonight?” Kate’s voice whined as she touched up her makeup in the mirror. “It’s always super boring without you.”

“I told you already,” you replied, not looking up from your notes. “I can’t go to a party, I have to study.”

Kate sighed loudly. “What are you even studying for? It’s only the third week!”

“My Russian class. I have a test on Monday.”

Your roommate blew a gust of air from her mouth, the repel evident. “You still have all of tomorrow to study.”

“You’re right, I do. And I intend to use all the time I have.”

Despite still looking at your notes, you could see the eye roll Kate gave you. “Whatever, loser,” she called, grabbing a bag to take with her. From behind, you could hear her pulling on a pair of heels, which would probably end up in her hands before the night was done. “I’ll try be quite coming in,” she said, reaching for the door.

“Keys?”

“Shit.”

The noise of scrambling filled the dorm once more as Kate rummaged about in her backpack for her set of keys, an item so frequently forgotten about. You heard them jingle in her hands before being slipped into her purse. Then, she said her actual goodbyes and slid out of the room, finally leaving you to study in peace. You released a relieved sigh as silence fell back over the room and you allowed your eyes to scan the Russian letters and grammar scribbled out across your paper. Whatever party Kate was venturing to that night, it wouldn’t be the thing to keep you from studying, your mind entirely focused on the terminologies written in your notes and determined to commit every piece of it to memory, no matter how long it took.

———

Natasha loved her job, truly she did. In fact, she’d given up her career of lawyering to begin teaching, something about it always drawing her in. But one part about her job that she didn’t enjoy as much, was marking papers. Although it was an integral part of her role as a professor, it seemed marking always held tedium in the never-ending correcting of answers and decoding of illiterate handwriting.

A low sigh escaped her lips as Natasha circled yet another grade atop of a paper, a red ‘D’ followed by a smaller ‘62%’. It wasn’t a surprise to her that most of the grades were on the lower side, especially for her introductory class, the highest so far reigning at a 73. It always took new students a while to get used to the new alphabet and syntax that Russian carried, their grades reflecting that sometimes up until the midterm. Papers like this were Natasha’s least favourite to grade, constantly having to mark down corrections for spellings or grammar, and usually taking up more of her time than she’d like.

The smell in the kitchen at least worked to brighten up her mood, the soft aroma of a home cooked meal fluttering straight from her nose and down to her anticipating stomach. Wanda always loved to cook and each night Natasha loved coming home to eat whatever she’d stirred up for that night. Her wife dotted around the stove top as Natasha sat across the breakfast bar, two stacks of papers sat next to her. Her mind was hoping by the time she was finished marking, Wanda would have dinner ready and the two could finally relax for the night.

Determined to get finished, Natasha reached for another paper on the stack, briefly brushing over the student’s name before beginning her marking. The usual first questions went expectingly well, but as the test slipped into slightly trickier territory, it seemed the common errors that Natasha had grown so used to seeing, were entirely absent. As each question progressed, Natasha found herself becoming continually bewildered at the perfect answers provided on the paper. At the very end, flipping over the last sheet of paper on to the counter, she lowered her eyebrows in confusion. “Huh.”

Wanda’s head raised from where it sat looking down at a pan, now gazing over at her wife with an inquisitive look. “What is it?”

Not answering immediately, Natasha flipped through the test once again, looking over the many check marks next to every question. Slightly confused, she closed the paper, looking up to meet her wife’s eye. “Some student just got a hundred percent. Like, a perfect score.”

Now it was Wanda’s turn to look a little shocked, her brows raising as she leaned across the counter. “You think it’s legit?”

Natasha shrugged, the scenario playing in her mind. “I mean, I monitored everyone whilst they took it. Nobody looked to be cheating.”

The taller redhead let out an almost amused hum. “Impressive. What’s this outstanding student’s name?”

The paper flicked back to the front cover, Natasha’s eyes flitting over the name scribbled on the top of the sheet in neat handwriting. “Y/N Y/L/N.”

Natasha’s mind searched its archives for any mentions of the name, its presence feeling familiar on her tongue. She fell back to taking attendance, specifically on the first day of class. The name had rung out in the hall and a small voice had picked up to answer it. Natasha remembered her amusement at the English accent she’d heard radiating across the room, originating from a young girl in a pretty summer dress near the front row. It seemed some part of her mind had locked in the gentle smile that accompanied such a sweet voice.

"Cute name," Wanda hummed, moving to stir her pot before her recipe could burn.

"Yeah..." Natasha's eyes remained on the sheet in front of her, scanning over the name and conjuring images of the face that matched with it. "I just don't know how she could have done this perfectly." Her fingers flipped through the pieces of paper, eyes scanning the work written in black ink. "I mean, everything is exactly how is should be. Even her cyrillic is written neatly."

Wanda let out a low hum as she continued fussing about with the stovetop, her answer coming out rather nonchalant. "Maybe she's in the wrong class? Was supposed to enroll in one of your others at a higher level?"

The proposal had already flashed across Natasha's mind, the work in front of her seemingly too good for someone of beginner status. There was always something wrong, some letter they'd missed or some word in the wrong order, it was never this perfect. Her mind had scoured back to previous years, trying to remember if she'd taught her before, but the name sounded too unfamiliar, and besides, she would have recalled that distinctive cute accent that this certain student possessed. "Maybe," Natasha replied finally, turning back the paper to the front. "But I don't see why she wouldn't have swapped out already. I mean, she would have had to have noticed by now, right?"

Wanda licked the small spoon in her hand, tasting her dish before tossing the metal away into the sink. It always amazed Natasha just how much of a multitasker her wife could be. Still adding things to her meal, Wanda tossed a comment over her shoulder. "Well, there's only one way to find out. Talk to her."

The idea washed over Natasha, already present in her own mind. The curiosity of the situation was pulling her in, already wanting to know more about this mystery student. As she thought of the girl in her head, more interest seemed to curate within her. Seeing that adorable smile she'd caught each time she'd called attendance, hearing that charming little accent that followed her name being called, something about it all drew her further in than one may expect, in ways perhaps unrelated to the test in front of her. Excitement and curiosity brewing in her, Natasha looked up to smile at her wife. "I think I will."

———

Today was not a good day for you. Not only had you forgotten your water bottle back in the dorm, but it was also the first day of the semester you’d be receiving back a test. It was only a small one, one that wouldn’t dent your final grade enough to matter, but that didn’t mean you hadn’t spent hours studying for it. You should have known that the peaceful calm that followed the start of term wouldn’t last forever, but it seemed every year the reality of things slipped your mind and you suddenly felt the anxiety crashing down on your shoulders a few weeks in.

Aside from a small introductory piece you’d had to write for creative writing, this was your first proper assessment of the year. As you sat in the lecture hall, waiting for class to begin, your mind flooded over everything you’d done to prepare, the hours of studying you’d put in, thinking back to the questions and if there was anything you could have possibly misread. Your foot tapped quickly against the floor as you pondered the possibility of a bad grade, particularly the berating that would follow from your family if they ever found out. You tried your best to settle your anxiety as the minutes ticked by, assuring yourself that you’d put in all the effort you could, a good grade surely waiting for you after all your hard work. But when the doors to the hall opened and your professor walked in, the pit in your stomach only dropped further.

“Morning everyone,” Professor Romanoff called out, briefly glancing across the class. In her hands you could spy the laptop she usually carried, alongside the stack of test papers you’d be receiving back very shortly. Your heart continued to beat in your chest as attendance was taken, voice slightly shaky when it came time for your name to be called.

“Right,” the redheaded woman said, closing down her laptop after finishing the register. She reached for the stack of papers in her desk as she stood, moving towards the front of the class and looking out. “As I said, these tests are mostly just a baseline to let me know you’re all on track. Though, if you are failing, maybe come see me and we can have a chat about why.”

With that, Professor Romanoff began towards the class, calling out names and passing out tests. You tried not to look as she walked up the isle next to you, the first time close enough to touch. Mostly, your eyes remained on the desk in front of you, mind reeling at the possibility of failing. You wouldn’t fail, right? You’d studied for hours.

“Miss Y/L/N?”

A low voice brought your head up from its position, mind dragged from your thoughts and thrust back into the present moment. Your eyes raised to see your professor suddenly stood in front of you, her stare focused upon your face.

“Yes?”

A tight expression appeared on the redhead’s face, almost a smile but not quite reaching her eyes. Her fingers slid your test paper back towards you, face down against the desk. Your eyes flickered down to it before returning to her gaze. “See me after class, please.”

If there were any words you wanted to say, your throat tightened to prevent them from escaping. Before you could even comprehend what she had said, Professor Romanoff was already moving on towards the next student. Your eyes followed her momentarily, then darted back towards your upturned test. You failed, your mind screamed at you. You must have failed.

Tentative fingers reached out towards the paper, your heart preparing for the first ‘F’ ever written on one of your tests. You were already thinking about how you’d have to explain this to your parents, how you’d let it settle within yourself. The paper flipped over, the red writing of your grade distinct at the top of the first page, but when your eyes fluttered over to it, they did not find what they had been expecting mere moments before. Instead of a giant ‘F’ like you’d been anticipating, the paper held a large ‘A’ on the front, then beside it, in a smaller circle, a 100% mark.

Your eyes almost couldn’t believe what they were seeing, mind more relieved than any time you could remember. Almost at once, your body had relaxed, that small smile appearing on your lips like it always did when you did well. You hadn’t failed at all, in fact, you’d done the complete opposite. Maybe this day wasn’t going as bad as you had anticipated. But then you remembered your professor’s words.

See her after class? What could that possibly mean? Your mind suddenly became erratic again, the anxiety taking control and catastrophizing every possible scenario. You were unsure how you felt with the idea of spending time alone with Professor Romanoff, suddenly worried she may have the ability to read minds and would be able to tell how much your mind had floated back to her face over the past few weeks.

The thoughts in your head were so loud you didn’t notice when your professor first began going on the test. It was only by question four you’d caught on, suddenly snapping back to reality and trying desperately to join back in with the class seamlessly. It seemed, however, that your mind still couldn’t concentrate, entirely focused on the conversation the red-haired woman in front of you had requested to have.

Your eyes fluttered around the room, glancing at the other students to perhaps gage how everyone else had done on the test. Briefly, they fell upon the desk next to you, spying the ‘56%’ scribbled on to the top of the test paper that sat there. When your eyes raised to the girl it belonged it, she passed you a quick scowl, making an eye to the perfect score that sat in front of you. Feeling far too seen, your eyes snapped back to your own paper, hoping that said girl knew you weren’t at all judging, though by her face, it seemed those were her exact thoughts. For the rest of the lesson you vowed to keep your eyes glued to your own paper, too scared of what they might find in the faces of those around you.

Eventually, your professor’s words began to drown out, overtaken by the lingering anxiety clouding your mind. Before you knew it, you’d spent the entire hour stuck inside your head, rethinking every possible scenario that could possibly occur after class. Now, you were forced to face the reality as Professor Romanoff dismissed the class, requesting papers be returned to her before anyone left.

You watched from your chair as a line of students all placed their papers in a stack on the side of the wooden desk. Slowly, you began to pack away your things into your bag, trying not to draw attention to yourself any more than necessary. When you stood, you clutched your test close to your chest, hiding the score away from anyone who might have passed you a look any similar to the girl previously sat beside you.

As the line of students dwindled down, all turning to leave the lecture room, you slowly approached the desk at the centre of the room. The last of your class let the doors swing closed behind them just as you reached the wooden surface, leaving you in the room entirely alone with your professor. You watched her from behind as she wiped the chalkboard clean, erasing away any remnants of the previous lesson.

The air felt so thick you could choke on it. Your mind told you to make yourself known, clear your throat or something, but it seemed you were almost frozen in place. Only when Professor Romanoff finally turned, did you even move at all.

“Ah, Miss Y/L/N.”

The woman dusted her hands against each other as she began to close the gap between the two of you. Both of your eyes met each other, her gaze locking on to yours as she walked back towards her desk and sat down on the edge of it. You swallowed harshly as you danced on the balls of your feet, your irrational thought of mind reading suddenly coming back to you. But Professor Romanoff didn’t say anything towards the sort, instead, simply extended her hand out towards you, palm facing up to the ceiling.

“Oh, right,” you stumbled, handing over the test paper which she had just previously been looking at. It was slightly crumpled from being pressed to your body but the woman seemingly took no notice, simply glancing over it before returning it to the pile of others on her desk, a low hum escaping from her lips.

When her eyes turned back to meet yours, you suddenly noticed how green they were, never having been so close as to regard them before. Blazing emerald gazed back at you as your heart pounded in your chest.

“This is a very good paper, Miss Y/L/N. I’ve never had a student get a perfect mark on one of my tests before.”

As Professor Romanoff’s voice caught your ears, your heartbeat only seemed to quicken its pace. Something in her gaze felt scrutinising, the small curt smile on her lips enough to practically drag your next words out from your mouth.

“I-I didn’t cheat if that’s what you think. I swear.”

It was spilling out before you could stop it really, words tumbling over one another in a desperate attempt to plead your case. That had been the conclusion you’d drawn from this scenario, the reason you’d been asked to stay back in the first place. But to your surprise, Professor Romanoff simply raised a skeptical brow. “I never said you cheated, did I?”

Suddenly you felt very warm, like the wonderful AC you always gushed about had instantaneously disappeared. “No-I just-I-I mean-“

The words tumbled from your mouth, barely coherent. They were quickly silenced when Professor Romanoff raised a hand, passing you a look you couldn’t quite decipher.

“I don’t think you cheated, Y/N,” the professor said after a moment, lowering her hand once more. “I’m just curious as to how you achieved such a high score.”

You felt a little stupid, mind too ahead of itself like always and blurting out the first thing it thought of without even thinking properly. Professor Romanoff’s words washed over you and you picked up on the question present, thinking over your answer briefly before shrugging your shoulders. “I just studied, I guess.”

That perfectly sculpted brow raised once more. “Studied?” Professor Romanoff seemed to look you up and down, gazing at the way you picked at your nail beds anxiously. You stopped immediately when she seemed to notice, instead moving to hold your hands behind your back. The professor moved her eyeline back up to you once more, a curious expression now taking over her face. “Have you taken Russian before?”

You shook your head. “No.”

Professor Romanoff let out a low sigh, adjusting herself on the table where she sat. She was once again wearing a pair of fitted slacks and polished heels, partnered today with a short-sleeved white blouse. From this distance, you could tell the material was silk. You tried not to stare at the woman’s exposed arms as the came to cross against her chest, and more importantly, at the slight cleavage on show that now pressed higher as she moved.

“It’s highly unlikely for a beginner to get a perfect score on a test,” your professor said, eyes meeting yours. “Especially so early on.” The air seemed to grow thicker as the redhead leaned in closer towards you, her gaze narrowing ever so slightly. “So if you’re lying to me, sweetheart, I’d appreciate if you didn’t.”

