#in which case if a woman does THAT shit throw her in the trash too god those types of women are the fucking worst

[starswallowingsea]

Alright I'm finally back with another book review. The last few weeks have been a struggle as I had to coast through midterms on arguments pulled out of my ass and sticky notes on my laptop to bypass the anti cheating software my professor makes us use for quizzes. But at long last, I have finally finished another book and what a read it was!

I honestly probably wouldn't have picked this up if it weren't for my university's book club which I forced myself to join to get myself out of the house twice a month and make new friends, but I'm glad I did. We picked out Finlay Donovan is Killing It by Elle Cosimano for the month of October, a mystery novel that follows a single mom who accidentally ends up as a hit-man after a series of increasingly wacky misunderstandings and accidents.

Finlay Donovan is a 30-something divorced mother of two engrossed in a messy custody battle with her ex-husband who had an affair with their realtor that only came to light because of their nosy neighbor from across the street. She's a struggling author known for writing murder mystery romance novels and hasn't exactly made it big yet, and she's already blown through her advance trying to pay off some bills and groceries and she's months behind on her deadline.

She's forced to meet with her agent after dropping her kids off with her ex-husband to take care of and discusses her new novel concept. Unfortunately (or fortunately), the language she uses while discussing her novel is a little less than subtle and someone overhears her and mistakes her for a hit-woman trying to covertly discuss her recent hits (targets) instead of a struggling mom discussing her recent hits (novel ideas).

This person slips Finlay a note while she's throwing her trash out and Finlay makes the mistake of calling the number that was left on it and accidentally gets herself in too deep. The woman on the other end wants Finlay to kill her abusive husband and was planning on just running away, but feels like it would be easier to hire someone to kill him instead and thinks this is the best way to go about it.

Finlay doesn't want to take it but does some research on the man anyway, and stakes him out at a bar when she sees him trying to drug his date, at which point she takes action and spills a bloody mary on his date, causing her to go home in frustration and allowing Finlay (disguised as her ex-husband's fiance, the realtor) to take the man out to her van. She thinks briefly about killing him, calls her client, who tells her to check his phone for the evidence she needs that he deserves to die. Finlay looks and sure enough, she sees he's a piece of shit blackmailing women into paying him large sums of money to keep his mouth shut lest he reveal their "secret".

Finlay takes a drugged and drunk soon-to-be ex husband to her house and leaves him in her running van while she makes a call to her sister and when she comes back, the garage door is shut and the man is dead. Except Finlay didn't close her garage when she pulled in that night. Now Finlay has a dead body on her hands that she has to deal with and her ex-babysitter is robbing her house after she was fired for refusing to sleep with her ex-husband (who is also sleeping with his secretary).

With a dead body in their metaphorical closet and 50k in their bank accounts, Finlay and her now live-in babysitter have to figure out how to keep the police from finding out they killed someone so connected to the mob when someone else solicits their skills to take care of someone else. The enforcer for the mob.

Finlay tries to reject the offer, saying that her first client was mistaken and she didn't technically kill the target, but her second client won't hear it and in fact, increases her payment to almost double the original price.

Can Finlay pull it off? Maybe, but she'll stumble her way through the entire process while trying to not get caught by the hot detective who came to her for advice relating to the case since her ex-husband's fiance is a person of interest in the case. Finlay Donovan is Killing It is an incredibly fast-paced book and will have you on the edge of your seat. The only thing I didn't particularly like was how constantly Finlay was worried about getting caught, though as a single mother of two who didn't want to lose her kids, it is understandable that she would be desperate to try and wash her hands of her not-technically-a-murder murder.

4.75/5*

#shay speaks #bookblr #book review #book reviews #finlay donovan is killing it #i read half of it between yesterday and today lmao after having put it off for a week #midterms were kicking my butt but i am free to read my botm now too

[timeisacephalopod]

Weird Red Flag I’m aware of because my mom uses a lot of cutesy terms she thinks are fun: if a guy tries to police the way you talk run for the fucking hills. Every guy I’ve ever known to try and police my mom’s way of speaking has always been an abuser. Usually in more ways than one.

#winters ramblings #seriously its a thing literally EVERY single guy that my sisters have brought home that's done this #were ALL abusers. literally every SINGLE one #if anyone tries that bullshit on me i hope the door knob goes up their ass on the way out #because i know what the fuck that means and I'll say shishi lalas if i fucking want to #although it occurs to me when women do it it usually falls into them being Weirdos who dont like when men like pink or whatever #they're usually those gross ass women who Really Believe in gender stereotypes andwill assume a man is gay at the drop of a hat #you know he likes pastries so clearly he likes men that definitely correlates #in which case if a woman does THAT shit throw her in the trash too god those types of women are the fucking worst #throw anyone in the trash who tries to get you to talk a certain way when the shit you said was harmless #like fuck you roger ill say birdicide if i god damn feel like it

[foodieforthoughts]

Hello love! I have this scenario stuck in my head:

Walter hurts his right shoulder quite badly when solving a case (or slipping on ice 🤔)which leaves him imobile to his dominant arm. Being the stubborn man he is, he releases himself from the hospital and back at home has to release that he alone struggles with the simplest tasks. Due to the time of night or a snowstorm outside the only one left to ask for help is that new annoying neighbour (there's the trope I guess)... might lead to a number of embaressing (and hot?) situations...

Wherever that came from... never mind my weird brain 🙈... does that maybe, possibly strike your muse?

Omg. 🤭 Thank you for the request @omgkatinka I tried to make it fluffy and funny, but I'm in a Walter mood lately and it did end up with a hint of smut, so here it goes.

Warnings: slight description of shoulder injury, a little bit of angst, fluff, description of male masturbation

*divider by @firefly-graphics

Title: Helping hand

Walter groaned when he turned on his side, half asleep and in a lot of pain. His shoulder throbbed like a thousand needles pricked him at the same time, shooting a blinding pain up to his fingers.

"Fuck!" He cursed at himself, rolling onto his back and trying to breathe through his agony. He clutched his sore shoulder with his hand, gently soothing the bandages and blinking through the tears that had sprung at the corners of his eyes.

Walter had hurt his shoulder while on a mission to catch hold of a guy involved in human trafficking. They had chased the culprit through the abandoned factory, barely losing him through the maze of metal staircases when Walter had lunged at the man, tackling him to the floor. But the rusty old work bridge had crumbled under the force, bringing both men crashing down to the ground with metal pieces and debris. Luckily for them they weren't harmed in a life threatening manner, but Walter's shoulder had dislocated, resulting in a torn labrum requiring surgery.

"Fuck this shit." Walter had told himself while lying in his hospital bed on the third day post surgery, pressing the call button for the nurse. He had gruffly told the pale, scared woman that he wanted to go home and he was feeling fine. After arguing with the doctor about his health, Walter had self discharged himself against medical advice.

He thought he had made a wise choice coming home, but he knew he was stupid to think he could make it on his own.

Sitting up on the bed and grabbing the strap of the arm sling, Walter groaned. With his dominant hand rendered useless for the time being, Walter had a lot of trouble with his daily activities. Faye and Angie were in California visiting her parents, leaving him no one to call for help for the past weeks.

He made his way to the kitchen to grab a bottle of water when he saw the heavy blanket of snow outside. Checking his watch, he gathered it was only four pm and yet it was almost dark with snow still falling steadily. Walter had taken his pain meds and a sleeping pill when he had awoken in the middle of the night, and had effectively knocked himself out for a good twelve hour sleep. With that realization, his stomach growled indicating his missed meals for the day.

Looking around at the kitchen, Walter groaned when he saw the empty takeout boxes and the overflowing trash can. Injury had left him disorganised, making him live like a junkie. He couldn't even remember the last time he had taken a decent shower, sniffing the air as he could smell his own body odour. He was about to grab a trash bag from the counter and try to clean, when his doorbell rang.

Walter groaned, again. He had an inkling it was her. His chirpy neighbor who was the only one who showed up to help him every other day. She was annoying in the beginning, trying to start up conversations when all he wanted to do was sulk. But he had warmed up to her, still keeping her at an arm's length, but allowing her to assist him from time to time. When he opened the front door, there she was, looking adorable covered in cozy woollen attire from head to toe, a cute beanie over her hair, carrying a big lunch box in her gloved hands. She smiled at him, shivering with the cold winds until he moved to the side to let her in.

You could never believe how intimidating Walter had seemed to you only a couple of weeks ago. He would always throw a curt nod at you when you would greet him from your door if you ever happened to cross paths, never smiling or staying for a chat. You had gathered from the other neighbors that he was a cop, Detective Walter Marshall, kind of a loner and always grumpy. There was no denying your attraction to him, his scruffy beard and thick curls always left your fingers itching to touch them, with his accent being a major plus point. But he would never give you a chance to strike up a decent conversation.

It was all fun and games, you liked the chase, even if you were the one doing all the chasing. Seemed like a conquest for you but when his car was missing from his parking spot for days on end, you began worrying about him. Then one fine day, you spotted him out in the curb, trying to open the trash bin with one hand while the other was hanging in a sling. You had walked up to him, out of concern when Walter had turned around to go back inside slipping on the ice, only for you to grab a hold of him trying to break his fall but instead tumbling to the cold ground with him on top of you. He had apologized profusely, wincing in pain as he moved and letting you help him stand up.

From that day onwards, you always made it a point to stop by his house atleast once. It helped that Walter never complained.

"I had made lasagna. Did you have lunch?" You asked, taking off your beanie to hang on the hook and leaving your boots by the door. You felt Walter's looming figure follow you as you made your way to the kitchen. Taking in the surrounding, you nodded to yourself, your question answered without Walter having to utter a word. "Very well, why don't you sit at the table and I'll serve you the food?"

You tried to grab clean plates and spoons, frowning at the dirty dishes from last night, but you didn't blame him. It was only so much he could do with one hand.

"Did you have a good night's sleep?" You asked, trying to strike up a conversation with the Detective.

"No. I took sleeping pills."

Placing the plate of food in front of him, you narrowed your eyes at him. "Don't get too attached to those meds though." You handed him the spoon and fork, before getting to clean his kitchen.

"You don't have to do that." Walter protested from his place at the table, almost about to stand up. "I was about to clean around the house."

"With one hand? Come on, Detective Walter, you know better than that. And I don't mind, I was holed up at my house since morning anyway, this atleast gives me a chance to do something." You winked at him, grabbing the empty bottles of water and shoving them in the trash bag. By the time Walter had finished his meal, you had cleaned the kitchen with only the dishes to spare.

"Let me get those." Walter tried to reach for the soap but you were fast enough to grab it first.

"Go rest, I can handle this." You nudged him playfully with your hip. You could not believe your eyes when you saw Walter smile. "Wow! Look at that! I am being graced with a smile."

Rolling his eyes at you, Walter stayed put at his place, handing you the plates one by one. You insisted for him to rest, but he denied each of your requests. You were just about done loading up the dishes in the dishwasher when your phone rang from it's place in the purse that was hanging on the hook.

"I'll put them in the rack, go." Walter assured you with another smile. You nodded at him, handing the gloves and walking out the kitchen. You were texting back your mom, when you heard the Detective cuss loudly, followed by falling and breaking of plates. You hurried inside to find Walter drenched with soapy water and the broken pieces of ceramic and glass on the floor.

"I'm done with this!" He shouted, trying to pry open the velcro of his sling in anger. The edge of his shirt dripped water on the floor with a stream travelling down from the front of his pants.

"Hey, hey." You rushed to him, carefully maneuvering away from the plates, and caught hold of his hands. "It's okay. It happens. Why don't you go change and I'll clean here." You didn't back down when he stared at you, not moving and not giving up. But a silent moment passed and he left for his bedroom without a word.

You walked towards Walter’s bedroom, the silence of the house only disturbed by the whistling winds of the oncoming storm outside. It was late in the night when you had gotten the chance to pay the ailing Detective a visit. With freshly baked cookies in a box, you had knocked at his door only to be left standing out in the cold. He had handed you a spare key for emergencies as the storm warning approached which you never used until today.

When you reached the door to his bedroom, you stopped in your tracks hearing muffled grunts from the other side. The door was slightly cracked open, faint light seeping out to the the hallway. You peered through the gap only to gape at the sight.

The other day when Walter had spilled water over his front and gone to change, you had followed him after hearing him cursing at himself. He had a hard time taking off the wet clothes, making him angrier by the minute. You had helped him then, only to be left mesmerized by his body as your nimble fingers had brushed over his skin.

Walter had his eyes closed, his arm in the sling and resting on his naked chest and pillows with a sheet covering his lower half. His other hand was under the cover, moving up and down as he pleasured himself. You felt your cheeks warm, spreading down to your chest and the tip of your ears as you watched him in his private moment, wanting to turn and run away but failing to do so.

You weren't going to ask him, but you could swear a long moment of sparks had passed between the two of you. Your dreams now featured vivid fantasies with Walter, leaving you in a daze for the rest of the day.

As much as you wanted to stare at his heaving chest, listen to his melodious moans and trace his sweat sheened face with your gaze; this felt like a rude invasion of privacy. You were about to turn on your heels when you heard the whisper of your name rolling out of his lips. Whipping your head to see if you had been caught red handed, you were left baffled to find Walter's eyes closed, unaware of your presence and repeating your name like a mantra while he pumped his length.

You had no idea what got into you, but the urge to be with the man you had been lusting over was so strong, you pushed the door open with heated cheeks and a trembling core. Walter's eyes shot open, widening as he took in your presence, scrambling to hide himself underneath the sheets.

"Wh-what are you-?" He stammered, a rosy pink tint appearing on his flushed skin.

You did not answer him, choosing to close the distance between the two of you instead. You crouched down next to his side of the bed, placing your hand on his scruffy cheek. His pupils were blown wide, lips parted as he struggled to regain his breath and rendered speechless at the debacle. You waited for him to object to your advances, watching as he wet his lips with his tongue before leaning to kiss him. Walter remained frozen for a long second, until he moved his lips along with yours.

Breaking away from the kiss, you smiled at him, a hand creeping to his member that twitched in response. "Do you need a hand?" You asked, smirking as Walter could only nod before you pulled the sheet away from his body.

#ask foodie #walter marshall #Walter marshall fanfic #walter marshall x reader #walter marshall x you #walter marshall nomis #nomis #henry cavill fanfic #henry cavill #requests

[blackwoolncrown]

”This essay has been kicking around in my head for years now and I’ve never felt confident enough to write it. It’s a time in my life I’m ashamed of. It’s a time that I hurt people and, through inaction, allowed others to be hurt. It’s a time that I acted as a violent agent of capitalism and white supremacy. Under the guise of public safety, I personally ruined people’s lives but in so doing, made the public no safer… so did the family members and close friends of mine who also bore the badge alongside me.

But enough is enough.

The reforms aren’t working. Incrementalism isn’t happening. Unarmed Black, indigenous, and people of color are being killed by cops in the streets and the police are savagely attacking the people protesting these murders.

American policing is a thick blue tumor strangling the life from our communities and if you don’t believe it when the poor and the marginalized say it, if you don’t believe it when you see cops across the country shooting journalists with less-lethal bullets and caustic chemicals, maybe you’ll believe it when you hear it straight from the pig’s mouth.”

>>Copied here in case anyone gets paywalled when they click the above. The full article is...a lot.<<

WHY AM I WRITING THIS

As someone who went through the training, hiring, and socialization of a career in law enforcement, I wanted to give a first-hand account of why I believe police officers are the way they are. Not to excuse their behavior, but to explain it and to indict the structures that perpetuate it.

I believe that if everyone understood how we’re trained and brought up in the profession, it would inform the demands our communities should be making of a new way of community safety. If I tell you how we were made, I hope it will empower you to unmake us.

One of the other reasons I’ve struggled to write this essay is that I don’t want to center the conversation on myself and my big salty boo-hoo feelings about my bad choices. It’s a toxic white impulse to see atrocities and think “How can I make this about me?” So, I hope you’ll take me at my word that this account isn’t meant to highlight me, but rather the hundred thousand of me in every city in the country. It’s about the structure that made me (that I chose to pollute myself with) and it’s my meager contribution to the cause of radical justice.

YES, ALL COPS ARE BASTARDS

I was a police officer in a major metropolitan area in California with a predominantly poor, non-white population (with a large proportion of first-generation immigrants). One night during briefing, our watch commander told us that the city council had requested a new zero tolerance policy. Against murderers, drug dealers, or child predators?

No, against homeless people collecting cans from recycling bins.

See, the city had some kickback deal with the waste management company where waste management got paid by the government for our expected tonnage of recycling. When homeless people “stole” that recycling from the waste management company, they were putting that cheaper contract in peril. So, we were to arrest as many recyclers as we could find.

Even for me, this was a stupid policy and I promptly blew Sarge off. But a few hours later, Sarge called me over to assist him. He was detaining a 70 year old immigrant who spoke no English, who he’d seen picking a coke can out of a trash bin. He ordered me to arrest her for stealing trash. I said, “Sarge, c’mon, she’s an old lady.” He said, “I don’t give a shit. Hook her up, that’s an order.” And… I did. She cried the entire way to the station and all through the booking process. I couldn’t even comfort her because I didn’t speak Spanish. I felt disgusting but I was ordered to make this arrest and I wasn’t willing to lose my job for her.

If you’re tempted to feel sympathy for me, don’t. I used to happily hassle the homeless under other circumstances. I researched obscure penal codes so I could arrest people in homeless encampments for lesser known crimes like “remaining too close to railroad property” (369i of the California Penal Code). I used to call it “planting warrant seeds” since I knew they wouldn’t make their court dates and we could arrest them again and again for warrant violations.

We used to have informal contests for who could cite or arrest someone for the weirdest law. DUI on a bicycle, non-regulation number of brooms on your tow truck (27700(a)(1) of the California Vehicle Code)… shit like that. For me, police work was a logic puzzle for arresting people, regardless of their actual threat to the community. As ashamed as I am to admit it, it needs to be said: stripping people of their freedom felt like a game to me for many years.

I know what you’re going to ask: did I ever plant drugs? Did I ever plant a gun on someone? Did I ever make a false arrest or file a false report? Believe it or not, the answer is no. Cheating was no fun, I liked to get my stats the “legitimate” way. But I knew officers who kept a little baggie of whatever or maybe a pocket knife that was a little too big in their war bags (yeah, we called our dufflebags “war bags”…). Did I ever tell anybody about it? No I did not. Did I ever confess my suspicions when cocaine suddenly showed up in a gang member’s jacket? No I did not.

In fact, let me tell you about an extremely formative experience: in my police academy class, we had a clique of around six trainees who routinely bullied and harassed other students: intentionally scuffing another trainee’s shoes to get them in trouble during inspection, sexually harassing female trainees, cracking racist jokes, and so on. Every quarter, we were to write anonymous evaluations of our squadmates. I wrote scathing accounts of their behavior, thinking I was helping keep bad apples out of law enforcement and believing I would be protected. Instead, the academy staff read my complaints to them out loud and outed me to them and never punished them, causing me to get harassed for the rest of my academy class. That’s how I learned that even police leadership hates rats. That’s why no one is “changing things from the inside.” They can’t, the structure won’t allow it.

And that’s the point of what I’m telling you. Whether you were my sergeant, legally harassing an old woman, me, legally harassing our residents, my fellow trainees bullying the rest of us, or “the bad apples” illegally harassing “shitbags”, we were all in it together. I knew cops that pulled women over to flirt with them. I knew cops who would pepper spray sleeping bags so that homeless people would have to throw them away. I knew cops that intentionally provoked anger in suspects so they could claim they were assaulted. I was particularly good at winding people up verbally until they lashed out so I could fight them. Nobody spoke out. Nobody stood up. Nobody betrayed the code.

None of us protected the people (you) from bad cops.

This is why “All cops are bastards.” Even your uncle, even your cousin, even your mom, even your brother, even your best friend, even your spouse, even me. Because even if they wouldn’t Do The Thing themselves, they will almost never rat out another officer who Does The Thing, much less stop it from happening.

BASTARD 101

I could write an entire book of the awful things I’ve done, seen done, and heard others bragging about doing. But, to me, the bigger question is “How did it get this way?”. While I was a police officer in a city 30 miles from where I lived, many of my fellow officers were from the community and treated their neighbors just as badly as I did. While every cop’s individual biases come into play, it’s the profession itself that is toxic, and it starts from day 1 of training.

Every police academy is different but all of them share certain features: taught by old cops, run like a paramilitary bootcamp, strong emphasis on protecting yourself more than anyone else. The majority of my time in the academy was spent doing aggressive physical training and watching video after video after video of police officers being murdered on duty.

I want to highlight this: nearly everyone coming into law enforcement is bombarded with dash cam footage of police officers being ambushed and killed. Over and over and over. Colorless VHS mortality plays, cops screaming for help over their radios, their bodies going limp as a pair of tail lights speed away into a grainy black horizon. In my case, with commentary from an old racist cop who used to brag about assaulting Black Panthers.

To understand why all cops are bastards, you need to understand one of the things almost every training officer told me when it came to using force:

“I’d rather be judged by 12 than carried by 6.”

Meaning, “I’ll take my chances in court rather than risk getting hurt”. We’re able to think that way because police unions are extremely overpowered and because of the generous concept of Qualified Immunity, a legal theory which says a cop generally can’t be held personally liable for mistakes they make doing their job in an official capacity.

When you look at the actions of the officers who killed George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, David McAtee, Mike Brown, Tamir Rice, Philando Castile, Eric Garner, or Freddie Gray, remember that they, like me, were trained to recite “I’d rather be judged by 12” as a mantra. Even if Mistakes Were Made™, the city (meaning the taxpayers, meaning you) pays the settlement, not the officer.

Once police training has - through repetition, indoctrination, and violent spectacle - promised officers that everyone in the world is out to kill them, the next lesson is that your partners are the only people protecting you. Occasionally, this is even true: I’ve had encounters turn on me rapidly to the point I legitimately thought I was going to die, only to have other officers come and turn the tables.

One of the most important thought leaders in law enforcement is Col. Dave Grossman, a “killologist” who wrote an essay called “Sheep, Wolves, and Sheepdogs”. Cops are the sheepdogs, bad guys are the wolves, and the citizens are the sheep (!). Col. Grossman makes sure to mention that to a stupid sheep, sheepdogs look more like wolves than sheep, and that’s why they dislike you.

This “they hate you for protecting them and only I love you, only I can protect you” tactic is familiar to students of abuse. It’s what abusers do to coerce their victims into isolation, pulling them away from friends and family and ensnaring them in the abuser’s toxic web. Law enforcement does this too, pitting the officer against civilians. “They don’t understand what you do, they don’t respect your sacrifice, they just want to get away with crimes. You’re only safe with us.”

I think the Wolves vs. Sheepdogs dynamic is one of the most important elements as to why officers behave the way they do. Every single second of my training, I was told that criminals were not a legitimate part of their community, that they were individual bad actors, and that their bad actions were solely the result of their inherent criminality. Any concept of systemic trauma, generational poverty, or white supremacist oppression was either never mentioned or simply dismissed. After all, most people don’t steal, so anyone who does isn’t “most people,” right? To us, anyone committing a crime deserved anything that happened to them because they broke the “social contract.” And yet, it was never even a question as to whether the power structure above them was honoring any sort of contract back.

Understand: Police officers are part of the state monopoly on violence and all police training reinforces this monopoly as a cornerstone of police work, a source of honor and pride. Many cops fantasize about getting to kill someone in the line of duty, egged on by others that have. One of my training officers told me about the time he shot and killed a mentally ill homeless man wielding a big stick. He bragged that he “slept like a baby” that night. Official training teaches you how to be violent effectively and when you’re legally allowed to deploy that violence, but “unofficial training” teaches you to desire violence, to expand the breadth of your violence without getting caught, and to erode your own compassion for desperate people so you can justify punitive violence against them.

