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halsteadlover · 8 months

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𝐒𝐭𝐚𝐲 𝐖𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐌𝐞

*Gif not mine credits to the owner*

• Pairing: Will Halstead x Female!Reader.

• Requested by @klovesreading: I was wondering if you could do a story where the reader is married to Will but is a detective with Jay and is really close with Jay. But one day a case goes bad and the reader gets shot and almost dies and just a lot of angst but the reader survives in the end!

• Warnings: mention of blood, drugs, gunshots, tiny bit of angst and swearing.

• Word count: 5018.

• A/N: this is my first Will Halstead fic and it’s ugly as fuck, I don’t like one bit how it turned out 😭 you can actually notice I didn’t want to write anything else but I know if I kept going it would’ve ended up being so much longer than this so here is this piece of shit. I hope you’ll like it anyway but please bear with me 😭 comment, like and reblog if you want. I love you all so much ❤️

You, Will and Jay had been good friends for as long as you could remember.

The three of you grew up in the same neighborhood, your families being friends for a very long time. They were like big brothers to you or, at least, only one of them was.

You never managed to hide the crush you had on the redhead since you were a teenager, no one missed this detail – not even Jay who never wasted time teasing you about your crush on his brother – only Will seemed to not to see it.

You spent years of your adolescence and youth pining for him, trying to suppress your feelings knowing he didn't feel the same. You tried to move on, you had some boyfriends but it always ended the same way: you leaving them because you could never completely get Will out of your head. And as time passed you had resigned yourself to it, accepting you’d never be anything other than best friends.

There was a time when the three of you drifted apart, Will had gone to medical school, Jay had joined the army and left to go overseas and you spent a lot of time training to get in the police academy.

But fate really seemed to work in wonderful ways.

You thought you’d never reconnect with the Halstead brothers again but this was proven wrong when one day you met Jay at the police academy. You were a patrol cop with about two years of experience and he had just joined the Chicago PD after returning from his mission overseas.

And just like that you learned that Will had recently returned to Chicago and started working at Med's. It was as if time had never passed for the three of you, returning to having the deep bond that had united you since childhood.

But just as you thought your love for Will had somehow passed, it was enough for you to spend just a day with him to understand those deep feelings had never faded and that Will would forever be in your heart.

As time passed though, Will realized he was starting to look at you differently, continually craving your company. He didn't know when it happened or how it happened but he found himself inexorably losing his mind for you, in a way that shouldn't have happened with his best friend.

So for an amount of time you found yourselves lusting for each other from afar without either of you growing any balls and confessing your feelings.

The turning point came when the morning after spending a night at the bar and drinking too many shots and cocktails, you woke up in Will's bed with only a sheet covering your body. You were both too drunk the night before to remember what had happened but that blurry sexual encounter didn’t only happen once.

In fact after this rendezvous, it was as if a magnetic force attracted both of you and no matter how much you both fought it, one way or another you ended up having sex at one or the other's house.

Jay's teasing was pure torture as he could see from miles away that something really had happened between the two of you.

It was Will who confessed his love first, in the grip of emotions and no longer able to pretend you were just friends with benefits for even a second. You told him it took him a long time and that you loved him madly too, and the rest was history.

So here you were several years later, married to the love of your life and living the fairy tale you've always dreamed about.

“Babe please…” you sighed, eyes half closed as his lips worked their magic on that particular spot on your neck. You had to go to work but that seemed to take a backseat as your mind was completely dazzled by the hurricane that was your husband.

His arms wrapped around your hips and his hands went down to your ass, which they squeezed and groped without any shame. That made you sigh as you wrapped your arms around his neck, threading your fingers through his soft hair and pulling it lightly.

“Fuck,” he hissed, making him lose the last bit of control he had in his body and you grinned knowing how much he liked it when you pulled his hair. Before you could say or do anything, his lips had captured yours in a deep, passionate kiss as you took slow steps towards the bed

You both fell onto the mattress, bouncing slightly and you both let out a laugh before kissing again, him on top of you. It didn't take long for both of you to undress and throw all your clothes on the floor, losing yourself inexorably in each other.

Needless to say, you arrived at Intelligence incredibly late, thanking all the angels in heaven when you realized Voight hadn't arrived yet by the time you entered the unit.

“Why were you late?” Jay asked as soon as you arrived, handing you a cup of coffee he had set aside for you. He only had to look at you for his question to be answered, the stupid smile on your lips clearer than sunlight. “Actually never mind, don't answer. You're disgusting.“

“Hey! First of all you asked and second, go talk to your brother, he’s always so insatiable,” you replied with the sole purpose of annoying the younger Halstead. You succeeded in your aim when an expression of pure disgust and horror appeared on his face.

“You make me sick I don't want to know about you having sex with my brother for God's sake!” He exclaimed as you continued to laugh out loud.

You and Jay were now detectives and members of the Intelligence Unit for quite some time and as luck would have it, Voight even assigned you as partners. It was great to work with a friendly face, to have someone to deal with all the shit that humanity presented, to be there for each other when the other felt like everything was too hard to handle.

You and Jay continued to have a little banter but that little idyllic moment was interrupted when Voight entered the unit with Sergeant Platt and from their expressions you immediately understood they didn’t bring any good news.

Badly cut drug was circulating through the Chicago streets, causing numerous overdose victims, and there was pressure to get this case solved immediately.

Something told you this case would take much longer than necessary, so you took advantage of every free moment to text Will and update him on the evolution of the situation.

Will was afraid he’d be committed to Dr. Charles' psych ward sooner or later due to the stress your and Jay's job brought him.

He couldn't help but feel the anxiety eating his stomach up every time you told him you had some kind of field operation to do. It was a horrible feeling, having no idea what was going on out there, not being able to protect you or his brother if something horrible happened.

Every single day was a prayer. He prayed you both would come home safely, he prayed he could hug you both again at the end of each shift.

He tried not to give too much weight to his paranoid thoughts and convince himself it was only his sense of protection speaking. You and Jay were more than capable of defending yourselves even in dangerous situations, Will knew that, but that didn't make it any easier.

Many times he had wondered why neither you nor Jay had opted for a safer career, so he wouldn't risk a heart attack every time you left the house. You could’ve been teachers, or cooks, coaches, anything, but no, you both had to choose one of the most dangerous professions in the world. And so he didn't have to worry about his wife or just his brother's, but both.

His heart could only bear it to a certain extent.

And that day was no different when you texted him you and Jay were on your way to question a suspect.

Knowing you were in the district would calm him down a little since you were safe there, but knowing you were both out there with the risk of dying just around the corner was pure torture.

“How much you wanna bet he’ll run away as soon as he sees us?” You asked Jay as you got out of the car and walked towards the driveway of the house where the suspect was supposed to be. He wasn't directly involved with the drugs but, after the team started the investigations, you discovered he knew who was indeed involved and both you and Jay were determined to find out who that person was.

“Nah I pass, I know for sure this will happen so let’s just get ready to do some running,” he replied and you laughed before knocking twice loudly on the door.

“Chicago PD! Open up!” You exclaimed and you and Jay waited a few moments in which there was nothing but silence.

Jay moved away from the door and went to the window to check if there was actually anyone inside and you knocked again with two more loud thuds. “Open the door we just want to talk!”.

What happened was so quickly you wouldn't have been able to tell it if someone had asked you.

The suspect you were supposed to question – a guy in his mid-twenties – opened the door but you had your guard down so you couldn’t react as quickly as you wished. You saw him hold the gun and point it at you, you had tried as quickly as possible to take your gun from its holster but before you could do so a shot had already been fired and a bullet had already passed through your abdomen.

As you said, everything happened quickly.

The bullet shot immediately triggered Jay who quickly pulled out his gun and only then realized with pure horror you had been shot.

Before he could attempt to shoot the suspect, the bastard had already run away at the speed of light even if at that moment Jay didn't care.

He ran towards you and picking you up he dragged you away from the porch of that house, not wanting to run the risk that someone else might shot at you, and he carried you behind your car.

“Hey, hey, hey it's okay, don’t move. Everything's going to be okay, you hear me Y/n? You’ll be fine,” He tried to reassure you, to no avail as you had a bullet in your abdomen and were bleeding profusely, before immediately calling for help as panic coursed through his veins.

You were still shocked even as you lifted your head for the asphalt and saw your wound bleeding more than it should have. You tried to cover it with your hands but Jay did it for you, after taking a jacket he had in the car and pressing it to the wound.

“Shit,” you hissed. The pain was excruciating, even if the adrenaline helped to dull the sensation a little. A flood of emotions overwhelmed you, panic, fear, confusion. Your eyes looked around frantically as if to try to convince your mind you were still alive, that everything was going to be okay.

“Help is on the way Y/n, please hold on okay? You’ll be fine I’m sure,” Jay continued to babble, more to himself than to you.

“It-it hurts…” you stuttered, closing your eyes for a few moments as you felt your heart pounding in your chest.

“Hey, hey, hey, don't you dare fall asleep, just hang on for a minute. Please… Everything will be fine...“ he kept repeating.

But his voice began to reach your ears far away. That warm, burning sensation coursing through your abdomen was starting to fade and the weakness was instead starting to take over you. You were fighting so hard to try and stay awake, even though you were in that state you knew this didn’t mean anything good.

“Y/n!” Suddenly you heard Jay's voice and your eyes widened. You didn't even realize you had closed them.

“Jay can you believe…” you winched “Can you believe for just one second I will live?” You continued trying to smile seeing the way Jay was looking at you. You saw him so scared and worried for other few times in your life, and if it hadn't been for the bullet, you would probably have made fun of him.

“Of course you’l live Y/n, of course I believe it. Who will make my life a living hell if you're gone?”.

You giggled at those words. “L-look at my little brother-in-law worrying about me,” you whispered, as you got weaker with each second that passed. Your eyelids felt heavy, you were struggling to keep your eyes open, or even just to speak.

Your mind was racing, a thousand thoughts were invading it, which was in stark contrast to your physical state as you struggled to even lift your hands.

But the first thought was your husband, your beloved Will. How would he react? What would’ve he said? You hated the thought of not being the first to tell him, to comfort him knowing how worried he would be.

“No of course I’m not,” Jay replied, letting out a sound of mock disdain, making you smile weakly again. “I'm just worried about Will, I don’t care about you. I know he’s going to fucking kill me once he’ll find out.”

You tried to let out a laugh but a cough stopped it.

You fought for Will above all, because you refused to leave like this, to give up right when you were living the life of your dreams with the love you had wanted for so long. But in that moment, as your strength slowly left your body as quickly as your blood spread across the asphalt, you needed him so much.

You wanted Will, you wanted him to hold your hand, you wanted him to whisper it was going to be okay and you’d be fine in no time, you wanted him to hug you and make you forget all the pain and fear that was paralyzing you, you wanted to run a hand through his hair and tell him to calm down when he’d freak out.

And you really tried to resist.

But you were tired, so exhausted, you just wanted to be able to rest a little.

And that was exactly how you let yourself slip into the darkness of oblivion, the last thought being Will's eyes.

“Y/n? Hey! Please don't play with me right now,” Jay shook your shoulders slightly when he realized you had closed your eyes. “I know you're joking, just wake up it’s not funny.”

But nothing, he didn't receive any response.

And after several attempts to wake you up he had to accept you had lost consciousness and you weren't joking at all.

He looked around waiting for the damn ambulance to arrive and when he finally saw it from afar, he thought it was a mirage, too good to be true.

Meanwhile Will was unaware of everything that was happening out there, that his world was collapsing on him without even realizing it.

“Your tests came back normal but we'll keep you here for observation for another couple of hours just to make sure everything is fine, and we'll keep you hydrated in the meantime, okay?”.

“Okay, thank you so much Dr. Halstead.”

Will gave the lady lying on the bed a smile before leaving her room and closing the door behind him. He sanitized his hands and walked over to the nurses' station where he took the patient's medical records, updating her tests and treatment.

He couldn't help but take his cell phone from his uniform pocket, noticing with disappointment there was no message from you. He let out a sigh, trying to stay calm and convince himself he was just overreacting even if anxiety was gripping his stomach.

He put down the patient’s chart he had just seen, playing with the ring on his ring finger while a nurse informed him of the arrival of another patient who was already waiting for him.

If only he had waited a few seconds longer, if only he hadn't immediately entered that room, he would’ve seen that the person who had just entered the emergency room, unconscious, was the very last person he would’ve ever wanted to see in those circumstances, the person whose safety he worried about night and day, one of the people he loved most in the world.

Jay couldn't reach you at the hospital right away since he was waiting for Voight's orders on what to do but nevertheless he didn't stop thinking about you for a second and hoping that you were still alive.

Will treated the patient who came to the hospital following a chainsaw accident while chopping wood. With the help of a nurse, he sutured and dressed the fairly deep cut on the patient's leg while in the next room Connor and the rest of the team worked to revive you from the cardiac arrest you had just fallen into.

It took about twenty minutes for him to finish treating the patient, who he recommended to return to check the wound and assigned medicines in case of infection or pain. When he left the room, he did again what he had done earlier: disinfect his hands and update the medical records.

“Woah, what happened in there?” Will asked one of the new nurses that had recently started working when his gaze fell on the now room.

He saw the state in which that room was, copious traces of blood stained the floor on which numerous bright red patches were scattered, soaked in the same blood of the victim he thought he didn't know. The defibrillator was nearby and positioned crookedly on its trolley indicating it had been used and Will hoped that whoever it was, had managed to survive.

“A gunshot victim, bad story. She went into cardiac arrest twice but they were able to revive her and Dr. Rhodes just took her to the OR,” explained the nurse who, being new, didn't know that said victim was his superior's wife.

Will nodded, looking away from the room for a second before handing her the patient’s medical record he had just seen and putting the pen back in his white coat’s pocket.

He took out his cell phone again, noting with equal disappointment that no message had arrived from you. He sighed again before putting it down and his gaze fell on that room again.

His gaze fell on the victim's objects which were in a transparent bag placed on one of the bedside tables next to the now absent bed. He didn't want to snoop but curiosity got the better of him and he thought maybe he could help track down the family.

His heart almost stopped when he recognized your clothes in that bag.

“What the fuck?” He whispered as his brain struggled to process what he was seeing. There was a police badge, among other items. Anxiety gripped his stomach in a vice, twisting it until he almost felt like he was going to throw up.

“No, no, no, no,” he babbled to himself as his eyes continued to scan the numbers on the badge again and again.

It was yours.

No, it couldn't be true, there had to be an explanation. There had to be a reason why your badge and clothes had to be there.

While his heart continued to beat voraciously in his chest, Will continued to look among those objects. There was also the gun and a cell phone, yours.

His hands began to shake as all of his worst nightmares seemed to come true. He couldn't believe it, he just couldn't, until the very end he hoped there had been some kind of misunderstanding, that it was definitely someone else but for some strange reason they had managed to take your gun, badge, cell phone and even your bloody clothes.

But it was when he saw the ring that he felt as if a train had hit him. There was no doubt it was your ring, a ring that was stained with your own blood.

Will felt as if the ground had slipped beneath his feet, for a moment so out of his mind everything seemed to happen in a blur.

He immediately ran out of that damned room, making space among his colleagues and passers-by and running like a madman towards the ORs. He looked crazy, but he didn't care, he didn't care to stop and apologize to the people he was clashing with, he just wanted to reach you.

This can't be true, please God.

He had to make sure, it couldn't really be happening.

He didn't even wash his hands before entering the OR, he simply took a surgical mask and placed it in front of his nose before entering where Connor was operating.

If Will had to describe how he felt, he would’ve said he felt like he was dying, that he felt the air stuck in his throat and his lungs collapsing. He felt his legs give way and had to lean on the doorframe leading to the OR to avoid falling on the floor.

It was you.

It was really you.

Unconscious and with a tube down your throat, but it was you.

“Why the fuck didn't anyone call me!” Will almost shouted, his hands shaking with fear and anger, holding back the desire to run to you and grab your hand since he wasn't sterile.

“Will, get out of here,” Connor replied, looking up from your open abdomen for just a second so he could look at his friend and the desperation he had on his face.

“How is she? Connor please tell me something,” the redhead begged as his eyes filled with tears.

“Will. Out. Now.”

“I'm not going anywhere until you tell me how you she is. She's my fucking wife, I'm her husband! I have to know!”.

“This is exactly why you can't stay here! I can't operate if you're here and I'm trying to save her fucking life so get out of my OR immediately!” Rhodes exclaimed loudly, feeling guilty for the tone he had used since Will was only worried about you, but thinking it was necessary. He looked up at one of the nurses and nodded at him at which he nodded back and walked over to Will, inviting him to come outside.

“Don't fucking touch me,” Will spat through gritted teeth, his eyes shining before walking out of the OR.

He slumped against the wall and slid down until he was sitting on the floor, legs bent and elbows resting on his knees while he had his hands on his face.

What the fuck happened?

It was unbelievable, he couldn't process it.

How did you go from making love that same morning to you having surgery a step from the death?

Where the fuck was Jay? Why wasn't he there?

Will let out a sob, praying with all his heart that at least his brother was okay. God only knew he wouldn't be able to survive if Jay got hurt too.

“Will!”.

But when he heard Jay's voice calling him out, a wave of relief washed away some of the anguish that had been plaguing him. Will stood up and saw Jay running towards him. He hugged him, in tears, holding him so tight his bones almost broke.

“What the hell happened Jay? Where the fuck were you? Why didn’t you call me? You okay?” Will peppered him with questions, taking a look at his brother and noticing with horror the blood staining his shirt.

“I'm fine… I-I'm so sorry Will, this shouldn't have happened I…” Jay blathered, also scared to death even though he knew what he was feeling was nothing compared to how Will must’ve going through at that moment. He told him what had happened. “How is she?”.

Will shook his head, as if to tell him he didn't know, and collapsed, letting himself go into tears full of terror, fear, fright. Jay wrapped an arm around his shoulders and helped him sit down, trying in vain to comfort him.

What would he have done if you hadn't survived? How could he go on with his life if you weren't there?

He didn't even want to imagine it, he didn't want to find answers to these questions because there actually weren't any answers. Will couldn't be without you.

He had known you since they were only a few years old, he had grown up with you, he had laughed, he had cried, he had fun with you, he had confided to you his deepest secrets, his deepest fears, he couldn't even think of not being able to do all this anymore. He remembered your friendship with so much warmth and joy before falling in love with you without even realizing it.

You made him happy, you understood him, you were his best friend, his lover, his wife, his confidant. Loving you felt like winning the lottery, marrying you was the most beautiful gift life could ever give him, he couldn't even think that all this was hanging by just a thread.

What would he have done without your laugh, your horrible jokes, without your smile, your eyes, the warmth of your hugs? How was he going to survive?

No, no, no, she’s going to be fine. She will be okay.

You were strong, one of the strongest people he had ever met in his life, there was no difficulty you wouldn't have solved, there was no obstacle you wouldn't have overcome. If anyone could do this it was you, Will knew you were going to be okay.

He jumped up, no longer able to sit still. Time seemed to stand still, passing so slowly that every minute was pure agony.

“Will…”

“Shut up Jay!” Will exclaimed loudly, not caring about other people. Jay remained silent as he stood up as well, letting his brother vent. “Where the fuck were you! You were supposed to protect her why weren't you there?!”

Will was not thinking clearly anymore because of the anger, not anger directed towards Jay – he knew it wasn’t his fault but only of the bastard that pulled the trigger.

He approached Jay and pushed him but Jay didn't react, his heart actually clenched as he saw the suffering Will was going through. He would probably have reacted the same way if his wife was fighting between life and death.

“If anything happens to her Jay… Fuck!”.

Jay raised a hand and shook his head when one of the doctors passing by tried to intervene, telling him he had everything under control.

“She’ll be fine brother. C'mon, this is Y/n, we know her, there’s nothing that woman can’t do.”

“How do you know huh?!” Will exploded, running his hands through his hair in frustration and desperation.

“I just know Will, she’ll make it, I'm sure of it,” Jay replied more calmly, moving closer to his brother. This time he was the one to hug him although Will resisted for a while, telling him to let him go. Jay didn't do it, he continued to hug him and hold him until he gave up and returned the hug.

Will cried on Jay's shoulders for the longest time, praying with every fiber of his being and whoever was up there to make you survive, to make you okay.

“I just want her back…” he whispered, not sure if Jay had heard him.

Jay helped him sit back down. “And you’ll get her back, just have a little faith. She is so strong man, do you really think she’ll leave us like this? C’mon, she has to be here and annoy us for the rest of our lives.”

Will chuckled through his tears, his eyes so blurry he couldn't make out the objects in front of him. He and Jay sat in that waiting room, waiting for hours to hear from you as he kept desperately praying.

Will sat with his head in his hands and his elbows on his knees while he continued to move a leg obsessively.

He had always tried to calm the patients' families, never fully understanding how they must really feel. But now that he knew, he felt guilty for not trying harder.

Please stay with me baby. Please just hang on for a little bit, please fight for us.

He had never understood what it felt like to be completely useless, what it felt like to be unable to do anything for the person you loved most in the world, to be unable to do anything to prevent that person from suffering.

He had always sworn to protect you, to not let anything hurt you and he felt like a failure for not being able to do this. He wished that damned bullet had hit him, that it had been him on the operating table having to fight for his life.

At every slightest noise he jumped, hoping it was Connor bringing good news but when he finally actually saw him appear in front of him, he feared it was just a hallucination.

Connor approached Will and Jay who jumped to their feet as soon as they saw him arrive.

“How did it go? Is she okay? Please tell me he's okay, Connor,” Will stammered, his heart beating so fast he thought he was going to have a massive heart attack.

“It was tough but she did well. The bullet had hit an artery and I managed to extract it but she lost a lot of blood and the next few hours will be delicate. But I'm pretty optimistic and she'll make a full recovery.”

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telomeke-bbs · 11 months

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BAD BUDDY – WHO ARE YOU REALLY, NONG NAO?

I had never thought much about Nong Nao in Bad Buddy, dismissing Pat's favorite comfort object – a puppet of undefined genealogy and gender – as just another prop/device to highlight Pat's kid-at-heart nature.

But now I think there's just a tiny bit more to Nong Nao than meets the eye, if you look a little closer. What we learn also tells us more about Nong Nao's owner Pat (and it's not all light-hearted fun when it comes to the fore).

The Thai words for Nong Nao (I got this from the GMMTV online shop, linked here) are น้องเน่า, and running this through the online dictionaries turns up some interesting information.

The word nong (น้อง), as everybody knows now, is a term of address for someone younger than you (that also carries connotations of familiarity and informality). Most often employed for younger siblings, it can also be used in relationships where there is an older + younger sibling dynamic (e.g., between friends, seniors and juniors in school and university, sometimes at work too). And of course it can also be used as a term of endearment between two romantic partners, especially when the nong is younger and gives off babygirl energy.

The word nao (เน่า) actually means rotten or decayed. So one way to read Nong Nao is Rotten Little One, which helps to explain the doll's jumbled, Frankensteinishly patchworked appearance. But remembering that nong is also used for friends – another way to read Nong Nao is Rotten Little Pal. And tell me now, doesn't that sound more than just a little coincidentally like… Bad Buddy?

What this seems to be telling us is that Nong Nao must be the doll-pillow counterpart for the real bad buddy in Pat's life – Pran Parakul Siridechawat. Although you wouldn't really have needed to know this to have worked out that Nong Nao can easily be seen as a Pran-substitute in BBS.

Pat refers to Pran as the Nong to his Phi or Hia a couple of times in Bad Buddy (e.g., at Ep.10 [3I4] 18.50 and 19.56) and they themselves joke about Pran being Nong Nao/Nong Noo at Ep.8 [3I4] 6.30. Also, when Pran manages to fend off Pat's romantic thrusts during their Ep.7 courtship competition with gigil/geram-inducing parries, Pat's instinctive reaction is to vent his frustrations out on none other than poor little Nong Nao, his stand-in for Pran (see Ep.7 [1I4] 17.11).

But I think Nong Nao's significance goes deeper than just reminding Pat of Pran. We're also allowed a look into Pat's psychological interior, especially when we contrast his relationship to Nong Nao against what we know about Pran.

If I'm reading this right, I think Pat's comfort object Nong Nao is also the parallel to Pran's comfort object – his PP hobo bag.

The double P on Pran's faithful tote can be seen as a single P hiding a smaller one at its center, just the way Pran was nursing an unseen, unspoken crush on Pat in his heart for years (written up here).

And we saw how Pran, when out and about, would rarely be seen without this emotional crutch that he would clasp to his person as some sort of psychological armor against the external world.

This makes sense, especially when we see how introverted Pran put in so much effort to build up walls against the outside, much preferring the solitude and psychological stillness of his own inner world, desolate as it might have been (see this write-up here for more analysis).

But Pat in many ways is the opposite of Pran, and nowhere is this more immediately visible than in his extroversion. Pat's energy is directed outward and (after Ep.1 and Pran's return) he is often, if not always, full of sunshine and jovial smiles in the company of others (not when the situation is sad or threatening of course, but definitely when it is at least neutral, if not happy).

A clear example of this would be the scene at the Jae Si Curry House starting at Ep.2 [2/4] 0.18 – Pran's demeanor at the Archi boys' table is so serious and buttoned-up, compared to Pat's hearty laughs and unguarded body language at the Engine boys' table (and BBS also takes a highlighter pen to this with Pran inside under shelter while Pat is outside in the open). 🤩

So for extrovert Pat, being out in the world is his comfort zone, and is also why in Ep.8 he couldn't stop himself from posting little photos on Instagram hinting at their love affair with the hashtag #JustFriends (see Ep.8 [4/4] 0.56), much to secretive Pran's chagrin.

However, what BBS only quietly suggests (without showing it to us directly) is that Pat doesn't seem to do so well when it's just him alone. He says at Ep.7 [2/4] 5.46 "I can’t sleep if I don’t have Nong Nao in my arms", which at first I took to be solely a ruse to get Pran over to his apartment. But now I think it hints of more, that extrovert Pat's inner world is not really a place he likes to inhabit, unlike introvert Pran who takes refuge in his internal sanctuary.

With regard to Nong Nao's age, Pran refers to the doll-pillow as neither new nor old, but "oldish" (see Ep.7 [2/4] 5.43). So it's not a relic from Pat's early childhood, which would be about a decade and a half prior (and Nong Nao's appearance also aligns with this).

I'm only guessing, but it would seem that Pat took to needing Nong Nao to help him fall asleep maybe in his early teens or just before? This would be around the time when an individual starts questioning their identity and how it relates to their sense of self.

I think what BBS shows us is that Pran has a pretty strong grip on his own mindset and identity. His inner world can't have been the most comfortable, but it was comfortable enough for him because it was the single source of truth about himself and reassuring in its unchanging nature (see this write-up here).

On the other hand Pat's innermost self, at least before he coupled up with Pran, must have been quite a different environment. From childhood Ming had pushed his son to be a proxy in his battle with the Siridechawats, and the naturally-open and loving Pat was taught, maybe even forced against his better instincts, to "hate" Pran next door (using own word from Ep.10 [4/4] 10.32).

So when in the world outside, Pat was fully sure of himself and his role there. But when it was just him alone, his outside self wouldn't have gelled with his internal reality and must have caused him all sorts of unease and uncertainty.

For how can you be comfortable and secure in your own company, when you are in some ways a stranger to yourself, and you don't truly recognize who you are? Within his inner confines, Pat would have been seeing diverse versions of himself juxtaposed and jostling for centerstage, and to have had these different, seemingly-familiar faces haunting your (sub- or semi-) consciousness would likely have been a scarily disorientating scenario in one so young.

And when Pran was sent away, teen Pat no longer had Pran's company and counsel, and no more tin-can phone calls right before bedtime to comfort him and keep him safe from whatever demons lurked in the darkness whenever it was just him alone in his world.