The name hung heavy in the air, hammering at your lungs as you stood under the woman’s scrutinising gaze. Suddenly, you felt warmer, your heart rate picking up even more as the words of defense began to stumble from your mouth once again. “I-I swear I’ve never taken it before. I-I just-“ You swallowed harshly, trying to regain some of your composure. "I looked at the syllabus over summer and maybe taught myself some of the basic concepts is all. And I did some extra reading, but I just wanted to be prepared! I haven't actually done Russian properly before, I promise. I-I just-"

Professor Romanoff raised her hand once more, silencing your stuttering. "It’s alright, milaya," she said, a small smile now spreading across her lips. "Calm down." The Russian was recognised by your ears but not your mind, left untranslated in the conversation as the redhead continued to talk. "You’re not in any trouble. I was just curious"

The gentleness of your professor's voice was enough to settle you down, suddenly feeling foolish for blurting out like you had. You took a moment to breath, looking down at your feet as they swayed you back and forth. "Right," you said, voice now quiet in the near-empty room.

When your eyeline raised to Professor Romanoff once again, she was still looking back at you with that gentle smile, her eyes soft under the light. After a moment of her gaze on you, she released a small sigh, reaching back to place a hand on your test that sat at the top of the pile. "This is very good test, though," she said, nodding her head towards you. "You should be proud of yourself."

The praise washed over you in a wave of warmth, spreading across your cheeks and down the back of your neck. It wasn't often you received recognition for your work, it certainly never being enough back home, so you never really learned how to properly cope with it without your face embarrassingly heating up and a dopey smile appearing on your lips. You tried your best to hide these now, looking back at the redhead in front of you. "Thank you, professor."

The woman smiled, unbothered by the way your fingers had moved to begin fidgeting with the zip of your hoodie, desperate to find something to distract your flurried mind. "I assume you have another class to get to, Miss Y/L/N?" Professor Romanoff stood up, now looking down on you from a few inches above, her heels adding even more height so that you had to slightly raise your head from where it had been to look up at her.

Your head nodded. "Uhm, yes I do."

The redhead began to collect the papers that sat on the side, adjusting them into an orderly pile. From behind the desk, she smiled over at you. "Well then, hurry along. I wouldn't want to make you late."

Your head nodded again, more frantically this time. "Of course." You adjusted the backpack on your shoulders before turning away, headed towards the door to your right, but before you could reach it, Professor Romanoff's voice called out again.

"And Y/N?"

You turned quickly, facing her desk once more with an awaiting expression. The woman met your eye, the smile on her lips different now, almost what one could mistake as a smirk. She looked over at you as she said, "Keep up the good work."

For the third time, you nodded, feeling yourself heating up again. "I will," you replied, smiling sheepishly. "Thank you again, professor." And with that, you turned and reached for the door, rejoining the rest of the world with a blush on your cheeks. As you headed towards the exit of the building and on towards your next class, your mind tried desperately to think about anything other than the way your professor’s arms had looked pressed against her chest, or more noticeably, how sweet the nicknames she had called you felt upon your ears.

#inescapable love au #professor natasha romanoff #natasha romanoff x reader #wandanat x reader #platonic kate bishop x reader #lawyer wanda maximoff #wanda maximoff x reader

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mostlysignssomeportents · 1 month

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The disenshittified internet starts with loyal "user agents"

I'm in TARTU, ESTONIA! Overcoming the Enshittocene (TOMORROW, May 8, 6PM, Prima Vista Literary Festival keynote, University of Tartu Library, Struwe 1). AI, copyright and creative workers' labor rights (May 10, 8AM: Science Fiction Research Association talk, Institute of Foreign Languages and Cultures building, Lossi 3, lobby). A talk for hackers on seizing the means of computation (May 10, 3PM, University of Tartu Delta Centre, Narva 18, room 1037).

There's one overwhelmingly common mistake that people make about enshittification: assuming that the contagion is the result of the Great Forces of History, or that it is the inevitable end-point of any kind of for-profit online world.

In other words, they class enshittification as an ideological phenomenon, rather than as a material phenomenon. Corporate leaders have always felt the impulse to enshittify their offerings, shifting value from end users, business customers and their own workers to their shareholders. The decades of largely enshittification-free online services were not the product of corporate leaders with better ideas or purer hearts. Those years were the result of constraints on the mediocre sociopaths who would trade our wellbeing and happiness for their own, constraints that forced them to act better than they do today, even if the were not any better:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/04/24/naming-names/#prabhakar-raghavan

Corporate leaders' moments of good leadership didn't come from morals, they came from fear. Fear that a competitor would take away a disgruntled customer or worker. Fear that a regulator would punish the company so severely that all gains from cheating would be wiped out. Fear that a rival technology – alternative clients, tracker blockers, third-party mods and plugins – would emerge that permanently severed the company's relationship with their customers. Fears that key workers in their impossible-to-replace workforce would leave for a job somewhere else rather than participate in the enshittification of the services they worked so hard to build:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/04/22/kargo-kult-kaptialism/#dont-buy-it

When those constraints melted away – thanks to decades of official tolerance for monopolies, which led to regulatory capture and victory over the tech workforce – the same mediocre sociopaths found themselves able to pursue their most enshittificatory impulses without fear.

The effects of this are all around us. In This Is Your Phone On Feminism, the great Maria Farrell describes how audiences at her lectures profess both love for their smartphones and mistrust for them. Farrell says, "We love our phones, but we do not trust them. And love without trust is the definition of an abusive relationship":

https://conversationalist.org/2019/09/13/feminism-explains-our-toxic-relationships-with-our-smartphones/

I (re)discovered this Farrell quote in a paper by Robin Berjon, who recently co-authored a magnificent paper with Farrell entitled "We Need to Rewild the Internet":

https://www.noemamag.com/we-need-to-rewild-the-internet/

The new Berjon paper is narrower in scope, but still packed with material examples of the way the internet goes wrong and how it can be put right. It's called "The Fiduciary Duties of User Agents":

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3827421

In "Fiduciary Duties," Berjon focuses on the technical term "user agent," which is how web browsers are described in formal standards documents. This notion of a "user agent" is a holdover from a more civilized age, when technologists tried to figure out how to build a new digital space where technology served users.

A web browser that's a "user agent" is a comforting thought. An agent's job is to serve you and your interests. When you tell it to fetch a web-page, your agent should figure out how to get that page, make sense of the code that's embedded in, and render the page in a way that represents its best guess of how you'd like the page seen.

For example, the user agent might judge that you'd like it to block ads. More than half of all web users have installed ad-blockers, constituting the largest consumer boycott in human history:

https://doc.searls.com/2023/11/11/how-is-the-worlds-biggest-boycott-doing/

Your user agent might judge that the colors on the page are outside your visual range. Maybe you're colorblind, in which case, the user agent could shift the gamut of the colors away from the colors chosen by the page's creator and into a set that suits you better:

https://dankaminsky.com/dankam/

Or maybe you (like me) have a low-vision disability that makes low-contrast type difficult to impossible to read, and maybe the page's creator is a thoughtless dolt who's chosen light grey-on-white type, or maybe they've fallen prey to the absurd urban legend that not-quite-black type is somehow more legible than actual black type:

https://uxplanet.org/basicdesign-never-use-pure-black-in-typography-36138a3327a6

The user agent is loyal to you. Even when you want something the page's creator didn't consider – even when you want something the page's creator violently objects to – your user agent acts on your behalf and delivers your desires, as best as it can.

Now – as Berjon points out – you might not know exactly what you want. Like, you know that you want the privacy guarantees of TLS (the difference between "http" and "https") but not really understand the internal cryptographic mysteries involved. Your user agent might detect evidence of shenanigans indicating that your session isn't secure, and choose not to show you the web-page you requested.

This is only superficially paradoxical. Yes, you asked your browser for a web-page. Yes, the browser defied your request and declined to show you that page. But you also asked your browser to protect you from security defects, and your browser made a judgment call and decided that security trumped delivery of the page. No paradox needed.

But of course, the person who designed your user agent/browser can't anticipate all the ways this contradiction might arise. Like, maybe you're trying to access your own website, and you know that the security problem the browser has detected is the result of your own forgetful failure to renew your site's cryptographic certificate. At that point, you can tell your browser, "Thanks for having my back, pal, but actually this time it's fine. Stand down and show me that webpage."

That's your user agent serving you, too.

User agents can be well-designed or they can be poorly made. The fact that a user agent is designed to act in accord with your desires doesn't mean that it always will. A software agent, like a human agent, is not infallible.

However – and this is the key – if a user agent thwarts your desire due to a fault, that is fundamentally different from a user agent that thwarts your desires because it is designed to serve the interests of someone else, even when that is detrimental to your own interests.

A "faithless" user agent is utterly different from a "clumsy" user agent, and faithless user agents have become the norm. Indeed, as crude early internet clients progressed in sophistication, they grew increasingly treacherous. Most non-browser tools are designed for treachery.

A smart speaker or voice assistant routes all your requests through its manufacturer's servers and uses this to build a nonconsensual surveillance dossier on you. Smart speakers and voice assistants even secretly record your speech and route it to the manufacturer's subcontractors, whether or not you're explicitly interacting with them:

https://www.sciencealert.com/creepy-new-amazon-patent-would-mean-alexa-records-everything-you-say-from-now-on

By design, apps and in-app browsers seek to thwart your preferences regarding surveillance and tracking. An app will even try to figure out if you're using a VPN to obscure your location from its maker, and snitch you out with its guess about your true location.

Mobile phones assign persistent tracking IDs to their owners and transmit them without permission (to its credit, Apple recently switch to an opt-in system for transmitting these IDs) (but to its detriment, Apple offers no opt-out from its own tracking, and actively lies about the very existence of this tracking):

https://pluralistic.net/2022/11/14/luxury-surveillance/#liar-liar

An Android device running Chrome and sitting inert, with no user interaction, transmits location data to Google every five minutes. This is the "resting heartbeat" of surveillance for an Android device. Ask that device to do any work for you and its pulse quickens, until it is emitting a nearly continuous stream of information about your activities to Google:

https://digitalcontentnext.org/blog/2018/08/21/google-data-collection-research/

These faithless user agents both reflect and enable enshittification. The locked-down nature of the hardware and operating systems for Android and Ios devices means that manufacturers – and their business partners – have an arsenal of legal weapons they can use to block anyone who gives you a tool to modify the device's behavior. These weapons are generically referred to as "IP rights" which are, broadly speaking, the right to control the conduct of a company's critics, customers and competitors:

https://locusmag.com/2020/09/cory-doctorow-ip/

A canny tech company can design their products so that any modification that puts the user's interests above its shareholders is illegal, a violation of its copyright, patent, trademark, trade secrets, contracts, terms of service, nondisclosure, noncompete, most favored nation, or anticircumvention rights. Wrap your product in the right mix of IP, and its faithless betrayals acquire the force of law.

This is – in Jay Freeman's memorable phrase – "felony contempt of business model." While more than half of all web users have installed an ad-blocker, thus overriding the manufacturer's defaults to make their browser a more loyal agent, no app users have modified their apps with ad-blockers.

The first step of making such a blocker, reverse-engineering the app, creates criminal liability under Section 1201 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, with a maximum penalty of five years in prison and a $500,000 fine. An app is just a web-page skinned in sufficient IP to make it a felony to add an ad-blocker to it (no wonder every company wants to coerce you into using its app, rather than its website).

If you know that increasing the invasiveness of the ads on your web-page could trigger mass installations of ad-blockers by your users, it becomes irrational and self-defeating to ramp up your ads' invasiveness. The possibility of interoperability acts as a constraint on tech bosses' impulse to enshittify their products.

The shift to platforms dominated by treacherous user agents – apps, mobile ecosystems, walled gardens – weakens or removes that constraint. As your ability to discipline your agent so that it serves you wanes, the temptation to turn your user agent against you grows, and enshittification follows.

This has been tacitly understood by technologists since the web's earliest days and has been reaffirmed even as enshittification increased. Berjon quotes extensively from "The Internet Is For End-Users," AKA Internet Architecture Board RFC 8890:

Defining the user agent role in standards also creates a virtuous cycle; it allows multiple implementations, allowing end users to switch between them with relatively low costs (…). This creates an incentive for implementers to consider the users' needs carefully, which are often reflected into the defining standards. The resulting ecosystem has many remaining problems, but a distinguished user agent role provides an opportunity to improve it.

And the W3C's Technical Architecture Group echoes these sentiments in "Web Platform Design Principles," which articulates a "Priority of Constituencies" that is supposed to be central to the W3C's mission:

User needs come before the needs of web page authors, which come before the needs of user agent implementors, which come before the needs of specification writers, which come before theoretical purity.

https://w3ctag.github.io/design-principles/

But the W3C's commitment to faithful agents is contingent on its own members' commitment to these principles. In 2017, the W3C finalized "EME," a standard for blocking mods that interact with streaming videos. Nominally aimed at preventing copyright infringement, EME also prevents users from choosing to add accessibility add-ons that beyond the ones the streaming service permits. These services may support closed captioning and additional narration of visual elements, but they block tools that adapt video for color-blind users or prevent strobe effects that trigger seizures in users with photosensitive epilepsy.

The fight over EME was the most contentious struggle in the W3C's history, in which the organization's leadership had to decide whether to honor the "priority of constituencies" and make a standard that allowed users to override manufacturers, or whether to facilitate the creation of faithless agents specifically designed to thwart users' desires on behalf of manufacturers:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2017/09/open-letter-w3c-director-ceo-team-and-membership

This fight was settled in favor of a handful of extremely large and powerful companies, over the objections of a broad collection of smaller firms, nonprofits representing users, academics and other parties agitating for a web built on faithful agents. This coincided with the W3C's operating budget becoming entirely dependent on the very large sums its largest corporate members paid.

W3C membership is on a sliding scale, based on a member's size. Nominally, the W3C is a one-member, one-vote organization, but when a highly concentrated collection of very high-value members flex their muscles, W3C leadership seemingly perceived an existential risk to the organization, and opted to sacrifice the faithfulness of user agents in service to the anti-user priorities of its largest members.

For W3C's largest corporate members, the fight was absolutely worth it. The W3C's EME standard transformed the web, making it impossible to ship a fully featured web-browser without securing permission – and a paid license – from one of the cartel of companies that dominate the internet. In effect, Big Tech used the W3C to secure the right to decide who would compete with them in future, and how:

https://blog.samuelmaddock.com/posts/the-end-of-indie-web-browsers/

Enshittification arises when the everyday mediocre sociopaths who run tech companies are freed from the constraints that act against them. When the web – and its browsers – were a big, contented, diverse, competitive space, it was harder for tech companies to collude to capture standards bodies like the W3C to secure even more dominance. As the web turned into Tom Eastman's "five giant websites filled with screenshots of text from the other four," that kind of collusion became much easier:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/18/cursed-are-the-sausagemakers/#how-the-parties-get-to-yes

In arguing for faithful agents, Berjon associates himself with the group of scholars, regulators and activists who call for user agents to serve as "information fiduciaries." Mostly, information fiduciaries come up in the context of user privacy, with the idea that entities that hold a user's data would have the obligation to put the user's interests ahead of their own. Think of a lawyer's fiduciary duty in respect of their clients, to give advice that reflects the client's best interests, even when that conflicts with the lawyer's own self-interest. For example, a lawyer who believes that settling a case is the best course of action for a client is required to tell them so, even if keeping the case going would generate more billings for the lawyer and their firm.

For a user agent to be faithful, it must be your fiduciary. It must put your interests ahead of the interests of the entity that made it or operates it. Browsers, email clients, and other internet software that served as a fiduciary would do things like automatically blocking tracking (which most email clients don't do, especially webmail clients made by companies like Google, who also sell advertising and tracking).