HOW TO BE A BASTARD

I have participated in some of these activities personally, others are ones I either witnessed personally or heard officers brag about openly. Very, very occasionally, I knew an officer who was disciplined or fired for one of these things.

Police officers will lie about the law, about what’s illegal, or about what they can legally do to you in order to manipulate you into doing what they want.

Police officers will lie about feeling afraid for their life to justify a use of force after the fact.

Police officers will lie and tell you they’ll file a police report just to get you off their back.

Police officers will lie that your cooperation will “look good for you” in court, or that they will “put in a good word for you with the DA.” The police will never help you look good in court.

Police officers will lie about what they see and hear to access private property to conduct unlawful searches.

Police officers will lie and say your friend already ratted you out, so you might as well rat them back out. This is almost never true.

Police officers will lie and say you’re not in trouble in order to get you to exit a location or otherwise make an arrest more convenient for them.

Police officers will lie and say that they won’t arrest you if you’ll just “be honest with them” so they know what really happened.

Police officers will lie about their ability to seize the property of friends and family members to coerce a confession.

Police officers will write obviously bullshit tickets so that they get time-and-a-half overtime fighting them in court.

Police officers will search places and containers you didn’t consent to and later claim they were open or “smelled like marijuana”.

Police officers will threaten you with a more serious crime they can’t prove in order to convince you to confess to the lesser crime they really want you for.

Police officers will employ zero tolerance on races and ethnicities they dislike and show favor and lenience to members of their own group.

Police officers will use intentionally extra-painful maneuvers and holds during an arrest to provoke “resistance” so they can further assault the suspect.

Some police officers will plant drugs and weapons on you, sometimes to teach you a lesson, sometimes if they kill you somewhere away from public view.

Some police officers will assault you to intimidate you and threaten to arrest you if you tell anyone.

A non-trivial number of police officers will steal from your house or vehicle during a search.

A non-trivial number of police officers commit intimate partner violence and use their status to get away with it.

A non-trivial number of police officers use their position to entice, coerce, or force sexual favors from vulnerable people.

If you take nothing else away from this essay, I want you to tattoo this onto your brain forever: if a police officer is telling you something, it is probably a lie designed to gain your compliance.

Do not talk to cops and never, ever believe them. Do not “try to be helpful” with cops. Do not assume they are trying to catch someone else instead of you. Do not assume what they are doing is “important” or even legal. Under no circumstances assume any police officer is acting in good faith.

Also, and this is important, do not talk to cops.

I just remembered something, do not talk to cops.

Checking my notes real quick, something jumped out at me:

Do

not

fucking

talk

to

cops.

Ever.

Say, “I don’t answer questions,” and ask if you’re free to leave; if so, leave. If not, tell them you want your lawyer and that, per the Supreme Court, they must terminate questioning. If they don’t, file a complaint and collect some badges for your mantle.

DO THE BASTARDS EVER HELP?

Reading the above, you may be tempted to ask whether cops ever do anything good. And the answer is, sure, sometimes. In fact, most officers I worked with thought they were usually helping the helpless and protecting the safety of innocent people.

During my tenure in law enforcement, I protected women from domestic abusers, arrested cold-blooded murderers and child molesters, and comforted families who lost children to car accidents and other tragedies. I helped connect struggling people in my community with local resources for food, shelter, and counseling. I deescalated situations that could have turned violent and talked a lot of people down from making the biggest mistake of their lives. I worked with plenty of officers who were individually kind, bought food for homeless residents, or otherwise showed care for their community.

The question is this: did I need a gun and sweeping police powers to help the average person on the average night? The answer is no. When I was doing my best work as a cop, I was doing mediocre work as a therapist or a social worker. My good deeds were listening to people failed by the system and trying to unite them with any crumbs of resources the structure was currently denying them.

It’s also important to note that well over 90% of the calls for service I handled were reactive, showing up well after a crime had taken place. We would arrive, take a statement, collect evidence (if any), file the report, and onto the next caper. Most “active” crimes we stopped were someone harmless possessing or selling a small amount of drugs. Very, very rarely would we stop something dangerous in progress or stop something from happening entirely. The closest we could usually get was seeing someone running away from the scene of a crime, but the damage was still done.

And consider this: my job as a police officer required me to be a marriage counselor, a mental health crisis professional, a conflict negotiator, a social worker, a child advocate, a traffic safety expert, a sexual assault specialist, and, every once in awhile, a public safety officer authorized to use force, all after only a 1000 hours of training at a police academy. Does the person we send to catch a robber also need to be the person we send to interview a rape victim or document a fender bender? Should one profession be expected to do all that important community care (with very little training) all at the same time?

To put this another way: I made double the salary most social workers made to do a fraction of what they could do to mitigate the causes of crimes and desperation. I can count very few times my monopoly on state violence actually made our citizens safer, and even then, it’s hard to say better-funded social safety nets and dozens of other community care specialists wouldn’t have prevented a problem before it started.

Armed, indoctrinated (and dare I say, traumatized) cops do not make you safer; community mutual aid networks who can unite other people with the resources they need to stay fed, clothed, and housed make you safer. I really want to hammer this home: every cop in your neighborhood is damaged by their training, emboldened by their immunity, and they have a gun and the ability to take your life with near-impunity. This does not make you safer, even if you’re white.

HOW DO YOU SOLVE A PROBLEM LIKE A BASTARD?

So what do we do about it? Even though I’m an expert on bastardism, I am not a public policy expert nor an expert in organizing a post-police society. So, before I give some suggestions, let me tell you what probably won’t solve the problem of bastard cops:

Increased “bias” training. A quarterly or even monthly training session is not capable of covering over years of trauma-based camaraderie in police forces. I can tell you from experience, we don’t take it seriously, the proctors let us cheat on whatever “tests” there are, and we all made fun of it later over coffee.

Tougher laws. I hope you understand by now, cops do not follow the law and will not hold each other accountable to the law. Tougher laws are all the more reason to circle the wagons and protect your brothers and sisters.

More community policing programs. Yes, there is a marginal effect when a few cops get to know members of the community, but look at the protests of 2020: many of the cops pepper-spraying journalists were probably the nice school cop a month ago.

Police officers do not protect and serve people, they protect and serve the status quo, “polite society”, and private property. Using the incremental mechanisms of the status quo will never reform the police because the status quo relies on police violence to exist. Capitalism requires a permanent underclass to exploit for cheap labor and it requires the cops to bring that underclass to heel.

Instead of wasting time with minor tweaks, I recommend exploring the following ideas:

No more qualified immunity. Police officers should be personally liable for all decisions they make in the line of duty.

No more civil asset forfeiture. Did you know that every year, citizens like you lose more cash and property to unaccountable civil asset forfeiture than to all burglaries combined? The police can steal your stuff without charging you with a crime and it makes some police departments very rich.

Break the power of police unions. Police unions make it nearly impossible to fire bad cops and incentivize protecting them to protect the power of the union. A police union is not a labor union; police officers are powerful state agents, not exploited workers.

Require malpractice insurance. Doctors must pay for insurance in case they botch a surgery, police officers should do the same for botching a police raid or other use of force. If human decency won’t motivate police to respect human life, perhaps hitting their wallet might.

Defund, demilitarize, and disarm cops. Thousands of police departments own assault rifles, armored personnel carriers, and stuff you’d see in a warzone. Police officers have grants and huge budgets to spend on guns, ammo, body armor, and combat training. 99% of calls for service require no armed response, yet when all you have is a gun, every problem feels like target practice. Cities are not safer when unaccountable bullies have a monopoly on state violence and the equipment to execute that monopoly.

One final idea: consider abolishing the police.

I know what you’re thinking, “What? We need the police! They protect us!” As someone who did it for nearly a decade, I need you to understand that by and large, police protection is marginal, incidental. It’s an illusion created by decades of copaganda designed to fool you into thinking these brave men and women are holding back the barbarians at the gates.

I alluded to this above: the vast majority of calls for service I handled were theft reports, burglary reports, domestic arguments that hadn’t escalated into violence, loud parties, (houseless) people loitering, traffic collisions, very minor drug possession, and arguments between neighbors. Mostly the mundane ups and downs of life in the community, with little inherent danger. And, like I mentioned, the vast majority of crimes I responded to (even violent ones) had already happened; my unaccountable license to kill was irrelevant.

What I mainly provided was an “objective” third party with the authority to document property damage, ask people to chill out or disperse, or counsel people not to beat each other up. A trained counselor or conflict resolution specialist would be ten times more effective than someone with a gun strapped to his hip wondering if anyone would try to kill him when he showed up. There are many models for community safety that can be explored if we get away from the idea that the only way to be safe is to have a man with a M4 rifle prowling your neighborhood ready at a moment’s notice to write down your name and birthday after you’ve been robbed and beaten.

You might be asking, “What about the armed robbers, the gangsters, the drug dealers, the serial killers?” And yes, in the city I worked, I regularly broke up gang parties, found gang members carrying guns, and handled homicides. I’ve seen some tragic things, from a reformed gangster shot in the head with his brains oozing out to a fifteen year old boy taking his last breath in his screaming mother’s arms thanks to a gang member’s bullet. I know the wages of violence.

This is where we have to have the courage to ask: why do people rob? Why do they join gangs? Why do they get addicted to drugs or sell them? It’s not because they are inherently evil. I submit to you that these are the results of living in a capitalist system that grinds people down and denies them housing, medical care, human dignity, and a say in their government. These are the results of white supremacy pushing people to the margins, excluding them, disrespecting them, and treating their bodies as disposable.

Equally important to remember: disabled and mentally ill people are frequently killed by police officers not trained to recognize and react to disabilities or mental health crises. Some of the people we picture as “violent offenders” are often people struggling with untreated mental illness, often due to economic hardships. Very frequently, the officers sent to “protect the community” escalate this crisis and ultimately wound or kill the person. Your community was not made safer by police violence; a sick member of your community was killed because it was cheaper than treating them. Are you extremely confident you’ll never get sick one day too?

Wrestle with this for a minute: if all of someone’s material needs were met and all the members of their community were fed, clothed, housed, and dignified, why would they need to join a gang? Why would they need to risk their lives selling drugs or breaking into buildings? If mental healthcare was free and was not stigmatized, how many lives would that save?

Would there still be a few bad actors in the world? Sure, probably. What’s my solution for them, you’re no doubt asking. I’ll tell you what: generational poverty, food insecurity, houselessness, and for-profit medical care are all problems that can be solved in our lifetimes by rejecting the dehumanizing meat grinder of capitalism and white supremacy. Once that’s done, we can work on the edge cases together, with clearer hearts not clouded by a corrupt system.

Police abolition is closely related to the idea of prison abolition and the entire concept of banishing the carceral state, meaning, creating a society focused on reconciliation and restorative justice instead of punishment, pain, and suffering — a system that sees people in crisis as humans, not monsters. People who want to abolish the police typically also want to abolish prisons, and the same questions get asked: “What about the bad guys? Where do we put them?” I bring this up because abolitionists don’t want to simply replace cops with armed social workers or prisons with casual detention centers full of puffy leather couches and Playstations. We imagine a world not divided into good guys and bad guys, but rather a world where people’s needs are met and those in crisis receive care, not dehumanization.

Here’s legendary activist and thinker Angela Y. Davis putting it better than I ever could:

“An abolitionist approach that seeks to answer questions such as these would require us to imagine a constellation of alternative strategies and institutions, with the ultimate aim of removing the prison from the social and ideological landscapes of our society. In other words, we would not be looking for prisonlike substitutes for the prison, such as house arrest safeguarded by electronic surveillance bracelets. Rather, positing decarceration as our overarching strategy, we would try to envision a continuum of alternatives to imprisonment-demilitarization of schools, revitalization of education at all levels, a health system that provides free physical and mental care to all, and a justice system based on reparation and reconciliation rather than retribution and vengeance.”

(Are Prisons Obsolete, pg. 107)

I’m not telling you I have the blueprint for a beautiful new world. What I’m telling you is that the system we have right now is broken beyond repair and that it’s time to consider new ways of doing community together. Those new ways need to be negotiated by members of those communities, particularly Black, indigenous, disabled, houseless, and citizens of color historically shoved into the margins of society. Instead of letting Fox News fill your head with nightmares about Hispanic gangs, ask the Hispanic community what they need to thrive. Instead of letting racist politicians scaremonger about pro-Black demonstrators, ask the Black community what they need to meet the needs of the most vulnerable. If you truly desire safety, ask not what your most vulnerable can do for the community, ask what the community can do for the most vulnerable.

A WORLD WITH FEWER BASTARDS IS POSSIBLE

If you take only one thing away from this essay, I hope it’s this: do not talk to cops. But if you only take two things away, I hope the second one is that it’s possible to imagine a different world where unarmed black people, indigenous people, poor people, disabled people, and people of color are not routinely gunned down by unaccountable police officers. It doesn’t have to be this way. Yes, this requires a leap of faith into community models that might feel unfamiliar, but I ask you:

When you see a man dying in the street begging for breath, don’t you want to leap away from that world?

When you see a mother or a daughter shot to death sleeping in their beds, don’t you want to leap away from that world?

When you see a twelve year old boy executed in a public park for the crime of playing with a toy, jesus fucking christ, can you really just stand there and think “This is normal”?

And to any cops who made it this far down, is this really the world you want to live in? Aren’t you tired of the trauma? Aren’t you tired of the soul sickness inherent to the badge? Aren’t you tired of looking the other way when your partners break the law? Are you really willing to kill the next George Floyd, the next Breonna Taylor, the next Tamir Rice? How confident are you that your next use of force will be something you’re proud of? I’m writing this for you too: it’s wrong what our training did to us, it’s wrong that they hardened our hearts to our communities, and it’s wrong to pretend this is normal.

Look, I wouldn’t have been able to hear any of this for much of my life. You reading this now may not be able to hear this yet either. But do me this one favor: just think about it. Just turn it over in your mind for a couple minutes. “Yes, And” me for a minute. Look around you and think about the kind of world you want to live in. Is it one where an all-powerful stranger with a gun keeps you and your neighbors in line with the fear of death, or can you picture a world where, as a community, we embrace our most vulnerable, meet their needs, heal their wounds, honor their dignity, and make them family instead of desperate outsiders?

If you take only three things away from this essay, I hope the third is this: you and your community don’t need bastards to thrive.

RESOURCES TO YES-AND WITH

Achele Mbembe — Necropolitics

Angela Y. Davis — Are Prisons Obsolete?

CriticalResistance.org — Abolition Toolkit

Joe Macaré, Maya Schenwar, and Alana Yu-lan Price — Who Do You Serve, Who Do You Protect?

Ruth Wilson Gilmore — COVID-19, Decarceration, Abolition [video]

#acab

[ajnerdess]

One thing this whole Johnny Depp and amber Heard case has highlighted is that women really are allowed to go off on men constantly in any form of media and be as hateful as they want and go largely unnoticed. The amount of tiktoks on my feed that support this narrative of "men ain't shit" and "what does a man do that annoys you?.... Breathes" which don't get me wrong, I'm guilty of using too.

But when a man sends PRIVATE text messages to his friends about his abuser and about how she's a cunt and she should be dead etc after dealing with YEARS of abuse from her, that apparently is too much for some people to bear.

Sorry but that shit does not sit well with me, especially given that if it had been a woman talking about death to her male abuser you all know we would ALL be sat there saying "yaaas sis go off, yeah burn him, throw him in the trash, drag him to filth, he ain't shit".

Why isn't Johnny allowed to vent too? The irony is, if she hadn't have abused him and put him through all this crap, those text messages probably never would have come to light surely?

It's just a gross double standard. We know there are some horrible men out there, we know there are some horrible women. Amber Heard is one of them, please don't defend her and please drag her like you would do with a male abuser.

#Johnny Depp #amber heard #anti amber heard #justice for johnny depp #thanks for coming to my ted talk

[blackhakumen]

Mini Fanfic #966: Among Falsehood (Ace Attorney)

Dead Body(s) Report- YaBoiWocky and Klavier The Rocking Sensation

Ema: Well, damn. Look like one of the killers aren't messing around this time.

Trucy: I know, right? ('Sniff') Look at how they massacred my Wocky-Kins.....

Ema: My boyfriend was murdered too, Trucy.

Trucy: Yeah, but at least you guys are veterans at the game. This is Wocky's first night playing and he's still confused.

Ema: I mean.....You're not wrong, but- ('Sigh') You know what? Forget it. We're already starting to waste time as it is. Who found whose body?

Pearl: I've found Wocky's body near the....laboratory area, I think? I'm not sure what it's called to be frank.

Apollo: Was it the Mid Base Scan area?

Pearl: Probably? ('Sigh') I don't think I know anything about this area too well.......But who was following me when I was going to the room to report?

Apollo: Were they coming from behind you or from specimen?

Pearl: I believe it was from below....into that area.

Ema: So into specimen then.

Pearl: Yeah.

Apollo: Well, I was in the admin room the entire time in case anyone's wondering. But I did see two people standing in mid by, lab area for a few seconds before one of them disappeared, so.....

Athena: Ooh! Before I forget, I can vouch for Vera being cleared cause after I walked out of the trash bin area, I saw her made her way into room.

Vera: (Messages "It's true" on the Who is the Imposter Screen)

Ema: Alright. But did anyone of you seen the Fop's body passing by by any chance?

Athena: Not really, no.

Vera: (Messages "I can't say that I have I'm afraid")

Trucy: I was doing my own task at the weapons' area. It's easy as it always been

Ema: Was it the Astroid one?

Trucy: Yep!

Ema: Shit you're lucky. It took me minutes to finish that stupid debit card task. I hate it.

Vera: (Messages "Same lol")

Ema: See? Vera gets me.

Trucy: Of course she does. She's a treasure~

Vera: (Messages "😊")

Apollo: Alright. The vote is about to end in twenty seconds. Should we skip the vote entirely?

Athena: I think it's Trucy!

Pearl: ('Sigh') Yeah.....

Trucy: Excuse you, Athena!? And who just said "yeah" to voting me off!? Pearly?

Pearl: No, sorry! Sorry! I meant "Yeah, we're skipping the vote". Not the other way around.

Trucy: Okay! Cause....I was actually to throw some virtual hands uo in here!

Apollo: (Starts Snickering Along with Everyone Else) Virtual Hands? How would that even work?

Trucy: I.....I have no idea, but I can assure you that they're very effective attacks! And it'll come directly to a certain Little Miss Tiger Pants over-

Two Gray Among Us Guys Pop up under Trucy's Name.

Apollo: Well, whaddya know? (Snickers Some More) It looks like two people wanted you gone after all.

Pearl/Athena: (Burst Out Laughing)

Trucy: ARE YOU KIDDING ME RIGHT NOW!? WHY!?

Vera: (Giggling Softly)

Ema: (Starts Snickering as Well) Maybe your "Virtual Hands" might have been a threat in their eyes.

Trucy: Well, fuck all of you! I'm innocent!

Ema: With that sailor mouth of yours?

Trucy: I'm young woman, Ema Skyes! I can say whatever the hell I want!!-

One and a Half Minutes Later......

Dead Body Report- PearlyBeloved

Ema: Alright. So I found Pearls' body at the laboratory section at the top right by the showers. It's a shame she wasn't able to get herself clean in time. She would've been the squeakiest grape pretzel of all.

Apollo: You know, I'm gonna be honest, that pretzel actually looks great on her among us man.

Athena: I know right? It's her cute pretzel hair never left.

Apollo: (Snickers a Little) Yeah. So you said you found her at the showers, Ema?

Ema: Yep.

Athena: You wanna know who hit the showers?

Apollo: Huh?

Ema: What?

Athena: Sailor Mouth Trucy~

Trucy: And guess who was nowhere near the FUCKING body, Thena!?

Apollo: .......Jesus, Trucy.

Vera: (Messages "Oh Dear....")

Trucy: I just got done finishing that stupid fucking maze thing, which is by far my least favorite task by the and-

Ema: Okay, I'm just gonna vote Trucy off already, based on the language. (Votes for Trucy)

Apollo: (Immediately Burst Out Laughing Along With Athena and Vera) Ema, what the hell are you doing!?

Trucy: WHAT!? EMA!!!

Athena: (Giggling Up the Storm) Oho my God!~

Trucy: Ema Skyes, why!? WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS TO ME!?

Athena: I'M NOT ACTUALLY SUS OF TRUCY WRIGHT!~

Trucy: THEN WHY DO YOU KEEP SUSPECTING ME!?

Athena: CAUSE IT'S FUNNY!?~

Apollo: It kinda is honestly.

Trucy: DON'T START WITH ME RIGHT NOW, APOLLO JUSTICE!

Ema: Listen, I'm a normal ass person who's bored! I vote whoever I want and it's Little Miss Sailor Mouth in blue.

Trucy: REALLY!? Okay. First off, you're a detective with a lab coat!

Ema: Not a very well known one.

Trucy: SO? THAT STILL MEANS SOMETHING!

Ema: Ehhhhhhh.....

Trucy: WHATEVER!

Athena: (Starts Laughing Some More)

Trucy: And second, how you're gonna sit here and complain about my language when the majority of you people, minus Vera and maybe Pearly, cuss just as much as I do, if not more!!? Huh!?

Apollo: (Trying his Hardest to Contain More of his Laughter) I mean, shit, you're not wrong, but-

Trucy: SEE!? Polly curses too and he's supposed the most mature one out of the two of us!!!

Apollo: Well, I'm older than you, so....

Trucy: POLLY!

Apollo: Alright! Alright! As much as I would love to debate more on the morality of our use languages, the time is about to run out in here and we still have two killers are still at large.

Ema: Oh shit. I didn't think about that.

Trucy: OH YA DON'T SAY!!?

Apollo: Fifteen seconds remaining!

Athena: Let's just vote off Ema already, shall we?

Trucy: Yeah. Let's! Cause I am upset tired, stressed, and about to cry right now thanks to that madwoman.

Ema: Fair mad woman.

As the gang cast their votes, it is shown that Ema has one vote while Trucy has all three.

Apollo: Oh no.

Trucy: WHAT!? NO!!!

Athena: (Starts Snickering Once More) So much for that I guess.....

Trucy: WHAT THE FUCK!?

Ema: That's unfortunate.

Trucy: YOU'RE HAPPY, EMA?

Trucy gets ejected

Trucy: Now I'm in the pool of lava, dying thanks to you! ('Knees Slap') FUCK!

Back at the Anything's Wright Agency......

Trucy: (Closes her Laptop Before Groaning and Covering her Face in Annoyance)

Wocky: AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHA!

Trucy: (Immediately Turns Next to Her Boyfriend While Pouting and Sitting on the Sofa Together) Wockyyyyy!~ Our friends are my making fun of me, it's not funny!

Wocky: (Tries Calmong his Laughter Down) Sorry! Sorry! It's just.....(Wipe a Tear From his Eyes) ('Whew') Hearing you cuss up a storm like that is the most funniest shit I've ever seen in my entire life.

Trucy: ('Sigh Heavily') Well, I'm glad I was able to make you laugh at least. I'm still mad.....

Wocky: (Scootches Over Trucy While Placing his Arm Around Her Shoulder and Giving her a Reassuring Smile) Hey, if it makes you the slightest bit better, I still think you're cutest girl in the world, sailor mouth or not.

Trucy: (Smiles Softly at Wocky's Words Before Hugging him Lovingly) You're so sweet~

Wocky: Not as sweet as you~ (Guves Trucy a Kiss on the Lips) Wanna go back to the game? I'm pretty sure everyone is done by now.