It's not surprising that Nong Nao would have been a tremendous comfort to Pat, because this reminder of his unadulterated friendship with Pran, borne from his true self and unpolluted by Ming's influence, was also a reminder of his true nature and identity in his head, where other renderings of Pat planted by Ming also had to co-exist like various ghostly beings, animated but not true to life.

What terrors must plague your night-time dreams, that you have to clutch a little stand-in babyghoul, appropriately monsterish as a shield against the monsters haunting your loneliest moments – and the horror only multiplies when you realize that the monsters are various versions of you?

How tragic is that, not to know your own heart, or to feel safe alone with it?

Maybe this is why for most of BBS, Pat is shown to us as being out of touch with his inner self (e.g., he could not tell that his incipient romantic feelings were for Pran and not Ink). I can see him escaping into the day as much as he could, fleeing from the darkness within – and when he had no choice at night, he had to have Nong Nao/Bad Buddy/Pran clutched to his front as armor. (But it appears that he could not escape things entirely, and the darkly-frowning Pat of Ep.1 [1I4] 1.08, devoid of Pran and beset by demons, is our first view of him before Pran comes back into his life.)

Pran was the original savior in BBS, when he saved Pa from drowning in Ep.1. He may not have known it, but I think he saved Pat too – from himself and the monster he had become. For it was Pran who helped Pat to see who he really was inside – someone open-hearted and capable of loving truly, not just some ghostly shell programmed only to hate the boy next door.

But just as Pran remained loyal to his PP bag throughout BBS, Pat never abandoned Nong Nao either, even when the little stitched-up imp no longer had to understudy for Pran in Pat's life after they became a couple, and even after Pat settled into knowing himself for who he truly was.

And I think this is because – even with Pran in his life as partner, soulmate and protector of his heart – our big-hearted boy with so much love to give isn't ever going to forsake any reminder of Pran Parakul Siridechawat, and will hold him tightly to his heart physically and figuratively, for all the rest of his life. 💖‌

#bad buddy #nong nao #patpran #pat napat jindapat #pran parakul siridechawat

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paigelts05 · 2 years

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FNAF Renegade AU designs: RD robotics

https://www.deviantart.com/paigelts05/art/FNAF-Renegade-AU-designs-RD-robotics-864598021

Published: Dec 20, 2020

So, I designed some of the charaters from the FNAF AR emails a while ago, but I missed a bunch that seemed like they weren't from the same company. Looks like it's design time. For Nora and Tristan, I knew what I wanted: angry tiny woman shin breaker and tall lanky string bean who wants the earth to swallow him whole. I had to rush Tristan's colour scheme, and yes I've been working on this since a bit before October, so made him Daniel Rocha's brother and worked his colour palette from there. As for Nora, well, as of October 7th, I decided the hair colour to be green. She's the green one of this bunch. Izzy was a bit harder to design, but I settled on a kind and soft woman. Charles was a pain in the neck, and it took me ages to figure out a hair style, but I had his motives set down to a T- that being someone whose just there to make money because he's broke af and bearly scraping by, and animatronics was where the money was at - from the get go. As for colours, I already kind of knew what Izzy was going to be from the get go, but Charles? No clue. I eventually managed to figure something out though. °•:*:•°•:*:•°•:*:•=°•.🌹.•°=•:*:•°•:*:•°•:*:•° This group makes up R&D robotics. They work closer with Fazbear Entertainment, recreating the machines from the 80's and 90's and bringing them to life in the modern world. When they took the contract, they weren't initially aware of the danger they were in. As it's a small company, no-ones role - aside from Charles's - is usually set in stone, so one day, someone could be the whole compliance team, and the next, they're on circuit board installation duty, teh next, who knows. On the plus side, they've all become firm friends. Sometimes, emails aimed at Fazbear Entertainment's research and development divison mistakenly make their way to them, but they're still expected to handle it. Tristan: He's the backbone of this place. Whilst he usually works with Nora, making the animatronics, he's the guy who goes around making sure everyone takes breaks and doesn't do anything stupid - likely because he suffers from having so much empathy that second hand embarrassment could easily be the death of him. He's self-conscious about his height, and really dislikes the fact he has an inignorable presence. Whilst making machines is his main job, he also distributes notifications within the firm and sometimes to other firms that they're working alongside if applicable if Izzy is busy. Nora: She only looks short because she's always compared to Tristan. This results in people low-balling her age by between fifteen.and twenty years, dispite standing at five foot seven and a half inches; eye to eye with many normal people. Being 32, she finds this low-balling of her age very insulting, especially since she's Tristan's senior by three years. Likely because of this, she's a seething ball of rage who acts fast no matter how loud the result would be. When she's not angry, it's hard to tell, as she's loud anyway, but those who know her can tell. Also, she works on building animatronics, rotating between casing construction, endo skeleton creation, and other tasks as needed. Charles: The owner of R&D robotics. Handles the business and finance side. He may seem cold, but he's just always exhausted from putting 120% into his job to try and make ends meet - not just for himself, but for his workers too. He sometimes ignores his gut instincts if doing so would help him make ends meet. He frequently gets reminded by Tristan to take a break and that what he does for everyone is appreciated. Charles, in return, reminds Tristan that he needs to take a break too. Izzy: She is a gentle soul. Izzy mainly deals with correspondence and customers. She's usually the first to know everything, but as she's always busy with another customer, she usually relays what she needs to tell everyone to Tristan in order for him to tell everyone. Whilst correspondence is her main job, she usually winds up helping out Nora and Tristan if the emails stop flooding in. °•:*:•°•:*:•°•:*:•=°•.🌹.•°=•:*:•°•:*:•°•:*:•°

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libraford · 3 years

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I owe you all a story about kittens. But its about... a little more than kittens. It's a long one.

I want to tell you all about the kittens, which took place in 2019. But in order to do so, I have to take you back even further, to March of 2018, and concludes in 2021. Because it's about kittens, but it's also about business and all the things that can go wrong.

In March 2018, tragedy struck. The owner of the flower shop died unexpectedly, leaving the business to four capable managers. One of those managers was the man that had hired me, leaving a power vacuum at our location. Grandpa was not the first choice to take the lead, but she stepped up and she became manager. In my opinion, there was no better person for the role: she had only ever worked in the flower industry (assuming we're not counting the one week in 1976 when she worked at a pizza parlor,) and as such she knew the business inside and out.

Prior to this, she had taught all of the designers and practically ran the place when the boss was out, so it was the next logical step. And it was good.

Of course, we had our ups and downs. What I did not realize when I joined the flower shop is that the flower industry is volatile- there are so many variables that went into the creation of floral pieces and if there is one misstep you can be set back anywhere from a day to several thousand dollars. There are late deliveries, there are frightening brides, there are missing piñatas… van fires, flower snobs, color corrections, failed psychics, friends, enemies…

You can set the bar so very low and yet…

The rise and fall of drama at this particular flower shop could be dictated into hours and minutes because sometimes you need to hire people just to fill that space. Grandpa was on record by saying 'if they can walk, talk, and spell their name, hire them.' Even so, we were critically understaffed most of the time because if you hire anyone you're going to get a lot of quitters.

It's a tough cycle to break, and our power was limited.

And we had bigger fish to fry: we had an average of thirty funerals, two weddings, and well over six hundred deliveries per week. Business was booming and we just had to keep up- if you make it one week after the next it doesn't feel so bad.

By March of the following year, the four owners had whittled down to two: my former boss and the former webmaster. We had a district manager now, some kind of accounts position… things like that. It was kind of astonishing that before this, all the work had been done by a single man. But the secrets to his success had died with him.

Things were looking good, actually: the flower business was full of life! We were doing all kinds of special events, starting contracts with businesses and getting our name out there. Drama still plagued us, but as far as I'm aware, that's par for the course for flower shops.

Then, in May 2019, tragedy struck. A tornado ripped straight down the street of our headquarters, demolishing the greenhouse and the historical building that it all started in. No one was injured, but the damages were devastating. Despite all this, we kept working.

We worked hard. And hard. And hard.

And though the new warehouse wasn't slated to be finished until 2021, we reached an equilibrium where things were okay.

But before I get to that, I made a promise to you.

It was a hot day in August and I was walking into my closing shift at 10am. After two years of working with roughly the same people, you got to learning how to tell when something was happening. I walked in to everyone staring at me and acting 'natural.' It never looks natural.

In the back of the store, there was a box that Cherry was standing very purposely in front of.

"What's in the-"

"Sh!" Grandpa spied through the window in the cooler door as someone swung out with a purchase. "Did you find something you like," she asked the customer, trotting over to help him at the register.

"What's happening," I asked Blue.

"Nothings happening, it just kind of… happened."

"Blue… what does that MEAN?"

"There's a customer here, I can't talk about it."

I am bursting at the seams to know what's going on.

Grandpa fared the customer well and went back to her station behind the computer. "Open the box," she said.

Ominous, but okay. I go over to the box and Cherry steps aside. There's something moving inside the box and I wonder if Pam's daughter had folded herself into a box to ride out a panic attack again. I carefully opened the flaps of the box and accidentally disturbed the sleep of-

Four.

Tiny.

KITTENS!

Oh my god, it was the most adorable thing in the world and the poor things were screaming because they had only known the world for a few weeks and everything was strange and blurry and all they knew to do was cuddle for warmth and scream. The box consisted of two black kittens, one tuxedo kitten, and a white seal-point with terminal eye goop.

They immediately started climbing up my arm.

"Not that I'm not thrilled, but… why?"

"Stray cat left her babies out by my pond and wasn't just gonna leave the little fuckers," Grandpa said. The seal-point made it all the way up my shoulder to scream in my ear and stare at me with one clear blue eye. "That one's name is Pop-eye. He's my favorite."

"Jake doesn't get along with them," I surmised. Jake was Grandpa's Australian Shepherd. He was old, blind, deaf, and losing his sense of smell. And he was ornery.

"First thing he did was sit on Pop-eye. So they're gonna be at the shop during the day until we can get them all homed. Know anyone that needs a kitten?"

So, for awhile, we had shop cats. One of the all black twins had been claimed the very next day, but the rest of them were with us for some time. We got very good at feeding them all every hour on the hour and eventually they settled into accepting that 'mom' was seven different people.

In the meantime, we had to hide the three of them from visiting management.

This was not my first round with cat-related crimes.

The district manager, Puppet, was due to come for a visit any time that week. He was supposed to come once a month for a routine check in, and there were only ten days left in August. Likewise, we had to hide the kittens from the customers on the off chance that one of them was a secret shopper.

Backtracking once more to explain: the company had shelled out money to pay a third party to send secret shoppers to grade us on a rubric and also whatever they thought was appropriate. The grades were cleanliness, customer service, how knowledgeable we were of products, things like that. If we got above 90%, there would be a bonus in our next paycheck.

Sounds great, right?

The spies could decide that anything wasn't up to their standard. One woman went on and on about our 'black wall,' which was the outside of our cooler and I'm sorry but… that's not changing. There was a complaint that the table at the front used to showcase our bridal seemed out of place and odd. There dirt in the flower pots… where dirt goes. Corporate reads those comments.

So keeping the children out of sight of the customers and any visiting management became our priority.

'So just keep them in the break room,' I hear you, the reader, suggest.

If you've never owned cats, it is imperative for you to know that they are mostly comprised of spine, and only the smallest of openings will deter them from squeezing into parts unknown. Cats are semi-solids. Kittens are semi-solids with a sense of adventure and little tiny needles for fingernails.

And you can't just tape the box shut.

So… they got out. Well, two of them got out. The tuxedo awoke to find that her brothers had gone exploring without her and did the sensible thing, which was cry about it.

Mood.

I have named this cat Brood X Cicada. The black one can be named Abyss. I'm great at naming cats.

Lucky for us, they're only a few weeks old and walk kind of like little tin soldiers. It took all of five minutes to pry Pop-eye from a piece of Styrofoam and locate Abyss exploring an old toolbox. However, by the time I'm done cat collecting, Brood X Cicada had toddled off in search of her brothers and I'm out of hands to hold kittens in. I stuffed Abyss into my apron pocket and tried to save X from eating plastic.

It is at this moment that Cherry came in to tell me that Puppet the District Manager was on his way, and saw that I was helplessly juggling kittens. Abyss was climbing out of my pocket, eager to join his siblings in the high and exalted position that was my hands.

"We need these kittens out of here," I said. "Who hasn't been on lunch yet?"

Cherry dodged her head back into the workshop. "Hey Key, you been on lunch?" Pause. "You wanna go now?"

Key came into the back room and I handed her the box of kittens. "Take these, in your car. Go to burger King or something, I don't care. Puppet cannot see these. If anyone asks, you're on a route."

Key held the box and took a moment to appreciate the series of events that lead to her being handed a box of kittens in a 'Take this, don't ask questions' kind of matter.

Puppet was in the front door as Key was out the back and we successfully avoided a serious mistake. His visit was only an hour and she walked back in without anyone the wiser.

We made it through the big challenge, now to continue looking for homes for them. Ms. Crow found a friend of a friend of a friend that was excited to take Abyss from us. After some interrogating my friends, I found someone who knew someone who could take Pop-eye and Brood X Cicada. (They were renamed Hocus and Pocus.)

Grandpa cried for every single one of them that had to go. And I remembered my very first day of working there when she introduced herself as 'The Tinman.' What a liar, the softy.

Our days went on kitten-free, the management none the wiser.

It was December when I got the feeling that I should be taking photos of my work to build a portfolio. Something wasn't right, I felt. I couldn't say what it was that put me on edge, but I could only say that all was not well. I took photos of everything that I was proud of, and I was proud of a lot of things. By February, I had over fifty items that I could show off to a potential studio. And I thought- in March, I should start looking to see if other shops are hiring.

And in March 2020, tragedy struck. Our state went into lockdown on March 13, dictating that all non-essential businesses close and non-essential staff be laid off. There were two days where none of us knew what was happening, if we had jobs or if that job was safe.

They laid off all but three designers and Grandpa but kept most the drivers, changed our hours to 8-5, closed Sundays. Canceled weddings. No walk-ins. The three designers were Blue, Red, and me.

Blue was worried about her children. She resigned.

Red's wife was worried about him and harassed him into quitting.

And then there was one.

There's a series of poems I wrote in my journal about being an essential worker during lockdown. There's adorable little doodles of skeletons around the margins, festooned with flowers. They all go something like this:

We are the Skeleton Crew.

We once were seven but now are two

We don't know what to do

So we just work, work, work.

Many may wonder how a flower shop would be considered an essential business. The answer is funerals. We were allowed to remain open because of our relationship with the funeral industry. And sad to say: the industry was booming.

And I did all of it. I made every spray, every 'get well soon' vase, every 'happy quarantine' bouquet. I called angry brides to see if they could postpone, I dealt with everyone's grief and uncertainty.

All the flowers that arrived at US Customs through Italy were destroyed because we didn't know whether coronavirus was transmitted through physical contact and there's no way to sanitize flowers. Not without killing them.

It was me and Grandpa. That was it. Ten funerals a day, and everything else. Flowers were more important than ever: you couldn't be there, so you sent flowers. And flowers and flowers and flowers…

I couldn't leave now. I was important, I was needed.

The work became overwhelming for both of us and we began hiring back some of our staff. Some came back right away, bored out of their skulls having to spend time at home. Can't relate. Key never responded, Cherry was pregnant and shouldn't be out of the house.

Dandy came back, Kali came back, Astra came back. Eventually, Blue. After a month of just me and Grandpa, there was almost a full crew and it was enough for us to get through an average week. It took us a month on our bare knuckles but we finally weren't shouldering the responsibility of seven people.

But we still didn't know jack shit about the future there.

In May, the 'economy opened up,' which is a strategic way of saying that people got tired of never leaving the house and stores were pressured to open back up again before a vaccine was released under threat of… you know what? This isn't a story about how America responded to the coronavirus poorly and you can probably find a better thinkpiece about it written by someone with facts and feelings if you want to squeeze yourself behind a pay wall.

This is about workers rights and kittens, two things that are far more important than the economy.

We got 'Hero Pay,' which was two dollars extra per hour and damn did I grasp onto that with the tendons in my wrists. I had never been paid $12 an hour for anything in my life. They started talking about permanent raises, and benefits, 401K, pregnancy leave… and I started thinking… maybe I could stay. Maybe I can stay here for awhile and it won't be so bad now that I'm getting paid actual human wages. Maybe it will be okay.

Life returned to an uneasy normal while we navigated mask laws, sanitation regulations, safety screens, and daily temperature checks. There are stories to tell about some less than great customers we'd had as people realized that they weren't coping with the pandemic as well as they thought, but they deserve their own entries.

We had a revolving door of open positions. If it wasn't a designer it was a driver or both. People weren't ready to come back to work yet but we still had a business to run. People asked if they could perform this job remotely. I'm not sure how one does flowers from home.

It was August when we started feeling the roots of our problems seep into the foundation.

Grandpa's pride and joy was her funerals. She had spent thirteen years building a relationship with the funeral homes in the area to make sure they trust us and our work. If anything was wrong, even a hair out of place, they knew they could call us and have it fixed before the visitation.

"We want unity across the board on our products," Puppet said. "If you're doing the sprays one way and others don't look the same, it doesn't look very good for Oldman Funeral Home, which has locations in all our cities, does it?" He swept his bangs out of his eyes, which was strange tell but we weren't sure for what.

"Okay," Grandpa said. "Schedule a time for me to go down and I'll teach them the way we do them."

"Okay, then."

She went down, prepared to show the crew in the warehouse what 40 years in the business was capable of, only to be met with a strange kind of resistance.

Their head designer greeted her and immediately started instructing her on how he makes sprays. Grandpa, confused, blinked at him with no words. When he was finished, she picked up her clippers and began making her own.

"That's not how we do it," he said. She was met with criticism after criticism. "That's not enough flowers, you're putting them in wrong, you're still making it one-sided. Why did you put the bow there, this looks nothing like our products."

She stood back after his barrage of blows to the ego. "I guess I'm a little confused."

"I'll say."

"Am I teaching you or are you teaching me?"

"I'm teaching you," he said. "Since they're going to all be made here from now on, they want me to show you how we make them in case of emergency."

She let that simmer. "That's not what I was told."

"You didn't think you were supposed to show me how you do it, did you? That doesn't make any sense. Why would we want to look like yours?"

"Oh, I dunno… maybe because we've kept up 30 accounts for 13 years and your location just lost your very last one because you can't make their delivery times and they're across the damn street."

This was how we learned that corporate was planning on taking our funerals from us.

Funerals were something I was immensely proud of. My ability to turn out a thousand dollar funeral order with limited stock was a subject of envy. I could take a phone order, make the flowers, and the deliver it all by myself within an hour. I was good. We were all good. And we trained anyone that stayed longer than two months how to do this because we wanted every person to be able to fix any problem.

And they wanted to take that away from us.

And they did. Because who was going to stop them?

'But what does that matter to you,' I hear you, the reader, ask. 'Surely this meant less work for you!'

Ah, but for the sprays to get to us, they had to come on a truck. Making them in-house meant that we knew we had them. We had to put our trust in corporate to deliver the goods to us by 7 am or we would have to make them day of.

There were days when the truck didn't come, or where only half the pieces were delivered, or a spray got left in the workshop an hour away. At least once a week, often more.

But you know… we adapted. You just schedule more openers to make sure no one is doing it alone and hope to God that you have all the flowers you need to make it. Which you could never anticipate how many flowers you would actually need because them taking our funerals was supposed to reduce the amount of stock flowers we got as well.

Mornings were nightmares, but we adapted.

Another visit, Puppet told Grandpa that she should get all weekends off. All the other managers do. He suggested that I learn to run routes so she can have weekends, and I said okay. I'll learn it.

I got real acquainted with the map of Ohio, and I hated it. I was a weekend manager with no real managerial power. If someone needed a refund, I had to write a note for Grandpa to email the accounts manager because she wouldn't take requests from anyone that wasn't a manager. Everything just waited until Monday. What was the point of me? I couldn't design while managing and I couldn't fix what was broken, so why even have a weekend manager? Let the animals loose in the zoo and it probably would have been a better fit.

But I powered through. I adapted.

Throughout all this, spreadsheets. Spreadsheets, spreadsheets, spreadsheets. Completely pointless spreadsheets that we were bound to fill out all day every day. They had simple purposes: inventory. You filled one out to take count of the specials so you knew how many there were. Then you had to count again to put them in the system so that they knew how much we had. Then you had to go back and count them again and put that number in the computer so they knew how much to make and send tomorrow.

I spent an hour each day counting and recounting the flowers in the far-off and futile hope that the counts would remain accurate to the end of the day (which they did not because the call center consistently used the wrong codes) and that the stock would be replenished properly in the morning (it was not.)

An hour was lost each day to this and it accomplished nothing, yet they always yelled at Grandpa if the counts were off or it was late. Why stress a system that does jack shit?

And every time there was a new feature or there was a new… thing, oh look! Another goddamned redundant spreadsheet that served no purpose.

But we adapted. We created a rhythm.

Show up early at 6:30 to make sure everything got in, make everything that didn't, get the drivers routed, pull routes for the third party deliveries, process same-day orders, data entry for the funeral consolidated. Then at 7, when the phones start ringing…

Okay, so before I forget:

Instead of installing a new phone line and hiring a few more call center people like a normal company would, our headquarters decided it would save us money if call overflow rerouted to the next available phone line, regardless of which location the phone was at. So we would get calls for the Kentucky store asking questions about what that store has and for the sake of preserving confidence in our brand we were supposed to pretend that we were the Kentucky store. We're just supposed to know or assume to know what each store had in stock because there's no way that could ever backfire.

It was… another thing to yell at us for. And boy did they, because they were listening in on our calls. Not to like… coach us on how to do better, but to tell us we were wrong. Sometimes they would call one of us on the other line to tell someone currently on the main one that they said something wrong. They also would straight up lie and scold us for calls we didn't take. The phones system, was simply a mess.

...so when the phones started up at 7am, and one person is designing, one person is taking unending phone orders, Grandpa is doing damage control. By 8, we have most of last nights orders figured out and it's time to start on same day orders and tomorrow's orders. It's too early to do inventory now because they'll yell at us for doing it too early.

By 9 we have our second wave of same day orders and next day orders, the rest of the world realizes we're open and starts walking in. That requires the attention of an entire person. We're at this point also taking out trash, breaking down boxes, disinfecting, sweeping the cooler.

Typically, there were only two openers on any given day, which meant most of this was all being handled by Blue or me.

By 10 we've caught up, we can do the inventory now without getting yelled at by the four heads at corporate. We're on route #3 by now and someone probably had to go to the same place twice because the orders came in late.

At 11, a crisis has probably happened. Something dropped, something wilted, something wasn't what they imagined. Someone has to go fix it, and that someone was usually me because I knew my way around town better than the other transplants.

This typically returned me to the shop around 1pm, which meant it was time for lunch, bringing me to 2. 3 o'clock was the cutoff for any next day orders to be sent to corporate, which meant that if there were any funeral orders taken for the morning, they would have to be made in-house. This included sprays, which takes half an hour to an hour depending on how complicated it was and if we had the materials and how much else we needed to make for the next day. Or how busy we were.

There was always something called in at the last minute, taking us to 4 and then 5 o'clock, when the openers went home and the same-day orders were cut off.

But see, that was when we stopped taking orders, not when we stopped processing orders. So if an order was placed for the same day at 4:59, it may not go through until 5:30. And by 5:30, chances are you've sent your drivers home for the day. Which means calling the customer to apologize and explain why something can't be sent out today, and no one wants to hear that they fucked up by sending it out late.

So, on more than one occasion, I had to personally deliver flowers on my way home from work in my personal car, thirty minutes out of my way because if we miss a delivery by God will we hear about it. And it was always some damn $25 arrangement with 'God Loves You' written on the tag, hardly worth the gas to Johnstown.

The irony of it being delivered by the witch was lost on no one.

If that didn't happen and the screen was clear, the night was easy and all we had to do was clean up and watch the door.

Unless a last minute order for the next day came in, which was about half the time. All of this for $11 an hour. (Once they got rid of the Hero Pay, it went back down to $11.)

That was an average, unexciting day for us. You got used to those kinds of stresses, but every day I came home and I was so tired and sore that I couldn't move. I started walking with a cane, had a low-grade fever most days, and my hands looked like I'd taken to them with a cheese grater.

But I powered through. I adapted.

Then it was December. The owners had always been generous with Christmas bonuses, handing everyone an envelope of cash. Mine was $500. This was the largest amount of cash that anyone had ever handed me (feel bad for me later.)

And then it was Grandpa's turn, but there were no envelopes left. It had to be a mistake, she thought. She didn't get paid very much for all the work she put into the shop, so she was counting on that bonus to buy presents for her grandchildren. It… it… had to be a mistake, right?

"I didn't get a bonus," she said. "I thought the accountability didn't take effect until January," she said to Puppet.

Before he opens his mouth again, I have to explain yet another thing.

In September, there was a meeting. Now that we were working on benefits and bonus programs and other things to make sure the staff stays, they needed to put in accountability measures for the managers. Effective January 1, managers are reflected by the income of their store, the number of returns, accidents in company vehicles, and high turnover rates.

Pick one of those attributes and decide its bullshit to begin with, and I'm about to show you the entire steer.

"We had to make an example of someone," he said. "So that the other managers know we're serious."

She was being personally punished for a car wreck that happened in 2019 even though she fired the guy that was in it. We had too many returns, he said, but most of them were sent to us from corporate. She was personally held responsible for the high turnover rate during an economic crisis AND a goddamned pandemic… because they needed to make an example out of someone.

And her grandkids didn't get presents this year because of it.

She cried. The last time I saw her cry was when we were saying goodbye to the kittens. It's not the same.

But she got up every day and listened to them scream at her while we counted and counted and recounted the fucking Christmas specials because the numbers weren't right and we couldn't make them right because someone in the call center couldn't figure out the codes and in their eyes it was our fault, too- we had to be stealing the flowers or something.

"It sucks and then its over," she said. It was how she dealt with holidays: "It sucks and then its over."

We were all angry for her. I got asked to go to the headquarters and help them mass produce more fucking specials and I offered the beat them up for her and she told me not to get involved. Head down, do the work, get it done.

One of the call center girls died of a heart attack a few days before I was due to help them mass. We were supposed to go to her funeral, but we all missed it because there was so much work to do.

Wait, let me back up… again. The company gave us all life insurance. The number we were quoted on our life insurance policy was $10,000, which seems like a lot but in the funeral business it's not. Your average funeral will eat up most of that, if not all. It's very expensive to die right now.

At least… we all thought it was $10k. I was certainly told $10k.

Turns out it was $1k, which isn't enough to buy you a box for your remains. The call center crew ended up crowdsourcing the rest- she didn't have much family.

And none of us could go to the funeral because we were working.

I worked two twelve hour shifts in that warehouse making the same goddamn centerpiece over and over again while a Frenchman in a scarf told me I was doing it wrong, while everyone was grieving on a time crunch.

I really should have beaten them up.

But we got through Christmas, for what it was worth. We found Grandpa some sales that she could get gifts from and we all worked together to make sure we were okay through it. I mean, we weren't- it was blind leading the blind. But we tried.

And then it ended. "It sucks and then its over," she'd always say.

And into January we go and we're back into the stupidity of trying to fight with hq about funerals. I'm constantly told that if we needed certain things we should have ordered them.

I… did. I did. I ordered everything we needed every damn day and it still never came because the left hand and the right hand can't even coordinate enough to pull off a high-five. But it can't be their fault. It has to be Grandpa's somehow.

Now during the week of Christmas, Grandpa had to take an extra day off because she got sick. It wasn't Covid, thank goodness. I can imagine it was a stress-related issue, but it's not my business. Due to the holiday, this put her at under 40 hours for the week.