Berjon contemplates a legally mandated fiduciary duty, citing Lindsey Barrett's "Confiding in Con Men":

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3354129

He describes a fiduciary duty as a remedy for the enforcement failures of EU's GDPR, a solidly written, and dismally enforced, privacy law. A legally backstopped duty for agents to be fiduciaries would also help us distinguish good and bad forms of "innovation" – innovation in ways of thwarting a user's will are always bad.

Now, the tech giants insist that they are already fiduciaries, and that when they thwart a user's request, that's more like blocking access to a page where the encryption has been compromised than like HAL9000's "I can't let you do that, Dave." For example, when Louis Barclay created "Unfollow Everything," he (and his enthusiastic users) found that automating the process of unfollowing every account on Facebook made their use of the service significantly better:

https://slate.com/technology/2021/10/facebook-unfollow-everything-cease-desist.html

When Facebook shut the service down with blood-curdling legal threats, they insisted that they were simply protecting users from themselves. Sure, this browser automation tool – which just automatically clicked links on Facebook's own settings pages – seemed to do what the users wanted. But what if the user interface changed? What if so many users added this feature to Facebook without Facebook's permission that they overwhelmed Facebook's (presumably tiny and fragile) servers and crashed the system?

These arguments have lately resurfaced with Ethan Zuckerman and Knight First Amendment Institute's lawsuit to clarify that "Unfollow Everything 2.0" is legal and doesn't violate any of those "felony contempt of business model" laws:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/05/02/kaiju-v-kaiju/

Sure, Zuckerman seems like a good guy, but what if he makes a mistake and his automation tool does something you don't want? You, the Facebook user, are also a nice guy, but let's face it, you're also a naive dolt and you can't be trusted to make decisions for yourself. Those decisions can only be made by Facebook, whom we can rely upon to exercise its authority wisely.

Other versions of this argument surfaced in the debate over the EU's decision to mandate interoperability for end-to-end encrypted (E2EE) messaging through the Digital Markets Act (DMA), which would let you switch from, say, Whatsapp to Signal and still send messages to your Whatsapp contacts.

There are some good arguments that this could go horribly awry. If it is rushed, or internally sabotaged by the EU's state security services who loathe the privacy that comes from encrypted messaging, it could expose billions of people to serious risks.

But that's not the only argument that DMA opponents made: they also argued that even if interoperable messaging worked perfectly and had no security breaches, it would still be bad for users, because this would make it impossible for tech giants like Meta, Google and Apple to spy on message traffic (if not its content) and identify likely coordinated harassment campaigns. This is literally the identical argument the NSA made in support of its "metadata" mass-surveillance program: "Reading your messages might violate your privacy, but watching your messages doesn't."

This is obvious nonsense, so its proponents need an equally obviously intellectually dishonest way to defend it. When called on the absurdity of "protecting" users by spying on them against their will, they simply shake their heads and say, "You just can't understand the burdens of running a service with hundreds of millions or billions of users, and if I even tried to explain these issues to you, I would divulge secrets that I'm legally and ethically bound to keep. And even if I could tell you, you wouldn't understand, because anyone who doesn't work for a Big Tech company is a naive dolt who can't be trusted to understand how the world works (much like our users)."

Not coincidentally, this is also literally the same argument the NSA makes in support of mass surveillance, and there's a very useful name for it: scalesplaining.

Now, it's totally true that every one of us is capable of lapses in judgment that put us, and the people connected to us, at risk (my own parents gave their genome to the pseudoscience genetic surveillance company 23andme, which means they have my genome, too). A true information fiduciary shouldn't automatically deliver everything the user asks for. When the agent perceives that the user is about to put themselves in harm's way, it should throw up a roadblock and explain the risks to the user.

But the system should also let the user override it.

This is a contentious statement in information security circles. Users can be "socially engineered" (tricked), and even the most sophisticated users are vulnerable to this:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/02/05/cyber-dunning-kruger/#swiss-cheese-security

The only way to be certain a user won't be tricked into taking a course of action is to forbid that course of action under any circumstances. If there is any means by which a user can flip the "are you very sure?" circuit-breaker back on, then the user can be tricked into using that means.

This is absolutely true. As you read these words, all over the world, vulnerable people are being tricked into speaking the very specific set of directives that cause a suspicious bank-teller to authorize a transfer or cash withdrawal that will result in their life's savings being stolen by a scammer:

https://www.thecut.com/article/amazon-scam-call-ftc-arrest-warrants.html

We keep making it harder for bank customers to make large transfers, but so long as it is possible to make such a transfer, the scammers have the means, motive and opportunity to discover how the process works, and they will go on to trick their victims into invoking that process.

Beyond a certain point, making it harder for bank depositors to harm themselves creates a world in which people who aren't being scammed find it nearly impossible to draw out a lot of cash for an emergency and where scam artists know exactly how to manage the trick. After all, non-scammers only rarely experience emergencies and thus have no opportunity to become practiced in navigating all the anti-fraud checks, while the fraudster gets to run through them several times per day, until they know them even better than the bank staff do.

This is broadly true of any system intended to control users at scale – beyond a certain point, additional security measures are trivially surmounted hurdles for dedicated bad actors and as nearly insurmountable hurdles for their victims:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/08/07/como-is-infosec/

At this point, we've had a couple of decades' worth of experience with technological "walled gardens" in which corporate executives get to override their users' decisions about how the system should work, even when that means reaching into the users' own computer and compelling it to thwart the user's desire. The record is inarguable: while companies often use those walls to lock bad guys out of the system, they also use the walls to lock their users in, so that they'll be easy pickings for the tech company that owns the system:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/02/05/battery-vampire/#drained

This is neatly predicted by enshittification's theory of constraints: when a company can override your choices, it will be irresistibly tempted to do so for its own benefit, and to your detriment.

What's more, the mere possibility that you can override the way the system works acts as a disciplining force on corporate executives, forcing them to reckon with your priorities even when these are counter to their shareholders' interests. If Facebook is genuinely worried that an "Unfollow Everything" script will break its servers, it can solve that by giving users an unfollow everything button of its own design. But so long as Facebook can sue anyone who makes an "Unfollow Everything" tool, they have no reason to give their users such a button, because it would give them more control over their Facebook experience, including the controls needed to use Facebook less.

It's been more than 20 years since Seth Schoen and I got a demo of Microsoft's first "trusted computing" system, with its "remote attestations," which would let remote servers demand and receive accurate information about what kind of computer you were using and what software was running on it.

This could be beneficial to the user – you could send a "remote attestation" to a third party you trusted and ask, "Hey, do you think my computer is infected with malicious software?" Since the trusted computing system produced its report on your computer using a sealed, separate processor that the user couldn't directly interact with, any malicious code you were infected with would not be able to forge this attestation.

But this remote attestation feature could also be used to allow Microsoft to block you from opening a Word document with Libreoffice, Apple Pages, or Google Docs, or it could be used to allow a website to refuse to send you pages if you were running an ad-blocker. In other words, it could transform your information fiduciary into a faithless agent.

Seth proposed an answer to this: "owner override," a hardware switch that would allow you to force your computer to lie on your behalf, when that was beneficial to you, for example, by insisting that you were using Microsoft Word to open a document when you were really using Apple Pages:

https://web.archive.org/web/20021004125515/http://vitanuova.loyalty.org/2002-07-05.html

Seth wasn't naive. He knew that such a system could be exploited by scammers and used to harm users. But Seth calculated – correctly! – that the risks of having a key to let yourself out of the walled garden were less than being stuck in a walled garden where some corporate executive got to decide whether and when you could leave.

Tech executives never stopped questing after a way to turn your user agent from a fiduciary into a traitor. Last year, Google toyed with the idea of adding remote attestation to web browsers, which would let services refuse to interact with you if they thought you were using an ad blocker:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/08/02/self-incrimination/#wei-bai-bai

The reasoning for this was incredible: by adding remote attestation to browsers, they'd be creating "feature parity" with apps – that is, they'd be making it as practical for your browser to betray you as it is for your apps to do so (note that this is the same justification that the W3C gave for creating EME, the treacherous user agent in your browser – "streaming services won't allow you to access movies with your browser unless your browser is as enshittifiable and authoritarian as an app").

Technologists who work for giant tech companies can come up with endless scalesplaining explanations for why their bosses, and not you, should decide how your computer works. They're wrong. Your computer should do what you tell it to do:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/08/your-computer-should-say-what-you-tell-it-say-1

These people can kid themselves that they're only taking away your power and handing it to their boss because they have your best interests at heart. As Upton Sinclair told us, it's impossible to get someone to understand something when their paycheck depends on them not understanding it.

The only way to get a tech boss to consistently treat you well is to ensure that if they stop, you can quit. Anything less is a one-way ticket to enshittification.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/05/07/treacherous-computing/#rewilding-the-internet

Image: Cryteria (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:HAL9000.svg

CC BY 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en

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corroded-hellfire · 7 months

Text

As You Wish - Eddie Munson x Reader, Part 7

A collaboration with my partner in crime @munson-blurbs

Summary: Now that the boys know you and Eddie are together, this should make life easier. Right? Unfortunately, there's still Brittany and the court case to deal with. Not to mention, the age gap now bringing some complications to light.

Note: I will never ever get over the lovely things you all say to me about this series. Some comments make me laugh, some make me cry, but every single one of them means the world to me. I can never thank you enough for reading this series.

Warnings: smut, oral, m!receiving, age gap, older!eddie, dad!eddie, breeding kink, Brittany should just come with her own warning at this point

Words: 7.6k

[As You Wish masterlist]

Gray. Gray everywhere: the clouds roll in, dark and stormy, threatening rain. The overcast weather cloaks the atmosphere in dullness, as though it could sense your mood as you and Eddie head towards Brittany’s house—the same one they used to share.

Ryan and Luke are playing at the Harrington’s house; Steve promised to drop them back home in time for bed, though you imagine it’ll be later than that, given his pushover nature. Just a little pout and a pleading, “five more minutes, Uncle Steve?” is all it takes.

Their temporary absence gives you and Eddie the rare opportunity to speak to Brittany alone; something you typically avoid, but you need to have this conversation sooner rather than later.

Eddie debates whether or not he should knock on the door. It was still technically his home by law, though he certainly doesn’t feel like he belongs here. He decides to let himself in, announcing that you’re both present.

“Hello? Brittany? It’s me. Well, it’s us,” he amends, clearing his throat.

Brittany comes down the hallway from the bedroom and it’s the most unkempt you’ve ever seen her. Her usually flawless blonde hair is pulled up into a frizzy, messy bun on the top of her head, and you swear you’ve never seen the woman in a pair of sweatpants before this moment.

As soon as she sees you, she groans and crosses her arms over her chest. “You can’t just send the boys in?” she asks, an inevitable eye roll gracing her annoyingly pretty face.

“The boys aren’t with us,” Eddie says as the two of you fully step inside the house and you close the door behind you.

“Excuse me?” Brittany just stares at the two of you, the look completely blank, not even any confusion behind those dead eyes. Complete indifference.

Eddie sighs, relaying the explanation. “Steve’s going to be dropping them off later,” he says. He subtly nods for you to follow him more inside the house and away from the door. “We need to talk to you. While they’re not here.”

“Why?” Now the venom is back in her scowl, her lip practically quivering and threatening to turn into a snarl. There’s the Brittany you know.

“Just…” Eddie sighs and runs a hand over the top of his head. “Just come sit down.”

You follow Eddie into the kitchen, as does Brittany, no matter how unwittingly it was. The three of you sit at the table and it’s silent; no one knows what to say or wants to be the one to break the tension.

Leave it to Brittany to be the one to speak first, and though you’re less than thrilled to hear her voice, a very small part of you is glad that someone says something.

“Are you going to tell me why I’m sitting here with you and your tramp? Or are we gonna fucking play charades?”

As Eddie’s hands clench into fists on top of the table, you realize Brittany hasn’t looked at you once since you stepped inside. It brings you an odd air of satisfaction and smugness.

Eddie, meanwhile, is fuming at the derogatory term she used on you, and you can tell he’s about to rip his estranged wife a new one, but you’re able to calm him down by taking one of his fists in both of your hands and massaging it and uncurling his fingers until his tension starts to melt. You’re tempted to press a kiss to the back of it, but you both came here for a reason and now that conversation must be had.

“So, uh,” Eddie pauses to clear his throat, “we just wanted to give you a heads up because the boys already know and they’re not exactly tight lipped. Nor should they feel like they have to hide anything from anyone—especially a parent.” He almost said “especially a mom” but he and the boys know she’s never been much of one to begin with.

Brittany’s eyes finally land on you as her gaze flits back and forth between you and your boyfriend.

“What?” She demands. “What’re you giving me a heads up about?”

“Well,” Eddie says, linking his fingers with yours with the hand that you soothed for him. “We’re together. Like, officially. The boys know and they’re pretty over the moon about it.” Eddie didn’t need to add that bit, but he enjoyed saying it nonetheless. Maybe it’s petty, but he wants to show off how happy he is.

Brittany’s arms drop to the table as if they’re suddenly dead weight. “What the fuck, Eddie?” Her gaze is now solely on him again. “The boys know you’re fucking their babysitter?”

“Jesus Christ, Brittany,” Eddie groans, closing his eyes for a moment as he massages his furrowed brow. “No, the boys know that we have feelings for one another and are going out on dates.”

“Are they even old enough to understand that?” Brittany snaps.

“You just asked if we told them that we were fucking,” you say, piping up for the first time in this conversation. “But them knowing we have feelings for each other is too hard for them to comprehend? They’re not babies anymore.”

The glare Brittany gives you could rival that of Medusa.

“Sorry if you missed the fact that they’ve grown up because you were too busy fucking half the town,” Eddie retorts before he can stop himself.

“You can shut your mouth. You’re not their parent,” Brittany says, pointing a freshly manicured finger at you before turning it on Eddie. “And you can eat shit.”

Eddie sees the opportunity presented to him on a silver platter and he knows he has to take it. “It would still taste better than kissing you.”

Heat rises to your face at his words and Brittany looks like she’s about to hurl a chair at him. Eddie just laughs and leans back in his seat. He wraps his arm around the back of yours and you lean in towards his body.

“Is that all you’re here for?” Brittany asks through gritted teeth. “Because you’re free to fucking leave any time you’d like. You know where the door is.”

Eddie looks at you and nods his head. “I think we’re good to go. Ready, babe?”

“Ready,” you affirm, always eager to be out of Brittany’s presence. It’s the same satisfaction you’d get taking a shower after you’ve been covered in caked up mud and dirt.

Brittany doesn’t bother saying anything as she stands up and storms down the hallway. You and Eddie can’t help but share an amused look and a chuckle as you stand up. There had been so many times back when you were just the babysitter that Brittany would say or do something and you’d just want to look at Eddie like, is this bitch for real? Now you know that all along Eddie wanted that too, and now you’re both on the outside looking in at this angry and pathetic woman who’s more trouble than what she’s worth.

As you’re approaching the front door, an annoyed and frustrated groan emanates from the back of the house. Sucks to be you, you think as your hand twists the doorknob. You don’t think there’s ever been a day in your life that you’ve felt sympathy for that woman, and you don’t intend to start any time soon.

“That went better than expected.”

“Better?” you gawp, still reeling from the barrage of insults hurled your way. Nothing less than what you’d expect of her, but still…damn.