Trucy: Nah. They can play the rest without us. (Starts Snuggling Onto Wocky) I wanna watch TV and cuddle~

Wocky: Whatever you say, my Magical Princess. (Turns the TV on With the Remote)

Trucy: (Giggles Softly) Magical Princess~ I love it!~

@apollo-justice-for-all

@cyber-wildcat

@keyenuta

@26shann

@ma-lemons

@caleb13frede

#ace attorney #trucy wright #ema skye #apollo justice #athena cykes #pearl fey #vera misham #klavier (mentioned) #among us #humor #fluff afterwards #cute romance #cuddling & snuggling #trucy x wocky #trg colosseum reference #wocky kitaki

[meteorrogers]

chocolate covered strawberries | r. d.

summary: a precious person like you was what had been missing in Ransom’s life. 

pairing: ransom drysdale x reader

warnings: fluff only, language, implied smut maybe?, oh and beware of fucking soft!Ransom

word count: 3,479 (less or more)

a/n: well, i certainly didn’t expect it to be this long. anyway, this is a soft and ooc!Ransom fic, no spoilers because i follow practically nothing from the movie (at least i think). excuse my errors, please, and enjoy!!😊let me know what you think!!

Ransom is furious, driving home from another family gathering that couldn’t end any differently than with yelling, insults, and throwing things at each other. He has no idea why he‘s still going to these things, he always swears to himself that the next time will be the last time. Maybe somewhere deep inside of him, there’s still a sparkle of hope that one day he will have a normal conversation with his mom and dad.

He needs something to calm him down and while a drink and some bimbo he’d meet in a bar sound amazing, it is still early for that. On his way home, there is this bakery he‘s always liked to stop by because they have the best fresh-from-the-oven chocolate-filled croissants to ever exist. They are maybe even better than alcohol. Just maybe.

He leaves the coat in his car and heads towards the entrance. The bell above the door rings as he enters, taking his sunglasses off. The shop is quiet except for the soft chatter of the patrons that are occupying some of the seats. He doesn‘t even need to look at the display case with all the baked goods, he already knows what he’s having, so he heads directly to the counter to order.

After the cashier takes his order and disappears in the kitchen, Ransom slowly moves to the waiting counter where a young woman is chatting with the older man (Timmy, he thinks is his name) that owns the place together with his wife. The woman has a big genuine smile on her face and occasionally a beautiful laugh leaves her mouth when Timmy says something supposedly funny. Ransom has never seen her before. Maybe it’s not so early to charm his way into a woman’s bed after all. He gets closer and as Timmy hands her her order on a pink paper tray – two Halloween themed cupcakes, with white frosting, yellow and orange sprinkles and a little marzipan ghost sticking out – Ransom only hears their goodbyes.

You are still smiling, cheerful from the conversation you had with Timmy as you turn around, ready to leave, and enjoy the sweet treat on the way home. But you don‘t even have the time to react when you suddenly collide with a solid figure. You stumble a little, but strong hands on your shoulders steady you, which you don‘t even realize since your mind‘s only focus is on the mess you have caused. And just like that, your smile disappears.

“Oh my god,“ you gasp and your eyes widen as they scan the not-so-white-anymore cable-knit sweater covered in frosting and sprinkles. “Oh my god,” you repeat, a little louder this time. Panicking, you quickly dispose of the tray with crumbled cupcakes, taking an unnecessarily high number of napkins from the holder on the counter and trying your best to clean the beautiful cozy-looking piece of clothing.

You have yet to see the person’s face, either too embarrassed to look them in the eye or too concentrated on getting the crumbs out of the wool. Probably both.

“I am sorry.” You say, throwing the dirty napkins on the counter. “I’m so sorry, I should’ve been looking where I was going. I was still so absorbed in the conversation that I didn’t notice you,” Oh, god, here comes the downpour of babbles… „And I didn’t even hear you come behind me or maybe I wasn’t paying attention, that’s prob–“

Your gibbering is interrupted by the stranger’s hand circling your wrist, also stopping your frantic movements.

“Would you calm down? It’s just a sweater. I can buy a new one.”

You finally look up, your eyes meeting ocean-blue ones with hints of green around the pupils. His voice sounded empty, emotionless and you aren‘t sure if he is upset or just doesn‘t care.

“Oh,” slipping your hand out of his hold, you break the eye contact, the situation too embarrassing for you. You look at the mess on the countertop, the paper tray still laying there, dirty napkins scattered across the surface and some of them even found their way to the ground.

Shaking your head, you grab all the garbage, bend down to pick up the ones on the floor and throw it into the trash can situated in the corner.

You turn back to the man, tucking your hair behind your ear.

“Um… Can I at least pay the cleaning bill?”

“It’s fine, really.”

He still hasn’t cracked a smile.

“Well, let me buy you something sweet then. What’s your guilty pleasure?” you smile again and look over his shoulder, studying the selection of desserts.

“I said it’s alright,“ he bites. “Besides, I already ordered.”

You don‘t expect him to snap at you like that so it kind of shocks you. Better let sleeping dogs lie…

“Okay,” you nod. “I’m sorry again,” you stuff your hands in your coat pockets and head out.

Ransom stands there, looking at your leaving form and he sighs. Shit.

When you bumped into him, he was really pissed that you ruined his clothes at first, but then you started apologizing, cleaning him and rambling . That infuriated him even more. Why the hell did you even care? It wasn’t even your sweater!

You were annoyingly sweet, which Ransom isn‘t used to at all. Sure, women are nice to him, giving him that fake sugary smile just to get into his pants. He never complains, of course, it makes getting laid much easier when they’re trying to get his attention, not the other way around. But it was just an act. The smile you gave Timmy was genuine and so was the concern about his sweater. How was he supposed to react?

His thoughts are interrupted by the young employee who took his order, signalizing his croissant is ready. He takes it and turns to leave, his face still painted with… confusion?

“Fuck.” He curses silently. You can‘t be far. If he hurries, he can still catch up to you and… apologize? He doesn’t know what he’s going to do, except for one thing.

He faces the cashier again. “Hey, could you give me two of those Halloween cupcakes? With the ghosts. And wrap it up. Quickly,“ his voice is intimidating, arrogant and the boy doesn‘t have the balls to argue so he just does as he is told. Ransom snatches the covered tray from the boy’s hands and sprints out.

He looks around and luckily sees you not so far away from the shop so he decides to add a jog to his steps as he follows your direction.

“Hey!” he yells to catch your attention, which he successfully does. You turn around, brows furrowed, stopping when you notice the man from the bakery.

He runs up to you and when he reaches the place where you’re standing, you open your mouth again.

“Oh, did you change your mind?” Your hand makes a move to reach into your bag. “Just say how much and I’ll –”

“No.” He interrupts and confusion becomes evident on your face again. “As I said, it’s fine.” You expect him to continue, to tell you why he stopped you in the middle of a street. But he just stands there, looking at you as if he expects you to say something.

See, when Ransom spontaneously came up with this great plan, he didn’t think it all the way through. He seriously didn’t know what he was going to do, so now, he is just awkwardly shifting on his feet as he contemplates what to say.

“Here.” He shoves the mini tray into your hands. You look at it and then back at him, still confused. „It’s the cupcakes you bought before my sweater decided to have a taste.“

Really? That’s the smoothest thing you could think of? Jesus, what is wrong with you?

But you laugh. And god, is that a beautiful sound. Wait, what?

“Thank you, that’s really sweet of you.” you smile and before Ransom can argue, you stick your free hand out. “I’m (Y/n).”

He closes his fingers over yours. “Hugh… I mean, Ransom.”

The smile doesn‘t leave your face. “Well, which is it?”

“Ransom, you can call me Ransom.”

“Nice to meet you, Ransom.”

You have known since the beginning that Ransom has some skeletons in the closet. Hence the rudeness when you first met and struggle of wording out an apology for his manners. He managed to apologize in his own way and that was okay with you. You know people who don’t even try, but Ransom? He did his best and for that, you gave him your number when he asked.

It didn’t take him long to call you and ask you out. You agreed.

When he asked you on a date, his plan was to take you out for a dinner in a luxurious restaurant, order some expensive wine to get you a little bit tipsy, and spend the night at your place. The next morning he would silently sneak out of your house, block your number and never see you again.

But you are here, sitting across from him, with that big smile on your face, wearing a lovely cream knee-length dress that shows just the right amount of skin which makes him horny and at the same time, he just wants to focus on not how hot, but how beautiful you look.

“So, tell me more about yourself,” you say after the waiter takes away the empty plates.

There is no way he will talk about how filthy rich he is, how his grandfather owns one of the most successful publishing companies and lives in a huge mansion in the rich part of town. No, he’ll save this information for the gold diggers.

“Well, you might know my granddad, Harlan Thrombey?” Okay, nevermind. “He owns Blood Like Wine?” In his defense, this is all he’s ever talked about with girls. He just needs practice. 

You nod. “Oh my God, yeah, of course, I know him! I mean, not know know him, but I’ve read some of his books! Just don’t ask me about them, I’m not exactly a number one fan.” you scrunch your nose and his mind tells him how adorable that is. Shut up, brain.

“Okay, I won’t.” he laughs genuinely. He always fakes laugh when he is on a date if you can even call the ones he’s been on that. “Besides, you can’t be a number one fan even if you wanted to, because that place is mine.”

“I wouldn’t assume anything else. Are you close with your granddad?”

He averts his eyes for a second and clears his throat.

Instead of answering, he throws the question back at you, his voice defensive, maybe a little too harsh. “Are you close with your granddad?”

The corners of your mouth slightly falter and you look down for a second before facing him again, “I was. He died when I was 15.”

“Oh.” Ransom’s face softens.

“But I loved him. Every Halloween, I’d force him to tell me scary stories all day and all night.” you smile at the memories. “You know, I’m sure he and your granddad would get along. He did come up with some pretty amazing tales.”

And suddenly, he is intrigued. “What was your favorite?”

You tell him about the cursed toy factory, how every Halloween all toys come to life and they stuff all the employees with plush so they become these living toys, too, and from all the anger, they do the same to the future workers the following year.

He laughs at that, agreeing that your grandfathers would indeed be good friends.

“I’m not that close with my granddad,” he says after a few moments of silence. What surprises him is your hand carefully coming to take his which was laying on the table. His eyes focus on your thumb that is stroking his knuckles as he continues. “I’m not close with anyone from my family, actually.” Why is he telling you that? Fucking stop.

He clears his throat and withdraws his hand, scratching the back of his neck.

“You ready to go?” he asks and you just nod.

He isn‘t in the mood for sex anymore, so he drops you at your place and speeds home. God, what are you doing to him? There is something about you that makes him want to open up to you, spill all of his secrets, desires and dreams.

It felt kind of good to tell you about his family, but to be honest, he is scared. He doesn‘t want another person that’s just going to treat him like a worthless piece of shit in his life. I mean, he is, but it would just make him even more shitty.

He’s decided. He is not going to see you ever again.

Then his phone beeps.

(y/n): I’m sorry if I made you uncomfortable but I had a great time! I’d definitely be up for doing it again! You can tell me more about your family:)

He scoffs. Why the hell would you want to hear about his family when he told you he’s not close to them?

Then the phone beeps again.

(y/n): Or not! I mean, we can talk about whatever you want! But if you need someone to talk to, I’m here. That’s what I meant.

A smile involuntarily makes its way on Ransom‘s face. Maybe he will see you again.

Since you started spending a lot of time at Ransom’s house, he convinced you to bring some of your stuff. Some clothes, your favorite mug with a whale, saying mornings blow, books and a strawberry-scented shampoo which Ransom became to love.

Almost every morning you share a shower. Sometimes it escalates into a morning shower sex, but most of the time you try and fail to tame him, even though you remind him and yourself of all the times you’ve been late for school, which he doesn’t really care about, to be honest.

You head to the bathroom first, because it takes time for him to get out of bed. After a while, he joins you under the stream of water, wrapping his arms around your waist from behind as he kisses you where your neck meets your shoulder and licks the drops of water from your skin.

You sigh in contentment, putting your arms over his and enjoying the relaxing moment.

Seconds pass and you turn around, taking the bottle of your shampoo while doing so, squirting some into your palm, and the scent of strawberry fills your nostrils. As usual, you bring your hands into his hair, massaging the liquid into his skull and he closes his eyes in bliss, humming.

“You enjoying yourself?” you smirk.

He opens his eyes again and smiles, those butterflies in your stomach coming to life.

“You know I do.” He leans in to kiss you, your arms circling his neck. His hands slide to your butt, kneading the flesh before they grip the back of your thighs but when you are about to jump, he shrieks.

“Shit!” he backs up and his back hits the opposite wall.

You panic, not knowing what’s happened. “What?! Baby, what happened?” You come to him and his fingers are already rubbing at his eyes.

“My eyes! My eyes!” He screams. “I can’t see shit!”

You suppress a laugh, reaching up to remove the hair from his face and wipe away the suds. Then you reach for the detachable showerhead, turn down the temperature, and put it in his hand.

“Here, baby, you have to rinse them.”

He does just that, moans still leaving his mouth at the stinging.

After he finally manages to get all the chemicals out of his eyes, you can‘t hold it anymore. You burst out laughing, unable to stop and he just stares at you with a scowl, putting the showerhead back into its place.

When he turns to leave, you grab his wrists.

“Oh, baby, come on.” you wipe the mixture of water and tears from your eyes. “Don’t leave me here all alone.”

He frowns, his bottom lip sticking out just a little bit. “Might as well. I’m not gonna let you make fun of me.”

The grin is still on your face but you stand on your tiptoes and kiss his pout away. Ransom immediately reciprocates the kiss, pushing you against the wall.

“It hurt,” he says in between the touches of your lips.

“I know, baby,” you say. You pull away and smirk. “Is there a way I can make you feel better?” your suggestive tone hits his ears before you’re sliding down the wall to your knees.

Thank God he didn’t leave the shower.

It’s Friday night and you are watching TV this time in your apartment. Ransom still hasn’t come home from the mansion where he’s spent most of the day, as well as his family. He’s been working with Harlan for quite a while now which boosts up his confidence (not arrogance, there’s a difference) a little and it makes him feel better about himself, proud even, that he‘s finally useful. However, Walt has been giving him shit for it ever since Harlan gave Ransom a chance to be the Acquisitions Editor (of course, he has been pestering him long before that, but now it’s even worse).

Ransom can defend himself, you’re not worried about that, but his family brings out the worst in him, they push him into this dark place that is hard to find a way out of and sometimes you’re afraid that it will destroy him. That’s why you’ve promised yourself that you’re always going to be here for him, no matter what.

And as you expected, you hear your door being unlocked and then slammed shut with a force. He doesn’t even jokingly call out his honey, I’m home! which he never forgets to do. Uh-oh. Doesn’t look good. But again, you didn’t expect anything else.

He comes to the living room, strands of his hair sticking in every direction and falling over his forehead.

“Jesus, why’s it so hot in here?” he takes off his maroon sweater, revealing his plain white t-shirt underneath.

“It’s winter and cold. You expect me to have snow in here, too?”

He just shakes his head, coming to the back of the couch as you crane your head to give him an upside-down kiss. Then he heads to the kitchen, searching the cabinets for something to eat, meanwhile, you turn off the television.

“There should be three croissants in the breadbox!” you say loudly enough for him to hear.

“You want one, too?”

You answer with a no and wait for him.

When he comes back to the living room, he sits next to you and leans his back on the armrest. You’re already looking at him, watching his every move, and trying to see a sign of any emotion he might be feeling. He gives you a knowing look and you shift so you are fully facing him, putting your hand gently on his bent knee and lightly stroking it in a comforting way.

“Three, huh?” he asks with his mouth full.

“Just in case it went really bad.” you give a nervous smile, waiting for him to either confirm or rebut.

Seeing the crumbs fall from his mouth, you reach for the plate that is on the coffee table and give it to him.

“Well... nothing I’m not used to.” he takes another bite of the chocolate pastry. Once he swallows, he takes your hand and kisses your palm. “I love you.”

You smile and lean towards him, supporting yourself by putting both hands on his thighs as you kiss him on the lips that now taste like cocoa.

“I love you, too,” you murmur against his mouth.

After Ransom finishes the pastry, instead of going for more food, he lies down, putting his head in your lap. It‘s kind of a ritual now, every time he comes home (his or yours, wherever you are) after visiting his family, he satisfies his sweet tooth (sometimes it’s 1 croissant, sometimes it’s 5), then he sprawls his body on the couch and rests his head on your thighs, nuzzling his face into your stomach while you thread your fingers through his hair and read a book or watch the TV.

“You want to talk about it?” you ask softly.

You stroke his ear with your thumb. He stays quiet and then sighs.

“Later.”

You bend down as much as your position allows you to, placing a few kisses on his temple and across his cheek before you let him drift off to sleep.

You are Ransom’s safe place, just like he’s yours and always will be.

the end

a/n2: so, ehm... *crickets chirping* okay! i have a thing for fucked up guys who i believe can change if you show them a little bit of love, sue me! no but seriously, Ransom is an asshole and he would probably shove the rest of the cupcakes into my face but a girl can dream, right?

anyways, i do have some ideas for part 2 even if it looks like this doesn’t necessarily need a second part..? it could probably be read as a stand-alone but i’ll see if i even decide to post it lol.

thank you so much for reading, any kind of feedback will be appreciated!🥺❤️i love you, guys!!

oh and my other work can be found under #writer luci !!

#ransom drysdale #ransom drysdale x reader #ransom drysdale oneshot #ransom drysdale imagine #ransom drysdale fanfiction #ransom drysdale fanfic #ransom drysdale x female reader #knives out #knives out imagine #knives out fanfiction #knives out fanfic #writer luci

[sbtlns]

Tiny Dancer

Warnings: smut (!) kind of a crack fic 

A/N: so uh we all agree that the finale was trash right? aight just checkin. anyways i reality shifted when i had a high fever and lived a version of this so i figured i would make yall live it too. part two?

Castiel’s cheeks flushed as you moved to straddle the naked angel. His hand moved instinctively to your waist, holding you close as you leaned down to nip at his ear. He groaned at your action, sending a new wave of heat to your core. You continued your ministrations, nipping and sucking at the tender parts of his neck while the debauched angel squirmed beneath you. “y/n,” he said in a strained voice. You stopped your actions to look down at him, meeting his desperate look. You cocked an eyebrow, prompting him to spit it out. “Please,” he strained, raising his hips to meet yours. Deciding you had tortured him enough, you raised your hips slightly and reached beneath you to align him with your entrance. Before you sunk down on him, you gave him one more ‘are-you-sure?’ type of look. He nodded vehemently and you smiled to yourself, returning your focus to his hardened member slightly probing your entrance. You lowered yourself onto him slowly, savoring the way he stretched you out. He moaned a string of your name, each seeming more urgent. “Cas,” you gasped.  “y/n.....Y/N.....Y/N!”

You shot up in bed, the sound of Dean yelling your name and pounding on your door startling you to say the least. “Yeah?” you croaked, trying to regain your composure. Dean sighed from the other side of the door, finally, he thought, only took five minutes. “We’ve got a case. Map Room in 5,” he said gruffly. Sensing your annoyance, he added, “Sam made coffee.” 

With the promise of coffee, you begrudgingly got out of your bed, shoving the remnants of your dream to the back corner of your mind. You had known Cas for quite some time now, long enough to know that he doesn’t understand human feelings well, let alone romantic feelings. That’s why you decided to try and bury the small crush you had developed for him, which was becoming increasingly harder with the dreams you had been having recently.

Sighing, you got dressed and made your way to the Map Room where you were met with a grumpy looking Dean and a smiling Sam. “Coffee,” Sam said, reaching from his seat to hand you a fresh mug. You were about to thank him when Dean cut you off, “I said 5, not 7.” You threw him a bitch face before turning back to Sam and mouthing thank you, and he smiled in response. You sat down across from Sam as Cas walked in, looking a bit flustered. 

“Sorry I’m late, I was caught up in another matter,” he rushed, making his way through the room to join you at the table. “ ‘S alright, Cas, no sweat,” Dean replied, sitting down with a grunt, across from you and Castiel. “Hold up, I got here before Cas why does he get a ‘no worries Cas,’” you mocked in a high pitched voice, “while I get a ‘how dare you be two minutes late,’” you said in you best gruff Dean voice. Sam almost spit out his coffee, earning a huff of annoyance from Dean. “Maybe because Cas didn’t make me bang on his door for five minutes while he was off in dreamland” he countered. Your face blushed at the mention of dreaming, trying not to think of the hot sex scene you had just dreamt about the angel next to you. “Whatever” you huffed, “let’s just get on to the case, yeah?” 

Sam nodded, pulling up his laptop. “So get this, reports of cattle mutilations, power outages, and now three missing persons reports all in y/h/t. I’m thinking demons. What about you guys?” Dean nodded, sipping at his coffee. “Sounds like our kinda thing” he replied. Castiel nodded silently in agreement. Sam turned to face you, “y/n, thoughts?” Your heart was beating fast and you were sure your cheeks were red. Sam looked at you with furrowed brows. “Hey, you good?” he asked concerned. You forced a smile and nodded, realizing now that the three men were all staring at you. You cleared your throat before saying, “Yeah, it’s just...that’s my hometown is all.” You sighed, “You’re right, sounds like demons though,” you added quickly before taking another sip of coffee. The three men shared a quick glance.

“Um,” Sam started uneasily, “You gonna be okay taking this case?” he asked genuinely. You hadn’t shared much about your past with the boys, nodding and laughing at the stories about their past they told you and quickly changing the subject before anyone could ask about yours. You nodded curtly, raising the mug to your lips again. Memories of your past filled your mind, not totally unpleasant, but enough to make you uneasy about returning to your hometown. You were silently hoping that you could get in kill whatever douchebag demons were causing havoc, and get out without having to deal with anything dealing with your old job. 

Sam didn’t seem convinced. “You sure? I mean we could always call Garth and see-” “I’m sure,” you cut him off. You stood from your chair abruptly, causing the legs to squeak unpleasantly. “I’ll get packed and meet you guys in the garage,” you said before turning on your heel and making your way to your room. You grabbed a bag and filled it with the essentials, glancing at the pair of cowboy boots sitting long ignored in your closet. You sighed to yourself, remembering happier moments from your old job, before management became a shit show. Feeling nostalgic, you decided to throw the boots in your bag before zipping it and heading to the garage.

The boys were already chatting by the car when you made your way to the garage. You threw your bag in the trunk, closed it, and climbed in the back of Baby, the boys following suit. On the drive to your hometown, Dean sheepishly handed you a stack of cassettes, his way of apologizing for earlier. You beamed back at him and picked out your favorites, handing them to Sam to queue up. Not before long, your eyelids grew heavy and you drifted off to sleep in the backseat. 

Dean must’ve hit a bump, because you woke up with a start, disoriented for a moment. It took a second for you to realize that in your sleep, you had laid your head on Castiel’s shoulder, close enough to him so that you were practically draped along his side. You quickly scrambled back to your side of the car, not missing the soft smile and forlorn look Cas had given you. “Oh look, sleeping beauty’s awake,” Dean joked. You stuck your tongue out at him, settling back into your seat. “So y/n, we found out that all three vics have something in common, they’re all regulars at some place called The Saloon” Sam filled you in, placing a Southern drawl on the name of your past employer. 

Your blood ran ice cold and you stared back at him with wide eyes. He was still smiling, pleased with himself for his accent, when he realized you were panicking. The smile dropped from his face. “What’s wrong?” he asked, drawing Dean and Castiel’s attention. Dean shot you a confused glance from the rearview. “What’s wrong princess? Don’t like linedancing?” he joked. You gulped. “Um,” you started. “I uh...” you cleared your throat. “I used to work there,” you mumbled. Sam raised his eyebrows in amusement and Dean fought back a laugh. “Wha-you,” he wheezed, struggling not to burst out laughing. “Our very own tiny dancer, huh?” he mused. You huffed and crossed your arms across your chest, cheeks burning red. Sam turned back around in his seat, holding his laughter in with a smile. Castiel broke the silence, “I don’t understand, is it shameful to dance in a line?” With that, the boys couldn’t hold it in any longer and burst out into fits of laughter.