So they paid her hourly.

...which is extremely illegal to do to a salaried employee, especially one that works way more than 40 hours a week with no overtime.

And then they told her that she'd already lost her quarterly bonus because of a fender-bender that happened on my watch, and because she lost 39 employees last quarter.

I write everything down. I keep a journal. I cannot find 39 employees, even going back the entire year… during a pandemic. They have to be making this up. They have to be because there is no way they can hold the dude that was fired for literally sleeping in the men's room against her.

And I was close to just telling them all that… when my grandma died.

I'm not getting into it, really. Because you know… she was 96 years old and… it happens. It's sad, but it happens. But the relevant point to make is that I was given an… inheritance. It wasn't a lot. Grandma wasn't loaded. But it would be enough for me to keep afloat for awhile if I ever needed to.

When I told my girlfriend, she said: 'you could quit your job.'

And I didn't want to think about that because the flower shop needed me. I was important there. I was special. And Valentine’s Day was just around the corner.

But I was thinking about it. I thought about it every day.

A week before Valentines Day, Grandpa was inconsolable. She had to leave work because her dog, Jake, wouldn't stop bleeding. She needed to get him to the vet.

Two hours pass and Blue gets a message asking her to come help her move the dog. Grandpa lives alone and she's not very strong.

Blue doesn't like dogs. She was bitten by one the first time she ever made a delivery.

And I am known for exceptional physical strength. So I went.

When I arrived, Grandpa was a mess. I had never seen her cry so much, and it wouldn't stop. And I was trying to be strong, but it's hard. Jake was still alive, but bleeding. He was confused and upset, and blind and deaf. He barked, he growled, and he lunged… but always pulled back when his legs buckled from the pain.

I had her grab a blanket and we rolled him onto it, using that to lift him. He thrashed and growled and snapped at me while we walked him towards the door, but he wasn't getting out of the wrap we had him in.

As we're out the door, I noticed a man at the neighboring house. He raised his hand in greeting, but lowered it in confusion.

"Grandpa, is it alright if I get him to come help while you bring the car around?"

The best she could do was nod.

"Yeah, sorry, to bug you but can I ask for a little help here?" He looks at what we're doing and drops his trash can lid to come help. "Yeah, just take that end there and we're gonna ease him into the car when she comes around."

He nodded, took the ends, and we tucked a very confused Jake into the back seat. I thanked the neighbor, Grandpa sped off, and I went back to work feeling extremely odd about it.

That was the first time that I'd ever met the dog: on his way to be put down.

I know it seems weird to tell that story, but there's a reason. Part of it is symbolic. Part of it has to do with kittens. But we're not there just yet.

So now it's February and it is crunch time for Valentine’s Day. We have no earthly idea what this holiday is going to look like because past experiences have us anticipating a large number of walk ins, but state regulations have put a limit of six customers inside the store at any one time. We were never given any… instructions on how to enforce that rule, so we just kind of vaguely set out roles for who has to be the bouncer at the flower shop.

But before all of that, we had to make 275 two-dozen red rose arrangements in bowls. Based on our sales last year and general growth, we were expecting something close to five hundred deliveries on our busiest day. If I wasn't making them, I was counting them. And I was counting, and I was counting, and I was counting… every hour, just like it was at Christmas. We used up every single red rose in the place and came up short.

To which we were scolded: we must have used the roses they sent us for other orders because there was no way the error could have been on their end! Their inventory was impervious to mistakes. Somewhere between the warehouse and our store, twenty-five packs of roses went missing! And why is it only our store that has these problems? Clearly it must be our fault- a store full of thieves and liars and delinquents.

They ended up sending more just because… you know… they care. I guess.

And every hour, they needed a number of something and I counted, and counted and counted…

I think it was February 8 that I started crying every day. When I slept I was stiff as a board because I made so many mistakes throughout the day that the idea of coming to work the next day just to make more mistakes made me lock up entirely. There was no way to relax. There was no winding down from a hard day of work because my body could not move anymore.

I felt like I was made of splintering wood.

I had a dream around this time that I quit my job. I was so happy. I thought about it almost every hour.

So I stayed out of the way at work, picking up cleaning projects because at least there I could be useful and it was dark enough in the cooler that if I started crying no one had to see it.

That cooler was so clean. I wouldn't recommend eating off of it because I used an entire bottle of bleach to clean the floor.

If we're not counting the constant barrage of demands from corporate to count, count, count; Valentine’s Day was worryingly uneventful. Previous holidays were chaotic: filling the requests of the most desperate and clueless men with deep pockets and expensive tastes. Corralling the temporary drivers and make sure no one gets into any crashes or… uh...tries to sell unregulated merchandise from their trunks. Trying to decide what "Malibu Barbie Pink" meant for that one customer who comes in every six months and orders it but has rejected every color pink on the spectrum that our store has ever offered.

On this one… nothing important happened.

We were… slow.

Grandpa started sending people home early because there weren't many orders. We ran out of projects to do.

Sounds great, right?

...heh…

Corporate would like to know why our store is under projected sales by over 200, as if we have any say in how many people buy from us. Like we personally called all our typical customer base and told them not to come to this store. "Yes, hello Mrs. Penderghast? I'm sorry we can't fill your Valentine's Day order this year because we suck balls and don't want your business. Have a nice weekend. Say hi to the grandkids for me."

I don't… fucking KNOW! I don't work in PR! I'd ask the people in that department if they know what happened but… that's the owners. So who really is the fuckup here? Not me, that's for fucking certain! I cleaned the cooler. That's all I did all weekend was clean the Gods damned cooler because there wasn't enough work to go around so I made work for myself.

And then: "Why are the counts off," asked Mt. Rushmore. See, we called them that because between the owners, Puppet, and the head designer we had four white men looking down at us while we did all the work and built their success on the backs of their forefathers. Well… to me it was anyway. To everyone else it was four dudes that looked down on you.

"Why are the counts off?"

Oh, the COUNTS are off? Well, let me just drop everything I'm doing right now and count them for the third time in the past hour because that takes fucking priority.

"There's 95 specials missing from your inventory. Where are they?"

...okay, 95 is a lot. But it was also kind of hard to know how they were 'missing' when we'd sold all of the 275 that we made. How can they be missing if we sold them.

"We need to know where they are."

We don't know where they are. Because we sold all of them. The math didn't add up.

But they hounded us about it like we'd stolen them and resold them on the street corner. Which, to their defense, had happened once (but Sugar stopped doing that when her corner was taken over by the woman who accused Jay of being a demon.) But 95 is a huge number, and these arrangements were a foot wide and two feet tall. Someone would have noticed if a 100x200 foot square opened up in the cooler.

We literally could not know what the fuck they were talking about.

And the truth was extremely stupid: those 95 pieces were redeliveries. When someone has an issue with their order, like it didn't come or it was left out in the snow and got damaged or… someone put the name of their ex on the card instead of their wife… we send a replacement. But depending on who took the phone call, a person might use the wrong code and put it in for 'redeliver' instead- which counts it as another order.

We weren't missing 95 arrangements. We had 95 redeliveries. They hounded us about inventory for two days over a clerical error.

I decided I'd had it. We were going on a full week of crying every time I had a moment alone. They had made us feel like everything that went wrong was our fault: from low turnout to high turnover, missed deliveries and trashed sprays, lost accounts and new grievances…

But did they ever say a Gods damned thing about how hard we worked? How good we were? About how great a team we were under pressure? We once pulled together an entire wedding in fifteen minutes. My ass carried this store through the pandemic. I have done… so much.

So fucking much.

And yet it's our fault.

I had been reasoning with myself that I would stick around for the aftermath when Grandpa was eventually fired: we'd all felt it was coming. But I got that little bit of cash and all my joints were screaming and every time we got negative feedback a part of me died.

The following Tuesday had seen a massive snowstorm. Things that weren't already closed due to the pandemic were closed due to weather.

But we still had to be there. Because someone had to be there to make all the funeral pieces.

Because there wouldn't be a truck the next day, which meant that all of the funeral pieces that we'd sent to the headquarters needed to be made in-house. Which, once again, could have been avoided if we had kept the funeral orders in-house to begin with.

I waited until everyone had cleared out before I said it.

"Grandpa, I have to quit."

I don't think anyone ever looked so disappointed in me in my life.

"Why?"

"The way they treat people here is terrible and I can't see myself doing another Mother's Day for this company. They're so… mean! And for no damn reason! I have cried every day for the past week because I see the way they treat you and I'm… I'm tired."

I thought she was going to cry, but she nodded. "I can't stop you," she said. "I shouldn't stop you. If it's affecting your mental health like this, I'll miss you but its for the best. You know they'll want a written notice."

"And you know I'll tell them the truth," I said.

"...it's not me, is it?"

"If I worked for just you and those fuckers were out of the picture, I would stay. And you can count on me to tell them that."

"Any flower shop you apply to would be lucky to have you."

So I drafted up a resignation letter telling them exactly how I feel: that the way they run this company was asinine and they treated their employees like garbage. They received it on Thursday. Everyone at the shop knew by then. They were upset…

...but they understood.

Puppet did not understand. He emailed Grandpa asking her what she's doing that her people keep leaving.

He didn't see it. He didn't see that he was part of the problem. It always had to be someone else's fault. I explicitly said in my letter whose fault it was and he still didn't take any responsibility.

But suddenly I'm one of their best designers, and he begged me to reconsider, take some time off to think about it. They desperately wanted me to stay and they were willing to bargain, I just needed demands.

No one's ever… begged me before. I don't know if I like that.

This is when it dawned on me that I was next in line. It all made sense now: training me to route, making me do all the extra work, and now they want me to stay?

They were planning on getting rid of Grandpa and promoting me to manager. In a perfect world where Grandpa resigns willingly and I’m promoted on my merits as a designer and the company wasn’t very quickly circling the drain, I would be excited. But I wasn’t. I was frightened. I watched them take a confident, extremely talented woman and turn her into the whipping boy of the flower shop. And if I were in her position, I would have quit. But I don’t have the strength to stand up to the people that are signing my paycheck.

Why… am I at a place where the idea of moving upward makes me more scared than excited?

Flattering, but no. I've seen how you treat your people. My demands are to treat them better.

It was the longest week for me: making lists of pros and cons. I had made a lot of friends there and there's stuff that I will never forget. But the fact that the only people who didn't understand why I was leaving were the people who had the most to lose really hit me in the knees. I could tell them every day for the rest of their lives why they suck and it wouldn't matter because nothing was ever their fault.

And at 7:00 on Friday, I turned in my key.

I didn't have a plan, I didn't have anything lined up. This was one of the hardest decisions I ever had to make and I was just kind of… throwing myself at it.

I don't do that. I always have a plan. I look into every possible scenario and I try to make the smart choice. And this time…

I didn't.

It was probably stupid.

But I slept for 12 hours the next night and I could feel my bones settling into their rightful places. I didn't realize how many health problems were caused by standing for 9 hours a day, 11 days a week until I was home all the time to notice them changing. I will always have a limp from trying to pretend I don't have a limp. I'm pretty sure that ulcer is chronic. But my back isn't seizing up and I don't cry every day anymore.

That's something, I think.

About a week after my departure, I got a text from Grandpa that said:

"Hey guess what."

"What," I replied.

The next text was a picture of a week's old seal-point kitten with terminal eye-goo, wrapped in a towel.

"Pop-eye!?"

"I'm keeping this one," she said. The strays had dropped a litter of identical baby kittens by her pond. Two years later, with Jake put down, she could finally have Pop-eye, even if it was version 2.0.

The next text was a few days later. "Puppet fired me."

"What!? Why?"

"Too many accidents, too high turnaround. The new people suck, he says no one wants to work with me."

"Are you okay? How are you doing?"

"I'm okay." She paused and the loading screen did its little dot dance. "I'm playing with my kitten."

#cw #pet death #death #workers rights violations #if you want to know everything #this is everything

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crescentsteel · 3 years

Text

When in Brazil - Sunshine

pairing: Hinata x f!reader genre: SMUT wc: 6.6k warnings: fingering, oral, body worship, praise kink, hinata with big dik

[a/n]

I said to myself, lets make this quick and short. lol yea sure

No beta. This is Spartaaaaa

My brain went bzzt bzzt after this.

Let me know if you want to be part of the taglist for this mini series

Beach || masterlist

“Are there any more deliveries for me, y/n?” The ginger asks while beaming at you like he hasn’t been delivering orders under the heat of the sun across Rio the whole afternoon.

“We’re all good, Shoyo.” You smile back. He’s such an earnest part-timer that your mood just lifts up whenever you see him. You rarely find anyone like him. Even though he’s just delivering orders for the diner, he’s so dedicated to it. He’s not like one of your previous delivery guys who grumbles before and after work as if they’re not getting paid. Shoyo is different. His eyes are full of life, full of purpose.

You like seeing him around because his sincerity and politeness makes you feel like you’re not just some dumb waitress in some small diner. Aside from pleasing to talk to, he’s also pleasing to look at. He’s like a cute boy-next-door kind of guy.

“I’ll be going ahead then!”

“Wait!” He turns around with an inquisitive look on his face. You want to keep him around longer for tonight. It’s been a rough day for you and you could use some sunshine. “Actually, I’d appreciate some help closing up. I’ll serve you something for dinner in return.” His face brightens up at your request. There it is. Mr. Sunshine, indeed.

“Sure, y/n! Just tell me what to do.”

He’s an efficient help to have. What you usually do in 40 minutes or so was done in just 20.

“Wow, I should ask you to help out more often,” you say jokingly. “No problem, y/n! I can help out after deliveries.”

You wave your hand frantically. “Oh no no no. I was just kidding, Shoyo. I can’t always give you dinner. The owner would notice when we do inventory.” You laugh apprehensively.

“You don’t have to! I don’t mind staying for a few minutes to help out after deliveries.”

You stare at him with an appreciative smile on your face. Bless his pure heart. Boys in Brazil could learn from him. “Alright. I’ll be in the kitchen to prepare your food real quick.”

He seats himself in one of the vacant lounges, grinning at you as you enter the kitchen. Since it was just him, you get it done in ten minutes or less. When you get out of the tiny room, he’s like a puppy salivating at the tray you’re holding.

“Here you go, sir.” You jokingly say.

He doesn’t respond as his eyes twinkle at the food you laid out in front of him. Poor Shoyo. He must have been starving or maybe he’s just glad for the free food.

You decide to clean up the kitchen and the counter while you wait for him to finish, but he ate so fast that he’s done before you are.

When he sees you still occupied, he takes it upon himself to get his used cutleries and wash it. He easily finds where to put them and he even wipes the table he sat on. If ever he asks you for another job, you’d instantly recommend him to the owner to replace one of the staff who’s basically a sloth.

You two almost finish at the same time.

“Thank you so much for the dinner, y/n.” He bows. You’re thrown off at first, but you remember that he’s from Japan.

“Thank you, Shoyo. Seriously. The help is nothing compared to the food.” You get out of the cashier and get your bag. You remove your apron and shove it there before leading him out of the diner as you lock it up.

“I’ll walk you home, y/n.”

You wave your hand dismissively. He’s done so much already. “No, it’s fine. You must be tired.”

He shakes his head in disagreement. “Not really! I wanna walk a bit too, but if you’re uncomfortable with it, I-”

“It’s okay!” You interrupt him. You do appreciate it if he’d accompany you home. You just thought he’s doing it to be kind and polite. “It’d be nice to chat with someone on the way home.” You tell him. He keeps his bicycle at his right while you’re at his left.

Even as the night is fully settled in, Shoyo’s energy is still soaring as he narrates why he’s here in Rio. No wonder his eyes are always gleaming vividly. He wants to accomplish something badly that he traveled halfway across the world in a foreign country. And as you get sucked in his story, you don’t notice you’re at your apartment already.

“I live right here. Do you wanna come in for tea or beer or whatever?” You invite him, wanting to hear more of his Volleyball journey. He seems glad from your invitation. Maybe he wanted someone to talk about it too.

“I’m okay with just water.”

You open your door and hold it out open for him. “You sure?”

He nods sprightly which makes you smile at the pure innocence he exudes. He eyes your whole place when he gets inside. “Wow. You live all alone, y/n?”

“Uh huh. I don’t like having roommates.”

“I think I’d get more homesick if I lived all alone,” he remarks.

From being awed, you begin to feel bad for him. It must be really tough to be so far away. “Well, you can always come here if you feel like talking or stuff,” you offer earnestly. You don’t mind him visiting every now and then. He’s such a positive energy amongst the dread of your everyday routine that’s constantly draining you. Also, You can’t imagine him being one of those guys who just hang out to get a slice of action.

Since then, he frequently came over.

On the days when he had deliveries for your diner, he’d help you close up. Instead of getting him dinner from the small diner, you two would get something on the way to your apartment or you’d fix him a quick meal when you get there.

He’s a comfortable company. Because he’s quite the talker, he never runs out of things to say. He not only talks about his life in Japan, but also here in Rio. You practically know all his friends here just from his stories.

“Didn’t they say anything when you wanted to leave?” You prod when he opened up missing his family. “They did, but they still pushed me to do it. They know what’s it for, and they know I’ll be back.”

“What about your girlfriend?”

A soft blush surfaces on his cheeks as he chuckles nervously. “I don’t have one.”

“Oh? Who’s the cute girl in your wallpaper then?” You’ve seen it several times when he looks at the time with his phone.

“She’s our Volleyball manager and a really good friend,” he explains as he gets his phone to show you something. “She’s been with the team since I was a first year.” He shows you a photo of him, a black-haired guy who’s probably Kageyama, and the cute blonde girl.

Your attention all goes to him, his innocent beam at the camera while his arms are sprawled in the air. “Oh my God,” you exclaim while staring at the photo.

“You were so skinny!”

You look back and forth from the screen of his phone to him, comparing how he looked like then and how he looks like now. You pull your chair closer to him so you can scrutinize him more. He looked so young and pure back then. Literally, just a kid.

“Wow.”

You gape at him, marveling at how his features have changed so much. Even if he still has that baby face, his face has definitely gained structure. And the scrawny boy in the photo? You can’t find that anymore with the Shoyo in front of you right now. He even has a nice tan going on that suits him so well.

Without thinking, your hands fly to his shoulders to grasp the muscle he’s built after high school, squeezing them firmly before trailing down to his well-defined chest. Damn, he really put some nice work to achieve this. You drag your hands down to see how his abs are and holy crap, he’s fucking lean.

Your gaze drops further just below where your hands are and see a faint outline of what he’s hiding beneath his shorts.

“Ah!”

You immediately remove your hands off of him and raise your palms in mid air. “I’m so sorry! That was so perv- I mean rude of me to do that all of a sudden.” You apologize in a panicked tone, hoping that he didn’t think you were being handsy, even if you really were.

“I was just amazed because you looked so different from the photo and uh..” you laugh to make up for the missing excuses you were supposed to say.

He laughs with you, a timid smile gracing his face.

“It’s okay, y/n. You can continue touching me if you want.”

You squirm as you put your hands to your lap, clutching your shorts from the sudden thick air that engulfs the room. He sounded harmless. Even his face is his usual good-natured facade. But those words meant something else to you, an invitation to touch him more.

You let out a tense tither before turning to him. “No no! Haha. I’m fine. It was just on impulse.”

In an attempt to hide the awkwardness, you gather his used dishes and cutleries. “Let me get these washed up.” You stand up and hurriedly get to the sink.

What was that weird sexual tension? That over there in your dining table is just your nice delivery boy, Shoyo. You’re nothing but co-workers who are just friendly to each other.

You let the cold water run on your fingers and wrists while you wash the dishes. You need to get back to him composed and cooled off. You want your relationship as it is now. You don’t want to feel awkward and bothered.

So what if you just realized that he’s hot and nice and completely alone with you?

“Do you need help with anything, y/n?

You yelp at the sound of his voice so close behind you. You can feel his warm breath fanning your neck and his body hovering at your back. He’s barely pressing against your back but you can already feel the ends of your hairs prickling your skin.

“Wah! Why are you having goosebumps, y/n? Are you cold??”

“Yeah. It is a bit windy tonight.” You lie with a tense chuckle as you hasten your task so you could escape the situation. To worsen things for you, he places both hands on your bare shoulders and caresses them up and down to create heat.

“I hope this is warm enough,” he says concernedly.

It’s more than just warm. He’s supposed to create friction by rubbing your shoulders, but he’s skimming so gently on your skin that it’s fueling a different kind of heat stemming from your core from the supposed friendly gesture he’s doing to you. You fight off the urge to clench your thighs together for he might notice it since he’s just a hair away behind you.

You saw him as a nice guy but his hands are making you feel otherwise. You had to bite your lower lip to suppress a whimper that was at the tip of your tongue. You can pass it off as a groan of relief, but with your current state, it might sound sexual. Since when were you this sensitive?

“Do you want me to prepare your green tea?” he kindly offers.

“Yes, please,” you answer weakly.

He takes his hands off you and gets you your green tea as he suggested to. You breathe a sigh of relief when he leaves. You feel like you’re about to break from how heavy his sexual pull is on you. Is he even aware?

You dry your hands and saunter back to your dining table to take a seat and give your legs a break. Shoyo places the cup of tea in front of you and sits beside you.

“Why do you always drink that, y/n? It doesn’t taste good.”

“It’s to help me lose weight.” You draw the cup to your lips and take a sip.

“Ehh? But you already look hot as you are.”

You almost choked on your tea from what he just said. You weren’t expecting such an adjective from him. With trembling fingers, you return the cup to the table. “You okay, y/n?” He asks worriedly.

You clear your throat. “Yeah, I’m okay.”

He can’t help but notice that you’ve been on the edge since you felt him up. He believes that you did it with no malicious intent, so he really didn’t mind. He knows that all you think of him is a good help to the diner. That’s why you comfortably invited him to your home, but he can see right now that he’s made you uncomfortable for some reason.

Maybe you’re really embarrassed with what just happened even if he did say it was fine. He really was okay with you touching him, even if it was something more than just touching. But it’s not like you see him like that.

He likes you a lot, so he should just go so he doesn’t make you any more uneasy. “It’s getting late, so I’ll go now, y/n.”

When he stands up, you immediately follow. “Oh? Already?” You ask with a hint of disappointment in your voice, which makes him a bit confused. Did you not want him to?

“Do you want me to stay for a bit longer?”

You look at him hesitantly before shaking your head. He smiles amicably at you for the usual hospitality you’ve given him. “Thanks for the dinner, y/n.” He looks at the time and heads for the door.

“Shoyo!”

He shifts his body to your direction while he waits for what you’re going to say “I- uhhh. Sorry about a while ago.”

He strides back to where you are and grabs your hand, slowly leading it to his chest with a faint grin playing on the corners of his lips. “It really is okay, y/n.” When your palm lands on his pecs, you just let it stay in one spot as you look at him differently than usual. You regard him with doe eyes gleaming with baffled curiosity.

With his grip still on your wrist, he does the work for you and guides your hand down to where you touched him just a while ago. Your line of sight follows your hand while his is completely focused on you, anticipating your reaction if you’re satisfied with just this.

He lets go of your wrist, allowing you to do as you please. You raise your gaze to meet his, your eyes asking him for permission.

“I really don’t mind, y/n.”

Your other hand goes to his bicep, firmly grasping it before you take one step closer to him. Both

your hands travel to his midsection, the feel of your delicate caress making his thoughts not as friendly as it used to be. Especially with how impressed you look with your hands all over him.

“Can I touch you too?” He blurts out without thinking.

He instantly regrets it when he sees the surprised look on your face as you pull your hands away.

“No! I didn’t mean t-“

You silence him instantly by putting a hand over his mouth. “I didn’t say anything,” you mutter as you usher his one hand to your waist.

You remove your hand from his mouth and use it to lead his other hand on your neck. You don’t know what you’re doing. You keep your eyes on his neck while he languidly roams his left hand on the small of your back until his arm is wrapped around you. He doesn’t move his right hand away from your neck. He only strokes it tenderly with his thumb.

“Y/n.”

You swallow the lump in your throat as you raise your gaze to him. “Can we do more than just touching?”

Instead of answering him, you yield to the heavy sensual pull that you’ve been trying to ignore earlier. You slowly reach for his lips, wanting to gradually settle yourself in the present situation.

But when your lips touched his, he didn’t share the same idea you had as he wastes no time exploring your mouth with his. All the hesitation he had is gone with his hand dropping down to your ass to give it a firm squeeze which draws you even closer to him, letting you feel his erection against your core.

He doesn’t take his mouth off of yours as he leads you to the dining table, taking both of your ass cheeks in his hands and carrying your weight as he guides you to sit at the edge of the table.

When you’re comfortably seated, he tugs the flank of your shirt and hurriedly takes it off you. You want to look at him to see what he looks like when he’s not being the nice Shoyo you used to see him as. But he gets back to your mouth in just a second, sticking his tongue out to let it wander inside your warm cavern.

His hands immediately find the clasp of your bra and unhooks it with ease. That’s when he pulled away. His eyes are glued to your body as he removes the undergarment slowly, as if he’s unwrapping his gift with the slow reveal of your breasts.

His eyes glimmer with delight when he completely slides the clothing off your arms. It kinda makes you conscious with the way he’s staring at you, like his eyes are burning through your skin. You use one arm to cover your boobs, but he instantly sees through your plan.

As soon as you lift your arm, soft panic sets off in his eyes. He immediately grips your wrist and slams your hand against the table.

“Don’t!”

“But you were staring too much.”

His gaze drops down again to your unclad breasts with reverence. “Cause you’re pretty.” He leans down on you again, his plush lips just within an easy reach from yours. “So pretty that I can’t stop staring.”

You expect him to kiss you again, but his mouth latches on your jaw instead, nipping the sensitive skin beneath it. A soft sigh comes out of your already parted lips while his palms trace the length of both your arms up to your shoulders. He kisses his way down to your collar bones, savoring any skin that his lips graze upon until he reaches one soft mound.

His hands follow the trails of his lips, one finding its way on the curve of your hip while the other stops on your breast where his mouth isn’t latched onto.

He delivers sloppy kisses, sucking on your perk nipple and swirling his tongue on it like it was a treat. The other bud isn’t left out as he plays with it, tweaking it between his thumb and index finger.

Your breathing starts to become shallow from the surge of desire spreading throughout your body.

He cups both sides of your boobs and pushes them together before he continues on, letting his tongue toy with your nipples almost simultaneously. He’s so into it that his teeth accidentally scrape one bud.

“Ah!”

He immediately stops and looks at you apologetically, misunderstanding the moan that came from you.

“Sorry...”

“No. It felt good,” you feebly tell him.

His eyes brighten up and gets back to what he’s doing. He takes the hard bud in between his teeth, tugging it lightly as he looks up to you, his orbs eager for your approval. It spurs you on even more. You give him one nod as you feel your cunt throbbing from how your arousal is heightening by the minute.

“Shoyo,” you call him weakly which he didn’t seem to hear.

He lets go of your breasts and licks his way down right on top of your shorts, leaving a trail of saliva on your skin. He unbuttons your shorts, the sound of your zipper being rolled down letting you know what he’s planning.

“Shoyo.” You call out louder this time, causing his hand to rest on your groin. “Let’s go to my room already.” You expect him to be glad, but he frowns. “But I want to taste you already. Please, y/n? I want to eat you out here.”

Your legs quiver from how much he wants you, his eagerness affecting you as you yourself get impatient and wonder how his tongue would feel on your pussy.

“Do it.” He smiles at your approval as you lift your ass off the table to help him get your shorts off. You aren’t surprised that he tugs your underwear together with it as he peels it off you. You’re starting to get an idea how he is at bed - impatient, excitable, and eager to please.

A subtly smirk tugs up your lips when you realize you’re in for a fun night.