Eddie shrugs. “She didn’t cut my dick off, so…yeah.” His eyes soften when he takes in your rigidity. “Baby, are you…she didn’t upset you, did she?”

“I know it’s stupid—” you start with a sigh, but Eddie cuts you off gently.

“It’s not stupid. C’mere.” He pulls you in for a hug as you stand under the yellow porch light shining as best it can in the dreary evening around you. “I love you. My boys love you. And nothing’s gonna change that, okay?”

You don’t fully believe him—which part, you’re not sure, but his promise is enough for now. “Okay.”

You would think it’s the first time you’re looking after kids ever with the way the butterflies are surging through your bloodstream. They left your stomach when you kissed Eddie goodbye this morning and now they’ve hitched a ride to every other part of your body.

Danny and Amelia have been great all day. Amelia is not a fussy baby, though she does want to be held most of the time. And Danny is a very helpful little boy, always showing you where the different things you might need are: extra diapers, toilet paper, batteries for the television remote, snacks, and even where his dad keeps an old baseball bat with nails hammered into it in the garage.

“N’case someone wanna break in,” Danny informed you, as if this bat a state-of-the-art alarm system.

Both kids drift off on the way to pick the older gremlins up from school. It’s just as well since you wouldn’t be able to concentrate on a thing they’d say anyway. Your thumbs beat out an erratic rhythm on the beige leather steering wheel in the Harrington family’s van—left in your care so that you’re able to transport all six kids at once. You’re more jittery than normal, jumping at every horn that’s blared or siren that’s sounded on the short drive down to the elementary school.

Right before you’d left to snag the four older children, Eddie had called you from work. He had been notified of when his first court appearance for the custody case would have to be. Ever since the phone call you’ve been on edge, the idea of Eddie having to make a case that he deserves to have the kids when anyone with half a brain already knows that he should have them full time. The words “court date” just keep replaying on a loop in your brain over and over again.

You’re only waiting in the Hawkins Elementary School pick-up line for ten minutes before the kids all clamor in the van, loud as all hell as they continue whatever conversation it was they were having on the way to the vehicle. They all buckle themselves in and say hi to Amelia and Danny, who are excited to see them now that the ruckus has woken them.

“Everyone all buckled in?” you ask.

“Yeah!” a chorus of children respond.

“All right, here we go.”

When you get back to the Harrington house, it’s time for Amelia to take a nap. You carry the sleepy girl on one hip while you lay out apple slices and pretzels for the older kids on the dining room table. It doesn’t take long for the crunching and chomping to reach your ears as you head down the hall to Amelia’s room.

Once the kids are done eating, it’s time for them to do their homework. They sit at the dining room table all together, after only minimal push back, visible from where you sit on the couch with Danny. You’re hardly paying attention to some new cartoon about a sponge who lives in a pineapple that Danny is watching. Stupid, you think to yourself. This show will never last.

The first one to finish their homework is Natalie, who moseys on over to sit next to you on the arm of the couch. She has shiny light brown hair that looks like it could give Steve’s a run for his money someday, and wide blue eyes just like her mother. The soft-spoken little girl looks like she wants to say something to you but isn’t sure how.

“How was school, Natalie?” you ask, deciding to try and break the ice for her.

“Was good,” she says. She balances on the arm of the couch and pulls the hem of her skirt over her knees, almost like a nervous habit. Only then do you realize she’s only met you those few times for brief play dates and doesn’t really know you.

“I saw when I walked past your room before that you have a PowerPuff Girls poster,” you say. “You like them?”

“Yes!” her face lights up at the question. “Blossom is my favorite.”

“I like the pink one. With the red hair,” you tell her. “What’s her name?”

“That’s Blossom,” Natalie tells you with a giggle.

“Oh, silly me,” you say, scrunching up your nose.

Apparently, this was enough for Natalie to feel like she could open up and talk to you more. You’re glad; you want her to be comfortable with you.

“Ryan told me that you’re his daddy’s girlfriend.”

It’s the last thing you expected her to say, and you almost choke on your own saliva.

“Oh, uh, yeah. I am.” Your face feels warm, and you wonder if the young girl notices at all.

“You love Uncle Eddie?” she asks, eyes shining as if she’s expecting an epic romantic tale.

“I do,” you tell her, a grin lighting up your own face.

“Ryan’s my boyfriend,” she tells you matter-of-factly.

You remember the way Ryan gets quiet and shy around Natalie or even when she’s simply mentioned. The feeling is decidedly mutual it seems.

“Does Ryan know this?” you ask.

Natalie shrugs, seeming unbothered. “If he doesn’t, he will.”

You can’t help but admire the young girl’s confidence.

“Does Uncle Eddie know he’s your boyfriend?” she asks.

“Yes,” you tell her, letting out a small giggle. I may have had my fantasies for a while there, but this time it’s real.

“Are you gonna get married?”

The unexpected question has your eyes bugging out and your throat going dry. “Okay, that’s enough questions,” you sputter, feeling the heat rising to your cheeks. “Let’s get some homework done.”

“I am done,” she tells you.

“Then, uh, why don’t we see if any of the boys need some help.”

You breathe a sigh of relief when she skips off to check on Ryan, Luke, and Theo. Talks of marriage must wait another day.

You’re reheating some chicken cutlets on the stove when the doorbell rings, almost silenced by the sounds of oil popping and six children playing nearby in the family room.

It’s a bit early for Nancy or Steve to get home, and they wouldn’t ring the bell, so you have no idea who it could be. It sets you on-edge, especially knowing how many kids you now have to protect.

Hugging a sleeping Mia to your chest, you look through the peephole to see none other than Edward Munson standing on the stoop.

“What’re you doing here?” you ask, your excitement quickly turning to frustration when you notice the boxes in his hands. “Is that…?”

Eddie’s too busy short-circuiting at the sight of you holding Mia to pick up on your ire. She looks so perfect holding a baby.

While you’re distracted, Danny and Luke run up to the door. “Uncl’ Eddie brought pizza! Yes!” Danny shouts, and the whole crew erupts into cheers.

“Eddie,” you hiss, trying not to wake Mia, lest you have another child to chase after, “Nancy told me to give them leftovers for dinner.”

“They can have them another time,” Eddie shrugs, “no big deal.”

You shake your head. “Yes, it is,” you insist. “I was given specific instructions to follow, and I’m not about to mess it up on day one.”

Eddie puts the pizza down on the table and rests his hands on your shoulders. “Look at me, okay? It’s just pizza. I’ve known the Harringtons since before they were the Harringtons, and they’re not gonna get mad over this. And if they do, I’ll take full responsibility.”

A tiny smile tugs at your lips despite the anxiety bubbling in your stomach. “You better.”

“Scout’s honor.” He presses a kiss to your forehead and there is a mixture of “aww” and gagging noises coming from the children. “I love you,” he says loud enough for only you to hear.

“You talking to me or Mia?” you ask, giving him a smirk as you cock an eyebrow.

Eddie chuckles and looks down at the sleeping little girl again. Her small back gently rises and falls beneath your hand, the bottom of her dark red downy hair brushing your skin. “Talking to my favorite girl,” he says as he looks back up at you, brown eyes gleaming. “But Little Miss Mia knows how much I love her, too.”

As everyone is finishing up dinner—Mia now happily sitting in the lap of her favorite uncle—the front door opens and both Steve and Nancy step inside.

“Mommy!” Danny calls, already out of his chair and running towards his mom at full speed.

Nancy huffs a laugh and manages to catch him before he can either knock her over or accidentally speed right past her and crash headfirst into a wall.

“Hey,” Steve pouts, resting his hands on his hips. “Mommy’s been going to work every day. Who usually stays home with you? Me! Did you miss me?”

Danny just giggles and hides his face in Nancy’s shirt, having chosen a favorite parent for the evening.

“Hi, Daddy!” Theo calls from the table, waving a tomato-sauce-covered hand high above his head.

“Looks like we missed a pizza party,” Steve says as he walks over to the table. He raises his eyebrows and immediately turns his gaze to Eddie.

You’re slightly nervous that Steve is going to be upset about the pizza and you start to fidget with your hands under the table, already thinking of a way to keep him from getting too angry.

Before you can muster up an explanation, Eddie takes one hand off of Mia and grabs your trembling one to give it a reassuring squeeze. “Stashed the extra pie in my truck so the rugrats didn’t try to sneak a slice,” Eddie tells him with a grin.

“This is why we’re best friends—oh shi-…I mean, sugar. Did I just admit to that out loud?” Steve muses as he turns away from the table to head out to Eddie’s truck.

“Too late,” Eddie calls after him. “It’s already been written down by the stenographer.”

Luke leans in towards you. “What’s a sornographer?” he asks, mouth surrounded by a tomato sauce goatee.

You press your lips together to keep from laughing at his mispronunciation.

“Someone who types all the words people are saying.”

Luke’s eyes widen and he frantically looks around the dining room in search of the mysterious ‘sornographer’. “Where are they?”

This time you can’t hold the giggle in. “Noooo, not here, Luke. Like, in court. With a judge and lawyers and stuff.”

Natalie wipes her hands and face off on a napkin before skipping over to her mother. “Mommy!” she exclaims, wrapping her arms around her.

“Hi, sweetheart.” Nancy gives her a big hug. “How was your day?”

“So good! At school we watched a video with this cute little doggy who was being Sherlock Holmes, and then we came home and had the best time!”

Natalie’s enthusiasm about the time you spent with her this afternoon warms your heart and has the pressure of tears building behind your eyes. She leans into her mom and whispers so no one else can hear, but judging by the way her eyes flit over to Ryan before sliding over to Eddie, you assume she’s telling Nancy about your discussion about boys earlier.

“You’re a silly girl,” Nancy laughs, pressing a kiss to her eldest daughter’s temple.

When Natalie bounds back over to her siblings and friends, you take the opportunity to shyly make your way over to Nancy’s side.

“I’m, um, sorry about the pizza. I know you said to use the—”

Nancy cuts you off with an understanding shake of her head. “Don’t worry about it; I already figured that Beavis or Butthead brought it home.”

“Who’s who?”

She sighs. “I honestly couldn’t tell you.”

Usually, the routine would be for you to leave the Harrington’s with Ryan and Luke, then take them to whichever parent they’re staying with at the time. But, one, Eddie isn’t in his new apartment yet, and two, Eddie was at the Harrington’s as well tonight, so it becomes a group activity to bring the boys to Brittany’s.

The boys insist on being with you in your car on the ride over, which brings a smile to your face that warms Eddie’s heart. As much as he’d love to spend every available moment with them, having them want to be with you was a very close second.

When you park in front of the familiar one-story house, both boys take turns leaning into the front seat to give you hugs that are so tight you’re wondering when they got so strong.

“I’ll see you tomorrow, guys!” you call through your open car window.

“Bye!” Ryan says, throwing you a wave as he hikes his backpack up.

“Love you!” Luke calls back and it just about stops your heart. You’ve always known that the boys care about you and even adore you, but love? Tears prick the corner of your eyes, and you hope the light from the full moon outside is casting a shadow over your car so you can dab at your eyes with some privacy.

Eddie gets out of his truck and walks over the cracked sidewalk to meet the boys in front of the house. Luke takes Eddie’s hand and even in the darkness of the evening you can see Eddie smile at his youngest. Before they can get to the door, it swings open and reveals Brittany waiting there, arms crossed over a fuzzy white sweater. Her piercing eyes land on the boys, move to Eddie, dart to you sitting in your car, back to the boys, and finally land on Eddie again.

“You don’t have to walk them to the door, you know,” she snaps at her estranged husband immediately, not even taking a moment to acknowledge the kids. “You can stay in the car with your homewrecker.”

Eddie is fuming but he won’t show it in front of the boys. Every little insult she throws your way takes a little chink out of his armor and he’s not sure what he’ll do when that armor eventually leaves him exposed.

Instead, Eddie gets down on one knee on the uneven cobblestone path in front of the door so he can give each of his sons a big bear hug goodbye, silently praying what their mother just said goes over their heads.

“I’ll see you guys soon, okay?” Eddie says, shards of his heart being crushed into dust as the moment he has to leave them here with her approaches.

“I’ll miss you,” Luke says, reaching up and gently running his fingers tips over Eddie’s stubble that’s longer than usual. The way Luke studies his father’s face is almost like he’s committing the smallest details to memory. You wouldn’t be surprised if it’s so the boy could find ways to try and look like Eddie even more than he already does.

“I’ll miss you too, bud,” Eddie says, his glass heart completely shattered now. “But soon I’ll have my apartment and we’ll have all the time in the world to hang out.”

“I love you, Daddy,” Ryan says, a sad smile on his face. Ryan has an easier time understanding the dynamics of what’s going on with the divorce and all, and he’s come to realize that his dad doesn’t want to leave him just as much as Ryan doesn’t want him to go.

“I love you, too. Both of you,” Eddie says as he ruffles up both boys’ hair. He stands up and presses a kiss to the top of both of their heads.

“See ya soon, you funky raccoon,” Eddie says, coming up with the ridiculous rhyme on the spot.

It gets the intended response though, as Luke busts out into giggles and replies, “see ya soon, smelly baboon.”

Eddie gently boops Ryan’s nose before he gives them one last smile and heads back down the walkway. He shoots you a small smile as well, that you acknowledge with a little wave. You wish you were both driving in the same car right now. You’d be able to hold his hand and assure him that everything is going to be alright. Deep down, Eddie knows; it’s just nice to be reminded sometimes.

Eddie climbs back in the truck and starts the engine. Once he pulls out onto the road, you follow behind him and make the drive back to your apartment.

As soon as you get to your place, you and Eddie are all over each other. There was barely any preamble as the pair of you got out of your vehicles and met each other at the entrance. A breathy “hi” barely made it out of your mouth before Eddie’s hands were on your hips and his lips were attacking your neck with fervor as you tried to buzz the two of you into your building.

Mere steps from of the staircase, he starts peeling your jacket off your shoulders while you’re still in the hallway.

“Impatient much?” you tease, going in for another kiss and biting his lip purposefully.

“You tell me.” He guides your hand to where his erection strains against his jeans. Without warning, you give a particularly hard rub over his aching cock, just to hear the satisfying hiss that comes from his lips.

You can’t open the door fast enough; luckily, Jess isn’t home to make a sarcastic comment as you pull him into your room and push him onto your bed.

“All mine,” you murmur as you suck on the skin along his collarbone. He tugs on your thighs to pull you up more, so your pussy is on top of his groin. As you continue to grind on him, you feel him softening beneath you. You frown, but try to hide it by ducking your head.

“Is something wrong?” you ask, tucking a lock of hair behind his ear.

“Nope, all good,” he lies through his teeth. Not well either, but you don’t want to press the issue.

You try to push past it, but he can’t deny that there’s an issue when you unbutton his pants and pull down the waistband to reveal his flaccid penis.

“Eds,” you frown, ignoring the shame overtaking you. You’re on top of your boyfriend and he couldn’t be softer if he tried. You make a mental list of everything you hate about your body before asking, “What’s going on?”

He sucks in a harsh breath. “Christ, I…it’s her, okay?” You don’t have to guess who he’s referring to. “All I wanna do is focus on you, but she makes me so damn mad.”

“S’okay,” you keep your voice soft and kiss just below his earlobe. “We can talk about it later, if you want.” He nods, and you continue, “for now, let me help you relax.”