The rest of the drive wasn’t too bad, besides Dean’s off-tune humming of Elton John’s Tiny Dancer. You pulled into town and checked into the nearest motel, silently thanking the universe that Dean had booked two separate rooms. You might have offed yourself then and there if you had to spend another night listening to Sam’s snores. After settling in, you got dressed in your FBI best and met back by the car. The four of you drove to The Saloon, you becoming more and more anxious the closer you got. Dean pulled up to the gravel lot and took in the building with an amazed look. He kept his eyes on the building as he got out of the car, “Oh ho ho, get look at this,” he said incredulously. Before you stood a massive red barn with a huge blinking neon sign of a half naked woman riding a bull with a lasso spinning in her hand. 

“Yeah yeah, let’s just get this over with,” you huffed, pushing past him and walking into the bar. The familiar scent of beer and cigarettes hit you the second you walked in, taking in the sight of the huge stage in front of you along. A few girls were dancing on stage, with a handful of customers sitting and watching. You heard the door open behind you as the boys stepped in and sighed before turning to face them. Dean looked like a kid on Christmas smiling widely and looking around the bar, while Sam scanned the room looking for the owners. Cas stood in place, staring perplexed at the women dancing. You followed his gaze to the stage where one of the girls was swinging her hips slowly and deliberately to the beat of the song. You turned back to him, his head cocked to the side as he mumbled, “Well that’s inappropriate.”

Trying to hide the blush creeping to your cheeks, you quickly turned back around, just in time to see your old manager strutting towards you. You took a deep breath, ready for the coming bullshit. “Well well well,” he said with a smug smirk on his face. “If it isn’t Miss Daisy Duke herself.” You felt your cheeks get hot and heard Dean snort. “I’m sorry,” Dean said, looking at you like this was too good to be true. “Daisy Duke?” he repeated. Your cheeks were burning by this point, praying that the floor would open up and swallow you whole. 

“That’s right,” your old manager said in his chill inducing Southern drawl. “You know how it goes, ‘nice legs...daisy dukes...makes a man go-’” he whistled, finishing the line and turning your cheeks an even deeper red. “Miss Daisy here was our pride and joy,” he said, turning to Dean. “Best dance this bar has ever seen,” he finished, turning back to you. He smiled devilishly at you, humming in contentment. “To what do I owe the pleasure, Miss Daisy?” he asked sickeningly sweetly. Fighting to hold on to whatever shred of dignity you had left, you pulled out your fake badge and held it up. “It’s Agent Jett now, thanks,” you spat, flashing it in his face before putting it back in your jacket pocket. He squinted back at you. Sam cleared his throat in attempt to break the tension before telling him about the missing persons reports. Your old boss soaked in the information Sam was giving him, but stayed silent, still squinting at you. 

Sam looked uncomfortably between the two of you before clearing his throat again and asking, “Do you have any security cameras that might have caught anything? Any possible witnesses?” Your old boss shifted his glance to Sam and replied, “Maybe.” Sam stared back, waiting for him to continue. When he didn’t, Dean cut in. “Maybe?” he asked gruffly with an eyebrow cocked. Your old boss nodded, pursing his lips together. “Depends,” he stated simply, crossing his arms. You could tell Dean was losing his patience quickly because he closed his eyes and took a deep breath. “On what?” he asked, voice tight. Your old boss simply shrugged. “On if Miss Daisy will give us another show tonight.”

Your jaw dropped open. Did he say what you thought he said? Sam, Dean, and Cas all turned to stare at you, trying to gauge your reaction. Dean looking more amused than anything, and Sam trying to see whether or not he had to step in between you. “I’m sorry, what?” you croaked. Your old boss gave you the same devilish smile that sent chills down your spine. “I said,” he took another step closer to you, “I’ll talk...if you would grace The Saloon with one last dance. For old time’s sake.” The three boys looked at you expectingly. You looked incredulously among them. “You can’t be serious,” you protested.

He was. You found yourself back in your motel room, changing out of your FBI clothes and into your shortest denim shorts and your most revealing tanktop. You silently cursed yourself for packing your boots, as it seemingly jinxed you into your current situation. After you were changed, you fell back into your old routine of hair and makeup, becoming almost unrecognizable in the mirror. As you were applying the last bit of hairspray, you heard a knock at your door. “Y/n, we gotta go!” you heard Dean yell. Sighing, you slipped into your boots, took one last look in the mirror, and summoned the courage to open the door. 

When you opened the door, it took them a second to react, all three reacting differently. Sam looked at you with raised brows and an amused smile, Dean whistled, and Castiel’s eyes widened before slowly trailing down your body. You felt yourself blush under his scrutiny, until it became unbearable and you snapped your fingers in his face. “My eyes are up here buddy,” you feigned anger, startling him from his trance. “I-uh m-my apologies, y/n” he stumbled over his words, looking down at his feet. Dean laughed and clapped his shoulder before walking towards Baby.

The drive over was silent, with the occasional ‘heh’ from Dean, as he thought about the ridiculousness of this day. You dreaded every mile he drove closer to the bar, wondering why Castiel couldn’t have just used his angel powers to make your old boss cough up whatever info he had. You sighed as Dean pulled up to the bar once again and begrudgingly opened your car door. “Did you guys really have to come?” you whined, trying to stall. “Of course we did princess. What if the demons are here tonight?” Dean said with a smirk. You rolled your eyes at the excuse. Sam turned to you with a look of pity. “Seriously though, y/n, if you’re uncomfortable at any point just say the word. We’ll leave and we can find another way to get the information,” he said and smiled softly. You nodded and sighed before making your way into the barn.

You opened the door and to your dismay, the place was packed. You groaned as you stepped further in before you made eye contact with one of your old coworkers. “Y/n?” she said shocked, a huge smile forming on her face. “Jimmy said you were coming but I didn’t believe him, no one did,” she said before pulling you into a huge hug. You relaxed into the hug, her being one of the very few people in town that you still kept in contact with. “Yeah well,” you said pulling back. “One night only kinda thing,” you finished, choosing to ignore the way her and Dean were eye-fucking next to you. She turned her attention back to you and took your hand. “Well, we better get you stage ready, Jimmy’s queuing up your signature!” she said excitedly, pulling you away. You threw a quick glance behind you at the boys before realization dawned on you. “Hey!” you yelled back to them, getting their attention. “Do NOT sit in this section!” you tried to point to the front left, but your friend was pulling you too fast and they just gave you confused looks. 

Before you knew it, you were back stage, pacing with anxiety. You heard the current song stop and you dreaded what was coming. “Ladies and gentlemen,” you heard Jimmy’s chilling voice draw out. “Please give a big Saloon welcome...returning back to the stage... Miss Daisy Duke!” You shoved your nerves down and forced a smile before strutting out on stage. You quickly fell back into your old routine, strutting around the stage and swaying your hips to your opening music. One dance and that’s all you said to yourself. You knew that from the song Jimmy had chosen, your signature, that in the middle of the routine you would have to go down to the audience and dance for whoever the spotlight shown on. You continued your dance, praying that the boys had listened to you and had chosen anywhere else to sit. As the part of the song drew closer, you scanned the audience to gauge about who you would be giving a lapdance to. Dean raised his hand to catch your scanning eyes, with the biggest smile you’d ever seen on him. You rolled your eyes before realizing that they hadn’t taken your warning and had sat in that section. 

You shot him a death glare before turning back to your dance, hoping that the spotlight would shine on anyone but them. The drunken cheers and whistles from the crowd were just about the only thing keeping you from running off stage and straight to the motel. You heard the cue in the music, prompting you to saunter down the main steps and into the audience. Sighing to yourself, you grabbed the mic and made your way to the steps. The music stopped, prompting your lines. “Gentlemen,” you said with your best honeyed Southern accent. “It’s one of your lucky nights” you finished, and the music started back up. You felt all eyes on you and tried to keep yourself from freaking out as you continued your routine. You heard the third cue in the music as the spotlight came down. You held your breath, praying that it would land anywhere but where it did. To your horror, it landed on Castiel.

Fuck you thought. The angel looked utterly confused, looking up and around him, completely thrown off by the sudden wash of light encompassing him. If it was possible, Dean’s smile grew even wider as he excitedly looked to Cas and clapped him on the shoulder. Castiel looked at him through furrowed brows, before following his gaze to you. You locked eyes with the bewildered angel, walking over to him as sexy as you could. A surge of confidence filled you when you saw his Adam’s apple bob and his jaw clench. In accordance with your routine, you walked right up to Castiel and kneeled in front of him, gently nudging his knees apart so you could settle between them. Castiel looked down at you with wide eyes, throat bobbing once more.

“And what might your name be, handsome?” you said into the mic, part of the routine. You held the mic out to Cas, which made him even more confused as he stared into your eyes, searching for any clue as to why you were asking for his name. The music was stopped again, waiting for his reply. Dean elbowed him, prompting him to answer. “Uh... Cas-Castiel,” he finally spat out. You mouthed a quick I’m so sorry and gave him an apologetic look before standing up and saying “Well, Castiel, I’ve got a special treat for you.” The music came back on and you handed the mic off to a stagehand, before turning back to Cas. 

With the spotlight still on him, you sauntered over to Castiel, swaying your hips to the music along the way. He sat unnaturally still, legs still apart from when you spread them, just barely exposing the small bulge beginning to form in his pants. You felt heat pool in your core at the sight, struggling to keep your focus on the routine. You made your way back in front of him, before turning away from him to swing your hips to the music. Turning back around, you saw him watching your movements closely, his once bright blue eyes now dark, pupils blown out from lust. You swallowed before placing your hands on his shoulders and climbing onto his lap. This surprised him, as his breath caught in his throat and his hands flew instinctively to your hips. You leaned in to whisper “don’t touch, the bodyguards won’t allow it.” He ripped hands off of you as if your skin burned him and he looked up at you with wide eyes.

You began grinding against him, moving your hips to the music and gaining more drunken cheers, one distinctively from Dean, earning him a smack on the back of his head from his younger brother. Castiel couldn’t care less about the audience, you had his undivided attention. He couldn’t help the noises coming from the back of his throat, nor could he seem to keep his vessel under control. His hands twitched at his sides, desperate to touch you. You felt him becoming harder and harder, making it more difficult for you to stay focused on your routine. You climbed off his lap, danced in front of him some more, and then sat back down, this time facing away from him. You ground you ass against his hardened member, earning a low moan from the angel. You felt your panties dampening, enjoying this just as much as he was. You continued grinding against him to the music, the crowd continuing to cheer, and Castiel continuing to squirm beneath you. 

Once more, you stood up from him, danced more of your routine, and straddled the utterly debauched angel. You worked hard to avoid eye contact, but slipped up and locked eyes with Castiel. To your delight, he donned the same desperate look from the dream you had earlier that morning. You shifted your hips to grind against him, causing his head to fall back to his shoulders and his mouth to part slightly. More heat pooled in your core the more you ground against him, a coil starting to form in your belly. Fuck you thought to yourself. Luckily, the fourth and final cue came in the music, signaling your return to the stage. You breathed a sigh of relief, climbed off of him, and pecked his cheek before sauntering back to the stage to finish the song. From the stage, you watched Castiel shift uncomfortably in his seat, trying and failing to conceal his tented slacks. 

Finally, the song ended and you blew a kiss to the crowd before skipping off stage, thankful to be done. While you were chatting with some of the girls, Dean came to get you, trying to hide his amusement as he told you Sam had gotten the tapes from Jimmy. You breathed a sigh of relief, glad that this night was over. Dean walked you back out to the car, where Sam and Cas were waiting. Cas looked up hearing footsteps, and his eyes widened when they met yours. He quickly looked down and avoided your stare until you got back to the car. The four of you got in silently and sat for a moment before you heard Dean breathe in as if he was about to say something. 

“Don’t,” you said quickly. “I don’t want to hear anything about tonight ever again. Capiche?” Dean muttered something under his breath and Sam gave you a tight nod, eager to also forget the events of the night. You took a deep breath and turned to Cas. “Castiel,” you began, and you could’ve sworn you saw him flinch at your words. “I really am sorry. I wasn’t expecting it to land on you, I told you three not to sit there..” you trailed off. He couldn’t meet your gaze. Instead he nodded and replied, “Our apologies for not realizing your meaning.” His eyes momentarily flicked up to yours before landing back down into his lap. You followed his gaze, and he seemingly noticed, as he once again shifted in his seat, trying to conceal the still obvious bulge.

This was going to be a fun ride back. 

#castiel #cas #castiel x reader #cas x reader #castiel x reader smut #castiel fanfiction #supernatural fic #dean winchester #sam winchester #supernatural crack

[lifeinahole27]

CS ff: “Christmas Miss-mas” (au)

Summary: It’s been a year since they saw each other, after the previous year’s disastrous events, but what the two remember is hardly what it seems. One basement, three different events.

Rating: T

A/N: Hiiiii @ouatpost. I feel like you should’ve known it was me from the moment I went “Well, this is going to be laaaaate,” because that’s what I seem to do every damn year. BUT! I have this completed and just in the nick of time for the end of 2020! I hope you enjoy! I had much grander visions for this, but thanks to work (we have a trio of new employees we’re trying to wrangle and it’s uhhhhh not going well at all) and a slew of dumb complications (this morning’s was waking up to a pinched nerve in my neck) I was just happy to be able to get words on the page for you, hopefully in an order that pleases you, with some details you shared that you enjoy reading! It’s not as grand as I wanted, but I do hope it’s still to your liking. <3

Thank you @cssecretsanta2020 for another awesome year, and for knocking me back into my writing. You are a rockstar and deserve so many fruit baskets in gratitude. 

-x-

Christmas Party 2019

As far as parties go, Mary Margaret and David Nolan’s Christmas Party has always been Emma’s favorite. For as long as she’s been a Storybrooke resident, there’s been a party to go to. Back when she was fifteen and freshly adopted by David’s mother, Ruth, the parties were a little different. They drank sparkling grape juice and hung out in the farmhouse’s basement.

That’s where David met Mary Margaret his senior year of high school, where they officially decided to start dating the week after, and where he asked her to marry him four years later.

When Ruth passed away the year after they were married, David moved back into the farmhouse with Mary Margaret, and the two of them began restoring the house. Now, after all these years, the house is exactly what the two of them have always wanted with the recent addition of a nursery for their upcoming child.

What does any of this have to do with Emma? Well, with David as her brother, she’s expected to be at the party every year. She also offered to help with whatever Mary Margaret needed since she’s due next month and she knows the expectant mother is going to go overboard as usual. And while she’s never had the urge or need to cancel in the past, she fervently wishes she could this year.

 For the first time in a year, she’s going to be facing Killian – former best friend, complicated story�� the man she thought was the love of her life, if she’s being 100% honest. Her stomach flutters, thinking about how David had casually mentioned Killian was back in town. They’ve done just fine avoiding each other since last year, but with Killian’s own invitation to the party implied, she knows that their streak is likely to end tonight.

In the event that this is the case, Emma has spared no attention to detail for her outfit. She’s strong. She’s independent. And she certainly doesn’t need a man in her life to make it valid. So what if she wants to remind Killian of everything he’s missing out on? The red dress hugs her body, and is probably lower cut than she usually wears around her brother, but she doesn’t care.

Makeup? Perfect. Hair? Flawless. Jewelry? The earrings are from Killian, and she tries to ignore the way that makes her feel as she secures the backing. With one last fluff of her hair and a quick check to make sure she didn’t get lipstick on her teeth, Emma takes a bracing breath and grabs her coat as she walks out of her apartment.

-x-

Alone in a room in Granny’s B&B, Killian stares at his reflection in the bathroom mirror with dread crossing his features. He checks his pocket watch one last time, knowing he has to leave if he’s to make it there fashionably late instead of just plain tardy.

It’s been almost a full year since he saw Emma last.

He can hardly remember a time before that where they went more than a week without seeing each other, not to mention talking or texting every day. For years, the two of them had been inseparable, since the first time they met. He braces himself on the edge of the sink as he thinks about the series of parties they’ve lived through together, looking at himself only once he feels the pain fade from his expression.

While he’s always looked forward to The Nolan Christmas Party in the past, he’s sure Emma wants nothing to do with him after what happened last year. He’s still not sure how exactly he went from total euphoria one moment to losing his best friend, the woman he loves, all in the next moment.

Loves.

Bloody hell, but it’s true. He still loves her with every dark corner of his heart, not that it matters much. Etched into his memory is the look she gave him after… just after.

With one last heavy sigh at the lost moments and memories, Killian checks his reflection for the last time. He looks like shit, as he confirms as he glances over his reflection. At least he went for a haircut and shaved down his beard before tonight. Liam had taken to calling him Chuck, after Tom Hanks’ character on Castaway, and asking him if he’d lost Wilson again.

Right. Time to face the past. He slips on his jacket and heads out the door.

Christmas Party 2015

It’s not every day you meet your equal in the basement of someone else’s house, but that’s how Killian and Emma meet. 

Emma wanders down to the unfinished basement to quietly raid the cookies she knows Mary Margaret didn’t put out and finds a man sitting on the half-finished bar. By next year, Emma’s sure this area, too, will be up and running for the yearly party and she can’t wait.

But back to the stranger sitting in her brother’s basement.

“Hi there,” she says when she hits the bottom step.

His head jerks up and he lurches off the bar, glancing up to look at the door Emma shut behind her. “Bollocks,” he mutters, hanging his head again and dragging himself back to where he’d been sitting.

“What’s going on?” Emma asks, looking between the guy she still doesn’t know and the basement door. Was he waiting for someone else? Disappointed that it’s not another woman that wandered down here? Or man? She doesn’t know what he’s into, but far be it for her to judge.

“Welcome to the basement party. Population is now two, and you are also stuck down here.” He’s brooding, clearly, but he has to be lying.

Emma jogs back up the stairs and tries the door, surprised to find that the handle doesn’t budge. It’s locked. How is it locked? Why is it locked?

“David!” Emma yells out as she bangs on the door. “David, the door is locked!”

“He won’t hear you,” the man says from the bottom of the staircase. “The speaker seems to be precisely in a location that’s drowning out all sound from the door. And there’s too many people moving around for anyone to hear the ruckus I’ve been making against the ceiling for the last half hour.”

“Fuck. You’re not kidding?”

“Nope.”

“Great.”

“Aye. Well, nice to meet you, lass. I’m Killian Jones. I tagged along with Will.” He jumps off the bar again to hold out his hand to her.

“Emma Swan. Sister of the host. And apparently locked down in my brother’s basement with a complete stranger.”

“You can’t call us complete strangers if we already know each other’s names.” 

“That’s flimsy logic, and you know it,” Emma says, crossing her arms after extracting her hand from his. He’s flirting with her? At a time like this?

“Ah, but now we’ve got time to get acquainted, it seems,” he says, holding out his arms to indicate the empty space they’re occupying.

She should be disappointed about missing the party, but it’s quickly obvious that all the good food is stashed down here, as are all of Emma’s favorite cookies. And while the bar and surrounding basement might not be finished yet, there’s a good selection of wine and beer already in stock. And, if she’s being honest with herself, he’s certainly nice to look at. She’s curious to see if the personality matches the looks.

Emma finds the cushions for the outdoor furniture and throws them on the floor as she and Killian graze the offerings like a picnic. They pass the time by talking shit about the people they don’t like at the party, and she’s surprised by how easily she gets along with him already.

As the time ticks by, she finds herself laughing, enjoying herself more than if she’d been upstairs getting shitfaced and avoiding said people she doesn’t like.

The music cuts out at 11pm, and while it would be the perfect opportunity for either one of the trapped guests to make noise to get rescued, both of them are fast asleep, stretched out on cushions with Killian’s suit jacket draped over Emma’s shoulders.

At 11:30pm when the last guests finally head out, David heads to the basement to get a fresh box of trash bags and finds Emma asleep with a man he only briefly met at the start of the party.

“Emma?”

She startles awake, sitting up and blinking at David in confusion.

“What are you doing down here?” he asks, noticing that Killian is still out solid.

“Killian and I got locked down here. Your door sucks,” Emma grumbles, just avoiding rubbing her eyes so she doesn’t smear her makeup. “Killian. Hey. Wake up.” With a few shoves of his shoulder, Emma rouses her companion. “David, I’m staying in the guest room. And you’re out of Malbec.”

“Noted,” David says, still very befuddled with everything going on. “Killian? Do you need to crash here for the night? I know you arrived with Will but he left with Belle over an hour ago.”

“I don’t want to impose,” Killian says, sounding more alert than Emma would’ve expected after how fast asleep he was.

“You’re not,” she tells him. “I’ll give you a ride home in the morning.”

It’s this, more than anything, which makes David raise his eyebrows in surprise. He hasn’t seen Emma take this fast to anyone… almost ever. Here she is falling asleep near and offering a ride to someone David knows by reputation alone. (Said reputation is a mixed bag from some questionable sources, so he will do his best to reserve judgement despite his protective instincts firing up.)

Even as David helps Killian get settled on the couch, Emma is puttering around with a blanket and pillow, explaining where everything is if Killian should need it. When David and Emma get upstairs to the entrance to both his bedroom (a single glance shows Mary Margaret face-down on the bed without even changing) and the guest room, he goes to ask the obvious, but Emma just smiles.

“Goodnight, David. Go tend to your wife,” she says with an affectionate smile. She hugs him and walks into the room, closing the door behind her.

What on Earth just happened? he wonders. 

Christmas Party 2019

 Getting to the Nolan household early means more than just helping set everything up. It also means getting to spend time with her sister-in-law before the chaos of the party begins. 

Emma heads straight to the office on the first floor and hangs her coat on the rolling rack they have specifically for this purpose. She takes a deep breath and goes to find Mary Margaret to get the other woman off her feet as much as possible.

As they finish the party preparations, Emma happily listens to the town gossip and the baby updates.

“You know Killian will be here tonight, right?” Mary Margaret’s question is tentative. She doesn’t really know what happened between the two of them, but she’s never pushed. Emma is pretty sure she knows the depth of Emma’s feelings for Killian, so the fact that she a) never told him (notoriously bad secret-keeper that she is) and b) never harassed Emma for any information she didn’t willingly give has been a huge relief.

“I thought I’d heard that rumor,” Emma says, trying to keep her voice calm and even. She can do this. She can come face to face with the man she loves… Loved? She stops herself from sighing, not even sure if she managed to shuffle that into the past tense.

“I just wanted you to be prepared,” Mary Margaret says, still doing her best not to pry even though Emma can hear that note in her voice that screams of curiosity.

Emma just smiles, shaking her head and putting the finishing touches on the charcuterie board she’s been painstakingly assembling. “How’s that?” she asks when she’s done, taking a picture of the whole butcher’s block and going to show her so Mary Margaret doesn’t have to get up.

“Perfect. You know, in another life you could’ve been a party planner,” the other woman remarks, and Emma chuckles under her breath. 

In another life, that’s what she wanted to do. But somehow, she found her niche in bail bonds, instead, enjoying the hunt a little more than she thought she would. Sure, it takes her away from home sometimes. She’s a member of multiple hotel preferred programs and top tier in all of them at this point. 

There’s something about the chase that’s always thrilled her. It’s something new and exciting at every turn, and there’s something extra satisfying about catching people that otherwise thought they could slip away unnoticed from their bad deeds. 

But thanks to her passion for details specifically at social gatherings, Emma easily plays co-host and makes sure to circulate once the guests start arriving. 