He doesn’t notice it though. He takes a step back to relish the vision that you are. His eyes are completely focused on your bare body with keen hunger as he traces every curve in sight. You indulge him a bit by spreading your legs apart for him to see.

“Wow.”

His eyes don’t leave your cunt while he drags the chair he’s previously sitting on. He spreads your legs even further as he sits down. He places his thumbs on your inner thighs, gently caressing them before he stripes one thumb on your slit.

“You’re so wet, y/n,” he says right before dipping down and tracing his tongue where his thumb just did earlier. He continues doing so, licking up and down the length of your opening as you lean your head back to enjoy what he’s giving you. He eagerly slurps on your juices, lapping on your slit with his hot tongue.

He uses his thumbs to spread your folds that surround your clit, exposing the swollen bud for him to taste. When he gives it a delicate, languid lick, your one hand frantically grips his hair. He takes it up a notch and inserts his middle finger inside .

“Haaa,” you moan out loud which urges him on even more. He pumps his finger inside you, gradually picking up the pace when you start squirming within his hold.

“Another,” you tell him breathlessly.

“Another what?” He asks cluelessly while his mouth continues ravaging your clit. “Add another finger,” you answer to which he complies immediately. He stretches you even more with the addition of one thick, calloused finger inside.

He looks up at you, parting his mouth away from your pussy to show you his two digits that are half inside you. “Like this?”

You nod. “Yeah. Like,” He suddenly shoves the two fingers knuckles deep into you. “thathnnnnggg.” You clutch his hair tighter while your mouth gapes at the instant fullness you feel down in your center. His eyes don't leave your face anymore as he latches his mouth back on your hardened clit.

You’re whining while grinding on his face, getting wetter even as he relentlessly drinks your lewd essence. He loves the look on your face, blissed out and completely lost in the moment. He loves how you keep trying to close your legs together even with his arm not allowing you to do so. He loves the desire glimmering clearly in your eyes as you meet his gaze while he feasts on your pussy.

He already got aroused the first time you touched him. Seeing you unravel before him gets his cock throbbing painfully within his shorts. He’s so tempted to remove his arm and let you crush him between your thighs so he can palm his cock.

He doesn’t even know if you’d let him go any further than this. What if after you cum you change your mind and ask him to go home? There wouldn’t be anything wrong with that. He’ll just replay the scene before him as he jacks off in his own room.

His one hand goes inside his shorts and takes out his cock, causing your thigh to waver without his support. He grasps the base of his dick, squeezing it firmly, easily distracting himself with his own pleasure as he moans in your cunt.

You immediately notice. You see him firmly gripping his member, pumping it steadily up and down with eyes closed as he slows down his ministrations with you. You cup his face, forcing him to open his eyes and look at you again. “Stop fucking yourself. I’ll do it with my mouth after you make me cum.”

He stops like you asked him to. “Really?” His eyes pleading with lust to uphold your erotic promise. “Yeah. So make cum already,” you brazenly order him. He tucks his cock back in his shorts right away, using his arm once again to spread you wide. His mouth, lips, and fingers pick up the pace, thrusting swiftly in and out of your while flicking and sucking at your clit.

“Ooohhh fuck.” You claw on your wooden table from the rapid build up of pleasure. You can feel the heat in your groin, spreading quickly through your body. “Yes, yesss. Don’t stop,” you mindlessly whine. Everything he’s doing is pushing you further to your release - the friction and fullness provided by his fingers and the wild strokes of his tongue on your clit. He suddenly curves his fingers, hitting just the right spot that blurred your vision from how good it feels.

“Cumming... am cumming, Shoyo!!” You trash helplessly on his face as the pleasure floods your senses, but he doesn’t stop. He only slows down, matching your post-orgasm state as you come down from your high.

You tug his hair up while panting to catch your breath. “Come here.” He stands up and you reach for the back of his head to cover his mouth with yours, tasting your own fluids in his lips. “Help me get down,” you whisper to him.

He effortlessly grabs the back of your thighs to get you to stand again. Once your feet reach the floor, you release his lips and drag him to your room.

Once inside, you lock lips with him again as you scurry towards your bed. You get him to lie down as you straddle him, your wetness rubbing on the bulge of his shorts. You hurriedly remove his clothes, itching to see the delicious muscles you touched only with his shirt on. He helps you as he tugs down his shorts and underwear, his last piece of clothing thrown somewhere on the floor.

You bite your lower lip as your eyes roam on his body. He should thank beach volleyball for the tan and the jaw-dropping build. Your gaze falls on his naked bulge that you saw a glimpse of earlier. Damn. You weren’t seeing things earlier. He really is packing down there.

“Is something wrong?” He asks with a worried look, returning your gaze back at him. “Nothing’s wrong. Everything’s,” Your eyes get distracted with how he gulps, your gaze lingering down again on his gorgeous chest. “..fine.”

You return the favor, starting on his neck. You plant your arms on his shoulder as you move your hips up, resting your cunt on his toned abs. You deliver soft kisses on the delicate skin of his neck, letting your tongue sneak a few licks as you go down on him until his cock is within the reach of your mouth.

You position yourself in between his legs as you grip his shaft. His hips lift up from the contact. You watch his reactions as you start to drag your palm around his member up and down. He’s already heaving with lips parted as he takes the pleasure you’re giving him with eyes closed. You find it cute - how he’s this sensitive when you’re barely done anything yet.

You gather your spit and let it drool at his cock, the translucent liquid glazing the tip down to the base. You trace his length with your index finger, from the tiny slit of his tip down to his balls. You go back up to the head of his cock, but you do it with your tongue instead of your finger.

You peek at him again. He’s semi sitting up with his elbows on the cushion as he glues his eyes on your tongue on his dick. You grip him again, tighter this time before pressing one digit firmly on his tip. He throws his head back from the pressure and you use that chance to take his thick girth in your mouth

His thighs tremble as he lets out a euphoric moan while you sink lower and lower on his dick. “Your mouth -aahhh so gooood.”

He really likes you and thinks you’re fun to talk to, but sometimes he’d catch himself fantasizing about you when he gets home and ends up masturbating at the thought of you sucking him off. But his right hand doesn’t even compare to the actual warmth of your lips wrapped around his dick at present.

He keeps his eyes on you, which is a bad idea for him since it’s only quickening the pleasure that was boiling at the pit of his stomach. But he can’t help but stare at you. You look so good, so pretty, with your ass up as you suck him even faster.

He can feel his cum threatening to explode already. He feels so lame, but your mouth just feels so magnificent that he can’t hold it in any further. “Stop, y/n. Please~ aah ahhh gonna cum already.” He doesn’t want you to be disappointed with him, but it’s as if you didn’t hear him. You even go deeper while quickening your pace.

He gives in to it, gripping your hair as the peak of his pleasure takes over. He expects you to pull away, but you continue sucking, letting him shoot his load at the back of your throat.

You take all of it, swallowing every drop he let out in your mouth. You did hear him say stop, but the lascivious delight on his face contradicted his words. You had to let him finish even if that meant you won’t get to feel how his cock feels inside your already sopping pussy.

You sit up as you wipe your mouth with the back of your hand. As for Shoyo, he covers his eyes with his forearm while he pants. You start to get up and head for your drawers when you feel him grab your wrist before you can even leave the bed

“Where are you going?” He asks.

“To get dressed.”

“But we’re not done yet?”

You appreciate the thought. He really is such a generous guy, but.. “It’s fine, Shoyo. You don’t have to force it. You’re already soft??” Your statement becomes a question when you see his arousal still erect.

You don’t know whether to be amused or amazed at that, so you end up staring dumbfounded at him who’s still lying on his back.

He grins at you as he sits up straight and goes for your lips. It wasn’t soft and gentle like you expect from someone who just came. He seems even hungrier, more eager for you.

He guides your hand to his shaft, confirming that he’s hard and ready to continue with what you have in mind. You smile into the kiss, curious and excited as to how he feels inside your pussy. Horny as you are, you throw yourself at him which causes him to lie back down again with you on top of him.

As your tongues clash against one another, you rub your moist slit against his erection, teasing both yourself and him while doing so. He’s groaning in your mouth while he keeps one hand on the back of your head and the other firmly gripping your waist. “Y/n, can I put in already?” He asks with hazy eyes even though his hand on your waist goes down to his cock and aligns it on your folds.

“Mmm, wait.” You lift yourself off of him and reach for your purse that was hanging on one of the metal bed frames. You quickly get a condom and throw your purse somewhere. You tear the packet and remove his hand from his shaft to unroll the rubber on it while he watches. You take over his previous attempt and position the tip on your entrance. You place a palm on his stomach to anchor yourself as you lower yourself on him.

He stares at you mesmerized while you wince from how his cock is spreading you open. You ball your fist that was still on his abdomen, trying to get used to the discomfort even if he’s still not fully inside you. He recovers first and glances back on how you’re doing.

“Shoyo, you’re-ughhh-big,” you tell him with a pained expression. “I- I am?” He asks with pink streak surfacing on his cheeks, flattered from what you said. You nod while sinking lower until you finally cover the last inch, taking him entirely inside you.

He whips his head back on to the pillow with his cock completely sheathed inside the tight warmth of your pussy. He thought your mouth was already marvelous, but the way your walls deliciously envelop his cock is way beyond his wet dreams.

Your hand joins the other, supporting yourself as you slowly lift your hips up and descend back down with the same agonizing tempo. While you adjust to his size, he keeps his eyes on his cock disappearing each bob of your hip.

From your pussy, he rakes his eyes up to your naked body glimmering with sweat. You look so beautiful with your eyes shut, gaping lips, and tits bouncing altogether as you speed up. “You look so fucking pretty, y/n.” Your eyes flutter open from the unexpected vulgarity he uttered. It wasn’t like him, but it wasn’t forced either. He regards you with lust swimming in his orbs, the courteous friendship you two have totally erased as of this moment.

You still for a second before you remove your hands off him and place them on his thighs as you lean back. You spread your thighs and plant the soles of your feet on your bed. You see his eyes widen because of the view. Rather bouncing up and down, you gyrate on his cock. It’s supposed to be a show for him, but with his size, you feel his cock gloriously scrape your insides with the circular movement of your hips.

“Shit!” You curse before you close your eyes again as you start grinding on him. You don’t start slow this time. You impatiently roll your hips against his, driving his cock deep inside you each plunge. You didn’t think it would get any better than this until you feel his thumb on your neglected cit.

“Oh ffffuuuck.” You can’t even open your eyes anymore while his two fingers replace his thumb and rub the sensitive bud frantically. You could feel the pleasure escalating faster and faster with every salacious thrust of your hip and his every flick of your clit..

“Are you gonna cum, y/n?” You hear him ask.

“Yesss. Am gonna cuuuuuummmm.” You clutched his legs tighter when your orgasm hits, your vision blurry when you open your eyes as you ride it out. He pulls your panting self to his chest and tenderly caresses your back.

He sweeps your hair behind your ear and whispers. “Did that feel nice?”

You nod weakly. “Did you cum?” You ask in return. You were so occupied in your own pleasure that you lost awareness of his. He chuckles lowly. “No.”

“Oh..” You lift yourself up a bit to meet his gaze and apologize.

“Why are you saying sorry? We aren’t done yet.”

What he said as a question earlier became a statement. Something changed in his eyes, a spark of determination that isn’t there earlier.

“Let’s just continue next time, Shoyo. I’m kind of tired,” you explain.

“There’s a next time?!” His eyes shine with enthusiasm which makes you laugh softly.

“Sure. Why not?” You lift your hips up but his hands quickly go down your ass and crash you back down, shoving his dick back in you hard and deep.

“Gaah!”

“Thanks, y/n. But don’t worry about being tired. I’ll move instead,” he hums on your ear as he spreads your ass cheeks and pummels his cock wildly into your sensitive pussy.

You moan on his neck at the savage pace he starts with. “Shoyo, pleaseee. Sloweer mmmmm.”

“But why?” He whines. You can’t answer with how ferociously he’s rutting against you, his dick consistent with its swift thrusts. “Shit, your pussy feels amazing. So good, fuck.” His crude words of praise fan your pleasure that was rapidly filling your senses again.

He rams your hips down to meet one sharp thrust. You gasp from how deep his cock went inside you. “Aaah!”

“Do I make you feel good, y/n?”

You nod weakly as you grind slowly on his cock, desperate to chase your pleasure but too tired from your earlier stunt.

“Please, move,” you whisper with exhaustion.

“Tell me first. I want to hear it,” he demands.

“Too good, Shoyo. Your cock feels too good. So please, fuck me again already,” you shamelessly beg as his cock throbs inside you.

Instead of granting your plea, he takes his cock out and pulls you to lie underneath him. He parts your legs apart for him and jams his dick right back inside. That’s when he indulges you, thrusting his size in and out of you at an unforgiving pace.

He leans down on you, intertwining his fingers with yours as he pins both your hands on the bed. “Do you like this, y/n?”

“I love it. Please please pleaaaaseee. Don’t stop mmmmmm,” you babble messily as your impending orgasm overwhelms you.

He clumsily kisses you, his teeth grazing your lips as slips his tongue in before covering his mouth with yours. He’s groaning relentlessly on your mouth while drilling his dick in your cunt. “You gonna cum?”

“Yeaass haaa.” Your moans become louder and louder each thrust. “Gonna cum like this? With-ugh-my cock inside you?”

His obscene words make you writhe beneath him. You arch your back from the intense pleasure. He dips down on one nipple and fervidly sucks it. “Gonna c-aahhhhhhh.” You thrash violently beneath him as your hands clench his to ground yourself from the explosive orgasm that he caused.

“Fuck, yes. Cum on my cock, uhhh. Like that. Shit.”

His thrusts become erratic as he goes after his own orgasm while he milks yours. You hazily open your eyes and watch him chase his high with eyes shut and parted lips, animalistic pleasure taking over his features. He delivers one swift thrust and stays completely still, his dick twitching inside you as he cums.

You both pant heavily with him on top of you.

—

You open the door for him and bid him goodnight. Your legs feel like crap but you don’t want to just drive him away on his own.

“Thanks for tonight, Shoyo.”

You’re not sure what you’re thanking him for, the company or the sex. Maybe both.

“Um, y/n?”

“Yeah?”

“Will there really be a next time?” He asks apprehensively, totally different from his demeanor from your last moments in bed. It’s kinda amusing. You didn’t think he had that in him.

“You’ll still help me close up the diner, right?” You ask meaningfully.

He beams at you. “Of course.”

Beach || masterlist

taglist (those crossed out can’t be tagged)

@ameliaxo @suikrem @akaashisslavee @tsumurai @celestialarchiveshq @loving-unicorns106 @flairlust @crescenttooru @yashuaaa @liberhoe

#hinata x reader #hinata smut #hinata shoyo smut #haikyuu smut #haikyuu!! smut #hinata shoyo x reader

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cellard0ors · 3 years

Text

Fic: Movement (4/5)

Still working on this for @peachworthy. Should wrap up sometime this week or next and then the full thing'll get posted to AO3. Part 1, Part 2, Part 3 here for now!

They decide to do it on a Saturday night.

Link has the weekend off from work and no classes. Rhett’s schedule is also free. They discuss the matter in terse terms, both seeming nervous about the idea, but neither backing down.

As such, Saturday rolls around with little fanfare until late into the evening. An evening that finds Link sitting on the couch, one of his legs jiggling and bouncing about as he waits for Rhett.

Rhett comes out to the living room holding a pillow and he offers it to Link. Link looks at it with some confusion and his friend clears his throat, eyes darting away, “For your lap.”

“My-?” Link looks down and then to Rhett and then…oh. Link colors, realizing that the pillow is to be used in order to cover any potentially ‘arising’ situation on his part. Feel exposed yet stubborn, he remarks dryly, “Don’t think I’ll need that.”

Rhett lets out a loud laugh and pats him in the chest with it, “Trust me. If I’ve done my job right? You will.”

“…point taken,” Link says softly and he takes the pillow, settling it over his crotch. To be fair, he probably will pop wood. After all, he sometimes pops it when Rhett’s full clothed.

Nude?

Yeah.

Link presses down on the pillow harder, even the errant thought of a nude Rhett causing a stirring. Rhett walks to the television and fiddles with the remote.

An app that Link’s noticed before, but never bothered with, is clicked on. Erotes Plus. The screenshots for the videos that come up are…certainly something. Link looks away, almost overwhelmed by all the bare flesh before him. The titles of the videos are also a bit much. Rhett notices and Link can hear the smirk in his voice as he says, “Prude.”

Link scowls and glares back at him and the screen. He is nota prude. However, titles such as ‘Lonely Housewife Squirts for The First Time’ and ‘He Rides His Daddy Dry’ would take anybody aback. At least Link would like to think so – he supposes some people are more immune than others. After all, his own history with porn is on the small side.

During puberty he’d taken his healthy peeks at nude magazines and a few of his friends had snuck out adult VHS tapes to check out, but for the most part it hadn’t interested him. Granted, this was probably due to his eventual discovery that – while he appreciated the female form – it didn’t draw his interest quite like the male one did.

And finding gay porn? Where he grew up? Yeah, pretty much a completely impossibility. And then – when he’d finally managed to snag some – it had, once more, disappointed. It all just seemed so cold and callous. Like a business transaction with a boatload of grunting. Not at all to his tastes.

Rhett, scrolling through the videos, finally finds one titled simply ‘Movement’ and turns to Link with an apprehensive glance, “Still plenty of time to say ‘no’.”

Link’s throat is dry. Unlike some of the other screenshots, this one is vaguer. It’s two forms silhouetted in shadow. One of those forms is Rhett. Link feels numb as he speaks, “I’m good.”

Rhett clicks the video and it begins.

He moves over and sits near Link, lounging against the other side of the couch in an oh-so-casual way. As if an adult video starring him hasn’t just begun to play.

The film opens with a lithe redhead in a yoga outfit doing various poses. While this is being shown the title card appears followed by the starring and since Link highly doubts Rhett goes by ‘Jenessa Star’, he can’t help but chuckle at, “‘Donatello Velvet’?”

“What?” Rhett asks simply and Link gestures to the television, “That’s you, isn’t it?”

“Problem?”

“That’s the screen name you chose?”

“What’s wrong with it?”

“Nothing’s wrong with it, I just don’t see you as a ‘Donatello’,” Link grins at him and Rhett laughs, rubbing one finger along his top lip thoughtfully, “What would you’d’ve gone with then?”

“If I was doing adult film?” Link asks and at Rhett’s nod, he crosses his arms and thinks, “I don’t know…Bevin, maybe?”

Rhett tosses his head back and laughs and Link feels a fissure of delight at that sound, just as he always does. He turns back and the redhead’s poses have become…much more complex. Almost painful looking as she contorts herself to degrees Link wouldn’t think possible and then she rises, stretching out and that’s when Rhett enters.

Or maybe it would be better to think of it as Donatello enters. Yes, it’s a little easier that way and Link does his best to cling to that, to try and stay nonchalant as he offers dryly, “Well, well – there’s a familiar lookin’ fella.”

Rhett just hums and they both watch as he walks up to the woman. He runs his hands along her shoulders and down her arms, whispering into her neck huskily, “Good form.”

Link can’t help but let out a snort. Rhett rolls his eyes, “Okay, okay – I know, I know. Dialogue’s a bit-?”

“Bad?”

“…it could use some improvement.”

“Uh huh,” Link just beams and hey, this isn’t so bad. Cheesy and kind of silly and maybe it will just stay like this. Light and fun. For all Link knows, they won’t even watch the whole thing. Maybe just some of it and then they can turn on something els-!

Rhett begins kissing Jenessa’s neck, white teeth visibly dragging along her skin and Link’s whole body tightens. A phantom sting starts along the same side of his neck that Rhett’s touching on Jenessa. Jenessa’s whole throat arches back, a pleasured moan leaving her and Rhett’s tongue is…very pink.

Link’s Adam’s apple bobs as he says (much huskier than he’d like) “N-Nice camera work…”

Rhett just hums, “Mac’s always had a good eye.”

“Mac?”

“Mackenzie, the director of this one.”

Link just lets out a sound of acknowledgement as he watches Rhett reach around Jenessa and tug at her tank top. Tug until her small, pointed breasts pop free. He cups them in his hands and he has…great hands.

They looks so tan against her skin, palms rough and big, and Jenessa lets out a full throttle moan. Rhett teases the pink tips, fingertips agile as they play along the sensitive flesh, as they circle around her areolas.

She whimpers and turns, kisses him fully, passionately, and it’s…messy. Wet. Link can feel his whole heart thump hard at the sight. Janessa’s hair is shorter than Rhett’s – cropped close to her scalp and Rhett’s hands have abandoned her chest to run through the short strands.

Link barely stops himself from reaching up and touching his own hair, instinctively wanting to mimic how that might feel. To imagine Rhett doing it to him.

He tries not to fidget and talking, talking will help, “Surprised this isn’t more, ah, instant.”

Rhett shrugs, “Foreplay’s a thing, man.”

“No, I know,” Link knows his voice pitches a little high at this, defensive, “Just…figured, mean...’s porn…”

“Some of the earlier videos on here are like that, but when EP got bought out, the new owners took the company in a different direction.”

“EP?”

“Erotes Plus. The platform these films are on,” Rhett explains and then he starts mentioning a few things about different production companies and distributors and the like, but Link is too distracted because Jenessa is now fully naked and Rhett is on his knees between her legs, feasting on her moist lower lips.

The silken tip of his tongue is parting her, dancing along the bundle of nerves that is her clit and her head is tossed back on a loud, wild whine.

Her pale body undulates and she’s gripping his long hair so hard. Link feels as if he’s having an out of body experience. This is his roommate. His friend. The man he’s secretly in love with.

And he’s pleasuring this woman with such…focus. With intensity and finesse and when he rises, his erection is clear, straining at the linen pants that are containing it. Link points to the screen weakly, “Hippie clothes.”

The comment is stupid and unhelpful, but Rhett just laughs, “Yeah – kinda the theme of this series. I’m like, a Yoga Instructor or something? Least that's the way it was explained to me, so – linen pants, cotton top – I mean, we’ve had better costumes, but for this shoot-!”

Rhett is talking some more but, again, Link is barely listening. His eyes are transfixed by what’s taking place on the screen. Janessa easily strips off Rhett’s shirt and then his pants and – No. Underwear.

Link is seeing Rhett’s dick. It’s there…thick, but not as big as his own, a visible vein running along one side. Dusky dark and with a blushing pink tip and gently curling hair hiding his full, taunt sack…

“Link? Buddy? You doin’ alright?”

“Fine.”

“Lookin’ like you seen a ghost," Rhett teases, but there’s a breathless quality to his words, “My body all that bad?”

Link just shakes his head and watches as Jenessa strokes Rhett, as his head falls back and he lets out a shuddering gasp that Link feels in his very bones.

Link is suddenly very, very thankful for the pillow that bobs some as it reacts to the situation taking place beneath it. That situation being Link’s own dick perking upwards, making his jeans tight and constrictive.

“You…?” Something Rhett said finally seems to click in Link’s head, “You said this is a series?”

“Yup,” Rhett murmurs and now the film shows him pressing Jenessa against one of the studio walls and she raises one leg high. Insanely high. It’s a very gymnastic level move and Rhett slots his cock up with her opening, sliding hard and deep into her body.

Jenessa lets out a wail of pleasure as he presses in and she holds that leg up – all strength and grace as he begins to move within her at a steady rhythm.

Her hips answer some, but it’s more about how…open she is. And how deep he’s getting. They’re eyes are locked as he picks up his pace, rocketing in and out of her, shaking her whole form with his thrusts, her tiny breasts jiggling with each movement and movement, they call this…

“Got an award for this one.”

Thank God. That one comment draws Link back to some semblance of sanity even as his body quickens with an unspeakable longing, a carnal hunger that aches, “Really?”

“Uh huh,” Rhett says with no small amount of pride, “Best Sex Scene.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah. I mean, I owe it to her to be honest,” he waves to the screen, “She’s the one turning herself into a pretzel throughout this thing. Same for the rest of ‘em. They kept finding co-stars for me to work with who had had extensive training in this sort of body contortion. It was just my job to, uh, well…”

Rhett waves again and the answer is obvious: to fuck them through it. Link is not at all limber. In fact, he’s kind of a klutz. Nothing to match up with someone like this.

For some reason, this realization leaves him hollow. Cold. His arousal dims some, “Where’d you get the award from?”

“XRCO.”

Link makes some sound that would imply he understands, but he doesn’t. Rhett sighs, “Got nominated for Most Popular Male Performer on Pornhub but lost to Johnny Rockwell. Guy deserved it though. Performance he did that year was nuts.”

Link’s lost in the vocal cacophony that is erupting from the television speakers. Moans, gasps, grunts, cries of sheer ecstasy as Rhett and Janessa really ramp it up.

They’re in a different position now, Jenessa’s body once more arched at a crazy angle and Rhett's just...really getting in there. His hips are pumping double time, like a jackhammer, and she is loving it.

Her blue eyes are flashing with adoration, her lips curled in that moue that speaks to an almost pleasurable pain and Link can’t help but ask, “Are the others with her?”

Rhett takes a moment to process the question and when he realizes Link is asking about the other films in the series, he shakes his head, “Nah, man. You don’t usually have repeating partners. Like I said, they found other people who could bend in weird ways. The sequel to this sees me with Julian St. Croix. Great guy. Really smart. He’s actually working on another doctorate. Plans on working in the tech field when he retires, which – money he’s making, should be pretty damned soon. You want me to dial that up?”

Link just shakes his head. The idea of watching Rhett doing something like this with yet another person and with a man no less…

He feels crappy for, well, feeling crappy. This is Rhett’s job. He shouldn’t take this personally.

Besides, it’s not like Rhett knows how Link feels about him. To him, they’re just friends and he should play the part of friend – be a friend, a good friend, “I can see why you won the award, Rhett. You’re doing a…a great job. Real good acting.”

The sound of the shocked (yet oddly sharp) laughter that leaves Rhett at that actually causes Link to finally look at him.

Rhett’s face is a ruddy red, like he’s embarrassed or something, and he’s looking at Link with a bit of a wildfire in his eyes, “‘Good acting? Are you serious?”

Link finally shifts about on the couch (which feels fantastic considering his body has been fighting off a plethora of sensations for a while now) as he fully turns to him, pillow still firmly in place, “Of course! I mean, it-it seems like you’re really into this girl,” he gestures to the screen, “when you’re doing this and I imagine that’d take some acting chops.”

He chews on his bottom lip and lowers his gaze, hands ghosting over the pillow as he talks to it more than Rhett, “Un-unless you really are into her.”

“Into her?” Rhett pokes one finger over to the television, “Into Janessa?”

“Yeah, I mean…if-if you two are a couple or-or were one or-?”

“Me and Janessa?” Rhett asks incredulously and some of the heat seems to leave him. Link gets the impression that Rhett had, for a moment, been mad or affronted by Link’s well intentioned compliment, but now is completely changing track. Now Rhett seems charmingly baffled, “You think I’m into Janessa?”

“I-I was just saying if you’re not into her in this,” Link waves to the screen where (seeing as the volume is dying down) it would seem the film is reaching its conclusion, “Then the acting is good and if you are-!”

“I’m not,” Rhett confirms firmly, “I am very much not, nor was I ever, into Janessa. We’re friendly, but we’d never work as a couple, man. She likes cats.”

Rhett says the last as if it’s a blasphemy and Link can’t help but giggle, suddenly feeling bright and light even though he knows better than to do so, “Problem?”

“Not a big fan of lil demons…”

“Noted, “Link sighs and he feels much, much better. The film is finally over, he’s seen some of Rhett’s work, and he can now say the following with sheer confidence, “I’m proud of you.”