You slide down until your knees make contact with the thin pink rug you have to cushion you from the hardwood floor beneath. Eager lips trail down the sparse patch of hair on his chest, to his tummy, and down to his cock. “Do you think I didn’t notice the way your eyes nearly popped out of your head when you saw me holding Baby Mia?” You giggle when he freezes up. “Tell me, Eds; what were you thinking about?”

“Was thinkin’,” he swallows thickly, “about our baby.”

“Mm, so just me holding our baby? That’s what got you looking at me like that?”

He shakes his head. “N-No, a-also…also thought about getting you pregnant, watching you grow our child…” His dick twitches slightly; you lift it and lick up the underside of his shaft. A seed of pride plants itself in your chest at knowing just what to say to get him feeling excited.

“Keep telling me what you thought about while I make you feel good.” You bring one ball into your mouth and suck lightly, already feeling his length starting to stiffen once more. “Don’t be shy.”

He breathes out slowly. “I want to fill you up every goddamn day and night until it takes, oh, fuck.” His concentration fades in and out as you suck on the head of his cock. “And once I knock you up, you know damn well I won’t be able to keep my hands offa you.”

You hum your acknowledgment, sending vibrations from tip to base.

“Sh-Shit, thinkin’ ‘bout you pregnant and bouncin’ on my cock. Gonna be so perfect.”

Avoiding the temptation to touch yourself, you put one hand on each of his ass cheeks and grab at the flesh, opening your throat to take him deeper. This is all about him right now.

“Gonna keep you pregnant forever. I’ll marry you first, though. Promise.” Heat creeps into your face; he catches the soft smile dancing on your lips before you collect yourself and continue pleasuring him. “You like that? Gonna be my cute little pregnant housewife?”

Your thighs clench together involuntarily, and you quicken your pace. “Fu-uck, baby doll. ‘M close.”

You suck harder, deeper, your nose grazing his pubic hair. Saliva drips down your chin but you can’t be bothered to wipe it away.

“Look at me while I fuck your pretty face,” he orders, and you peer upwards into his lust-blown eyes. “Good girl.”

You cup his balls with one hand and his knees weaken, a string of swears passing his lips as his release coats your tongue and slides down your throat.

He holds out a slightly trembling hand and helps you up off the floor.

“You’re a fuckin’ dream come true.”

A giggle bubbles out of you as he tugs you onto the bed with him and you land on top of his chest.

“I could say the same about you, Mr. Munson.” The slight movement from Eddie’s spent dick beneath you brings a satisfied smirk to your face.

“Jesus, the way you say that drives me crazy,” Eddie admits, still trying to catch his breath.

“I noticed,” you say with a wink.

After both of you have showered, the two of you go into the kitchen looking for a late night snack. The folder Eddie has been keeping all of the documents related to the divorce and custody in is on the table, an unwanted reminder that you’d hadn’t gotten a chance to really discuss it today beyond that brief phone call.

“So, uh,” you say, breaking the ice as you pull a bag of Cheetos from the pantry, “your first court date is set?”

“Yeah,” Eddie says with a sigh. He slides down into a chair at the kitchen table and you take the one opposite him. “Monday, March 29th.”

He doesn’t offer more information, so you have to do the digging. You hate having to draw information from him like this; you wish he would open up easier. “Did you, o-or rather, did your lawyer tell you what to expect?”

“I’m supposed to have some sort of plan of what I want for the kids,” he shrugs, though his fidgeting fingers tell you that he’s more concerned than he’s letting on. “Like, how I want full custody. But I’m not opposed to Brittany getting visitation rights. I think the judge just kind of wants to hear what both her and I have to say.”

“I imagine she’s going to have a very different plan than you prepared,” you say with a grimace.

Eddie huffs a humorless laugh and rests his head on his propped up fist. “She’ll go for the throat. Use any mistakes I’ve made or bad days I’ve had over the years as an excuse for why they shouldn’t be with me.”

“She’s going to make it brutal,” you say more to yourself than to Eddie. “But I’ll be right by your side the whole time, okay?” You start to reach for his hand, frowning when he looks away. “What?” Did I say something that upset him? Am I handling this right?

“Maybe,” he breathes, carefully considering his words, “maybe you can stay here with the boys?”

His rejection smarts like a slap across the face. He doesn’t want you there. But why?

The obvious answer stares you down: you’re the other woman. The young babysitter who seduced a married man and destroyed his otherwise impeccable relationship, as Brittany will likely paint it.

Shame seeps from your pores; you will yourself to ask him the question burning on your tongue: “Did I do something wrong?”

Eddie can feel his heart break with each word. “Did you—no, it’s just, y’know, don’t want too many cooks in the kitchen.” He inwardly winces at his pathetic excuse, not wanting you to know the truth.

“Right, yeah.” But nothing about this is right; you’re partners—or, at least, you’re supposed to be. If you were in his position, you would love to have him by your side, supporting you. Clearly, he doesn’t feel the same way.

He’s going through a lot, you try and reason with yourself. Maybe a change to a happier subject will lighten the mood. There’s plenty of time before the hearing anyway.

“So, um, my birthday is in a few days.” You lower your voice to a sultry tone, trailing your bare foot up his leg beneath the table. “My friends wanted to take me out and get me wasted for the big 2-1, but I was thinking we should spend it together…in bed…clothing optional?”

Eddie stands up and kisses you, and you think he’s going to accept your offer, but he shakes his head. “Nah, babe. You should go out with your friends. Enjoy your time with them, ya know?”

His head swims with of all of the instances where he’d begged Brittany for cozy nights together when she had wanted to go out with her girlfriends. He doesn’t want you to resent him the way she did.

You’re so young; at your age, he’d go out with his friends, drinking and partying. Is he tying you down? A relationship with a man going through a divorce and who has two kids? At 21 years old? The least he can do is encourage you to have that wild 21st birthday with your friends that you deserve.

“Okay, um, do you wanna come with me? I’d love for you to meet my friends,” you try again, desperate to crack the shell he’s built around himself. You stand and pad closer to him.

Eddie puts his finger under your chin. “Go with your friends, baby. I’ll be around to pick you up if you need a designated driver.”

Tears embarrassingly blur your vision. “Did I do something, Eddie?”

“No, why?” He leans on the countertop, chewing a Cheeto thoughtfully.

“Because…because you don’t want me at the hearing, and you don’t want to celebrate my birthday with me. And if I did something to upset you, I want to fix it.”

He wipes the orange dust on a nearby towel and exhales impatiently. “Babe, I told you. The court stuff is just messy, and I want you to have time with your friends. Don’t read too much into it.”

His nonchalance irritates you. He doesn’t want you around, and he’s playing it off like it’s nothing.

“Jesus, sorry for trying to support you and for wanting to be around you,” you snap, your craving for snacks evaporating as you’re filled with anger. It’s better than the despair that’s threatening to replace it. “I guess I’ll just swing by whenever you need a quickie.”

Eddie winces at your vitriol. “Swing by whenever—what the hell are you talking about? This is more than just sex, we love each other, and you know it.”

You do know it, but you’re too worked up to care about logic. You grab his keys from the countertop. “Go home.” It’s not until the words come out of your mouth that you realize he doesn’t really have a home to go to. The consideration of taking them back flits through your head like a leaf caught in a wind tunnel.

He throws his arms up in the air, defeated. “C’mon, babe. Don’t be like this.”

“Be like what, Eddie? Upset that my boyfriend doesn’t want me around? Frustrated because it shouldn’t be fucking impossible go get you to open up to me? Humiliated because you were soft while I grinded on top of you?!”

“I told you,” he says through gritted teeth, “it was because of all of the shit with—”

“I know; all of the shit with Brittany. I got it.” You roll your eyes. “That’s why I offered to go to court with you, but you said no. So, I guess I’m good enough to use as a distraction, but not—”

“I’m not…I’m not using you. Jesus Christ.” Eddie rakes his hands through his curls. “You wanna be at the hearing with me? Listen to all of the terrible things my ex has to say about me? Be my guest.” His mind goes back to just yesterday at how you were bothered by Brittany’s hostility. It would only be increased tenfold when she’s putting on a performance for the judge.

You’re fuming, hurling words like hand grenades. “After everything we’ve gone through, do you really think I’d take what she says to heart? What, is she gonna complain that you cheated, when she’s screwing half the town?”

Your candor awakens a rage within him. “You know what?” he seethes. “I give up. I spent most of my marriage trying to make my wife spend time with me, and that didn’t work. Now, I’m trying to make sure you have a life outside of our relationship, and that doesn’t work either.”

“I can handle myself!” You bite back. “I know what’s best for me; I’m not a child.”

“Barely.”

The one icy word has tears burning behind your eyes, but you refuse to let them show—it’d only give his insult traction.

“Is that what you think this is, then?” you demand. “Poor, young girl just wants a big strong man to take care of her?”

Eddie looks like he’s about to tear out every last hair on his head. “No! Fuck, why do you keep twisting my words?”

“I have to try and find some meaning behind them when you won’t tell me what you’re really thinking!”

“Jesus Christ,” Eddie groans, rubbing his hands down his face. “You want to know what I’m really thinking? I’m thinking that before this moment I didn’t see you as some whiny brat who’s going to scream and stomp her foot when she doesn’t get her way.”

“And now?” you ask, crossing your arms over your chest.

He sputters for a response. “Now I don’t know what to fucking think. You’re more mature than this—or so I thought. But it seems like now you’re having a goddamn tantrum.”

A tantrum. You’re trying to communicate how excluded you feel, and he reduces it to a tantrum. “I just don’t understand! Why don’t you want me with you?”

Eddie paces a few laps in front of you, his hands on his hips. “You want to know? You wanna know fucking why? Because I know the venom Brittany can spit when she’s not even trying to hurt someone. And when she puts her mind to it? The woman channels Satan himself.” He chuckles tersely, shaking his head as though he can’t believe he’s even entertaining this conversation. “I couldn’t give two shits what she says about me in that courtroom. But she’s going to be hurling her malice in your direction as well and there’s no way I can have you hearing that. She’s vicious and ruthless and I want to spare you from that. I don’t want you there with me that day, but it’s not because I don’t want you at my side, it’s because I want to shield you from that and her.”

The rational explanation should calm your anger, but it only fans the flames further.

“I get to make that decision for myself, Eddie. I am a grown ass woman and I get to decide what I can and cannot handle. You don’t get to make those choices for me and then call it protection. That’s not how this is going to work. And what about my fucking birthday, huh? Trying to ‘shield’ me from something there, too?”

Eddie pinches the bridge of his nose and tries to take a calming breath to steady himself—it doesn’t work all that well. “Sweetheart,” he starts, not missing the ice in your glare at his use of the pet name, “I just want you to go out and have a good time with your friends, okay? That’s all! It’s your 21st birthday, for Christ’s sake. You should be going from bar to bar with your friends, getting free shots and dancing and laughing the whole night. And you want to spend that night with me?” Eddie shakes his head incredulously. “We spend every night together right now.”

“But it’s not just an ordinary night,” you shoot back. “It’s my birthday and I should be allowed to say how I want to spend it.”

Eddie is steadily moving from anger to exasperation. He takes a step closer to you and lays his hands on your shoulders, making sure you’re looking at him.

“You are young. This is when you should be partying and drinking and all that shit with your friends.” He’s practically begging you to understand his perspective. “Not coming to some stuffy courtroom with a man who is going through a divorce and fighting for the custody of his kids.”

“But I choose this,” you say. “I choose you.” You jab your index finger into his chest. “I’m more than capable of making decisions for myself, Eddie. I don’t need you telling me what’s best for me. This is my life and I call the shots. And, for the love of God, can you please stop acting like you’re this ancient old man? I know I tease and call you old all the time but you’re thirty-fucking-two! You are young!”

“I just…” Eddie trails off with a sigh. When he speaks again, his voice is softer, though it’s still tinged with anger. “I just don’t want you to end up resenting me because you spent your early twenties being a shoulder for me to cry on when you should be exploring and enjoying life.”

“I am enjoying life, Eddie. With you!” you insist. “This is what I want. It’s my choice and you can’t take my autonomy away from me.”

“And I would never want to,” Eddie says, voice slightly calmer. “I’m just trying to do what I think is best because I love you. That’s all.”

You drum your fingers on the counter, mimicking a heartbeat. “You don’t get to determine that, Eddie.”

Eddie sighs and rubs a hand over his forehead. “You’re right.”

There’s a beat of silence before you say, “thank you.” Eddie simply nods in acknowledgment. “So, can I come to the courtroom?” you ask, the slightest bit of hope in your voice.

“I still don’t think that’s a good idea, sweetheart,” he admits with a sigh.

Heat rises in your body as your temper threatens to engulf you again. Not wanted, not needed. Disposable. Easily discarded.

“And…what about my birthday?” You should shut up, stop asking questions, but you’re desperate for closure.

Eddie sighs again. His eyes look anywhere but at you. “It’s your birthday. You make the call. I just…I wish you’d go out with your friends.”

“Would you come with me?”

“Princess,” Eddie says softly, and you already know his answer. “I’ll just be a downer. You don’t want me there.”

But you do. None of your words seem to break through that thick skull of his though. You were willing to compromise about going out as long as your boyfriend would come with you, but no. Eddie wants this to be an Eddie-less birthday for you for some reason.

“I think I should stay with the Harringtons for a bit,” he says finally, voice barely above a whisper. “I just…I need to think about things.”

Your bottom lip starts to tremble despite yourself. “Think about…us?”

“Yeah,” Eddie starts, backtracking immediately when he sees the panic in your eyes. “No, no, not like that.” He steps forward, as if to comfort you, but stops himself. “Just…about this.” Eddie gestures vaguely to the space around you. “I think we both need some time to calm down and think.”

You nod and wrap your arms around yourself. Part of you knows he’s right, but part of you wants him to stay here so you can work through it together. But it’s been a long day and it’s not the worst idea to have some time for yourself. “O-Okay,” you say in a shaky voice.

Eddie slips into your room and grabs the duffel bag he’s been living out of. “I’ll, uh, talk to you later,” Eddie says. Everything in him wants to lean in and kiss you—even just your cheek, but he restrains himself.

“Okay,” you repeat, unable to conjure up a more eloquent response.

Eddie picks his keys up off the counter and jingles them a few times between his fingers. He wants to speak but doesn’t know what there is to say, so he nods his head and walks out the front door.

You listen as his footsteps disappear down the hall and once you can no longer hear them, the first sob leaves your lips as you slide down to sit on the kitchen floor and just cry.

#eddie munson #eddie munson x reader #eddie munson x you #eddie munson x y/n #older!eddie #eddie munson imagine #eddie munson fan fiction #eddie munson fanfic #eddie munson fic #AYW #AYWS

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almostheav4n · 4 days

Text

Tomorrow Never Came: Chapter 2

masterlist | ao3

pairing: joel miller x f!reader rating: 18+ warnings: unspecified age gap, hints at past SA, no break-out, no y/n, no reader description, discussion of past trauma, reader develops a reliance on him, hints at a ddlg relationship in terms of a caregiver x little relationship (reader is of legal age) word count: 3,693 summary: set in Texas in the 1980s, Joel picks you up on the side of the road when headed west, you embark upon a journey of self-discovery with the help of a seasoned man a/n: lots of fluff in this chapter before it gets real - Joel honestly doesn't seem like a guy who would rush anything so he gets a little push by the reader :p

“He looks like he works with his hands & smells like Marlboro reds…”

The morning light pierces through the flimsy motel curtain as you toss over on the mattress, stuffing your face into the pillows, as you blink away your grogginess.