She’s in the office hanging up Ruby’s coat when she turns and runs directly into someone. Someone that smells far too familiar, who feels familiar against where her hands are braced on his chest. Her stomach clenches for multiple reasons and she thinks about running, but something compels her to look up, to meet his eyes. 

“Swan,” he whispers. His hand is on her waist from when they collided, and she can feel the warmth of his skin, longs for the way that hand has touched her with casual intimacy for so many years now. 

“Killian.” Her voice is hoarse all of a sudden, and she swallows in order to continue, to say anything to him, to ask him why. “I can’t… I can’t do this,” she says instead, breaking away and exiting the room as quickly as she can.

-x-

He knew it wouldn’t be easy seeing her again, and had all hopes that he wouldn’t be met with hostility or hatred. Her sad confusion, however, may hurt even more. He doesn’t know how they ended up like this. He still replays last year over and over searching for the details that may unlock her radio silence for a whole bloody year but with how that night played out, he can only assume that what happened was a mistake to her. 

Emma is still the most beautiful woman he’s ever met. No matter where she goes throughout the party, he can catch sight of her glowing and schmoozing. She’s a delight, a natural-born socialite without the reputation of one. 

Multiple times, he finds her near. He doesn’t move when he notices her, too terrified of scaring her off. But sooner or later she realizes he’s close and swiftly finds herself a new task to attend to, thus leaving him lurking and definitely sulking in a corner. 

Halfway through the event, he can’t take it anymore. It’s impossible being in proximity with Emma and not being able to talk to her and interact with her as he used to. Right after the party last year, he got called back to England. His brother, still living in London, had called to alert him of his father’s passing. The next year was an endless battle of selling off the old man’s house and possessions, and also celebrating the birth of Liam’s first child. 

Since he was only able to come back for brief moments, Will had sublet his room in their apartment and Killian would stay at Granny’s when he would come back.

He was in town for Emma’s birthday, but he never saw her, never managed to text her, never heard from her… 

Tonight? It’s obvious that what’s between them will never be fixed. Along with that, he fears his heart may never mend.

Christmas Party 2018

Emma was right - the finished basement is even better than she could’ve imagined. The difference between sitting down here this time and the first time is that she and Killian aren’t stuck. They’re just hiding out for a bit to escape the party. Around them are the remnants of a bottle of rum, a plate of cookies and chocolates, and way more cheesy potatoes than she meant to steal but she panicked. 

“So what are we doing for New Years?” Emma asks as she leans back against the wall behind the bar. Now that the door to the upstairs doesn’t lock, they’ve taken to literally hiding from anyone that might find them. The bar is tall enough that someone would have to come around or lean over it to actually see them which works perfectly fine for her. 

“Whatever your heart desires, love. As long as I get my cheeky kiss at midnight, you know I’m a happy man.”

She smiles, thinking of the previous year’s “cheeky kiss” which was truly a kiss on his cheek. There was no one she wanted to kiss at midnight, and Killian was standing next to her. And she couldn’t very well imagine another year without a New Years kiss so she grabbed his face and planted a bright red lipstick mark on his cheek above his beard. He’d worn that kiss the rest of the night. 

“Yeah, yeah. You’ll get your kiss,” she remarks, turning to do it again but doesn’t anticipate that he’s turning towards her as well, and instead kisses him directly on the lips.

It was probably out of surprise that they sat there for a few seconds like that, lips pressed together. And then he kisses her back. He tastes like rum and chocolate as his tongue slips out to taste her lips, and she can’t help but sigh into the kiss.

His lips feel like she always imagined they would. She’s been curious in the past but what they have is far too precious for her to mess up with sex, so she never made a move. But there have been lonely nights where she pretended that their snuggling during movies was more than platonic, that holding his hand was something real. She’s woken up to his arm around her more times than she can count but the dream always fades by the time he opens his eyes and brings her back to reality.

This, however, is unearthing every desire and wish she’d ever had for what the two of them could become. This is giving her a vivid picture of snowed-in nights and lazy Sunday mornings. Of interrupting Killian’s work at his little desk in the corner of his room to climb into his lap and do her best to distract him. Of making him breakfast at the loft and giving up in order to be pulled into his embrace and tightly held against him. 

As if he can hear her thoughts and is making up for lost time, she feels Killian’s hand snake around her waist to pull her closer, until her legs are thrown over his lap and they’re as close as they can be without her straddling him. The food around them is forgotten; the bottle of rum - thankfully capped - knocked over in their haste.

It’s right when their hands start decidedly less innocent wandering that Emma thinks that they should maybe slow down, especially since they’re still in the basement and the party's still going on above their heads. 

“Wait,” she says, her voice husky as her hand caresses his cheek. He pulls back, as if startled to find that it was her he was making out with the whole time. If she had to label the expression on his face, it would have to be named Panic, and she starts to wonder why that might be. 

“There you are! What are you two doing down here?” David’s voice from over the bar startles them out of the moment entirely. 

Killian scrambles to stand up. “Not a thing, mate. Enjoying your sister’s favorite dish in some peace and quiet.” He at least has the decency to hold out a hand to help her up, but when she’s on her feet he already feels like he’s a million miles away. 

“Emma? You okay?”

“I’m fine,” she says, forcing a smile and extracting her hand out of Killian’s and moving around the bar. “Need help with anything?” 

David starts talking about wine and crackers and Emma moves on autopilot behind him, walking away from Killian and feeling her heart ice over as she does. 

Nothing. It meant nothing to him, she thinks as they climb the stairs and move back to the party. So that’s what she would treat it as. 

She doesn’t turn back to see Killian still bracing himself on the bar, his expression conflicted and longing. 

Two days later, before she could figure out if things were going to go back to normal, she finds out Killian is gone. His few belongings are in the apartment storage and Will is subletting his room. She had dodged all his calls, but the fact that he left without a goodbye was telling enough. 

And just like that, her best friendship and her heart were broken in the same instance. 

Christmas Party 2019

He’s not even sure how long he’s been hidden away in the basement, only that he has no desire to make his way back to the party. Surely, there must be a way for him to sneak out without anyone noticing. It was a mistake to attend tonight.

With intent to do just that, to skulk out without catching attention, Killian moves to stand but promptly halts when he hears footsteps coming down the stairs. He pushes himself closer to the bar to hide in the shadows, willing the intruder to leave as quickly as possible.

He keeps his head tucked down to avoid being noticed, so imagine his surprise when it’s Emma’s voice that reaches his ears. 

“Just had to go and take our hiding spot,” she says quietly, and he lifts his head to see her standing at the opening of the bar, a plate of cookies in one hand, a bowl of cheesy potatoes in the other, and a beer tucked beneath her arm. 

She walks a little closer, stopping at the end of the bar and placing down her bounty before sliding onto the last barstool. 

Taking it as a cue that she’s not going to run from him, Killian stands and rummages in the small fridge for a beer of his own. 

“Not running this time?” He asks as he cracks it open. 

“I’m too tired,” she says, propping her head up with the hand not picking at the cookies. 

He takes a step closer, grabbing her bottle and popping off the cap. 

“Thanks,” she murmurs, and hesitates just a moment more before she’s pushing her plate of cookies towards him. 

They’re silent for a moment, the music just barely reaching their seclusion. 

“You look beautiful tonight, Swan.”

There’s a hint of a smile, but she only dips her head in gratitude as she continues to graze. 

“Listen, love. I still don’t know what’s happened between us, but I have been bloody miserable without you this last year. You add color to my life. Without you it’s been… so grey. So underwhelming. I miss you. Please - I’ll do whatever’s in my power to make things right again, but please let us be friends, at the very least.”

“I’m not nothing,” she responds after another moment. She’s looking him directly in the eyes this time and he sees a world of hurt and sadness there. 

“What?”

“I’m not nothing. Never was. Never will be.”

“Of course you’re not nothing. Why would…”

And then he realizes it. Realizes exactly what he said at a most critical time between them. 

“Oh, fuck me,” he mutters, rubbing his hand over his eyes. “Emma, that’s not what I meant. You most definitely aren’t nothing. You’re everything. You were - still are! - my everything.” 

“Then why did you get so defensive with David?”

“I didn’t want to scare you. I’d finally had you in my arms where I wanted you. I didn’t want you running off.” He winces, giving her a sheepish look. “Which you did anyway, but I promise, love. You misunderstood. I wanted you to have time to process. I didn’t want your brother in our business so soon after that moment.”

“Why didn’t you come back? Why didn’t you try calling me?”

“I did. Before I left. I wanted nothing more than to see you before I went to London. So when you ignored my calls, I figured it was best to leave it at that. It’s why I stayed away so long.”

“I thought you thought it was a mistake. That kissing me was a mistake,” she admits. 

“That kiss was the best bloody idea either of us ever had. It’s everything that came after that should’ve never happened.”

-x-

Hearing Killian admit that kissing her was definitely not a mistake goes a long way in healing Emma’s heart. It’s what helps her ease off the stool and move closer to where he’s standing until she’s right in front of him. 

“Not a mistake?”

“No,” he answers promptly. 

“Neither of us will be running?”

“Nope.”

“Good,” Emma says, closing the final inches between them and kissing him softly. 

At the wrecked noise he makes, she’s lost to it all. What starts as a soft, simple kiss quickly turns heady. Her hands end up along his face and into his hair while his hand is on her lower back, urging her closer. 

“Did you drive?” Emma asks, her hand dropping down to his tie. 

“Aye. And other than this beer I haven’t been drinking.”

“To my place?”

He doesn’t respond with words, instead bending to kiss her again before they come up with their plan to escape. 

In the morning, Emma wakes up to Killian’s arm wrapped around her and everything finally feels like it’s back in place. 

Christmas 2020

For the first time since Emma has lived in Storybrooke, the Nolan Christmas Party is cancelled. 

Instead, everyone boots up their computers or phones, opting for facetime celebrations instead of in-person ones. 

Cooped up in her tiny loft, Emma is just fine with this. A nice little spread of finger foods and cookies is on the coffee table, and Killian collapses next to her, already in his pajamas as she starts the call to David and Mary Margaret.

“Merry Christmas!” the other couple greets while baby Leo babbles happily in David’s lap. 

“Happy Christmas,” Killian greets while Emma gives her own sentiments. She snuggles into his side as the call continues, feeling like she’s right where she’s meant to be.

And this time there’s no basement involved.

#cs fanfic #captain swan ff #cs ff au #cs secret santa 2020 #sarah writes ff

[djemsostylist]

Of Queens and Trash

Here’s the thing. SCK has been on a downward trend since 13. The breakup was long, getting together again was tiring, the amnesia plot was poorly handled and the mess that came following his recovery was, well, a mess. The necessary break for covid gave us a chance for a fresh start for Edser. All the bad stuff in the past, and a focus in the last episodes of them being able to finally fulfill all the promises they had not been able to. After all, this was a story that, at its core, was about two people who met and fell in love and who, no matter what, chose to be together. Invisible handcuffs. And with the return of the OG writer, it seemed we might finally get that. After 39 episodes of angst and only 7(?) of real togetherness, surely it was time? Forget the pain of the past, and start with Edser navigating their world together.

And then the trailer dropped. And all of a sudden, all the people who had spent months eviscerating Serkan for behaving badly in the 30s were celebrating this new plot, the “great angst” and Eda “being a Queen.”

For me, I can’t get over the hiding of the child. It's a hardline deal breaker. I don’t think it matters who writes it, I think it's an awful plotline. No matter how "good" the trailer looks or moments seem, I will remember that I was watching a show about two people who loved each other and never wanted to be apart, about a man who learned how to open his heart, and this ruined it all.

Now, I think it's worth noting that my hard line, in this particular case, is in response to Edser, if that makes sense. I’m not hardline, “if this is in a story I’m not watching”. If it works for the characters and story because that is the type of story being told, then fine.

I don't subscribe to the woke feminism brand of "all women are Queens and all men are Trash" which seems to be a trend of late (and not just in fandom). I think people are people and people are generally imperfect but also trying. I don’t think women, simply by virtue of carrying a child, get full say in what happens to the child, regardless of the father’s wishes. I'm not fond of a “hiding a kid storyline”, and while I get the whole "my body my choice" style of arguing, it took two people to make the baby. Two people get a say in what happens. I get you are growing the kid, but you didn't spontaneously conceive.

For me, Edser being apart and/or hiding a kid is a hardline. It doesn't fit with the characters as I know them and it doesn't fit with the storyline. And look--I hated the amnesia plot. I thought there were a literal million ways this could have been done better, but it's what we got. So for everyone suddenly defending this new plot, despite it making about as much sense as Eda getting married to make Serkan remember her, then that means everything goes. No blaming writers or ignoring canon...everything has context and meaning now. And since “it's realistic” is also a common refrain, then fine. Let’s go realistic.

Imagine being in a plane crash. You wake up, you have clear physical/mental blocks. For someone who likes to be in control, that's terrifying. You have a ring on your finger with a woman's name you don't know, and an entire year missing. You call the one person you know will come (since your parents and friends are useless) and she comes and tells you a story that jives. You can't remember shit and you keep getting flashes and your hands won't work, so you take what she tells you, because why would you have any reason to doubt? It’s not like you can remember anyway, and trying to remember hurts.

You finally go back home, and you recognize nothing about your own life. Friends, family...everything is different. Your mom is out, your dad is gone, your best friends are married. You don't even live in the same house, you have people working in your company you don’t know--even your dog is gone. And then you have a hysterical woman throwing pictures in your face of a man you don't recognize and your brain is still foggy and all your friends and family seem to be shrugging their shoulders at you.

You're terrified and alone and all you get is some vagueness about an epic love story and too much emotion and all you want to do is hide. From everything. Plus your heart is doing this thing every time the girl is near and you think you might be dying maybe and remember how your brother died?

So, the girl kisses you, you literally feel like you might be dying, and it's like naw. Fuck this. I'm getting back an ounce of control. So you propose to Selin. I mean you don’t love her and you barely want her but at least she is the same. At least she hasn’t changed, and at least she doesn’t stare at you with the weight of a million expectations that everyone else does. At least she doesn’t look at you and hope to see a man you can’t ever remember being.

But then the girl everyone claims is your soulmate is suddenly engaged to another man, and spends every moment after that claiming she hates you, she is over you, she is better off/happier without you, doesn't need you.

So it's like, okay, what is the truth. Your brain isn't helping, your friends aren't helping, she isn't helping. So you lash out, you close off, because really, what else is left. Your life isn’t your life, your mind isn’t your mind, you can’t even figure out what’s real and what isn’t. And she’s getting married and you want to die but she’s getting married and surely if she loved you she wouldn’t be doing this?

And then you get your memories back. Finally. Everything comes flooding back ,and it's a lot. You cope in shitty ways, you don't respond well, etc. You’ve returned from the dead twice, and everything feels just slightly off, but maybe you can make this work. At least you have her. After a few days, you’re feeling like your old self. You've got your memories, your girl, the possibility of the future you had snatched twice, and then BOOM. She rejects you, out of nowhere.

Won't talk, won't communicate, you have no idea what the fuck is happening. She’s crying and sad but also not leaving but also not staying and your brain can’t quite work things out but all you can do is promise that you love her, only her, always her, forever. Surely she must know that by now, right?

And then she tells you about the baby. You can't remember the sex of course, but then you find out it probably happened while your brain was fucked, and you barely have time to process this before oh yeah the love of your life is leaving you bc she would rather you raise a baby with your rapist. And suddenly you might be dying, again.

But you stop her. You stop her and even though she says she didn’t come back for you, why else would she have stayed? So, you finally get her back, she tattoos you on her finger and maybe just maybe everything will be fine when BOOM. Cancer. You aren't even over the other shit, and you have a fucking tumor. You are 30 years old, you've survived a plane crash, amnesia, and now you have a tumor. How many times can a person die?

And so you don’t cope well. You withdraw, you back away. Your brother died when he was young, you know what that does to a person. You know what it did to your family. You have this fear that curls around your heart that says “but what if she becomes my mother.” And she goes. She leaves and she takes your heart and your child (that you don’t even know about) and it’s like...fuck. Again. Because everyone leaves you, eventually. And somehow, it’s always your fault.

So, what I'm saying is, Eda endured a lot, sure. She was hurt. Their breakup in 14 was hard and I’m not denying that (although there is another post I could write about how since Eda never actually uses her words to tell him how she feels he can, perhaps, be understood in assuming that breaking up after barely being together would hurt but also that she would move on and live her life happily without him. Which I guess season 2 proves…) Losing Serkan to an accident/amnesia was hard, looking at the body of the man she loves but not seeing the man she loves must have been agony. But Serkan was fucking wrecked. So instead of choosing to write a plot where they both get to heal, where they both get to explore their pain and work through it together, we get Serkan who reverted to being a robot to cope with massive trauma and PTSD, and essentially is abandoned by everyone, again.

I guess what I'm saying is, if staying with him and supporting him when he was dealing with trauma was too much for her, then fine.That is very true for some people, and it’s certainly realistic. But I don't really think that jives with Eda and her character, and while it isn't a trauma competition, I'd still think Serkan comes out a winner here. Eda lost her parents, which was awful. She lost him, but she got him back. Twice. His trauma is losing his brother, being abandoned by his parents, a plane crash, amnesia, emotional manipulation/abuse and cancer. And then he gets punished by having his daughter taken away from him because he was having a hard time coping. Keeping a kid a secret isn't "protecting the child" it's punishing the father.

Tl;dr The direction they have taken the characters is gross for both mains, but if people are trying to justify Eda keeping his child from him because “he deserves it” or “she did what was best for her” then I think we maybe haven’t been watching the same show. Even if he said “I don’t want kids,” saying that to a hypothetical child is very different then being told “a baby is very much our reality.” Because that's the crux right? It's not that he decided he just didn't want to be a father ever, he's scared of having a family and losing them or of them losing him. And then she made that very fear be realized. Which is tragic and quite the opposite of what his life partner needed to do in that situation.

Bitte.

Thanks to @lolo-deli for the proofread and the final lines, you are the best. And for putting up with my uncontrollable ranting about this for days.

#sen çal kapımı #sck #serkan bolat #eda yıldız #SCK is officially over for me #so I’m making funerary arrangements to say goodbye to yet another fandom. #this is my eulogy #also this is a serkan bolat protection blog #jesus i sound like a 14 year old fangirl #whatever #its been a minute since i have been one of those #let me relive the days in peace

[be11atrixthestrange]

The Loft Chapter 4

After a bad break-up, Hermione Granger moves into a messy and dysfunctional loft with four single men. What starts as a temporary home until she gets back on her feet becomes so much more, as she learns there's a lot of life - and love - that happens at rock-bottom.

Inspired by the TV Series ‘New Girl’

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Also on A03 | FFN

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Chapter 4

[Ron]

Ron would best describe the loft as a mess, but a clean one. After hours of scrubbing, the windows are clear and smudge-free, and the concrete floor shimmers with its long-forgotten natural color. What makes him feel most at home, however, is not the fresh pine scent of the couch cushions, but the fact that they're strewn about the floor like plush stepping stones. The boys have arranged them around the trash can in the middle of the room, which is empty save for a dried-up bottle of Febreeze.

Ron's desperate to know Hermione's opinion on the new decor. Despite lifting an eyebrow at the bad doodles of United States presidents and the cardboard cutout of a bald eagle plastered to the wall, she doesn't say anything. She must know better than to think he'll offer an explanation.

After cleaning and decorating the loft, Neville, Seamus, and Harry dispersed into their rooms to make themselves presentable, leaving Ron and Hermione alone in the kitchen to finish up the last of the dishes. He hands her a plate to dry, and she takes it with a smile.

"Thank you for helping, Hermione."

"Of course! But I'm not sure why we're cleaning so much if it's just going to get trashed."

Trashed might be an exaggeration, but she's right in the sense that the new cleanliness of the loft isn't going to last very long. Tonight they're throwing a party, Hermione's first as a loft resident, and she's in for a treat. The boys have been purposely vague regarding loft parties, as any accurate descriptions might turn her off attending. Ron would hate to have her make other plans tonight, whether those be with the girls, or worse, a date.

"Hey, we're not animals. But if it's going to get trashed, it's nice to know it's new-trashed, not old-trashed," he says, earning an eye-roll from Hermione.

"So I'm guessing that this party is America-themed?"

"No. Why would you guess that?"

"No reason," she says, eyeing the miniature blow-up Uncle Sam doll that the boys have been tossing around like a basketball.

"The decorations are just for the drinking game we're going to play," he says, motioning to the multiple cases of PBR lining the wall.

"Right, how do you play?"

"It's not really a game you can explain. You just have to experience it. Nice try, though."

"Then I look forward to experiencing it." She finishes drying the last dish and stacks it away neatly in the cupboard. "What else do we need to set up? Everyone's coming at eight, right?

Ron checks his watch. "Shit, you're right. People should be here soon. I'm going to get ready. Can you start on the beer castle?"

"The beer castle?"

"Yeah. Just stack beer cans in a castle shape around the trash can in the living room."

Ron doesn't wait for Hermione's reaction before he slips back into his room. He rummages around his closet in search of something to wear, something that makes him look both put-together and laid back, ready to party. He lands on a pair of khaki shorts and a pastel blue t-shirt that looks quite nice with his eyes.

He's pretty sure Hermione hasn't seen him in it. Not that it matters, anyway.

He pulls off his shirt and catches a glimpse of himself in the mirror. Surprisingly, he looks pretty damn good. He's a bit skinny but firm and fit. It comes as a pleasant surprise because he's been slacking on his workouts ever since Hermione moved in and he lost his home gym. It's been difficult to exercise in his tiny bedroom, so he doesn't. He hasn't wanted to work out in the living room for fear of Hermione seeing him, but maybe he should give that a try…

With a shrug, Ron pulls off his pants and stands back up. He can't resist the urge to take another look at himself in the mirror. As much as he wishes he was a bit more muscular, there are pros to being lanky. By comparison, his scrawny self really does accentuate his already well-endowed state.

He checks himself out from a few more angles before deciding that physically, he doesn't have much to complain about.

Before he has the chance to put on his pants, the door to his bedroom swings open. Ron startles when it crashes against the wall and Hermione barges in uninvited.

"Hey Ron, I have a question about the beer can castle—"

"Hermione!" Ron, completely naked, scrambles for something to cover himself with but doesn't have time before she's standing right in front of him. "You have to knock!"

She's staring at the two cans in her hands until she pauses and looks up, but her gaze never makes it to his face. Instead, it lands directly on his penis, and she seems to stare at it for an eternity. Thanks to his utter panic, Ron can't move.

It almost feels like time has stopped, and he's frozen there like the statue of David while Hermione ogles him. She appears to be frozen too, eyes wide, mouth agape, staring.

If his dick could blush, it would match the color of his ears, which are bleeding scarlet.

For a split second, he wonders if it's truly as bad as it seems. Maybe Hermione likes what she sees. A tiny seed of hope takes root.

But that hope shatters when she opens her mouth to speak and lets out the worst sound he's ever heard. It's somewhere between a scream and a giggle, and he wouldn't wish such a reaction on his worst enemy.

Without further ado, a red-faced Hermione mutters a quick and useless 'sorry' and rushes out the door and slams it behind her.

Ron stands there for a few seconds, dumbfounded, before the reality of what just happened crashes down.

Hermione just laughed at his dick.

Well, fuck.

Now that he knows how she really feels, he'll never be able to look her in the eye again.

Ron stays in his room until there's a knock on the loft's door, and he has to show his face in order to let in his guests. He's opted for a hoodie over his shirt so he can hide behind the hood whenever Hermione looks at him, because when she does, his neck prickles with heatwaves, and he feels like he's naked again.