And with that, Rhett freezes. He freezes solid, back going ram rod straight, and his eyes – they’re as round as dinner plates.

Big and green and looking at Link like’s a wild anomaly and Link worries that maybe he, somehow, inadvertently offended him with the remark so he’s quick to explain, “I-I mean it, bo. I’m proud of you. Going out there and-and doing something like this. Being so…so exposed and vulnerable and for anyone to see and yeah, sure, I mean, I guess it’s just for people to-to beat off to or whatever, but when you think about it, it’s something that brings people pleasure, which is a lot better than bringing something bad into people's lives and I know some would argue that porn is like, some gateway into violent dark tendencies or whatever, but for the average person it’s a good thing to explore and the fact you can so freely provide that to them and not be ashamed-!”

Link is blathering.

He’s a blathering idiot.

But he feels like if he stops talking, Rhett might snap at him. Or be mad. Or-!

But instead Rhett just shakes his head and whispers, “You’re unbelievable.”

Link’s diatribe cuts off. His blood stops in his veins. He feels completely seized.

“I’ve been trying so hard…fighting with everything in me,” Rhett breathes and he just…eases forward, eases closer. He’s in Link’s personal space and Link wonders if he should back up or something.

He can feel the heat coming off Rhett’s skin. His breath is bathing Link’s face as he rasps, “But I can’t anymore. You’ll have to forgive me, but…”

Rhett kisses him.

Rhett. Kisses. Him.

Rhett kisses Link.

Their lips meet in the smallest, quickest, sweetest little peck. The sound of it, the quick wet click of their lips…it’s earth shattering, sound-barrier breaking.

And Link feels his whole nervous system lurch at it. And Rhett is still looking at him, searching his eyes wildly. Link blinks and licks his lips and tries to speak, but there’s nothing to say.

Rhett just grins softly, “Bad for business…that’s what you are…”

Link’s gaze dips to Rhett’s mouth. To his lips. Lips that were on his seconds ago. His eyes feel heavy lidded as he gulps and Rhett just huffs as he kisses him again. Again.

Another kiss and this one is more than just a peck. This one? This one is the one Link’s been dreaming of, the one he’s been wishing for.

This kiss is perfect.

#rhink #randl #my writing #peachworthy

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latte-fairytaekwoon · 4 years

Text

Ateez: Your Relationship Being Outed

Kim Hongjoong:

Your companies had warned you that Dispatch had been keeping an eye on you two, hoping to get incriminating evidence that you two were indeed dating. After, sitting down and properly talking, your managers asked you both what you wanted.

Hongjoong and you looked at each other. You were both afraid, but knew for sure you wanted to go public with the relationship, you wanted to be able to be seen in public together.

"What do you think?" You asked your boyfriend, wanting to make sure he'd be ok with it.

Hongjoong smiled at you as his hand reached for yours.

"If it's ok with you, I'd like to go public about us."

And that's exactly what you two did. A few days later, you were prepared. Knowing full well Dispatch sent photographers your way, you both took a deep breath before linking hands together and walking out the building with your faces exposed. You two even waved and smiled at the cameras, having no fear or shame about your relationship, knowing deep down your fans would be happy and supportive about it.

Park Seonghwa:

This all started because a certain idol was hitting on you too much for Seonghwa's liking. You kept telling him you'd take care of it and not to worry about it.

"But how can I just stand there and pretend to be fine when they're eyefucking you right in front of me?"

He had enough one day. So when he saw said idol approaching you to bother you again, he spun you around and kissed you right in front of them and whoever else was around, warning the idol to back off from you.

And soon the idol's tweet about you two dating was spread like wildfire.

"I told you I'd take care of it, but no. You had to go jealous boyfriend mode and out us like that." You were stressed about this too much.

"I'd say I'm sorry, but I don't regret anything." Seonghwa confessed.

He hugged you from behind and slowly swayed you side to side.

"We'll get through this together ok? Don't worry. Our fans will understand."

Jeong Yunho:

Since the beginning, Yunho wanted to make your relationship public. He adored you and knew Atiny would be ecstatic to know you two were dating. Fans often shipped you two for God's sake.

"I don't know Yunho....." You always told him.

"Why not? Don't you love me enough to let the world know?.......are you ashamed of me?"

You could hear his voice break and it killed you.

"Of course I love you! And I'm proud of you! But I'm scared that it might affect our careers and we'd be forced to leave each other."

Yunho wiped the tears that spilled out from your eyes.

"Nothing will ever break us apart. That's my promise to you." He kissed your forehead and gave you a reassuring smile.

And he spilled the news the only way he could: ANEWZ.

"This just in: there are rumors going around that Jeong Yunho and L/N Y/N are dating....." He looked at the camera and smiled.

"Indeed the rumors are true. "

Kang Yeosang:

Yeosang and you often snuck out at midnight for dates. Sure it was tiring, but seeing each other made you forget about your hectic schedules, the constant shove of cameras in your face, the pressure to be the perfect idols. None of that existed when you two were together. You were just Yeosang and Y/N.

Soon enough, a photo was leaked by a sasaeng. You both woke up to articles about the leak all over the internet. Yeosang quickly went to see you, wanting to make sure you were ok, although he was on the verge of crying too at the thought that you'd be forced to break up.

Karma has its ways though, fans supported you two and condemned the sasaeng for violating your privacy. Fan sites even were created just for the two of you. It was an overwhelming amount of support.

Yeosang couldn't be happier, even if his members liked to tease him about you any chance they got.

"Here's an easy one: what's Yeosang's favorite thing in the whole world?" Yunho asked the question he picked out from the box at one of their fanmeets.

"Y/N?" Wooyoung snickered, making everyone erupt in laughter as Yeosang got embarrassed.

Choi San:

San was another one who didn't felt the need to keep your relationship a secret.

"I wanna show you off to the world!" Was what he often said. But of course, you knew that was only half of the truth.

"And I also want other people to know you're taken and not try to take you away from me like they do." There it was. He was possessive and often wanted to out you two so others wouldn't hit on you so much.

He got the opportunity while he was doing a VLive. He was happily chatting away until a lot of comments kept asking him if you and him were dating, making him confused. He saw his phone and someone sent him a leaked photo of you two kissing on one of your dates. He was shocked to find out this way and didn't know what to say, but gathering his courage, he took a deep breath and finally spoke up:

"Atiny, I have someone to say.... it's true. I am dating Y/N. I fell in love with them and I'm really happy with them.....I hope that you can all understand..."

Comments flooded in, telling him not to apologize and encouraging him about the situation. He started crying at the beautiful messages.

"Thank you so much...you guys really are the best....also let me take this time to say..."

Wiping his tears, he looked dead straight at the camera:

"Y/N is mine so none of you other idols try to take them from me. I know who you are!"

Song Mingi:

Mingi and you tended to be very careful about your relationship. You wanted to just date peacefully without anyone bothering you two or having it become a topic for people discuss. And you thought you took good measures.

Apparently not good enough since an employee at one of your favorite cafes outed you two. They posted a picture of you two.

"This is bad." Mingi tried to remain calm.

"No it's not.....it's inconvenient. But not bad." You tried assuring him.

"Yes it is! What if our companies deny it? What if they force us to break up? What will I do then Y/N? I can't live without you."

You knew you had to be the strong one here for both of you, but you couldn't. You simply held Mingi tightly, sobbing and not wanting to let him go.

Your agencies decided to hold a press conference addressing the rumors about you two. They asked you two to be present, which made you even more afraid. But to your surprise, they confirmed your relationship and threatened legal action against anyone who spread malicious words about you two or violated your privacy.

Mingi and you stood there stunned, wondering if it was a dream or not. But you two were so happy that you could be together after all. You guys waved and smiled at the press, making your first public appearance as a couple.

Jung Wooyoung:

You both adjusted your face masks one more time, making sure that you were unrecognizable.

"How do I look?" Wooyoung asked you as he faced you.

"I don't know. I can't see your face." You snorted.

Even though his face was covered, you could tell he was not pleased with your answer and was giving you his stank face.

"Hahaha, very funny. Now come on. I wanna get there before too many people show up."

The date seemed to run by so smoothly. Since most individuals were wearing masks anyway, no one batted an eyelash at you two or found anything suspicious. You two could sit on a bench and Wooyoung felt comfortable enough to wrap his arm around you. Then you felt him stiffen and release his hold on you.

"Woo? What is it?" You asked him, noticing his shift in behavior.

He didn't answer you but simply stood up and walked over to a man sitting by himself near a fountain. By his walk, you could tell Wooyoung meant business.

"So who sent you? Dispatch?"

The man reddened, thinking he had been sneaky at his attempt to film you two.

Wooyoung smirked.

"I'll make your job easier for you. We'll just tell the public ourselves. That way you can just leave us alone and not stalk us. Have a nice day."

Wooyoung walked back over to you and you asked him what was that about.

"I hope you're ready baby. Cause we're coming out."

Choi Jongho:

It all spilled out cause Jongho had been working as an MC for Music Bank. His co-MC was overly flirty with him, and though he remained unfazed by her gestures, people still decided to ship them together. He absolutely hated it.

"Are you not even a tiny bit upset as well?" He asked you.

"Actually no. I know you only love me and they're just being a thirsty hoe. And it is funny to watch you whine about it." You couldn't help but find his reactions adorable.

Jongho had enough though one VLive when so many people were commenting things about his supposed relationship with said idol.

"Stop asking me how she is. I don't know what she's doing cause I'm not dating her! I'm dating Y/N!"

He gasped when he realized that he outed you two, right in the middle of a VLive.

Your agencies quickly put out a statement, confirming the related and apologizing for Jongho lashing out in anger, saying he was just stressed about things. But fans understood and supported you two.

"I still can't believe you told the whole world." You said to him the next time you saw him.

"Oh relax. Think positive. Now I can hold your hand in public without worrying about cameras."

Gifs not mine. Credit goes to their respective owners.

#ateez #ateez reactions #ateez hongjoong #ateez seonghwa #ateez yunho #ateez yeosang #ateez san #ateez mingi #ateez wooyoung #ateez jongho #ateez scenarios #ateez imagines

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trulymadlysydney · 3 years

Note

1/ ok long anon :) back longer than ever ! because was there one time Harry was seen at like a western bar? or a bar that had a mechanical bull and he rode it ?? Then left with a girl? did that actually happen am I making that up? Anyways Harry’s in the middle of his American tour and has a 3 day break before his next show on Friday. And let’s pretend he’s somewhere around Nashville, or down further south near Dallas or Houston, or maybe west near Phoenix, or could be up in Boston, anyways point is, it’s Tuesday night and Harry just wants to find a place to have a beer at an actual bar with his band and some of the crew, and hopefully not be center of attention for a moment. And the bar he manages to make his way into isn’t packed whatsoever, but still has a nice crowd of what seems to be older locals, there for open mic night/karaoke. He and the band manage to make their way in to go sit at a booth tucked away and if any of the patrons do spare a look at him, it’s not really at him, but more so at his funky multicolored cardigan. And Harry’s having a great time just being able to be out drinking and having a good time with his friends, just laughing over stories told, pausing to listen to whoever is up at the mic if they catch his ear. Harry suggests another round of drinks, and he walks up to where you’re behind bar in a pair of Levi’s shorts, head turned away as you’re filling up a glass from the tap, and as if you could sense someone there behind you, you’re already saying “I’ll be with you in a second” without even turning around. And when you hear a “take your time” in an accent that’s definitely not from one of your usual crowd, you quickly look over your shoulder and just as quickly turn back to the tap because holy shit…it’s actually Harry Styles at this bar of all places. And as you turn to take the drink you poured to the patron at the corner of the bar, Harry gets an actual look at you and thinks to himself oh wow…she’s pretty. Really, really pretty even in this low lighting. And as you slide your way back over to him, you ask “what can I get you?” in the most calm cool collected way you can manage. And maybe it’s the alcohol or maybe it’s because he’s naturally a menace, but Harry says “your name” with a slight grin. And you won’t lie, hearing that from Harry Styles did make your heart start pumping faster, and a smirk starts to make its way to your mouth that Harry catches, but is shaken away as you roll your eyes because men really are the same no matter who they are and you respond “it’s y/n. Now seriously, what can I get you? They don’t look it, but this crowd can get rowdy if they don’t get their drinks in time even if I tell them that it was a young big shot rock star decided to hold up the line” And there it is. The little weight that settled on your shoulders for a second lifted because you know that he knows and he knows that you know who he is. But you also can’t help but notice the little bit of hurt that crossed Harry’s face when you responded. And Harry, he’s a little taken back by your sharp response, mouth dropped, but not so much shocked that you know who he is (he’s not conceited just knows how relevant/big he is). And he doesn’t know what it is whether it’s the fact that you’re so pretty, or the fact you tried to play it cool (the shocked-knowing glance you made at him when you thought he didn’t notice turns out was noticed) the alcohol, or the slight bite in your response, but he turns to look back at the booth with his friends and notices that they’re so deep into conversations and laughs and (some even dancing with some of the older patrons) honestly, haven’t noticed that Harry’s been gone for a moment. He looks back to you and says “Y/N” (that rolls nice off his lips), “I’m sorry, I’ll have one of whatever is on tap.” And you nod as you turn to pour his drink while Harry decides to settle in and take a seat at the bar. And when you place his drink on the table, he goes “Seriously, I’m sorry if I offended you or made you uncomfortable in anyway.”

2/ And you notice how genuine he sounds right now, and you were neither offended or uncomfortable, just more shocked that Harry Styles is asking for your name. You tell him “it’s fine, really, just wasn’t expecting /that/ from you. Anyways, what managed to bring you all the way over here?” And that’s how you two started talking about everything really even as you excused yourself to fill orders, the conversation was easily jumped back into. Harry told you of how he’s been on tour and just needed to feel like a person and you told him about yourself. How you took up bartending because you’re starting grad school in the fall and little stories about the old timey crowd that like to inhabit this place. Like how behind the dingy curtain on the little stage, there’s actually a mechanical bull that is hardly ever used now because too many drunk old people nearly breaking a hip trying to live out their Wild Wild West fantasy. And you both don’t really notice, but as the conversation has gone on, he’s leaned more across the bar as you’ve leaned closer to him as well. Harry’s noticing how your eyes crinkle when you laugh and the mole on your forearm as you stretch to hand people their drinks. And your beautiful doesn’t go missed by the kind elderly guests who he can hear make comments on how “you get prettier every time I see you y/n” And you’re really smart. When you told him what you’re going to grad school for, and what you’re researching, Harry was reminded how he stopped going to school at 16. And you’re noticing how easy he is to talk to. Surprisingly easy and despite being a huge celebrity, he’s really down to earth, still cocky but charming. He’s also so handsome, strikingly so, especially this close. Anyways, the night has gone on, more of the crowd turning in for the night, and you’re now around the bar, sitting on the stool next to Harry, knees occasionally knocking against each other, still talking. At some point you’re both broken out of whatever trance you’re both under by each other by one of Harry’s friends coming over to tell him that they’re all leaving and you think sadly to yourself that this weird, unexpected, encounter has come to an end. But when you see that Harry hasn’t gotten up from his stool, and he tell them that’s going to stay back and he’ll get a ride back later, something lights up in your belly. As they all wave back at him you send a wave off as well and Harry turns back to you and says “Is that okay with you? I’m honestly having a really great time talking with you.” And you swear steam could come out of your ears and your face is probably beet red right now as a high pitch “no, that’s fine, I’m really having a great time too. But I am going to have to start closing up now, so if you do want to leave…” and Harry is all “oh….well is it okay if I stay as you close up, give you some extra company? I promise I’ll stay out of your way, or I could help, you know?” And he adds with a smile, “Whatever I can do that’ll make you want me to stay, lovely” And that last part makes you smitten really as you nod okay to him. So the bar is now closed, and you’ve been going through your usual closing routine (it’s just you that night since it was Tuesday) and you just can’t believe Harry Styles is here helping you sweep and flip chairs onto tables (“I can help some. I used to be a baker you know?”) And you’ve plugged your phone into the speaker to play your Spotify as you clean and when you hear the opening of Canyon Moon, a shock runs up your spine as you pause mid tabletop wipe down and your eyes move to meet Harry who has looked up mid sweep. And you’re blushing again and stammering an apology of “I am so sorry let me change it” as you rush to your phone to change it as Harry who has gone back to sweeping says “no I like this one” with a grin and looks back to you. And you’re a little relieved but still embarrassed biting your lip as you tell him “yeah i do too” with a returned grin.

3/ And you both go back to cleaning and talking, you’ve both ended up in one of the booths, Your feet brushing against each other under the table as you finish up looking over inventory sheets between asking Harry about his tattoos (his sleeves rolled up,holding his arm out on the table as you admire and you didn’t miss the flex of his hand when you brushed against the one of the holy Bible asking if the placement of the bookmark means anything particular). And at some point Harry looks towards the stage at one point and asks “is there really a bull behind there?” And you told him “yeah and that bull has a name, and it’s Stella by the way named after an actual cow the owner had on a farm as a kid” and now you’re pulling the curtain to reveal, the very intimidating mechanical bull that takes up most of the tiny stage. And Harry’s all “can I ride it?” And you’re all “are you sure? I mean it hasn’t been used in awhile besides my coworkers when we’re fucking around after closing sometimes.” And Harry’s like “yeah it looks like fun.” And that’s how he ended up, on top of the bull, shoes discarded and socked feet, holding on with one hand as the bull bucked and you laughed at first because of how ridiculous he looked, and he’s laughing along with you having the time of his life too, but oh…the way he’s practically grinding against the seat is making you have some really impure thoughts. And you shake your head a little as he’s finally lost his bearings and has fallen off onto the protective padding below laughing his head off. And jokingly you say “23 seconds. And here id thought you’d last longer.”

4/ And Harry catches your shot at his ego as he gains his composure, rising up to where you are at the controls to say “heyyy now. Bet you can’t do better.” And you’re a little insulted at his assumption because you mentioned earlier to him that you and the rest of the workers here will occasionally ride the bull after work for fun and you’d managed stay on the longest several times thanks to your highly strategized technique you’ve developed, as you scoff “oh please I know how to ride” and your eyes widen because you didn’t mean for your response to be that saucy, but Harry is already looking at you with that smirk and says “well, show me how you ride then” and you swallow and agree and after giving harry a rundown on the easy to use controls, you’re perched on the bull. With the bull facing the away, your starting with your back towards Harry, and he can’t help but to notice your ass in your shorts again as it’s slightly arched on the bull with your hand in the air. Once he actually starts up the bull, he realizes how right you were about knowing how to ride. And he didn’t think this was possible but you’ve managed to make this whole activity seem graceful? In the way that you’re going with the motions of the bull. Harry also can’t help but notice how sexy you look up on it too, he can’t help but let his himself imagine you riding him like how you are on the bull right now. You rocking rhythmically back and forth on the saddle. Harry’s glad that he’s behind the controls right now as he reaches to his pants to discreetly adjust himself because he’s getting hard. And your gleeful laughter snaps him out of his dirty thoughts as you make eye contact with him, and it’s a split second but oh did you just see him? adjust himself? Oh… and it breaks you from your concentration as you’re flung from the bull a little harsher than expected onto the padding below. And Harry has exclaimed your name as he has stepped his way into the padding of the bull pen rushing to you as you’re rolled onto your side catching your breath laughing a little because this is, just so crazy, crazy, crazy, crazy that Harry Styles has not only showed up to your bar, but he /likes/ talking to you, he called you lovely and now, he’s hard over you. And Harry is leaned over you, rolling you onto your back, concern on his face, and asking “are you okay?” And you’re still trying to catch your breath as breathless laughs escape you as you tell him “yeah, yeah I’m fine.”

5/ And now you’re close, really close and really looking at each other as Harry goes to sweep some of your hair off your face. And you reach your hand up to softly brush against the bare skin of his tattooless arm. And you’re looking at Harry’s lips as he’s paused his ministrations in your hair looking down at you and smirks “you were right about knowing how to ride.” And a smile spreads across your face, and your eyes are doing that crinkled thing that Harry likes as you reply “oh, you think?” and your hand moves to tug on his collar, to bring him down to your face as you kiss him.

Anndddddd that’s all I’ve got lol.

---------

BESTIE....... BESTIE OH MY GOD HELLO??? IM SPEECHLESS IM... OMFG HIM BEING A LITTLE NERVOUS? YOU BOTH BEING SO EXCITED TO HANG OUT AFTER HOURS, AND THE REALIZATION THAT LIKE... OH FUCK HE’S ACTUALLY KIND OF INTO YOU... OH MY GOD

#long anon my beloved #harry chats

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agentnico · 3 years

Text

Free Guy (2021) Review

“Don’t have a good day, have a great day!”

Plot: When a bank teller discovers he's actually a background player in a brutal open-world video game, he decides to become the hero of his own story - one that he can rewrite himself. In a world where there's no limits, he's determined to save the day his way before it's too late, and maybe find a little romance with the coder who conceived him.

Last time I watched such a hyper-actively positive film I was seeing little LEGO figures jumping about on screen with Morgan Freeman hanging off a string in ghost form. Yes, The LEGO Movie shares a lot in common with Free Guy, not just in its opening sequence where Ryan Reynolds’s loveable Guy is starting off a perfectly good day every day with a nice cup of coffee and wishing everyone not a good, but a great day, goes to the job at his bank and goes back home, and rinse and repeat. But the character of Guy himself is basically Chris Pratt’s Emmett from The LEGO Movie - full of sunshine and innocence and taking everything that comes with child-like excitement and energy. You can also treat Mariah Carey’s “Fantasy” song usage here like “Everything is Awesome” with how many times its played, but damn if it isn’t catchy! And the film comparisons don’t end there. You wouldn’t be faulted for seeing references to Ready Player One with all the cameos and Easter Eggs and pop culture references thrown in the mix, to The Truman Show based on the general concept and obviously certain video games such as Grand Theft Auto, Saints Row and even Sims due to the video game open world that the movie creates.

Speaking of the video game open world that is created, you could tell director Shawn Levy and the producers went through a lot of effort to research modern video games and all the tiny little details and quirks that exist. For example it was a lot of fun seeing characters tea-bag someone they just killed to then a character glitching out and jumping into the wall repetitively or the obvious inclusion of Fortnite inspired dance jiggles. You also get cameos from various real-life game streamers such as Jacksepticeye and DanTDM, and I found an interview on IGN where those guys spoke about in regards to how Hollywood can never seem to get video-game-to-film adaptations right, and how they appreciated that the producers of Free Guy went to them and asked questions and actually showed interest in wanting to create a realistic feeling video game in the movie and getting the terminology right. Evidently unlike other video game adaptations Free Guy manages to succeed from the fact that it doesn’t need to replicate a specific game from real life. There are nods to certain games as I aforementioned, but otherwise they’ve created their own entire game and as such there is no expectation to impress a certain individual fan base. So in conclusion what I’m saying is that I guess Hollywood should stop trying to adapt film versions of popular video game franchises and instead do their own original stuff maybe? Then again I do want to see that Ghost of Tsushima adaptation come to life, so yes, I’ll just go and kindly shut myself up.

Taking the video game matter aside for the time being, I found Free Guy to be an absolute delight from start to finish. Well, to be exact from 20 minutes from the start to finish. Honestly when the film began I was concerned if the movie was going to turn out to be the typical “I live in a simulation” story, and though as a basis it is exactly that, there’s so much goodness thrown into the mix with funny jokes to the cameos (the cameos are to die for!) to the visuals to the music choices to the performances - the movie is such a joy to watch. Speaking of the cameos and pop culture references, Free Guy is also an interesting film outside of its narrative. This movie was in production during the time the studio that was behind it - 20th Century Fox - was being sold to a certain little known company called Disney. As such, you can tell after the studio’s transfer to Disney was complete, this film underwent some additional reshoots and last minute changes, mainly in the finale because there are certain surprises at the end of the movie that will be a geek/nerd’s wet dream and were only made possible after Disney’s acquisition of 20th Century Fox, now known as 20th Century Studios. Personally I still have my qualms about Disney being the massive conglomerate business giant that is buying out all the other studios, but not going to lie even I got excited and jumped up like a kid in my cinema seat when a certain something happened at the end of this movie. Luckily only my lovely fiancée saw me like this as she was sitting next to me, and yes, I’m certain that me revealing my true nerd colours definitely lost me some attraction points from her, but nevertheless I don’t care, the Easter Eggs at the end of this movie are real fun!

The entire cast is top notch here. Ryan Reynolds does his usual shtick that he’s been doing ever since he found success with Deadpool, however naturally here he’s kept PG-13 and not swearing every other breath. That being said, his charm and sarcastic charisma really worked for the role of Guy, and he presented himself as really loveable and naïve and it was impossible not to like him in this film. Jodie Comer in her role has also been getting humongous praise from critics and reviewers alike, and yes, the rumours are true, she shares great on screen chemistry with Ryan Reynolds and also is proper cool and badass as to be expected. That being said I was told by a certain someone that they know someone who knows someone who knew someone who spoke to someone who said that they worked with Jodie Comer on the set of Killing Eve, and this was just some behind-the-scenes worker, and apparently in their experience they found Comer to be a real diva and challenge to work with. So that’s now me here spreading some gossip for no apparent reason besides causing a little stir and now I can move on. Joe Keery has a much bigger role in this film that the trailers made it seem, and I must say the lad has really been doing well for himself ever since his appearance in Stranger Things. Whenever I’ve see him in anything since such as Spree or Death to 2020 he’s always been wonderful to watch. Here in Free Guy he’s no different, getting to play a character who at first comes off as a villain but then is revealed to simply be a guy working for the wrong person. Speaking of that wrong person, the villain of the movie is played by none other than actor-director Taika Waititi himself, and his role is really interesting seeing as he plays the owner of this big video game business company who only cares about money and sequels over art, which I found quite ironic seeing as this movie is distributed by Disney that’s all about sequels, remakes and reboots. Just saying. Also found it funny how even though this movie marks a little reunion of sorts for Ryan Reynolds and Taika Waititi, they don’t share any scenes together which was probably for the best, as last time they worked together Green Lantern occurred. Anyway, Taika is as goofy and over-the-top as you expect him to be, and I can see him being very divisive. You’ll either find him hilarious or super annoying. However both opinions would work seeing as he’s the villain.

Free Guy is an absolute cuddly crowd-pleaser full of casual mayhem and crazy ideas, and is sure to be a welcome boost of fun in a summer that naturally lacked bigger blockbusters due to what’s happening in the world right now. However nonetheless, this and The Suicide Squad have really made a point that cinema is back, hopefully to stay.

Overall score: 9/10

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s-and-n-writes · 3 years

Text

another long day

crimson and bluebell: part two

summary:

Marinette Rossi is tired of everything: from Lila’s constant berating and Madame Rossi’s preferential care of her ‘angel-like’ daughter, to how everyone at school (even Alya) seems to believe her evil stepsister over her.

It’s like she’s Cinderella, except without the fairy godmother and the happy ending. She doesn’t even have a prince.

Or so she thinks.

Between the appearance of a new boy who seems to have captured her heart, and a gala run by her fashion idol Gabriel Agreste, Marinette hopes for an escape the constant ignorance, workload, and bullying she endures, and get a blissful life of her own.

With the help of one tiny god and a meow-velous partner, she might finally get a chance, but not everything is that simple.

They say ladybugs are lucky, so will being the elusive Ladybug bring Marinette the luck she oh-so-desperately needs?

quick links:

< previous chapter | first chapter | next chapter >

| miraculous masterlist | series masterlist |

a/n: so hi again, it’s me, n! im so so so sorry that i didn’t post for a long time, school caught up with me and everything’s getting v stressful these days. regardless, my new year’s resolution is to post more of these, and i’ll actively make an effort to do that hehe, in the meantime, enjoy!

also i’m appalled at the fact that this was 15 pages long and took more than a month to write how are you doing

Marinette had thought that the whole coffee spill, glass breaking fiasco would be relatively easy to clean.