The sudden pounding at your door is enough to jolt you awake as you realize suddenly it’s Joel, springing up to sit on the bed before checking the time.

“Bout ready to head out?” His voice bellows from outside the door, slower and thicker from his own sleep. You can see the outline of him through the window and it makes you hyper-aware you haven’t washed up in the slightest, quickly giving yourself a smell as you lift your arms.

It’s easy to tumble out of bed, tripping onto the floor, attempting to hurry as you stumble over the sheets, closer to the door, “Um, I um, just need a few minutes, maybe you can get breakfast or somethin’, I dunno, Ill be ready then…”

You huff and puff trying to find your discarded clothes from the night, cursing yourself for not washing them the night before, smelling them, and finding it honestly quite fine, thank god.

“No…” You can hear him thinking. “Ya need’ta eat, I’ll make myself busy, take your time,” He mumbles departing with two knuckle knocks on the door as you watch his figure disappear.

You find yourself surprised by his reaction, half expecting him to get annoyed, maybe rush you at least. You wonder deep down if it’s a trick and you’ll find his truck gone.

The truck remains there, however, spotting it in the lot after a good half hour of scrubbing your teeth clean and taking a hot shower to wipe away any grime left by sleep.

You knock on the only door next to you, finding that Joel isn’t it. Eventually taking it upon yourself to find him.

It’s not hard to spot him, dressed in fresh attire, forgetting he had planned on this trip & packed for it accordingly. His handheld luggage at his side while he talks to a woman, a young woman, probably around your age as they pass a cigarette between them. She laughs at something you can’t hear as she passes it back to him.

You are quite well aware he doesn’t owe you anything, he doesn’t owe you any sense of loyalty, in fact, you feel in debt to him. But the rock in your belly sits hard as you come to understand he is a solid man, a good man. Women will want him, he’ll inevitably attract him and it’s stupid of you to feel jealous as he leans over to talk to her, wishing it was you.

Bitterness is ugly, sits on your tongue quite heavily though, makes your fingers flex as you cough, loudly, a bit too loudly, gaining both their attention as Joel’s back straightens up before turning to you, breathing the bit of smoke left from his nostrils.

“Ready, darlin’?” He adjusts the luggage in his hand, walking over to take the bag in your hands, once used for the new shoes, now used for all your belongings that were shoved in your utility jacket pockets, feeling lighter for the first time in months.

You happily allow him to, nodding up to him in approval as he tosses the girl a farewell before turning back to lead you to the truck, allowing for you to cut your eyes back at her. Watching as she returns a similar annoyed expression.

He opens the door for you before getting in on his side and sliding the bags underneath the seats, starting up the truck with a quick motion.

“Who’s the chick?” You hum, attempting to seem as nonchalant as possible, hoping not to come across any other way.

“Not sure, wanted a smoke, only had one left,” He shrugs, pulling the vehicle out of the lot and onto the road with a few harsh bumps.

You nod, twiddling your thumbs in a circle as you bite your lip back, calculating your response.

“Jealous?”

You don't expect it, your head shooting up to find his eyes already on you, a hidden grin where his hand that’s not on the wheel, scratches at his beard as he raises one brow, teasingly.

“Joel, I’m not…..” You shake your head, unable to stop the tremble that knocks your words apart as you attempt to correct him, “I’m not jealous.” You lie.

“Just teasin is all, don’t waste your time worryin’ now…” He chuckles, Texan accent flowing over like honey, focusing his gaze back on the road, leaving you breathless as you feel you didn’t state your case as clearly as you could've. Feeling found out.

You remind yourself to quit the longing glances, that could've given you away.

You don’t even realize you’re still staring at him, lost in your own thoughts but you think you almost miss it, the quirk of the corner of his mouth, a small tinge of redness coming to his face then settling, a blush.

Eventually, he pulls into a lot of a diner. You’re seated quite quickly, in a booth towards the back, menus handed to you as Joel immediately orders a coffee, you stick with a hot chocolate watching Joel's brow raise at that.

“You like sweets huh?”

“I do…” You nod, gaze focused on the menu before looking up to him, “think it’s cause I’m quite sweet too…”

He smiles a bit then, the first actual smile from him, a quick flash of the teeth before disappearing under his thick beard.

“You are… sweet.” He agrees, calculating his words before focusing his attention on the menu, giving you little time to react to his comment.

“Need you to get real food in your system, understand?” His eyes latch onto yours as you nod, desiring the least to see him upset by your actions.

He sets his eyes back on the menu, “Good girl.”

Good girl.

It’s all you can focus on when the waitress returns to drop off drinks and take orders, the wheels in your head turning over the comment, good girl, good girl, good girl.

It isn’t until Joel says your name, alerting you to look up apologetically, ordering a nice stack of pancakes, something you haven’t had in months, allowing her to take the menus.

The hot chocolate presented stacks high with whipped cream, you scoop up a fluff of it in your index finger, bringing it to your mouth to suck gently, gaining the confidence to speak, “Joel?”

His gaze is stern as he looks out the window, focused on some altercation outside between two men over god knows what, “Yeah?”

“You can kiss me ‘f ya want.” You bring the mug to your lips watching as his eyes cut to you, quickly, watching a gulp go down his throat, maintaining his hard exterior nonetheless.

“That right?” His voice is softer than ever, as if he’s whispering a secret as you nod, taking a sip.

You wondered all night if him putting you in another room was an act of kindness or if he maybe was gay or if he didn’t even necessarily view you as anything but platonic. But you want to make yourself clear. You want him to know of your blossoming feelings.

You set the mug down, feeling the whipped cream along your upper lip, tracing your tongue over the spot to remove it, watching as he sucks in a quick breath.

He’s swift, moving from the booth. For a quick moment, you think you may have scared him off. Instead, he slides in next to you, your body pressed between him and the wall by the booth, his burly arm snaking around your waist to pull you close to his chest, as you release a soft quick gasp before his lips connect with yours, your hands holding to his chest to sturdy yourself as his warm mouth opens onto yours feeling his tongue slip into your mouth, velvety smooth.

You moan, too loudly for the small diner as it's absorbed into his mouth, your eyes closing, allowing him to take the lead as his mouth moves against yours roughly and eagerly as if he hasn’t kissed someone in decades, completely at his will.

It isn’t until the sound of plates scraping against the table gains both of your attention as he breaks away suddenly, leaving a whine to linger at your lips as he turns to the waitress who doesn’t seem to care one bit as Joel releases you.

“I’ll be back, gon’ get some fresh air…” He mumbles before sliding out of the booth, running his hands through his hair before setting his hat on, walking towards the door, and soon exiting.

It would worry you if you couldn’t see him, walking towards a payphone outside and making a call.

You wonder what the hurry was but busy yourself with your pancakes, sopping them up in a ridiculous amount of syrup, before digging in.

You eat slowly watching him argue with someone on the phone, his body language showing clear agitation as you sip your beverage.

Eventually, he comes back soon after, apologizing, “Sorry, forgot to make a call earlier…”

He sighs deeply, tearing into his eggs, the runny yolk bleeding onto the sausage on the plate.

“What was that about?” You hum happily, content, patting your full belly.

“Work.”

“Sure it wasn’t your wife?” You test the waters, never noticing a ring but just in case, to be safe.

“Ain’t got a wife,” he stuffs sausage into his mouth, “Think Im’a type of man to smooch on ya before headin’ home to my old lady?”

“You’re older, Joel. Usually, men like you are married…” You tease, rubbing your foot along his leg under the table

“I'm older huh?” He smirks a bit, raising his brow, bringing his coffee mug to his lips.

“Yeah, you’re an old man Joel…” you lean over, resting your elbows on the table as your hands cup your face in admiration, your foot still knocking against his leg.

“What do you do?” You question, desiring to know him fully.

“Construction… just need to make calls every now’n then to make sure dumbasses don’t fuck up while I’m gone.” He clicks his mouth once more, annoyed it seems by the whole interaction on the phone. You decide to leave it alone

He eats quickly, quite loudly too. It makes you want to laugh, all his Southern charm replaced by a grumbling food monster when eating.

He pays the check after finishing, mentioning the need to get you some clothes as the waitress brings by the change, he leaves a tip on the table.

“You don’t like my clothes?” You gasp, fake offended, understanding what he means.

To be fair you hadn’t shoplifted any clothes recently & the jeans that you wore now full of tears and rips matched the shirt that could give at any moment.

“Ya know I can’t pay you back right?” You remind him, following him out as he holds the door open for you.

“I am very well aware of that, sweetheart.” He chuckles lightly as if it’s the most obvious thing you’ve ever stated.

You’re quick to turn to him though, in the middle of the lot, standing on your tiptoes to get the best angle as you press your lips to his once more, quickly, a peck, a little test of the boundaries to see his reaction.

He returns it once you depart, his hand coming around the back of your neck, his mouth crashing onto yours, hot and hungry, before releasing, taking your hand in his warm and dry, leading you to the truck, following the same routine of scanning the lot, opening your door, before focusing on getting back on the road.

The trip before Joel seems to come crashing down on you, the need for rest, the knowing that Joel is there that reassures your safety.

Understanding you have true protection is enough to have you falling asleep in the seat until the jolt of the brakes has you blinking back the sun that has begun to slip below the horizon, realizing you slept through the day.

“C'mon, sleeping beauty…” Joel jokes lightly, as your passenger's side door opens.

You groan, too loudly and in an extremely un-lady like manner, stretching out your limbs as you smack open a yawn, clearing the sleep from your eyes.

“Did I really sleep that long?” you murmur as Joel wraps his arm around your waist, hoisting you out with a surprised squeal as your feet connect with the pavement, a giggle spilling from your lips.

“Sure did…” He helps to straighten you out, pulling your shirt down where it exposes your stomach slightly.

You allow him, feeling pampered as he observes you to make sure you’re put together before giving you a hard nod, approving of his work.

He takes your hand as you finally gain full consciousness, leading you into the building labeled ‘WAL MART’

Passing cars in the lot, you’re able to read ‘New Mexico’ on the license plates as you become aware you’re in a new state. Once in the shopping center, a buggy is presented as Joel turns to you, looking down at you with a familiar hard gaze, and for some reason, you come to understand when he’s wearing this look, he’s serious and means business. His eyes narrowing in and focusing as you know he needs you to listen as you look back up at him, blinking up at him as if he is the only thing that matters in the world.

“You’re gonna go get some clothes and a bag to store 'em in, I need you to fill er up-” referencing the buggy, “I'll be ‘round, getting supplies alright?”

He adjusts his pants, fidgeting on his belt as he looks around and then back to you.

You nod, offering a little salute followed by a ‘yes sir’ and giggle before he presses a chaste kiss to your mouth, sending you on your way.

You do indeed, fill’er up with an assortment of clothes, pajamas, bras, underwear, some shorts, skirts, jeans, and an arrangement of tops and you find a duffel bag that could surely hold it all. You also decide to shop for some feminine care items, sniffing at the different body & hair washes for far too long before finally making your way to find him.

After looking down far too many aisles, you find him in the firearm section, talking to the worker who shows him a certain gun. You keep planted where you are, not wishing to interrupt, studying him, admiring him as he purchases it at the counter.

You could've sworn he had one in the truck, saw it in passing. Maybe he just needs another you think, just in case.

“Starin ain’t too friendly baby doll...” He mutters taking control of the grocery cart before pushing it, sliding his basket on top filled with first aid and other basic necessities.

“Just too handsome, can’t help it,” you apologize with a teasing shrug, looping your arm into his as you walk.

He gives you a slight snort before you make it to the checkout stand. His hard hand pushes you back slightly out of the way so he can unload the cart.

You busy yourself as you pick up a nearby magazine off a rack, the corny headline gaining your attention as you flip through it, only for Joel to snatch it from you.

“Hey!” You whine, nose scrunching up in annoyance as he hands it to the cashier who scans it before he hands it back to you, nudging you out of the way a bit more as he throws the bagged items back into the cart.

A certain freedom is found as you skip back to the truck, no worries or cares as Joel hollers at you to slow down, the sun now gone, making it easy for a car to hit you, you realize.

You offer to help pack the bags into the back only for Joel to shoot you a disapproving look, that has you piling into the truck with a quickness.

Eventually, you both are able to make it to a nearby motel. He tells you that you can stay in the car as he pulls up to the lobby of the motel.

You decide against it, opening the door as the car barely rolls to a stop.

“Hey now…” Joel warns, still in the vehicle as he sighs, stressed. Kinda makes your heart beat, his worried reaction.

“You need to wait till I'm in park and I’ll open the door for you… you understand that?” He speaks seriously once he exits the vehicle, his eyes cutting down at you as his hands place on his hips, seemingly exhausted by your antics as you nod, moving closer to him as your feet scrape against the pavement.

Your body collides against his chest as you lean up against him to kiss the scar on his nose before reaching up to grab his hat, setting it on your head instead.

“I got it Joel, but how do I look?” You swiftly change the conversation as he folds his arms over his chest, veins prominent as he flexes lightly.

“You’re as pretty as a peach in June, ‘f I say so myself, now c’mon…” He offers a small smile before reaching his hand out.

You take it, sliding your own against it before taking your other hand to cover the other side of his, keeping a two-handed grip as he leads you into the lobby that plays 60’s music & holds an older dude at the front counter who reads a Playboy magazine.

It takes Joel about a second to place you behind him, before walking up to the counter to greet the guy who speaks in grunts.

“How many rooms yall need?”

“One!” You squeak out, poking out from behind his back before Joel pushes you back behind him.

“Alright, one room, two beds…” Joel mumbles, fishing into his pocket for his wallet as you pout.

“Joel…” you grumble, fingers tracing along his brawny back.

“You ain’t getting me into trouble tonight,” He whispers over his shoulder as you can’t help but break out into a smile. He’s old, probably too tired from the drive, you try to remember to tease him about just that.

“What’d you want to eat?” He asks once you settle into the room, unpacking the Walmart bags, folding your new clothes neatly into the duffel, using the various pockets for other items picked up.

“Not hungry…” You hum lightly, throwing some pajamas on the bed for post-shower wear.

“Darlin’…” You know this tone, his stern one, a warning.

“Joel…” You whine. “I’m used to eating corn nuts every two days, I gotta warm up to eating more food, but I promise I'll eat more.”

You are quick to hurry to press a kiss to his lips where he stands by the door with arms crossed over his chest, an attempt to shut him up before making your way to the bathroom to turn on the shower, avoiding his disappointment.

“Alright, I’ll be back real soon…” He hollers as you hear the door open and close.

Your shower is one of the best ones you can remember. The water hot and the tub not as grimey as others you have come across, but the fact you can wash your hair and scrub every inch of yourself is refreshing. You wish for Joel to know how grateful you are.

Eventually, you slink into your shorts and tank top made for sleeping, flicking on the television to some Western film, before painting your toenails with some red polish picked up earlier.

Joel returns eventually, scolding you for not locking the door behind him as you blow onto your drying nails, apologizing before seeing that he brought back some greasy takeout.

He kicks off his shoes aggressively, exhaustingly, placing some type of chicken nugget and fries on your bed as you roll your eyes slightly but no better than to challenge him, his hard stern telling you to “just eat”.