It doesn't make sense — Ron's never reacted so strongly to having a woman see him naked, and he's had a decent amount of experience in that arena. He's no Seamus, of course, but he's not a stranger to the occasional hookup.

It's just because she laughed—no other reason.

He opens the door to find his sister Ginny, her roommate Demelza, and two of their mutual friends—Dean and Luna.

"Welcome," says Ron, opening the door.

"Hey, Ron!" says Ginny. "Hermione!"

Ginny crashes into Hermione for a hug, then introduces her to everyone else. "This is Hermione, Ron's new roommate."

"Nice to meet you all!"

Hermione falls into easy conversation with Ron's friends before they get a chance to greet him, but they don't seem bothered by it. He watches her through narrowed eyes and doesn't even realize he's glaring at her until she looks at him and scowls.

"What?"

"Nothing." He turns back toward his friends, hoping they didn't notice their interaction. "Make yourselves at home. Drinks in the fridge, food on the counter, and you know where the beer is," he says, pointing at the beer castle.

Harry turns the music up just as their guests crack open their beers, and everyone starts to relax. Except for Ron, of course. Even though he's hyper-aware of Hermione, he still manages to bump into her and make more frequent eye contact than he'd like.

For some reason, they seem to gravitate toward the kitchen to replenish food and drinks at the same time, and they barely manage a conversation when they run into each other.

"Oh, sorry," she says, trying to slide past him, only for him to walk directly into her in an attempt to get out of her way.

"Erm—"

"I'll go left; you go right."

"Yeah, okay."

Are they always this awkward around each other?

Every time he tries to act normal, all he can hear is her weird little high-pitched scream-laugh, and he just wants to disappear into his hoodie. On occasion, Ron can sense Hermione watching him, but she looks away whenever he tries to catch her gaze. Not that he wants to make awkward eye contact with her, he just wants her to leave him alone.

He continues to keep himself at a safe distance to avoid talking to her, making sure he's always involved in a conversation with someone else. Over the course of the party, he becomes progressively more resentful of how much mental space it requires to avoid her.

Then, like a hawk, she swoops in and catches him alone while he's in the kitchen grabbing another beer.

"Ron!"

"Jesus," he says, nearly crashing into her. "You scared me."

"Why are you being so weird?"

"I'm not."

"Is it because I saw you naked?"

"No."

"It's not a big deal, Ron."

Of course, she has the nerve to act like he's the one who's being childish.

"Oh yeah, Hermione?" he says. "Then why did you laugh? Too immature?"

Hermione opens her mouth to answer, but in the moment before she does, he turns away from her and shouts to the crowd, "Who's ready for True American?"

The loft whoops their approval and begins to gather in the living room.

"Right now?" whispers Hermione behind him. "We're still talking."

But he ignores her.

"The game is True American," shouts Ron at a volume much louder than necessary for the size of the room. "Say 'aye' if you've played before."

There's a chorus of 'ayes' and a room-wide scrambling toward the furniture. When everyone hops onto a cushion, a table, or a chair, Ron notices Hermione looking around frantically, her expression disheartened.

"I'm the only one who's never played?" she asks.

"It's okay, Hermione," says Harry. "All you need to know is that it's about fifty percent drinking, fifty percent life-size Candy Land."

"I'd argue that it's seventy-five percent drinking, twenty percent Candy Land, and the floor is lava," says Ginny. "Which is why we're standing on the furniture. Hermione, you're melting."

"Oh no," she says, hopping up onto the coffee table between the beer castle and Demelza, who extends a hand to help her.

"Honestly, guys, it's ninety-percent drinking and has a very loose Candy Land-like structure to it," says Neville. "There's also a truth or dare component."

"I just need to know how to play—"

"You're smart; you'll catch on," says Ron. His tone comes off a little more terse than he'd intended, so he quickly continues, "I'll start. JFK!"

"FDR!"

Everyone but Hermione shuffles to a new location, avoiding the lava floor, and Hermione is left standing in her same spot between the beer castle and now, Luna.

"What just happened?" she asks, looking confused.

"Hermione, since you're the last to find a new spot, you have to pick someone, and they'll ask you a truth or dare question," explains Ginny. "Just answer and drink."

"Okay, then," she says. "Um, Neville. Truth."

"How do you like loft life?" asks Neville brightly, eliciting a groan from the crowd.

"Neville, you can do better—" starts Seamus.

"It's her first game!" he says. "Let's ease her in. So, Hermione?"

"Well, it's great so far."

"Just so you know, not every question will be that tame," says Ginny from her precarious perch on the armchair.

"Go figure," says Hermione before chugging back a gulp of her PBR.

As soon as she swallows her drink, Neville shouts out, "The only thing we have to fear is…"

"Fear itself!"

When the crowd joins in, Hermione looks around the room, dumbfounded.

"Hermione, you didn't complete the quote," says Harry.

"I didn't know I was supposed to!"

"Well, now you do! Drink, and then pick someone."

"I feel like I'm at a disadvantage since you didn't explain the game," she says, challenging Harry.

"We've all been there," Harry says, shrugging, "It's a rite of passage."

"Fine," Hermione takes a long swig and points at Ginny. "Ginny, truth."

"Sweet!" says Ginny, beaming mischievously. "Hermione, are you attracted to anyone in the loft?"

Ron's ears tingle at Ginny's question, and he tunes in for Hermione's answer.

"Nope," she says, taking a hasty drink.

In his curiosity, Ron has made prolonged eye contact with Hermione for the first time since the penis-incident, but when she catches his gaze, he quickly looks away. Ron's stomach clenches. Not that he wants Hermione to be attracted to him, but after she saw him naked, it's quite the low blow. Trying to look casual, he pulls back a swig of beer.

"Really?" presses Seamus. "None of us?"

"Ginny's turn!" says Hermione, ignoring Seamus' question.

"Alright, here we go," says Ginny, her eyes narrowed in concentration. "Abe Lincoln! George Washington!"

"Cherry Tree!" shouts Ron.

"Correct! Pick a person and an amendment!"

"Hermione, second."

Everyone looks at Hermione, and Ginny tosses her an unopened can of beer.

"I don't understand," she says. "You still haven't given me any information."

"You have to shotgun a beer! And then pick someone to ask truth or dare," says Dean.

"Wait, what? That doesn't make any sense."

"Give it time, Hermione," encourages Neville. "I didn't understand it at first either."

Hermione groans and sets down her half-full PBR, and reaches into her pocket for her key. She stabs the bottom of her can, then tips it into her mouth, chugging it down while the loft's onlookers cheer in the background.

Eyebrows raised, Ron watches her shotgun her beer, trying to ignore the smile tugging at the corner of his lips. He never thought he'd see that, and he isn't complaining.

"Yeah, there's no going back now," says Hermione once she finishes. "Luna, truth."

"Yay!" says Luna. "Did you and Ron get into a fight? You've been avoiding each other all night."

Ron's face grows hot. He bores his gaze toward Luna, who is staring intently at Hermione and doesn't seem to notice Ron's glare.

"Is that really your question?" she asks.

"Yep!"

"Luna, you've never seen us interact," says Ron. "How would you know that?"

Luna shrugs. "I can just tell."

"You know what," says Harry as he looks between Ron and Hermione. "You two have been acting weird tonight."

"Is it that obvious?" asks Hermione.

Ron feels Hermione's eyes on him, and his palms break out in a sweat. Once again, his refusal to make direct eye contact probably serves as a sufficient answer to Hermione's question.

"Well, fine then," she says, turning back toward Luna. "Earlier, I walked in on him changing. But it wasn't a big deal."

"Ron, is this true?" asks Harry.

Everyone turns to look at Ron, who groans. "Yes, but as she said, it wasn't a big deal."

His roommates might as well be shining an interrogation light on him by the way they all continue to stare.

"If it wasn't a big deal, why are you all fidgety?" asks Seamus.

"I'm not," says Ron, but his defensive tone suggests otherwise.

"Yeah, women have seen you naked before, Ron," says Luna. "Why is it different with Hermione?"

"Whose turn is it?" says Ron, much louder than necessary. Anything to divert the attention from Luna's oddly specific question.

"Oh, it's my turn," says Luna. "One, two, three, go!"

Luna holds up the number five to her forehead, and everyone else follows suit with their own number. Ron looks frantically around the room and breathes a sigh of relief when he matches numbers with Harry.

It appears that Hermione, who was the last to catch on, as usual, is the only one without a partner.

"Not again!" she says. "But at least that one made sense. Seamus, truth."

"Are you sure you want to do that?" asks Ginny.

But it's too late. Seamus, who is already slurring his words, looks at Hermione and asks, "So, Hermione, what does Ron's dick look like?"

"Dude, what the fuck?" shouts Ron.

"Seriously, Seamus," adds Harry. "That's not even an interesting question."

"Sure, it is! I'm interested!"

"Old news," pipes in Neville. "We've all seen Ron's dick."

Embarrassed, Ron glances toward Hermione. She looks lost for words. "You don't have to answer, Hermione."

"No, we haven't!" says Seamus.

"Really?" says Dean as he side-eyes Seamus. "I've seen it, and I don't even live here."

Ron looks toward the loft door. Maybe he can make a run for it.

"Am I the only roommate who hasn't seen your dick?" asks Seamus, now appearing uninterested in Hermione's answer. When everyone in the room turns to look at Ron, he feels like he's naked in a crowd again.

Ron shrugs. "I guess so," he says, casually taking a sip of his beer.

"When? Where?"

"I don't know, dude. Locker rooms, penis fights, I'm sure you'll see it someday," says Ron. "Can we stop talking about my dick, now?"

"Yes, let's move on," says Hermione with an apologetic glance in Ron's direction. "Just ask me a different question."

"Fine," says Seamus, his words melding together, "Hermione, what did you think of Ron's dick?"

"Seriously, Seamus?"

"I guess we can't," mutters Ron.

Hermione rolls her eyes. "Whatever. He has a very nice penis."

"I wouldn't know," says Seamus bitterly. Then, just as quickly, "JFK!"

"FDR!"

Everyone scrambles for a new spot, and this time Ron's the only one left out in the shuffle.

"Fuck," he says, looking around for someone who won't ask him a dick-related question. "Uh, Demelza, truth."

Demelza smiles. "How did Hermione react to seeing your dick?"

"I picked you because I thought you wouldn't ask about my dick, Demelza."

"Sorry," shrugs Demelza.

"It wasn't a big deal," says Hermione.

Before he can stop himself, Ron scoffs, and once again, everyone snaps their heads in his direction.

"Sounds like it was a big deal."

"It wasn't!" says Hermione. "I mean—"

"Hermione, don't," says Ron, but Hermione continues without a missed beat.

"I laughed at first, but only because I was nervous."

"You LAUGHED?" asked Demelza. "No wonder you two are being so weird."

"It was an accident!"

"Let's move on," growls Ron. "Demelza, your turn." He shoots a glare in Hermione's direction.

"Niagara!" says Demelza.

Everyone brings their drink to their mouth and begins chugging. As soon as each person finishes, they toss their empty cans to the PBR castle in the middle of the room. Hermione, having caught on a moment too late, is the last one to toss it.

Hermione groans. "Harry, dare."

Harry grins. "Well, to make Ron feel better, I dare you to repeat after me. I love Ron's cock."

Ron's ears grow warm again, but they're also buzzing from the beer, which takes precedence over his embarrassment. Also, it'll be interesting to hear Hermione follow through with this dare.

Hermione narrows her eyes at him. "Fine. I love Ron's penis."

Ron sends her a curious glance. She said it so… formally, like she was taking an oath in court.

There's a tense silence while everyone stares at Hermione. "Try again," says Harry.

"Why?"

"I love Ron's cock," he repeats. "Say it."

"I did."

"You said penis. Not cock."

"Same thing!" she protests.

"Hermione, why can't you say cock?" repeats Harry.

"Penis is the technical term," she says, crossing her arms in front of her chest.

Ron chuckles at the argument playing out before him.

"What about dick?" suggests Demelza.

Hermione stares at Demelza, her cheeks flooding with color. "Why?"

"Schlong? Wang? Knob?" offers Seamus.

"Seriously, what's wrong with 'penis'?"

"Nothing, it's just weird that you won't say cock," says Harry. "I think that should require two drinks for refusing a dare."

Ron looks around the room; everyone nods in agreement.

"Fine," says Hermione before taking a second sip.

As soon as she finishes her sip, Harry shouts, "Give me liberty or—"

"Give me death!"

As assumed, Hermione is the only one who doesn't catch on.

"Ugh," she says. "Dean, dare."

"I dare you to make it even!" slurs Dean.

"What does that mean?"

"He showed you his; now you show him yours."

"Executive order," says Ginny. "Vetoed."

"Why?" asks Ron. "I don't think it's a bad idea. Plus, it would make me feel better." He pouts at Hermione with wide, puppy-dog eyes and grins when her cheeks flood with color. He's well aware that she never responded to Dean.

"Too far, that's why," says Ginny.

"Well," says Ron. "You guys are no fun."

There's a moment of silence when no one seems to remember where they are in the game or whose turn it is. Seamus breaks the silence with a question directed at Ron.

"Can I please just see it?"

Ron groans and rolls his eyes. "No. And I'm going to bed."

"Why?" whines Seamus.

"I didn't think my dick would be such a huge topic of conversation, yet here we are."

"More of a slightly above average topic if you ask me," says Harry.

"See what I mean?" says Ron, as he hops off his cushion and turns his back to the crowd. "Goodnight."

x

After chugging a tall glass of water, Ron retreats to his room for the night, ready to escape his roommates' drunken shenanigans. He changes into sweats, settles underneath the covers, and is about to turn off the lights when there's a knock at his door.

"Erm, come in."

The door creaks open, and Hermione pokes her head into his room. "Hi," she says.

"Hi," he responds, raising his eyebrows at his unexpected guest. "Thank you for knocking."

"So—"

"I'm not naked. Sorry to disappoint you." He cuts her off, aiming for an icy tone, but unfortunately, it comes off whiny.

Maybe he has been acting a bit petty and childish.

She stares at him, expressionless, for a few tense moments and then bursts out into laughter. He can't help but follow suit. Her laughter is quite contagious when he's fully clothed.

"For the record, I'm not laughing at the thought of you naked," she assures him as if reading his mind.

"Sure, Hermione. Sure," he says. His cheeks are heating up, but he's glad it's not from embarrassment this time.

"I meant it, you know," she says, as soon as her laughter dies down.

"You meant what?"

"That you have a very nice—" she clears her throat, "cock."

Ron beams — at both the compliment and her word choice. "You said cock!"

She stands a little taller. "I've been practicing."

"Say it again!" he urges.

"Please don't make me."

"Pretty please—"

"Fine," she says, taking a step, so she's fully in the room. The door closes behind her. "Cock. Dick. Schlong. Willy."

"Okay, now you're embarrassing yourself."

"Give me more words," she says, now grinning. "I want to prove that I can do it."

"Okay, why don't you try Peter Pecker. Big Red. The Orange Cannon."

Hermione's face flashes red, and she slaps a hand to her mouth.

"Too much for you?" asks Ron.

"Did you nickname your penis?"

"No!" Ron protests, although his flushing cheeks likely give him away. "Those are from former lovers."

"Oh, well, I'm not going to say them then."

"Why not?"

"Because I'm not your former lover," she argues.

He catches a slight emphasis on' former' and forces himself to keep his expression neutral. Maybe some good will come from the penis incident. Either that, or he's imagining it.

"While technically true, I still want to hear you say them."

"Too bad."

Thankful that the awkwardness seems to be dissipating, Ron grins at her. "Then you'll have to make it up to me another way."

As soon he speaks, he winces, hearing the implication of his words a moment too late. Did he actually just say that?

Hermione doesn't waste any time with her response. "How? By making it even?"

Ron cannot interpret her expression — it almost looks like she's trying to keep it neutral. In his effort to decipher it, he hesitates for too long, and by leaving her comment hanging, he might as well have agreed.

"That was actually what I came in here to do," she says, biting her lip.

"Really?"

"Yes."

At this point, it feels like his whole face is on fire, and Hermione's smirk isn't helping at all. He can't bring himself to look away from her eyes nor say anything, as the air feels too thick with tension. She could be bluffing, but he has no desire to call her on it if she is.

Is she joking?

His question answers itself when Hermione averts her eyes to the ground and hooks her thumbs at the hem of her shirt.

Holy shit. She's not.

Hermione keeps her eyes on the ground, and Ron can't help but grin at how her cheeks turn bashfully pink. He wishes he could help it because he's definitely beaming like an idiot. With a deep, nervous breath, she pulls her shirt up and over her bra—

She's not wearing a bra.

Fuck.

Ron lets out a breath that he didn't even know he was holding. "Well damn, Hermione."

Still holding up her shirt, she meets his gaze. "Yes, Ron?"

"You have amazing… knockers."

"Ron!" she says, shoving her shirt back down. He immediately misses the view, but he doesn't regret his word choice. "They're called breasts."

"Boobies. Bing Bongs. Spongey love mountains."

"And I'm the immature one?"

"Jesus, woman, just take the compliment! I'm trying to tell you that I love your tatas." He speaks before he can filter himself, hoping she doesn't read too much into his phrasing. There's nothing wrong with showing appreciation, after all.

She lets a small smile at his admission but quickly narrows her eyes and crosses her arms over her now fully-clothed chest. "If I have to say cock, you have to say breasts."

"Sorry, Hermione," says Ron, his tone veering dangerously close to flirtation. Then, feeling a bit bolder, he continues, "what I meant to say is you have wonderful breasts."

Her face tinges red, and she smiles smugly. "Thank you, Ron."

"You're very welcome. Your turn."

"What?"

He motions toward his pants. "I want to hear you say it again."

She groans. "Fine, but this is the last time."

"Sure it is."

She rolls her eyes before continuing. "Ron, you have a lovely cock."

His breath hitches in his throat. Hearing her say that again definitely does something to him, and it's not helped by the sincerity in her tone. She's not lying. As a result, his hair stands on end, heat pools in his stomach, and he's thankful for the positioning of his bed covers.

"Thank you, Hermione," he responds, looking directly into her warm brown eyes. Reflecting her slight smile, they appear softer and darker than usual, as if they're deep in thought.

Ron and Hermione keep eye contact for a few elongated seconds before the awkwardness of the interaction kicks in, and they avert their eyes, looking anywhere but each other. What an odd conversation to have with a roommate.

"I should go to bed," says Hermione, pointing at the door.

"Erm, yeah. Me too."

"So I guess I'll see you in the morning?"

"Good night," he says, but Hermione's already out the door. He sighs.

It shuts behind her, and Ron turns off the light and leans back in his bed. When he closes his eyes, the image of Hermione's perfect breasts is still fresh in his mind, and he makes no effort to let it morph into something else because who knows if he'll ever get to see them again.

Why would he? She's just his roommate.

Yeah. I'm definitely attracted to my roommate.

A smile creeps onto his face. It feels good to admit it, even if it's only to himself.

#muggle AU #Ron and Hermione #ron x hermione #ROMIONE #romione fanfic #romione fanfiction #Romione angst #Ron Weasley #ronweasley #Hermione Granger #hermionegranger #be11a_loft

[heresathreebee]

No Touching

[Ava Starr x Female!Reader]

Summary: Friend dates with Ava always brighten your day (and night). Tonight is more enlightening than brightening, though… 

Previous Masterlist Next

Word count: 1.7 words

Warning(s): 14+ | angst, gay panic, dolls, 1 (one) racist antique, Steven Segal movie, chronic pain, tears.

AN: No actually I didn't bother to edit this, not doing that anymore, I think too much as it is. As always, I write with a black reader in mind but feel free to read even if you aren't. 🖤

You are eighty percent sure that you and Ava are dating.

85%... 78%... 81.5% sure.

It would probably be best if you cleared that up (but be cool about it though). You've started seeing each other more and more, and on purpose no less. Never a dull conversation, she's reluctant to share some of her life story but she's eager to know everything about you and you're more than happy to indulge. It's not like you know nothing about her; you just don't know the specifics of her past. 

Her parents died when she was young, she's ex-military (you think?), and she just came off of a huge life change and is getting used to what she calls 'real life.' You figure out she's a bit of a shut in and hates crowds, so you go out of your way to show her quiet places and introduce her to things she's never tried before. The bowl by your front door where you put your keys has 20 or 30 marbles from ramune bottles in it. You can't seem to ring her secret out of her, she just gives you this cryptic knowing smile and laughs at your attempts to sweet talk or annoy it out of her. 

You feel so close, growing closer still, she's quickly become the best part of your week, and you catch yourself thinking about her even when she's not with you. But you've never held hands. Hell, you've never even so much as brushed shoulders with her by accident. If you're dating, shouldn't you at least hug her goodbye? Is she even able to be into you like that?? 

You try not to let the panic set in as you stand outside of the antiques mall. You told her you liked old things and promised to show her your favorite pastime. God, how do you go about this? Should you just flirt with her and see how she reacts? Also how does one flirt? What if you’re fucking up and she really just wants to be friends? God knows you could use some friends right now. 

When she does appear, you do nothing. You continue to act relaxed and enjoy her presence, promising yourself you’ll ask about it afterwards. Ava’s wearing that grey jacket again made of a thin sports fabric and you make a mental note it might rain today. 

“Ava,” you stage whisper, waving her out of the jewelry section by the front desk and into the maze of vintage old clothes and furniture. “Back here, to the left.” 

Deep deep deep in a corner of the massive store, Ava stops dead in her tracks (you run into her but back away quickly) and stares. 

“This... is…” Ava covers her mouth with her hands to hold her laughter in, “ghastly.” 

The shelf is wide, with dark wood trimming and protective glass. The lights are almost fluorescent as they illuminate dozens of humanoid dolls. Some are cute, but some are also creepy, unnerving, down right scary. 

You point at the one with the Jonbenet Ramsey likeness and deep cracks in her porcelain face. It was overly large compared to the rest, having to have stuffed legs crossed like a sitting child. "I think I fear that one the most." 

You felt Ava shiver and didn't even realize you were standing that close. Her eyes darted from face to face, taking in every terrible and wonderful detail of them. You smelled coconut in her hair and tried to distance yourself a bit, missing the conversation. "Huh?" 

"I said they're haunted, aren't they?" 

"That one definitely is." You look over the other dolls. "I don't know, I think the rest are kinda cute. 'Cept that one: that one can fuck off straight to hell." 

Down on the second shelf where the light began to struggle in reach belied an offensive porcelain joke. The decoration portrayed an over animated child at play, with oil black skin, fat red lips, and bulbous eyes. This child was dressed in white rags and sucking on a wedge of fruit. Guess which one. Fucking guess, I dare you. 

"It's not even a fucking doll," Ava grumbled. "Why is it here?" 

You leaned in to whisper, "someday, I'm gonna buy that thing just to fucking smash it on the pavement." 

"Oh, what a lovely sound it would make." 

You hum. "I'm not gonna give nobody money for that trash. Can't steal it either, we'd never make it to the door." 

Ava looked over her shoulder with a cheeky smile. "We?" 

You simply tilt your head at her, and she huffs out a laugh. She nodded as if agreeing with you, then drifted away from the case like a wary woman. You toured through the rest of the store like a treasure trove of other people's memories, war memorabilia, ancient brand merchandise (why would anyone want a life size green m&m in their house? Who is this for?), and paintings from the dadeism era by unpopular artists. You ate lunch at the vendor shops in downtown and retired to your place for a movie. 

You must have fallen asleep at the beginning but you came to during some big shootout between Steven Segal and generic Latino drug dealer #7 when you accidentally dropped your hand into Ava's lap. Quickly, Ava withdrawals, thrusting herself to the other side of the couch as if in disgust. Your head jerks up in hurt and confusion, you hadn't even felt anything except a light tingling. You could barely hear the tv audio over the sound of blood rushing in your ears. 