She was wrong.

It takes her all of 10 minutes to clean up the glass, and another 20 minutes to try and clean up the coffee.

Key word: try.

Marinette ends up at school 30 minutes late, the coffee-stained carpet rolled off to the side at home, effectively ruined. She hasn’t even thought about the cracked glass table yet, which she hid by placing a tissue over top of it after Lila left.

Needless to say, all of this puts a little bit of a damper on her day.

As Marinette walks up the staircase of Francois Dupont, the school she goes to, she spots Alya Cesaire inside. Alya is Marinette’s closest friend, and despite having moved to Paris only a year ago, it feels like Marinette has known her for their entire lives.

“Girl, girl, girl…” Alya sighs as Marinette walks through the doors. It’s a free period, and students litter the area. Marinette spots Lila walking with one of her friends on the other side of the school, and luckily, Lila doesn’t see her.

There’s one good thing about school that Marinette adores: she doesn’t have to see Lila. Lila’s always had Madame Mendeleev for homeroom, and Marinette’s had Madame Bustier. Because of this, their schedules never interact, which allows Marinette to avoid Lila for the duration of the school day.

“I’m so sorry!” Marinette pleads, running up to Alya and shrugging her backpack off her shoulder. “There was a coffee spill, and glass broke, and-OH GOD I MISSED THE MATH TEST!!!”

“Marinette, chill,” Alya laughs. “The math test got rescheduled, but Ms.Bustier is pretty mad about you being late,”

Marinette sighs. “That’s a relief,”

“But you still missed a lot of news~,” Alya says, singing the last word.

Alya aspires to be a journalist, so on the occasions that Marinette wasn’t late, Alya would give her anything and everything interesting she’d dug up that week.

"I know, I know," Marinette sighs, fingers loosely picking at her shirt again. The seams stay intact, but Marinette's mind doesn't. The coffee spill and the glass breaking is constantly on her mind; she's not sure what to do.

"Nice shirt, girl," Alya smiles, breaking Marinette away from her thoughts. Alya's good at that, and she notices when Marinette lets her mind wander, something that happens a little too often for her tastes. "Did you make it?"

Marinette bursts into a grin. "Yes! I used that gorgeous thread that Sabine bought last week for my birthday, you know, the one I kept talking about, and it was absolutely amazing! I had to make this! What do you think? Do you like it?"

The shirt is simple; a white base with flowers of varying sizes lining the edge. Marinette pairs it with her old, pink jeans (the fabric for the flowers on her shirt came from some leftover ones she had when making the jeans) and a dark-gray blazer that Lila used to own.

"It's beautiful," Alya smiles, "But hey, I’m more excited for you-know-who’s reaction,"

Marinette rolls her eyes, hiding her face as an involuntary blush rises to her face. "Alya! You know I don't like him like that!,"

Alya grins. "Just teasing,"

“Well, anyways, tell me what I missed during lunch, I’m off to the classroom, before Ms. Bustier comes looking for me,” Marinette smiles, turning and running up the stairs.

“Good luck, girl!” Alya says, waving goodbye and pulling out her phone.

The day passes quickly, and lunch comes sooner than Marinette expects.

She meets Alya outside of Francois Dupont, and they both head to Ville de Soirée, a cafe which isn’t nearly as expensive as the others in the area. They both order their usuals, and sit in one of the booths as they wait for their drinks.

Marinette sighs and leans back. “Ok, ok, tell me,”

Alya, who is most probably on the verge of exploding from her excitement, gears up. “Ok, so you know Nino, right?”

“You mean the boy you’ve been obsessing over since we met him?” Marinette teases. “Oh hey, I might have an inkling,”

Alya blushes, her cheeks tinting rouge. “Shut up,”

Marinette giggles. “Ok, go on,”

“Anyway, Nino texted me yesterday that his parents finally agreed, and he’ll be starting school starting Monday next week!”

“Ah! That’s so exciting! I’m so happy for you!” Marinette laughs. “Now you can actually make a move!”

“Don’t get ahead of yourself, I’ll let you play matchmaker when the time comes,” Alya laughs, “there’s also something else, and this one I know you’ll be even happier about,”

The barista interrupts Alya, placing two steaming drinks in front of them. They both reach for their drinks, with Marinette holding the cup in her hand and Alya taking a sip. She grins.

“Nino’s friend, you know, Adrien Agreste, is also coming too,”

She pulls back, looking smug as she tries to read Marinette’s face.

The girl in question sighs, shaking her head. “Who even is Adrien, and why does everyone keep mentioning him to me?”

Alya facepalms, groaning.

“Girl, sometimes I swear you live under a rock,” Alya sighs, shaking her head. “How do you not know who Adrien Agreste is? His ads are literally everywhere!”

Marinette pouts. “Well maybe I just haven’t seen him,”

Alya rolls her eyes and shakes her head. “Ohh no, there’s no way you’ve missed him ,”

She pulls up her phone and momentarily scrolls as Marinette waits.

“Here,” she says, “That’s him,”

The photo on Alya’s screen is from last February, Marinette recognizes. She remembers how Lila bought a copy of the magazine it came in, although she wasn’t allowed to see it.

But the boy is familiar. His face is similar to someone’s, but Marinette can’t pinpoint who it—

Oh.

He’s Gabriel Agreste’s son.

Marinette leans back.

“That’s Monsieur Agreste’s son! I should’ve known, how could I have missed it when Madame Rossi told us about him?”

Alya squints her eyes. “Wait what?”

“There’s a fashion show that Adrien’s dad is hosting, and the embassy’s holding a huge event to greet all the fashion officials that are coming. Madame Rossi got us all passes to go,” Marinette says.

“That’s the one my mom’s cooking for! It’s next weekend right? She would not stop talking about it all weekend. I can try and score a pass, to you know, keep you company?”

Marinette gasps suddenly, burying her face in her hands, “Ah! I forgot! I won’t be able to go, since Li— I mean I, spilled coffee all over our new carpet,”

Alya raises an eyebrow.

“Fine, fine, I cracked some glass too,” Marinette sighs, face growing redder. “Madame Rossi’s gonna ground me for sure!”

Alya shakes her head. “Somehow I can believe it. You are the clumsiest person I know,”

She nods thoughtfully, fingers closing around the fox necklace on her neck. “Well I can’t deal with the whole glass situation, but maybe I can help with the coffee stuff? Happens to my mom all the time,”

Marinette perks up. “Really? Would you? Oh thank you Alya!”

Alya laughs. “No problem girl, I’ll come by after your shift at the bakery,”

Marinette pauses. After work would be...when Lila comes home.

Alya has always been a fan of Lila, but despite knowing Marinette, she’s only admired Marinette’s less-than-wonderful sister from afar. This means that so far, Marinette has managed to keep Alya and Lila separate.

Does she really want to risk that?

Weighing in the situation, she sighs. Would she rather have a shot at attending a potentially life-changing event, or safely escape Alya meeting Lila?

Knowing the both of them, Marinette remembers, they’d be a deadly combo.

But Marinette really wants to go to the event so, maybe this time, she might just give in.

“Great!” Marinette says, happiness laced with fear. “That’s...great!

Alya nods, smiling, watching as Marinette giggles.

“Now about setting you up with Nino…”

Alya turns away, blushing, “Marinette!”

Today

Lie-la 😒: sup loser

Lie-la 😒: im going to the mall with my friends after school

Lie-la 😒: if my mom comes in early

Lie-la 😒: you know what to say

Lie-la 😒: type, maribrat. use those lousy fingers.

You: yea, sure lila.

Lie-la 😒: good.

Marinette sighs and pockets her phone. For today, she is safe.

And that’s all she has ever wanted.

Marinette’s day ends with her feeling happier than when it began. Alya’s coming over to wash out the coffee stain, Lila won’t be there when she gets home, and she’s heading to her shift at the bakery!

It’s normal for work to not be exciting to most people, but for Marinette, it always is. Heading to the Dupain-Cheng bakery is always the highlight of her day, and working there is even better. The owners, Sabine and Tom, are like the parents she never had, what with them spoiling her with all the food they give and teaching her how to bake. Customers even tell Marinette all the time that she looks strikingly similar to Sabine, but she doesn’t see it.

In truth, she’s only ever even thought about becoming a designer because of the Dupain-Chengs, and if it weren’t for their motivation, she’s sure that she would be in a much different place right now.

But that’s not what Marinette worries about right now. Despite school ending early and the bakery being right across the street from where she is, she still manages to be late.

She exchanges a quick goodbye with Alya, who chuckles at her frazzled state, and dashes off towards work.

“I’m here!” she shouts, running into the bakery, the familiar jingle of the store’s door’s bell ringing in her ears. “Sorry!

Sabine laughs as she hands a box of pastries to a customer, waving as they leave. “Just on time. Hello Marinette,”

Marinette winces as Sabine holds out her apron. “Sorry again, Sabine!”

Tom laughs from the kitchen behind the store, the sound booming through the bakery. “Marinette!”

“Tom!” Marinette says back, her lips curving into a smile.

Sabine eyes Marinette as she ties the apron behind her, quickly joining the older woman behind the counter.

“So?” she asks. “What’s new with you?”

Marinette sighs. “Not much, not much...oh! Madame Rossi has an embassy gathering to welcome a couple of famous people into France. And not just any people, people who work in the fashion industry!”

Sabine nods, smiling at Marinette’s delight. “And why exactly are these people coming?”

“It’s for the Gabriel event. I don’t know when it is, but apparently Gabriel Agreste is holding a huge gala, something about searching for a fashion assistant?,”

Sabine perks up at fashion assistant. “Marinette, you should enter!”

Marinette gasps. “I couldn’t! There’s no way! I mean, my designs are barely adequate, let alone Agreste worthy!”

Sabine shakes her head. “Everyone knows that isn’t true. Don’t put yourself down like that!”

Marinette blushes. “Thanks Sabine,”

The woman smiles. “Well, anyways, are you allowed to go to the embassy event? It’s a great opportunity, you wouldn’t want to miss it,”

“I mean, Madame Rossi did invite me and Lila, but Lila spilled a bunch of coffee on the carpet, and cracked the dining table this morning. It’s all a stunt, she did it on purpose. She’s blaming it on me, which means I’ll get grounded, and I won’t be able to go, and you know there’s nothing I can do about that,”

Sabine sighs, placing a hand on Marinette’s shoulder. “Oh dear. The next time I see Lila, I’ll tell Tom to get that girl and her mother arrested!”

Marinette laughs. “As much as I’d like that, where would I live?”

The rumble of the oven from behind the store dies down, and Tom walks into the main room. The room seems friendlier all at once, his large personality filling the space.

“Here, with us,” he declares proudly. “You’re like a daughter already,”

Marinette giggles, her cheeks growing red. “Alright guys, we’ll see,”

Sabine and Tom laugh as Marinette runs away to help a customer. Their afternoons with Marinette pass by quickly, and while they wish it was longer, you know what they say: time flies when you're having fun.

By the time Marinette gets off her shift, it’s 5:30 in the evening. Paris’s sky starts to fade from its normal cotton-candy blue to a marmalade orange. The hustle and bustle of the busy streets start to die down, and once she texts her address to Alya, Marinette makes her way to the bus stop.

While her time in the bakery is her favorite time of day, her time on the bus doesn’t prove to be too bad either. She likes the quiet silence, and enjoys her time away from the world around her.

The bus is probably her favorite mode of transportation (but her only one as well). When she volunteered to work at the bakery after school, Madame Rossi decided that ‘the streets were too dark at night for Marinette to walk alone’, and she was given a bus pass.

It was a small and random act of kindness that Marinette wouldn’t ever get again. It was also the only gift she ever got from her adopted mother, and despite not being too fond of Madame Rossi, she did treasure the gift.

Madame Rossi paid for her bus rides until Marinette was actually hired at the bakery. It was then that she decided to have Marinette pay her own bills, an action that most certainly helped Marinette for the future.

The sound of tires skidding against the pathway jolts Marinette out of her thoughts. She turns to see her normal bus waiting in front of her, and grabbing her bus pas, waits in line behind a couple others to get on.

That is, until she sees what’s about to happen.

Marinette watches as a man across the street tries to cross. He’s old, as his grayed hair and aged face tells, but his most identifiable quality is the red Hawaiian shirt he wears, embossed with a white hibiscus floral pattern.

Besides that, there’s also a car coming straight for him, and though it’s a little while away, there’s no doubt that he’ll get hit.

Marinette does the only thing she can think of. She runs.

The street is narrow, and Marinette manages to pull the man across the pathway before the car comes. She huffs, turning to the man to smile.

He has an odd look in his eyes, lips curved into a mysterious smile as Marinette quirks her eyebrow.

“Thank you, young lady,” he nods.

“You’re welcome!” she smiles, turning to look at the bus, which has started leaving. “Goodbye and stay safe, sir!”

The old man watches as Marinette just manages to catch the bus, stopping it and shouldering her backpack as she climbs on.

Marinette seats herself as the bus starts once more, and turns to her window to look for the old man.

But by the time she does, he’s gone.

Alya gets to Marinette's house at just the right time. When she reaches, Marinette has done a couple of her chores, cleaned up the living room, and put out the carpet in the first floor bathroom. Against the white rug, the coffee stain is obvious, and Marinette sighs as she inspects it.

How were they ever going to get it out?

There’s a knock at the front door, and Marinette knows it’s Alya. Smiling, the girl heads to the living room to open it.

Alya gasps as she sees the house. From the marble kitchen to the hickory-brown wood flooring, everything is pristine and clean, as if the Rossis live in a mansion.

(They don’t, but the house is still fairly big. Marinette sometimes has to clean it all as part of her chores, but luckily that hasn’t happened in a while.)

“Dang girl,” Alya sighs, “you rich or what?”

Marinette nervously laughs, cracking her knuckles. “Uh, I don’t know,”

“I’m joking,” Alya smiles. “But, random thing, where’s Lila?”

“She’s out. Doctor’s appointment for her, um, wrist,”

“Aw, that’s too bad. Tell her I said get better soon!”

Marinette sighs. She doesn’t like lying, but it’s far better than what would happen if she told the truth.

“Yea. Anyway, how are you getting the stain out? I tried all morning, but it was stuck,”

“Just watch me, girl,” Alya smirks. “Before we start though, you already blotted the stain,right?”

Marinette furrows her eyebrows. “Blotted? What do you mean?”

Alya demonstrates with her hands. “Like, did you take a paper towel and try to get as much of the stain out as you could?”

Marinette nods. “Yeah, that’s why I was late this morning,”

Alya nods. “Ok, so now we just have to make the cleaner,”

Marinette raises an eyebrow. “Make? This is getting a little crazy,”

“It’s really not,” Alya laughs, “I’ve done this a thousand times before. My sisters knock over my dad’s coffee way too much,”

Marinette laughs. “Alright then, show me what to do,”

Alya makes her way to the kitchen, filing through multiple cabinets. “Where’s your dish soap?”

“Bottom-left drawer next to the sink,” Marinette points.

“And your white vinegar?”

“Fridge. Anything else you need?”

“Just water,” Alya replies. “Warm, that is. And two cups of it,”

Marinette nods. “Got it,”

Alya takes out a steel bowl from one of the cabinets. “And can I use this?”

Marinette nods again. “Go ahead,”

“Great,” Alya says, pouring a spoon of dish soap followed by a spoon of vinegar. She waits for Marinette to get the water before adding that in as well, and then mixing. “That should do,”

“Work your magic then,” Marinette laughs.

“Just watch and see girl, I totally will,”

Alya finds a cleaning rag from a drawer in the island, and she runs over to the carpet. “Grab yourself a rag, Marinette, and let’s get started!”

Marinette laughs, and runs over to help. The time passes quickly, and by the time the coffee stain is gone and the carpet is dry, two hours have gone by. Their hands are sore and their legs are tired, but both can say that they had fun.

In the midst of it, Marinette almost doesn’t notice when Lila texts her.

Today

— 2 New Messages —

Lie-La 😒: open the back door

Lie-la 😒: im right by my house

Almost.

“Alya!” Marinette gasps, both sitting on the couch after the carpet was rolled back underneath the dining table. “It’s so late, don’t you have to go at 7?”

Alya tilts her head, confused. “No?”

“Oh well then I must have said it,” Marinette laughs nervously. “Yes that’s right! I’ve got work, haha. Bye!”

Marinette practically pushes Alya to the front door, while Alya looks lost and puzzled.

“Didn’t you already have work?” Alya asks.

“Yep, but gotta save up for uni right? Haha. Haha,”

Alya nods, squinting her eyes as she walks out the door.

“Um, bye? See you at school, girl,” Alya nods, quietly laughing.

“Bye!” Marinette smiles. Once Alya is farther away and out of sight, Marinette runs to open the back door. She can faintly hear the sounds of Lila’s friend’s car pulling into the driveway, so she dashes back upstairs as fast as she can. The last thing she wants to do is talk to Lila, much less be alone in a room with her.

She hopes that Lila won’t try anything while she’s in her room.

Sighing, she smiles when she stops at the attic door, and heads inside.

Before Madame Rossi found her and decided to take her in (how she came to that conclusion, Marinette would never know), the attic was all set to be Lila’s playroom. The entire room was painted pink from head to toe (even the carpet was a light shade of pink). There was a wooden wardrobe for all of Lila’s toys, and a desk with markers, painting supplies, and coloring pencils galore.

But then Marinette came along.

For one reason or another, she was given the attic as her own room. Out went the ideas of toys and tents in the room, and in came Marinette.

Madame Rossi didn’t give her anything. From the age of 2 till the age of 4, she slept on the ground, the lack of a bed present to her each night.

Until Lila outgrew her bed of course, which was then given to Marinette.

It was simple. Since Marinette was smaller than Lila, and slower at growing, she was often given Lila’s old things. All the clothes that Lila didn’t want, Marinette had. From her bed to the old beanbag in her room (one of the only things Lila gave her as decoration) everything was a hand me down from Lila herself.

Marinette sighs, and then flops into the bed. She’s lucky that Lila doesn’t bother if Marinette doesn’t get on her nerves.

Hopefully, until she can get out of this place, she’ll manage without angering Lila too much.

Standing up, Marinette locks herself in the attic, a faint click of the door behind her, and gets out her phone. Opening up Spotify, she starts her playlist, and goes over to the desk.

For the next hour, she does homework and finishes a project, all while sketching out designs for new dresses.

And hey, if she’s lucky, she might just be able to make one for the gala.

Marinette shuffles through her desk drawers, pop music playing through her earbuds. It’s nearly 8 PM and she’s searching for the special gold thread she had bought a couple weeks ago. It cost nearly a month's pay, and she’s been saving it for a special occasion.

With the dress she was sketching, she wanted to know if it was now.

She’s still searching through the drawers on the left side of the desk when she finds a box.

One that she feels might not have been there before.

(Then again, she rarely looks through all her drawers, so there’s always a chance that it could’ve been.)

Marinette feels confused. The box is made of a dark brown wood, and shaped like an octagon. The top of the box is embossed with a red design. Glimmering red circles meet wavy, thin lines, but Marinette is preoccupied with figuring out what the box is for.

In the end, she decides to open it. There can’t be much inside, can there?

Turns out, Marinette is wrong.

The moment she opens it is a frightful one. In that second, there’s a bright flash of light. It swirls around her as Marinette gasps, dropping the box onto the carpet as two solid-black earrings fall out.

That’s not the amazing part of it all though. After a second, Marinette comes face to face with a spotted red creature.

Needless to say, she screams.

“Hi Marinette!” the spotted creature says. “My name is Tikki! It’s nice to meet you!”

“Mouse!” Marinette hollers, “Bug! Bug-mouse! Talking bug mouse!”

Marinette scooches back, her hand grabbing books and papers off her desk as she throws them at Tikki.

“I’m here to help!” Tikki says, dodging the objects. “I’m here to help you!”

“Liar!” Marinette calls, searching for more things to throw. “This must be Lila’s version of a joke ! I can’t believe her!”

She takes her water-bottle from her backpack, and quickly moves to trap Tikki in it.

“It’s ok Marinette, I won’t hurt you,” Tikki smiles. “But if this makes you feel better, then this is ok!”

There’s a pause, and then Marinette sighs and chooses not to answer, leaning back, and quickly grabbing her school tablet off her desk. She points it at Tikki, trying her best to look intimidating.

“Who are you?” Marinette asks, “and what do you want?”

“Like I said, my name’s Tikki! I’m a kwami!” the tiny bug says, (still trapped in the bottle but floating in midair, Marinette notes) “And I want to help you!”

Marinette sighs, lowering her weapon tablet. “Did Lila send you somehow?”

Tikki furrows her forehead in place of her eyebrows. “No? Who’s Lila?”

Marinette bitterly chuckles, standing and throwing her arms into the air. “This. This. This is why you can’t help me. No one can. Anyone who meets Lila thinks she’s an ‘absolute angel’, and no one else knows her. How is someone supposed to help me if no one knows that my problem exists?!”

“Marinette,” Tikki sighs, “I promise you, I can help, if you’ll listen to me. Please let me explain, and then you can decide if you want to trust me or not, ok?”

Marinette pauses, considering the situation, and sits a fair distance away from Tikki, keeping her tablet in her hands.

“Ok,” she responds, facing the little bug. “But you have 5 minutes,”

Tikki smiles again. "And that's all I need,"

quick links: < previous chapter | first chapter | next chapter >

a/n: i resolve to post the next chapter soon lmaoo, thanks for reading! have an absolutely amazing day, you deserve it!

taglist:

i’ll be tagging the people that i had tagged before, along with a couple others who liked the previous chapter for this series. if you don’t want to get tagged, i’m very sorry! just shoot me a private message, and i’ll take you off the tags. if you do want to get tagged, just tell me with a private message or an ask and i’ll add you to the taglist. thank you!

@reddragonofemeraldflame @nomiegnome @18markers @katbab @emmathedestroyer @bluesesameseed @cyborgcandy @karukofox21 @aestheticnpoetic c @magnificentcrapposts @miraculouslylee @lonestarfangirl2014 @lambdaarietis @miraculous-twilight @miraculous-twilight @silver-twilight @emmarosemary11 @whiterosequeen23 @whatschooldoesntteachyou @shaykaleen @itswelphereiamuniverse @seraphichana @ladynoirotphell @tinynuggetofterror @tinkabella256 @coopermaggie

#ml #mlb #fanfic #marinette-dupain cheng #miraculous ladybug #miraculous #adrien agreste #adrienette #adrinette #nino lahiffe #alya cesaire #lila rossi #lila rossi bashing #lila #lila exposed #lila rossi tag #marinette tag #crimson and bluebell

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thiswasinevitableid · 3 years

Note

For the prompt fill, number 3 for Indruck seems pretty fitting!

Here you go! Prompt 3 was “sweet” , Indrid’s design is based on a barracuda and I went with SFW on this one.

“Duck, can you do me a favor when you lock up?” Leo dumps orange taffy into a glass jar.

“Sure, what d’you need?”

“Got some locks for the garbage cans; put ‘em on after you set the alarm out back. Somethin’s been getting into our trash every damn night for the last week. It makes a god-awful mess and I’m worried we’re gonna get a fine for littering.”

Duck nods, turns his attention back to the flock of tourists approaching the window. The afternoon is swallowed up in a pit of sugar-sticky air and blasts of welcome cold from the freezer. There are worse places for a summer job than Tarkesian’s Sweets--he’s right by the water, can watch the wildlife on his lunch break, and Leo is low-maintenance boss--but after eight hours on his feet getting splashed with soda or burned on the popcorn machine, he’s ready to head home. The trash locks have other ideas.

It takes ten minutes of cursing and fumbling to get the first bin secured. He doesn’t even know how the damn things are getting overturned; they seem too heavy for a raccoon or seagull to knock to the ground.

A tiny splash behind him, probably a fish jumping.

Then a crooked, shiny pole slowly enters his periphery. In dim yellow of the streetlight, he can tell the end of it is curved. It pokes inelegantly at the wall, then the locked can, then the wall once again, and then Duck’s leg.

The hook pulls back, pauses, then pokes him again.

“The fuck?” He grabs it when it goes for another jab, pulls up only for his arms to be wrenched towards the water. Not to be outdone, he tugs harder. His opponent retaliates with enough force that he almost tumbles off the pier. He growls, braces his foot on the railing, and hauls the hook and its owner up onto worn wood with him.

It’s a guy about his age, angular face framed by a mess of silver hair and pierced ears. Figures it’s some sort of artsy punk swimming around poking people in the leg. That explains why he’s shirtless too.

It does not, however, explain why he has a tail.

“Rude.” The guy sits up on his hands, silver and black tail flicking droplets of saltwater everywhere, “I don’t go around stopping you from eating.”

“Look man, I just wanted you to stop jabbin me and knockin the trash over.” Maybe if he doesn’t mention the tail it will go away.

“How else am I supposed to get at those odd, pulpy tubs full of ‘cookies and cream’ or ‘bubblegum’?”

“The fuck--wait, you were tryin’ to get the ice cream containers out of the trash?”

“Yes? I also want more of the caramel apples” he pronounces the last word “applees” causing Duck to giggle in spite of himself.

“Look, I have to piece words together from the signs on your store. And you obviously know what I meant or you would not be laughing, so do you have any in the cans or not?”

“Nope” Duck gets his laughter under control, “sold out of caramel apples today.”

“Drat” the visitor starts scooting across the pier towards the unlocked trashcan, “I’ll see what else I can find.”

“Wait don’t fuckin knock that over, Leo’ll be pissed at me if he comes back to a mess, and I don’t feel like pickin up trash because you want a snack!”

“But I’m starving!” The merman, because at this point there’s no way he can deny that’s what’s been rooting through the garbage, whacks at Duck with his tail.

“I know for a damn fact there’s food down there.” He points at the bay.

“Only if you can catch it, and only if it is not in another mer’s territory. Which much of this area is; I am new here, young, and thus have no claim to any patch of sea.”

“You ain’t got any family?” Something pings in his chest. It’s the part of his heart that made him pick out the runt of litter when his mom let him get a cat on his thirteenth birthday, that means he always splits his lunch with Juno because she’s running track and needs it more than he does, that makes him tear up when he thinks about everything a sapling has to survive to become a tree.

“Merfolk leave home at sixteen.” The merman shrugs.

Duck sighs, grabbing his keys, “If I bring you somethin to eat, will you leave the trash alone?”

“Yes.”

He shuts off the alarm, grabs a cone and fills it with bright blue ice cream. The merman is back in the water when he returns, arms resting on the pier.

“Oooh, my favorite!” He takes the ice cream, biting huge chunks out of it as Duck re-arms the door.

Crunch

“...The container is edible!!”

He sits next to the merman’s arms, “Guess you wouldn’t have had an ice cream cone before, huh.”

“No, but it is lovely. I wish humans threw these away more often.” He polishes off the treat, licks his fingers clean with moans Duck hears in his dreams later, and smiles, “thank you for the meal. Goodnight.”

There’s a final flash of silvery tail, and then Duck’s alone in the breezy night air.

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

“That’s a sandwich, correct?”

“AHfuck” Duck knocks over his water bottle in surprise. He’s eating behind the candy store like usual and not expecting an aquatic dining companion.

“Apologies. I have seen you eating here before and thought you may like some company.” He sets a sea urchin on the ground and proceeds to bang on it with a rock.

“Found some lunch?”

“I followed some otters; I was mainly trying to draw them, but they led me to a kelp bed no one else was in.”

“...Wait how do you draw underwater?”

“Let me finish cracking this open and I will show you.”