You do eat it, dipping fries into ketchup, not wanting to refuse him of anything. Laying on your tummy to eat in silence, watching the film that Joel says is one of his favorites as he finishes his food fast and soon finds himself in the shower after the film ends.

You try to stay awake to wish him goodnight, maybe get a goodnight kiss but sleep is heavy on you as you eventually wake up to pure darkness & the bedside clock glowing at 3:09 a.m.

You can’t see him in the room, but you hear his deep snores as you remove yourself from your bed, realizing he must’ve tucked you in as you tear off the sheets. Soft footsteps lead you over to his bed, lifting the covers to slide in.

You hope it won’t disturb him, you hope he’s comfortable with it as you wrap your arm around him, his back pressed to your chest as you kiss him there, once then twice.

He stirs, a light sleeper you discover, grunting as he turns towards you, feeling his beard scrape against your cheek as you squeak, his warm lips connecting to yours, softly, sweetly. You sigh openly into the kiss as your tongue pushes against his, a groan whispering in his throat as you desire more.

However, he’s quick to turn you over, pressing his chest to your back as your body curves to fit into his body, attempting not to pout at the loss of affection but grateful as you find yourself exhausted.

It isn’t difficult to miss the hardness pressed against your bottom as he holds you tightly to him, it makes you coo as you move closer to one another, his face fitting into the crook of your neck as his breath there gives you butterflies & tickles your skin, your thighs clenching as you rest your hand over his on your stomach.

“Night, Joel.”

“Goodnight, sweet girl.”

#joel miller #joel miller x you #joel miller x reader #joel miller x f!reader #tlou #the last of us #joel miller fic #if you find a grammatical error... no you didn't #this is also all i got so far for the 2 people interested #thank u i love u

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tightjeansjavi · 9 months

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your mind, your needs

A/N: so I genuinely had one of the worst days at work today. It started off okay, and then quickly spiraled downwards and by mid-afternoon, I broke. I decided to write this Joel comfort piece as a self indulgence, but I also hope this brings comfort to anyone that has had a rough day/week. Enjoy 🤎

~word count: 2.5k~

Summary: after a shitty stressful day at work, your long-time boyfriend Joel Miller comforts you in the way he knows best.

Warnings: none, AU/no!outbreak, fluff, bantering, soft intimacy, established relationship, pet names, no use of y/n, reader has no physical descriptions, moodboard is just for aesthetics, no age gap, feelings, breaking down in the workplace, comfort, soft! Joel, comforting! Joel, Joel is just the best boyfriend you could ever ask for. (+18) minors dni!

Pairing | Joel Miller x f! reader

main masterlist masterlist

Your long-term boyfriend, Joel Miller, knew your needs as if they were on the back of his hand. He knew just by your body language alone if you needed space, or if you needed some form of comfort from him. He picked up on all your little quirks. Your habits, both good and bad. The things you loved, and the things you hated, and everything in-between. He knew that when you’d have a good day at work you’d hang your keys and coat up in their designated spot on the hooks against the wall in the main entryway. Your shoes would be neatly tucked away, and there would always be a candle burning on the kitchen counter. On your rough days, your keys and purse would be thrown on the table in the hallway. Your shoes would be kicked off on the doormat, and there would be no candle burning.

Your morning started off as it normally would but by lunch time? You were fed up and on the verge of breaking down into tears. Nothing was going right. Your emails were blowing up and it just felt like you could inevitably no longer keep up with the high demand that was tossed on your plate. Normally you’d go out to lunch with coworkers, but today you isolated yourself in your car. You picked a shady spot under a nearby tree in the parking lot and parked your car. It was a beautiful day and it made you feel guilty that you chose to sit in your car instead of socializing with your coworkers. The tears were on-coming as you dialed Joel’s number. The only time that you’d call Joel on your lunch break was if you were having a bad day, or if you were going to be home late.

“Hey darlin.’ How's my pretty girl doin?’ You enjoyin’ the nice weather we’ve been havin?’” His butter-smooth Texas twang was an instant comfort to your present overwhelmed state of mind.

“Hey, baby. Could be better.” You murmured into the receiver. You could picture Joel’s furrow between his brows, and the soft pout playing on his lips from your answer.

“Somethin’ wrong honeybun? Y’havin’ a rough day?..” He softly asked as he leaned back against the side of his truck.

“I just feel like I can’t fucking do anything right today Joel. I’m sitting in my car, alone, because I just can’t take it right now. I feel like I'm about to combust.” You spoke exasperatedly as you slumped back into the driver's seat.

“Sweet girl, I'm sure that ain’t true. Jus’ havin’ a rough day? You wanna talk about it, or do ya need some space? Y’know I'm always here to listen.” He softly reassured you.

“Can we..talk when you get home later? I just wanted to briefly try and decompress from the situation. What time are you off?”

“Course we can talk at home, honey. I should be home a little after five..anythin’ special you want for dinner?”

“Tacos? From that place that we really like?..”

“Mm. Those are pretty good. I’ll pick ‘em up on my way home, okay sweet girl? Jus’ try’n power through the rest of your day. I know it's tough, but it’ll be alright.” He wished that he was there with you right now just so he could give you a well-deserved hug and soft kiss on the forehead.

“Okay. Thank you baby. I’ll try my best to power through. I’ll see you at home, and I love you.”

“‘Atta girl. I believe in ya. See you at home, and I love you too.”

Your day only seemed to plummet even further than it did before lunch. You couldn’t get a grasp on the emails, five people were asking you to do multiple tasks at once. Your phone was ringing non-stop, and you finally broke. You retreated to the bathroom, hoping to god that none of the other office ladies were in there. Much to your relief, you were alone. Your tears didn’t fall right away. You tried to hold them at bay as you practiced your breathing exercises that Joel generously taught you. It wasn’t working and it felt like the already cramped bathroom stall was closing in on you. When your tears finally broke past your waterline, you finally let all of your pent up emotion out.

The rest of your afternoon went by in a blur, and when you were finally back in your car after a long day, you closed your eyes and inhaled deeply in through your nose with your eyes softly closed and exhaled through your mouth. The day was over, and you could finally go home.

When Joel had arrived home later that evening, a little after five, he wasn’t surprised to find your shoes left untidy on the doormat. Your keys and purse were thrown haphazardly on the table in the hall, and there was no familiar scent of one of your many candles. The home you shared together was cozy and welcoming. Photographs of you together and your friends and family could be found in every room. When you first agreed to move in together three years ago, you had a conjoined idea to have separate rooms. At first your friends thought it was a bit odd that you and Joel weren’t sleeping together every night, but it actually was beneficial to your relationship. You were able to have your own space to wind down in, and so was Joel. The best part? On the nights you did sleep together, it was like you were having a sleepover.

“Hey honey? I’m home darlin’, and I come bearing tacos.” He set the bag of takeout on the counter before he padded down the hall. He knew that if your bedroom door was closed this meant that you were needing space. He respected this of course and he always would knock so that you could continue to have your privacy.

You could hear his footsteps padding down the hall and coming to a halt outside your door. His knuckles gently thrummed against the wood three times. “Darlin?’ S’okay if I come in? Or do you still wanna be alone? Tacos are on the counter if you're hungry.” His head was bowed downwards as he let out a soft sigh.

You were completely burrowed and cocooned under the blankets. You reached your arm up and wiped your tear stained cheeks on the sleeve of Joel’s hoodie that you were wearing. The material was worn down but his scent continued to linger.

“You can come in, Joel.” Your tone was soft and muffled through the blanket. Despite this, Joel was able to hear it and he gave you a few seconds to change your mind before he was grasping the door handle and gently pushing the door open. You felt the unoccupied side of the bed slowly dip and crease from the weight of Joel’s body sinking down on the comforter.

“Y’know, if ya keep stealin’ my hoodies like this, I ain’t gonna have much to wear anymore, my pretty baby.” He murmured with a soft amusing chuckle.

“Shuddup.” You rolled over onto your side and gently swatted at his arm with your cheek squished into the pillow.

“There she is. There’s my pretty girl.” He had a soft smile gracing his face to match the softness in his eyes as he looked over at you.

“Even when my cheeks are all puffy and my eyes are all red from crying? I’m still your pretty girl?” You softly teased as you reached for his hand.

“That’s when I think you’re the prettiest. How long have ya been cooped up in here?” He gently grasped your hand in his own and interlocked your fingers through his.

“Oh, you hush. Don’t make me fall in love with you even more.” You hummed as you scooted closer to him. You were seeking his comfort, and he gladly indulged in your wishes. “I’ve been here since I got home. I seriously thought the day was never going to end Joel.” You let out a huff as you nuzzled your cheek into his shoulder as his free arm gently looped around your waist and tugged you in close.

“Baby, i’m just speakin’ the truth. You wanna talk ‘bout your day? You sounded real upset earlier..I was thinkin’ about you for the rest of my shift. I know you’ve been stressed at work lately, but is there anythin’ I can be doin’ to alleviate that stress for you?” His lips were gently pressed to your forehead and he gently squeezed your hand that was still presently wrapped around his.

“It just felt like the work was never ending, and everytime I tried to catch up, more work was thrown at me and I guess I just broke after lunch. I was working on emails and then these last minute orders came in and I couldn’t handle it anymore. I went to the bathroom to try and calm my nerves, but I broke down into tears instead. I just feel like no matter what I do, it isn’t good enough. My best isn’t my best, and there's more that I could be doing. I just feel like I failed as an employee today. Honey, all I need you to do is keep holding me and sweet talking me up. You just being here and listening to me is all the comfort I truly need.”

Joel let your words sink in as he thought deeply over what his response would be. “Baby, y’know it’s perfectly okay to feel like you can’t get all the work done, right? You don’t gotta push yourself to that breakin’ point. At the end of the day, it’s just a job, and you’re one person. I understand it can be overwhelmin’ at times, and y’know what? I’m extremely proud of you letting it out in a healthy way instead of jus’ bottlin’ that shit up. Your body was lettin’ y’know that it needed to release all that pent up frustration. I also want ya to know that you are good enough. You're a good employee who cares about gettin’ the work done, but ya need to be kinder to yourself darlin.’” Joel was always honest with you; it was one of the main reasons why it was so easy to fall in love with him. He never lied, and even when his own emotions were tough to sift through, he’d always be honest on how he was feeling.

“I know it’s okay if I don’t get everything done, and sometimes I’m okay with it. Sometimes I’m not because I feel like if I don’t do it, who will? If I don’t get all the emails taken care of, who’s going to do it in my place? I can only rely on my coworkers to a certain point Joel. You’re right. I do need to be kinder to myself, especially in the workplace. It’s a real struggle for me, and I’m working on changing that view on myself.”

“You jus’ gotta trust that you’re doin’ a good job. As long as you do your best, no one's gonna fault ya for that. You’re only human. Your brain only has a limited capacity to handle a certain amount of stress. That ain’t on you honey. Jus’ when you start feelin’ overwhelmed, jus’ remember that you can step away and go for a walk, or take a breather. Hell, you can call me whenever you want. I’ll always be there to talk you through it. I’m always gonna be here to listen and support you.”

You gently let go of his hand just so you could fully wrap yourself around him like a koala. Your legs tangled through his as you draped your arms around his neck with your fingers lightly toying with soft hairs at the nape of his neck. “How do you always say the right thing everytime? You just know exactly what it is that I need to hear.”

“Can’t reveal my secrets to ya baby. I’m just real good at readin’ ya. What can I say? I’m a natural.” He chuckled as his other arm came to rest along your lower back with his fingers gently splayed under the fabric of his hoodie that you were wearing. He was rubbing soothing circles into your skin as a comforting gesture. “I jus’ don’t like seein’ my girl upset. Breaks this poor man’s heart. Jus’ wanna be there for ya in any way that I can.”

“You are indeed a natural, Joel.” You pressed a gentle kiss to the tip of his nose, giggling softly when he scrunched his nose up and playfully wiggled his eyebrows at you like the goof that he was. “I appreciate you giving me my space, and then being here to comfort me. I know I say this all the time, but I truly appreciate it.”

“‘Course, baby. Y’do the same for me. It’s mutual, and it makes me feel good inside that I can bring ya a sense of comfort even on your toughest days.” He softly murmured.

“Can we please go and eat tacos now and then watch a movie or something?” Your lashes fluttered as you looked up at him from where your cheek was resting against the crook of his shoulder.

“Baby, you don’t gotta ask me twice. Jus’ as long as you keep those toesicles away from me. Deal?”

You fought the urge to roll your eyes at his remark about your apparently frigid feet. You couldn’t help the giggle that slipped past your lips as you slowly shook your head, “Joel, my feet are not that cold. You’re just being a big baby about it.”

“Nuh-uh. Those toes? They’re literal icicles. Put some socks on ‘em.” He playfully teased as he stole a quick kiss on your lips.

“You’re the worst.”

“Ah, but ya love me baby. You love me sooo much.” He singsonged as he coaxed you to sit up in his arms.

“Yeah, I do love you quite a lot. You might actually be my favorite person in the entire world.”

“Oh god, you’re evil. G’nna make me cry now. Cats out of the bag, darlin.’ Cus’ you’re my favorite person in the entire goddamn world too.”

“Disgusting.” You teased and he immediately went in to tickle you. Your joined laughter echoed through your bedroom. The sound of love, understanding, and feeling.

For the rest of the evening, you and Joel spent it on the couch eating your tacos and watching whatever movie you could find that would lift your spirits. Your sock-clad feet rested comfortably along his lap as he gently massaged your calves. He was focused on the colorful screen while you were focused on his jaw-dropping stunning side profile. Who the hell allowed this man to not only be beautiful on the outside, but also within. You loved that man with your everything, and he loved you just the same.

Banners made by the lovely @saradika

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shipmansflannels · 20 days

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the yellowjackets with a younger s/o...

hey, I'm back! it didn't take me long, right? it must be because I have too many things to write on this blog, finally (and I have relatively enough time to organize my ideas for now). so I thought, I made a headcannon of the young yellowjackets, but I might as well make the adult survivors, right? anyway, maybe this is also a sign to say that I will "moderately" write stories with the adult versions, too. who cheered? anyway, without further ado, let's go! thanks for the likes on the first post, I'm glad you liked it! enjoy! sorry for any grammatical or coherence errors, english is not my first language and I'm trying to improve!

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dating a younger person with the yellowjackets women...

shauna shipman.

okay, it's canonical that shauna would have no problem being in a relationship with someone younger.

I mean, even after adam, I think she would be willing to try.

it would be a lot easier in her mind, because dating someone younger means being able to reconnect with callie more easily too.

in shauna's mind, the two of you would be best friends based on your approximate age, regardless of how old you were.

now in terms of dating shauna, i think she would inevitably be an easy going person, to a certain extent.

overprotective as hell, of course, because she's lost so many people she loves over time (and it's become an incurable trauma in her life), that she can't bear to lose you.

she would also cook for you (rabbit meat inserted) all the time, especially if you felt like eating something special.

oh yes, the weekends would have to include callie with you, which is actually not a problem. at least not for you.