"You can't touch me," Ava spat. "You just can't. Ever. Please…" 

"I'm sorry. Ava, I– I am so, so sorry I didn't mean to–" 

"It's not your fault and you didn't know," she mumbled and faltered, "it's just… you can't." 

You feel tears prick in the corner of your eyes as you try to swallow. "I'm sorry. Really. It won't happen again." 

Ava looked up at you guiltily and sighed. She folded her legs and eased herself off of the couch arm rest, hands tucked into her lap and unable to meet your eyes anymore. 

"It's not what you think it is," she explained. "I… I have a condition of sorts. And it… it hurts.” 

Her words put a hold on the tears threatening to spill from your eyes. “Like a… skin condition? Or nerves or something?” 

Ava nodded quickly. “Yes. yes, like a nerves thing. My um, my nervous system. It's chronic."

“Oh Ava,” you cover your heart with a breathy sigh, “of course! I wish I’d known I would have never–” 

“It’s not something I like to talk about.” She crossed her arms over her chest. “I’m really glad you understand. Sorry I freaked out, I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings or anything.” 

You tried to blow a raspberry. “It’s whatever, didn’t hurt my feelings.” 

Yeah, you could hear the weakness of the lie, too. Still, Ava went and parked herself on the couch exactly where she was before– close but not too close. Warm but not quite touching. You were ready to let it slide and go right back to pretending to watch the movie when– 

“So what’s going on between us exactly? I like girls– I like you– and I don’t mean just in a friend sort of way– is it maybe sorta possible you might feel the same way about me?” 

Who said that? You? Honestly you’re feeling a little dizzy as you try and stare a hole in the tv screen. And Ava? Well at least she didn’t hold you in suspense for too long. She chuckled– and god you had to look. You had to know if she was laughing at you or with you. Your eyes snapped to her completely unmocking face. 

She blinked at you, bit her lip even. “Yes, I am.. Capable of liking girls. Might prefer them actually. And I definitely like you in a more-than-a-friend sort of way.” 

It takes a second to sink in. OK, it takes a hot minute to sink in. Like the movie ended and you walked Ava home and you slept in until 10 am and made omelettes for breakfast at noon and laid down on your floor staring at the ceiling until sundown. Yeah that kind of hot minute. And your lips curled into a soft smile because you had a girlfriend and she liked girls and you could not be happier than you are right now. 

~

Ava asked you to meet her on the corner by the antiques mall that night. You don’t know how but she got her grubby, thieving little mitts on that disgusting tar baby doll from the haunted doll shelf. You made her swear up and down she didn’t pay real money for it, then nearly pulled out your hair when you realized it meant she definitely stole it and– 

"How the ffffUCK do you just DO that?!" 

"Slight of hand," she mused. 

Fuck, and she was a geek. Yeah, you're definitely in love. She pushes the ugly thing into your hands and despite being cold porcelain it feels like it's burning. 

"Do the honors." 

There's no build up. No ceremony. You don't want to drag this out anymore. You take a swinging leap and spike that shit and watch it shatter into a hundred pieces with the most glorious sound you'll ever hear. You land in slow motion, already replaying the image of thick glass pieces cracking on the indigo pavement. You stand over your mess, triumphant. 

The quiet of the night time street drifts back to you, as does Ava. "I'll be honest I expected a big speech." 

You shrug. "I've been waiting too long to do that. Thank you, Ava. I mean it." 

"Oh believe me it was my pleasure." Ava swaggers closer to you and if you didnt know better you'd think she was going in for a kiss. "Tonight, the tar baby. Tomorrow, the world." 

You resist the urge to clap her on her shoulders and throw your hands in the air instead. "Sounds like a date!" 

Next

#ava starr #ava starr x female reader #i have no excuse i just think she's neat #three bees writing #angst #antman and the wasp #marvel ghost

[ererokii]

Popcorn and Cuddles || Katsuki Bakugou

Fem! Katsuki Bakugou x Fem! Reader

Warnings: cursing, I’m terrible at these

Word Count: 2895

Synopsis: A rainy day doesn’t stop Katsuki from making your one year anniversary memorable.

Taglist (message to be added): @monsbizarreadventures @wesparklebitch @shoutosteakettle @shoutodoki @saltie @kingtamakimurder @fryingpanitachi

➺ Note: This is for the @bnhabookclub’s bingo event! The prompt is Movie Marathon. And YES. I did do female Bakugou because why? Because I love her 😼

Bingo Masterlist

If anyone in Class 3-A had to pick who was the scariest, it would be an obvious choice. 

Katsuki Bakugou was a force to be reckoned with. An intense stare was displayed on her face at all times, intimidating those around her. Anywhere she went, she had a stomp to her step, her back hunched over slightly with her hands in the pockets of her skirt. There have been times where the boys would joke about her period being the cause of her grumpiness, which would end up with them clutching their nose as they cried in pain while she yelled whatever came to her mind. None of the boys messed with her after that, not even Mineta.

Katsuki’s personality was interesting. Half of the time, she gave off the impression that she was angry and wanted to blow people apart. That wasn’t the case at all. 

You weren’t paying attention to her. 

Bakugou developed feelings for you in the beginning of your second year. No one knew, not even herself, until she realized how warm and fuzzy she felt whenever you were around. She didn’t know how to communicate with you, so she just did what she does best. 

Insulting you.

You never took her remarks to heart. You laughed them off most of the time.

“Your hair looks like shit today.”

“Aw, thank you, Bakugou!”

“Why the fuck are you thanking me with that stupid smile?”

“Oh, because it’s my favorite person talking to me!”

Only one time it struck you where you didn’t like it. You couldn’t look at her, refusing to give her the pleasure of seeing you in a vulnerable state. It was during school hours when it happened, lunch to be precise. She made fun of your lack of appearance and how ‘trash like’ you looked. It wasn’t your fault, really. The night before someone in your family had passed and it took a toll on you. 

“Why are you such a bitch?” you whimpered, wiping the tears from your eyes as you stormed passed her, purposely bumping her shoulders. 

Bakugou just stood there, a display of shock written on her face. You never got mad at her before, why was this time different? There was a pang in her chest, and she desperately wanted to reach out for you and apologize, but her brain wouldn’t let her move. 

You wouldn’t spare her a glance throughout the day, even when you were sitting right next to her. Bakugou would glance over at you, a displeased frown on her lips when she noticed your head was in your hands, covering you from the class. As much as she didn’t want to admit, she missed your antics. You would write notes on small pieces of paper and throw them her way or poke her with your pen when your teachers weren’t looking. It was starting to drive her insane. 

When the final bell rang, indicating that the day was over, you packed your things faster than before and bolted out the door, knowing Bakugou would follow you. Your suspicions were correct when you heard a pair of footsteps getting louder from behind. 

“Oi!”

You shook your head as you broke out into a run, turning a quick corner as you held your bag close to your body. “Leave me alone!”

“I want to talk, dumbass!”

“You did earlier, now leave me alone!”

A displeased groan left the blond’s lips as she caught up to you, grabbing you by your wrists and pinned them above your head, pressing you against the wall. 

You struggled in her grip as you frantically looked around, hoping someone would rescue you, but much to your disliking, no one was around. 

“Let go of me Bakugou!”

“Why were you crying.”

A surprised “huh” left your lips as you met her vermillion eyes that were fixated on yours. 

“I know you aren’t deaf, Y/LN. I said, why were you crying?” Her words came out in a whisper that sent chills down your spine, the two strands of hair that framed her face tickled the sides of your cheeks as she loomed over you. Even in this proximity, she was still as intimidating as ever. 

You licked your lower lip as you peered down, staring at both of your shoes. “Someone in my family died… and your words didn’t help,” you mumbled quietly, but she caught on. 

Before you knew it, your tears were flowing freely, a small sob leaving your lips. Bakugou stayed silent as she let go of your wrists. Instead, she wrapped her arms around your torso, one of her hands cradling the back of your head. 

Ever since that day, her behavior around you changed drastically. Instead of her insulting comments, they were replaced with slightly sweeter words. 

“Wow, you don’t actually look like shit today.”

“T-thank you?”

“Why are you stuttering?! Take the damn compliment!”

She left you small notes with little drawings that amused you. She bought you lunch from time to time, to which you greatly appreciated it. Or other times where she would sit next to you during lunch instead of being across from you. 

Eventually, it confused you to no end. Why did she change all of a sudden?

“Bakugou?” you asked one day when you were in her room studying for a test. “Can I ask you something?”

“Didn’t you just do it?” she grumbled, writing something in her notebook. 

You huffed as you sat up, arms crossed over your torso. “Why have you been over the top nice to me?”

“Hah?” she snapped her head up. “What the hell do you mean?”

“It’s just that...you’re being nice. Maybe a bit too nice. Are you okay?”

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?! I’m always nice!”

You shook your head as you crawled closer to her on your hands and knees, noticing how her cheeks started to darken. “Do you… do you like me, Bakugou?”

She gulped and stared at you before tugging her lower lip with her teeth. After a moment of silence, she tossed her books aside and cradled your face, pushing you onto your back as she kissed you. 

Those around you were filled with shock at the sight of you and Bakugou holding hands as you walked to class together, a small smile on her face. Everyone was too scared to approach her that day.

“W-what did you do to Bakugou?! Why is she smiling now?! Tell us your secrets!” Kaminari cried out, his hands gripping your shoulders as he shook you, desperate for answers. “She looks even scarier than before!!”

“Get your hands off my girlfriend, you idiot!!” her voice would resonate through the room as she slapped Kaminari’s hands off of you, wrapping an arm around your waist as she held you close to her, protectively. 

At the moment you were sitting on your bench in front of your open window, a pout on your lips as you watched the atmosphere pour its tears rapidly. The sky was down, a grey blanket covering the world from the sun as small patches of light seeped through, but not enough for any rays to peek through. You desperately longed to see the sun's soft yellow touches as it hit your skin, giving the supple flesh an afterglow. 

Today marked your one year anniversary with Katsuki. Time seemed to fly by when you were happy. When you first started, you thought she would be a distant lover. One that wouldn’t show affection at all or be just plain cold at all times. Katsuki was the opposite of that. She was one for PDA, having a hand on the small of your back or her arm around your shoulder. It boosted her ego when she saw the little blush appear on your cheeks. Plus, it showed everyone that you were her girlfriend. 

“You’re still sad about it raining?”

You nodded as you turned around, a disappointed look on your face. Bakugou shrugged and walked over to you, wrapping her toned arms around your head, bringing it to rest on her chest. She wore her iconic black sports bra and black sweats that made her look amazing without her even trying. She wasn’t curvy like other girls, but she was perfect in your eyes. Her voice was slightly deeper, but it always sent chills throughout your body when she whispered in your ear or spoke to you normally. A pleased sigh left your lips as you nuzzled your head into the softness of her skin through the material.

“You’re like a damn baby,” she teased, pinching the skin on your cheek that made you whine and look up at her, a playful look in your eyes. 

“And?”

“Not saying anything,” she replied, leaning down to place a kiss on your forehead. “So, what do you want to do now then?”

“Beats me. I was looking forward to going to the beach today to spend time with you,” you mumbled quietly, locking your arms around her lower back to keep her in place. “But obviously, we can’t do that.”

She stayed silent as she peered out the window, watching as the water droplets ran down the glass. “Be in the common room in 15 minutes, or I’ll come get you.”

“Huh?” you looked up at her, confused. “Why the common room?”

“Just do it, woman” she flicked your forehead gently. Her thumb was placed on your chin as her forefinger curled underneath, tilting your head to look up at her. She studied your facial features before a small smile broke out on her face. “Pretty girl,” was all she said before kissing you, your lips moving in sync. One of her hands lowered to the small of your back and slipped down the material of your leggings, squeezing the flesh of your rear. A whine left your lips as she pulled away, biting your lower lip in the process. “15, got it? I don’t want to see you there before or after the time is up.”

You rolled your eyes and placed a hand on her toned abdomen. “Uh-huh. Whatever you say, Katsu.”

She huffed and pulled away, making her way to the door and shutting it behind her. 

You placed a finger to your lips, feeling the ghost of hers. Her caramel taste lingering that was meant to drive you insane. A happy sigh escaped your lips as you hunched over, placing your hands on your knees, staying seated on the bench.

“15 minutes it is.”

☽✧ ✦ ✧☾

As promised, 15 minutes passed as you waited in the room for Bakugou. Bakugou’s body was pressed up behind you, feeling how her chest rubbed against you that caused your cheeks to heat up. “How much longer? I feel like we’ve been standing here forever!”

“We’ve been moving idiot, you just move so slow.”

“Katsuki!” you whined and placed your hands on top of hers that was covering your eyes. “Take them off!”

“Damn, you whine a lot.” She pressed her hands tighter against your face as you penguin walked together to your destination. 

You could hear hushed whispers from deeper voices. Was it Kirishima and Kaminari? It sounded like them. 

“No, not like that! She’ll kill us!”

“Kaminari, stop moving it! This is how she asked for it!”

Bakugou cleared her throat, announcing her presence. Kaminari and Kirishima quickly put the toppings and backed off, nervous smiles on their face when they noticed the blonde's glare. You dug your nails into her hands, prying them off of your face. You squinted your eyes and blinked a couple of times, adjusting to the dim light. 

A stack of movies stood on the table. If you looked closer, you noticed they were Disney Movies. Next to it was a bowl of freshly popped popcorn, the steam rising, and the burning smell flooded the area and filled your nose. A big bag of your favorite candy was waiting for you. You could practically hear the little pieces calling your name for you to eat them.

“Oi!” Bakugou yelled and pointed to the stairs. “I don’t want any of you extras coming in, or I’ll tear you to pieces, got it?!”

Kaminari nodded quickly and grabbed Kirishima by his wrist. “Yeah, sure, don’t be loud! Okay bye!” Kaminari chirped, making a beeline to the stairs with Kirishima hot on his trail as they took the steps by twos. 

“What’s this for?” You motioned to the changes in the room.

“What do you mean? I didn’t like the stupid sad look on your face when you realized we couldn’t go out. So I had those two losers help me set this up.”

“You did this for me?”

“Well, I just said that didn’t I, woman?” she spoke out, sarcasm dripping from her tongue. She stuck her hands in her sweats' pockets, her muscles on her abdomen, and arms flexing unintentionally. 

An excited squeal left your lips as your hand wrapped around her arm, tugging her with you. An angry-sounding “hey!” escaped her lips as she sat down on the couch while you looked through the many movies that would be watched that night. 

“Which one do you want to watch, Katsu?”

“Fine with whatever you want,” she mumbled, keeping her eyes on your ass, visibly checking you out as you bent over, putting the movie of choice into the DVD player. 

She shook her head quickly when you stood up, her strands that framed her face following her movements. “What movie did you pick?”

“Lion King!”

“Isn’t that the one where the dumb kid loses his dad?”

“Katsuki!” you gasped in horror, clasping your hands to your chest in offense. “His name is Simba.”

“And? He’s fake,” she grumbled, patting her lap. “Just get over here.” 

A noise of happiness filled your ears as you walked over, seating yourself on her lap with the bowl of popcorn in your hands. Her arms wrapped around your midsection, bringing you closer to her body as you rested against her chest. You were a bit smaller than her, so it was perfect that she could see the screen still. 

Unfolding a blanket that was beside you, you threw it over your body to cover yourself from the coldness of the room. She placed her chin on your shoulder, opening her mouth that let out a noise. “Hm?” you peered at her and noticed her eyes were looking at the popcorn. Her ears were filled with the sweet music of your laugh as your hand dug in the bowl full of yellow. Her cheeks tinted as she accepted the savory treat that you fed her, chewing slowly as the flavor filled her taste buds.

The only thing that could be heard throughout the movies was the songs from their numbers or the patter of the rain as it hit the roof of the dorm, a melody playing with a beautiful tune. The moonlight shone its delicate light through the window, illuminating the room as the movie continued to play. 

The bowl of popcorn was forgotten about as it laid on the table along with the opened bag of candy, each slowly losing its flavor. 

Your body shifted on Katsuki’s lap as you were curled up, resting your head on her collarbone as you listened to the beat of her heart, relishing the beautiful moment between you two. Her hand ran up and down your arm slowly, dragging her nail in the process. 

“Mmm… Katsuki?” you whispered tiredly, placing tired kisses on her jawline.

She let out a small sigh of content and averted her eyes downward. “Yes, Princess?”

“I love you.” You looked up at her, your eyelids getting heavier by the second, your hand shakily coming up and cupped her cheek, rubbing the area with your thumb gently. 

Her eyes swelled up with love as she placed her hand on your waist, bringing you closer.

“I love you too, Y/N. Happy one year, Princess,” she replied, placing a kiss on your forehead. You yawned softly and nuzzled your head into the crook of your neck before turning your head slightly to stare at the bright screen. 

A few minutes later, she felt your body relaxing as she peered down at you, her vermillion eyes drinking in your appearance. You were gripping the strap of her sports bra as you were curled into her, the blanket covering both of your bodies. Small puffs of air left your lips and fanned the open skin of her collarbones, feeling your breathing even out. She grunted, shifting both of you into a more comfortable position. Her finger pressed the off button on the remote, watching the darkness swallow the room despite the light shining in from the window by the moon. 

Her lips placed on your cheek, lingering for a second more. Her eyes stared up at the ceiling, enjoying the feeling of you in her arms. Her eyelids felt heavier by the second as a yawn filled the silent room. She didn’t feel like moving you to her room. Deciding to stay here for the night, she mumbled a sweet goodnight to you before sleep washed over her. Knowing that her classmates might find her in a vulnerable position was the last of her worries. The only thing that made her happy was right here in her arms. 

#bnhabookclub #bakugou katsuki #katsuki bakugou #fem bakugou #bakugou x reader #katsuki x reader #mha #bnha #mha x reader #bnha x reader #myheroacademia #bokonoacademia #my fic #fic #reader insert #bingo event

[dangerousconnoisseurdonut]

Gotham Monster!Verse AU’s?

Alright, but now, you all know that I am obsessed with Gotham AU’s but what I haven’t talked about is my LOVE of the Classic Universal Monsters, and I want to get your opinions on some of these crazy ideas of mine!

Dracula/Vampires: I already have two AU’s lined up with vampires, my Underworld AU/re-write and my Master Vampire Jervis idea so, let’s just move on.

Frankenstein: Victor (do I really have to specify at this point? You all know which one I’m obsessed with) and Bridgit are Strange’s modern day Frankenstein and Bride of Frankenstein creations and he wants them to mate, but the two can’t seem to stand each other so he hopes co-habitation will force them to get along. One day, however, Bruce comes to get answers about his parents death (or he’s an investigative journalist that gets caught, whichever sounds better) and, instead of outright killing him, they throw him to ‘The Ice Freak and Fire Bride’. Everyone expects to see Bruce get ripped to shreds, frozen and smashed, or just burnt to a crisp, but instead, the pair are most curious about him and attack any who try to take him away from them.

The Mummy: This is one I’m not sure on, just because we’ve had numerous interpretations of the Mummy story (yes, the one with Tom Cruise was trash, but the story idea was still unique). So, let’s try this route; villain of your choice (I’m leaning towards Jerome, Jeremiah, or Jonathan myself) is an ancient Egyptian Prince/Princess who tries to invoke Kek, the Egyptian God of Darkness and Chaos, but is caught before the ritual can be completed and mummified alive. Transport to modern day and the Wayne’s are funding an excavation for the fabled Prince/Princess who Courted Chaos. When they find the tomb, Bruce accidentally gets blood on the sarcophagus and awakens the sleeping prince/princess who is very grateful and wants to make Bruce their consort to rule over the chaos Kek will bring when they successfully bring him about this time.

The Invisible Man: Jonathan (or Jerome just because I can see the crazy little shit enjoying this) invents a concoction that turns him invisible for a few hours which he uses to scare the daylights out of people. Then, one night, Bruce comes upon the scene where a young couple are being mugged and saves them, unaware of his invisible audience. Jonathan tails him to try and understand why he wasn’t afraid of getting hurt and why he would put himself in danger for strangers and tries to psyche him out, but Bruce is quick to realize he’s got an unwanted guest. He fights Jonathan, almost getting the upper hand but he forgot about Jonathan’s chemicals and is sadly knocked out. When he comes too, he is strapped to a bed and Jonathan wants to see just how brave Bruce can be in the face of the unknown.

The Wolfman: Poor, weak, little Jonathan is constantly picked on in high school, and often finds himself being protected from the bullies by his crush, Bruce Wayne. Sick of always needing to be rescued, he wants Bruce to see him as someone strong enough to stand beside him, not behind him. While asking his dad for advice, Gerald has to leave suddenly and leaves an untested serum out where it shouldn’t be. It’s meant to make people better by giving them certain attributes of wolves; their speed, strength, sense of smell and hearing, lightness of feet, everything Jonathan needs for Bruce to really see him. After he takes the serum, people are shocked by how different Jonathan becomes, including less fearful and more aggressive. Soon, however, there are news reports of the bullies of the school being attacked by some rabid dogs, alive but almost torn to pieces. Not to mention Jonathan has started asking Bruce on dates and can be a little... aggressive when kissing. After all, all wolves need a mate.

The Phantom of the Opera: Jervis is the Phantom who loves a stagehand, Jonathan Crane, who loves Theodora Galavan's (Galavan as a woman, *shudders*; I think I just gave myself a case of the heebie jeebies) understudy, Bryce Wayne, a beautiful singer and dancer who sadly has not had the chance to shine yet. Jervis strikes a deal with Jonathan; if he helps Bryce become the star, Jonathan will allow Jervis to have sex with him. Jonathan is so in love with Bryce, and more than a little intrigued by what the Phantom has in store to make Theodora (who’s a real bitch to everyone) leave, that he agrees. As Bryce rises, and Jonathan actually does start to fall in love with Jervis, Jervis himself falls for Bryce's charm and beauty too and decides, why not have his cake and eat it too? Jervis proposes the idea to Jonathan who loves it as he too would get the best of both worlds and wouldn’t have to worry about Bryce being chewed up and spat out by a fickle audience. Jonathan gives her a sleeping draft and they manage to transfer her to 'Underland' where Jervis and Jonathan set about convincing the young Opera Star she'll only get hurt up there, so why not stay with them? 

Creature from the Black Lagoon: My personal favourite of the Classic Monsters, so who better than my favourite Rogue for this one? Bryce is part of an expedition to find remains of a fossil that could prove some sort of link between marine life and land life in the arctic region. While there, she is spotted by a creature that is half man/half octopus (our own Mr. Freeze), who decides she would make a very pretty mate and kidnaps her, taking her to his underground spot that has a dry spot where she can rest. Unable to hold her breath long enough to escape on her own, and knowing the search parties probably think she drowned, Bryce is very limited in options, particularly when Victor offers her a potion that will let her breathe under water where she won’t feel the cold as strongly. Bryce agrees to take it, hoping to get back to her party, but Victor was ready for any kind of tricks and manages to freeze her arms and legs, where he then proceeds to show her how... talented, his tentacles are.

I also have one or two for nature spirit Ivy and one featuring a plot similar to a movie from the early 2000s called Mermaid Chronicles: She Creature, but this is long enough.

#gotham #classic monsters #prompts #bruce wayne #batman's Rogues

[dancing-the-hellfire-rumba]

Seen ✓ - 1

REWRITE OF “Can You See The Stars”

Pairing: Sam x Fem!Reader Warnings: fear of being kidnapped Word Count: 2.4k Series Summary: On her way home, Y/n finds an abandoned, cracked phone on the sidewalk. Anxious about the well-being of its owner, she picks it up and texts the first contact she finds; Sam.  A/N:This is my second attempt at the story everyone loved, with an actual pllot in mind this time. So, attempt number two, better writing, better story. Have at it kids.