Duck spends the rest of his lunch break on his belly, the merman showing him a sketchbook and enchanted pen that conjures whatever colors the illustrator envisions. The mer is genuinely excited to talk to him. He assumes the nuzzling is due to him smelling like cotton candy; he doesn’t mind, the mer’s skin is cool and he makes cute little noises whenever he touches Duck.

Before the stands, Duck asks, “You got a name?”

“Indrid.”

“Duck.”

Indrid’s eyes flick to the nearby estuary.

“Yeah, like the bird. It’s a nickname.”

“I like it.” Indrid smiles, dives, and flaps his tail once in farewell.

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

“Cutting school again?” Indrid’s voice bubbles up by his feet.

“Yep.” Duck watches the spring clouds roll by from his favorite spot on the beach. It’s secluded and far from town, meaning no one will give him shit for skipping class and nobody will see Indrid.

He worked at Leo’s until this past summer, only quitting at the start of his senior year of high school when Indrid pointed out that much of Kepler was surrounded by water and that, if Duck wanted to see him, he did not have to keep working at the candy store in order to do so.

“Not that I mind the free food.” Indrid winks.

“Just gonna bring you bulk ice cream from Safeway; no way am I missin out on that chirpin you do when you eat it.”

Duck slides the grocery bag towards the surf, “not like KCC is gonna rescind my offer. Ain’t a fuckin Ivy League or some shit.”

“And you will be happy there?”

“Yeah. They got a decent work-study program with the park, so I can still get a job as a ranger if I want to.”

“Oh. Good.”

Indrid sounds sad, and Duck sits up on his elbows. His friend’s torso is fully on land, his tail fidgeting in the foam.

“What’s up?

“I...Barclay told me his human is going to a school further inland, and I know there are many places you could got to learn. You...you did not choose to stay in Kepler because you feel the need to look after me, did you?”

“Course not.” Duck is sitting up now, aching to stroke Indrid’s hair, “I mean, I’m glad we’re still gonna be able to see each other, and I really hopin I can get a room near the beach so it’s easy to come talk. But this is the right choice for me; if I really want to, I can transfer to a different school in a few years, and I can learn a lot here without takin on a shit-ton of debt. Besides, ain’t like I think you’re helpless; I love bringin you stuff and rubbin your fin when it’s sore, but that’s because you’re my friend. Don’t think you’re helpless. I never have.”

“Not even when I was stealing trash?”

“Thought you were a fuckin nuisance, not helpless.” He playfully nudges his shoulder with his toes.

Indrid turns his head and nips his calf, “How’s that for a nuisance?”

“Not much, felt kinda nice. Uh, I mean, uh, fuck, so, where’d that worry about my stayin come from?”

The mer crawls and wiggles until they’re shoulder to shoulder, “I think my future sight is finally developing; my fathers arrived around the time he turned eighteen, so it makes sense mine would arrive at a similar point. The trouble is, I am having a hard time telling the futures from my own imaginings and worries.”

“That fuckin sucks.”

“I’ll manage. All seers struggle at the beginning. I just wish I was quicker at learning whether certain timelines are really more likely or if they are just ones that I want to be likely.”

“Like what?”

Indrid glances at him, opens his mouth, then shuts it and faces the sea.

Duck smirks, “‘Drid, there somethin you wanna ask me?”

“No. Yes. Maybe? I, I just don’t want to pressure youOOOHhhh that’s not fair” he flops on his back with a groan as Duck scritches his upper tail, “you know I’ll do anything when you touch me like this.”

“Damn right I do. And what I want is for you to tell me the truth.”

Indrid whines, covers his face with his hands.

“Do it or I’ll stop.”

“Rude” Indrid lowers his hands enough that his red eyes peer over the top, “is that any way to treat a mer who wants to kiss you?”

Duck gives his answer by pouncing on his friend, pinning narrow shoulders into the sand as he devours his mouth in kisses.

“You like that treatment better?”

“Goodness, yes.” Indrid pulls him back down, slipping his tongue between his lips and nibbling his neck when he finally stops to breathe. Then his hand flails sideways, grabbing the plastic bag and chucking it further up the beach.

“The, the tide is coming in and I, ah, foresee us working up quite the appetite.” He tugs Duck’s collar down with his teeth, nuzzling and licking across his skin with little hums of pleasure, “so I want to save those for afterwards. Who knows” he grins, “maybe we’ll need energy for round two as well.”

Duck cups his cheek, inhales the scent of the sea and the sight of his future, “I like the way you think, sweet thing.”

#Indruck #indrid cold/duck newton #mermay fills

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solsticexolos · 3 years

Text

My Farm

I spend most of my time thinking about my farm. Right now I run a very small scale poultry breeding operation- I have two breeding groups of Orloffs and one group of turkeys- but I have much greater plans than that. I think about it constantly, because it is everything to me. So many plans I’ve had have become impossible due to finances, mental health, and disability. This, though, this is my goal and dream, the result of learning what I can and cannot do, what I do and do not enjoy doing. It will provide me the opportunity to learn hands-on, something I wanted to do via university but my health and finances won’t allow me to do.

I have many loose plans right now, but I haven’t written much of it down. I’m feeling blue at the moment, so I figured typing it out might help me.

My farm, currently named Equinox Giants farm (but my mom is arguing about registering our cattle under that name so it may change lmao,) will be a heritage livestock and poultry operation. We will specialize in dual purpose animals, predominantly in breeding in order to provide other people with stock.

Grain for the livestock will mostly come from spent brewery grains. These grains come from brewing various types of alcohol (especially beer!) Brewing companies cannot use these grains and must often pay for them to be hauled to a landfill. However they are nutrient-dense for ruminants. While not nutritionally complete on their own, when paired with good pasture (and/or hay), they make up a large portion of the diet and cut out the (very high) cost of livestock grain. Not all livestock can use them, but cattle, sheep, and poultry can. There are many breweries in New York, so finding one close will be easy enough. This also cuts down on waste in landfills!

All land in the USA is stolen land, and I cannot help that I was born and live here, but I can acknowledge that when I own my farm, that will be on land that once belonged to Indigenous peoples. So, where ever we end up, I plan to reach out to the tribe whose land we’re farming on and basically finding out what I can do about it. I don’t know what the options are, but I am sure there’s something.

Waste products will be collected and composted, the resulting fertilizer then will hopefully be sold to local greenhouses/gardeners (and used for my own tiny garden, I like to grow tomatoes!)

Now the animals themselves! Pasture land is the biggest factor currently on deciding where we move and establish the farm. We need enough to be able to rotate pasture, as that will seriously limit how much grain we have to feed and hay we have to buy (if we have the extra pasture for it then we’ll probably rent out the field to someone who hays in exchange for a portion of the hay.) All of the livestock breeds I’ll be breeding are heritage animals that are capable of thriving on very little. Dexter cattle and shetland sheep are excellent at using whatever forage is available. Rotating the Dexter herd and the Shetland (and Alpaca) flock on different pastures will allow the grass to continue growing through the growing season, providing the animals with food. Livestock guardian dogs will be kept with the herd and flock to help limit conflict with native predators (and keep stray/roaming dogs away, which can seriously destroy a herd.)

We will start small, and build slowly. One of the main reasons that new farms fail shortly after startup is starting too big and growing too fast, before the owner learns how to actually manage it.

The Dexter herd will ideally start as 2-3 bred heifers. Their offspring will be raised by the cows, and then once weaned the steers will be sold to feeders (where they go to mature more until butcher), and cow calves will likely be sold (unless any art particularly nice, which we’ll keep then to add to the herd.) We will acquire a polled dexter bull from a different source, so he can be used for breeding in the future. Temperament, health, and quality are of the upmost importance in all of my breeding programs. We’ll work with all three Dexter colors- red, black, and dun. This small herd will be grown slowly, over time as we adjust to rearing cattle and figure out what we can handle. I would like to milk the cows on a very small scale so that I can make my own cheeses and butter. The bull will be named Papa Moofasa.

The Shetland sheep herd will also start off small. Shetlands themselves are teeny tiny, so you can keep a large number in small pastures. I’d like to start with 3-5 ewes and one ram. Specifically selecting for a medium crimp and length in fiber. I’ll be part of the Shave ‘Em to Save ‘Em program, which works to connect fiber produces directly to fiber artists. I would like to get decent equipment to card and spin the wool and fiber myself so that I can sell yarn. I may also keep some Friesian sheep as dairy animals to make my own sheep cheeses.

Due to the different texture and quality of Alpaca fiber to sheep fiber, I’d also like to keep a small herd of Huacaya Alpacas. Mostly because when I’ve worked with Alpacas in the past I really enjoyed their company and noises. Pleasant little fellows. I need to do a lot more research into them, though.

Chickens are one of my biggest joys, and will likely be my largest flock as far as quantity of individuals goes. I specialize in Russian Orloffs, but will also keep and breed Wyandottes, Chanteclers, Modern Game, and Sanjak Longcrowers. I will sell eggs for hatching, chicks, grow-outs, and mature breeding birds to people interested in showing, breeding, or simply having pets. I will also process to sell whole carcasses, and will sell eggs for eating as well.

Turkey varieties will be black and chocolate, and I will sell poults, grow-outs, and meat. I’m greedy and turkeys are seasonal layers so eggs I’ll keep for myself for hatching. (May sell some for eating on rare occasion.)

As far as selling goods, it’ll be done mostly via direct to buyers. During warm months I’ll sell at local farmer’s markets. Eggs, chicks, and grow-outs will be sold to anyone in the lower 48 USA via shipping. Mature birds (and grow outs) will be sold at poultry shows. The big goal for the goods is to find the right markets. Specializing in humanely raised, heritage livestock and poultry already gets me into a nice niche with that. Advertising small-farm, pasture-raised, heritage livestock and poultry looks good (as it should! It’s more sustainable!) and helps with marketing, haha.

As with most start-up businesses, especially farms, it’ll be a while before we’re breaking even, and longer still until we’re turning a profit. This is something I recognize going into it. I ain’t in it to make money, if I wanted to make money I would not get into livestock, haha, but to preserve these breeds, provide people with a source of ethically raised products and well-bred animals, and hopefully give back to the community in meaningful ways.

Anyways, just felt like rambling for a little bit to help my frazzled brain relax. Happy New Year, y’all.

#farm #argiculture #text #personal #farming #sustainable agriculture

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yootaesowlwrites · 3 years

Text

Fishing Weekend - Seokjin

Banner: Pictures and gifs belong to their rightful owners, the banner was made by me.

Requested By: No one

A/N: This is just a thing I wanted to write, cause I like seeing Seokjin fishing, also, I think the ending is a little... ???, I don’t know, but yeah.

Warnings: Fluff, Mentioning Of Alcohol, Fishing, mention of (Y/n) having a rough past.

Word Count: 4 154

(Y/n) and Seokjin has known each for a while now, it’s only been five months since they’ve met, and they were both still learning more about each other, but there was one thing he didn’t know about her, yet, he didn’t even think that she would like it, so he never brought it up, until one late lunch afternoon when he mentioned he wanted to go fishing.

“I might not be around this weekend,” Seokjin says as he picks up his glass filled with water, (Y/n) had mentioned early on in their friendship that she wasn’t comfortable with alcohol, but she had told him that he can drink it if he wants to, but he had refused, saying he didn’t want to make her uncomfortable, even though she did tell him that it was fine.

“Oh, why is that?” (Y/n) asks as she placed her phone down on the table. “Are you going somewhere?” He takes a sip from the water and placed it down on the table.

“Yes, I’m going to go ask Suga if he wants to go fishing with me.” He says. “I haven’t gone fishing for a while.” She nods her head while moving her hands together on her lap, picking at her nails.

“Well, if he says no, I can join you.” She says, she could feel her heart rate picking up at her suggestion, she had spoken before thinking about it first.

“I didn’t know you know how to fish.” He says, his eyes slightly bigger than before, the information surprised him. “Why didn’t I know this?” She could hear the excitement growing in his tone.

“Well, I don’t necessarily know how to use a fishing rod, but I have caught with my hands before.” (Y/n) says, she reaches for her glass of water. “But I could still keep you company if you want to go, and he can’t.”

“No, no, you’re definitely going now, I don’t believe that you can catch one with your hands.” He says. “I need to see it for myself to believe it.” She softly giggles before taking a sip of her water. “I’ll come and pick you up Friday afternoon, we’re going for the weekend.” She nods her head and placed the glass down on the table. “Pack something warm also, it might get cold.”

“All right, text me when you’re coming to pick me up, so I won’t keep you waiting.” She says.

✧･ﾟ: *✧

The next few days quickly passed by and soon it was Friday afternoon and Seokjin had come to pick her up, the drive to the lake took three and a half hours to arrive, the sun had started going down when they arrived which meant they had to figure out how to put the tent up quickly before they ran out of daylight.

(Y/n) unfolded the instruction manual before putting it down on the ground and placed a water bottle on top of it, she approaches Seokjin as he was putting some parts together.

“So, I have no clue what the instructions said.” (Y/n) says as she picks up a pole, Seokjin begins to chuckle before bursting out in full laughter, he ignores the poles he was holding to slap his knee, (Y/n) smiles as she hears his wiper laugh. “Laugh all you want, we’re on our own unless you want to translate.” He looks up at her, his laughter slowly dying down, but the wide smile never leaving his lips.

“If I translate it, do you think it will help us?” He asks as he puts the poles on the ground, she nods her head.

“It will help us a lot more unless you want to have fun struggling.” She says. “Imagine the story you’d be able to tell when we go back.” He thinks for a moment before picking up the poles again.

“Please bring the instructions closer.” He mutters causing (Y/n) to giggle, she walks back to where she had left the piece of paper and picked it up, she takes it to him and waits for him to read through it. “I’m only reading it because it’s going to be dark soon, and it’s not going to be easy to put up the tent when it’s dark.”

“Let’s pretend I believe you.” She says with a smile on her lips, she could see his nose wrinkling as his smile widens before it faded as he started to read through the instructions, she looks around them, taking in the tree’s that surrounded them and quickly noticed the bathroom building not far from where they were setting up camp, her gaze falls onto the lake and saw the water moving a little as the wind gently blew.

“All right, I think I understand.” He says as he puts the piece of paper down. “I’ll try to explain.” They had only brought one tent, one big tent that would have enough space inside it for both of them to move around in it freely, (Y/n) saw it as their first official sleepover, but still felt nervous, It would be the first time they would be alone in each other’s company for an entire weekend, sleeping with… well, not with each there, but near each other inside the tent.

It took them a few hours to manage to put it up, but it was finally standing, even though it took them a while and daylight became more scarce, they managed to finish it with enough light still remaining, they decorated the floor with thick blankets and laid the sleeping bags on them, both of them disliked the idea of camping beds, (Y/n) being scared it would break or fall over when she turned around, and Seokjin saying they were uncomfortable, which resulted in them buying tons of thick blankets for the tent floor, so it wouldn’t feel too hard when they would be sleeping.

They step out of the tent only to discover it was dark outside, the only lighting was coming from the tent and the light they had turned on when it became too dark, Seokjin walks to his car, well, he had rented an SUV for the dirt road, he moves to the rear of it and takes out some firewood, (Y/n) quickly makes her way to the car and takes out the camping chairs.

“I’ll make the fire, so we can cook dinner.” He says. “I’d offer you fish, but we haven’t caught any yet.” (Y/n) playfully slapped his shoulder, which made his let out a dramatic scream. “Ow, ow, you abuser, ow!”

“Oh, shut it, you dramatic kid.” She says with a smile on her lips trying to keep herself from giggling, he smiles and takes the wood to the spot where he would be making the fire, she walks towards the tent where she would use the light to put the chairs together, a few minutes later, the chairs were set up and the golden fire was crackling, they set up a table and Seokjin begins preparing their meal for the night while she assisted him.

“Is this your first time camping?” Seokjin asks, glancing at her before focusing on the food spread on the table, she places the salt closer to his reach.

“In a tent, yes, but my family and I used to go on a vacation for a week, sometimes two weeks, and it would be in the middle of nowhere, you had to make a fire to make your food, and had to use camping chairs to have a comfortable place to sit, otherwise your bum would have been so sore.” (Y/n) says, briefly remembering the times when she used to do that. “We’d be completely cut off from the world, no signal, no television, you only had a radio, and it sometimes didn’t work.”

“What did you listen to on the radio?” He asks as he picks up the knife to cut the meat into tiny pieces. “When it did work.” She smiles, letting out a breathy chuckle.

“Stories.” She says. “We mostly listened to it at night, and it was mostly bedtime stories.” He smiles as he listens to her story. “I actually used to run around the fire when I was younger, with a toy, imagining that I was riding a horse.” He chuckles and looks at her.

“Did you have a toy horse with you when you did that?” He asks.

“You know those stick horses?” She asks, he nods his head before he begins laughing.

“You rode a stick horse?” He laughs out, she nods her head. “I should’ve brought one along and asked you to re-enact it for me.”

“Oh, well, thankfully you didn’t.” She says, he shakes his head and looks down at the food. “Do you want some water or did you bring yourself something to drink?” His lips slightly purse before he puts the knife down.

“I told you, if it makes you uncomfortable then I won’t drink in front of you.” He says turning towards her. “And we’re alone out here, It would have made you even more uncomfortable, even on edge if I brought something alcoholic along.” She softly smiles at him, thankful he didn’t bring anything, she was already nervous with being alone with him for the weekend, and if he had bought some along, it would have been more obvious to him that she was nervous and anxious. “Just some water for now.” She nods her head and goes towards the car where the drinks were.

“I’ll bring the icebox and take it to the tent.” She says, he quickly leaves the table behind and joins her at the car.

“Let me help you, by now the ice could have melted, and it might be heavier.” He says as he takes one side, he knew not to tell her that he will take it himself, she would argue and take it himself, so he let her take the other side, they pick it up and carry it towards the tent, they step into the tent and placed the box near the opening.

“Thank you, but you didn’t have to, it didn’t feel that heavy.” She says as she opens the box.

“I wasn’t sure, but teamwork makes the dream work.” He says making her smile, she takes out three bottles of water and closes the box. “And what we just did, was teamwork.” She hands him two bottles of water, knowing one would be used for the food.

“Okay, teammate, let me know if there’s anything else.” She says and steps out the tent leaving him behind smiling to himself.

✧･ﾟ: *✧

They woke up early the next morning, the night became colder than they had thought and Seokjin had ended up moving his sleeping bag closer to hers and wrapped his arms around her to keep her warm, he didn’t want to admit it yet, but it felt like he had slept better during the night, if it was because he was tired or because he held (Y/n) in his arms, he wasn’t completely sure, but when he woke up, she was already up and missing from the tent.

He slowly stood up, bringing a hand to his face to rub the sleep from his eyes, he steps out of the tent and felt the cold morning hair hit his face, he looks around, seeing a fog blanket covering the lake with a soft glow from the morning sun just rising, he steps back into the tent and takes out a bottle of water from the icebox before going back outside, he smacks his lips together as he opens the bottle.

“Look who’s awake.” (Y/n) says as she approaches him, he takes a big gulp from the water as he turns around to look at her. “Sleep well?” He closes the bottle and nods his head, her eyes move to his hair, seeing how messy it looked and smiled.

“Where did you go?” He asks, his tone still groggy from the sleep.

“Bathroom, I had to pee and get dressed, oh and shower.” She says, she steps into the tent to put her sleepwear back into her bag along with her toiletries. “You should wake up before we miss the opportunity to catch some fishes off guard.” She steps out of the tent, and he looks at her, she could see how sleepy he still was.

“Are you really going to catch a fish with your hands?” He asks. “In this cold weather?” She nods her head

“Yes, I have a point to prove.” She says. “I’ll meet you by the lake when you’re ready.” She walks past him and approaches the lake, he turns around to follow her movement before he goes into the tent to retrieve his clothes and toiletries before going to the bathroom building, (Y/n) didn’t keep track of time as she stared over the lake at the fog slowly disappearing as the sun moved up higher, the golden glow slowly lighting the world.

Seokjin walks up behind her carrying two fishing rods and a box filled with bait, he places everything down on the ground and steps up next to her, he looks over the lake before turning to look at her.

“I brought an extra rod if you want to learn how to fish with one,” Seokjin says, he nods her head and turns to look at him, a playful smile on her lips.

“Rods are for cheaters.” She says, his lips part at her words.

“I... wha… why… you.” He stutters, unable to form the correct words. “How could you say that?” She giggles while shaking her head.

“That’s what I believe, but they’re also not easy to use.” She says. “So it’s not completely cheating, I just don’t like them that much, but I will support you if you want to use one.” He shakes his head and begins to laugh.

“You’re something, definitely something.” He says, she steps out her shoes and bends down to roll up her pants. “You don’t have to prove your point, I believe you.”

“You’re just saying that, so I don’t go into the water.” She says. “Don’t worry, I’ll be fine.” She stands up and begins approaching the water.

“You really don’t have to.” He says, but she ignores his him and steps into the water, her lips part as she felt cold water touches her skin, he watches her before stepping out of his shoes and rolled up his pants, he quickly follows behind her and steps into the water. “AHH, you’re crazy!” She chuckles as she turns around to look at him.

“I’m the crazy one?” She asks. “You’re the one that followed me in.” She carefully turns around and moves in a little deeper before stopping.

“Because I didn’t want you to feel alone in this situation.” He says as he follows her before stopping next to her. “But this is cold, freezing cold, how can fish survive in this?!” She giggles as she listens to his tone, it almost sounded like he was rapping as he ranted.

“Shh, you’ll scare them away.” (Y/n) says.

“Scare them away?” He asks. “They’re probably already frozen.” She bends down a little before being her knees, she looks into the water. “You don’t have to prove anything to me, let’s get out.” She suddenly pushes her hands into the water causing him to jump, she giggles before standing up.

“Come on, we can warm up a little later, for now, let’s catch some fish.” She says. “If you can try to at least catch one, I’ll let you teach me how to use the rod.” He thinks for a moment before nodding his head.

“Deal.” He says and crouches down with her, they look into the water, patiently waiting, she slowly reaches into the water, letting her hands get comfortable in it, even though it felt freezing cold, she wouldn’t allow that to stop her. “How long will we be waiting like this before trying to catch one?”

“A few minutes.” She says. “Just wait.” A few minutes passed when she managed to spot a fish, she quickly moves her hands towards it, grabbing for it, her hands wrap around the tiny fish only for it to escape her hold, Seokjin had barely seen it happen, but his eyes had slightly widened.

“Whoa… that was close.” He quietly says. “Okay, a few more minutes, but then we’re getting out.” She nods her head, even though she wouldn’t leave until she had caught one, a couple more minutes passed when Seokjin lets out a sigh and stood up. “Okay… I’m tired, come on, let’s go, please.”

“You can go, I’ll be right there.” She says, her focus was on the water below, watching carefully, the water was a little clear, but not completely, she could easily see a fish if one would swim by, but not her feet, he turns and begins walking back to the dry land when he hears a splash behind him, he quickly turns around, thinking the worst.

“(Y/n)!” He says loudly only to see her slowly rising up. “We can try again later, I promise.” He was about to turn away until his eyes fell to her hands, she slowly pulled them from the water to reveal a small fish in her hands. “What?” He runs towards her, not caring if the water splashed on his clothes. “What?!” He stops in front of her and exiles the small fish. “Oh… Oh, YOU DID IT!” She releases the fish as she sees him coming in for a hug. “Okay, I believe you, I believe you can catch fish with your hands.” He held her close against him, his soaked clothes pushed against her dry ones.

“YOU’RE WET!” She yells as she feels the coldness of his wet clothes against hers, he quickly releases her, an apologetic look on his face.

“I’ll make it up to you later, now come on, let’s get out of this freezing water.” He says, his hands falling down to her hands, he takes hold of one of her hands and guides her out of the water. “Let me go get a towel.” Once they reached dry land, he made his way to the tents and went inside to find a towel, while she smiled to herself for managing to catch a fish with her hands once again.

“I still got it.” She whispers to herself before seeing Seokjin running towards her with a fluffy towel in his hands.

✧･ﾟ: *✧

After drying off and going for a change of clothes they returned to the spot and Seokjin prepared the line for her, he handed her the fishing rod and moved to stand behind her.

“All right, so you want to hold it like this,” Seokjin says as he moves her hands to the places she needed to hold it, his hands covering hers as he guides her. “And go like this when you want to throw the line.” He moves their arms to the side, slowly motioning what she had to do, she nods her head, trying to let the information sink in. “Just with some force and more speed.”

“Okay… Okay, I think I understand.” She says, he lowers his gaze and sees how close he was to her before it dawns on him that his arms ere wrapped around her, he steps away, quickly unwrapping his arms and felt his ears turning red, her focus was on the lake in front of them and on the rod in her hands. “Um, I think I’ll only disappoint you like this.” She turns to look at him. “Why don’t you fish, and I’ll watch, bring drinks or snacks when it’s needed.” She carefully extends the rod out to him, and he takes it from her.

“You wouldn’t disappoint me, you caught a fish with your hands, I doubt I’ll be disappointed if you can’t with a fishing rod.” He says, she softly smiles at him.

“Still.” She says. “I’d rather watch you have fun with it.” He gently smiles at her. “Oh… and why are your ears so red?” He touches one ear with his hand, feeling how warm it is from the blood rushing to it. “Are you cold?” Although she knew why they were red, they only turned red when he was embarrassed, but the last thing she wanted to do was embarrass him more.

“You know why they turn red.” He says as he turns away from her. “But thank you for trying not to point it out.” She steps closer to him and placed her hand on his forearm.

“You can tell me, but you don’t have to.” She says, he glances at her. “I’m going to go get something to drink, I’ll bring you something also.”

✧･ﾟ: *✧

(Y/n) walks towards Seokjin after going to the bathroom, he stood by the lake looking over it, they had stopped fishing earlier in the day and decided to prepare lunch and rest.

“I’m going for a walk, it looks so beautiful here, and I just want to see a little more of it.” (Y/n) says as she comes to a stop behind him, he spins around to look at her.

“I’ll come along.” He says and steps towards her. “At least if you get lost, we’d get lost together.” She chuckles and shakes her head.

“Lost? This isn’t exactly a big place.” She says.

“You never know.” He says, they turn towards a direction and slowly begin walking along the lake, the sun was slowly lowering as it prepared to set for the day. “You didn’t have to come along on this trip.”

“I know, but I wanted to.” She says.

“Are you having fun?” He asks, if she wasn’t enjoying herself then he would know that this trip was a waste of time for both of them probably, although, he felt like he had grown closer to her in the last twenty-four hours, has something had changed, what could have changed? His feelings? His thoughts?

“I am, I haven’t enjoyed myself this much in a long time.” She says. “It’s been years since I last tried to catch a fish with my hands.” He gently smiles. “And coming for a walk like this to see nature, It’s usually on a beach, but here is just as beautiful.” He suddenly stops, and takes hold of her hand, pulling her to face him, he pulls her closer to him and wraps his arms around her.

“I know you had a rough past, but I want you to know that I won’t judge you for it, your past doesn’t define you.” He says as he slightly pulls back from the hug to meet her eyes, his dark brown eyes stare into hers. “I want to be the person you come to when you want to open up, or need a shoulder to cry on… or just company, comfort.”

“Where is this suddenly coming from?” She asks, her voice barely above a whisper, it was both his feelings and thoughts that had changed, but when did they change? Was it on this trip? Or did the trip just make him realize?

“It isn’t sudden.” He says. “I believe it’s been a while, but I just need you to know, I want to be that person you feel comfortable with.” She could feel his hands moving from her back to her arms. “To feel comfortable enough with to share your secrets with, to share your dreams with, even those fantasies that you think could be stupid.” His hands move up to her hair, gently patting her hair down. “You don’t have to share immediately, just know that I’m here.” He leans closer, before softly kissing her forehead.