I feel like shauna hasn't been, since she was a teenager, someone who would be involved in loud parties or anything like that, so probably the perfect date for her would be watching a movie at home, wrapped in blankets with you, popcorn and soda and a solitude considerable enough for you to kiss, exchange affection and even make out (or have sex) without anyone to get in the way.

natalie scatorccio.

natalie, like shauna, would also have no problem dating someone younger.

since her life has always been full of risks and she was never very afraid of taking most of them, I honestly think that age never made much of a difference to her, at least not after middle age.

but to be honest, dating natalie comes with a combo of even bigger problems and risks that you wouldn't be able to deal with if you didn't love her so much.

I see natalie completely using her s/o as an outlet, or a shield. after rehab, you would be like a kind of warning for her to control herself.

not that it wouldn't also include (if you're a smoker) the two of you smoking in your spare time when you're bored.

natalie would be the kind of girlfriend you could have any conversation in the world with, sober or not. she probably has and gained enough empathy to listen to you and give you accurate advice on how to live your life.

making out a lot and having sex in unusual places also counts.

in my head, despite everything, natalie is the master of serving affection. spooning with her is the best whenever you need it.

she would do anything for you. everything really. anything.

she would be able to get into a fight for you. and risking her own life as well.

lottie matthews.

number one defender of the thesis: "age is just a number".

lottie is literally the personification of quality time and acts of service.

much because of her lonely life, her traumatic and confusing teenage years and the relationships she maintained with people over time, lottie would probably never want you to lack for anything, so any opportunity she has to be with you, she will be, even on her worst days.

arts and crafts dates with her when she is not taking care of camp green pine. you spend hours enjoying each other's company, and the whole world falls silent.

extremely overprotective of you too. just the thought of losing you because of her own insecurities leaves lottie haunted for weeks if she stops to think about it.

she is the ideal companion for anxiety and panic attacks.

she will most likely use the techniques she learned over time with you. if they work, that's another matter. (they always work because in the end it was never about lottie's gift, it was about her company).

a little submissive, a little dominant during sex. lottie is probably the typical "am I hurting you?" at the right time and even if you insist no, she will ask again just to be sure.

she's also the master spooner (I literally see you two fighting over who's going to be the big spoon every night).

taissa turner.

ok, public life has always been a problem for taissa.

but when she's with you, she's able to forget about it for a few minutes.

despite all this freedom, taissa never lets you go out unaccompanied (without a bodyguard) or lets you read the headlines or see the commercials about her first, for fear of any criticism about your age difference.

but more than anything, it's you she turns to when the stress finally gets to her on the worst days.

I see her making any effort for you, and I see her trying to keep a fine line between you and her old life too.

this includes your relationship with sammy, which, in fact, has always been the best possible, and her friendly relationship with simone as well. taissa knows that she cannot take her son out of her ex-wife's life and, even so, she makes a point of including you in family programs with him.

she will literally spend it all on you. anything you ask for, even with a high amount of money, she will buy.

it's probably a way of apologizing about her sleepwalking and her traumas making her even remotely distant from you for some time.

like I said, you're the one she looks for when crises end up attacking her mental health. she won't sleep if you're not safe in bed with her and she makes a point of being snuggled in her arms so she doesn't have any sleepwalking attacks in the middle of the night.

dates with her are always in fancy places, but taissa doesn't care about them that much.

anniversaries, yes, she always takes you to dinner at a fancy restaurant.

but, on her days off, she would easily choose to just spend time with you watching a stupid series or a cliché movie while you sleep cuddling in the middle of it.

sex always, sex anywhere, sex on any occasion. you will never miss this, you can be sure.

van palmer.

this nerdy woman deserves the world and a significant other who doesn't know half of her references.

you two are a match made in heaven, for sure.

van wouldn't waste time trying to get you to watch all the movies that were popular in her time. and she would use your ability to tinker with technology for the video store whenever necessary.

this woman is literally the embodiment of girlfriend material.

quality time, acts of service, words of affirmation, she has mastered every love language in existence, you bet.

van will always cook for you. there are rare nights when she lets you make dinner or even order any junk food.

she would also stop whatever she was doing so she could cuddle with you whenever you needed her.

dates with van are always at the cinema, or at an amusement park, or, when she is a little less in debt, at a tourist spot around the world that you would mention that you want to see.

she has good enough memory to remember them all.

the sex is always good, always affectionate, and every now and then, when she's not tired, you'd try a quickie in the bedroom for just a little while, until you feel satisfied.

hopeless romantic until the end of time.

misty quigley.

a walking red flag, misty would probably treat a relationship with someone younger as if it were a great adventure.

well, if you like crazy women, misty is your ideal partner.

she has a bit of a misconception about taking care of you and keeping you safe, so every now and then she'll make a point of checking your calendar and trying to monitor meetings with people in your circle, just to make sure there's no problem.

but this is also a good thing because, if there is a specific date or specific problem, she will remember it and make everyone special, in her own way.

anyway, but she's a good girlfriend too, aside from the weirdness. she has everything under control, she is attentive to you and makes a point of making your day better if it is bad.

dates with her don't need much. If it's in a cafe relaxing and talking about her day, if it's watching crime series or chatting with her about citizen detectives, she'll be happy.

sex is also good, to be honest. I see misty as the roleplay girl, so if she's in the mood to roleplay with you, you can be sure she'll do it. from weirdest to sexiest, it also depends on her day.

she achieved the feat of making a young person like a bird and want to have a bird at home. she is, at the moment, the only one of them to be able to do this masterfully.

#lgbt #yellowjackets x reader #yellowjackets #shauna shipman x reader #lottie matthews x reader #natalie scatorccio x reader #van palmer x reader #taissa turner x reader #misty quigley x reader

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melatonin-melanin · 6 months

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jirai kei as a trend and the inherent ableism and racism present within it

if you've been present in any japanese fashion or vtuber spaces for the past few years, chances are you've most likely heard of jirai kei. it's gotten major media attention in japan, and inevitably its popularity has spread overseas. what is still misinterpreted about it, however, is that jirai kei is a fashion style. jirai kei is a stereotype, as well as a subculture that features fashion elements. as opposed to the fashion aspects, the focus of the subculture is mental illness, and many people use the jirai tags and labels to find those with similar struggles and interests. you can learn more about the recent history of jirai kei as a stereotype here, and the fashions associated with jirai kei here.

jirai kei as a stereotype is bad for a multitude of reasons, but there are many people who seem to think that there's nothing wrong with the trend itself. i've seen many arguments in favor of it, ranging from "if brands are using it, that must mean the term isn't that bad" to "plenty of japanese girls are using it to only refer to the fashion, and they don't actually lash out at others or self-harm." its usage by brands and everyday people are true, and that much cannot be argued. the problem comes from assuming that, because it's something widespread in japan, it can't possibly be as bad as people make it out to be. if this trend were to come from anywhere else, i'm almost certain that people would immediately question the morality of it for several reasons. this is going to be a long post, so i hope you have some time.

TW for mentions of self-harm, alcohol and drug abuse, and child sex trafficking below the cut.

a brief rundown of jirai kei's origins

to start, jirai kei's original coinage before the trend has existed since around the 90s. it was used by misogynistic men to refer to women who they believed exhibited signs of emotional instability. this was applied to completely harmless traits, and the criteria for someone being a landmine has drastically changed over the years. for example, the first common identifier was simply "a girl who looks put together." this sexist usage still extends to present times, but now it's often conflated with the current aestheticized definition of the term.

the source of the current iteration of jirai kei

the modern-day jirai kei stereotype comes almost entirely from a gang known as the toyoko kids, who reside in kabukicho. this gang contains many members ranging from ages 9 to 24 who have run away from their homes and families. they have been known for several activities, but the most publicized ones are cutting themselves in public circles, papa katsu (underage prostitution), heavily drinking, and overdosing on over-the-counter medications. majority of the gang members also wear japanese alternative fashions, with girly kei being the fashion that's most often present in the jirai kei stereotype.

where does the ableism come in?

the rise of the aesthetic trend peaked somewhere in 2020, where a "landmine makeup challenge" gained popularity online and resulted in various people attempting to mock and mimic the stereotype for clout. people would wear girly fashion, act "wild" or "crazy" on camera, and, at worst, pretend to cut their wrists or even use makeup to create fake self-harm scars. i don't believe i need to explain why faking self-harm for views is ableist. however, the ableism is also present in the supposed "lighter" aspects of the trend, particularly its sudden association with girly fashion.

during the height of jirai kei's popularity in japan, many brands had begun to sell pink x black girly coordinates, advertising them as jirai kei fashion. it's incredibly important to note that girly as a fashion has existed for several years prior, and that multiple people had already been wearing clothing that's abruptly being labeled jirai. as a result, you have all of these random people minding their business suddenly being labeled as "crazy psycho bitches" because of the clothes that they wear. as if that isn't enough, some brands went as far as to promote the more dangerous aspects of the stereotype as well. with attempts to pander to girls who are deemed "yandere" and "highly explosive," many shops, online influencers, and companies had directly and indirectly capitalized on the suffering of the toyoko kids by encouraging people to cut their wrists, manipulate their partners, binge drink, and lash out at others to engage in the "full landmine experience."

mental illness in japan is almost never taken seriously because it's seen as a personality flaw rather than something that needs treatment. the jirai kei trend only set back any progress made for mental health acknowledgement in society, as people perceived as landmines began to be harassed for wearing girly fashion. more girls were approached by men on the street trying to scout them for prostitution, and people gave away their wardrobe because "others assumed they were troublesome" for wearing it. from another perspective, the anti-recovery nature of the trend has also taken lives. some people who felt that they identified with the term had fully embraced the lifestyle that was commercialized and promoted as something "cute and fun," resulting in more people running away from home to be like the toyoko kids. these people, who have essentially been failed by the system, are simultaneously fetishized and shunned for the fact that they're struggling.

well, what about the racism?

the racism present in the jirai kei trend, from what i've seen, mainly comes from overseas communities. the perception that many people have of jirai kei tends to have its roots in orientalism. if you've ever witnessed how people tend to glorify japan in almost every context, this shouldn't be too surprising. what's concerning, however, is that much of this glorification of jirai still goes unacknowledged by the western j-fashion community.

when jirai kei gained popularity in japan's mainstream, people mistook the name of the stereotype for the name of the fashion. this mindset also translated over to western spaces without a second thought. as a result, when jirai kei as a stereotype was formally introduced to overseas j-fashion communities, some were confused and oddly adamant. it seemed like people thought, "there's no way that japan would endorse something so horrible. there has to be different explanations!" regardless of whether this idea was conscious or subconscious, it had begun what people now call "jirai discourse" in the community. many arguments were made in favor of using jirai kei to refer solely to girly fashion, as opposed to recognizing its origins and continuous usage as a derogatory term. an especially common viewpoint that's perpetuated is that jirai kei has been reclaimed or is in the process of being reclaimed, which is something that has several things wrong with it.

problems with thinking that jirai is "reclaimed, so it's fine to use"

firstly, reclamation is subjective. the assumption that the entirety of a minority group makes the unanimous decision to reclaim a term is frankly just implausible. even more popular words that are thrown around more casually nowadays are still debated in some circles on whether or not they should be used. for a term like jirai kei, something fairly recently coined and undoubtedly controversial in most contexts, the mere idea of reclamation amongst anyone would have to take a much longer time, and that's only if the stereotype starts getting taken seriously.

secondly, the only people who have the right to consider reclamation are the people who are directly affected by the usage of this term, which would be feminine-presenting native japanese people who are mentally ill. people overseas have argued in favor of reclaiming the term despite not being a part of the group that the term is actually used against. this is not something where you can take apart the criteria and suddenly claim that you're also affected by jirai kei's usage. for a comparison that may be easily understood, that's like if a nonblack woman tried to advocate for the reclamation of the "mammy" stereotype, which stereotypes and therefore only affects the perception of black women. just because both groups consist of women, that doesn't mean they have the exact same experience with the stereotype in question, even if they happen to resonate with some aspect of it. unless you've grown up in japan as someone afab and/or feminine-presenting and have struggled with mental health, it's nearly impossible to fully identify with the extent of jirai kei's harm because it's occurred in such a specific set of circumstances to a specific group of people. the only thing that should be done in this case is doing your research on the affected group, which you can do by looking into the history of the toyoko kids and some of the individual stories of the members. that way, you can at least attain a better understanding of their perspectives and connect the effects of jirai kei to their struggles.

lastly, it is not reclaiming to simply use the term for yourself. this tends to be where the idea of jirai kei being reclaimed comes from, because many japanese girls on social media use the term to refer to themselves as well. in these instances, there are typically two separate reasons: one, the person is pretending to be a landmine for clout; or two, they genuinely identify with the derogatory meaning of the term. the latter is often the case, since there's not many other ways for people in japan who are mentally ill to find groups for themselves. when it comes to reclamation, it's important to remember that it's not simply using a word that was used against a group that you're a part of. reclaiming is about actively working to change a term's meaning into a neutral or positive context for the benefit of the group. none of these girls are doing that. there's no big effort in japanese landmine spaces to move the perception of being a landmine away from things like girly kei fashion, idol fan culture, or toxic behaviors, which leads me to the final section of this post.

it is not anyone's job to push for the "reclamation" of jirai kei.

i put reclamation in quotes because, although some genuinely may not have ill intentions, many people come off as having a "white savior" mindset as opposed to actually wanting to reclaim the term in any sense (which, as mentioned before, is not the right of just anyone), and it's usually for the sake of enjoying girly fashion without feeling bad for incorrectly calling it jirai kei. one of the defenses often used to propose that being seen as a landmine can actually be a good thing is that the people who do self-harm and abuse substances are simply "bad apples" in the landmine community. if they're not treated as the dirty underside, then they're seen as things to be pitied and sympathized with, but with the quick disclaimer of "don't worry though, not all landmines are like this!"

not only is this incredibly ableist, but this assumption being made by mainly white influencers is also rooted in the historical development of racism against asian people, particularly in the united states. if you've heard of the model minority myth, one of the biggest issues with it is that it heavily generalizes asian people as being well-mannered, good-natured, and upstanding citizens. as a result, anyone who seems to fall out of this generalization is deemed an "untrustworthy foreigner" and appears as nonexistent through a romanticized lens. this exact situation can be applied to how people tend to treat the issues surrounding the jirai kei trend. the japanese girls who are faking and/or making fun of mental instability for the sake of online popularity are suddenly being glorified as these ideal representations of jirai kei to be palatable to the western world. meanwhile, the people who are considered by many to be part of the lowest rungs of society and are actually getting this term thrown at them pejoratively are treated as an afterthought and not representative of what people overseas want jirai kei to mean. it's even to the extent where native japanese people using girly kei or being uncomfortable with jirai kei are immediately assumed to be faking their ethnicity or their japanese-speaking skills, something that many foreigners have actually done in an attempt to claim authority over jirai kei's usage. since the reality of the trend is so uncomfortable to many, people think that it's best to simply disregard it or dumb down its impact when that changes nothing. what has avoiding the topic of discrimination and fetishization ever done for anyone?

the last thing i want to point out is that, even if reclamation of the term was in progress, it would not be happening the way that some seem to think it is. if the term was being reclaimed, we would not have people (both overseas and in japan) still acting like the stereotype for tons of likes, namely by taking pictures of themselves in girly kei next to cans of pink monster while sitting on the sidewalk with someone handing them money. that is an actual image i've seen, and if that doesn't tell you that there's a problem, i'm not sure what else will.

#rise and shine #jfashion #japanese fashion #jirai kei #jirai onna #girly kei #alt fashion #alternative fashion

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