I have tagged the old taglist for this first part. Let me know if you wanna be removed/ added

Beta: The lovely @percywinchester27​ . Thank you so so much hon :) Masterlist

Chapter One: you sure know how to fuck me up on a friday night

Y/n   |  Sam

The road to independence is uphill, and Y/n knows this better than anyone. She’s done it all. She’s gone through jobs at a similar speed with which she goes through books, worked two or more of them, while also studying for college… She knows how it works, and it’s really fucking difficult to balance emotional baggage the size of a city, an underage sister and college, while also trying to keep, not only yourself, but another person, alive, under a safe roof with food in your stomachs.

Currently, she’s only working one job, at a dive bar owned by a friend of a friend as a waitress.

It’s a difficult job, and Y/n has struggled with it, but the hardest part is not the endless knowledge one needs to mix drinks –on the nights Joel takes time off and she has to take his spot behind the bar- or the carrying up to twenty pounds of glasses and drinks and delivering them at the right table without soaking herself or anyone else with copious amounts of alcohol. Any minimum wage worker will tell you the same thing- clients of any kind fucking suck. Especially if you’re a young woman at a dive bar after midnight.

Another thing she’s struggled with is not having too much money, which is why she’s needed multiple jobs in the past, so she has to use public transport- buses specifically, to go to and from work. And that is exactly where she finds herself, a couple hours after midnight, at her bus stop, five minutes from the bar, when she finds a phone which, unbeknownst to her, will flip her world upside down.

It sits on the pavement of the bus stop, limp and sad. The screen is cracked a significant amount, and for a second she figures someone got rid of it and was too much of an asshole to throw it in the trash. But the second that thought crosses her mind, the screen lights up with a concerning text.

dude where the fuck are you?!

The contact reads “Sam”, and Y/n stands over the phone staring at it. She’s concerned. What if the phone’s owner is in trouble? The device may have fallen from their pocket on the pavement and cracked because they were running from someone and never made it home, and now whoever is texting them is worried for their well-being. Anxiety grips her heart.

It’s instinct that brings her to kneel down and pick it up. She can’t possibly know when the owner lost it, or how long the phone has been sitting there, but there’s an overwhelming urge to contact this Sam person and let them know what’s going on. Of course, the voice in Y/n’s head tells her that this all could just be a product of her anxiety, but it beats leaving it there and having it be stolen by a passerby.

Whatever, right? Best case scenario, she contacts the owner, who is perfectly safe and sound, and they take their phone back. She’s not really planning to pocket it. It’s fairly damaged anyways. Her own three year old, beat-up, 100$ phone is in better condition.

The bus arrives, and Y/n picks up the phone and boards it.

As she sits in her usual seat in the back, alone in the bus apart from an elderly man asleep with his head on a window and a cap on his head near the front, she starts speculating, eyes glued to the black device in her hands. Who’s the owner? Who is Sam to them? Perhaps a partner? A friend? How did the owner lose their phone? Why would this Sam sound so concerned, and most importantly, is the owner okay?

The heavy weight of dread weighs her chest at the thought of the phone’s owner being in trouble and without a phone. She must contact Sam immediately.

Hey, is this Sam?

As she awaits for a response, her curiosity is killing her. The intrigued part of her, reasons that she should snoop, it’s alright, she’s only looking for more information about the owner. Like whether or not they’re a woman or a man- which, sadly, matters when you’re walking alone in dark streets like the ones around this area- and perhaps their age –because, again, it matters if they are a teenager or a forty-year old adult.

The lack of passcode indicates someone older, with nothing to hide, or perhaps someone less technologically savvy, again, someone who may not be very young. The lockscreen is the most popular Led Zeppelin icon, and she instantly respects their music taste, and the home screen is some generic western movie from the 90s with Clint Eastwood. The chances of this belonging to someone younger further decline.

There’s a grand total of four downloaded apps in the phone. There’s an email app, a scrabble app, a microphone recorder and a dating app, no other sign of social media. Someone over 18 years old, definitely.

Soon, she’s tapping on the dating app, and opening their profile page. Holy shit, she thinks.

A guy, the tall, dark and handsome kind. Spiky hair and a smolder-like smile, sharp edges everywhere on his face apart from his gentle, olive-shaped and colored eyes. His lips are full, his nose straight, and his eyelashes long, dark and thick. He’s a real-life dreamboat, the kind you see in movies and Cosmopolitan articles about sex. He’s sitting on a black muscle car, a Chevrolet, with his thick thighs barely contained in blue jeans.

Dean Winchester, the app writes. 28. Male. Likes: old cars, beer, hard rock, westerns, she figured that much, bacon burgers. Dislikes: pop music, modern horror movies, uncomfortable beds. Not looking for anything serious, just a night of fun ;), and wow, okay, he sounds a bit like a dick. The very Red-blooded American Male kind, that enjoys BBQs and winking at women from across the bar. She’s had enough of those during her line of work; she can recognize them from a mile away.

Whatever the case, her moral compass couldn’t allow her to pass up on the opportunity to possibly help someone in trouble. She ignores her urge to roll her eyes, and scrolls a little, finding other pictures of the same guy, when suddenly two separate notifications appear, the phone itself vibrating. One is from the app, which has now received a picture from this girl, Jamie, one which she certainly doesn’t plan on opening, seeing as it’s followed by a winky face. The second one is from Sam.

jesus dean how drunk are you

yes it’s sam. your brother? remember?

No, this isn’t Dean, uh.

My name is Y/n. Your brother lost his phone at a bus stop, near a bar.

i should’ve figured. dean rarely ever uses punctuation.

nice to meet you i guess

Nice to meet you, too.

So basically, uhm, I thought you might help me return his phone to him? I got worried, because this was dumped on the sidewalk, I thought he may be in trouble or something.

knowing him he probably dropped it while being too shitfaced to function.

gotta admit i’m impressed though. most people would’ve pocketed it by now.

I mean, it’s not much use to me with such a cracked screen haha.

yeah i guess.

i don’t know about getting it back to him though. i’m in kansas right now so i’m not close by. i don’t think i can help you.

he doesn’t use social media either.

Crap.

What the hell am I supposed to do with this phone then?

keep it probably.

You sure there’s no other way I can reach him?

i mean i can give you his email but i’m not sure he’ll respond.

I’ll take it. Thank you :)

no problem :)

As she looks up the bus stops, and she quickly realizes this is her stop. Throwing profanities loudly enough to wake the older man at the front of the bus, she scrambles for her things, haphazardly thrown in the seat next to her, and gets off the bus. She pats herself down, making sure she hasn’t forgotten anything as the doors of the bus shut, and starts down the road to her apartment complex.

She could probably navigate this road blind. There are many ways to reach the apartment she’s renting from the bus stop, but her favorite goes through the park. It’s a large area, full of big trees with thick foliage and leaves that brown in the fall. The paths are paved and winded, and the park benches are stained with dark wood stain and curve comfortably. She enjoys coming here in evenings she has off, watching the sun descend behind the top of the trees with a good book.

The air smells like oncoming rain now, and with headphones deep in her ears, she walks taking deep breaths and enjoying the clear atmosphere that seems so unlike the roads that surround the park. As soon as she spots the first raindrop falling from the sky, she pulls her hood over her head and smiles.

It’s minutes later, when single drops have picked up to a drizzle, that she gets a sinking feeling, her hair standing up on edge at the back of her neck, shoulders knotting closer to her ears. Someone is close to her.

With the wire pinched between her thumb and index, she pulls one earbud off and pays attention to the surrounding sounds. Sure enough there’s a second pair of footsteps behind her.

Fuck, if she gets kidnapped or attacked right now, she’s fucked. There are no witnesses, and at this time of night screaming for help would be futile. She checks her bag, but her paper spray is nowhere to be found.

Yeah. Definitely fucked.

Her hands go deep in her pockets, going for her phone, but as she hears the footsteps behind her picking up speed along with hers, she panics and grabs Dean’s instead. She doesn’t look for her own, there’s no time for that, so she does the first thing she thinks of.

She texts Sam.

I think I’m being followed.

what?

Yeah

wait what’s going on? are you okay? who’s following you?

I’m walking home from work. I can’t see who it is, but they’re definitely on my tail.

how are you even typing right now??

is there any buildings around?  somewhere public to get in?

It’s 3 am. Everything is shut and I’m in the middle of a fucking park, Sam.

Fuck, I’m fucked.

what are you doing at 3 am in the middle of a fucking park then?!

A hand falls on her shoulder and she goes to scream, before she’s quickly spun around. Her free hand is curled in a fist, ready to fall on the attacker’s nose, when they speak.

“Y/n! I thought it was you!”

“Connor?!” She squints and pushes her hair away from her forehead, heart just about ready to fail out of the fright she’s gotten. “Fuck’s sake, dude, what the fuck are you doing sneaking up on me in the middle of the night like this?!” Rain still falls on her, grounding her to the present, the fact she won’t have to fight for her life and corporeal integrity sinking in slowly.

Her neighbor smiles a crooked smile, watching her place a hand over her heart and taking a deep breath. His fluffy blonde hair is damp under the light rain, light green eyes glowing under the street lights. She’s so angry at him right now, she legitimately thought she was gonna die for a second there.

“I’m sorry for scaring you,” he says, dropping his hand from her shoulder. “I didn’t think to call out to you.” A shrug.

“It’s okay,” it’s really not, but there’s no point in staying angry at him. Besides, she figures she’ll be a little safer with him walking next to her all the way back to their apartment complex.

On the way back, they catch up. Connor is back in town after a long week and a half at his sister’s wedding. He’s in a brand new relationship with the guy he’s been pining over for like 9 months now, and he got a job at the bookstore, close to their building, he’s starting next week. He was out for a drink, he offers as an explanation, and was returning home, when he bumped into her. The park is also his favorite route to take.

The key dangles from her hands and finds a home in the lock and twists, while Y/n waves at her neighbor.

“Have a good night, Connor.”

“You too, Y/n.” It’s delivered with a wink and a bright smile.

The motions of dropping her bag by the kitchen counter, dumping the keys in the small bowl and hanging her coat on the hanger are delivered on autopilot in quick succession. Shoes toed off, hair pulled out of her lazy bun, she falls unceremoniously on her thrifted couch, feet suspended on the hand rest. Emmy must be asleep, the only lights on in the house are the fairy lights over the couch, setting a soft glow over the furniture. Y/n sighs. What a day.

Seconds before she falls asleep on the couch, a phone vibrates and it’s definitely not her own. Her eyes snap wide open, and she curses, fumbling with Dean’s device.

The messages are seven, and they all share the same panicked tone. Upon reading them, Y/n facepalms and curses, guilt weighing her down. Poor guy.

y/n?

what’s going on?

are you okay?

y/n

what the hell is going on.

you’re not replying.

please text me if you’re safe.

My God, Sam, I’m so sorry.

It was a neighbor/friend, he sneaked up on me.

you sure know how to fuck me up on a friday night.

I’m genuinely so sorry, Sam, I had no idea it was him.

it’s okay

you were scared.

i am starting to question your choice in friends though.

Y/n grins for the first time that day. It’s wide and full. Sam sounds like a guy she’d hang out with.

Hahahah yeah.

I promise, Connor’s odd, but he means well.

well i have to go

but i’m glad you’re safe

Again, I’m really sorry to make you go through that.

it’s fine really.

Thank you.

Goodnight :)

Night :)

 ---

Part 2

A/N 2: Tell me how you’re liking the rewrite! 

Old Can You See The Stars taglist: @shutupiminlooove​ @sammysgirl1997​ @kymberlytorres​ @bambi95-blog​ @demonic-meatball​ @thekarliwinchester​ @littlekay15​ @li-m-ii​  @thinspo-isuppose​ @carryonmywaywarddemigodwitch @ellen-reincarnated1967 @moonlitskinwalker​ @marichromatic​ @illuminatus42​ @lazy-author​ @mirandaaustin93​ @hauntedsiriel​ @pilaxia​ @devilgirlsarah​ @nobodys-baby-now​ @captiveties​ @calamitychaos @midiocris @wordswillscream​

Sam taglist @kymberlytorres @theboykingsam @depressed-moose-78 @andi-mendes-barnes​ @captainmarvelcorps​ @nerd-in-a-galaxy-far-away​ @nellachain​

#sam winchesterx reader #sam x fem!reader #sam winchester x fem!reader #spn fanfiction #supernatural #spn fanfic #sam x reader

[honestsycrets]

Hard Sell IV: Substitutes

❛ pairing | ivar x reader

❛ type | multi

❛ summary | when his mother’s plan fails-- he can’t help notice Hvitserk getting a little too close.

❛  warnings | arguments, mention of slavery, impotency talk, mention of sex ‘toys’, lagertha x astrid reference, two way jealousy, mention of freydis x ivar (failed sex).

❛ sy’s notes | enjoy that mental picture okay? here you go, a sy 4B staple: jealousy, mention of sex, stupid boys with stupid issues.

He’s not sure of this.

Mother takes him to find a slave. Not just any slave-- she said-- a love slave. Someone that would make him feel good the nights where Ubbe, Hvitserk, Sigurd, and Bjorn were all having sex or otherwise occupied. Good enough, that’s fine, it’s okay. But…

“Isn’t this counterintuitive?” he asks, settled by her feet as she paced the dusty ground on her dainty, queenly feet.

“Do as I tell you and it will work,” he glances up, catching the sight of his woman-- his… you, walking inline with the men of your family. Not drunk, no, they’re rowdy all on their sober selves. They heave timber for trade near to where the slaves were traded. He catches your gaze as you run your hands together, drawing the wool scarf from your elbows up to cover your head.

God-- fuck. He wishes you wouldn’t do that. He can’t tear his eyes away. He knows why you’re dressed up. To draw in some lovely, drunk, stupid bastards to sell chunks of wood to. Your fingers flicker, tickling earrings that he knows his mother gave you. They’re gold. Your hand suddenly drops to pick up skirts, headed his way.

And he’s panicking. His heart strums out his chest, beating harder than any drummer could hit the skin of a drum, bounding out of his chest. “Ivar, which one do you want?”

You stop then.

Maybe you heard his mother speak. Your eyes have left him then, connecting with his mother’s hand, which held a lovely blonde lock of hair. And oh-- oh no, no, no. He wants to shout. When your eyes land back upon him, it’s with this pain. This soul wrenching, gut churning pain. He connects with your eyes again-- and it’s a slight shake that begs you not to listen to his mother.

But it’s impossible. Because you are.

You pull your dragging train and turn around. His heart drops into his stomach. He can’t bear it. Mother calls out to him again. “Ivar.”

“The blonde is fine, mother.”

The girl’s name is Freydis.

She is a little… attached, he realized. More than he needed her to be. She likes the attention. When he asks her to plate dinner and supply the ale, Ubbe chimes in. “Leave the girl alone,” Ubbe chews on his bone, flicking it onto his plate. Ivar has been abusing her all day, asking for her attention, because it’s fun and easy. 

And he almost forgets that you’re there, sipping a soup that has gone cold. Your eye had followed him all evening like a dog after its bone. He likes that even. To be the one that was being watched.  Even Bjorn had noticed-- and the man didn’t often notice what didn’t benefit him.

“She doesn’t mind,” Ivar cackles. “Do you, Freydis?”

It all came to a head when Ivar reached out, smoothed his palm over the curve of her well endowed ass, and squeezed. She doesn’t flinch, nor flick him off, but smiles as she pours him the ale. Her head is level, arrogant, pleased.

“No, Prince Ivar.”

The laughter dies on his tongue when you throw out your chair. It scratches along the planks, rivaled by the stomping steps that follow, beelining toward the door of the Great Hall even as Aslaug calls out your name.

“Look what you’ve done,” chimes Sigurd, his brother. Ivar, perhaps trying to convince himself, turns his head over one way and back. He draws a long sigh, trying to convince himself of what he’s about to say. 

“She’s too sensitive.”

Hvitserk drops his bone and glances to Ubbe for guidance. Staring like a puppy after a ball, he’s careful to wait until after Ubbe pushes out his chair first. After all, he knows the sort of man Ivar is. He can’t be the first one out.

Ivar watches the whole time.

It isn’t like you don’t want Ivar to find happiness.

It’s the exact opposite.

He deserves to be happy, healthy, and well-kept. If that slave-- the thrall Freydis, could give it to him, all the better. You’re not sure what has changed. Only that… the disrespect bothers you. That’s it. You chuck a rock and watch it bounce off the waters, plip, plip, plip.

He dared confess that to you-- naked. On bath day no less! That was your day to chase away worries and relax and he had complicated that with thought of his body and his love. Then, like a flip of the next smooth rock in your hand, he moved on. Like you were exchangeable. Just like that.

“What is it with him?” you ask to the figure who has crept beside you. Hvitserk, you don’t need to ask, you know it’s him. He’s the type of jolly hopper that would come up with that goofy ass smile on his face.

“He’s Ivar,” he rumbles.

You didn’t need that. “I know who he is. I just don’t know why.”

Your hands connect with your upper arms and he hops a little closer while making sense of it. His hands, searching up your arms, eventually stop just below your shoulders. You flick the rock in your hand out to the sea.

“He’s young.” He answers, like he’s the fucking star pupil of how to be a man, and you exhale out of your scrunched up nose. “He doesn’t know how to get a woman .”

“Then he shouldn’t have-- he fucked with me, Hvitserk. He told me that he loved me. He had me naked! Now he’s over there groping that--”

“Maybe he does love you.”

“It’s a lie,” you bark out, because you’re angry, and because nothing makes sense when it has to do with Ivar. Not anymore, anyway. You used to think you could ask him to fetch you the moon and his dumbass would seek it out. Maybe that was his love, though. And maybe-- you had abused by ignoring his many signs.

“You could always come with me.”

To the Mediterranean. Except you promised Ivar you wouldn’t. You draw your scarf over your head. Hvitserk, knowing that you needed that attention and touch, drew it back down. His large hand settled over your slight shoulders. “Warm waters and wet--”

“Do not,” you warn him, putting up your finger. “I’m not one of your men.”

“C’mon,” he turns you around. You realize-- just then. He’s big, boding, handsome. Well, in the sense that his boyish face only told curious little secrets of his plans, buried in his swirling eyes.  His thumb came up to caress your cheek of tears you hadn’t realized you spilled. “You can meet our uncle.”

Rollo the Traitor.

Exciting.

Hvitserk laughs. “You can at least make Ivar jealous.”

Did you even want that? Your turn, connecting your fist with Hvitserk’s shoulder. “You’re not my taste, Hvitserk.”

He cocks a smile. “I’m everyone’s taste, sweet thing.”

You couldn’t pretend that-- that didn’t make you flutter. Just a little.

The next time he sees you, it’s with Hvitserk.

Hvitserk has this thing he does. A thing that gets every woman to coo or some shit. He picks a shitty looking flower, presents it to the girl, and boom. Instant sex. In this case, however, you punch him in the shoulder.

“You think a puny little flower is going to do it? Do I look easy to you, Hvitserk? You must think I look easy.”

“I don’t see any other men picking you flowers.”

...there was a point there. One that Hvitserk has enough weight in that you look down, and he tips your chin back up, laughing almost. It was a joke! It was a joke!

It did not feel like a joke.

“Fuck,” he mutters to himself, dragging himself over the ground, getting closer. Thwacking his brother’s leg, he gets his attention. Just to save you from Hvitserk. Not at all because he was jealous or worried or anything. You probably were tired of puny flowers tucked behind your ear.

“Go away,” he rumbles.

Hvitserk does. But only after you nod. Which is annoying enough, because this attraction Hvitserk and you shared, it’s not natural. He knows its not. It’s almost… as if… 

“Take that stupid flower out of your hair,” Ivar tells you, dragging his feet around to sit up in the grassy blades. He wipes his hands over his brown trousers before folding them over his chest.

“Oh stupid?” you chuff out a laugh. “Hvitserk got it just for me.”

You emphasize ‘just for me’ in a way that makes his skin crawl. It’s some sort of revenge for the thrall-- Freydis-- who he slept in bed with every night. They kissed on occasion, touched one another, but he never could finish… you weighed on his mind, on his body that failed him that night. Hvitserk was different. He was… like his brothers. He didn’t give a ratsass who he hurt as long as he got what he wanted.

“I’m sure he did.” He glares. “And the rest of the women of Kattegat too.” 

“You can’t let me have this, can you?” You sit on the grass beside him, still not plucking the flower from your hair. The sight is aggravating. That’s why he leans over, plucks it out, and crumbles it between his fingers like trash.

“Why are you here?” you ask, shoving him away. As if he’s surprised, Ivar balances himself and looks at you like he’s something wounded. He shouldn’t be. It’s boiling over the rim now, spilling over you and him, covering you both in rage.

You can’t share his feelings when you know that Ivar has nothing to worry about. In his mind, there was a whole boatload of reasons why he should be concerned. They began with his brother. Ended with… whoever else was sailing off to the Mediterranean. Like Bjorn. When he looked at you-- that’s the one he truly dreaded. Bjorn had no charm to women but sex. Sex made women do stupid… men.

“To stop you from doing something stupid.” Doing-- meaning Hvitserk. There he is, injecting himself in something that had nothing to do with him, absolutely nothing. “He doesn’t care about you.”

“Sex has nothing to do with caring,” you tell Ivar. His heart stops there, strumming out of his chest, because you dared to say it.

“You’ve had sex with him?” he presses.

“Ivar.”

No, you hadn’t. He exhales, his eyes softening from their wild state, and he realizes what Hvitserk must be doing. He must be trying to take you with him to the Mediterranean. Aggravating sack of shit.

“You have that slave so stop managing my body as if it’s yours.”

“She’s not-- mother thought she would make you jealous.”

“Your mother?”

He looks down, his eyes stuck on his pants, even as you climb over him. He’s suddenly overwhelmed, his hands hovering in their place, unsure where to land. Your hands turn his cheek over, caressing his sideburns. He glances around, sure that someone is watching, and supports your weight with his hands.

“She thought you would… think,” he stutters. “We’ve been together.”

“And have you?”

“I can’t.”

“Now that’s a lie.” You laugh-- because the other day, on the back of his affection, you felt him. Ivar falls back on the pier, his hand over his forehead. And oh, he’s serious. You know when he begins to avoid you, avoid the topic.

“It’s not an issue with… It is keeping it.”

You’re not sure how to help that. You only know how to comfort him by laying at his side. Until a thought itches at the back of your mind. “You know,” he peers through the space of his meaty fingers. “There are other ways to--”

“Gods,” he barks your name. “That is not a substitute to pleasing a woman.”

“I hear Lagertha has Astrid use a horn.”

“A horn?” he asks bewildered, sitting up on his forearms now. You’ve rolled off to the side, using your fingers for emphasis. “You know, to--”

“What is the point in that? Could she not just have used--”

“Ragnar? I heard Astrid loved him. Perhaps Lagertha didn’t want to share.”

“Enough, enough. I meant her tongue.” He regrets ever having mentioned it. His fingers shift among his face, laughing deep enough in his discomfort that his cheeks gained colour. He doesn’t know what to say. But a part of him is curious when you climb over him again-- and it feels right. Your hand buries in his hair, dragging him close. “But did it work?”

“Yes!”

His fingers flick-- almost certainly curious. Based on the warmth bubbling in his belly-- it’s worth a shot. Hvitserk be damned, he wouldn’t ruin this for him. “Do you think… it would work?”

“Are you asking me? Or the girl?”

He pauses-- was that jealousy there? You already know the answer and yet, you push him on to say it. Just to hear it from his lips. “Just you.”

“Then I’d say… yes.” He wonders what that yes is to; sex or love. He has a mind to think it’s both; t's good enough for him.

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