✧･ﾟ: *✧

(Y/n) couldn’t shake Seokjin’s words from the afternoon, and the more the thought about it, the quicker she realized that he must have felt the shift also, in their feelings for each other, but that couldn’t have been true… could it be true?

Seokjin lays down in his sleeping bag and stares at her, she had been lying there for 30 minutes staring at the fabric wall until he had laid down in front of her.

“Nothing’s going to be the same when we get back, is it?” She softly asks, he lifts his hand and softly brushes some of her hair out her face.

“Nothing has to change.” He says. “Nothing at all, except our friendship status.” He leans closer. “Unless you don’t want to change that either.”

“Slowly.” She says. “Let’s move slowly, please.” He nods his head.

“As slow as you would like.” He moves closer before pressing a soft kiss against her forehead. “Relationships take time to build, to form, and we can take as much time as we want.” She softly smiles before moving closer to him, his arm moves around her, his heat enveloping her.

#imagine #imagines #oneshot #oneshots #one shot #one shots #seokjin imagine #seokjin imagines #seokjin #kim seokjin imagines #kim seokjin imagine #bts imagine #bts imagines #fluff imagine #fluff imagines

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hollenka99 · 3 years

Text

Whenever and Wherever

This is ridiculously late because I didn’t have much time to work on it thanks to irl stuff so sorry about that but happy (belated) birthday @bupine. Have some bench trio.

The first time their paths cross, it's in the tailor shop run by Tommy's family. Tommy seems to be manning the counter while his brothers and father are supposedly in the back. The customer is clearly an enderman hybrid if his facial features are anything to go off of. He's just here to order a suit for a new job as a stenographer for the mayor apparently. Ranboo lingers longer than he likely expected to when he walked in as the three of them make conversation together. Before their latest acquaintance heads off, they decide to meet up again outside of work hours.

Talking to Ranboo comes easy. Before too long, you could tell Ranboo's work schedule based on where he was found lingering. At the tailor's shop? Well, it was likely one of his days off and he wanted to keep Tommy company for a while as the owner's son worked. At the bakery? That usually meant Ranboo was on his lunch break and hoped to sneak something sweet into his midday meal. He occasionally buys a few flowers for Tommy with the excuse of 'livening up his workspace' and offers Tubbo his attempts at baking. Whenever possible, the three of them either made time during lunch or in the evening to hang out together.

Then Ranboo seems to realise he gets off work around about the same time the bakery owned by Tubbo's family closes for the night. That mixed with the fact he really isn't the best with anything kitchen related... Listen, Tubbo was simply being a good friend by helping him out. Plus, who wouldn't want to take advantage of an excuse to spend more time with one of their best friends? It becomes a... thing, their evening practice sessions. Tommy once comments on it during a lunchtime meet-up, only to tease them but it kind of hits Tubbo how often Ranboo swings by so they can bake together.

It becomes blatantly clear everyone knows what's going on between the two of them when they hang around at the back of the tailor's one afternoon.

"If one of you doesn't ask the other out, I will break into your homes, steal your clothes and alter them so they're unwearable. Then I will make you pay to have them fixed."

"We... We uh, aren't-" Ranboo begins defending.

Tommy glances up from his sewing machine as he switches it off. "Fucking hell, just kiss or something, I don't know. But please stop forcing me to watch the two of you make eyes at each other whenever we hang out. We haven't been 16 for years. Sort yourselves out or whatever."

So they clumsily arrange a 'date' and let things go from there. It goes... well. A second attempt to make sure the first wasn't a fluke wouldn't hurt, nor would a third. It soon gets to the point where this new dynamic feels entirely natural. Tubbo's only worry is that Tommy might feel like a third wheel. Their mutual friend assures them he doesn't care about that. Besides, they know him, if he was actually bothered by it, he would have complained a ton by now.

Getting engaged isn't a big affair. In fact, it is a complete mess that occurs on Ranboo's sofa following a lull in conversation. He trips over his words, segues into various rambley detours and eventually manages to get to the point where he asks the all important question. Tubbo knew his answer the moment he realised where his boyfriend was headed with the conversation.

"So Tommy," Tubbo leans over the counter. The way he very blatantly holds Ranboo's hand only causes his attempt at acting nonchalant to come close to failing. "How much for a couple of wedding suits?"

"You're not getting a friend discount. In fact, I think I'll double the typical asking price purely because you are my friends."

"I hate you, you know that, right?"

"Hmm, might even make it triple."

"I will personally uninvite you."

Tommy and Tubbo maintain straight-faced eye contact for all of five seconds before the taller of the two breaks into a grin. Before the new fiancees can react, Tommy has his arms around both of them, drawing them in closer.

"How could neither of you tell me you were looking at rings? Absolute crime, that, if you ask me. Especially since I'm obviously the bestest man around. Disgraceful, the both of you. How can you sleep at night knowing you left me out of the loop? Gonna have to quadruple the price as punishment."

An elbow to the ribs leads to a slightly pained inhale before the three of them descend into snickers.

Is it bad that he forgot land-dwellers need air?

Tubbo had been watched the two of them from afar. The one with sand-coloured hair makes himself round as he falls a significant distance towards the water. After a few repeats of this odd practice, he decides he will greet the human when he next appears in his domain. Tubbo grabs him by the arms with a friendly smile but it doesn't seem the human is so keen to befriend any merfolk. In the struggle, he gets a weird appendage to the face. Not one to be easily put off, Tubbo swims to the surface in time to see the boy communicating angrily with one whose hair colour resembled those of a beast he's been warned about. He thinks he'll dub them Sand and Orca for simplicity.

Orca spots him watching their conversation and walks over, positioning himself close enough to include Tubbo in any discussions they may want to have with him but far enough that Tubbo couldn't physically reach either of the boys with his arms. Sand greatly disapproves of this supposed fraternising with the enemy. Orca keeps attempting to communicate but their languages are vastly different so all it amounts to are gestures. When they leave, Tubbo finds it funny how the one named after a deadly predator is the most willing to be friendly while the one whose namesake he loves lounging upon occasionally had a tendency to come off as hostile.

The pair of humans don't visit him everyday and even on the days they do, the position of the sun isn't always the same when they arrive. Nevertheless, they continue to come as often as they are able and Tubbo appreciates that. He can't replicate any of their human vocalisations and though they try, neither of the human boys are particularly great at whistling and chirping properly. The constant gesturing seems to be the only way for them to communicate but they somehow manage to become firm friends despite it all.

One thing Tubbo definitely understands is fish. He is perfectly capable of getting his own food and honestly prefers catching it live anyway but if they want to offer him a snack as a sign of friendship, he's hardly going to say no. There's always the option to share the food with his family later. He brings Sand his namesake as a way of thanking them. Even if he knew a good place to observe orcas so he could extend a similar gesture to his other friend, Orca apparently can't swim. At least, that's how Tubbo interpreted it when his friend once pointed to himself, motioned as if he was pulling himself forward in water and shook his head afterwards. So Sand is the only one who sometimes joins him in the shallower water. And Tubbo has learned from his mistakes now, he makes no attempts to keep Sand below the surface longer than the human boy can manage.

One day not long after they meet, Sand tries to tell him something he can sense is important. He gestures between himself and Orca, points to the sun and makes a wide circular motion with his finger, extends his arm so it rises above their heads then ends the message by pointing to the shore. It takes another round of reiterating before Tubbo begins to potentially understand. They will get big with the sun and be here? It sounds odd but he supposes he can't physically stop them from leaving.

The sea grows warmer and cooler then back again over and over. He visits their spot each time the temperature rises. They never come. Or maybe he just keeps missing them when they do show up. He's not sure. Either way, he gets older and grows into young adulthood as the years continue to pass. He hopes the same is happening to them. They did promise to return once they got bigger too, after all. Although, the thought he might have wildly misunderstood Sand's parting message isn't always easy to not dwell on.

His waiting finally pays off and he couldn't be more ecstatic. They've both grown weird shells on their backs that he feels would be ineffective at defending them, their feet are disproportionately longer and their faces are practically unrecognisable with protective shells around their eyes and mouths. They are much larger than the last time they all saw each other too. But it's them, it's really them! Not to mention them seem to have developed the ability to breathe underwater somehow. Unsure how to greet them properly after all this time, he rushes off to the seabed with a grin and presents them with a fish as well as a fistful of sand. They look between themselves before accepting the gifts gratefully.

As the sunlight wanes on the surface, the humans sit on their familiar secluded spot of a caved area while Tubbo lets the water lap around him. The human duo have suddenly lost their strange shells now, both on their backs and faces, as well as returned to having better proportioned feet. Orca offers his own reunion gift. If Tubbo were human, he might have made use of non-existent tear ducts to inadvertently express how moved he was by the object. Because oh wow, he was never able to communicate Orca's

Tubbo knows what it is like to be displaced by war. He'd been born in a time of technical peacetime, though everyone knew this would change sooner rather than later with all the tension.

He's 9 when the war seems to decide it's time to directly come for him as the son of the president, more than the resource shortages or street violence ever could. An attempt to assassinate his father that he'd been too close to lands him in hospital. It's officially too dangerous for him to remain a symbol of how safe their country was. All those not old enough to potentially enlist get evacuated, Tubbo especially.

Snowchester is... alright. It's isolated and out of the way, which is probably for the best in the general scheme of things. But at his age, all he really cares about is making the most of the snow before the novelty wears off and questioning how long it will be before he can go home to his family again. The answer was less than a month and 'we don't know so you'll just have to sit tight. Okay?'. So he reluctantly settles into his new life. He makes an effort to get to know the handful of other kids from the village in the hopes of gaining at least one friend to help him through this, he wanders around the marketplace on Tuesdays to find the sweet highlight of his week and for the hell of it, he challenges himself to become a master snow sculptor. Tubbo also writes to home to let his family know how he's doing but it feels like it has to go through 50 hands just to reach them for the sake of maintaining his secrecy which really sucks. By the time he celebrates his first birthday without them there, he had given up on arguing about the risk of just ringing them.

Then when he's 11, men posing as sea merchants arrive on their frozen shores during the night. Before he's even fully woken up, he's on a horse in his goddamn pyjamas and clutching a pitiful bag filled with whatever he and foster father had managed to stuff into it in 2 seconds. He doesn't get to bid Snowchester a proper goodbye. They're already on a rowboat they'd kind of stolen after racing through the trees when reality finally begins dawning on him. The man who'd looked after him explains they were headed to a new place that would hopefully prove to be safer than his old home.

He's used to the cold of a tundra by now. This place is more landlocked than Snowchester but not everything can be on the coast. He guesses the isolation and lack of enemy reinforcements arriving directly at a village is a good way to decrease the risk of attack. He hates it here. Snowchester might have been a fair distance from other places but at least there had been a bunch of people around. This was literally one guy looking after two kids, now three, in the middle of actual nowhere.

Phil does his best to be accommodating, he will give him that. And the other boys he's living with aren't too bad half the time. But it's too much. He decides he'd rather keep to himself. Ranboo, like Phil, is a bit more patient with him than Tommy is. Ranboo is willing to play a chess game he has no chance of winning or solve the same jigsaw for the 5th time that week. Tommy, on the other hand, will talk at him or encourage him to go outside.

"If nothing dangerous happens, you have to... make me a hot chocolate. Yeah, that seems like a decent payment."

"Payment for what?"

"For getting you to stop sulking and enjoy the snow obviously."

He humours him but he makes sure his reluctance is unmistakeably evident. It turns out Tommy has excellent aim when it comes to throwing snowballs. When Tubbo complains about this, Tommy simply shrugs and reveals his brother is the commander of the army so what did he expect? It doesn't matter whether you're hunting for food or stopping the enemy from getting you first, precision and accuracy are important for survival. That's part of the wisdom Wilbur had bestowed upon him before going off to lead their side to victory anyway. Tommy then ends his speech by standing next to Tubbo in order to cram a previously concealed handful of snow down his back in a surprise attack. Tubbo swears he is going to work out how to dislodge half the roof's worth of snow on Tommy's head tomorrow for that. When they finally head back inside, Tommy lets him know he'd like his drink to include whipped cream and those tiny marshmallows if they still have some lying around.

In time, he learns Tommy had been sent far from home the same as he had. Logsted had been 'a tiny shithole with nothing on offer to do' that eventually fell prey to the same exploitable feature that Snowchester had. Phil had been an old contact of General Soot's so when the initial relocation efforts fell through, Tommy was sent to Phil. No big deal. Well... listen, Tommy can act like a prat at the best of times but he supposes it is nice knowing he's not the only one paranoid this will abruptly end terribly one night.

The days, weeks, months roll by swiftly. The three of them have snowball fights at least onc

Technically, it's Tommy's fault they nearly die. He'd been so insistent on fighting the dragon like his father once had that Tubbo had lost the will to try dissuade him. To be fair, he was all for it. It was only that Tommy was eager to jump right into the challenge while Tubbo… would prefer to actually survive.

They agree it will be an 'in and out' affair. They'll sneak down to the nearby portal at night, kill the dragon and hop back to the Overworld before their absences are noticed. If their families are unaware, they will never get in trouble for this. It can be an epic tale to impress future acquaintances but one to keep to themselves within earshot of those who'd scold them for it.

So that's what they do. With diamond armour and arrows they 'borrowed', the pair of 15 year olds face the dragon. They've already assigned themselves roles with Tubbo being in charge of destroying the crystals and Tommy tackling the dragon as a distraction. The plan is to take on the beast together once Tubbo's initial objective is complete.

It goes to shit when Tubbo barely makes a water clutch after being pushed off a tower by the force of an exploding ender crystal. Tommy had tried to get closer to him to provide support but ended up getting caught in the dragon's toxic breath. And then one of them must have accidentally triggered hostile attention from the surrounding endermen. A perfect example of sod's law, everything that could go wrong seemingly does. They tire themselves out too much by trying to return to more neutral odds. It doesn't happen. The cherry on top was the dragon knocking Tubbo into a pillar with her wing.

He's definitely had enough of this bullshit by the time he lets the developing concussion steal his consciousness. Let them just respawn in the bed they'd set up right outside the stronghold's portal room so they can be done with this. He really doesn't want to lose a life, especially not to a stupid stunt like this. But by this point? Fuck it.

When he wakes, it is not on the ground. It seems to be in a building on some sort. Has someone taken him home to work through his injuries? Tommy couldn't have since the next time Tubbo sees him, he has a haphazardly constructed splint on his leg. They bicker about their disastrous exploits until Tommy grouchily alerts them to the presence of their host, a young looking enderman.

It passes them a written message and Tommy, being the son of someone who is pretty much a jack of all trades when it comes to learning about other cultures, has a go at reading it. It's nothing too elaborate, just a summary of what happened while Tubbo was unconscious. The End native had spotted their plight as Tommy continued to get bombarded by aggressive endermen and toxic fumes courtesy of the dragon. All it had done was bring them home and attempt to give them medical assistance. Now here they were. At the bottom is a word Tommy's never seen before.

"Dunno what the fuck a Ranboo is."

"Maybe it's his name, idiot. Look at where it is, it's a signature."

"Oh, yeah maybe. What kind of stupid name is Ranboo though?"

They can't go back without the dragon dying and neither of them are in a position to make a second attempt, especially at the start when they are still both recovering. With no way home, they resign themselves to their new reality of living permanently in the End. The least they can do, in Tubbo's opinion, is try their best to communicate with their host by learning enderspeak. That goes... very slowly. Even with Ranboo helping out and Tommy's head start, it's not the easiest thing for them to learn. The humans share some of their language with the enderman in return.

Either way, they start living in their new home as Ranboo's guests. Their diet becomes saturated with chorus fruit and the first time either of them accidentally teleports during a meal, it's a shock. Their new friend waits until Tommy's broken leg heals before occasionally showing them around the islands that make up this dimension. They visit an end city that happens to have a ship nearby at some point and Tubbo resists the urge to lightly smack Tommy at the back of the head for acting like he's not impressed. They may possibly never be able to go home but come on. there is a literal massive ship floating in the sky.

Phil comes for them as soon as it feels like they might finally be getting used to their new way of life. They get the scolding of a lifetime mixed in with Phil making his relief and worry painfully obvious. They introduce Phil to Ranboo and of course the guy is conversational in enderspeak. At one point, Tubbo catches Tommy making a jabbing motion towards his father with his thumb incredibly subtly before rolling his eyes. As deeply in trouble as they are, as much as they were settling into what they believed to be a more permanent life change, the promise of home fills Tubbo with anticipation. He can't wait for the four of them to return to the Overworld.

Because you're coming too,

+1.

He's never been so eager to go to an airport in his life. His mum half listens while concentrating on the road as he rambles about all the plans the three of them had started making for the upcoming two weeks. There were so many games on their list for them to try. And yes, he knows they won't be able to get around to them all but they'll be damned if don't make an effort to dent it. Oh and then also all the stuff that got picked on the spinning wheel from Ranboo's stream a while ago.

Tubbo is beside himself as they wait in the arrival meeting area. There's no word of delays so come on, get here already. Then there he is, wearing his signature sunglasses and mask in the midst of the emerging crowd. Once the pair are close enough to do so, Tubbo throws his arms around his friend. And god, he knew Ranboo was much taller but he doesn't feel he'll hear the end of this, especially not once Tommy shows up.

They've already established this in preparatory voice calls but as they head towards the car, Tubbo explains that Tommy isn't due until tomorrow. So maybe they could watch one of those Starkid shows tonight since Ranboo's internal sense of time will be screwed by the long journey and Tubbo's hardly the best at maintaining a circadian rhythm as it is. His parents and sisters will go to bed and that's when the party can really start. Ranboo suggests The Trail to Oregon purely because the scene where Slippery When Wet threatens to murder god lives rent free in his head. But it would ultimately be up to Tubbo when the time came tonight.

Just outside the car with Ranboo's luggage in the boot, he asks his mum to take a picture of the two of them. He dms it to the missing member of their trio with a smirk.

Tubbo: Bet you're so jealous right now

Tommy: No because he's going to hang out with me more after I get there

Tubbo: As if

Tubbo: Can't wait for this week

Tommy: Same

Tubbo: Ranboo says hi btw

Tommy: Wow cringe

Tommy: Can't go on call rn but I say hi too

Tubbo: Whos cringe now?

Tommy: Shut up

He and Ranboo spend the entire journey home chatting about everything and nothing. Oh, these next two weeks were going to be amazing. Tubbo can't wait.

Tubbo wakes slowly. He doesn't tend to be startled by Ranboo's lack of eyelids as often nowadays. They may not share a bed that frequently, separate homes and all that, but he's seen his husband crash on his sofa after an exhausting day enough times to gradually get used to it. Michael had managed to snuggle up between them at some point in the night too. The little zombie piglin boy is fast asleep as well. Tubbo readjusts his arm so it encompasses their adoptive son, drawing him closer slightly.

Distantly, he recalls he's planned to meet up with Tommy later and it makes him think. A husband who cares about him enough to make Tubbo one of people whose side he'd stand by if necessary, a son whom they both love and would defend with their lives and a best friend who still stuck by him despite how much they've changed in the several months since they first met. He'd like to think that regardless of the timeline or universe, he'd always have them or close enough copies.

Content with his situation, he lets his eyes slip close once more and drifts back to sleep.

#dream smp #tubbo #tommyinnit #ranboo #my writing

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hartigays · 4 years

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3. “It’s always been you.”

billy storms out of the apartment, seething and fighting back tears. because billy hargrove does not cry. ever. he didn’t back when he lived with neil, he didn’t after his mom left, he didn’t when he got arrested for possession and almost lost his scholarship to UCLA.

he’s not about to start now.

not because steve pretty boy harrington has to go around acting like a grade-A asshole, with his soft hair and big eyes and pouty lips, screwing everything with a goddamn pulse. no sir. billy won’t give him that luxury.

the reality is, steve has always had a thing for plowing his way through as many people as humanly possible. or so billy heard all those years ago when he’d first arrived in hawkins and started inquiring about the pretty-faced indiana boy who billy just couldn’t seem to stay away from.

but billy thought all of that was behind them. they live together, for fuck’s sake. they’d moved out to california together so billy could go to school, and so steve could take a position at one of the offices of his father’s company in LA. steve hasn’t been seeing anyone, billy hasn’t been seeing anyone. they’ve been happy. content.

and okay, so maybe they aren’t dating. maybe billy hasn’t exactly told steve how he feels. but, like, steve should know. billy has gone out of his way to make it glaringly obvious. steve may be oblivious, but he’s not dumb. not like everyone thinks.

billy is pretty damn sure there’s no way steve isn’t aware of how he feels.

the worst part is, billy thought steve actually felt the same. at least, he had up until today, when he walked in on steve sitting on the couch with some girl, laughing and smiling and whatever the fuck else. he’d walked out before he could see anything more, despite steve’s desperate pleas for him to come back so they could talk.

there’s nothing to talk about. billy thought steve liked him, steve doesn’t. it’s done. he just needs some time to... process it, or whatever. billy finds himself on the beach soon enough, and he slips off his shoes so he can stick his toes in the sand, plopping down with a sigh.

it’s a private beach tucked a ways away from the pier, but billy knows the owners of this plot. they don’t stay at their beach house until the winter, when they want to escape to somewhere a little warmer during the colder months. he’s pretty sure the rest of their time is spent in aspen. so for now he’s safe to sit here and think, staring out at the water as the sun sinks below the horizon.

billy has brought steve here a lot. they’ve picnicked here several times, and billy even brought steve out a once or twice to teach him how to surf before they knew that steve was irreparably bad at it. the thought makes billy’s heart squeeze, and he has to pinch himself as a reminder to not be such a pussy.

because it’s whatever that steve is into some air-headed cheerleader type with a tiny waist and hair like strands of gold. it doesn’t bother billy one bit. not at all. he Does Not Care in the slightest.

maybe if he keeps telling himself that, it’ll somehow become true.

“thought i might find you out here.”

billy doesn’t turn around at the sound of steve’s voice, keeping his eyes forward even though his stomach sinks. “congratulations, you’ve finally managed to develop critical thinking skills. let’s bust out the champagne.”

“i can go if you want me to,” steve says softly, even though billy feels him sink down onto the sand next to him, close enough that their arms brush.

billy just snorts, shrugging. “i don’t give a shit what you do, harrington.”

steve just sighs, and for a long time he doesn’t speak. out of the corner of his eye, billy can see him staring out at the sunset, looking rather forelorn. billy wishes he could turn that look into something soft, something happy, but steve has made it abundantly clear that he doesn’t have that right.

“you know, i remember the first time you took me here,” steve says finally, and billy can’t help but glance over at him. steve’s smile is warm and soft, but tinged with something like sadness. “you tried to teach me how to surf. the first time, i mean. i slipped off the board and busted my ass so hard on it you had to carry me home.”

“you suck at surfing,” billy acknowledges, nodding. “badly.”

steve huffs a soft laugh. “yeah, i do. i just remember thinking that it was still one of the best days i’ve ever had. because that was the day i knew you loved me as much as i love you.”

billy goes completely still, his heart leaping up into his throat and his eyes watering, because what the fuck? where does steve get off making an admission like that just to make billy be less upset with him?

“don’t do that,” billy says, his voice rough. “you don’t get to do that. don’t pretend like you feel the same just because you don’t want me to be pissed at you.”

“billy,” steve starts, sounding distressed. he pauses, meeting billy’s eyes and fuck, they’re filled with tears too and billy doesn’t know how he feels about that. “it’s you. it’s always been you.”

the words break something inside of billy, and he crumples. he can’t pretend to be mad anymore when the truth is that he’s devastated. plain and simple.

“you sure have a funny way of showing it,” billy tells him, sniffling and wiping his nose on the back of his hand. “i saw you two. you were two seconds from playing couch twister. would’ve been if i hadn’t walked in when i did.”

“leanne is gay, billy,” steve groans, burying his face in his hands. “she works with me and she’s gay. has a nice girlfriend named annalise. they have a fucking kid. we were just- jesus, i can’t believe i even have to explain this. to you of all people. i’m the dumb one, remember? fuck. we were just going over some fucking spreadsheets. yeah, riveting stuff. super romantic.”

“i didn’t- are you fucking with me?” billy asks, because he’s starting to feel really fucking stupid and a small part of him is hoping he didn’t just throw a (rather humiliating) tantrum over nothing. “you guys were giggling. and sitting so close, i just... i thought you were making a move.”

“god, you can be more dense than me sometimes, you know that? we were giggling about you, dumbass. i told her that i liked you and she wanted to know more,” steve explains, shaking his head in disbelief. “it was just- i dunno. like two friends at a sleepover giggling about their crushes.”

“would you quit calling yourself an idiot?” billy huffs. primarily because he can’t think of anything else to say - his mind is racing too much. but also because it’s true. “this kinda proves that if anyone’s an idiot here, it’s me. i just- i don’t understand why you never said anything.”

steve is shoving his hands through the sand repeatedly, watching the sand run between his fingers. “you know i’m bi, i told you as much. i figured you were like me, or gay, or- i dunno. i just thought you weren’t ready to talk about it yet. i left the ball in your court, thinking that once you were ready, we’d, y’know. address the fucking elephant in the room.”

“the elephant being... ?” billy trails off. and he knows, but he really just wants to hear steve say it again.

steve rolls his eyes, laughing. “you know what i mean. but fine: the elephant being that i’m in love with you. and that i’m really, really hoping you love me, too.”

“i do,” billy says, his voice soft. “and i’m an idiot. i’m sorry.”

“you’re not an idiot. i probably would’ve thought the same thing if the roles were reversed and i walked in on something like that.” steve glances over at billy, giving him a tender smile. “just... next time, let’s talk to each other, yeah? i think that’ll save both of us a lot of grief.”

billy just hums, nodding his approval. they sit in comfortable silence for a little while, both still too nervous to make a move despite having just confessed their love to each other. at this point billy just finds it endearing, but he really, really wants to be closer to steve, and not just emotionally.

“i am gay, you know,” billy starts, his palms sweating, “and i really want to kiss you.”

“i know. and i think i’d like that.”

steve’s lips are soft and yielding beneath billy’s. his kisses feel exactly the way billy imagined they would - tender and sweet and a little shy, but curious. billy tries to keep it slow, not wanting to shove them into uncharted territory, but it’s only a matter of time before billy has steve’s back hitting the sand, hovering over him, their lips never breaking apart.

steve just sighs into the kiss, embracing the new position without complaint. he relaxes into the sand, one hand threading through billy’s curls, the other curling into the tufts of hair at the base of billy’s neck. it’s a kiss that billy never wants to end. but he knows there’ll be more. so much more.

“i’d say at least now we can get a cheaper apartment, but i think we’ll both still need our space every now and then,” steve says when billy pulls away, staring up a him with big eyes.

“yeah. plus it’s... ” billy trails off, his cheeks flushing bright red.

“it’s what?” steve asks, his brows coming together in confusion. “seriously, what were you going to say?”

“it’s home,” billy says gently, bracing both arms on either side of steve so he can swoop down to capture his lips again whenever he wants to. “home is wherever i’m with you, but- y’know. i like our place. it feels like us.”

“you’re such a fucking sap, oh my god,” steve laughs, but he’s smiling so brightly that billy thinks the whole beach could stay lit up for the rest of the night. “billy hargrove, secretly soft and mushy inside. who would’ve thought.”

“wasn’t, ‘til i met you,” billy tells him honestly.

and it’s true, for a long time billy hardened himself to the world, protecting himself with an armor of indifference until steve came along and melted him to his core. but billy isn’t one to complain, not when it means he gets to go to sleep and wake up to steve’s smile every day now, for the rest of his life. forever, maybe, if steve is up for that.

he wouldn’t have it any other way.

#is this a modern au? does this take place in the 80s? the world may never know #hope this is enjoyable bby!#❤️❤️❤️#harringrove #my fics #ask #gideongrace

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